CHAPTER IV. THE REPUBLICS.

The different Physiognomies of the Italian Republics—The Similarity of their Character as Municipalities—The Rights of Citizenship—Causes of Disturbance in the Commonwealths—Belief in the Plasticity of Constitutions—Example of Genoa—Savonarola's Constitution—Machiavelli's Discourse to Leo X.—Complexity of Interests and Factions—Example of Siena—Small Size of Italian Cities—Mutual Mistrust and Jealousy of the Commonwealths—The notable Exception of Venice—Constitution of Venice—Her wise System of Government—Contrast of Florentine Vicissitudes—The Magistracies of Florence—Balia and Parlamento—The Arts of the Medici—Comparison of Venice and Florence in respect to Intellectual Activity and Mobility—Parallels between Greece and Italy—Essential Differences—The Mercantile Character of Italian Burghs—The 'Trattato del Governo della Famiglia'—The Bourgeois Tone of Florence, and the Ideal of a Burgher—Mercenary Arms.

The despotisms of Italy present the spectacle of states founded upon force, controlled and molded by the will of princes, whose object in each case has been to maintain usurped power by means of mercenary arms and to deprive the people of political activity. Thus the Italian principalities, however they may differ in their origin, the character of their administration, or their relation to Church and Empire, all tend to one type. The egotism of the despot, conscious of his selfish aims and deliberate in their execution, formed the motive principle in all alike.

The republics on the contrary are distinguished by strongly marked characteristics. The history of each is the history of the development of certain specific qualities, which modified the type of municipal organization common to them all. Their differences consist chiefly in the varying forms which institutions of a radically similar design assumed, and also in those peculiar local conditions which made the Venetians Levant merchants, the Perugians captains of adventure, the Genoese admirals and pirates, the Florentines bankers, and so forth. Each commonwealth contracted a certain physiognomy through the prolonged action of external circumstances and by the maintenance of some political predilection. Thus Siena, excluded from maritime commerce by its situation, remained, broadly speaking, faithful to the Ghibelline party; while Perugia at the distance of a few miles, equally debarred from mercantile expansion, maintained the Guelf cause with pertinacity. The annals of the one city record a long succession of complicated party quarrels, throughout the course of which the State continued free; the Guelf leanings of the other exposed it to the gradual encroachment of the Popes, while its civic independence was imperiled and enfeebled by the contests of a few noble families. Lucca and Pistoja in like manner are strongly contrasted, the latter persisting in a state of feud and faction which delivered it bound hand and foot to Florence, the former after many vicissitudes attaining internal quiet under the dominion of a narrow oligarchy.

But while recognizing these differences, which manifest themselves partly in what may be described as national characteristics, and partly in constitutional varieties, we may trace one course of historical progression in all except Venice. This is what natural philosophers might call the morphology of Italian commonwealths. To begin with, the Italian republics were all municipalities. That is, like the Greek states, they consisted of a small body of burghers, who alone had the privileges of government, together with a larger population, who, though they paid taxes and shared the commercial and social advantages of the city had no voice in its administration. Citizenship was hereditary in those families by whom it had been once acquired, each republic having its own criterion of the right, and guarding it jealously against the encroachments of non-qualified persons. In Florence, for example, the burgher must belong to one of the Arts.[1] In Venice his name must be inscribed upon the Golden Book. The rivalries to which this system of municipal government gave rise were a chief source of internal weakness to the commonwealths. Nor did the burghers see far enough or philosophically enough to recruit their numbers by a continuous admission of new members from the wealthy but unfranchised citizens.[2] This alone could have saved them from the death by dwindling and decay to which they were exposed. The Italian conception of citizenship may be set forth in the words of one of their acutest critics, Donato Giannotti, who writes concerning the electors in a state:[3] 'Non dico tutti gli abitanti della terra, ma tutti quelli che hanno grado; cioè che hanno acquistato, o eglino o gli antichi loro, facultà d'ottenere i magistrate; e in somma che sono participes imperandi et parendi.' No Italian had any notion of representative government in our sense of the term. The problem was always how to put the administration of the state most conveniently into the hands of the fittest among those who were qualified as burghers, and how to give each burgher his due share in the government; not how to select men delegated from the whole population. The wisest among their philosophical politicians sought to establish a mixed constitution, which should combine the advantages of principality, aristocracy, and democracy. Starting with the fact that the eligible burghers numbered some 5,000, and with the assumption that among these the larger portion would be content with freedom and a voice in the administration, while a certain body were ambitious of honorable distinctions, and a few aspired to the pomp of titular presidency, they thought that these several desires might be satisfied and reconciled in a republic composed of a general assembly of the citizens, a select Senate, and a Doge. In these theories the influence of Aristotelian studies[4] and the example of Venice are apparent. At the same time it is noticeable that no account whatever is taken of the remaining 95,000 who contributed their wealth and industry to the prosperity of the city.[5] The theory of the State rests upon no abstract principle like that of the divine right of the Empire, which determined Dante's speculation in the Middle Ages, or that of the divine right of kings, with which we Englishmen were made familiar in the seventeenth century, or that again of the rights of men, on which the democracies of France and America were founded. The right contemplated by the Italian politicians is that of the burghers to rule the commonwealth for their advantage. As a matter of fact, Venice was the only Italian republic which maintained this kind of oligarchy with success through centuries of internal tranquillity. The rest were exposed to a series of revolutions which ended at last in their enslavement.

[1] Villari, Life of Savonarola, vol. i. p. 259, may be consulted concerning the further distinction of Benefiziati, Statuali, Aggravezzati, at Florence. See also Varchi, vol. i. pp. 165-70. Consult Appendix ii.

[2] It must be mentioned that a provision for admitting deserving individuals to citizenship formed part of the Florentine Constitution of 1495. The principle was not, however, recognized at large by the republics.

[3] On the Government of Siena (vol. i. p. 351 of his collected works): 'I say not all the inhabitants of the state, but all those who have rank; that is, who have acquired, either in their own persons or through their ancestors, the right of taking magistracy, in short those who are participes imperandi et parendi.' What has already been said in Chapter II. about the origin of the Italian Republics will explain this definition of burghership.

[4] It would be very interesting to trace in detail the influence of Aristotle's Politics upon the practical and theoretical statists of the Renaissance. The whole of Giannotti's works; the discourses of de' Pazzi, Vettori, Acciaiuoli, and the two Guicciardini on the State of Florence (Arch. St. It. vol. i.); and Machiavelli's Discorso sul Reggimento di Firenze, addressed to Leo X., illustrate in general the working of Aristotelian ideas. At Florence, in 1495, Savonarola urged his Constitution on the burghers by appeals to Aristotle's doctrine and to the example of Venice [see Segni, p. 15, and compare the speeches of Pagolo Antonio Soderini and Guido Antonio Vespucci, in Guicciardini's Istoria d' Italia, vol. ii. p. 155 of Rosini's edition, on the same occasion]. Segni, p. 86, mentions a speech of Pier Filippo Pandolfini, the arguments of which, he says, were drawn from Aristotle and illustrated by Florentine history. The Italian doctrinaires seem to have imagined that, by clever manipulation of existing institutions, they could construct a state similar to that called [Greek: politeia] by Aristotle, in which all sections of the community should be fairly represented. Venice, meanwhile, was a practical instance of the possible prosperity of such a constitution with a strong oligarchical complexion.

[5] These numbers, 100,000 for the population, and 5,000 for the burghers, are stated roundly. In Florence, when the Consiglio Maggiore was opened in 1495, it was found that the Florentines altogether numbered about 90,000, while the qualified burghers were not more than 3,200. In 1581 the population of Venice numbered 134,890, whereof 1,843 were adult patricians [see below, p. 209].

Intolerant of foreign rule, and blinded by the theoretical supremacy of the Empire to the need of looking beyond its own municipal institutions, each city in the twelfth century sought to introduce such a system into the already existing machinery of the burgh as should secure its independence and place the government in the hands of its citizens. But the passing of bad laws, or the non-observance of wise regulations, or, again, the passions of individuals and parties, soon disturbed the equilibrium established in these little communities. Desire for more power than their due prompted one section of the burghers to violence. The love of independence, or simple insubordination, drove another portion to resistance. Matters were further complicated by resident or neighboring nobles. Then followed the wars of factions, proscriptions, and exiles. Having banished their rivals, the party in power for the time being remodeled the institutions of the republic to suit their own particular interest. Meanwhile the opposition in exile fomented every element of discontent within the city, which this short-sighted policy was sure to foster. Sudden revolutions were the result, attended in most cases by massacres consequent upon the victorious return of the outlaws. To the action of these peccant humors—umori is the word applied by the elder Florentine historians to the troubles attendant upon factions—must be added the jealousy of neighboring cities, the cupidity of intriguing princes, the partisanship of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the treason and the egotism of mercenary generals, and the false foreign policy which led the Italians to rely for aid on France or Germany or Spain. Little by little, under the prolonged action of these disturbing forces, each republic in turn became weaker, more confused in policy, more mistrustful of itself and its own citizens, more subdivided into petty but ineradicable factions, until at last it fell a prey either to some foreign potentate, or to the Church, or else to an ambitious family among its members. The small scale of the Italian commonwealths, taken singly, favored rapid change, and gave an undue value to distinguished wealth or unscrupulous ability among the burghers. The oscillation between democracy and aristocracy and back again, the repetition of exhausting discords, and the demoralizing influences of occasional despotism, so broke the spirit of each commonwealth that in the end the citizens forgot their ancient zeal for liberty, and were glad to accept tyranny for the sake of the protection it professed to extend to life and property.

To these vicissitudes all the republics of Italy, with the exception of Venice, were subject. In like manner, they shared in common the belief that constitutions could be made at will, that the commonwealth was something plastic, capable of taking the complexion and the form impressed upon it by speculative politicians. So firmly rooted was this conviction, and so highly self-conscious had the statesmen of Italy become, partly by the experience of their shifting history, and partly by their study of antiquity, that the idea of the State as something possessed of organic vitality can scarcely be said to have existed among them. The principle of gradual growth, which gives its value, for example, to the English Constitution, was not recognized by the Italians. Nor again had their past history taught them the necessity, so well defined and recognized by the Greek statesmen, of maintaining a fixed character at any cost in republics, which, in spite of their small scale, aspired to permanence.[1] The most violent and arbitrary changes which the speculative faculty of a theorist could contrive, or which the prejudices of a party could impose, seemed to them not only possible but natural.

[1] The value of the [Greek: êthos] was not wholly unrecognized by political theorists. Giannotti (vol. i. p. 160, and vol. ii. p. 13), for example translates it by the word 'temperamento.'

A very notable instance of this tendency to treat the State as a plastic product of political ingenuity, is afforded by the annals of Genoa. After suffering for centuries from the vicissitudes common to all Italian free cities—discords between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, between the nobles and the people, between the enfranchised citizens and the proletariat—after submitting to the rule of foreign masters, especially of France and Milan, and after being torn in pieces by the rival houses of Adorni and Fregosi, the Genoese at last received liberty from the hands of Andrea Doria in 1528. They then proceeded to form a new Constitution for the protection of their freedom; and in order to destroy the memory of the old parties which had caused their ruin, they obliterated all their family names with the exception of twenty, under one or other of which the whole body of citizens were bound to enroll themselves.[1] This was nothing less than an attempt to create new gentes by effacing the distinctions established by nature and tradition. To parallel a scheme so artificial in its method, we must go back to the history of Sicyon and the changes wrought in the Dorian tribes by Cleisthenes.

[1] See Varchi, St. F. lib. vii. cap. 3.

Short of such violent expedients as these, the whole history of towns like Florence reveals a succession of similar attempts. When, for example, the Medici had been expelled in 1494, the Florentines found themselves without a working constitution, and proceeded to frame one. The matter was at first referred to two eminent jurists, Guido Antonio Vespucci and Paolo Antonio Soderini, who argued for and against the establishment of a Grand Council on the Venetian model, before the Signory in the Palazzo. At this juncture Savonarola in his sermon for the third Sunday in Advent[1] suggested that each of the sixteen Companies should form a plan, that these should be submitted to the Gonfaloniers, who should choose the four best, and that from these four the Signory should select the most perfect. At the same time he pronounced himself in favor of an imitation of the Venetian Consiglio Grande. His scheme, as is well known, was adopted.[2] Running through the whole political writings of the Florentine philosophers and historians, we find the same belief in artificial and arbitrary alterations of the state. Machiavelli pronounces his opinion that, in spite of the corruption of Florence, a wise legislator might effect her salvation.[3] Skill alone was needed. There lay the wax; the scientific artist had only to set to his hand and model it.

[1] December 12, 1494.

[2] Segni (pp. 15, 16) says that Savonarola deserved to be honored for this Constitution by the Florentines no less than Numa by the Romans. Varchi (vol. i. p. 169) judges the Consiglio Grande to have been the only good institution ever adopted by the Florentines. We may compare Giannotti (Sopra la Repubblica di Siena p. 346) for a similar opinion. Guicciardini, both in the Storia d' Italia and the Storia di Firenze, gives to Savonarola the whole credit of having passed this Constitution. Nardi and Pitti might be cited to the same effect. None of these critics doubt for a moment that what was theoretically best ought to have been found practically feasible.

[3] St. Fior. lib. iii. 1. 'Firenze a quel grado è pervenuta che facilmente da uno savio dator di leggi potrebbe essere in qualunque forma di governo riordinata.'

This is the dominant thought which pervades his treatise on the right ordering of the State of Florence addressed to Leo X.[1] A more consummate piece of political mechanism than that devised by Machiavelli in this essay can hardly be imagined. It is like a clock with separate actions for hours, minutes, seconds, and the revolutions of the moon and planets. All the complicated interest of parties and classes in the state, the traditional pre-eminence of the Medicean family, the rights of the Church, and the relation of Florence to foreign powers, have been carefully considered and provided for. The defect of this consummate work of art is that it remained a mere machine, devised to meet the exigencies of the moment, and powerless against such perturbations as the characters and passions of living men must introduce into the working of a Commonwealth. Had Florence been a colony established in a new country with no neighbors but savages, or had it been an institution protected from without against the cupidity of selfish rivals, then such a constitution might have been imposed on it with profit. But to expect that a city dominated by ancient prejudices, connected by a thousand subtle ties not only with the rest of Italy but also with the states of Europe, and rotten to the core in many of its most important members, could be restored to pristine vigor by a doctrinaire however able, was chimerical. The course of events contradicted this vain expectation. Meanwhile a few clear-headed and positive observers were dimly conscious of the instability of merely speculative constitution-making. Varchi, in a weighty passage on the defects of the Florentine republic, points out that its weakness arose partly from the violence of factions, but also in a great measure from the implicit faith reposed in doctors of the law.[2] The history of the Florentine Constitution, he says, is the history of changes effected by successions of mutually hostile parties, each in its own interest subverting the work of its predecessor, and each in turn relying on the theories of jurists, who without practical genius for politics make arbitrary rules for the control of state-affairs. Yet even Varchi shares the prevailing conviction that the proper method is first to excogitate a perfect political system, and then to impress that like a stamp upon the material of the commonwealth. His criticism is directed against lawyers, not against philosophers and practical diplomatists.

[1] The language of this treatise is noteworthy. After discoursing on the differences between republics and principalities, and showing that Florence is more suited to the former, and Milan to the latter, form of government, he says: 'Ma perchè fare principato dove starebbe bene repubblica,' etc. ... 'si perche Firenze è subietto attissimo di pigliare questa forma,' etc. The phrases in italics show how thoroughly Machiavelli regarded the commonwealth as plastic. We may compare the whole of Guicciardini's elaborate essay 'Del Reggimento di Firenze' (Op. Ined. vol. ii.), as well as the 'Discourses' addressed by Alessandro de' Pazzi, Francesco Vettori, Ruberto Acciaiuoli, Francesco Guicciardini, and Luigi Guicciardini, to the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, on the settlement of the Florentine Constitution in 1522 (Arch. Stor. vol. i.). Not one of these men doubted that his nostrum would effect the cure of the republic undermined by slow consumption.

[2] St. Fior. lib. vi. cap. 4; vol. i. p. 294.

In this sense and to this extent were the republics of Italy the products of constructive skill; and great was the political sagacity educed among the Italians by this state of things. The citizens reflected on the past, compared their institutions with those of neighboring states, studied antiquity, and applied the whole of their intelligence to the one aim of giving a certain defined form to the commonwealth. Prejudice and passion distorted their schemes, and each successive modification of the government was apt to have a merely temporary object. Thus the republics, as I have already hinted, lacked that safeguard which the Greek states gained by clinging each to its own character. The Greeks were no less self-conscious in their political practice and philosophy; but after the age of the Nomothetæ, when they had experienced nearly every phase through which a commonwealth can pass, they recognized the importance of maintaining the traditional character of their constitutions inviolate. Sparta adhered with singular tenacity to the code of Lycurgus; and the Athenians, while they advanced from step to step in the development of a democracy, were bent on realizing the ideal they had set before them.

Religion, which in Greece, owing to its local and genealogical character, was favorable to this stability, proved in Italy one of the most potent causes of disorder. The Greek city grew up under the protection of a local deity, whose blood had been transmitted in many instances to the chief families of the burgh. This ancestral god gave independence and autonomy to the State; and when the Nomothetes appeared, he was understood to have interpreted and formulated the inherent law that animated the body politic. Thus the commonwealth was a divinely founded and divinely directed organism, self-sufficing, with no dependence upon foreign sanction, with no question of its right. The Italian cities, on the contrary, derived their law from the common jus of the Imperial system, their religion from the common font of Christianity. They could not forget their origin, wrung with difficulty from existing institutions which preceded them and which still remained ascendant in the world of civilized humanity. The self-reliant autonomy of a Greek state, owing allegiance only to its protective deity and its inherent Nomos, had no parallel in Italy outside Venice. All the other republics were conscious of dependence on external power, and regarded themselves as ab initio artificial rather than natural creations.

Long before a true constitutional complexion had been given to any Italian State but Venice, parties had sprung up, and taken such firm root that the subsequent history of the republics was the record of their factions. To this point I have already alluded; but it is too important to be passed by without further illustration. The great division of Guelf and Ghibelline introduced a vital discord into each section of the people, by establishing two antagonistic theories respecting the right of supreme government. Then followed subordinate quarrels of the nobles with the townsfolk, schisms between the wealthier and poorer burghers, jealousies of the artisans and merchants, and factions for one or other eminent family. These different elements of discord succeed each other with astonishing rapidity; and as each gives place to another, it leaves a portion of its mischief rankling in the body politic, until last there remains no possibility of self-government.[1] The history of Florence, or Genoa, or Pistoja would supply us with ample illustrations of each of these obstacles to the formation of a solid political temperament. But Siena furnishes perhaps the best example of the extent to which such feuds could disturb a state. The way in which this city conducted its government for a long course of years, justified Varchi in calling it 'a jumble, so to speak, and chaos of republics, rather than a well-ordered and disciplined commonwealth.'[2] The discords of Siena were wholly internal. They proceeded from the wrangling of five successive factions, or Monti, as the people of Siena called them. The first of these was termed the Monte de' Nobili; for Siena, like all Italian free burghs, had originally been controlled by certain noble families, who formed the people and excluded the other citizens from offices of state. In course of time the plebeians acquired wealth, and the nobles split into parties among themselves. To such a pitch were the quarrels of these nobles carried, that at last they found it impossible to conduct the government, and agreed to relinquish it for a season to nine plebeian families chosen from among the richest and most influential. This gave rise to the Monte de' Nove, who were supposed to hold the city in commission for the nobles, while the latter devoted themselves to the prosecution of their private animosities. Weakened by feuds, the patricians fell a prey to their own creatures, the Monte de' Nove, who in their turn ruled Siena like oligarchs, refusing to give up the power which had been intrusted to them. In time, however, their insolence became insufferable. The populace rebelled, deposed the Nove, and invested with supreme authority twelve other families of mixed origin. The Monte de' Dodici, created after this fashion, ran nearly the same course as their predecessors, except that they appear to have administered the city equitably. Getting tired of this form of government, the people next superseded them by sixteen men, chosen from the dregs of the plebeians, who assumed the title of Riformatori. This new Monte de' Sedici or de' Riformatori showed much integrity in their management of affairs, but, as is the wont of red republicans, they were not averse to bloodshed. Their cruelty caused the people, with the help of the surviving patrician houses, together with the Nove and the Dodici, to rise and shake them off. The last governing body formed in this diabolical five-part fugue of crazy statecraft received the name of Monte del Popolo, because it included all who were then eligible to the Great Council of the State. Yet the factions of the elder Monti still survived; and to what extent they had absorbed the population may be gathered from the fact that, on the defeat of the Riformatori, 4,500 of the Sienese were exiled. It must be borne in mind that with the creation of each new Monte a new party formed itself in the city, and the traditions of these parties were handed down from generation to generation. At last, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Pandolfo Petrucci, who belonged to the Monte de' Nove, made himself in reality, if not in name, the master of Siena, and the Duke of Florence, later on in the same century extended his dominion over the republic.[3] There is something almost grotesque in the bare recital of these successive factions; yet we must remember that beneath their dry names they conceal all elements of class and party discord.

[1] Machiavelli, in spite of his love of freedom, says (St. Fior. lib. vii. 1): 'Coloro che sperano che una repubblica possa essere unita assai di questa speranza s'ingannano.'

[2] Vol. i. pp. 324-30. See, too, Segni, p. 213, and Giannotti, vol. i. p. 341. De Comines describes Siena thus: 'La ville est de tout temps en partialité, et se gouverne plus follement que ville d'Italie.'

[3] Siena capitulated, in 1555, to the Spanish troops, who resigned it to Duke Cosmo I. in 1557.

What rendered the growth of parties still more pernicious, as already mentioned, was the smallness of Italian republics. Varchi reckoned 10,000 fuochi in Florence, 50,000 bocche of seculars, and 20,000 bocche of religious. According to Zuccagni Orlandini there were 90,000 Florentines in 1495, of whom only 3,200 were burghers. Venice, according to Giannotti, counted at about the same period 20,000 fuochi, each of which supplied the state with two men fit to bear arms. These calculations, though obviously rough and based upon no accurate returns, show that a republic of 100,000 souls, of whom 5,000 should be citizens, would have taken distinguished rank among Italian cities.[1] In a state of this size, divided by feuds of every kind, from the highest political antagonism down to the meanest personal antipathy, changes were very easily effected. The slightest disturbance of the equilibrium in any quarter made itself felt throughout the city.[2] The opinions of each burgher were known and calculated. Individuals, by their wealth, their power of aiding or of suppressing poorer citizens, and the force of their personal ability, acquired a perilous importance. At Florence the political balance was so nicely adjusted that the ringing of the great bell in the Palazzo meant a revolution, and to raise the cry of Palle in the streets was tantamount to an outbreak in the Medicean interest. To call aloud Popolo e libertà was nothing less than riot punishable by law. Segni tells how Jacopino Alamanni, having used these words near the statue of David on the Piazza in a personal quarrel, was beheaded for it the same day.[3] The secession of three or four families from one faction to another altered the political situation of a whole republic, and led perhaps to the exile of a sixth part of the enfranchised population.[4] After this would follow the intrigues of the outlaws eager to return, including negotiations with lukewarm party-leaders in the city, alliances with hostile states, and contracts which compromised the future conduct of the commonwealth in the interest of a few revengeful citizens. The biographies of such men as Cosimo de' Medici the elder and Filippo Strozzi throw the strongest light upon these delicacies and complexities of party politics in Florence.

[1] It may be worth while to compare the accurate return of the Venetian population in 1581 furnished by Yriarte (Vie d'un Patricien de Venise, p. 96). The whole number of the inhabitants was 134,600. Of these 1,843 were adult patricians; 4,309 women and children of the patrician class; Cittadini of all ages and both sexes, 3,553; monks, nuns, and priests, 3,969; Jews, 1,043; beggars, 187.

[2] We might mention, as famous instances, the Neri and Bianchi factions introduced into Pistoja in 1296 by a quarrel of the Cancellieri family, the dismemberment of Florence in 1215 by a feud between the Buondelmonti and Amidei, the tragedy of Imelda Lambertazzi, which upset Bologna in 1273, the student riot which nearly delivered Bologna into the hands of Roméo de' Pepoli in 1321, the whole action of the Strozzi family at the period of the extinction of Florentine liberty, the petty jealousies of the Cerchi and Donati detailed by Dino Compagni, in 1294.

[3] Segni, St. Fior. p. 53.

[4] As an instance, take what Marco Foscari reported in 1527 to the Venetian Senate respecting the parties in Florence (Rel. Ven. serie ii. vol. i. p. 70). The Compagnacci, one of the three great parties, only numbered 800 persons.

In addition to the evils of internal factions we must reckon all the sources of mutual mistrust to which the republics were exposed. As the Italians had no notion of representative government, so they never conceived a confederation. The thirst for autonomy in each state was as great as of old among the cities of Greece. To be independent of a sister republic, though such freedom were bought at the price of the tyranny of a native family was the first object of every commonwealth. At the same time this passion for independence was only equaled by the greed of foreign usurpation. The second object of each republic was to extend its power at the expense of its neighbors. As Pisa swallowed Amalfi, so Genoa destroyed Pisa, and Venice did her best to cripple Genoa. Florence obliterated the rival burgh of Semifonte, and Milan twice reduced Piacenza to a wilderness. The notion that the great maritime powers of Italy or the leading cities of Lombardy should permanently co-operate for a common purpose was never for a moment entertained. Such leagues as were formed were understood to be temporary. When their immediate object had been gained, the members returned to their initial rivalries. Milan, when, on the occasion of Filippo Maria Visconti's death, she had a chance of freedom, refused to recognize the liberties of the Lombard cities, and fell a prey to Francesco Sforza. Florence, under the pernicious policy of Cosimo de' Medici, helped to enslave Milan and Bologna instead of entering into a republican league against their common foes, the tyrants. Pisa, Arezzo, and the other subject cities of Tuscany were treated by her with such selfish harshness that they proved her chiefest peril in the hour of need.[1] Competition in commerce increased the mutual hatred of the free burghs. States like Venice, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, depending for their existence upon mercantile wealth, and governed by men of business, took every opportunity they could of ruining a rival in the market. So mean and narrow was the spirit of Italian policy that no one accounted it unpatriotic or dishonorable for Florence to suck the very life out of Pisa, or for Venice to strangle a competitor so dangerous as Genoa.

[1] See the instructions furnished to Averardo dei Medici, quoted by Von Reumont in his Life of Lorenzo, vol. ii. p. 122, German edition.

Thus the jealousy of state against state, of party against party, and of family against family, held Italy in perpetual disunion; while diplomatic habits were contracted which rendered the adoption of any simple policy impossible. When the time came for the Italians to cope with the great nations of Europe, the republics of Venice, Genoa, Milan, Florence ought to have been leagued together and supported by the weight of the Papal authority. They might then have stood against the world. Instead of that, these cities presented nothing but mutual rancors, hostilities, and jealousies to the common enemy. Moreover, the Italians were so used to petty intrigues and to a system of balance of power within the peninsula, that they could not comprehend the magnitude of the impending danger. It was difficult for a politician of the Renaissance, accustomed to the small theater of Italian diplomacy, schooled in the traditions of Lorenzo de' Medici, swayed in his calculations by the old pretensions of Pope and Emperor, dominated by the dread of Venice, Milan, and Naples, and as yet but dimly conscious of the true force of France or Spain, to conceive that absolutely the only chance of Italy lay in union at any cost and under any form. Machiavelli indeed seems too late to have discerned this truth. But he had been lessoned by events, which rendered the realization of his cherished schemes impossible; nor, could he find a Prince powerful enough to attempt his Utopia. Of the Republics he had abandoned all hope.

To the laws which governed the other republics of Italy, Venice offered in many respects a notable exception. Divided from the rest of Italy by the lagoons, and directed by her commerce to the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, Venice took no part in the factions which rent the rest of the peninsula, and had comparatively little to fear from foreign invasion. Her attitude was one of proud and almost scornful isolation. In the Lombard Wars of Independence she remained neutral, and her name does not appear among the Signataries to the Peace of Constance. Both the Papacy and the Empire recognized her independence. Her true policy consisted in consolidating her maritime empire and holding aloof from the affairs of Italy. As long as she adhered to this course, she remained the envy and the admiration of the rest of Europe.[1] It was only when she sought to extend her hold upon the mainland that she aroused the animosity of the Italian powers, and had to bear the brunt of the League of Cambray alone.[2] Her selfish prudence had been a source of dread long before this epoch: when she became aggressive, she was recognized as a common and intolerable enemy.

[1] De Comines, in his Memoirs of the Reign of Charles VIII. (tom. ii. p, 69), draws a striking picture of the impression made upon his mind by the good government of the state of Venice. This may be compared with what he says of the folly of Siena.

[2] See Mach. 1st. Fior. lib. i. 'Avendo loro con il tempo occupata Padova, Vicenza, Trevigi, e dipoi Verona, Bergamo e Brescia, e nel Reame e in Romagna molte città, cacciati dalla cupidità del dominare vennero in tanta opinione di potenza, che non solamente ai principi Italiani ma ai Rè oltramontani erano in terrore. Onde congiurati quelli contra di loro, in un giorno fu tolto loro quello stato che si avevano in molti anni con infiniti spendii guadagnato. E benchè ne abbino in questi ultimi tempi racquistato parte, non avendo racquistata nè la riputazione, nè le forze, a discrezione d'altri, come tutti gli altri principi Italiani vivono.' It was Francesco Foscari who first to any important extent led the republic astray from its old policy. He meddled in Italian affairs, and sought to encroach upon the mainland. For this, and for the undue popularity he acquired thereby, the Council of Ten subjected him and his son Jacopo to the most frightfully protracted martyrdom that a relentless oligarchy has ever inflicted [1445-57].

The external security of Venice was equaled by her internal repose. Owing to continued freedom from party quarrels, the Venetians were able to pursue a consistent course of constitutional development. They in fact alone of the Italian cities established and preserved the character of their state. Having originally founded a republic under the presidency of a Doge, who combined the offices of general and judge, and ruled in concert with a representative council of the chief citizens (697-1172), the Venetians by degrees caused this form of government to assume a strictly oligarchical character. They began by limiting the authority of the Doge, who, though elected for life, was in 1032 forbidden to associate his son in the supreme office of the state. In 1172 the election of the Doge was transferred from the people to the Grand Council, who, as a co-opting body, tended to become a close aristocracy. In 1179 the Ducal power was still further restricted by the creation of a senate called the Quarantia for the administration of justice; while in 1229 the Senate of the Pregadi, interposed between the Doge and the Grand Council, became an integral part of the constitution. To this latter Senate were assigned all deliberations upon peace and war, the voting of supplies, the confirmation of laws. Both the Quarantia and the Pregadi were elected by the Consiglio Grande, which by this time had become the virtual sovereign of the State of Venice. It is not necessary here to mention the further checks imposed upon the power of the Doges by the institution of officials named Correttori and Inquisitori, whose special business it was to see that the coronation oaths were duly observed, or by the regulations which prevented the supreme magistrate from taking any important action except in concert with carefully selected colleagues. Enough has been said to show that the constitution of Venice was a pyramid resting upon the basis of the Grand Council and rising to an ornamented apex, through the Senate, and the College, in the Doge. But in adopting this old simile—originally the happy thought of Donato Giannotti, it is said[1]—we must not forget that the vital force of the Grand Council was felt throughout the whole of this elaborate system, and that the same individuals were constantly appearing in different capacities. It is this which makes the great event of the years 1297-1319 so all-important for the future destinies of Venice. At this period the Grand Council was restricted to a certain number of noble families who had henceforth the hereditary right to belong to it. Every descendant of a member of the Grand Council could take his seat there at the age of twenty-five; and no new families, except upon the most extraordinary occasions, were admitted to this privilege.[2] By the Closing of the Grand Council, as the ordinances of this crisis were termed, the administration of Venice was vested for perpetuity in the hands of a few great houses. The final completion was given to the oligarchy in 1311 by the establishment of the celebrated Council of Ten,[3] who exercised a supervision over all the magistracies, constituted the Supreme Court of judicature, and ended by controlling the whole foreign and internal policy of Venice. The changes which I have thus briefly indicated are not to be regarded as violent alterations in the constitution, but rather as successive steps in its development. Even the Council of Ten, which seems at first sight the most tyrannous state-engine ever devised for the enslavement of a nation, was in reality a natural climax to the evolution which had been consistently advancing since the year 1172. Created originally during the troublous times which succeeded the closing of the Grand Council, for the express purpose of curbing unruly nobles and preventing the emergence of conspirators like Tiepolo, the Council of Ten were specially designed to act as a check upon the several orders in the state and to preserve its oligarchical character inviolate. They were elected by the Consiglio Grande, and at the expiration of their office were liable to render strict account of all that they had done. Nor was this magistracy coveted by the Venetian nobles. On the contrary, so burdensome were its duties, and so great was the odium which from time to time the Ten incurred in the discharge of their functions, that it was not always found easy to fill up their vacancies. A law had even to be passed that the Ten had not completed their magistracy before their successors were appointed.[4] They may therefore be regarded as a select committee of the citizens, who voluntarily delegated dictatorial powers to this small body in order to maintain their own ascendency, to centralize the conduct of important affairs, to preserve secrecy in the administration of the republic, and to avoid the criticism to which the more public government of states like Florence was exposed.[5] The weakness of this portion of the state machinery was this: created with ill-defined and almost unlimited authority,[6] designed to supersede the other public functionaries on occasions of great moment, and composed of men whose ability placed them in the very first rank of citizens, the Ten could scarcely fail, as time advanced, to become a permanently oppressive power—a despotism within the bosom of an oligarchy. Thus in the whole mechanism of the state of Venice we trace the action of a permanent aristocracy tolerating, with a view to its own supremacy, an amount of magisterial control which in certain cases, like that of the two Foscari, amounted to the sternest tyranny. By submitting to the Council of Ten the nobility of Venice secured its hold upon the people and preserved unity in its policy.

[1] Vol. ii. of his works, p. 37. On p. 29 he describes the population of Venice as divided into 'Popolari,' or plebeians, exercising small industries, and so forth: 'Cittadini,' or the middle class, born in the state, and of more importance than the plebeians; 'Gentiluomini,' or masters of Venice by sea and land, about 3,000 in number, corresponding to the burghers of Florence. What he says about the Constitution refers solely to this upper class. The elaborate work of M. Yriarte, La Vie d'un Patricien de Venise an Seizième Siècle, Paris, 1874, contains a complete analysis of the Venetian state-machine. See in particular what he says about the helplessness of the Doges, ch. xiii. 'Rex in foro, senator in curiâ, captivus in aulâ,' was a current phrase which expressed the contrast between their dignity of parade and real servitude. They had no personal freedom, and were always ruined by office. It was necessary to pass a law compelling the Doge elect to accept the onerous distinction thrust upon him. The Venetian oligarchs argued that it was good that one man should die for the people.

[2] See Giannotti, vol. ii. p. 55, for the mention of fifteen, admitted on the occasion of Baiamonte Tiepolo's conspiracy, and of thirty ennobled during the Genoese war.

[3] The actual number of this Council was seventeen, for the Ten associated with the Signoria, which consisted of the Doge and six Counselors.

[4] Giannotti, vol. ii. p. 123.

[5] The diplomatic difficulties of a popular government, a 'governo largo,' as opposed to a 'governo stretto,' are set forth with great acumen by Guicciardini, Op. Ined. vol. ii. p. 84. Cf. vol. iii. p. 272.

[6] 'è la sua autorità pari a quella del Consiglio de' Pregati e di utta la città,' says Giannotti, vol. ii. p. 120.

No state has ever exercised a greater spell of fascination over its citizens than Venice. Of treason against the Republic there was little. Against the decrees of the Council, arbitrary though they might be, no one sought to rebel. The Venetian bowed in silence and obeyed, knowing that all his actions were watched, that his government had long arms in foreign lands, and that to arouse revolt in a body of burghers so thoroughly controlled by common interests, would be impossible. Further security the Venetians gained by their mild and beneficent administration of subject cities, and by the prosperity in which their population flourished. When, during the war of the League of Cambray, Venice gave liberty to her towns upon the mainland, they voluntarily returned to her allegiance. At home, the inhabitants of the lagoons, who had never seen a hostile army at their gates, and whose taxes were light in comparison with those of the rest of Italy, regarded the nobles as the authors of their unexampled happiness. Meanwhile, these nobles were merchants. Idleness was unknown in Venice. Instead of excogitating new constitutions or planning vengeance against hereditary foes the Venetian attended to his commerce on the sea, swayed distant provinces, watched the interests of the state in foreign cities, and fought the naval battles of the republic. It was the custom of Venice to employ her patricians only on the sea as admirals, and never to intrust her armies to the generalship of burghers. This policy had undoubtedly its wisdom; for by these means the nobles had no opportunity of intriguing on a large scale in Italian affairs, and never found the chance of growing dangerously powerful abroad. But it pledged the State to that system of paid condottieri and mercenary troops, jealously watched and scarcely ever trustworthy, which proved nearly as ruinous to Venice as it did to Florence.

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that which is presented by Florence to Venice. While Venice pursued one consistent course of gradual growth, and seemed immovable, Florence remained in perpetual flux, and altered as the strength of factions or of party-leaders varied.[1] When the strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines, Neri, and Bianchi, had exhausted her in the fourteenth century, she submitted for a while to the indirect ascendency of the kings of Naples, who were recognized as Chiefs of the Guelf Party. Thence she passed for a few months into the hands of a despot in the person of the Duke of Athens (1342-43). After the confirmation of her republican liberty, followed a contest between the proletariat and the middle classes (Ciompi 1378). During the fifteenth century she was kept continually disturbed by the rivalry of her great merchant families. The rule of the Albizzi, who fought the Visconti and extended the Florentine territory by numerous conquests, was virtually the despotism of a close oligarchy. This phase of her career was terminated by the rise of the Medici, who guided her affairs with a show of constitutional equity for four generations. In 1494, this state of things was violently shaken. The Florentines expelled the Medici, who had begun to throw off their mask and to assume the airs of sovereignty; then they reconstituted their Commonwealth as nearly as they could upon the model of Venice, and to this new form of government Savonarola gave a quasi-theocratic complexion by naming Christ the king of Florence.[2] But the internal elements of the discord were too potent for the maintenance of this régime. The Medici were recalled; and this time Florence fell under the shadow of Church-rule, being controlled by Leo X. and Clement VII., through the hands of prelates whom they made the guardians and advisers of their nephews. In 1527 a final effort for liberty shed undying luster on the noblest of Italian cities. The sack of Rome had paralyzed the Pope. His family were compelled to quit the Medicean palace. The Grand Council was restored: a Gonfalonier was elected; Florence suffered the hardships of her memorable siege. At the end of her trials, menaced alike by Pope and Emperor, who shook hands over her prostrate corpse, betrayed by her general, the infamous Malatesta Baglioni, and sold by her own selfish citizens, she had to submit to the hereditary sovereignty of the Medici. It was in vain that Lorenzino of that house pretended to play Brutus and murdered his cousin the Duke Alessandro in 1536. Cosimo succeeded in the same year, and won the title of Grand Duke, which he transmitted to a line of semi-Austrian princes.

[1] 'Nunquam in eodem statu permanserunt,' says Marco Foscari (as quoted above, p. 42 of his report). The flux of Florence struck a Venetian profoundly.

[2] The Gonfalonier Capponi put up a tablet on the Public Palace, in 1528, to this effect: 'Jesus Christus Rex Florentini Populi S.F. decreto electus.' This inscription is differently given. See Varchi, vol. i. p. 266; Segni, p. 46. Nothing is more significant of the difference between Venice and Florence than the political idealism implied in this religious consecration of the republic by statute. In my essay on 'Florence and the Medici' (Sketches and Studies in Italy) I have attempted to condense the internal history of the Republic and to analyze the state-craft of the Medici.

Throughout all these vicissitudes every form and phase of republican government was advocated, discussed, and put in practice by the Florentines. All the arts of factions, all the machinations of exiles, all the skill of demagogues, all the selfishness of party-leaders, all the learning of scholars, all the cupidity of subordinate officials, all the daring of conspirators, all the ingenuity of theorists, and all the malice of traitors, were brought successively or simultaneously into play by the burghers, who looked upon their State as something they might mold at will. One thing at least is clear amid so much apparent confusion, that Florence was living a vehemently active and self-conscious life, acknowledging no principle of stability in her constitution, but always stretching forward after that ideal Reggimento which was never realized.[1]

[1] In his 'Proemio' to the 'Trattato del Reggimento di Firenze, Guicciardini thus describes the desideratum: 'introdurre in Firenze un governo onesto, bene ordinato, e che veramente si potesse chiamare libero, il che dalla sua prima origine insino a oggi non è mai stato cittadino alcuno che abbia saputo o potuto fare.'

It is worth while to consider more in detail the different magistracies by which the government of Florence was conducted between the years of 1250 and 1531, and the gradual changes in the constitution which prepared the way for the Medicean tyranny.[1] It is only thus an accurate conception of the difference between the republican systems of Venice and of Florence can be gained. Before the date 1282, which may be fixed as the turning-point in Florentine history we hear of twelve Anziani, two chosen for each Sestiere of the city, acting in concert with a foreign Podestà, and a Captain of the People charged with military authority. At this time no distinction was made between nobles and plebeians; and the town, though Guelf, had not enacted rigorous laws against the Ghibelline families. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, however, important, changes were effected in the very elements of the commonwealth. The Anziani were superseded by the Priors of the Arts. Eight Priors, together with a new officer called the Gonfalonier of Justice, formed the Signoria, dwelling at public charge in the Palazzo and holding office only for two months.[2] No one who had not been matriculated into one of the Arti or commercial guilds could henceforth bear office in the state. At the same time severe measures, called Ordinanze della Giustizia, were passed, by which the nobles were for ever excluded from the government, and the Gonfalonier of Justice was appointed to maintain civil order by checking their pride and turbulence.[3] These modifications of the constitution, effected between 1282 and 1292, gave its peculiar character to the Florentine republic. Henceforward Florence was governed solely by merchants. Both Varchi and Machiavelli have recorded unfavorable opinions of the statute which reduced the republic of Florence to a commonwealth of shop-keepers.[4] But when we read these criticisms, we must bear in mind the internecine ferocity of party-strife at this period, and the discords to which a city divided between a territorial aristocracy and a commercial bourgeoisie was perpetually exposed. If anything could make the Ordinanze della Giustizia appear rational, it would be a cool perusal of the Chronicle of Matarazzo, which sets forth the wretched state of Perugia owing to the feuds of its patrician houses, the Oddi and the Baglioni.[5] Peace for the republic was not, however, secured by these strong measures. The factions of the Neri and Bianchi opened the fourteenth century with battles and proscriptions; and in 1323 the constitution had again to be modified. At this date the Signoria of eight Priors with the Gonfalonier of Justice, the College of the twelve Buonuomini, and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the companies—called collectively i tre maggiori, or the three superior magistracies—were rendered eligible only to Guelf citizens of the age of thirty, who had qualified in one of the seven Arti Maggiori, and whose names were drawn by lot. This mode of election, the most democratic which it is possible to adopt, held good through all subsequent changes in the state. Its immediate object was to quiet discontent and to remove intrigue by opening the magistracies to all citizens alike. But, as Nardi has pointed out, it weakened the sense of responsibility in the burghers, who, when their names were once included in the bags kept for the purpose, felt sure of their election, and had no inducement to maintain a high standard of integrity. Sismondi also dates from this epoch the withdrawal of the Florentines from military service.[6] Nor, as the sequel shows, was the measure efficient as a check upon the personal ambition of encroaching party leaders. The Squittino and the Borse became instruments in the hands of the Medici for the consolidation of their tyranny.[7] By the end of the fourteenth century (about 1378)the Florentines had to meet a new difficulty. The Guelf citizens began to abuse the so-called Law of Admonition, by means of which the Ghibellines were excluded from the government. This law had formed an essential part of the measures of 1323. In the intervening half-century a new aristocracy, distinguished by the name of nobili popolani, had grown up and were now threatening the republic with a close oligarchy.[8] The discords which had previously raged between the people and the patricians were now transferred to this new aristocracy and the plebeians. It was found necessary to abolish the Admonition, which had been made a pretext of excluding all novi homines from the government, and to place the members of the inferior Arti on the same footing as those of the superior.[9] At this epoch the Medici, who neither belonged to the ancient aristocracy nor y the more distinguished houses of the nobili popolani, but rather to the so-called gente grassa or substantial tradesmen, first acquired importance. It was by a law of Salvestro de' Medici's in 1378 that the constitution received its final development in the direction of equality. Yet after all this leveling, and in the vehement efforts made by the proletariat on the occasion of the Ciompi outbreak, the exclusive nature of the Florentine republic was maintained. The franchise was never extended to more than the burghers, and the matter in debate was always virtually, who shall be allowed to rank as citizen upon the register? In fact, by using the pregnant words of Machiavelli, we may sum up the history of Florence to this point in one sentence: 'Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i nobili e il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e molte volte occorse che una di queste parti rimasa superiore, si divise in due.'[10]

[1] I will place in an appendix (No. ii.) translations of Varchi, book iii. sections 20-22, and Nardi, book i. cap. 4, which give complete and clear accounts of the Florentine constitution after 1292.

[2] See Machiavelli, Ist. Fior. lib. ii. sect. II. The number of the Priors was first three, then six, and finally eight. Up to 1282 the city had been divided into Sestieri. It was then found convenient to divide it into quarters, and the numbers followed this alteration.

[3] Machiavelli, Ist. Fior. lib. ii. sect. 13, may be consulted for the history of Giano della Bella and his memorable ordinance. Dino Compagni's Chronicle contains the account of a contemporary.

[4] See Varchi, vol. i. p. 169; Mach. Ist. Fior. end of book ii.

[5] Archivio Storico, vol. xvi. See also the article 'Perugia,' in my Sketches in Italy and Greece.

[6] Vol. iii. p. 347.

[7] See App. ii. for the phrases 'Squittino' and 'Borse.'

[8] Of these new nobles the Albizzi and Ricci, deadly foes, were the most eminent. The former strove to exclude the Medici from the government.

[9] The number of the Arti varied at different times. Varchi treats of them as finally consisting of seven maggiori and fourteen minori.

[10] Proemio to Storia Fiorentina. 'In Florence the nobles first split up, then the nobles and the people, lastly the people and the multitude; and it often happened that when one of these parties got the upper hand, it divided into two camps.' For the meaning of Popolo see above, p. 55.

In the next generation the constitutional history of Florence exhibits a new phase. The equality which had been introduced into all classes of the commonwealth, combined with an absence of any state machinery like that of Venice, exposed Florence at this period to the encroachments of astute and selfish parvenus. The Medici, who had hitherto been nobodies, begin now to aspire to despotism. Partly by his remarkable talent for intrigue, partly by the clever use which he made of his vast wealth, and partly by espousing the plebeian cause, Cosimo de' Medici succeeded in monopolizing the government. It was the policy of the Medici to create a party dependent for pecuniary aid upon their riches, and attached to their interests by the closest ties of personal necessity. At the same time they showed consummate caution in the conduct of the state, and expended large sums on works of public utility. There was nothing mean in their ambition; and though posterity must condemn the arts by which they sought to sap the foundations of freedom in their native city, we are forced to acknowledge that they shared the noblest enthusiasms of their brilliant era. Little by little they advanced so far in the enslavement of Florence that the elections of all the magistrates, though still conducted by lot, were determined at their choice: the names of none but men devoted to their interests were admitted to the bags from which the candidates for office were selected, while proscriptive measures of various degrees of rigor excluded their enemies from participation in the government.[1] At length in 1480 the whole machinery of the republic was suspended by Lorenzo de' Medici in favor of the Board of Seventy, whom he nominated, and with whom, acting like a Privy Council, he administered the state.[2] It is clear that this revolution could never have been effected without a succession of coups d'état. The instrument for their accomplishment lay ready to the hands of the Medicean party in the pernicious system of the Parlamento and Balia, by means of which the people, assembled from time to time in the public square, and intimidated by the reigning faction, intrusted full powers to a select committee nominated in private by the chiefs of the great house.[3] It is also clear that so much political roguery could not have been successful without an extensive demoralization of the upper rank of citizens. The Medici in effect bought and sold the honor of the public officials, lent money, jobbed posts of profit, and winked at peculation, until they had created a sufficient body of âmes damnées, men who had everything to gain by a continuance of their corrupt authority. The party so formed, including even such distinguished citizens as the Guicciardini, Baccio Valori, and Francesco Vettori, proved the chief obstacle to the restoration of Florentine liberty in the sixteenth century.

[1] What Machiavelli says (Ist. Fior. vii. 1) about the arts of Cosimo contains the essence of the policy by which the Medici rose. Compare v. 4 and vii. 4-6 for his character of Cosimo. Guicciardini (Op. Ined. vol. ii. p. 68) describes the use made of extraordinary taxation as a weapon of offense against his enemies, by Cosimo: 'usò le gravezze in luogo de' pugnali che communemente suole usare chi ha simili reggimenti nelle mani.' The Marchese Gino Capponi (Arch. Stor. vol. i. pp. 315-20) analyzes the whole Medicean policy in a critique of great ability.

[2] Guicciardini (Op. Ined. vol. ii. pp. 35-49) exposes the principle and the modus operandi of this Council of Seventy, by means of which Lorenzo controlled the election of the magistracies, diverted the public moneys to his own use, and made his will law in Florence. The councils which he superseded at this date were the Consiglio del Popolo and the Consiglio del Comune, about which see Nardi, lib i. cap. 4.

[3] For the operation of the Parlamento and Balia, see Varchi, vol. ii. p. 372; Segni, p. 199; Nardi, lib. vi. cap. 4. Segni says: 'The Parlamento is a meeting of the Florentine people on the Piazza of the Signory. When the Signory has taken its place to address the meeting, the piazza is guarded by armed men, and then the people are asked whether they wish to give absolute power (Balia) and authority to the citizens named, for their good. When the answer, yes, prompted partly by inclination and partly by compulsion, is returned, the Signory immediately retires into the palace. This is all that is meant by this parlamento, which thus gives away the full power of effecting a change in the state.' The description given by Marco Foscari, p. 44 (loc. cit. supr.) is to the same effect, but the Venetian exposes more clearly the despotic nature of the institution in the hands of the Medici. It is well known how hostile Savonarola was to an institution which had lent itself so easily to despotism. This couplet he inscribed on the walls of the Council Chamber, in 1495:—

'E sappi che chi vuol parlamento
Vuol torti dalle mani il reggimento.'

Compare the proverb, 'Chi disse parlamento disse guastamento.'

This tyranny of a commercial family, swaying the republic without the title and with but little of the pomp of princes, subsisted until the hereditary presidency of the state was conferred upon Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Cività di Penna, in 1531. Cosimo his successor, obtained the rank of Grand Duke from Pius V. in 1569, and his son received the imperial sanction to the title in 1575. The re-establishment at two different periods of a free commonwealth upon the sounder basis of the Consiglio Grande (1494-1512 and 1527-30) formed but two episodes in the history of this masked but tenacious despotism. Had Savonarola's constitution been adopted in the thirteenth instead of at the end of the fifteenth century, the stability of Florence might have been secured. But at the latter date the roots of the Medicean influence were too widely intertwined with private interests, the jealousies of classes and of factions were too inveterate, for any large and wholesome form of popular government to be universally acceptable. Besides, the burghers had been reduced to a nerveless equality of servitude, in which ambition and avarice took the place of patriotism; while the corruption of morals, fostered by the Medici for the confirmation of their own authority, was so widely spread as to justify Segni, Varchi, Giannotti, Guicciardini, and Machiavelli in representing the Florentines as equally unable to maintain their liberty and to submit to control.

The historical vicissitudes of Florence were no less remarkable than the unity of Venice. If in Venice we can trace the permanent and corporate existence of a state superior to the individuals who composed it, Florence exhibits the personal activity and conscious effort of her citizens. Nowhere can the intricate relations of classes to the commonwealth be studied more minutely than in the annals of Florence. In no other city have opinions had greater value in determining historical events; and nowhere was the influence of character in men of mark more notable. In this agitated political atmosphere the wonderful Florentine intelligence, which Varchi celebrated as the special glory of the Tuscan soil, and which Vasari referred to something felicitous in Tuscan air, was sharpened to the finest edge.[1] Successive generations of practical and theoretical statesmen trained the race to reason upon government, and to regard politics as a science. Men of letters were at the same time also prominent in public affairs. When, for instance, the exiles of 1529 sued Duke Alessandro before Charles V. at Naples, Jacopo Nardi drew up their pleas, and Francesco Guicciardini rebutted them in the interest of his master. Machiavelli learned his philosophy at the Courts of France and Germany and in the camp of Cesare Borgia. Segni shared the anxieties of Nicolo Capponi, when the Gonfalonier was impeached for high treason to the state of Florence. This list might be extended almost indefinitely, with the object of proving the intimate connection which subsisted at Florence between the thinkers and the actors. No other European community of modern times has ever acquired so subtle a sense of its own political existence, has ever reasoned upon its past history so acutely, or has ever displayed so much ingenuity in attempting to control the future. Venice on the contrary owed but little to the creative genius of her citizens. In Venice the state was everything: the individual was almost nothing. We find but little reflection upon politics, and no speculative philosophy of history among the Venetians until the date of Trifone Gabrielli and Paruta. Their records are all positive and detailed. The generalizations and comparisons of the Florentines are absent; nor was it till a late date of the Renaissance that the Venetian history came to be written as a whole. It would seem as though the constitutional stability which formed the secret of the strength of Venice was also the source of comparative intellectual inertness. This contrast between the two republics displayed itself even in their art. Statues of Judith, the tyrannicide, and of David, the liberator of his country, adorned the squares and loggie of Florence. The painters of Venice represented their commonwealth as a beautiful queen receiving the homage of her subjects and the world. Florence had no mythus similar to that which made Venice the Bride of the Sea, and which justified the Doge in hailing Caterina Cornaro as daughter of S. Mark's (1471). It was in the personal courage and intelligence of individual heroes that the Florentines discovered the counterpart of their own spirit; whereas the Venetians personified their city as a whole, and paid their homage to the Genius of the State.

[1] Varchi, ix. 49; Vasari, xii. p. 158; Burckhardt, p. 270.

It is not merely fanciful to compare Athens, the city of self-conscious political activity, variable, cultivated, and ill-adapted by its very freedom for prolonged stability, with Florence; Sparta, firmly based upon an ancient constitution, indifferent to culture, and solid at the cost of some rigidity, with Venice. As in Greece the philosophers of Athens, especially Plato and Aristotle, wondered at the immobility of Sparta and idealized her institutions; so did the theorists of Florence, Savonarola, Giannotti, Guicciardini, look with envy at the state machinery which secured repose and liberty for Venice. The parallel between Venice and Sparta becomes still more remarkable when we inquire into the causes of their decay. Just as the Ephors, introduced at first as a safeguard to the constitution, by degrees extinguished the influence of the royal families, superseded the senate, and exercised a tyrannous control over every department of the state; so the Council of Ten, dangerous because of its vaguely defined dictatorial functions, reduced Venice to a despotism.[1] The gradual dwindling of the Venetian aristocracy, and the impoverishment of many noble families, which rendered votes in the Grand Council venal, and threw the power into the hands of a very limited oligarchy, complete the parallel.[2] One of the chief sources of decay both to Venice and to Sparta was that shortsighted policy which prevented the nobles from recruiting their ranks by the admission of new families. The system again of secret justice, the espionage, and the calculated terrorism, by means of which both the Spartan Ephoralty and the Venetian Council imposed their will upon the citizens, were stifling to the free life of a republic.[3] Venice in the end became demoralized in politics and profligate in private life. Her narrowing oligarchy watched the national degeneration with approval, knowing that it is easier to control a vitiated populace than to curb a nation habituated to the manly virtues.

[1] Aristotle terms the Spartan Ephoralty [Greek: isotyrannos]. Giannotti (vol-ii. p. 120) compares the Ten to dictators. We might bring the struggles of the Spartan kings with the Ephoralty into comparison with the attempts of the Doges Falieri and Foscari to make themselves the chiefs of the republic in more than name. Müller, in his Dorians, observes that 'the Ephoralty was the moving element, the principle of change, in the Spartan constitution, and, in the end, the cause of its dissolution.' Sismondi remarks that the precautions which led to the creation of the Council of Ten 'dénaturaient entièrement la constitution de l'état.'

[2] See what Aristotle in the Politics says about [Greek: oliganthrôpia], and the unequal distribution of property. As to the property of the Venetian nobles, see Sanudo, Vite dei Duchi, Murat. xxii. p. 1194, who mentions the benevolences of the richer families to the poor. They built houses for aristocratic paupers to live in free of rent.

[3] A curious passage in Plutarch's Life of Cleomenes (Clough's Translation, vol. iv. p. 474) exactly applies to the Venetian statecraft:—'They, the Spartans, worship Fear, not as they do supernatural powers which they dread, esteeming it hurtful, but thinking their polity is chiefly kept up by fear ... and therefore the Lacedæmonians placed the temple of Fear by the Syssitium of the Ephors, having raised that magistracy to almost regal authority.'

Between Athens and Florence the parallel is not so close. These two republics, however, resemble one another in the freedom and variety of their institutions. In Athens, as in Florence, there was constant change and a highly developed political consciousness. Eminent men played the same important part in both. In both the genius of individuals was even stronger than the character of the state. Again, as Athens displayed more of a Panhellenic feeling than any other Greek city, so Florence was invariably more alive to the interests of Italy at large than any other state of the peninsula. Florence, like Athens, was the center of culture for the nation. Like Athens, she give laws to her sister towns in language, in literature, in fine arts, poetry, philosophy, and history. Without Florence it is not probable that Italy would have taken the place of proud pre-eminence she held so long in Europe. Florence never attained to the material greatness of Athens, because her power, relatively to the rest of Italy, was slight, her factions were incessant, and her connection with the Papacy was a perpetual source of weakness. But many of the causes which ruined Athens were in full operation at Florence. First and foremost was the petulant and variable temper of a democracy, so well described by Plato, and so ably analyzed by Machiavelli. The want of agreement among the versatile Florentines, fertile in plans but incapable of concerted action, was a chief source of political debility. Varchi and Segni both relate how, in spite of wealth, ability, and formidable forces, the Florentine exiles under the guidance of Filippo Strozzi (1533-37) became the laughing-stock of Italy through their irresolution. The Venetian ambassadors agree in representing the burghers of Florence as timid from excess of intellectual mobility. And Dante, whose insight into national characteristics was of the keenest, has described in ever-memorable lines the temperament of his fickle city (Purg. vi. 135-51).

Much of this instability was due to the fact that Florentine, like Athenian, intelligence was overdeveloped. It passed into mere cleverness, and overreached itself. Next we may note the tyranny which both republics exercised over cities that had once been free. Athens created a despotic empire instead of forming an Ionian Confederation. Florence reduced Pisa to the most miserable servitude, rendered herself odious to Arezzo and Volterra, and never rested from attempts upon the liberties of Lucca and Siena. All these states, which as a Tuscan federation should have been her strength in the hour of need, took the first opportunity of throwing off her yoke and helping her enemies. What Florence spent in recapturing Pisa, after the passage of Charles VIII. in 1494, is incalculable. And no sooner was she in difficulties during the siege of 1329, than both Arezzo and Pisa declared for her foes.

It will not do to push historical parallels too far, interesting as it may be to note a repetition of the same phenomena at distant periods and under varying conditions of society. At the same time, to observe fundamental points of divergence is no less profitable. Many of the peculiarities of Greek history are attributable to the fact that a Greek commonwealth consisted of citizens living in idleness, supported by their slaves, and bound to the state by military service and by the performance of civic duties. The distinctive mark of both Venice and Florence, on the other hand, was that their citizens were traders. The Venetians carried on the commerce of the Levant; the Florentines were manufacturers and bankers: the one town sent her sons forth on the seas to barter and exchange; the other was full of speculators, calculating rates of interest and discount, and contracting with princes for the conduct of expensive wars. The mercantile character of these Italian republics is so essential to their history that it will not be out of place to enlarge a little on the topic. We have seen that the Florentines rendered commerce a condition of burghership. Giannotti, writing the life of one of the chief patriots of the republic,[1] says: 'Egli stette a bottega, come fanno la maggior parte de' nostri, cosi nobili come ignobili.' To quote instances in a matter so clear and obvious would be superfluous: else I might show how Bardi and Peruzzi, Strozzi, Medici, Pitti, and Pazzi, while they ranked with princes at the Courts of France, or Rome, or Naples, were money-lenders, mortgagees and bill-discounters in every great city of Europe. The Palle of the Medici, which emboss the gorgeous ceilings of the Cathedral of Pisa, still swing above the pawnbroker's shop in London. And though great families like the Rothschilds in the most recent days have successfully asserted the aristocracy of wealth acquired by usury, it still remains a surprising fact that the daughter of the mediæval bankers should have given a monarch to the French in the sixteenth century.

[1] Sulle azioni del Ferruccio, vol. i. p. 44. The report of Marco Foscari on the state of Florence, already quoted more than once, contains a curious aristocratic comment upon the shop-life of illustrious Florentine citizens. See Appendix ii. Even Piero de' Medici refused a Neapolitan fief on the ground that he was a tradesman.

A very lively picture of the modes of life and the habits of mind peculiar to the Italian burgher may be gained by the perusal of Agnolo Pandolfini's treatise, Del Governo della Famiglia. This essay should be read side by side with Castiglione's Cortegiano, by all who wish to understand the private life of the Italians in the age of the Renaissance.[1] Pandolfini lived at the time of the war of Florence with Filippo Visconti the exile, and the return of Cosimo de' Medici. He was employed by the republic on important missions, and his substance was so great that, on occasion of extraordinary aids, his contributions stood third or fourth upon the list. In the Councils of the Republic he always advocated peace, and in particular he spoke against Impresa di Lucca. As age advanced, he retired from public affairs, and devoted himself to study, religious exercises, and country excursions. He possessed a beautiful villa at Signa, notable for the splendor of its maintenance in all points which befit a gentleman. There he had the honor on various occasions of entertaining Pope Eugenius, King Réné, Francesco Sforza, and the Marchese Piccinino. His sons lived with him, and spent much of their spare time in hawking and the chase. They were three, Carlo, who rose to great dignity in the republic, Giannozzo, still more eminent as a public man, and Pandolfo, who died young. His wife, one of the Strozzi, died while Agnolo was between thirty and forty; but he never married again. He was a great friend of Lionardo Aretino, who published nothing without his approval. He lived to be upwards of eighty-five, and died in 1446. These facts sufficiently indicate what sort of man was the supposed author of the "Essay on the Family," proving, as they do, that he passed his leisure among princes and scholars, and that he played some part in the public affairs of the State of Florence. Yet his view of human life is wholly bourgeois, though by no means ignoble. In his conception, the first of all virtues is thrift, which should regulate the use not only of money, but of all the gifts of nature and of fortune. The proper economy of the mind involves liberal studies, courteous manners, honest conduct, and religion.[2] The right use of the body implies keeping it in good health by continence, exercise and diet.[3] The thrift of time consists in being never idle. Agnolo's sons, who are represented as talking with their father in this dialogue, ask him, in relation to the gifts of fortune, whether he thinks the honors of the State desirable. This question introduces a long and vehement invective against the life of a professional statesman, as of necessity fraudulent, mendacious, egotistic, cruel.[4] The private man of middle station is really happiest; and only a sense of patriotism should induce him, not seeking but when sought, to serve the State in public office. The really dear possessions of a man are his family, his wealth, his good repute, and his friendships. In order to be successful in the conduct of the family, a man must choose a large and healthy house, where the whole of his offspring—children and grandchildren, may live together. He must own an estate which will supply him with corn, wine, oil, wood, fowls, in fact with all the necessaries of life, so that he may not need to buy much. The main food of the family will be bread and wine. The discussion of the utility of the farm leads Agnolo to praise the pleasure and profit to be derived from life in the Villa. But at the same time a town-house has to be maintained; and it is here that the sons of the family should be educated, so that they may learn caution, and avoid vice by knowing its ugliness. In order to meet expenses, some trade must be followed, silk or wool manufacture being preferred; and in this the whole family should join, the head distributing work of various kinds to his children, as he deems most fitting, and always employing them rather than strangers. Thus we get the three great elements of the Florentine citizen's life: the casa, or town-house, the villa, or country-farm, and the bottega, or place of business. What follows is principally concerned with the details of economy. Expenses are of two sorts: necessary, for the repair of the house, the maintenance of the farm, the stocking of the shop; and unnecessary, for plate, house decoration, horses, grand clothes, entertainments. On this topic Agnolo inveighs with severity against household parasites, bravi, and dissolute dependents.[5] A little further on he indulges in another diatribe against great nobles, i signori, from whom he would have his sons keep clear at any cost.[6] It is the animosity of the industrious burgher for the haughty, pleasure-loving, idle, careless man of blood and high estate. In the bourgeois household described by Pandolfini no one can be indolent. The men have to work outside and collect wealth, the women to stay at home and preserve it. The character of a good housewife is sketched very minutely. Pandolfini describes how, when he was first married, he took his wife over the house, and gave up to her care all its contents. Then he went into their bedroom, and made her kneel with him before Madonna, and prayed God to give them wealth, friends, and male children. After that he told her that honesty would be her great charm in his eyes, as well as her chief virtue, and advised her to forego the use of paints and cosmetics. Much sound advice follows as to the respective positions of the master and the mistress in the household, the superintendence of domestics, and the right ordering of the most insignificant matters. The quality of the dress which will beseem the children of an honored citizen on various occasions, the pocket money of the boys, the food of the common table, are all discussed with some minuteness: and the wife is made to feel that she must learn to be neither jealous nor curious about concerns which her husband finds it expedient to keep private.

[1] I ought to state that Pandolfini is at least a century earlier in date than Casliglione, and that he represents a more primitive condition of society. The facts I have mentioned about his life are given on the authority of Vespasiano da Bisticci. The references are made to the Milanese edition of 1802. It must also be added that there are strong reasons for assigning the treatise in question to Leo Battista Alberti. As it professes, however, to give a picture of Pandolfini's family, I have adhered to the old title. But the whole question of the authorship of the Famiglia will be fully discussed in the last section of my book, which deals with Italian literature. Personally. I accept the theory of Alberti's authorship.

[2] A beautiful description of the religious temper, p. 74.

[3] What Pandolfini says about the beauty of the body is worthy of a Greek: what he says about exercise might have been written by an Englishman, p. 77.

[4] Pp. 82-89 are very important as showing how low the art of politics had sunk in Italy.

[5] P. 125.

[6] P. 175.

The charm of a treatise like that of Pandolfini on the family evaporates as soon as we try to make a summary of its contents. Enough, however, has been quoted to show the thoroughly bourgeois tone which prevailed among the citizens of Florence in the fifteenth century.[1] Very important results were the natural issue of this commercial spirit in the State. Talking of the Ordinanze di Giustizia, Varchi observes: 'While they removed in part the civil discords of Florence, they almost entirely extinguished all nobility of feeling in the Florentines, and tended as much to diminish the power and haughtiness of the city as to abate the insolence of the patriciate.'[2] A little further on he says: 'Hence may all prudent men see how ill-ordered in all things, save only in the Grand Council, has been the commonwealth of Florence; seeing that, to speak of nought else, that kind of men who in a wisely constituted republic ought not to fulfill any magistracy whatever, the merchants and artisans of all sorts, are in Florence alone capable of taking office, to the exclusion of all others.' Machiavelli, less wordy but far more emphatic than Varchi, says of the same revolution: 'This caused the abandonment by Florence not only of arms, but of all nobility of soul.'[3] The most notable consequence of the mercantile temper of the republics was the ruinous system of mercenary warfare, with all its attendant evils of ambitious captains of adventure, irresponsible soldiery, and mock campaigns, adopted by the free Italian States. It is true that even if the Italians had maintained their national militias in full force, they might not have been able to resist the shock of France and Spain any better than the armies of Thebes, Sparta, and Athens averted the Macedonian hegemony. But they would at least have run a better chance, and not perhaps have perished so ignobly through the treason of an Alfonso d'Este (1527), of a Marquis of Pescara (1525), of a Duke of Urbino (1527), and of a Malatesta Baglioni (1530).[4] Machiavelli, in a weighty passage at the end of the first book of his Florentine History, sums up the various causes which contributed to the disuse of national arms among the Italians of the Renaissance. The fear of the despot for his subjects, the priest-rule of the Church, the jealousy of Venice for her own nobles, and the commercial sluggishness of the Florentine burghers, caused each and all of these powers, otherwise so different, to intrust their armies to paid captains. 'Di questi adunque oziosi principi e di queste vilissime armi sarà piena la mia istoria,' is the contemptuous phrase with which he winds up his analysis.[5]

[1] Varchi (book x. cap. 69) quotes a Florentine proverb: 'Chiunque non sta a bottega è ladro.' See above, p. 239.

[2] Varchi, vol. i. p. 168; compare vol. ii. p. 87, however.

[3] Ist. Fior. lib. ii. end. Aristotle's contempt for the [Greek: technitai] emerges in these comments of the doctrinaires.

[4] To multiply the instances of fraud and treason on the part of Italian condottieri would be easy. I have only mentioned the notable examples which fall within a critical period of five years. The Marquis of Pescara betrayed to Charles V. the league for the liberation of Italy, which he had joined at Milan. The Duke of Ferrara received and victualed Bourbon's (then Frundsberg's) army on its way to sack Rome, because he spited the Pope, and wanted to seize Modena for himself. The Duke of Urbino, wishing to punish Clement VII. for personal injuries, omitted to relieve Rome when it was being plundered by the Lutherans, though he held the commission of the Italian League. Malatesta Baglioni sold Florence, which he had undertaken to defend, to the Imperial army under the Prince of Orange.

[5] 'With the records of these indolent princes and most abject armaments, my history will, therefore, be filled.' Compare the following passage in a letter from Machiavelli to Francesco Guicciardini (Op. vol. x. p. 255): 'Comincio ora a scrivere di nuovo, e mi sfogo accusando i principi, che hanno fatto ogni cosa per condurci qui.'