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54199	----	FLORENCE A SKETCH-BOOK BY Fred Richards. ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, LONDON, W. 1914 1 'PONTE VECCHIO' FROM THE LUNGARNO ACCIAJOLI (title page) 2 VIA STROZZI 3 THE BRIDGE CONNECTING THE UFFIZI and PALAZZO VECCHIO 4 PIAZZA d SIGNORIA 5 "STATUE OF JUSTICE" FROM THE VIA DELLE TERME 6 "THE DUOMO" santa maria del fiore AND " THE CAMPANILE" 7 A CORNER OF THE DUOMO. 8 "CAPP'le MEDICEE." S. LORENZO. 9 PIAZZA S. FIRENZE. 10 IN THE "BOBOLI" GARDEN. 11 STEPS LEADING TO THE PITTI PALACE--BOBOLI GARDENS. 12 THE JEWELLERS' SHOPS ON THE PONTE VECCHIO. 13 AFTERNOON ON THE PONTE VECCHIO. 14 OLD HOUSES ON THE ARNO 15 THE LEFT BANK OF THE ARNO--from the PONTE VECCHIO. 16 THE BACK OF BORGO S. JACOPO--ON THE ARNO. 17 "PONTE S. TRINITA" from VIA TORNABUONI. 18 PIAZZA d S.S. ANNUNZIATA. 19 CAPPELLA DEI PAZZI (santa croce) 20 PORTA ROMANA. 21 "FLORENCE" FROM BELLOSQUARDA. 22 "CERTOSA". 23 AT FIESOLE. 24 "FIESOLE" FROM THE GARDINI PUBBLICI. [Illustration: PONTE VECCHIO FROM THE LUNGARNO ACCIAJOLI (title page)] [Illustration: VIA STROZZI "L'ANTICO CENTRO DELLA CITA DA SECOLARE SQUALLORE A VITA NUOVA RESTITUTTO"] [Illustration: THE BRIDGE CONNECTING THE UFFIZI and PALAZZO VECCHIO FROM THE LOGGIA DEI LANZI.] [Illustration: PIAZZA d'SIGNORIA FROM THE LOGGIA DEI LANZI.] [Illustration: STATUE OF JUSTICE FROM THE VIA DELLE TERME FROM THE VIA DELLE TERME] [Illustration: THE DUOMO santa maria del fiore AND THE CAMPANILE] [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE DUOMO.] [Illustration: CAPP'le MEDICEE. S. LORENZO.] [Illustration: PIAZZA S. FIRENZE.] [Illustration: IN THE BOBOLI GARDEN.] [Illustration: STEPS LEADING TO THE PITTI PALACE--BOBOLI GARDENS.] [Illustration: THE JEWELLERS' SHOPS ON THE PONTE VECCHIO.] [Illustration: AFTERNOON ON THE PONTE VECCHIO.] [Illustration: OLD HOUSES ON THE ARNO] [Illustration: THE LEFT BANK OF THE ARNO--from the PONTE VECCHIO.] [Illustration: THE BACK OF BORGO S. JACOPO--ON THE ARNO.] [Illustration: PONTE S. TRINITA from VIA TORNABUONI.] [Illustration: PIAZZA d S.S. ANNUNZIATA.] [Illustration: CAPPELLA DEI PAZZI (santa croce) [Illustration: PORTA ROMANA.] [Illustration: FLORENCE FROM BELLOSQUARDA.] [Illustration: CERTOSA DI VAL D'EMA.] [Illustration: AT FIESOLE.] [Illustration: FIESOLE FROM THE GARDINI PUBBLICI 
2363	----	Transcribed from the text of the first edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk INCOGNITA: OR, LOVE AND DUTY RECONCIL'D A NOVEL by William Congreve TO THE Honoured and Worthily Esteem'd Mrs. _Katharine Leveson_. _Madam_, A Clear Wit, sound Judgment and a Merciful Disposition, are things so rarely united, that it is almost inexcusable to entertain them with any thing less excellent in its kind. My knowledge of you were a sufficient Caution to me, to avoid your Censure of this Trifle, had I not as intire a knowledge of your Goodness. Since I have drawn my Pen for a Rencounter, I think it better to engage where, though there be Skill enough to Disarm me, there is too much Generosity to Wound; for so shall I have the saving Reputation of an unsuccessful Courage, if I cannot make it a drawn Battle. But methinks the Comparison intimates something of a Defiance, and savours of Arrogance; wherefore since I am Conscious to my self of a Fear which I cannot put off, let me use the Policy of Cowards and lay this Novel unarm'd, naked and shivering at your Feet, so that if it should want Merit to challenge Protection, yet, as an Object of Charity, it may move Compassion. It has been some Diversion to me to Write it, I wish it may prove such to you when you have an hour to throw away in Reading of it: but this Satisfaction I have at least beforehand, that in its greatest failings it may fly for Pardon to that Indulgence which you owe to the weakness of your Friend; a Title which I am proud you have thought me worthy of, and which I think can alone be superior to that _Your most Humble and_ _Obliged Servant_ CLEOPHIL. THE PREFACE TO THE READER. Reader, Some Authors are so fond of a Preface, that they will write one tho' there be nothing more in it than an Apology for its self. But to show thee that I am not one of those, I will make no Apology for this, but do tell thee that I think it necessary to be prefix'd to this Trifle, to prevent thy overlooking some little pains which I have taken in the Composition of the following Story. Romances are generally composed of the Constant Loves and invincible Courages of Hero's, Heroins, Kings and Queens, Mortals of the first Rank, and so forth; where lofty Language, miraculous Contingencies and impossible Performances, elevate and surprize the Reader into a giddy Delight, which leaves him flat upon the Ground whenever he gives of, and vexes him to think how he has suffer'd himself to be pleased and transported, concern'd and afflicted at the several Passages which he has Read, viz. these Knights Success to their Damosels Misfortunes, and such like, when he is forced to be very well convinced that 'tis all a lye. Novels are of a more familiar nature; Come near us, and represent to us Intrigues in practice, delight us with Accidents and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or unpresidented, such which not being so distant from our Belief bring also the pleasure nearer us. Romances give more of Wonder, Novels more Delight. And with reverence be it spoken, and the Parallel kept at due distance, there is something of equality in the Proportion which they bear in reference to one another, with that betwen Comedy and Tragedy; but the Drama is the long extracted from Romance and History: 'tis the Midwife to Industry, and brings forth alive the Conceptions of the Brain. Minerva walks upon the Stage before us, and we are more assured of the real presence of Wit when it is delivered viva voce-- Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, & quae Ipse sibi tradit spectator.--Horace. Since all Traditions must indisputably give place to the Drama, and since there is no possibility of giving that life to the Writing or Repetition of a Story which it has in the Action, I resolved in another beauty to imitate Dramatick Writing, namely, in the Design, Contexture and Result of the Plot. I have not observed it before in a Novel. Some I have seen begin with an unexpected accident, which has been the only surprizing part of the Story, cause enough to make the Sequel look flat, tedious and insipid; for 'tis but reasonable the Reader should expect it not to rise, at least to keep upon a level in the entertainment; for so he may be kept on in hopes that at some time or other it may mend; but the 'tother is such a balk to a Man, 'tis carrying him up stairs to show him the Dining- Room, and after forcing him to make a Meal in the Kitchin. This I have not only endeavoured to avoid, but also have used a method for the contrary purpose. The design of the Novel is obvious, after the first meeting of Aurelian and Hippolito with Incognita and Leonora, and the difficulty is in bringing it to pass, maugre all apparent obstacles, within the compass of two days. How many probable Casualties intervene in opposition to the main Design, viz. of marrying two Couple so oddly engaged in an intricate Amour, I leave the Reader at his leisure to consider: As also whether every Obstacle does not in the progress of the Story act as subservient to that purpose, which at first it seems to oppose. In a Comedy this would be called the Unity of Action; here it may pretend to no more than an Unity of Contrivance. The Scene is continued in Florence from the commencement of the Amour; and the time from first to last is but three days. If there be any thing more in particular resembling the Copy which I imitate (as the Curious Reader will soon perceive) I leave it to show it self, being very well satisfy'd how much more proper it had been for him to have found out this himself, than for me to prepossess him with an Opinion of something extraordinary in an Essay began and finished in the idler hours of a fortnight's time: for I can only esteem it a laborious idleness, which is Parent to so inconsiderable a Birth. I have gratified the Bookseller in pretending an occasion for a Preface; the other two Persons concern'd are the Reader and my self, and if he be but pleased with what was produced for that end, my satisfaction follows of course, since it will be proportion'd to his Approbation or Dislike. INCOGNITA: OR, Love & Duty RECONCIL'D Aurelian was the only Son to a Principal Gentleman of Florence. The Indulgence of his Father prompted, and his Wealth enabled him, to bestow a generous Education upon him, whom, he now began to look upon as the Type of himself; an Impression he had made in the Gayety and Vigour of his Youth, before the Rust of Age had debilitated and obscur'd the Splendour of the Original: He was sensible, That he ought not to be sparing in the Adornment of him, if he had Resolution to beautifie his own Memory. Indeed Don Fabio (for so was the Old Gentleman call'd) has been observ'd to have fix'd his Eyes upon Aurelian, when much Company has been at Table, and have wept through Earnestness of Intention, if nothing hapned to divert the Object; whether it were for regret, at the Recollection of his former self, or for the Joy he conceiv'd in being, as it were, reviv'd in the Person of his Son, I never took upon me to enquire, but suppos'd it might be sometimes one, and sometimes both together. Aurelian, at the Age of Eighteen Years, wanted nothing (but a Beard) that the most accomplished Cavalier in Florence could pretend to: he had been Educated from Twelve Years old at Siena, where it seems his Father kept a Receiver, having a large Income from the Rents of several Houses in that Town. Don Fabio gave his Servant Orders, That Aurelian should not be stinted in his Expences, when he came up to Years of Discretion. By which means he was enabled, not only to keep Company with, but also to confer many Obligations upon Strangers of Quality, and Gentlemen who travelled from other Countries into Italy, of which Siena never wanted store, being a Town most delightfully Situate, upon a Noble Hill, and very well suiting with Strangers at first, by reason of the agreeableness and purity of the Air: There also is the quaintness and delicacy of the Italian Tongue most likely to be learned, there being many publick Professors of it in that place; and indeed the very Vulgar of Siena do express themselves with an easiness and sweetness surprizing, and even grateful to their Ears who understand not the Language. Here Aurelian contracted an acquaintance with Persons of Worth of several Countries, but among the rest an intimacy with a Gentleman of Quality of Spain, and Nephew to the Archbishop of Toledo, who had so wrought himself into the Affections of Aurelian, through a Conformity of Temper, an Equality in Years, and something of resemblance in Feature and Proportion, that he look'd upon him as his second self. Hippolito, on the other hand, was not ungrateful in return of Friendship, but thought himself either alone or in ill Company, if Aurelian were absent: but his Uncle having sent him to travel, under the Conduct of a Governour, and the two Years which limited his stay at Siena being expired, he was put in mind of his departure. His Friend grew melancholy at the News, but considering that Hippolito had never seen Florence, he easily prevailed with him to make his first journey thither, whither he would accompany him, and perhaps prevail with his Father to do the like throughout his Travels. They accordingly set out, but not being able easily to reach Florence the same Night, they rested a League or two short, at a Villa of the great Duke's called Poggio Imperiale, where they were informed by some of his Highness's Servants, That the Nuptials of Donna Catharina (near Kinswoman to the great Duke) and Don Ferdinand de Rovori, were to be solemnized the next day, and that extraordinary Preparations had been making for some time past, to illustrate the Solemnity with Balls and Masques, and other Divertisements; that a Tilting had been proclaimed, and to that purpose Scaffolds erected around the Spacious Court, before the Church Di Santa Croce, where were usually seen all Cavalcades and Shews, performed by Assemblies of the Young Nobility: That all Mechanicks and Tradesmen were forbidden to work or expose any Goods to Sale for the space of three days; during which time all Persons should be entertain'd at the Great Duke's Cost; and publick Provision was to be made for the setting forth and furnishing a multitude of Tables, with Entertainment for all Comers and Goers, and several Houses appointed for that use in all Streets. This Account alarm'd the Spirits of our Young Travellers, and they were overjoy'd at the prospect of Pleasures they foresaw. Aurelian could not contain the satisfaction he conceiv'd in the welcome Fortune had prepar'd for his dear Hippolito. In short, they both remembred so much of the pleasing Relation had been made them, that they forgot to sleep, and were up as soon as it was light, pounding at poor Signior Claudio's Door (so was Hippolito's Governour call'd) to rouse him, that no time might be lost till they were arriv'd at Florence, where they would furnish themselves with Disguises and other Accoutrements necessary for the Prosecution of their Design of sharing in the publick Merriment; the rather were they for going so early because Aurelian did not think fit to publish his being in Town for a time, least his Father knowing of it, might give some restraint to that loose they designed themselves. Before Sun rise they entred Florence at Porta Romana, attended only by two Servants, the rest being left behind to avoid notice; but, alas! they needed not to have used half that caution; for early as it was, the Streets were crowded with all sorts of People passing to and fro, and every Man employ'd in something relating to the Diversions to come; so that no notice was taken of any body; a Marquess and his Train might have pass'd by as unregarded as a single Fachin or Cobler. Not a Window in the Streets but echoed the tuning of a Lute or thrumming of a Gitarr: for, by the way, the Inhabitants of Florence are strangely addicted to the love of Musick, insomuch that scarce their Children can go, before they can scratch some Instrument or other. It was no unpleasing Spectacle to our Cavaliers (who, seeing they were not observ'd, resolved to make Observations) to behold the Diversity of Figures and Postures of many of these Musicians. Here you should have an affected Vallet, who Mimick'd the Behaviour of his Master, leaning carelessly against the Window, with his Head on one side, in a languishing Posture, whining, in a low, mournful Voice, some dismal Complaint; while, from his sympathizing Theorbo, issued a Base no less doleful to the Hearers. In Opposition to him was set up perhaps a Cobler, with the wretched Skeleton of a Gitarr, battered and waxed together by his own Industry, and who with three Strings out of Tune, and his own tearing hoarse Voice, would rack attention from the Neighbourhood, to the great affliction of many more moderate Practitioners, who, no doubt, were full as desirous to be heard. By this time Aurelian's Servant had taken a Lodging and was returned, to give his Master an Account of it. The Cavaliers grown weary of that ridiculous Entertainment, which was diverting at first sight, retired whither the Lacquey conducted them; who, according to their Directions, had sought out one of the most obscure Streets in the City. All that day, to the evening, was spent in sending from one Brokers Shop to another, to furnish them with Habits, since they had not time to make any new. There was, it happened, but one to be got Rich enough to please our young Gentlemen, so many were taken up upon this occasion. While they were in Dispute and Complementing one another, (Aurelian protesting that Hippolito should wear it, and he, on 'tother hand, forswearing it as bitterly) a Servant of Hippolito's came up and ended the Controversie; telling them, That he had met below with the Vallet de Chambre of a Gentleman, who was one of the greatest Gallants about the Town, but was at this time in such a condition he could not possibly be at the Entertainment; whereupon the Vallet had designed to dress himself up in his Master's Apparel, and try his talent at Court; which he hearing, told him he would inform him how he might bestow the Habit for some time much more to his profit if not to his pleasure, so acquainted him with the occasion his Master had for it. Hippolito sent for the Fellow up, who was not so fond of his design as not to be bought off it, but upon having his own demand granted for the use of it, brought it; it was very Rich, and upon tryal, as fit for Hippolito as if it had been made for him. The Ceremony was performed in the Morning, in the great Dome, with all magnificence correspondent to the wealth of the great Duke, and the esteem he had for the Noble Pair. The next Morning was to be a Tilting, and the same Night a Masquing Ball at Court. To omit the Description of the universal Joy, (that had diffus'd it self through all the Conduits of Wine, which convey'd it in large measures to the People) and only relate those effects of it which concern our present Adventurers. You must know, that about the fall of the Evening, and at that time when the _aequilibrium_ of Day and Night, for some time, holds the Air in a gloomy suspence between an unwillingness to leave the light, and a natural impulse into the Dominion of darkness, about this time our Hero's, shall I say, sally'd or slunk out of their Lodgings, and steer'd toward the great Palace, whither, before they were arrived, such a prodigious number of Torches were on fire, that the day, by help of these Auxiliary Forces, seem'd to continue its Dominion; the Owls and Bats apprehending their mistake, in counting the hours, retir'd again to a convenient darkness; for Madam Night was no more to be seen than she was to be heard; and the Chymists were of Opinion, That her fuliginous Damps, rarefy'd by the abundance of Flame, were evaporated. Now the Reader I suppose to be upon Thorns at this and the like impertinent Digressions, but let him alone and he'll come to himself; at which time I think fit to acquaint him, that when I digress, I am at that time writing to please my self, when I continue the Thread of the Story, I write to please him; supposing him a reasonable Man, I conclude him satisfied to allow me this liberty, and so I proceed. If our Cavaliers were dazled at the splendour they beheld without doors, what surprize, think you, must they be in, when entering the Palace they found even the lights there to be but so many foils to the bright eyes that flash'd upon 'em at every turn. A more glorious Troop no occasion ever assembled; all the fair of Florence, with the most accomplished Cavaliers, were present; and however Nature had been partial in bestowing on some better Faces than others, Art was alike indulgent to all, and industriously supplyed those Defects she had left, giving some Addition also to her greatest Excellencies. Every body appear'd well shap'd, as it is to be suppos'd, none who were conscious to themselves of any visible Deformity would presume to come thither. Their Apparel was equally glorious, though each differing in fancy. In short, our Strangers were so well bred, as to conclude from these apparent Perfections, that there was not a Masque which did not at least hide the Face of a Cherubim. Perhaps the Ladies were not behind hand in return of a favourable Opinion of them: for they were both well dress'd, and had something inexpressibly pleasing in their Air and Mien, different from other People, and indeed differing from one another. They fansy'd that while they stood together they were more particularly taken notice of than any in the Room, and being unwilling to be taken for Strangers, which they thought they were, by reason of some whispering they observed near them, they agreed upon an hour of meeting after the company should be broke up, and so separately mingled with the thickest of the Assembly. Aurelian had fixed his eye upon a Lady whom he had observ'd to have been a considerable time in close whisper with another Woman; he expected with great impatience the result of that private Conference, that he might have an opportunity of engaging the Lady whose Person was so agreeable to him. At last he perceived they were broke off, and the 'tother Lady seem'd to have taken her leave. He had taken no small pains in the mean time to put himself in a posture to accost the Lady, which, no doubt, he had happily performed had he not been interrupted; but scarce had he acquitted himself of a preliminary bow (and which, I have heard him say, was the lowest that ever he made) and had just opened his Lips to deliver himself of a small Complement, which, nevertheless he was very big with, when he unluckily miscarried, by the interposal of the same Lady, whose departure, not long before, he had so zealously pray'd for: but, as Providence would have it, there was only some very small matter forgot, which was recovered in a short whisper. The Coast being again cleared, he took heart and bore up, and, striking sail, repeated his Ceremony to the Lady; who, having Obligingly returned it, he accosted her in these or the like words: 'If I do not usurp a priviledge reserved for some one more happy in your acquaintance, may I presume, Madam, to entreat (for a while) the favour of your Conversation, at least till the arrival of whom you expect, provided you are not tired of me before; for then upon the least intimation of uneasiness, I will not fail of doing my self the violence to withdraw for your release. The Lady made him answer, she did not expect any body; by which he might imagine her Conversation not of value to be bespoke, and to afford it him, were but farther to convince him to her own cost. He reply'd, 'She had already said enough to convince him of something he heartily wished might not be to his cost in the end. She pretended not to understand him; but told him, 'If he already found himself grieved with her Conversation, he would have sufficient reason to repent the rashness of his first Demand before they had ended: for that now she intended to hold discourse with him, on purpose to punish his unadvisedness, in presuming upon a Person whose dress and mien might not (may be) be disagreeable to have wit. 'I must confess (reply'd Aurelian) my self guilty of a Presumption, and willingly submit to the punishment you intend: and though it be an aggravation of a Crime to persevere in its justification, yet I cannot help defending an Opinion in which now I am more confirm'd, that probable conjectures may be made of the ingenious Disposition of the Mind, from the fancy and choice of Apparel. The humour I grant ye (said the Lady) or constitution of the Person whether melancholick or brisk; but I should hardly pass my censure upon so slight an indication of wit: for there is your brisk fool as well as your brisk man of sense, and so of the melancholick. I confess 'tis possible a fool may reveal himself by his Dress, in wearing something extravagantly singular and ridiculous, or in preposterous suiting of colours; but a decency of Habit (which is all that Men of best sense pretend to) may be acquired by custom and example, without putting the Person to a superfluous expence of wit for the contrivance; and though there should be occasion for it, few are so unfortunate in their Relations and Acquaintance not to have some Friend capable of giving them advice, if they are not too ignorantly conceited to ask it. Aurelian was so pleased with the easiness and smartness of her Expostulation, that he forgot to make a reply, when she seem'd to expect it; but being a Woman of a quick Apprehension, and justly sensible of her own perfections, she soon perceived he did not grudge his attention. However she had a mind to put it upon him to turn the discourse, so went on upon the same Subject. 'Signior (said she) I have been looking round me, and by your Maxim I cannot discover one fool in the Company; for they are all well drest. This was spoken with an Air of Rallery that awakened the Cavalier, who immediately made answer: 'Tis true, Madam, we see there may be as much variety of good fancies as of faces, yet there may be many of both kinds borrowed and adulterate if inquired into; and as you were pleased to observe, the invention may be Foreign to the Person who puts it in practice; and as good an Opinion as I have of an agreeable Dress, I should be loth to answer for the wit of all about us. I believe you (says the Lady) and hope you are convinced of your error, since you must allow it impossible to tell who of all this Assembly did or did not make choice of their own Apparel. Not all (said Aurelian) there is an ungainness in some which betrays them. 'Look ye there (says he) pointing to a Lady who stood playing with the Tassels of her Girdle, I dare answer for that Lady, though she be very well dress'd, 'tis more than she knows. His fair unknown could not forbear laughing at his particular distinction, and freely told him, he had indeed light upon one who knew as little as any body in the Room, her self excepted. Ah! Madam, (reply'd Aurelian) you know every thing in the World but your own Perfections, and you only know not those because 'tis the top of Perfection not to know them. How? (reply'd the Lady) I thought it had been the extremity of knowledge to know ones self. Aurelian had a little over-strain'd himself in that Complement, and I am of Opinion would have been puzzl'd to have brought himself off readily: but by good fortune the Musick came into the Room and gave him an opportunity to seem to decline an answer, because the company prepared to dance: he only told her he was too mean a Conquest for her wit who was already a Slave to the Charms of her Person. She thanked him for his Complement, and briskly told him she ought to have made him a return in praise of his wit, but she hoped he was a Man more happy than to be dissatisfy'd with any of his own Endowments; and if it were so, that he had not a just Opinion of himself, she knew her self incapable of saying any thing to beget one. Aurelian did not know well what to make of this last reply; for he always abhor'd any thing that was conceited, with which this seem'd to reproach him. But however modest he had been heretofore in his own thoughts, yet never was he so distrustful of his good behaviour as now, being rally'd so by a Person whom he took to be of judgment: Yet he resolved to take no notice, but with an Air unconcerned and full of good humour entreated her to Dance with him: She promised him to Dance with no body else, nor I believe had she inclination; for notwithstanding her tartness, she was upon equal terms with him as to the liking of each others Person and Humour, and only gave those little hints to try his Temper; there being certainly no greater sign of folly and ill breeding, than to grow serious and concerned at any thing spoken in rallery: for his part, he was strangely and insensibly fallen in love with her Shape, Wit and Air; which, together with a white Hand, he had seen (perhaps not accidentally) were enough to have subdued a more stubborn Heart than ever he was master of; and for her Face, which he had not seen, he bestowed upon her the best his Imagination could furnish him with. I should by right now describe her Dress, which was extreamly agreeable and rich, but 'tis possible I might err in some material Pin or other, in the sticking of which may be the whole grace of the Drapery depended. Well, they danced several times together, and no less to the satisfaction of the whole Company, than of themselves; for at the end of each Dance, some publick note of Applause or other was given to the graceful Couple. Aurelian was amaz'd, that among all that danced or stood in view he could not see Hippolito; but concluding that he had met with some pleasing Conversation, and was withdrawn to some retired part of the Room, he forbore his search till the mirth of that Night should be over, and the Company ready to break up, where we will leave him for a while, to see what became of his adventurous Friend. Hippolito, a little after he had parted with Aurelian, was got among a knot of Ladies and Cavaliers, who were looking upon a large Gold Cup set with Jewels, in which his Royal Highness had drank to the prosperity of the new married Couple at Dinner, and which afterward he presented to his Cousin Donna Catharina. He among the rest was very intent, admiring the richness, workmanship and beauty of the Cup, when a Lady came behind him and pulling him by the Elbow, made a sign she would speak with him; Hippolito, who knew himself an utter Stranger to Florence and every body in it, immediately guessed she had mistaken him for her acquaintance, as indeed it happened; however he resolved not to discover himself till he should be assured of it; having followed her into a set Window remote from Company, she address'd her self to him in this manner: 'Signior Don Lorenzo (said she) I am overjoy'd to see you are so speedily recovered of your Wounds, which by report were much more dangerous than to have suffered your coming abroad so soon; but I must accuse you of great indiscretion, in appearing in a Habit which so many must needs remember you to have worn upon the like occasion not long ago, I mean at the Marriage of Don Cynthio with your Sister Atalanta; I do assure you, you were known by it, both to Juliana and my self, who was so far concerned for you, as to desire me to tell you, that her Brother Don Fabritio (who saw you when you came in with another Gentleman) had eyed you very narrowly, and is since gone out of the Room, she knows not upon what design; however she would have you, for your own sake, be advised and circumspect when you depart this place, lest you should be set upon unawares; you know the hatred Don Fabritio has born you ever since you had the fortune to kill his Kinsman in a Duel: Here she paused as if expecting his reply; but Hippolito was so confounded, that he stood mute, and contemplating the hazard he had ignorantly brought himself into, forgot his design of informing the Lady of her mistake. She finding he made her no Answer, went on. 'I perceive (continued she) you are in some surprize at what I have related, and may be, are doubtful of the Truth; but I thought you had been better acquainted with your Cousin Leonora's Voice, than to have forgot it so soon: Yet in Complaisance to your ill Memory, I will put you past doubt, by shewing you my Face; with that she pulled off her Mask, and discovered to Hippolito (now more amaz'd than ever) the most Angelick Face that he had ever beheld. He was just about to have made her some answer, when, clapping on her Mask again without giving him time, she happily for him pursu'd her Discourse. (For 'tis odds but he had made some discovery of himself in the surprize he was in.) Having taken him familiarly by the Hand, now she had made her self known to him, 'Cousin Lorenzo (added she) you may perhaps have taken it unkindly, that, during the time of your indisposition by reason of your Wounds, I have not been to visit you; I do assure you it was not for want of any Inclination I had both to see and serve you to my power; but you are well acquainted with the Severity of my Father, whom you know how lately you have disobliged. I am mighty glad that I have met with you here, where I have had an Opportunity to tell you what so much concerns your Safety, which I am afraid you will not find in Florence; considering the great Power Don Fabritio and his Father, the Marquess of Viterbo, have in this City. I have another thing to inform you of, That whereas Don Fabio had interested himself in your Cause, in Opposition to the Marquess of Viterbo, by reason of the long Animosity between them, all hopes of his Countenance and Assistance are defeated: For there has been a Proposal of Reconciliation made to both Houses, and it is said it will be confirm'd (as most such ancient Quarrels are at last) by the Marriage of Juliana the Marquess's Daughter, with Aurelian, Son to Don Fabio: to which effect the old Gentleman sent 'tother Day to Siena, where Aurelian has been Educated, to hasten his coming to Town; but the Messenger returning this Morning, brought word, That the same day he arriv'd at Siena, Aurelian had set out for Florence, in Company with a young Spanish Nobleman, his intimate Friend; so it is believ'd, they are both in Town, and not unlikely in this Room in Masquerade. Hippolito could not forbear smiling to himself, at these last words. For ever since the naming of Don Fabio he had been very attentive; but before, his Thoughts were wholly taken up with the Beauty of the Face he had seen, and from the time she had taken him by the Hand, a successive warmth and chillness had play'd about his Heart, and surpriz'd him with an unusual Transport. He was in a hundred Minds, whether he should make her sensible of her Error or no; but considering he could expect no farther Conference with her after he should discover himself, and that as yet he knew not of her place of abode, he resolv'd to humour the mistake a little further. Having her still by the Hand, which he squeez'd somewhat more eagerly than is usual for Cousins to do, in a low and undistinguishable Voice, he let her know how much he held himself obliged to her, and avoiding as many words as handsomely he could, at the same time, entreated her to give him her Advice, toward the management of himself in this Affair. Leonora, who never from the beginning had entertain'd the least Scruple of distrust, imagined he spoke faintly, as not being yet perfectly recovered in his strength; and withal considering that the heat of the Room, by reason of the Crowd, might be uneasie to a Person in his Condition; she kindly told him, That if he were as inclinable to dispense with the remainder of that Nights Diversion as she was, and had no other engagement upon him, by her consent they should both steal out of the Assembly, and go to her House, where they might with more freedom discourse about a business of that importance, and where he might take something to refresh himself if he were (as she conceiv'd him to be) indisposed with his long standing. Judge you whether the Proposal were acceptable to Hippolito or no; he had been ruminating with himself how to bring something like this about, and had almost despair'd of it; when of a suddain he found the success of his design had prevented his own endeavours. He told his Cousin in the same key as before, That he was unwilling to be the occasion of her Divorce from so much good Company; but for his own part, he was afraid he had presumed too much upon his recovery in coming abroad so soon, and that he found himself so unwell, he feared he should be quickly forc'd to retire. Leonora stay'd not to make him any other reply, only tipp'd him upon the Arm, and bid him follow her at a convenient distance to avoid Observation. Whoever had seen the Joy that was in Hippolito's Countenance, and the Sprightliness with which he follow'd his Beautiful Conductress, would scarce have taken him for a Person griev'd with uncured Wounds. She led him down a back pair of Stairs, into one of the Palace Gardens which had a Door opening into the Piazza, not far from where Don Mario her Father lived. They had little Discourse by the way, which gave Hippolito time to consider of the best way of discovering himself. A thousand things came into his Head in a minute, yet nothing that pleased him: and after so many Contrivances as he had formed for the discovery of himself, he found it more rational for him not to reveal himself at all that Night, since he could not foresee what effect the surprize would have, she must needs be in, at the appearance of a Stranger, whom she had never seen before, yet whom she had treated so familiarly. He knew Women were apt to shriek or swoon upon such Occasions, and should she happen to do either, he might be at a loss how to bring himself off. He thought he might easily pretend to be indisposed somewhat more than ordinary, and so make an excuse to go to his own Lodging. It came into his Head too, that under pretence of giving her an account of his Health, he might enquire of her the means how a Letter might be convey'd to her the next morning, wherein he might inform her gently of her mistake, and insinuate something of that Passion he had conceiv'd, which he was sure he could not have opportunity to speak of if he bluntly revealed himself. He had just resolv'd upon this Method, as they were come to the great Gates of the Court, when Leonora stopping to let him go in before her, he of a suddain fetch'd his Breath violently as if some stitch or twinging smart had just then assaulted him. She enquired the matter of him, and advised him to make haste into the House that he might sit down and rest him. He told her he found himself so ill, that he judged it more convenient for him to go home while he was in a condition to move, for he fear'd if he should once settle himself to rest he might not be able to stir. She was much troubled, and would have had a Chair made ready and Servants to carry him home; but he made answer, he would not have any of her Fathers Servants know of his being abroad, and that just now he had an interval of ease, which he hop'd would continue till he made a shift to reach his own Lodgings. Yet if she pleased to inform him how he might give an account of himself the next morning, in a line or two, he would not fail to give her the thanks due to her great kindness; and withal, would let her know something which would not a little surprize her, though now he had not time to acquaint her with it. She show'd him a little Window at the corner of the House, where one should wait to receive his Letter, and was just taking her leave of him, when seeing him search hastily in his Pocket, she ask'd him if he miss'd any thing; he told her he thought a Wound which was not throughly heal'd bled a little, and that he had lost his Handkerchief. His design took; for she immediately gave him hers: which indeed accordingly he apply'd to the only wound he was then griev'd with; which though it went quite through his Heart, yet thank God was not Mortal. He was not a little rejoyc'd at his good Fortune in getting so early a Favour from his Mistress, and notwithstanding the violence he did himself to personate a sick Man, he could not forbear giving some Symptoms of an extraordinary content; and telling her that he did not doubt to receive a considerable Proportion of ease from the Application of what had so often kiss'd her fair Hand. Leonora who did not suspect the Compliment, told him she should be heartily glad if that or any thing in her power might contribute to his recovery; and wishing him well home, went into her House, as much troubled for her Cousin as he was joyful for his Mistress. Hippolito as soon as she was gone in, began to make his Remarks about the House, walking round the great Court, viewing the Gardens and all the Passages leading to that side of the Piazza. Having sufficiently informed himself, with a Heart full of Love, and a Head full of Stratagem, he walked toward his Lodging, impatient till the arrival of Aurelian that he might give himself vent. In which interim, let me take the liberty to digress a little, and tell the Reader something which I do not doubt he has apprehended himself long ago, if he be not the dullest Reader in the World; yet only for orders sake, let me tell him I say, That a young Gentleman (Cousin to the aforesaid Don Fabritio) happened one night to have some words at a Gameing House with one Lorenzo, which created a Quarrel of fatal Consequence to the former, who was killed upon the Spot, and likely to be so to the latter, who was very desperately wounded. Fabritio being much concerned for his Kinsman, vow'd revenge (according to the ancient and laudable custom of Italy) upon Lorenzo if he surviv'd, or in case of his death (if it should happen to anticipate that, much more swinging Death which he had in store for him) upon his next of Kin, and so to descend Lineally like an English Estate, to all the Heirs Males of this Family. This same Fabritio had indeed (as Leonora told Hippolito) taken particular notice of him from his first entrance into the Room, and was so far doubtful as to go out immediately himself, and make enquiry concerning Lorenzo, but was quickly inform'd of the greatness of his Error, in believing a Man to be abroad, who was so ill of his Wounds, that they now despair'd of his recovery; and thereupon return'd to the Ball very well satisfied, but not before Leonora and Hippolito were departed. So, Reader, having now discharg'd my Conscience of a small Discovery which I thought my self obliged to make to Thee, I proceed to tell thee, that our Friend Aurelian had by this time danced himself into a Net which he neither could, nor which is worse desired to untangle. His Soul was charm'd to the movement of her Body: an Air so graceful, so sweet, so easie and so great, he had never seen. She had something of Majesty in her, which appear'd to be born with her; and though it struck an awe into the Beholders, yet was it sweetned with a familiarity of Behaviour, which rendred it agreeable to every Body. The grandeur of her Mien was not stiff, but unstudied and unforced, mixed with a simplicity; free, yet not loose nor affected. If the former seem'd to condescend, the latter seem'd to aspire; and both to unite in the centre of Perfection. Every turn she gave in dancing snatcht Aurelian into a Rapture, and he had like to have been out two or three times with following his Eyes, which she led about as Slaves to her Heels. As soon as they had done dancing, he began to complain of his want of Breath and Lungs, to speak sufficiently in her Commendation; She smilingly told him, he did ill to dance so much then: Yet in Consideration of the pains he had taken more than ordinary upon her account she would bate him a great deal of Complement, but with this Proviso, That he was to discover to her who he was. Aurelian was unwilling for the present to own himself to be really the Man he was; when a suddain thought came into his Head to take upon him the Name and Character of Hippolito, who he was sure was not known in Florence. He thereupon, after a little pause, pretended to recal himself in this manner: 'Madam, it is no small demonstration of the entire Resignation which I have made of my Heart to your Chains, since the secrets of it are no longer in my power. I confess I only took Florence in my way, not designing any longer Residence, than should be requisite to inform the Curiosity of a Traveller, of the rareties of the Place. Whether Happiness or Misery will be the Consequence of that Curiosity, I am yet in fear, and submit to your Determination; but sure I am, not to depart Florence till you have made me the most miserable Man in it, and refuse me the fatal Kindness of Dying at your Feet. I am by Birth a Spaniard, of the City of Toledo; my name Hippolito di Saviolina: I was yesterday a Man free, as Nature made the first; to day I am fallen into a Captivity, which must continue with my Life, and which, it is in your power, to make much dearer to me. Thus in obedience to your Commands, and contrary to my Resolution of remaining unknown in this place, I have inform'd you, Madam, what I am; what I shall be, I desire to know from you; at least, I hope, the free discovery I have made of my self, will encourage you to trust me with the knowledge of your Person. Here a low bow, and a deep sigh, put an end to his Discourse, and signified his Expectation of her Reply, which was to this purpose--(But I had forgot to tell you, That Aurelian kept off his Mask from the time that he told her he was of Spain, till the period of his Relation.) Had I thought (said she) that my Curiosity would have brought me in debt, I should certainly have forborn it; or at least have agreed with you before hand about the rate of your discovery, then I had not brought my self to the Inconveniency of being censur'd, either of too much easiness or reservedness; but to avoid, as much as I can, the extreamity of either, I am resolv'd but to discover my self in part, and will endeavour to give you as little occasion as I can, either to boast of, or ridicule the Behaviour of the Women of Florence in your Travels. Aurelian interrupted her, and swore very solemnly (and the more heartily, I believe, because he then indeed spoke truth) that he would make Florence the place of his abode, whatever concerns he had elsewhere. She advised him to be cautious how he swore to his Expressions of Gallantry; and farther told him she now hoped she should make him a return to all the Fine Things he had said, since she gave him his choice whether he would know who she was, or see her Face. Aurelian who was really in Love, and in whom Consideration would have been a Crime, greedily embrac'd the latter, since she assured him at that time he should not know both. Well, what follow'd? Why, she pull'd off her Mask, and appear'd to him at once in the Glory of Beauty. But who can tell the astonishment Aurelian felt? He was for a time senseless; Admiration had suppress'd his Speech, and his Eyes were entangled in Light. I short, to be made sensible of his condition, we must conceive some Idea of what he beheld, which is not to imagined till seen, nor then to be express'd. Now see the impertinence and conceitedness of an Author, who will have a fling at a Description, which he has Prefaced with an impossibility. One might have seen something in her Composition resembling the Formation of Epicurus his World, as if every Atome of Beauty had concurr'd to unite an excellency. Had that curious Painter lived in her days, he might have avoided his painful search, when he collected from the choicest pieces the most choice Features, and by a due Disposition and Judicious Symmetry of those exquisite parts, made one whole and perfect Venus. Nature seem'd here to have play'd the Plagiary, and to have molded into Substance the most refined Thoughts of inspired Poets. Her Eyes diffus'd Rays comfortable as warmth, and piercing as the light; they would have worked a passage through the straightest Pores, and with a delicious heat, have play'd about the most obdurate frozen Heart, untill 'twere melted down to Love. Such Majesty and Affability were in her Looks; so alluring, yet commanding was her Presence, that it minged awe with love; kindling a Flame which trembled to aspire. She had danced much, which, together with her being close masked, gave her a tincture of Carnation more than ordinary. But Aurelian (from whom I had every tittle of her Description) fancy'd he saw a little Nest of Cupids break from the Tresses of her Hair, and every one officiously betake himself to his task. Some fann'd with their downy Wings, her glowing Cheeks; while others brush'd the balmy Dew from off her Face, leaving alone a heavenly Moisture blubbing on her Lips, on which they drank and revell'd for their pains; Nay, so particular were their allotments in her service, that Aurelian was very positive a young Cupid who was but just Pen-feather'd, employ'd his naked Quills to pick her Teeth. And a thousand other things his transport represented to him, which none but Lovers who have experience of such Visions will believe. As soon as he awaked and found his Speech come to him, he employ'd it to this effect: ''Tis enough that I have seen a Divinity--Nothing but Mercy can inhabit these Perfections--Their utmost rigour brings a Death preferable to any Life, but what they give--Use me, Madam, as you please; for by your fair self, I cannot think a Bliss beyond what now I feel--You wound with Pleasure, and if you Kill it must be with Transport--Ah! Yet methinks to live--O Heaven! to have Life pronounced by those Bless'd Lips--Did they not inspire where they command, it were an immediate Death of Joy. Aurelian was growing a little too loud with his Admiration, had she not just then interrupted him, by clapping on her Masque, and telling him they should be observed, if he proceeded in his Extravagance; and withal, that his Passion was too suddain to be real, and too violent to be lasting. He replied, Indeed it might not be very lasting, (with a submissive mournful Voice) but it would continue during his Life. That it was suddain, he denied, for she had raised it by degrees from his first sight of her, by a continued discovery of Charms, in her Mien and Conversation, till she thought fit to set Fire to the Train she had laid, by the Lightning of her Face; and then he could not help it, if he were blown up. He begg'd her to believe the Sincerity of his Passion, at least to enjoin him something, which might tend to the Convincing of her Incredulity. She said, she should find a time to make some Trials of him; but for the first, she charged him not to follow or observe her, after the Dissolution of the Assembly. He promised to obey, and entreated her to tell him but her Name, that he might have Recourse to that in his Affliction for her Absence, if he were able to survive it. She desired him to live by all means; and if he must have a Name to play with, to call her Incognita, till he were better informed. The Company breaking up, she took her leave, and at his earnest Entreaty, gave him a short Vision of her Face which, then dress'd in an obliging smile, caused another fit of Transport, which lasted till she was gone out of Sight. Aurelian gathered up his Spirits, and walked slowly towards his Lodging, never remembring that he had lost Hippolito, till upon turning the Corner of a Street, he heard a noise of Fighting; and coming near, saw a Man make a vigorous Defence against two, who pressed violently upon him. He then thought of Hippolito, and fancying he saw the glimmering of Diamond Buttons, such as Hippolito had upon the Sleeves of his Habit, immediately drew to his Assistance; and with that Eagerness and Resolution, that the Assailants, finding their unmanly odds defeated, took to their Heels. The Person rescued by the Generous Help of Aurelian, came toward him; but as he would have stoop'd to have saluted him, dropp'd, fainting at his feet. Aurelian, now he was so near him, perceiv'd plainly Hippolito's Habit, and step'd hastily to take him up. Just as some of the Guards (who were going the Rounds, apprehensive of such Disorders in an Universal Merriment) came up to him with Lights, and had taken Prisoners the Two Men, whom they met with their Sword's drawn; when looking in the Face of the Wounded Man, he found it was not Hippolito, but his Governour Claudio, in the Habit he had worn at the Ball. He was extreamly surpriz'd, as were the Prisoners, who confess'd their Design to have been upon Lorenzo; grounding their Mistake upon the Habit which was known to have been his. They were Two Men who formerly had been Servants to him, whom Lorenzo had unfortunately slain. They made a shift to bring Claudio to himself; and part of the Guard carrying off the Prisoners, whom Aurelian desired they would secure, the rest accompanied him bearing Claudio in their Arms to his Lodging. He had not patience to forbear asking for Hippolito by the Way; whom Claudio assured him, he had left safe in his Chamber, above Two Hours since. That his coming Home so long before the Divertisements were ended, and Undressing himself, had given him the Unhappy Curiosity, to put on his Habit, and go to the Pallace; in his Return from whence, he was set upon in the Manner he found him, which if he recovered, he must own his Life indebted to his timely Assistance. Being come to the House, they carried him to his Bed, and having sent for Surgeons Aurelian rewarded and dismissed the Guard. He stay'd the dressing of Claudio's Wounds, which were many, though they hop'd none Mortal: and leaving him to his Rest, went to give Hippolito an Account of what had happened, whom he found with a Table before him, leaning upon both his Elbows, his Face covered with his Hands, and so motionless, that Aurelian concluded he was asleep; seeing several Papers lie before him, half written and blotted out again, he thought to steal softly to the Table, and discover what he had been employed about. Just as he reach'd forth his Hand to take up one of the Papers, Hippolito started up so on the suddain, as surpriz'd Aurelian and made him leap back; Hippolito, on the other hand, not supposing that any Body had been near him, was so disordered with the Appearance of a Man at his Elbow, (whom his Amazement did not permit him to distinguish) that he leap'd hastily to his Sword, and in turning him about, overthrew the Stand and Candles. Here were they both left in the Dark, Hippolito groping about with his Sword, and thrusting at every Chair that he felt oppose him. Aurelian was scarce come to himself, when thinking to step back toward the Door that he might inform his Friend of his Mistake, without exposing himself to his blind Fury; Hippolito heard him stir, and made a full thrust with such Violence, that the Hilt of the Sword meeting with Aurelian's Breast beat him down, and Hippolito a top of him, as a Servant alarm'd with the noise, came into the Chamber with a Light. The Fellow trembled, and thought they were both Dead, till Hippolito raising himself, to see whom he had got under him, swoon'd away upon the discovery of his Friend. But such was the extraordinary Care of Providence in directing the Sword, that it only past under his Arm, giving no Wound to Aurelia, but a little Bruise between his Shoulder and Breast with the Hilt. He got up, scarce recovered of his Fright, and by the help of the Servant; laid Hippolito upon the Bed; who when he was come to himself could hardly be perswaded, that his Friend was before him and alive, till he shew'd him his Breast, where was nothing of a Wound. Hippolito begg'd his Pardon a Thousand Times, and curs'd himself as often, who was so near to committing the most Execrable Act of Amicide. They dismiss'd the Fellow, and with many Embraces, congratulated their fortunate Delivery from the Mischief which came so near them, each blaming himself as the Occasion: Aurelian accusing his own unadvisedness in stealing upon Hippolito; Hippolito blaming his own temerity and weakness, in being so easily frighted to Disorder; and last of all, his blindness, in not knowing his dearest Friend. But there he gave a Sigh, and passionately taking Aurelian by the Hand, cry'd, Ah! my Friend, Love is indeed blind, when it would not suffer me to see you--There arose another Sigh; a Sympathy seiz'd Aurelian immediately: (For, by the Way, sighing is as catching among Lovers, as yawning among the Vulgar.) Beside hearing the Name of Love, made him fetch such a Sigh, that Hippolito's were but Fly-blows in Comparison, that was answered with all the Might Hippolito had, Aurelian ply'd him close till they were both out of Breath. Thus not a Word pass'd, though each wondred why the t'other sigh'd, at last concluded it to be only Complaisance to one another. Aurelian broke the Silence, by telling him the Misfortune of his Governour. Hippolito rejoic'd as at the luckiest Accident which could have befall'n him. Aurelian wondred at his unseasonable Mirth, and demanded the Cause of it; he answer'd, It would necessitate his longer Stay in Florence, and for ought he knew be the Means of bringing a happy Period to his Amour. His Friend thought him to be little better than a Madman, when he perceiv'd him of a suddain snatch out of his Bosom a Handkerchief, which having kiss'd with a great deal of Ardour, he took Aurelian by the Hand, and smiling at the Surprize he saw him in; 'Your Florentine Cupid is certainly (said he) 'the most Expert in the World. I have since I saw you beheld the most Beautiful of Women. I am faln desperately in Love with her, and those Papers which you see so blotted and scattered, are but so many Essays which I have made to the Declaration of my Passion. And this Handkerchief which I so zealously Caress, is the Inestimable Token which I have to make my self known to her. 'O Leonora! (continued he) 'how hast thou stamp'd thine Image on my Soul! How much dearer am I to my self, since I have had thy Heavenly Form in keeping! Now, my Aurelian, I am worthy thee; my exalted Love has Dignified me, and rais'd me far above thy poor former Despicable Hippolito. Aurelian seeing the Rapture he was in, thought it in vain to expect a settled Relation of the Adventure, so was reaching to the Table for some of the Papers, but Hippolito told him, If he would have a little patience he would acquaint him with the whole Matter; and thereupon told him Word for Word how he was mistaken for Lorenzo, and his Management of himself. Aurelian commended his Prudence, in not discovering himself; and told him, If he could spare so much time from the Contemplation of his Mistress, he would inform him of an Adventure, though not so Accidental, yet of as great Concern to his own future Happiness. So related all that had happened to him with his Beautiful Incognita. Having ended the Story, they began to consider of the Means they were to use toward a Review of their Mistresses. Aurelian was Confounded at the Difficulty he conceived on his Part. He understood from Hippolito's Adventure, that his Father knew of his being in Town, whom he must unavoidably Disoblige if he yet concealed himself, and Disobey if he came into his Sight; for he had already entertain'd an Aversion for Juliana, in apprehension of her being Imposed on him. His Incognita was rooted in his Heart, yet could he not Comfort himself with any Hopes when he should see her: He knew not where she lived, and she had made him no Promise of a second Conference. Then did he repent his inconsiderate Choice, in preferring the momentary Vision of her Face, to a certain Intelligence of her Person. Every thought that succeeded distracted him, and all the Hopes he could presume upon, were within compass of the Two Days Merriment yet to come; for which Space he hop'd he might excuse his remaining conceal'd to his Father. Hippolito on the other side (though Aurelian thought him in a much better Way) was no less afflicted for himself. The Difficulties which he saw in his Friend's Circumstances, put him upon finding out a great many more in his own, than really there were. But what terrified him most of all, was his being an utter Stranger to Leonora; she had not the least knowledge of him but through mistake, and consequently could form no Idea of him to his Advantage. He look'd upon it as an unlucky thought in Aurelian to take upon him his Name, since possibly the Two Ladies were acquainted, and should they communicate to each other their Adventures; they might both reasonably suffer in their Opinions, and be thought guilty of Falshood, since it would appear to them as One Person pretending to Two. Aurelian told him, there was but one Remedy for that, which was for Hippolito, in the same Manner that he had done, to make use of his Name, when he writ to Leonora, and use what arguments he could to perswade her to Secrecy, least his Father should know of the Reason which kept him concealed in Town. And it was likely, though perhaps she might not immediately entertain his Passion; yet she would out of Generosity conceal, what was hidden only for her sake. Well this was concluded on, after a great many other Reasons used on either Side, in favour of the Contrivance; they at last argued themselves into a Belief, that Fortune had befriended them with a better Plot, than their regular Thinking could have contriv'd. So soon had they convinc'd themselves, in what they were willing to believe. Aurelian laid himself down to rest, that is, upon the Bed; for he was a better Lover than to pretend to sleep that Night, while Hippolito set himself again to frame his Letter design'd for Leonora. He writ several, at last pitched upon one, and very probably the worst, as you may guess when you read it in its proper Place. It was break of Day when the Servant, who had been employed all the foregoing Day in procuring Accoutrements for the Two Cavaliers, to appear in at the Tilting, came into the Room, and told them all the Young Gentlemen in the Town were trying their Equipage, and preparing to be early in the Lists. They made themselves ready with all Expedition at the Alarm: and Hippolito having made a Visit to his Governour, dispatch'd a Messenger with the Letter and Directions to Leonora. At the Signal agreed upon the Casement was opened and a String let down, to which the Bearer having fastned the Letter, saw it drawn up, and returned. It were a vain attempt to describe Leonora's Surprize, when she read the Superscription.--The Unfortunate Aurelian, to the Beautiful Leonora--After she was a little recovered from her Amaze, she recollected to her self all the Passages between her and her supposed Cousin, and immediately concluded him to be Aurelian. Then several little Circumstances which she thought might have been sufficient to have convinced her, represented themselves to her; and she was in a strange Uneasiness to think of her free Carriage to a Stranger. She was once in a Mind to have burn'd the Letter, or to have stay'd for an Opportunity to send it again. But she was a Woman, and her Curiosity opposed it self to all thoughts of that Nature: at length with a firm Resolution, she opened it, and found Word for Word, what is underwritten. The Letter. MADAM, If your fair Eyes, upon the breaking up of this, meet with somewhat too quick a Surprize, make thence, I beseech you, some reflection upon the Condition I must needs have been in, at the suddain Appearance of that Sun of Beauty, which at once shone so full upon my soul. I could not immediately disengage my self from that Maze of Charms, to let you know how unworthy a Captive your Eyes had made through mistake. Sure, Madam, you cannot but remember my Disorder, of which your Innocent (Innocent, though perhaps to me Fatal) Error made a Charitable (but wide) Construction. Your Tongue pursued the Victory of your Eyes, and you did not give me time to rally my poor Disordered Senses, so as to make a tolerable Retreat. Pardon, Madam, the Continuation of the Deceipt, and call it not so, that I appear'd to be other than my self; for Heaven knows I was not then my self, nor am I now my own. You told me something that concern'd me nearly, as to a Marriage my Father design'd me, and much more nearly in being told by you. For Heaven's sake, disclose not to any Body your Knowledge of me, that I may not be forced to an immediate Act of Disobedience; for if my future Services and inviolate Love, cannot recommend me to your Favour, I shall find more comfort in the cold Embraces of a Grave, than in the Arms of the never so much admired (but by me dreaded) Juliana. Think, Madam, of those severe Circumstances I lie under; and withal I beg you, think it is in your Power, and only in your Power, to make them happy as my Wishes, or much more miserable than I am able to imagine. That dear, inestimable (though undesign'd) Favour which I receiv'd from you, shall this Day distinguish me from the Crowd of your Admirers; that which I really applied to my inward bleeding Wound, the welcom Wound which you have made, and which, unless from you, does wish no Cure; then pardon and have pity on, O Adored Leonora, him, who is your's by Creation as he is Heaven's, though never so unworthy. Have pity on Your Aurelian. She read the Letter over and over, then flung it by, then read it again; the Novelty of the Adventure made her repeat her Curiosity, and take more than ordinary Pains to understand it. At last her Familiarity with the Expressions grew to an Intimacy, and what she at first permitted she now began to like. She thought there was something in it a little more serious, than to be barely Gallantry. She wondred at her own Blindness, and fancy'd she could remember something of a more becoming Air in the Stranger than was usual to Lorenzo. This thought was parent to another of the same kind, till a long Chain successively had Birth, and every one somewhat more than other, in Favour of the supposed Aurelian. She reflected upon his Discretion, in deferring the Discovery of himself, till a little time had, as it were, weaned her from her perswasion, and by removing her farther from her Mistake, had prepared her for a full and determinate Convincement. She thought his Behaviour, in personating a Sick Man so readily, upon the first hint was not amiss, and smil'd to think of his Excuse to procure her Handkerchief; and last of all, his sifting out the Means to write to her, which he had done with that Modesty and Respect, she could not tell how to find fault with it. She had proceeded thus far in a maze of Thought, when she started to find her self so lost to her Reason, and would have trod back again that path of deluding Fancy; accusing her self of Fondness, and inconsiderate Easiness, in giving Credit to the Letter of a Person whose Face she never saw, and whose first Acquaintance with her was a Treachery, and he who could so readily deliver his Tongue of a Lye upon a Surprize, was scarce to be trusted when he had sufficient Time allow'd him to beget a Fiction, and Means to perfect the Birth. How did she know this to be Aurelian, if he were? Nay farther, put it to the Extremity, What if she should upon farther Conversation with him proceed to Love him? What Hopes were there for her? Or how could she consent to Marry a Man already Destined for another Woman? nay, a Woman that was her Friend, whose Marrying with him was to compleat the happy Reconciliation of Two Noble Families, and which might prevent the Effusion of much Blood likely to be shed in that Quarrel: Besides, she should incurr share of the Guilt, which he would draw upon him by Disobedience to his Father, whom she was sure would not be consenting to it. 'Tis strange now, but all Accounts agree, that just here Leonora, who had run like a violent Stream against Aurelian hitherto, now retorted with as much precipitation in his Favour. I could never get any Body to give me a satisfactory reason, for her suddain and dextrous Change of Opinion just at that stop, which made me conclude she could not help it; and that Nature boil'd over in her at that time when it had so fair an Opportunity to show it self: For Leonora it seems was a Woman Beautiful, and otherwise of an excellent Disposition; but in the Bottom a very Woman. This last Objection, this Opportunity of perswading Man to Disobedience, determined the Matter in Favour of Aurelian, more than all his Excellencies and Qualifications, take him as Aurelian, or Hippolito, or both together. Well, the Spirit of Contradiction and of Eve was strong in her; and she was in a fair Way to Love Aurelian, for she lik'd him already; that it was Aurelian she no longer doubted, for had it been a Villain, who had only taken his Name upon him for any ill Designs, he would never have slip'd so favourable an Opportunity as when they were alone and in the Night coming through the Garden and broad Space before the Piazza. In short, thus much she resolv'd, at least to conceal the Knowledge she had of him, as he had entreated her in his Letter, and to make particular Remarks of his Behaviour that Day in the Lists, which should it happen to Charm her with an absolute liking of his Person, she resolv'd to dress her self to the best Advantage, and mustering up all her Graces, out of pure Revenge to kill him down right. I would not have the Reader now be impertinent, and look upon this to be force, or a whim of the Author's, that a Woman should proceed so far in her Approbation of a Man whom she never saw, that it is impossible, therefore ridiculous to suppose it. Let me tell such a Critick, that he knows nothing of the Sex, if he does not know that Woman may be taken with the Character and Description of a Man, when general and extraordinary, that she may be prepossess'd with an agreeable Idea of his Person and Conversation; and though she cannot imagine his real Features, or manner of Wit, yet she has a general Notion of what is call'd a fine Gentleman, and is prepar'd to like such a one who does not disagree with that Character. Aurelian, as he bore a very fair Character, so was he extreamly deserving to make it good, which otherways might have been to his prejudice; for oftentimes, through an imprudent Indulgence to our Friends merit, we give so large a Description of his excellencies, that People make more room in their Expectation, than the Intrinsick worth of the Man will fill, which renders him so much the more despicable as there is emptyness to spare. 'Tis certain, though the Women seldom find that out; for though they do not see so much in a Man as was promised, yet they will be so kind to imagine he has some hidden excellencies; which time may discover to them, so are content to allow, him a considerable share of their esteem, and take him into Favour upon Tick. Aurelian as he had good Credit, so he had a good Stock to support it, and his Person was a good promising Security for the payment of any Obligation he could lie under to the Fair Sex. Hippolito, who at this time was our Aurelian, did not at all lessen him in appearing for him: So that although Leonora was indeed mistaken, she could not be said to be much in the wrong. I could find in my Heart to beg the Reader's pardon for this Digression, if I thought he would be sensible of the Civility; for I promise him, I do not intend to do it again throughout the Story, though I make never so many, and though he take them never so ill. But because I began this upon a bare Supposition of his Impertinence, which might be somewhat impertinent in me to suppose, I do, and hope to make him amends by telling him, that by the time Leonora was dress'd, several Ladies of her acquaintance came to accompany her to the place designed for the Tilting, where we will leave them drinking Chocholate till 'tis time for them to go. Our Cavaliers had by good Fortune provided themselves of two curious Suits of light Armour, finely enammelled and gilt. Hippolito had sent to Poggio Imperiale for a couple of fine led Horses which he had left there with the rest of his Train at his entrance into Florence. Mounted on these and every way well Equipt, they took their way, attended only by two Lacqueys, toward the Church di Santa Croce, before which they were to perform their Exercises of Chivalry. Hippolito wore upon his Helm a large Plume of Crimson Feathers, in the midst of which was artificially placed Leonora's Handkerchief. His Armour was gilt, and enammell'd with Green and Crimson. Aurelian was not so happy as to wear any token to recommend him to the notice of his Mistress, so had only a Plume of Sky- colour and White Feathers, suitable to his Armour, which was Silver enammelled with Azure. I shall not describe the Habits of any other Cavaliers, or of the Ladies; let it suffice to tell the Reader they were all very Fine and very Glorious, and let him dress them in what is most agreeable to his own Fancy. Our Gallants entred the Lists, and having made their Obeysance to his Highness, turned round to salute and view the Company. The Scaffold was circular, so that there was no end of the Delightful Prospect. It seem'd a Glory of Beauty which shone around the admiring Beholders. Our Lovers soon perceived the Stars which were to Rule their Destiny, which sparkled a lustre beyond all the inferiour Constellations, and seem'd like two Suns to distribute Light to all the Planets in that Heavenly Sphere. Leonora knew her Slave by his Badge and blushed till the Lilies and Roses in her cheeks had resemblance to the Plume of Crimson and White Handkerchief in Hippolito's Crest. He made her a low bow, and reined his Horse back with an extraordinary Grace, into a respectful retreat. Aurelian saw his Angel, his beautiful Incognita, and had no other way to make himself known to her, but by saluting and bowing to her after the Spanish mode; she guess'd him by it to be her new Servant Hippolito, and signified her apprehension, by making him a more particular and obliging return, than to any of the Cavaliers who had saluted her before. The Exercise that was to be perform'd was in general a running at the Ring; and afterwards two Cavaliers undertook to defend the Beauty of Donna Catharina, against all who would not allow her preheminence of their Mistresses. This thing was only designed for show and form, none presuming that any body would put so great an affront upon the Bride and Duke's Kinswoman, as to dispute her pretentions to the first place in the Court of Venus. But here our Cavaliers were under a mistake; for seeing a large Shield carry'd before two Knights, with a Lady painted upon it; not knowing who, but reading the Inscription which was (in large Gold Letters) Above the Insolence of Competition. They thought themselves obliged, especially in the presence of their Mistresses, to vindicate their Beauty; and were just spurring on to engage the Champions, when a Gentleman stopping them, told them their mistake, that it was the Picture of Donna Catharina, and a particular Honour done to her by his Highness's Commands, and not to be disputed. Upon this they would have returned to their Post, much concerned for their mistake; but notice being taken by Don Ferdinand of some Show of Opposition that was made, he would have begged leave of the Duke, to have maintained his Lady's Honour against the Insolence of those Cavaliers; but the Duke would by no means permit it. They were arguing about it when one of them came up, before whom the Shield was born, and demanded his Highness's Permission, to inform those Gentlemen better of their mistake, by giving them the Foyl. By the Intercession of Don Ferdinand, leave was given them; whereupon a Civil Challenge was sent to the two Strangers, informing them of their Error, and withal telling them they must either maintain it by force of Arms, or make a publick acknowledgment by riding bare headed before the Picture once round the Lists. The Stranger-Cavaliers remonstrated to the Duke how sensible they were of their Error, and though they would not justifie it, yet they could not decline the Combate, being pressed to it beyond an honourable refusal. To the Bride they sent a Complement, wherein, having first begg'd her pardon for not knowing her Picture, they gave her to understand, that now they were not about to dispute her undoubted right to the Crown of Beauty, but the honour of being her Champions was the Prize they fought for, which they thought themselves as able to maintain as any other Pretenders. Wherefore they pray'd her, that if fortune so far befriended their endeavours as to make them Victors, that they might receive no other Reward, but to be crown'd with the Titles of their Adversaries, and be ever after esteem'd as her most humble Servants. The excuse was so handsomely designed, and much better express'd than it is here, that it took effect. The Duke, Don Ferdinand and his Lady were so well satisfied with it as to grant their Request. While the running at the Ring lasted, our Cavaliers alternately bore away great share of the Honour. That Sport ended, Marshals were appointed for the Field, and every thing in great form settled for the Combat. The Cavaliers were all in good earnest, but orders were given to bring 'em blunted Lances, and to forbid the drawing of a Sword upon pain of his Highness's Displeasure. The Trumpets sounded and they began their Course: The Ladies' Hearts, particularly the Incognita and Leonora's beat time to the Horses Hoofs, and hope and fear made a mock Fight within their tender Breasts, each wishing and doubting success where she lik'd: But as the generality of their Prayers were for the graceful Strangers, they accordingly succeeded. Aurelian's Adversary was unhorsed in the first Encounter, and Hippolito's lost both Stirrups and dropt his Lance to save himself. The Honour of the Field was immediately granted to them, and Don Catharina sent them both Favours, which she pray'd them to wear as her Knights. The Crowd breaking up, our Cavaliers made a shift to steal off unmarked, save by the watchful Leonora and Incognita, whose Eyes were never off from their respective Servants. There was enquiry made for them, but to no purpose; for they to prevent their being discovered had prepared another House, distant from their Lodging, where a Servant attended to disarm them, and another carried back their Horses to the Villa, while they walked unsuspected to their Lodging; but Incognita had given command to a Page to dog 'em till the Evening, at a distance, and bring her word where they were latest housed. While several Conjectures pass'd among the Company, who were all gone to Dinner at the Palace, who those Cavaliers should be, Don Fabio thought himself the only Man able to guess; for he knew for certain that his Son and Hippolito were both in Town, and was well enough pleased with his humour of remaining Incognito till the Diversions should be over, believing then that the surprize of his Discovery would add much to the Gallantry he had shown in Masquerade; but hearing the extraordinary liking that every body express'd, and in a particular manner, the great Duke himself, to the Persons and Behaviour of the unknown Cavaliers, the Old Gentleman could not forbear the Vanity to tell his Highness, that he believed he had an interest in one of the Gentlemen, whom he was pleased to honour with so favourable a Character; and told him what reason he had to believe the one to be his Son, and the other a Spanish Nobleman, his Friend. This discovery having thus got vent, was diffused like Air; every body suck'd it in, and let it out again with their Breath to the next they met withal; and in half an hours time it was talked of in the House where our Adventurers were lodged. Aurelian was stark mad at the News, and knew what search would be immediately made for him. Hippolito, had he not been desperately in Love, would certainly have taken Horse and rid out of Town just then, for he could make no longer doubt of being discovered, and he was afraid of the just Exceptions Leonora might make to a Person who had now deceived her twice. Well, we will leave them both fretting and contriving to no purpose, to look about and see what was done at the Palace, where their doom was determined much quicker than they imagined. Dinner ended, the Duke retired with some chosen Friends to a Glass of Wine; among whom were the Marquess of Viterbo and Don Fabio. His Highness was no Stranger to the long Fewd that had been between the two Families, and also understood what Overtures of Reconciliation had been lately made, with the Proposals of Marriage between Aurelian and the Marquess's Daughter. Having waited till the Wine had taken the effect proposed, and the Company were raised to an uncommon pitch of Chearfulness, which he also encouraged by an Example of Freedom and Good Humour, he took an opportunity of rallying the two grave Signiors into an Accommodation: That was seconded with the praises of the young Couple, and the whole Company joined in a large Encomium upon the Graces of Aurelian and the Beauties of Juliana. The old Fellows were tickled with Delight to hear their Darlings so admired, which the Duke perceiving, out of a Principle of Generosity and Friendship, urged the present Consummation of the Marriage; telling them there was yet one day of publick Rejoycing to come, and how glad he should be to have it improved by so acceptable an Alliance; and what an honour it would be to have his Cousin's Marriage attended by the Conjunction of so extraordinary a Pair, the performance of which Ceremony would crown the Joy that was then in Agitation, and make the last day vie for equal Glory and Happiness with the first. In short, by the Complaisant and Perswasive Authority of the Duke, the Dons were wrought into a Compliance, and accordingly embraced and shook Hands upon the Matter. This News was dispersed like the former, and Don Fabio gave orders for the enquiring out his Son's Lodging, that the Marquess and he might make him a Visit, as soon as he had acquainted Juliana with his purpose, that she might prepare her self. He found her very chearful with Donna Catharina and several other Ladies; whereupon the old Gentleman, pretty well warmed with the Duke's Goodfellowship, told her aloud he was come to crown their Mirth with another Wedding; that his Highness had been pleased to provide a Husband for his Daughter, and he would have her provide her self to receive him to-morrow. All the Company at first, as well as Juliana her self, thought he had rally'd, till the Duke coming in confirmed the serious part of his Discourse. Juliana was confounded at the haste that was imposed on her, and desired a little time to consider what she was about. But the Marquess told her, she should have all the rest of her Life to consider in; that Aurelian should come and consider with her in the Morning, if she pleased; but in the mean time, he advised her to go home and call her Maids to Counsel. Juliana took her leave of the Company very gravely, as if not much delighted with her Father's Rallery. Leonora happened to be by, and heard all that passed; she was ready to swoon, and found her self seized with a more violent Passion than ever for Aurelian: Now upon her apprehensions of losing him, her active fancy had brought him before her with all the advantages imaginable, and though she had before found great tenderness in her Inclination toward him, yet was she somewhat surprized to find she really lov'd him. She was so uneasie at what she had heard, that she thought it convenient to steal out of the presence and retire to her Closet, to bemoan her unhappy helpless Condition. Our Two Cavalier-Lovers had rack'd their Invention till it was quite disabled, and could not make discovery of one Contrivance more for their Relief. Both sat silent, each depending upon his Friend, and still expecting when t'other should speak. Night came upon them while they sate thus thoughtless, or rather drowned in Thought; but a Servant bringing Lights into the Room awakened them: And Hippolito's Speech, usher'd by a profound Sigh, broke Silence. 'Well! (said he) what must we do, Aurelian? We must suffer, replied Aurelian faintly. When immediately raising his Voice, he cry'd out, 'Oh ye unequal Powers, why do ye urge us to desire what ye doom us to forbear; give us a Will to chuse, then curb us with a Duty to restrain that Choice! Cruel Father, Will nothing else suffice! Am I to be the Sacrifice to expiate your Offences past; past ere I was born? Were I to lose my Life, I'd gladly Seal your Reconcilement with my Blood. 'But Oh my Soul is free, you have no Title to my Immortal Being, that has Existence independent of your Power; and must I lose my Love, the Extract of that Being, the Joy, Light, Life, and Darling of my Soul? No, I'll own my Flame, and plead my Title too.--But hold, wretched Aurelian, hold, whither does thy Passion hurry thee? Alas! the cruel fair Incognita Loves thee not! She knows not of thy Love! If she did, what Merit hast thou to pretend?--Only Love.--Excess of Love. And all the World has that. All that have seen her. Yet I had only seen her once, and in that once I lov'd above the World; nay, lov'd beyond my self, such vigorous Flame, so strong, so quick she darted at my Breast; it must rebound, and by Reflection, warm her self. Ah! welcome Thought, lovely deluding Fancy, hang still upon my Soul, let me but think, that once she Loves and perish my Despair. Here a suddain stop gave a Period also to Hippolito's Expectation, and he hoped now that his Friend had given his Passion so free a vent, he might recollect and bethink himself of what was convenient to be done; but Aurelia, as if he had mustered up all his Spirits purely to acquit himself of that passionate Harangue, stood mute and insensible like an Alarum Clock, that had spent all its force in one violent Emotion. Hippolito shook him by the Arm to rouze him from his Lethargy, when his Lacquey coming into the Room, out of Breath, told him there was a Coach just stopp'd at the Door, but he did not take time to who came in it. Aurelian concluded immediately it was his Father in quest of him; and without saying any more to Hippolito, than that he was Ruined if discovered, took his Sword and slipp'd down a back pair of Stairs into the Garden, from whence he conveyed himself into the Street. Hippolito had not bethought himself what to do, before he perceiv'd a Lady come into the Chamber close veil'd, and make toward him. At the first Appearance of a Woman, his Imagination flattered him with a Thought of Leonora; but that was quickly over upon nearer Approach to the Lady, who had much the Advantage in Stature of his Mistress. He very civilly accosted her, and asked if he were the Person to whom the Honour of that Visit was intended. She said, her Business was with Don Hippolito di Saviolina, to whom she had Matter of Concern to import, and which required haste. He had like to have told her, That he was the Man, but by good Chance reflecting upon his Friend's Adventure, who had taken his name, he made Answer, that he believed Don Hippolito not far off, and if she had a Moments Patience he would enquire for him. He went out, leaving the Lady in the Room, and made search all round the House and Garden for Aurelian, but to no purpose. The Lady impatient of his long stay took a Pen and Ink and some Paper which she found upon the Table, and had just made an End of her Letter, when hearing a Noise of more than one coming up Stairs, she concluded his Friend had found him, and that her Letter would be to no purpose, so tore it in pieces, which she repented; when turning about, she found her Mistake, and beheld Don Fabio and the Marquess of Viterbo just entring at the Door. She gave a Shriek at the Surprize of their Appearance, which much troubled the Old Gentlemen, and made them retire in Confusion for putting a Gentlewoman into such a Fright. The Marquess thinking they had been misinformed, or had mistaken the Lodgings, came forward again, and made an Apology to the Lady for their Errour; but she making no reply, walk'd directly by him down Stairs and went into her Coach, which hurried her away as speedily as the Horses were able to draw. The Dons were at a loss what to think, when, Hippolito coming into the Room to give the Lady an Account of his Errant, was no less astonished to find she was departed, and had left Two Old Signiors in her stead. He knew Don Fabio's Face, for Aurelian had shewn him his Father at the Tilting; but being confident he was not known to him, he ventur'd to ask him concerning a Lady whom just now he had left in that Chamber. Don Fabio told him, she was just gone down, and doubted they had been Guilty of a Mistake, in coming to enquire for a Couple of Gentlemen whom they were informed were Lodged in that House; he begg'd his Pardon if he had any Relation to that Lady, and desired to know if he could give them any Account of the Persons they sought for. Hippolito made answer, He was a Stranger in the Place, and only a Servant to that Lady whom they had disturb'd, and whom he must go and seek out. And in this Perplexity he left them, going again in Search of Aurelian, to inform him of what had passed. The Old Gentlemen at last meeting with a Servant of the House, were directed to Signior Claudio's Chamber, where they were no sooner entered but Aurelian came into the House. A Servant who had skulk'd for him by Hippolito's Order, followed him up into the Chamber, and told him who was with Claudio then making Enquiry for him. He thought that to be no Place for him, since Claudio must needs discover all the Truth to his Father; wherefore he left Directions with the Servant, where Hippolito should meet him in the Morning. As he was going out of the Room he espied the torn Paper, which the Lady had thrown upon the Floor: The first piece he took up had Incognita written upon it; the sight of which so Alarum'd him, he scarce knew what he was about; but hearing a Noise of a Door opening over Head, with as much Care as was consistent with the haste he was then in, he gathered up scattered pieces of Paper, and betook himself to a Ramble. Coming by a Light which hung at the Corner of a Street, he join'd the torn Papers and collected thus much, that Incognita had Written the Note, and earnestly desired (if there were any reality in what he pretended to her) to meet her at Twelve a Clock that Night at a Convent Gate; but unluckily the Bit of Paper which should have mentioned what Convent, was broken off and lost. Here was a large Subject for Aurelian's Passion, which he did not spare to pour forth in Abundance of Curses on his Stars. So earnest was he in the Contemplation of his Misfortunes, that he walk'd on unwittingly; till at length Silence (and such as was only to be found in that part the Town, whither his unguided Steps had carried him) surpriz'd his Attention. I say, a profound Silence rouzed him from his Thought; and a clap of Thunder could have done no more. Now because it is possible this at some time or other may happen to be read by some Malicious or Ignorant Person, (no Reflection upon the present Reader) who will not admit, or does not understand that Silence should make a Man start; and have the same Effect, in provoking his Attention, with its opposite Noise; I will illustrate this matter, to such a diminutive Critick, by a Parallel Instance of Light; which though it does chiefly entertain the Eyes, and is indeed the prime Object of the Sight, yet should it immediately cease, to have a Man left in the Dark by a suddain deficiency of it, would make him stare with his Eyes, and though he could not see, endeavour to look about him. Why just thus did it fare with our Adventurer; who seeming to have wandred both into the Dominions of Silence and of Night, began to have some tender for his own Safety, and would willingly have groped his Way back again; when he heard a Voice, as from a Person whose Breath had been stopp'd by some forcible Oppression, and just then, by a violent Effort, was broke through the Restraint.--'Yet--Yet--(again reply'd the Voice, still struggling for Air,) 'Forbear--and I'll forgive what's past--I have done nothing yet that needs a Pardon, (says another) and what is to come, will admit of none. Here the Person who seemed to be the Oppressed, made several Attempts to speak, but they were only inarticulate Sounds, being all interrupted and choaked in their Passage. Aurelian was sufficiently astonish'd, and would have crept nearer to the Place whence he guessed the Voice to come; but he was got among the Runes of an Old Monastery, and could not stir so silently, but some loose Stones he met with made a rumbling. The Noise alarm'd both Parties; and as it gave Comfort to the one, it so Terrified the t'other, that he could not hinder the Oppressed from calling for help. Aurelian fancy'd it was a Woman's Voice, and immediately drawing his Sword, demanded what was the Matter; he was answered with the Appearance of a Man, who had opened a Dark Lanthorn which he had by him, and came toward him with a Pistol in his Hand ready cock'd. Aurelian seeing the irresistable advantage his Adversary had over him, would fain have retired; and, by the greatest Providence in the World, going backwards fell down over some loose Stones that lay in his Way, just in that Instant of Time when the Villain fired his Pistol, who seeing him fall, concluded he had Shot him. The Crys of the afflicted Person were redoubled at the Tragical Sight, which made the Murderer, drawing a Poniard, to threaten him, that the next Murmur should be his last. Aurelian, who was scarce assured that he was unhurt, got softly up; and coming near enough to perceive the Violence that was used to stop the Injured Man's Mouth; (for now he saw plainly it was a Man) cry'd out,--Turn, Villain, and look upon thy Death.--The Fellow amazed at the Voice, turn'd about to have snatch'd up the Lanthorn from the Ground; either to have given Light only to himself, or to have put out the Candle, that he might have made his Escape; but which of the Two he designed, no Body could tell but himself: and if the Reader have a Curiosity to know, he must blame Aurelian; who thinking there could be no foul play offered to such a Villain, ran him immediately through the Heart, so that he drop'd down Dead at his Feet, without speaking a Word. He would have seen who the Person was he had thus happily delivered, but the Dead Body had fallen upon the Lanthorn, which put out the Candle: However coming up toward him, he ask'd him how he did, and bid him be of good Heart; he was answered with nothing but Prayers, Blessings and Thanks, called a Thousand Deliverers, good Genius's and Guardian Angels. And the Rescued would certainly have gone upon his Knees to have worshipped him, had he not been bound Hand and Foot; which Aurelian understanding, groped for the Knots, and either untied them or cut them asunder; but 'tis more probable the latter, because more expeditious. They took little heed what became of the Body which they left behind them, and Aurelian was conducted from out the Ruins by the Hand of him he had delivered. By a faint light issuing from the just rising Moon, he could discern that it was a Youth; but coming into a more frequented part of the Town, where several Lights were hung out, he was amaz'd at the extream Beauty which appeared in his Face, though a little pale and disordered with his late fright. Aurelian longed to hear the Story of so odd an adventure, and entreated his Charge to tell it him by the way; but he desired him to forbear till they were come into some House or other, where he might rest and recover his tired Spirits, for yet he was so faint he was unable to look up. Aurelian thought these last words were delivered in a Voice, whose accent was not new to him. That thought made him look earnestly in the Youth's Face, which he now was sure he had somewhere seen before, and thereupon asked him if he had never been at Siena? That Question made the young Gentleman look up, and something of a Joy appeared in his Countenance, which yet he endeavoured to smother; so praying Aurelian to conduct him to his Lodging, he promised him that as soon as they should come thither, he would acquaint him with any thing he desired to know. Aurelian would rather have gone any where else than to his own Lodging; but being so very late he was at a loss, and so forced to be contented. As soon as they were come into his Chamber, and that Lights were brought them and the Servant dismissed, the paleness which so visibly before had usurped the sweet Countenance of the afflicted Youth vanished, and gave place to a more lively Flood of Crimson, which with a modest heat glow'd freshly on his Cheeks. Aurelian waited with a pleasing Admiration the discovery promised him, when the Youth still struggling with his Resolution, with a timorous haste, pulled off a Peruke which had concealed the most beautiful abundance of Hair that ever graced one Female Head; those dishevelled spreading tresses, as at first they made a discovery of, so at last they served for a veil to the modest lovely blushes of the fair Incognita; for she it was and none other. But Oh! the inexpressible, inconceivable joy and amazement of Aurelian! As soon as he durst venture to think, he concluded it to be all Vision, and never doubted so much of any thing in his Life as of his being then awake. But she taking him by the Hand, and desiring him to sit down by her, partly convinced him of the reality of her presence. 'This is the second time, Don Hippolito, (said she to him) 'that I have been here this Night. What the occasion was of my seeking you out, and how by miracle you preserved me, would add too much to the surprize I perceive you to be already in should I tell you: Nor will I make any further discovery, till I know what censure you pass upon the confidence which I have put in you, and the strange Circumstances in which you find me at this time. I am sensible they are such, that I shall not blame your severest Conjectures; but I hope to convince you, when you shall hear what I have to say in justification of my Vertue. 'Justification! (cry'd Aurelian) what Infidel dares doubt it! Then kneeling down, and taking her Hand, 'Ah Madam (says he) would Heaven would no other ways look upon, than I behold your Perfections--Wrong not your Creature with a Thought, he can be guilty of that horrid Impiety as once to doubt your Vertue--Heavens! (cry'd he, starting up) 'am I so really blessed to see you once again! May I trust my Sight?--Or does my fancy now only more strongly work?--For still I did preserve your Image in my Heart, and you were ever present to my dearest Thoughts.-- 'Enough Hippolito, enough of Rapture (said she) you cannot much accuse me of Ingratitude; for you see I have not been unmindful of you; but moderate your Joy till I have told you my Condition, and if for my sake you are raised to this Delight, it is not of a long continuance. At that (as Aurelian tells the Story) a Sigh diffused a mournful sweetness through the Air, and liquid grief fell gently from her Eyes, triumphant sadness sat upon her Brow, and even sorrow seem'd delighted with the Conquest he had made. See what a change Aurelian felt! His Heart bled Tears, and trembled in his Breast; Sighs struggling for a vent had choaked each others passage up: His Floods of Joys were all supprest; cold doubts and fears had chill'd 'em with a sudden Frost, and he was troubled to excess; yet knew not why. Well, the Learned say it was Sympathy; and I am always of the Opinion with the Learned, if they speak first. After a World of Condoleance had passed between them, he prevailed with her to tell him her Story. So having put all her Sighs into one great Sigh, she discharged her self of 'em all at once, and formed the Relation you are just about to Read. 'Having been in my Infancy Contracted to a Man I could never endure, and now by my Parents being likely to be forced to Marry him, is in short, the great occasion of my grief. I fansy'd (continued she) something so Generous in your Countenance, and uncommon in your Behaviour, while you were diverting your self, and rallying me with Expressions of Gallantry, at the Ball, as induced me to hold Conference with you. I now freely confess to you, out of design, That if things should happen as I then feared, and as now they are come to pass, I might rely upon your assistance in a matter of Concern; and in which I would sooner chuse to depend upon a generous Stranger, than any Acquaintance I have. What Mirth and Freedom I then put on, were, I can assure you, far distant from my Heart; but I did violence to my self out of Complaisance to your Temper.--I knew you at the Tilting, and wished you might come off as you did; though I do not doubt, but you would have had as good Success had it been opposite to my Inclinations.--Not to detain you by too tedious a Relation, every day my Friends urged me to the Match they had agreed upon for me, before I was capable of Consenting; at last their importunities grew to that degree, that I found I must either consent, which would make me miserable, or be miserable by perpetually enduring to be baited by my Father, Brother and other Relations. I resolved yesterday, on a suddain to give firm Faith to the Opinion I had conceived of you; and accordingly came in the Evening to request your assistance, in delivering me from my Tormentors, by a safe and private conveyance of me to a Monastery about four Leagues hence, where I have an Aunt who would receive me, and is the only Relation I have averse to the Match. I was surprized at the appearance of some Company I did not expect at your Lodgings; which made me in haste tear a Paper which I had written to you with Directions where to find me, and get speedily away in my Coach to an old Servant's House, whom I acquainted with my purpose: By my Order she provided me of this Habit which I now wear; I ventured to trust my self with her Brother, and resolved to go under his Conduct to the Monastery; he proved to be a Villain, and Pretending to take me a short and private way to the place where he was to take up a Hackney Coach (for that which I came in was broke some where or other with the haste it made to carry me from your Lodging) led me into an old ruined Monastery, where it pleased Heaven, by what Accident I know not, to direct you. I need not tell you how you saved my Life and my Honour, by revenging me with the Death of my Perfidious Guide. This is the summ of my present Condition, bating the apprehensions I am in of being taken by some of my Relations, and forced to a thing so quite contrary to my Inclinations. Aurelian was confounded at the Relation she had made, and began to fear his own Estate to be more desperate than ever he had imagined. He made her a very Passionate and Eloquent Speech in behalf of himself (much better than I intend to insert here) and expressed a mighty concern that she should look upon his ardent Affection to be only Rallery or Gallantry. He was very free of his Oaths to confirm the Truth of what he pretended, nor I believe did she doubt it, or at least was unwilling so to do: For I would Caution the Reader by the bye, not to believe every word which she told him, nor that admirable sorrow which she counterfeited to be accurately true. It was indeed truth so cunningly intermingled with Fiction, that it required no less Wit and Presence of Mind than she was endowed with so to acquit her self on the suddain. She had entrusted her self indeed with a Fellow who proved a Villain, to conduct her to a Monastery; but one which was in the Town, and where she intended only to lie concealed for his sake; as the Reader shall understand ere long: For we have another Discovery to make to him, if he have not found it out of himself already. After Aurelian had said what he was able upon the Subject in hand, with a mournful tone and dejected look, he demanded his Doom. She asked him if he would endeavour to convey her to the Monastery she had told him of? 'Your commands, Madam, (replied he) 'are Sacred to me; and were they to lay down my Life I would obey them. With that he would have gone out of the Room, to have given order for his Horses to be got ready immediately; but with a Countenance so full of sorrow as moved Compassion in the tender hearted Incognita. 'Stay a little Don Hippolito (said she) I fear I shall not be able to undergo the Fatigue of a Journey this Night.--Stay and give me your Advice how I shall conceal my self if I continue to morrow in this Town. Aurelian could have satisfied her she was not then in a place to avoid discovery: But he must also have told her then the reason of it, viz. whom he was, and who were in quest of him, which he did not think convenient to declare till necessity should urge him; for he feared least her knowledge of those designs which were in agitation between him and Juliana, might deter her more from giving her consent. At last he resolved to try his utmost perswasions to gain her, and told her accordingly, he was afraid she would be disturbed there in the Morning, and he knew no other way (if she had not as great an aversion for him as the Man whom she now endeavour'd to avoid) than by making him happy to make her self secure. He demonstrated to her,--that the disobligation to her Parents would be greater by going to a Monastery, since it was only to avoid a choice which they had made for her, and which she could not have so just a pretence to do till she had made one for her self. A World of other Arguments he used, which she contradicted as long as she was able, or at least willing. At last she told him, she would consult her Pillow, and in the Morning conclude what was fit to be done. He thought it convenient to leave her to her rest, and having lock'd her up in his Room, went himself to repose upon a Pallat by Signior Claudio. In the mean time, it may be convenient to enquire what became of Hippolito. He had wandered much in pursuit of Aurelian, though Leonora equally took up his Thoughts; He was reflecting upon the oddness and extravagance of his Circumstances, the Continuation of which had doubtless created in him a great uneasiness, when it was interrupted with the noise of opening the Gates of the Convent of St. Lawrence, whither he was arrived sooner than he thought for, being the place Aurelian had appointed by the Lacquey to meet him in. He wondered to see the Gates opened at so unseasonable an hour, and went to enquire the reason of it from them who were employ'd; but they proved to be Novices, and made him signs to go in, where he might meet with some body allow'd to answer him. He found the Religious Men all up, and Tapers lighting every where: at last he follow'd a Friar who was going into the Garden, and asking him the cause of these Preparations, he was answered, That they were entreated to pray for the Soul of a Cavalier, who was just departing or departed this Life, and whom upon farther talk with him, he found to be the same Lorenzo so often mentioned. Don Mario, it seems Uncle to Lorenzo and Father to Leonora, had a private Door out of the Garden belonging to his House into that of the Convent, which Door this Father was now a going to open, that he and his Family might come and offer up their Oraisons for the Soul of their Kinsman. Hippolito having informed himself of as much as he could ask without suspicion, took his leave of the Friar, not a little joyful at the Hopes he had by such unexpected Means, of seeing his Beautiful Leonora: As soon as he was got at convenient Distance from the Friar, (who 'tis like thought he had return'd into the Convent to his Devotion) he turned back through a close Walk which led him with a little Compass, to the same private Door, where just before he had left the Friar, who now he saw was gone, and the Door open. He went into Don Mario's Garden, and walk'd round with much Caution and Circumspection; for the Moon was then about to rise, and had already diffused a glimmering Light, sufficient to distinguish a Man from a Tree. By Computation now (which is a very remarkable Circumstance) Hippolito entred this Garden near upon the same Instant, when Aurelian wandred into the Old Monastery and found his Incognita in Distress. He was pretty well acquainted with the Platform, and Sight of the Garden; for he had formerly surveyed the Outside, and knew what part to make to if he should be surpriz'd and driven to a precipitate Escape. He took his Stand behind a well grown Bush of Myrtle, which, should the Moon shine brighter than was required, had the Advantage to be shaded by the Indulgent Boughs of an ancient Bay-Tree. He was delighted with the Choice he had made, for he found a Hollow in the Myrtle, as if purposely contriv'd for the Reception of one Person, who might undiscovered perceive all about him. He looked upon it as a good Omen, that the Tree Consecrated to Venus was so propitious to him in his Amorous Distress. The Consideration of that, together with the Obligation he lay under to the Muses, for sheltering him also with so large a Crown of Bays, had like to have set him a Rhyming. He was, to tell the Truth, naturally addicted to Madrigal, and we should undoubtedly have had a small desert of Numbers to have pick'd and Criticiz'd upon, had he not been interrupted just upon his Delivery; nay, after the Preliminary Sigh had made Way for his Utterance. But so was his Fortune, Don Mario was coming towards the Door at that very nick of Time, where he met with a Priest just out of Breath, who told him that Lorenzo was just breathing his last, and desired to know if he would come and take his final Leave before they were to administer the Extream Unction. Don Mario, who had been at some Difference with his Nephew, now thought it his Duty to be reconciled to him; so calling to Leonora, who was coming after him, he bid her go to her Devotions in the Chappel, and told her where he was going. He went on with the Priest, while Hippolito saw Leonora come forward, only accompanied by her Woman. She was in an undress, and by reason of a Melancholy visible in her Face, more Careless than usual in her Attire, which he thought added as much as was possible to the abundance of her Charms. He had not much Time to Contemplate this Beauteous Vision, for she soon passed into the Garden of the Convent, leaving him Confounded with Love, Admiration, Joy, Hope, Fear, and all the Train of Passions, which seize upon Men in his Condition, all at once. He was so teazed with this Variety of Torment, that he never missed the Two Hours that had slipped away during his Automachy and Intestine Conflict. Leonora's Return settled his Spirits, at least united them, and he had now no other Thought but how he should present himself before her. When she calling her Woman, bid her bolt the Garden Door on the Inside, that she might not be Surpriz'd by her Father, if he returned through the Convent, which done, she ordered her to bring down her Lute, and leave her to her self in the Garden. All this Hippolito saw and heard to his inexpressible Content, yet had he much to do to smother his Joy, and hinder it from taking a Vent, which would have ruined the only Opportunity of his Life. Leonora withdrew into an Arbour so near him, that he could distinctly hear her if she Played or Sung: Having tuned her Lute, with a Voice soft as the Breath of Angels, she flung to it this following Air: I. Ah! Whither, whither shall I fly, A poor unhappy Maid; To hopeless Love and Misery By my own Heart betray'd? Not by Alexis Eyes undone, Nor by his Charming Faithless Tongue, Or any Practis'd Art; Such real Ills may hope a Cure, But the sad Pains which I endure Proceed from fansied Smart. II. 'Twas Fancy gave Alexis Charms, Ere I beheld his Face: Kind Fancy (then) could fold our Arms, And form a soft Embrace. But since I've seen the real Swain, And try'd to fancy him again, I'm by my Fancy taught, Though 'tis a Bliss no Tongue can tell, To have Alexis, yet 'tis Hell To have him but in Thought. The Song ended grieved Hippolito that it was so soon ended; and in the Ecstacy he was then rapt, I believe he would have been satisfied to have expired with it. He could not help Flattering himself, (though at the same Time he checked his own Vanity) that he was the Person meant in the Song. While he was indulging which thought, to his happy Astonishment, he heard it encouraged by these Words: 'Unhappy Leonora (said she) how is thy poor unwary Heart misled? Whither am I come? The false deluding Lights of an imaginary Flame, have led me, a poor benighted Victim, to a real Fire. I burn and am consumed with hopeless Love; those Beams in whose soft temperate warmth I wanton'd heretofore, now flash destruction to my Soul, my Treacherous greedy Eyes have suck'd the glaring Light, they have united all its Rays, and, like a burning-Glass, convey'd the pointed Meteor to my Heart--Ah! Aurelian, how quickly hast thou Conquer'd, and how quickly must thou Forsake. Oh Happy (to me unfortunately Happy) Juliana! I am to be the subject of thy Triumph--To thee Aurelian comes laden with the Tribute of my Heart and Glories in the Oblation of his broken Vows.--What then, is Aurelian False! False! alass, I know not what I say; How can he be False, or True, or any Thing to me? What Promises did he ere make or I receive? Sure I dream, or I am mad, and fansie it to be Love; Foolish Girl, recal thy banish'd Reason.--Ah! would it were no more, would I could rave, sure that would give me Ease, and rob me of the Sense of Pain; at least, among my wandring Thoughts, I should at sometime light upon Aurelian, and fansie him to be mine; kind Madness would flatter my poor feeble Wishes, and sometimes tell me Aurelian is not lost--not irrecoverably--not for ever lost. Hippolito could hear no more, he had not Room for half his Transport. When Leonora perceived a Man coming toward her, she fell a trembling, and could not speak. Hippolito approached with Reverence, as to a Sacred Shrine; when coming near enough to see her Consternation, he fell upon his Knees. 'Behold, O Adored Leonora (said he) 'your ravished Aurelian, behold at your Feet the Happiest of Men, be not disturb'd at my Appearance, but think that Heaven conducted me to hear my Bliss pronounced by that dear Mouth alone, whose breath could fill me with new Life. Here he would have come nearer, but Leonora (scarce come to her self) was getting up in haste to have gone away: he catch'd her Hand, and with all the Endearments of Love and Transport pressed her stay; she was a long time in great Confusion, at last, with many Blushes, she entreated him to let her go where she might hide her Guilty Head, and not expose her shame before his Eyes, since his Ears had been sufficient Witnesses of her Crime. He begg'd pardon for his Treachery in over-hearing, and confessed it to be a Crime he had now repeated. With a Thousand Submissions, Entreaties, Prayers, Praises, Blessings, and passionate Expressions he wrought upon her to stay and hear him. Here Hippolito made use of his Rhetorick, and it proved prevailing: 'Twere tedious to tell the many ingenious Arguments he used, with all her Nice Distinctions and Objections. In short, he convinced her of his Passion, represented to her the necessity they were under, of being speedy in their Resolves: That his Father (for still he was Aurelian) would undoubtedly find him in the Morning, and then it would be too late to Repent. She on the other Hand, knew it was in vain to deny a Passion, which he had heard her so frankly own; (and no doubt was very glad it was past and done;) besides apprehending the danger of delay, and having some little Jealousies and Fears of what Effect might be produced between the Commands of his Father and the Beauties of Juliana; after some decent Denials, she consented to be Conducted by him through the Garden into the Convent, where she would prevail with her Confessor to Marry them. He was a scrupulous Old Father whom they had to deal withal, insomuch that ere they had perswaded him, Don Mario was returned by the Way of his own House, where missing his Daughter, and her Woman not being able to give any farther Account of her, than that she left her in the Garden; he concluded she was gone again to her Devotions, and indeed he found her in the Chappel upon her Knees with Hippolito in her hand, receiving the Father's Benediction upon Conclusion of the Ceremony. It would have asked a very skilful Hand, to have depicted to the Life the Faces of those Three Persons, at Don Mario's Appearance. He that has seen some admirable Piece of Transmutation by a Gorgon's Head, may form to himself the most probable Idea of the Prototype. The Old Gentleman was himself in a sort of a Wood, to find his Daughter with a Young Fellow and a Priest, but as yet he did not know the Worst, till Hippolito and Leonora came, and kneeling at his Feet, begg'd his Forgiveness and Blessing as his Son and Daughter. Don Mario, instead of that, fell into a most violent Passion, and would undoubtedly have committed some extravagant Action, had he not been restrained, more by the Sanctity of the Place, than the Perswasions of all the Religious, who were now come about him. Leonora stirr'd not off her Knees all this time, but continued begging of him that he would hear her. 'Ah! Ungrateful and Undutiful Wretch (cry'd he) 'how hast thou requited all my Care and Tenderness of thee? Now when I might have expected some return of Comfort, to throw thy self away upon an unknown Person, and, for ought I know, a Villain; to me I'm sure he is a Villain, who has robb'd me of my Treasure, my Darling Joy, and all the future Happiness of my Life prevented. Go--go, thou now-to-be-forgotten Leonora, go and enjoy thy unprosperous Choice; you who wanted not a Father's Counsel, cannot need, or else will slight his Blessing. These last Words were spoken with so much Passion and feeling Concern, that Leonora, moved with Excess of Grief, fainted at his Feet, just as she had caught hold to Embrace his Knees. The Old Man would have shook her off, but Compassion and Fatherly Affection came upon him in the midst of his Resolve, and melted him into Tears, he Embraced his Daughter in his Arms, and wept over her, while they endeavoured to restore her Senses. Hippolito was in such Concern he could not speak, but was busily employed in rubbing and chafing her Temples; when she opening her Eyes laid hold of his Arm, and cry'd out--Oh my Aurelian--how unhappy have you made me! With that she had again like to have fainted away, but he took her in his Arms, and begg'd Don Mario to have some pity on his Daughter, since by his Severity she was reduced to that Condition. The Old Man hearing his Daughter name Aurelian, was a little revived, and began to hope Things were in a pretty good Condition; he was perswaded to comfort her, and having brought her wholly to her self, was content to hear her Excuse, and in a little time was so far wrought upon as to beg Hippolito's Pardon for the Ill Opinion he had conceived of him, and not long after gave his Consent. The Night was spent in this Conflict, and it was now clear Day, when Don Mario Conducting his new Son and Daughter through the Garden, was met by some Servants of the Marquess of Viterbo, who had been enquiring for Donna Leonora, to know if Juliana had lately been with her; for that she was missing from her Father's House, and no conjectures could be made of what might become of her. Don Mario and Leonora were surprized at the News, for he knew well enough of the Match that was design'd for Juliana; and having enquired where the Marquess was, it was told him, That he was gone with Don Fabio and Fabritio toward Aurelian's Lodgings. Don Mario having assured the Servants that Juliana had not been there, dismissed them, and advised with his Son and Daughter how they should undeceive the Marquess and Don Fabio in their Expectations of Aurelian. Hippolito could oftentimes scarce forbear smiling at the old Man's Contrivances who was most deceived himself; he at length advised them to go all down together to his Lodging, where he would present himself before his Father, and ingenuously confess to him the truth, and he did not question his approving of his Choice. This was agreed to, and the Coach made ready. While they were upon their way, Hippolito pray'd heartily that his Friend Aurelian might be at the Lodging, to satisfie Don Mario and Leonora of his Circumstances and Quality, when he should be obliged to discover himself. His Petitions were granted; for Don Fabio had beset the House long before his Son was up or Incognita awake. Upon the arrival of Don Mario and Hippolito, they heard a great Noise and Hubbub above Stairs, which Don Mario concluded was occasioned by their not finding Aurelian, whom he thought he could give the best account of: So that it was not in Hippolito's power to disswade him from going up before to prepare his Father to receive and forgive him. While Hippolito and Leonora were left in the Coach at the Door, he made himself known to her, and begg'd her pardon a thousand times for continuing the deceit. She was under some concern at first to find she was still mistaken; but his Behaviour, and the Reasons he gave, soon reconciled him to her; his Person was altogether as agreeable, his Estate and Quality not at all inferiour to Aurelian's; in the mean time, the true Aurelian who had seen his Father, begg'd leave of him to withdraw for a moment; in which time he went into the Chamber where his Incognita was dressing her self, by his design, in Woman's Apparel, while he was consulting with her how they should break the matter to his Father; it happened that Don Mario came up Stairs where the Marquess and Don Fabio were; they undoubtedly concluded him Mad, to hear him making Apologies and Excuses for Aurelian, whom he told them if they would promise to forgive he would present before them immediately. The Marquess asked him if his Daughter had lain with Leonora that Night; he answered him with another question in behalf of Aurelian. In short, they could not understand one another, but each thought 'tother beside himself. Don Mario was so concern'd that they would not believe him, that he ran down Stairs and came to the Door out of Breath, desiring Hippolito that he would come into the House quickly, for that he could not perswade his Father but that he had already seen and spoke to him. Hippolito by that understood that Aurelian was in the House; so taking Leonora by the Hand, he followed Don Mario, who led him up into the Dining-Room, where they found Aurelian upon his Knees, begging his Father to forgive him, that he could not agree to the Choice he had made for him, since he had already disposed of himself, and that before he understood the designs he had for him, which was the reason that he had hitherto concealed himself. Don Fabio knew not how to answer him, but look'd upon the Marquess, and the Marquess upon him, as if the Cement had been cool'd which was to have united their Families. All was silent, and Don Mario for his part took it to be all Conjuration; he was coming forward to present Hippolito to them, when Aurelian spying his Friend, started from his Knees and ran to embrace him--My dear Hippolito (said he) what happy chance has brought you hither, just at my Necessity? Hippolito pointed to Don Mario and Leonora, and told him upon what terms he came. Don Mario was ready to run mad, hearing him called Hippolito, and went again to examine his Daughter. While she was informing him of the truth, the Marquess's Servants returned with the melancholy News that his Daughter was no where to be found. While the Marquess and Don Fabritio were wondering at, and lamenting the Misfortune of her loss, Hippolito came towards Don Fabio and interceded for his Son, since the Lady perhaps had withdrawn her self out of an Aversion to the Match. Don Fabio, though very much incens'd, yet forgot not the Respect due to Hippolito's Quality; and by his perswasion spoke to Aurelian, though with a stern Look and angry Voice, and asked him where he had disposed the cause of his Disobedience, if he were worthy to see her or no; Aurelian made answer, That he desired no more than for him to see her; and he did not doubt a Consequence of his Approbation and Forgiveness--Well (said Don Fabio) you are very conceited of your own Discretion, let us see this Rarety. While Aurelian was gone in for Incognita, the Marquess of Viterbo and Don Fabritio were taking their leaves in great disorder for their loss and disappointment; but Don Fabio entreated their stay a moment longer till the return of his Son. Aurelian led Incognita into the Room veil'd, who seeing some Company there which he had not told her of, would have gone back again. But Don Fabio came bluntly forwards, and ere she was aware, lifted up her Veil and beheld the Fair Incognita, differing nothing from Juliana, but in her Name. This discovery was so extreamly surprizing and welcome, that either Joy or Amazement had tied up the Tongues of the whole Company. Aurelian here was most at a loss, for he knew not of his Happiness; and that which all along prevented Juliana's confessing her self to him, was her knowing Hippolito (for whom she took him) to be Aurelian's Friend, and she feared if he had known her, that he would never have consented to have deprived him of her. Juliana was the first that spoke, falling upon her Knees to her Father, who was not enough himself to take her up. Don Fabio ran to her, and awakened the Marquess, who then embraced her, but could not yet speak. Fabritio and Leonora strove who should first take her in their Arms; for Aurelian he was out of his wits for Joy, and Juliana was not much behind him, to see how happily their Loves and Duties were reconciled. Don Fabio embraced his Son and forgave him. The Marquess and Fabritio gave Juliana into his hands, he received the Blessing upon his Knees; all were over-joy'd, and Don Mario not a little proud at the discovery of his Son-in-Law, whom Aurelian did not fail to set forth with all the ardent Zeal and Eloquence of Friendship. Juliana and Leonora had pleasant Discourse about their unknown and mistaken Rivalship, and it was the Subject of a great deal of Mirth to hear Juliana relate the several Contrivances which she had to avoid Aurelian for the sake of Hippolito. Having diverted themselves with many Remarks upon the pleasing surprize, they all thought it proper to attend upon the Great Duke that Morning at the Palace, and to acquaint him with the Novelty of what had pass'd; while, by the way, the two Young Couple entertained the Company with the Relation of several Particulars of their Three Days Adventures. 
3694	----	EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres -- well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title -- accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire -- as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said -- though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication -- plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works: -- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. BEN JONSON'S PLAYS EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR* ([*footnote] This is the "Italian Edition" of the comedy. The later, superior, and more familiar Anglicised version, will be a separate Project Gutenberg etext.) DRAMATIS PERSONAE LORENZO SENIOR. PROSPERO. THORELLO. GIULIANO. LORENZO JUNIOR. STEPHANO. DOCTOR CLEMENT. BOBADILLA. BIANCHA. HESPERIDA. PETO. MUSCO. COB. MATHEO. PISO. TIB. ACT I SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO DI PAZZI SENIOR, MUSCO. LOR. SE. Now trust me, here's a goodly day toward. Musco, call up my son Lorenzo; bid him rise; tell him, I have some business to employ him in. MUS. I will, sir, presently. LOR. SE. But hear you, sirrah; If he be at study disturb him not. MUS. Very good, sir. [EXIT MUSCO.] LOR. SE. How happy would I estimate myself, Could I by any means retire my son, From one vain course of study he affects! He is a scholar (if a man may trust The liberal voice of double-tongued report) Of dear account, in all our "Academies." Yet this position must not breed in me A fast opinion that he cannot err. Myself was once a "student," and indeed Fed with the self-same humour he is now, Dreaming on nought but idle "Poetry"; But since, Experience hath awaked my spirits, [ENTER STEPHANO] And reason taught them, how to comprehend The sovereign use of study. What, cousin Stephano! What news with you, that you are here so early? STEP. Nothing: but e'en come to see how you do, uncle. LOR. SE. That's kindly done; you are welcome, cousin. STEP. Ay, I know that sir, I would not have come else: how doth my cousin, uncle? LOR. SE. Oh, well, well, go in and see; I doubt he's scarce stirring yet. STEP. Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me an he have e'er a book of the sciences of hawking and hunting? I would fain borrow it. LOR. SE. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you? STEP. No, wusse; but I'll practise against next year; I have bought me a hawk, and bells and all; I lack nothing but a book to keep it by. LOR. SE. Oh, most ridiculous. STEP. Nay, look you now, you are angry, uncle, why, you know, an a man have not skill in hawking and hunting now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him; he is for no gentleman's company, and (by God's will) I scorn it, ay, so I do, to be a consort for every hum-drum; hang them scroyles, there's nothing in them in the world, what do you talk on it? a gentleman must shew himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry, I know what I have to do, I trow, I am no novice. LOR. SE. Go to, you are a prodigal, and self-willed fool. Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak, Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you. What? have you not means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a Buzzard, And know not how to keep it when you have done? Oh, it's brave, this will make you a gentleman, Well, cousin, well, I see you are e'en past hope Of all reclaim; ay, so, now you are told on it, you look another way. STEP. What would you have me do, trow? LOR. What would I have you do? marry, Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive, That I would have you do, and not to spend Your crowns on every one that humours you: I would not have you to intrude yourself In every gentleman's society, Till their affections or your own dessert, Do worthily invite you to the place. For he that's so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation vile and cheap. Let not your carriage and behaviour taste Of affectation, lest while you pretend To make a blaze of gentry to the world A little puff of scorn extinguish it, And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. Cousin, lay by such superficial forms, And entertain a perfect real substance; Stand not so much on your gentility, But moderate your expenses (now at first) As you may keep the same proportion still: Bear a low sail. Soft, who's this comes here? [ENTER A SERVANT.] SER. Gentlemen, God save you. STEP. Welcome, good friend; we do not stand much upon our gentility, yet I can assure you mine uncle is a man of a thousand pound land a year; he hath but one son in the world; I am his next heir, as simple as I stand here, if my cousin die. I have a fair living of mine own too beside. SER. In good time, sir. STEP. In good time, sir! you do not flout me, do you? SER. Not I, sir. STEP. An you should, here be them can perceive it, and that quickly too. Go to; and they can give it again soundly, an need be. SER. Why, sir, let this satisfy you. Good faith, I had no such intent. STEP. By God, an I thought you had, sir, I would talk with you. SER. So you may, sir, and at your pleasure. STEP. And so I would, sir, an you were out of mine uncle's ground, I can tell you. LOR. SE. Why, how now, cousin, will this ne'er be left? STEP. Whoreson, base fellow, by God's lid, an 'twere not for shame, I would -- LOR. SE. What would you do? you peremptory ass, An you'll not be quiet, get you hence. You see, the gentleman contains himself In modest limits, giving no reply To your unseason'd rude comparatives; Yet you'll demean yourself without respect Either of duty or humanity. Go, get you in: 'fore God, I am asham'd [EXIT STEP.] Thou hast a kinsman's interest in me. SER. I pray you, sir, is this Pazzi house? LOR. SE. Yes, marry is it, sir. SER. I should enquire for a gentleman here, one Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi; do you know any such, sir, I pray you? LOR. SE. Yes, sir; or else I should forget myself. SER. I cry you mercy, sir, I was requested by a gentleman of Florence (having some occasion to ride this way) to deliver you this letter. LOR. SE. To me, sir? What do you mean? I pray you remember your court'sy. "To his dear and most selected friend, Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi." What might the gentleman's name be, sir, that sent it? Nay, pray you be covered. SER. Signior Prospero. LOR. SE. Signior Prospero? A young gentleman of the family of Strozzi, is he not? SER. Ay, sir, the same: Signior Thorello, the rich Florentine merchant married his sister. [ENTER MUSCO.] LOR. SE. You say very true. -- Musco. MUS. Sir. LOR. SE. Make this gentleman drink here. I pray you go in, sir, an't please you. [EXEUNT.] Now (without doubt) this letter's to my son. Well, all is one: I'll be so bold as read it, Be it but for the style's sake, and the phrase; Both which (I do presume) are excellent, And greatly varied from the vulgar form, If Prospero's invention gave them life. How now! what stuff is here? "Sir Lorenzo, I muse we cannot see thee at Florence: 'Sblood, I doubt, Apollo hath got thee to be his Ingle, that thou comest not abroad, to visit thine old friends: well, take heed of him; he may do somewhat for his household servants, or so; But for his Retainers, I am sure, I have known some of them, that have followed him, three, four, five years together, scorning the world with their bare heels, and at length been glad for a shift (though no clean shift) to lie a whole winter, in half a sheet cursing Charles' wain, and the rest of the stars intolerably. But (quis contra diuos?) well; Sir, sweet villain, come and see me; but spend one minute in my company, and 'tis enough: I think I have a world of good jests for thee: oh, sir, I can shew thee two of the most perfect, rare and absolute true Gulls, that ever thou saw'st, if thou wilt come. 'Sblood, invent some famous memorable lie, or other, to flap thy Father in the mouth withal: thou hast been father of a thousand, in thy days, thou could'st be no Poet else: any scurvy roguish excuse will serve; say thou com'st but to fetch wool for thine Ink-horn. And then, too, thy Father will say thy wits are a wool- gathering. But it's no matter; the worse, the better. Anything is good enough for the old man. Sir, how if thy Father should see this now? what would he think of me? Well, (how ever I write to thee) I reverence him in my soul, for the general good all Florence delivers of him. Lorenzo, I conjure thee (by what, let me see) by the depth of our love, by all the strange sights we have seen in our days, (ay, or nights either), to come to me to Florence this day. Go to, you shall come, and let your Muses go spin for once. If thou wilt not, 's hart, what's your god's name? Apollo? Ay, Apollo. If this melancholy rogue (Lorenzo here) do not come, grant, that he do turn Fool presently, and never hereafter be able to make a good jest, or a blank verse, but live in more penury of wit and invention, than either the Hall-Beadle, or Poet Nuntius." Well, it is the strangest letter that ever I read. Is this the man, my son so oft hath praised To be the happiest, and most precious wit That ever was familiar with Art? Now, by our Lady's blessed son, I swear, I rather think him most unfortunate In the possession of such holy gifts, Being the master of so loose a spirit. Why, what unhallowed ruffian would have writ With so profane a pen unto his friend? The modest paper e'en looks pale for grief, To feel her virgin-cheek defiled and stained With such a black and criminal inscription. Well, I had thought my son could not have strayed So far from judgment as to mart himself Thus cheaply in the open trade of scorn To jeering folly and fantastic humour. But now I see opinion is a fool, And hath abused my senses. -- Musco. [ENTER MUSCO.] MUS. Sir. LOR. SE. What, is the fellow gone that brought this letter? MUS. Yes sir, a pretty while since. LOR. SE. And where's Lorenzo? MUS. In his chamber, sir. LOR. SE. He spake not with the fellow, did he? MUS. No, sir, he saw him not. LOR. SE. Then, Musco, take this letter, and deliver it unto Lorenzo: but, sirrah, on your life take you no knowledge I have opened it. MUS. O Lord, sir, that were a jest indeed. [EXIT MUS.] LOR. SE. I am resolv'd I will not cross his journey, Nor will I practise any violent means To stay the hot and lusty course of youth. For youth restrained straight grows impatient, And, in condition, like an eager dog, Who, ne'er so little from his game withheld, Turns head and leaps up at his master's throat. Therefore I'll study, by some milder drift, To call my son unto a happier shrift. [EXIT.] ACT I. SCENE II. ENTER LORENZO JUNIOR, WITH MUSCO. MUS. Yes, sir, on my word he opened it, and read the contents. LOR. JU. It scarce contents me that he did so. But, Musco, didst thou observe his countenance in the reading of it, whether he were angry or pleased? MUS. Why, sir, I saw him not read it. LOR. JU. No? how knowest thou then that he opened it? MUS. Marry, sir, because he charg'd me on my life to tell nobody that he opened it, which, unless he had done, he would never fear to have it revealed. LOR. JU. That's true: well, Musco, hie thee in again, Lest thy protracted absence do lend light, [ENTER STEPHANO.] To dark suspicion: Musco, be assured I'll not forget this thy respective love. STEP. Oh, Musco, didst thou not see a fellow here in a what-sha-call-him doublet; he brought mine uncle a letter even now? MUS. Yes, sir, what of him? STEP. Where is he, canst thou tell? MUS. Why, he is gone. STEP. Gone? which way? when went he? how long since? MUS. It's almost half an hour ago since he rode hence. STEP. Whoreson scanderbag rogue; oh that I had a horse; by God's lid, I'd fetch him back again, with heave and ho. MUS. Why, you may have my master's bay gelding, an you will. STEP. But I have no boots, that's the spite on it. MUS. Then it's no boot to follow him. Let him go and hang, sir. STEP. Ay, by my troth; Musco, I pray thee help to truss me a little; nothing angers me, but I have waited such a while for him all unlac'd and untrussed yonder; and now to see he is gone the other way. MUS. Nay, I pray you stand still, sir. STEP. I will, I will: oh, how it vexes me. MUS. Tut, never vex yourself with the thought of such a base fellow as he. STEP. Nay, to see he stood upon points with me too. MUS. Like enough so; that was because he saw you had so few at your hose. STEP. What! Hast thou done? Godamercy, good Musco. MUS. I marle, sir, you wear such ill-favoured coarse stockings, having so good a leg as you have. STEP. Foh! the stockings be good enough for this time of the year; but I'll have a pair of silk, e'er it be long: I think my leg would shew well in a silk hose. MUS. Ay, afore God, would it, rarely well. STEP. In sadness I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg? MUS. You have an excellent good leg, sir: I pray you pardon me. I have a little haste in, sir. STEP. A thousand thanks, good Musco. [EXIT.] What, I hope he laughs not at me; an he do -- LOR. JU. Here is a style indeed, for a man's senses to leap over, e'er they come at it: why, it is able to break the shins of any old man's patience in the world. My father read this with patience? Then will I be made an Eunuch, and learn to sing Ballads. I do not deny, but my father may have as much patience as any other man; for he used to take physic, and oft taking physic makes a man a very patient creature. But, Signior Prospero, had your swaggering Epistle here arrived in my father's hands at such an hour of his patience, I mean, when he had taken physic, it is to be doubted whether I should have read "sweet villain here." But, what? My wise cousin; Nay then, I'll furnish our feast with one Gull more toward a mess; he writes to me of two, and here's one, that's three, i'faith. Oh for a fourth! now, Fortune, or never, Fortune! STEP. Oh, now I see who he laughed at: he laughed at somebody in that letter. By this good light, an he had laughed at me, I would have told mine uncle. LOR. JU. Cousin Stephano: good morrow, good cousin, how fare you? STEP. The better for your asking, I will assure you. I have been all about to seek you. Since I came I saw mine uncle; and i'faith how have you done this great while? Good Lord, by my troth, I am glad you are well, cousin. LOR. JU. And I am as glad of your coming, I protest to you, for I am sent for by a private gentleman, my most special dear friend, to come to him to Florence this morning, and you shall go with me, cousin, if it please you, not else, I will enjoin you no further than stands with your own consent, and the condition of a friend. STEP. Why, cousin, you shall command me an 'twere twice so far as Florence, to do you good; what, do you think I will not go with you? I protest -- LOR. JU. Nay, nay, you shall not protest STEP. By God, but I will, sir, by your leave I'll protest more to my friend than I'll speak of at this time. LOR. JU. You speak very well, sir. STEP. Nay, not so neither, but I speak to serve my turn. LOR. JU. Your turn? why, cousin, a gentleman of so fair sort as you are, of so true carriage, so special good parts; of so dear and choice estimation; one whose lowest condition bears the stamp of a great spirit; nay more, a man so graced, gilded, or rather, to use a more fit metaphor, tinfoiled by nature; not that you have a leaden constitution, coz, although perhaps a little inclining to that temper, and so the more apt to melt with pity, when you fall into the fire of rage, but for your lustre only, which reflects as bright to the world as an old ale-wife's pewter again a good time; and will you now, with nice modesty, hide such real ornaments as these, and shadow their glory as a milliner's wife doth her wrought stomacher, with a smoky lawn or a black cyprus? Come, come; for shame do not wrong the quality of your dessert in so poor a kind; but let the idea of what you are be portrayed in your aspect, that men may read in your looks: "Here within this place is to be seen the most admirable, rare, and accomplished work of nature!" Cousin, what think you of this? STEP. Marry, I do think of it, and I will be more melancholy and gentlemanlike than I have been, I do ensure you. LOR. JU. Why, this is well: now if I can but hold up this humour in him, as it is begun, Catso for Florence, match him an she can. Come, cousin. STEP. I'll follow you. LOR. JU. Follow me! you must go before! STEP. Must I? nay, then I pray you shew me, good cousin. [EXEUNT.] ACT I. SCENE III. ENTER SIGNIOR MATHEO, TO HIM COB. MAT. I think this be the house: what ho! COB. Who's there? oh, Signior Matheo. God give you good morrow, sir. MAT. What? Cob? how doest thou, good Cob? does thou inhabit here, Cob? COB. Ay, sir, I and my lineage have kept a poor house in our days. MAT. Thy lineage, Monsieur Cob! what lineage, what lineage? COB. Why, sir, an ancient lineage, and a princely: mine ancestry came from a king's loins, no worse man; and yet no man neither but Herring the king of fish, one of the monarchs of the world, I assure you. I do fetch my pedigree and name from the first red herring that was eaten in Adam and Eve's kitchen: his Cob was my great, great, mighty great grandfather. MAT. Why mighty? why mighty? COB. Oh, it's a mighty while ago, sir, and it was a mighty great Cob. MAT. How knowest thou that? COB. How know I? why, his ghost comes to me every night. MAT. Oh, unsavoury jest: the ghost of a herring Cob. COB. Ay, why not the ghost of a herring Cob, as well as the ghost of Rashero Bacono, they were both broiled on the coals? you are a scholar, upsolve me that now. MAT. Oh, rude ignorance! Cob, canst thou shew me of a gentleman, one Signior Bobadilla, where his lodging is? COB. Oh, my guest, sir, you mean? MAT. Thy guest, alas! ha, ha. COB. Why do you laugh, sir? do you not mean Signior Bobadilla? MAT. Cob, I pray thee advise thyself well: do not wrong the gentleman, and thyself too. I dare be sworn he scorns thy house; he! he lodge in such a base obscure place as thy house? Tut, I know his disposition so well, he would not lie in thy bed if thou'dst give it him. COB. I will not give it him. Mass, I thought somewhat was in it, we could not get him to bed all night. Well sir, though he lie not on my bed, he lies on my bench, an't please you to go up, sir, you shall find him with two cushions under his head, and his cloak wrapt about him, as though he had neither won nor lost, and yet I warrant he ne'er cast better in his life than he hath done to-night. MAT. Why, was he drunk? COB. Drunk, sir? you hear not me say so; perhaps he swallow'd a tavern token, or some such device, sir; I have nothing to do withal: I deal with water and not with wine. Give me my tankard there, ho! God be with you, sir; it's six o'clock: I should have carried two turns by this, what ho! my stopple, come. MAT. Lie in a water-bearer's house, a gentleman of his note? Well, I'll tell him my mind. [EXIT.] COB. What, Tib, shew this gentleman up to Signior Bobadilla: oh, an my house were the Brazen head now, faith it would e'en cry moe fools yet: you should have some now, would take him to be a gentleman at least; alas, God help the simple, his father's an honest man, a good fishmonger, and so forth: and now doth he creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about the town, such as my guest is, (oh, my guest is a fine man!) and they flout him invincibly. He useth every day to a merchant's house, (where I serve water) one M. Thorello's; and here's the jest, he is in love with my master's sister, and calls her mistress: and there he sits a whole afternoon sometimes, reading of these same abominable, vile, (a pox on them, I cannot abide them!) rascally verses, Poetry, poetry, and speaking of Interludes, 'twill make a man burst to hear him: and the wenches, they do so jeer and tihe at him; well, should they do as much to me, I'd forswear them all, by the life of Pharaoh, there's an oath: how many water-bearers shall you hear swear such an oath? oh, I have a guest, (he teacheth me) he doth swear the best of any man christened. By Phoebus, By the life of Pharaoh, By the body of me, As I am gentleman, and a soldier: such dainty oaths; and withal he doth take this same filthy roguish tobacco, the finest and cleanliest; it would do a man good to see the fume come forth at his nostrils: well, he owes me forty shillings, (my wife lent him out of her purse; by sixpence a time,) besides his lodging; I would I had it: I shall have it, he saith, next Action. Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up-tails all, and a pox on the hangman. [EXIT.] [BOBADILLA DISCOVERS HIMSELF; ON A BENCH; TO HIM TIB.] BOB. Hostess, hostess. TIB. What say you, sir? BOB. A cup of your small beer, sweet hostess. TIB. Sir, there's a gentleman below would speak with you. BOB. A gentleman? (God's so) I am not within. TIB. My husband told him you were, sir. BOB. What a plague! what meant he? MAT. Signior Bobadilla. [MATHEO WITHIN.] BOB. Who's there? (take away the bason, good hostess) come up, sir. TIB. He would desire you to come up, sir; you come into a cleanly house here. MAT. God save you, sir, God save you. [ENTER MATHEO.] BOB. Signior Matheo, is't you, sir? please you sit down. MAT. I thank you, good Signior, you may see I am somewhat audacious. BOB. Not so, Signior, I was requested to supper yesternight by a sort of gallants, where you were wished for, and drunk to, I assure you. MAT. Vouchsafe me by whom, good Signior. BOB. Marry, by Signior Prospero, and others; why, hostess, a stool here for this gentleman. MAT. No haste, sir, it is very well. BOB. Body of me, it was so late ere we parted last night, I can scarce open mine eyes yet; I was but new risen as you came; how passes the day abroad, sir? you can tell. MAT. Faith, some half hour to seven: now trust me, you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat, and private. BOB. Ay, sir, sit down. I pray you, Signior Matheo, in any case possess no gentlemen of your acquaintance with notice of my lodging. MAT. Who? I, sir? no. BOB. Not that I need to care who know it, but in regard I would not be so popular and general as some be. MAT. True, Signior, I conceive you. BOB. For do you see, sir, by the heart of myself, (except it be to some peculiar and choice spirits, to whom I am extraordinarily engaged, as yourself, or so,) I could not extend thus far. MAT. O Lord, sir! I resolve so. BOB. What new book have you there? What? "Go by Hieronymo." MAT. Ay, did you ever see it acted? is't not well penned? BOB. Well penned: I would fain see all the Poets of our time pen such another play as that was; they'll prate and swagger, and keep a stir of art and devices, when (by God's so) they are the most shallow, pitiful fellows that live upon the face of the earth again. MAT. Indeed, here are a number of fine speeches in this book: "Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;" there's a conceit: Fountains fraught with tears. "Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;" is't not excellent? "Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs;" O God's me: "confused and filled with murder and misdeeds." Is't not simply the best that ever you heard? Ha, how do you like it? BOB. 'Tis good. MAT. "To thee, the purest object to my sense, The most refined essence heaven covers, Send I these lines, wherein I do commence The happy state of true deserving lovers. If they prove rough, unpolish'd, harsh, and rude, Haste made that waste; thus mildly I conclude." BOB. Nay, proceed, proceed, where's this? where's this? MAT. This, sir, a toy of mine own in my non-age: but when will you come and see my study? good faith, I can shew you some very good things I have done of late: that boot becomes your leg passing well, sir, methinks. BOB. So, so, it's a fashion gentlemen use. MAT. Mass, sir, and now you speak of the fashion, Signior Prospero's elder brother and I are fallen out exceedingly: this other day I happened to enter into some discourse of a hanger, which, I assure you, both for fashion and workmanship was most beautiful and gentlemanlike; yet he condemned it for the most pied and ridiculous that ever he saw. BOB. Signior Giuliano, was it not? the elder brother? MAT. Ay, sir, he. BOB. Hang him, rook! he! why, he has no more judgment than a malt-horse. By St. George, I hold him the most peremptory absurd clown (one a them) in Christendom: I protest to you (as I am a gentleman and a soldier) I ne'er talk'd with the like of him: he has not so much as a good word in his belly, all iron, iron, a good commodity for a smith to make hob-nails on. MAT. Ay, and he thinks to carry it away with his manhood still where he comes: he brags he will give me the bastinado, as I hear. BOB. How, the bastinado? how came he by that word, trow? MAT. Nay, indeed, he said cudgel me; I termed it so for the more grace. BOB. That may be, for I was sure it was none of his word: but when, when said he so? MAT. Faith, yesterday, they say, a young gallant, a friend of mine, told me so. BOB. By the life of Pharaoh, an't were my case now, I should send him a challenge presently: the bastinado! come hither, you shall challenge him; I'll shew you a trick or two, you shall kill him at pleasure, the first stoccado if you will, by this air. MAT. Indeed, you have absolute knowledge in the mystery, I have heard, sir. BOB. Of whom? of whom, I pray? MAT. Faith, I have heard it spoken of divers, that you have very rare skill, sir. BOB. By heaven, no, not I, no skill in the earth: some small science, know my time, distance, or so, I have profest it more for noblemen and gentlemen's use than mine own practise, I assure you. Hostess, lend us another bed-staff here quickly: look you, sir, exalt not your point above this state at any hand, and let your poniard maintain your defence thus: give it the gentleman. So, sir, come on, oh, twine your body more about, that you may come to a more sweet comely gentlemanlike guard; so indifferent. Hollow your body more, sir, thus: now stand fast on your left leg, note your distance, keep your due proportion of time: oh, you disorder your point most vilely. MAT. How is the bearing of it now, sir? BOB. Oh, out of measure ill, a well-experienced man would pass upon you at pleasure. MAT. How mean you pass upon me? BOB. Why, thus, sir: make a thrust at me; come in upon my time; control your point, and make a full career at the body: the best-practis'd gentlemen of the time term it the passado, a most desperate thrust, believe it. MAT. Well, come, sir. BOB. Why, you do not manage your weapons with that facility and grace that you should do, I have no spirit to play with you, your dearth of judgment makes you seem tedious. MAT. But one venue, sir. BOB. Fie! venue, most gross denomination as ever I heard: oh, the stoccado while you live, Signior, not that. Come, put on your cloak, and we'll go to some private place where you are acquainted, some tavern or so, and we'll send for one of these fencers, where he shall breathe you at my direction, and then I'll teach you that trick; you shall kill him with it at the first if you please: why, I'll learn you by the true judgment of the eye, hand, and foot, to control any man's point in the world; Should your adversary confront you with a pistol, 'twere nothing, you should (by the same rule) control the bullet, most certain, by Phoebus: unless it were hail-shot: what money have you about you, sir? MAT. Faith, I have not past two shillings, or so. BOB. 'Tis somewhat with the least, but come, when we have done, we'll call up Signior Prospero; perhaps we shall meet with Coridon his brother there. [EXEUNT.] ACT I. SCENE IV. ENTER THORELLO, GIULIANO, PISO. THO. Piso, come hither: there lies a note within, upon my desk; here, take my key: it's no matter neither, where's the boy? PIS. Within, sir, in the warehouse. THO. Let him tell over that Spanish gold, and weigh it, and do you see the delivery of those wares to Signior Bentivole: I'll be there myself at the receipt of the money anon. PIS. Very good, sir. [EXIT PISO.] THO. Brother, did you see that same fellow there? GIU. Ay, what of him? THO. He is e'en the honestest, faithful servant that is this day in Florence; (I speak a proud word now;) and one that I durst trust my life into his hands, I have so strong opinion of his love, if need were. GIU. God send me never such need: but you said you had somewhat to tell me, what is't? THO. Faith, brother, I am loath to utter it, As fearing to abuse your patience, But that I know your judgment more direct, Able to sway the nearest of affection. GIU. Come, come, what needs this circumstance? THO. I will not say what honour I ascribe Unto your friendship, nor in what dear state I hold your love; let my continued zeal, The constant and religious regard, That I have ever carried to your name, My carriage with your sister, all contest, How much I stand affected to your house. GIU. You are too tedious, come to the matter, come to the matter. THO. Then (without further ceremony) thus. My brother Prospero (I know not how) Of late is much declined from what he was, And greatly alter'd in his disposition. When he came first to lodge here in my house, Ne'er trust me, if I was not proud of him: Methought he bare himself with such observance, So true election and so fair a form: And (what was chief) it shew'd not borrow'd in him, But all he did became him as his own, And seem'd as perfect, proper, and innate, Unto the mind, as colour to the blood, But now, his course is so irregular, So loose affected, and deprived of grace, And he himself withal so far fallen off From his first place, that scarce no note remains, To tell men's judgments where he lately stood; He's grown a stranger to all due respect, Forgetful of his friends, and not content To stale himself in all societies, He makes my house as common as a Mart, A Theatre, a public receptacle For giddy humour, and diseased riot, And there, (as in a tavern, or a stews,) He, and his wild associates, spend their hours, In repetition of lascivious jests, Swear, leap, and dance, and revel night by night, Control my servants: and indeed what not? GIU. Faith, I know not what I should say to him: so God save me, I am e'en at my wits' end, I have told him enough, one would think, if that would serve: well, he knows what to trust to for me: let him spend, and spend, and domineer till his heart ache: an he get a penny more of me, I'll give him this ear. THO. Nay, good brother, have patience. GIU. 'Sblood, he mads me, I could eat my very flesh for anger: I marle you will not tell him of it, how he disquiets your house. THO. O, there are divers reasons to dissuade me, But would yourself vouchsafe to travail in it, (Though but with plain and easy circumstance,) It would both come much better to his sense, And savour less of grief and discontent. You are his elder brother, and that title Confirms and warrants your authority: Which (seconded by your aspect) will breed A kind of duty in him, and regard. Whereas, if I should intimate the least, It would but add contempt to his neglect, Heap worse on ill, rear a huge pile of hate, That in the building would come tottering down, And in her ruins bury all our love. Nay, more than this, brother; if I should speak, He would be ready in the heat of passion, To fill the ears of his familiars, With oft reporting to them, what disgrace And gross disparagement I had proposed him. And then would they straight back him in opinion, Make some loose comment upon every word, And out of their distracted phantasies, Contrive some slander, that should dwell with me. And what would that be, think you? marry, this, They would give out, (because my wife is fair, Myself but lately married, and my sister Here sojourning a virgin in my house,) That I were jealous: nay, as sure as death, Thus they would say: and how that I had wrong'd My brother purposely, thereby to find An apt pretext to banish them my house. GIU. Mass, perhaps so. THO. Brother, they would, believe it: so should I (Like one of these penurious quack-salvers) But try experiments upon myself, Open the gates unto mine own disgrace, Lend bare-ribb'd envy opportunity To stab my reputation, and good name. [ENTER BOBA. AND MAT.] MAT. I will speak to him. BOB. Speak to him? away, by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not, you shall not do him that grace: the time of day to you, gentlemen: is Signior Prospero stirring? GIU. How then? what should he do? BOB. Signior Thorello, is he within, sir? THO. He came not to his lodging to-night, sir, I assure you. GIU. Why, do you hear? you. BOB. This gentleman hath satisfied me, I'll talk to no Scavenger. GIU. How, Scavenger? stay, sir, stay. [EXEUNT.] THO. Nay, brother Giuliano. GIU. 'Sblood, stand you away, an you love me. THO. You shall not follow him now, I pray you, Good faith, you shall not. GIU. Ha! Scavenger! well, go to, I say little, but, by this good day, (God forgive me I should swear) if I put it up so, say I am the rankest -- that ever pist. 'Sblood, an I swallow this, I'll ne'er draw my sword in the sight of man again while I live; I'll sit in a barn with Madge-owlet first. Scavenger! 'Heart, and I'll go near to fill that huge tumbrel slop of yours with somewhat, as I have good luck, your Garagantua breech cannot carry it away so. THO. Oh, do not fret yourself thus, never think on't. GIU. These are my brother's consorts, these, these are his Comrades, his walking mates, he's a gallant, a Cavaliero too, right hangman cut. God let me not live, an I could not find in my heart to swinge the whole nest of them, one after another, and begin with him first, I am grieved it should be said he is my brother, and take these courses, well, he shall hear on't, and that tightly too, an I live, i'faith. THO. But, brother, let your apprehension (then) Run in an easy current, not transported With heady rashness, or devouring choler, And rather carry a persuading spirit, Whose powers will pierce more gently; and allure Th' imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim, To a more sudden and resolved assent. GIU. Ay, ay, let me alone for that, I warrant you. [BELL RINGS.] THO. How now! oh, the bell rings to breakfast. Brother Giuliano, I pray you go in and bear my wife company: I'll but give order to my servants for the dispatch of some business, and come to you presently. [EXIT GIU., ENTER COB.] What, Cob! our maids will have you by the back (i'faith) For coming so late this morning. COB. Perhaps so, sir, take heed somebody have not them by the belly for walking so late in the evening. [EXIT.] THO. Now (in good faith) my mind is somewhat eased, Though not reposed in that security As I could wish; well, I must be content, Howe'er I set a face on't to the world, Would I had lost this finger at a vent, So Prospero had ne'er lodged in my house, Why't cannot be, where there is such resort Of wanton gallants, and young revellers, That any woman should be honest long. Is't like, that factious beauty will preserve The sovereign state of chastity unscarr'd, When such strong motives muster, and make head Against her single peace? no, no: beware When mutual pleasure sways the appetite, And spirits of one kind and quality, Do meet to parley in the pride of blood. Well, (to be plain) if I but thought the time Had answer'd their affections, all the world Should not persuade me, but I were a cuckold: Marry, I hope they have not got that start. For opportunity hath balk'd them yet, And shall do still, while I have eyes and ears To attend the imposition of my heart: My presence shall be as an iron bar, 'Twixt the conspiring motions of desire, Yea, every look or glance mine eye objects, Shall check occasion, as one doth his slave, When he forgets the limits of prescription. [ENTER BIANCHA WITH HESPERIDA.] BIA. Sister Hesperida, I pray you fetch down the rose-water above in the closet: Sweet-heart, will you come in to breakfast? THO. An she have overheard me now? [EXIT HESPERIDA.] BIA. I pray thee, (good Muss) we stay for you. THO. By Christ, I would not for a thousand crowns. BIA. What ail you, sweet-heart? are you not well? speak, good Muss. THO. Troth, my head aches extremely on a sudden. BIA. Oh Jesu! THO. How now! what! BIA. Good Lord, how it burns! Muss, keep you warm; good truth, it is this new disease, there's a number are troubled withall for God's sake, sweet-heart, come in out of the air. THO. How simple, and how subtle are her answers! A new disease, and many troubled with it. Why true, she heard me all the world to nothing. BIA. I pray thee, good sweet-heart, come in; the air will do you harm, in troth. THO. I'll come to you presently, it will away, I hope. BIA. Pray God it do. [EXIT.] THO. A new disease! I know not, new or old, But it may well be call'd poor mortals' Plague; For like a pestilence it doth infect The houses of the brain: first it begins Solely to work upon the phantasy, Filling her seat with such pestiferous air, As soon corrupts the judgment, and from thence, Sends like contagion to the memory, Still each of other catching the infection, Which as a searching vapour spreads itself Confusedly through every sensive part, Till not a thought or motion in the mind Be free from the black poison of suspect. Ah, but what error is it to know this, And want the free election of the soul In such extremes! well, I will once more strive (Even in despite of hell) myself to be, And shake this fever off that thus shakes me. [EXIT.] ACT II. SCENE I. ENTER MUSCO, DISGUISED LIKE A SOLDIER. MUS. 'Sblood, I cannot choose but laugh to see myself translated thus, from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an intolerable sort of lies, or else my profession loses his grace, and yet the lie to a man of my coat is as ominous as the Fico, oh, sir, it holds for good policy to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, that inwardly is most dear to us: So much for my borrowed shape. Well, the troth is, my master intends to follow his son dry-foot to Florence, this morning: now I, knowing of this conspiracy, and the rather to insinuate with my young master, (for so must we that are blue waiters, or men of service do, or else perhaps we may wear motley at the year's end, and who wears motley you know:) I have got me afore in this disguise, determining here to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the midway; if I can but get his cloak, his purse, his hat, nay, any thing so I can stay his journey, Rex Regum, I am made for ever, i'faith: well, now must I practise to get the true garb of one of these Lance-knights; my arm here, and my -- God's so, young master and his cousin. LOR. JU. So, sir, and how then? [ENTER LOR. JU. AND STEP.] STEP. God's foot, I have lost my purse, I think. LOR. JU. How? lost your purse? where? when had you it? STEP. I cannot tell, stay. MUS. 'Slid, I am afraid they will know me, would I could get by them. LOR. JU. What! have you it? STEP. No, I think I was bewitched, I. LOR. JU. Nay, do not weep, a pox on it, hang it, let it go. STEP. Oh, it's here; nay, an it had been lost, I had not cared but for a jet ring Marina sent me. LOR. JU. A jet ring! oh, the poesie, the poesie! STEP. Fine, i'faith: "Though fancy sleep, my love is deep": meaning that though I did not fancy her, yet she loved me dearly. LOR. JU. Most excellent. STEP. And then I sent her another, and my poesie was: "The deeper the sweeter, I'll be judged by Saint Peter." LOR. JU. How, by St. Peter? I do not conceive that. STEP. Marry, St. Peter to make up the metre. LOR JU. Well, you are beholding to that Saint, he help'd you at your need; thank him, thank him. MUS. I will venture, come what will: Gentlemen, please you change a few crowns for a very excellent good blade here; I am a poor gentleman, a soldier, one that (in the better state of my fortunes) scorned so mean a refuge, but now it's the humour of necessity to have it so: you seem to be, gentlemen, well affected to martial men, else I should rather die with silence, than live with shame: howe'er, vouchsafe to remember it is my want speaks, not myself: this condition agrees not with my spirit. LOR. JU. Where hast thou served? MUS. May it please you, Signior, in all the provinces of Bohemia, Hungaria, Dalmatia, Poland, where not? I have been a poor servitor by sea and land, any time this xiiij. years, and follow'd the fortunes of the best Commanders in Christendom. I was twice shot at the taking of Aleppo, once at the relief of Vienna; I have been at America in the galleys thrice, where I was most dangerously shot in the head, through both the thighs, and yet, being thus maim'd, I am void of maintenance, nothing left me but my scars, the noted marks of my resolution. STEP. How will you sell this rapier, friend? MUS. Faith, Signior, I refer it to your own judgment; you are a gentleman, give me what you please. STEP. True, I am a gentleman, I know that; but what though, I pray you say, what would you ask? MUS. I assure you the blade may become the side of the best prince in Europe. LOR. JU. Ay, with a velvet scabbard. STEP. Nay, an't be mine it shall have a velvet scabbard, that is flat, I'd not wear it as 'tis an you would give me an angel. MUS. At your pleasure, Signior, nay, it's a most pure Toledo. STEP. I had rather it were a Spaniard: but tell me, what shall I give you for it? an it had a silver hilt -- LOR. JU. Come, come, you shall not buy it; hold, there's a shilling, friend, take thy rapier. STEP. Why, but I will buy it now, because you say so: what, shall I go without a rapier? LOR. JU. You may buy one in the city. STEP. Tut, I'll buy this, so I will; tell me your lowest price. LOR. JU. You shall not, I say. STEP. By God's lid, but I will, though I give more than 'tis worth. LOR. JU. Come away, you are a fool. STEP. Friend, I'll have it for that word: follow me. MUS. At your service, Signior. [EXEUNT.] ACT II. SCENE II. ENTER LORENZO SENIOR. LOR. SE. My labouring spirit being late opprest With my son's folly, can embrace no rest Till it hath plotted by advice and skill, How to reduce him from affected will To reason's manage; which while I intend, My troubled soul begins to apprehend A farther secret, and to meditate Upon the difference of man's estate: Where is decipher'd to true judgment's eye A deep, conceal'd, and precious mystery. Yet can I not but worthily admire At nature's art: who (when she did inspire This heat of life) placed Reason (as a king) Here in the head, to have the marshalling Of our affections: and with sovereignty To sway the state of our weak empery. But as in divers commonwealths we see, The form of government to disagree: Even so in man, who searcheth soon shall find As much or more variety of mind. Some men's affections like a sullen wife, Is with her husband reason still at strife. Others (like proud arch-traitors that rebel Against their sovereign) practise to expel Their liege Lord Reason, and not shame to tread Upon his holy and anointed head. But as that land or nation best doth thrive, Which to smooth-fronted peace is most proclive, So doth that mind, whose fair affections ranged By reason's rules, stand constant and unchanged, Else, if the power of reason be not such, Why do we attribute to him so much? Or why are we obsequious to his law, If he want spirit our affects to awe? Oh no, I argue weakly, he is strong, Albeit my son have done him too much wrong. [ENTER MUSCO.] MUS. My master: nay, faith, have at you: I am flesh'd now I have sped so well: Gentleman, I beseech you respect the estate of a poor soldier; I am ashamed of this base course of life, (God's my comfort) but extremity provokes me to't; what remedy? LOR. SE. I have not for you now. MUS. By the faith I bear unto God, gentleman, it is no ordinary custom, but only to preserve manhood. I protest to you, a man I have been, a man I may be, by your sweet bounty. LOR. SE. I pray thee, good friend, be satisfied. MUS. Good Signior: by Jesu, you may do the part of a kind gentleman, in lending a poor soldier the price of two cans of beer, a matter of small value, the King of heaven shall pay you, and I shall rest thankful: sweet Signior -- LOR. SE. Nay, an you be so importunate -- MUS. O Lord, sir, need will have his course: I was not made to this vile use; well, the edge of the enemy could not have abated me so much: it's hard when a man hath served in his Prince's cause and be thus. Signior, let me derive a small piece of silver from you, it shall not be given in the course of time, by this good ground, I was fain to pawn my rapier last night for a poor supper, I am a Pagan else: sweet Signior -- LOR. SE. Believe me, I am rapt with admiration, To think a man of thy exterior presence Should (in the constitution of the mind) Be so degenerate, infirm, and base. Art thou a man? and sham'st thou not to beg? To practise such a servile kind of life? Why, were thy education ne'er so mean, Having thy limbs: a thousand fairer courses Offer themselves to thy election. Nay, there the wars might still supply thy wants, Or service of some virtuous gentleman, Or honest labour; nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg? But men of your condition feed on sloth, As doth the Scarab on the dung she breeds in, Not caring how the temper of your spirits Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore God, whate'er he be that should Relieve a person of thy quality, While you insist in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not thine, but his. MUS. Faith, Signior, I would gladly find some other course, if so. LOR. SE. Ay, you'd gladly find it, but you will not seek it. MUS. Alas, sir, where should a man seek? in the wars, there's no ascent by desert in these days, but -- and for service, would it were as soon purchased as wish'd for, (God's my comfort) I know what I would say. LOR. SE. What's thy name? MUS. Please you: Portensio. LOR. SE. Portensio? Say that a man should entertain thee now, Would thou be honest, humble, just, and true? MUS. Signior: by the place and honour of a soldier -- LOR. SE. Nay, nay, I like not these affected oaths; Speak plainly, man: what thinkst thou of my words? MUS. Nothing, Signior, but wish my fortunes were as happy as my service should be honest. LOR. SE. Well, follow me, I'll prove thee, if thy deeds Will carry a proportion to thy words. [EXIT LOR. SE.] MUS. Yes, sir, straight, I'll but garter my hose; oh, that my belly were hoop'd now, for I am ready to burst with laughing. 'Slid, was there ever seen a fox in years to betray himself thus? now shall I be possest of all his determinations, and consequently my young master; well, he is resolved to prove my honesty: faith, and I am resolved to prove his patience: oh, I shall abuse him intolerably: this small piece of service will bring him clean out of love with the soldier for ever. It's no matter, let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the slip at an instant; why, this is better than to have stayed his journey by half: well, I'll follow him. Oh, how I long to be employed. [EXIT.] ACT II. SCENE III. ENTER PROSPERO, BOBADILLA, AND MATHEO. MAT. Yes, faith, sir, we were at your lodging to seek you too. PROS. Oh, I came not there to-night. BOB. Your brother delivered us as much. PROS. Who, Giuliano? BOB. Giuliano. Signior Prospero, I know not in what kind you value me, but let me tell you this: as sure as God, I do hold it so much out of mine honour and reputation, if I should but cast the least regard upon such a dunghill of flesh; I protest to you (as I have a soul to be saved) I ne'er saw any gentlemanlike part in him: an there were no more men living upon the face of the earth, I should not fancy him, by Phoebus. MAT. Troth, nor I, he is of a rustical cut, I know not how: he doth not carry himself like a gentleman. PROS. Oh, Signior Matheo, that's a grace peculiar but to a few; "quos aequus amavit Jupiter." MAT. I understand you, sir. [ENTER LOR. JU. AND STEP.] PROS. No question you do, sir: Lorenzo! now on my soul, welcome; how dost thou, sweet rascal? my Genius! 'Sblood, I shall love Apollo and the mad Thespian girls the better while I live for this; my dear villain, now I see there's some spirit in thee: Sirrah, these be they two I writ to thee of, nay, what a drowsy humour is this now? why dost thou not speak? LOR. JU. Oh, you are a fine gallant, you sent me a rare letter. PROS. Why, was't not rare? LOR. JU. Yes, I'll be sworn I was ne'er guilty of reading the like, match it in all Pliny's familiar Epistles, and I'll have my judgment burn'd in the ear for a rogue, make much of thy vein, for it is inimitable. But I marle what camel it was, that had the carriage of it? for doubtless he was no ordinary beast that brought it. PROS. Why? LOR. JU. Why, sayest thou? why, dost thou think that any reasonable creature, especially in the morning, (the sober time of the day too) would have ta'en my father for me? PROS. 'Sblood, you jest, I hope? LOR. JU. Indeed, the best use we can turn it to, is to make a jest on't now: but I'll assure you, my father had the proving of your copy some hour before I saw it. PROS. What a dull slave was this! But, sirrah, what said he to it, i'faith? LOR. JU. Nay, I know not what he said. But I have a shrewd guess what he thought. PRO. What? what? LOR. JU. Marry, that thou are a damn'd dissolute villain, And I some grain or two better, in keeping thee company. PROS. Tut, that thought is like the moon in the last quarter, 'twill change shortly: but, sirrah, I pray thee be acquainted with my two Zanies here, thou wilt take exceeding pleasure in them if thou hear'st them once, but what strange piece of silence is this? the sign of the dumb man? LOR. JU. Oh, sir, a kinsman of mine, one that may make our music the fuller, an he please, he hath his humour, sir. PROS. Oh, what is't? what is't? LOR. JU. Nay, I'll neither do thy judgment nor his folly that wrong, as to prepare thy apprehension: I'll leave him to the mercy of the time, if you can take him: so. PROS. Well, Signior Bobadilla, Signior Matheo: I pray you know this gentleman here, he is a friend of mine, and one that will well deserve your affection, I know not your name, Signior, but I shall be glad of any good occasion to be more familiar with you. STEP. My name is Signior Stephano, sir, I am this gentleman's cousin, sir, his father is mine uncle; sir, I am somewhat melancholy, but you shall command me, sir, in whatsoever is incident to a gentleman. BOB. Signior, I must tell you this, I am no general man, embrace it as a most high favour, for (by the host of Egypt) but that I conceive you to be a gentleman of some parts, I love few words: you have wit: imagine. STEP. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy. MAT. O Lord, sir, it's your only best humour, sir, your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir: I am melancholy myself divers times, sir, and then do I no more but take your pen and paper presently, and write you your half score or your dozen of sonnets at a sitting. LOR. JU. Mass, then he utters them by the gross. STEP. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure. LOR. JU. I'faith, as well as in measure. MAT. Why, I pray you, Signior, make use of my study, it's at your service. STEP. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you, have you a close stool there? MAT. Faith, sir, I have some papers there, toys of mine own doing at idle hours, that you'll say there's some sparks of wit in them, when you shall see them. PROS. Would they were kindled once, and a good fire made, I might see self-love burn'd for her heresy. STEP. Cousin, is it well? am I melancholy enough? LOR. JU. Oh, ay, excellent. PROS. Signior Bobadilla, why muse you so? LOR. JU. He is melancholy too. BOB. Faith, sir, I was thinking of a most honourable piece of service was perform'd to-morrow, being St. Mark's day, shall be some ten years. LOR. JU. In what place was that service, I pray you, sir? BOB. Why, at the beleaguering of Ghibelletto, where, in less than two hours, seven hundred resolute gentlemen, as any were in Europe, lost their lives upon the breach: I'll tell you, gentlemen, it was the first, but the best leaguer that ever I beheld with these eyes, except the taking in of Tortosa last year by the Genoways, but that (of all other) was the most fatal and dangerous exploit that ever I was ranged in, since I first bore arms before the face of the enemy, as I am a gentleman and a soldier. STEP. So, I had as lief as an angel I could swear as well as that gentleman. LOR. JU. Then you were a servitor at both, it seems. BOB. O Lord, sir: by Phaeton, I was the first man that entered the breach, and had I not effected it with resolution, I had been slain if I had had a million of lives. LOR. JU. Indeed, sir? STEP. Nay, an you heard him discourse you would say so: how like you him? BOB. I assure you (upon my salvation) 'tis true, and yourself shall confess. PROS. You must bring him to the rack first. BOB. Observe me judicially, sweet Signior: they had planted me a demi-culverin just in the mouth of the breach; now, sir, (as we were to ascend), their master gunner (a man of no mean skill and courage, you must think,) confronts me with his linstock ready to give fire; I spying his intendment, discharged my petronel in his bosom, and with this instrument, my poor rapier, ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance, and put them pell-mell to the sword. PROS. To the sword? to the rapier, Signior. LOR. JU. Oh, it was a good figure observed, sir: but did you all this, Signior, without hurting your blade? BOB. Without any impeach on the earth: you shall perceive, sir, it is the most fortunate weapon that ever rid on a poor gentleman's thigh: shall I tell you, sir? you talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana, or so: tut, I lend no credit to that is reported of them, I know the virtue of mine own, and therefore I dare the boldlier maintain it. STEP. I marle whether it be a Toledo or no? BOB. A most perfect Toledo, I assure you, Signior. STEP. I have a countryman of his here. MAT. Pray you let's see, sir: yes, faith, it is. BOB. This a Toledo? pish! STEP. Why do you pish, Signior? BOB. A Fleming, by Phoebus! I'll buy them for a guilder a piece, an I'll have a thousand of them. LOR. JU. How say you, cousin? I told you thus much. PROS. Where bought you it, Signior? STEP. Of a scurvy rogue soldier, a pox of God on him, he swore it was a Toledo. BOB. A provant rapier, no better. MAT. Mass, I think it be indeed. LOR. JU. Tut, now it's too late to look on it, put it up, put it up. STEP. Well, I will not put it up, but by God's foot, an ever I meet him -- PROS. Oh, it is past remedy now, sir, you must have patience. STEP. Whoreson, coney-catching rascal; oh, I could eat the very hilts for anger. LOR. JU. A sign you have a good ostrich stomach, cousin. STEP. A stomach? would I had him here, you should see an I had a stomach. PROS. It's better as 'tis: come, gentlemen, shall we go? LOR. JU. A miracle, cousin, look here, look here. [ENTER MUSCO.] STEP. Oh, God's lid, by your leave, do you know me, sir? MUS. Ay, sir, I know you by sight. STEP. You sold me a rapier, did you not? MUS. Yes, marry did I, sir. STEP. You said it was a Toledo, ha? MUS. True, I did so. STEP. But it is none. MUS. No, sir, I confess it, it is none. STEP. Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it. By God's lid, an you had not confest it -- LOR. JU. Oh, cousin, forbear, forbear. STEP. Nay, I have done, cousin. PROS. Why, you have done like a gentleman, he has confest it, what would you more? LOR. JU. Sirrah, how dost thou like him? PROS. Oh, it's a precious good fool, make much on him: I can compare him to nothing more happily than a barber's virginals; for every one may play upon him. MUS. Gentleman, shall I intreat a word with you? LOR. JU. With all my heart, sir, you have not another Toledo to sell, have you? MUS. You are pleasant, your name is Signior Lorenzo, as I take it? LOR. JU. You are in the right: 'Sblood, he means to catechise me, I think. MUS. No, sir, I leave that to the Curate, I am none of that coat. LOR. JU. And yet of as bare a coat; well, say, sir. MUS. Faith, Signior, I am but servant to God Mars extraordinary, and indeed (this brass varnish being washed off, and three or four other tricks sublated) I appear yours in reversion, after the decease of your good father, Musco. LOR. JU. Musco, 'sblood, what wind hath blown thee hither in this shape? MUS. Your easterly wind, sir, the same that blew your father hither. LOR. JU. My father? MUS. Nay, never start, it's true, he is come to town of purpose to seek you. LOR. JU. Sirrah Prospero, what shall we do, sirrah? my father is come to the city. PROS. Thy father: where is he? MUS. At a gentleman's house yonder by St. Anthony's, where he but stays my return; and then -- PROS. Who's this? Musco? MUS. The same, sir. PROS. Why, how com'st thou transmuted thus? MUS. Faith, a device, a device, nay, for the love of God, stand not here, gentlemen, house yourselves, and I'll tell you all. LOR. JU. But art thou sure he will stay thy return? MUS. Do I live, sir? what a question is that! PROS. Well, we'll prorogue his expectation a little: Musco, thou shalt go with us: Come on, gentlemen: nay, I pray thee, (good rascal) droop not, 'sheart, an our wits be so gouty, that one old plodding brain can outstrip us all. Lord, I beseech thee, may they lie and starve in some miserable spittle, where they may never see the face of any true spirit again, but be perpetually haunted with some church-yard hobgoblin in seculo seculorum. MUS. Amen, Amen. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE I. ENTER THORELLO, AND PISO. PIS. He will expect you, sir, within this half hour. THO. Why, what's a clock? PIS. New stricken ten. THO. Hath he the money ready, can you tell? PIS. Yes, sir, Baptista brought it yesternight. THO. Oh, that's well: fetch me my cloak. [EXIT PISO.] Stay, let me see; an hour to go and come, Ay, that will be the least: and then 'twill be An hour before I can dispatch with him; Or very near: well, I will say two hours; Two hours? ha! things never dreamt of yet May be contrived, ay, and effected too, In two hours' absence: well, I will not go. Two hours; no, fleering opportunity, I will not give your treachery that scope. Who will not judge him worthy to be robb'd, That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shews the felon where his treasure lies? Again, what earthy spirit but will attempt To taste the fruit of beauty's golden tree, When leaden sleep seals up the dragon's eyes? Oh, beauty is a project of some power, Chiefly when opportunity attends her: She will infuse true motion in a stone, Put glowing fire in an icy soul, Stuff peasants' bosoms with proud Caesar's spleen, Pour rich device into an empty brain: Bring youth to folly's gate: there train him in, And after all, extenuate his sin. Well, I will not go, I am resolved for that. Go, carry it again: yet stay: yet do too, I will defer it till some other time. [ENTER PISO.] PIS. Sir, Signior Platano will meet you there with the bond. THO. That's true: by Jesu, I had clean forgot it. I must go, what's a clock? PIS. Past ten, sir. THO. 'Heart, then will Prospero presently be here too, With one or other of his loose consorts. I am a Jew if I know what to say, What course to take, or which way to resolve. My brain (methinks) is like an hour-glass, And my imaginations like the sands Run dribbling forth to fill the mouth of time, Still changed with turning in the ventricle. What were I best to do? it shall be so. Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy. Piso. PIS. Sir. THO. Yet now I have bethought me too, I will not. Is Cob within? PIS. I think he be, sir. THO. But he'll prate too, there's no talk of him. No, there were no course upon the earth to this, If I durst trust him; tut, I were secure, But there's the question now, if he should prove, Rimarum plenus, then, 'sblood, I were rook'd. The state that he hath stood in till this present Doth promise no such change: what should I fear then? Well, come what will, I'll tempt my fortune once. Piso, thou mayest deceive me, but I think thou lovest me, Piso. PIS. Sir, if a servant's zeal and humble duty may be term'd love, you are possest of it. THO. I have a matter to impart to thee, but thou must be secret, Piso. PIS. Sir, for that -- THO. Nay, hear me, man; think I esteem thee well, To let thee in thus to my private thoughts; Piso, it is a thing sits nearer to my crest, Than thou art 'ware of; if thou should'st reveal it -- PIS. Reveal it, sir? THO. Nay, I do not think thou would'st, but if thou should'st -- PIS. Sir, then I were a villain: Disclaim in me for ever if I do. THO. He will not swear: he has some meaning, sure, Else (being urged so much) how should he choose, But lend an oath to all this protestation? He is no puritan, that I am certain of. What should I think of it? urge him again, And in some other form: I will do so. Well, Piso, thou has sworn not to disclose; ay, you did swear? PIS. Not yet, sir, but I will, so please you. THO. Nay, I dare take thy word. But if thou wilt swear, do as you think good, I am resolved without such circumstance. PIS. By my soul's safety, sir, I here protest, My tongue shall ne'er take knowledge of a word Deliver'd me in compass of your trust. THO. Enough, enough, these ceremonies need not, I know thy faith to be as firm as brass. Piso, come hither: nay, we must be close In managing these actions: So it is, (Now he has sworn I dare the safelier speak;) I have of late by divers observations -- But, whether his oath be lawful, yea, or no? ha! I will ask counsel ere I do proceed: Piso, it will be now too long to stay, We'll spy some fitter time soon, or to-morrow. PIS. At your pleasure, sir. THO. I pray you search the books 'gainst I return For the receipts 'twixt me and Platano. PIS. I will, sir. THO. And hear you: if my brother Prospero Chance to bring hither any gentlemen Ere I come back, let one straight bring me word. PIS. Very well, sir. THO. Forget it not, nor be not you out of the way. PIS. I will not, sir. THO. Or whether he come or no, if any other, Stranger or else: fail not to send me word. PIS. Yes, sir. THO. Have care, I pray you, and remember it. PIS. I warrant you, sir. THO. But, Piso, this is not the secret I told thee of. PIS. No, sir, I suppose so. THO. Nay, believe me, it is not. PIS. I do believe you, sir. THO. By heaven it is not, that's enough. Marry, I would not thou should'st utter it to any creature living, Yet I care not. Well, I must hence: Piso, conceive thus much, No ordinary person could have drawn So deep a secret from me; I mean not this, But that I have to tell thee: this is nothing, this. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: No greater hell than to be slave to fear. [EXIT THO.] PIS. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: When should this flow of passion (trow) take head? ha! Faith, I'll dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink, the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far That I can feel no ground at all: but soft, [ENTER COB.] Oh, it's our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now. COB. Fasting days: what tell you me of your fasting days? would they were all on a light fire for me: they say the world shall be consumed with fire and brimstone in the latter day: but I would we had these ember weeks and these villainous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then -- PIS. Why, how now, Cob! what moves thee to this choler, ha? COB. Collar, sir? 'swounds, I scorn your collar, I, sir, am no collier's horse, sir, never ride me with your collar, an you do, I'll shew you a jade's trick. PIS. Oh, you'll slip your head out of the collar: why, Cob, you mistake me. COB. Nay, I have my rheum, and I be angry as well as another, sir. PIE. Thy rheum? thy humour, man, thou mistakest. COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant. PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly. COB. How? must it be fed? PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, "Feed my humour." COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done God good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse. PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days? COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed. PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob. COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in passion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stockfish. PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo. [ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO.] Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [EXEUNT COB AND PISO.] ACT III. SCENE II. PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried. LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not? PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him? LOR. JU. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him. 'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the rout. PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant? LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think the world cannot produce his rival. PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle? MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker. PROS. That cannot be, if the proverb hold, a crafty knave needs no broker. MUS. True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo, no crafty knave. PROS. Well put off, well put off. LOR. JU. Tut, he has more of these shifts. MUS. And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir. [ENTER PIS.] PIS. Francisco, Martino, ne'er a one to be found now: what a spite's this? PROS. How now, Piso? is my brother within? PIS. No, sir, my master went forth e'en now, but Signior Giuliano is within. Cob, what, Cob! Is he gone too? PROS. Whither went thy master? Piso, canst thou tell? PIS. I know not, to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir. Cob. [EXIT PIS.] LOR. JU. Doctor Clement, what's he? I have heard much speech of him. PROS. Why, dost thou not know him? he is the Gonfaloniere of the state here, an excellent rare civilian, and a great scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe: I shewed him you the other day. LOR. JU. Oh, I remember him now; Good faith, and he hath a very strange presence, methinks, it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests in Padua; they say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse. PROS. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour. PIS. Gaspar, Martino, Cob: 'Sheart, where should they be, trow? [ENTER PISO.] BOB. Signior Thorello's man, I pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match. PIS. A pox on your match, no time but now to vouchsafe? Francisco, Cob. [EXIT.] BOB. Body of me: here's the remainder of seven pound, since yesterday was sevennight. It's your right Trinidado: did you never take any, signior? STEP. No, truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it so. BOB. Signior, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies, (where this herb grows) where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound, your Balsamum, and your -- are all mere gulleries, and trash to it, especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too: I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the exposing of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quack-salver. Only thus much; by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man. LOR. JU. Oh, this speech would have done rare in an apothecary's mouth. [ENTER PISO AND COB.] PIS. Ay; close by Saint Anthony's: Doctor Clement's. COB. Oh, oh. BOB. Where's the match I gave thee? PIS. 'Sblood, would his match, and he, and pipe, and all, were at Sancto Domingo. [EXIT.] COB. By God's deins, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco; it's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight, one of them (they say) will ne'er escape it, he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present death, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end as many as use it; it's little better than rat's-bane. [EXIT PISO.] ALL. Oh, good Signior; hold, hold. BOB. You base cullion, you. PIS. Sir, here's your match; come, thou must needs be talking too. COB. Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you; well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live. BOB. Do you prate? LOR. JU. Nay, good Signior, will you regard the humour of a fool? Away, knave. PROS. Piso, get him away. [EXIT PISO AND COB.] BOB. A whoreson filthy slave, a turd, an excrement. Body of Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I'd have stabb'd him to the earth. PROS. Marry, God forbid, sir. BOB. By this fair heaven, I would have done it. STEP. Oh, he swears admirably; (by this fair heaven!) Body of Caesar: I shall never do it, sure (upon my salvation). No, I have not the right grace. MAT. Signior, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco as ever I drunk. LOR. JU. I thank you, sir. STEP. Oh, this gentleman doth it rarely too, but nothing like the other. By this air, as I am a gentleman: By Phoebus. [EXIT BOB. AND MAT.] MUS. Master, glance, glance: Signior Prospero. STEP. As I have a soul to be saved, I do protest -- PROS. That you are a fool. LOR. JU. Cousin, will you any tobacco? STEP. Ay, sir: upon my salvation. LOR. JU. How now, cousin? STEP. I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier indeed. PROS. No, Signior, as I remember, you served on a great horse, last general muster. STEP. Ay, sir, that's true, cousin, may I swear as I am a soldier, by that? LOR. JU. Oh yes, that you may. STEP. Then as I am a gentleman, and a soldier, it is divine tobacco. PROS. But soft, where's Signior Matheo? gone? MUS. No, sir, they went in here. PROS. Oh, let's follow them: Signior Matheo is gone to salute his mistress, sirrah, now thou shalt hear some of his verses, for he never comes hither without some shreds of poetry: Come, Signior Stephano. Musco. STEP. Musco? where? Is this Musco? LOR. JU. Ay; but peace, cousin, no words of it at any hand. STEP. Not I, by this fair heaven, as I have a soul to be saved, by Phoebus. PROS. Oh rare! your cousin's discourse is simply suited, all in oaths. LOR. JU. Ay, he lacks nothing but a little light stuff, to draw them out withal, and he were rarely fitted to the time. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE III. ENTER THORELLO WITH COB. THO. Ha, how many are there, sayest thou? COB. Marry, sir, your brother, Signior Prospero. THO. Tut, beside him: what strangers are there, man? COB. Strangers? let me see, one, two; mass, I know not well, there's so many. THO. How? so many? COB. Ay, there's some five or six of them at the most. THO. A swarm, a swarm? Spite of the devil, how they sting my heart! How long hast thou been coming hither, Cob? COB. But a little while, sir. THO. Didst thou come running? COB. No, sir. THO. Tut, then I am familiar with thy haste. Ban to my fortunes: what meant I to marry? I that before was rank'd in such content, My mind attired in smooth silken peace, Being free master of mine own free thoughts, And now become a slave? what, never sigh, Be of good cheer, man: for thou art a cuckold, 'Tis done, 'tis done: nay, when such flowing store, Plenty itself falls in my wife's lap, The Cornucopiae will be mine, I know. But, Cob, What entertainment had they? I am sure My sister and my wife would bid them welcome, ha? COB. Like enough: yet I heard not a word of welcome. THO. No, their lips were seal'd with kisses, and the voice Drown'd in a flood of joy at their arrival, Had lost her motion, state, and faculty. Cob, which of them was't that first kiss'd my wife? (My sister, I should say,) my wife, alas, I fear not her: ha? who was it, say'st thou? COB. By my troth, sir, will you have the truth of it? THO. Oh ay, good Cob: I pray thee. COB. God's my judge, I saw nobody to be kiss'd, unless they would have kiss'd the post in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all, at their tobacco, with a pox. THO. How? were they not gone in then ere thou cam'st? COB. Oh no, sir. THO. Spite of the devil, what do I stay here then? Cob, follow me. [EXIT THO.] COB. Nay, soft and fair, I have eggs on the spit; I cannot go yet sir: now am I for some divers reasons hammering, hammering revenge: oh, for three or four gallons of vinegar, to sharpen my wits: Revenge, vinegar revenge, russet revenge; nay, an he had not lien in my house, 'twould never have grieved me; but being my guest, one that I'll be sworn my wife has lent him her smock off her back, while his own shirt has been at washing: pawned her neckerchers for clean bands for him: sold almost all my platters to buy him tobacco; and yet to see an ingratitude wretch strike his host; well, I hope to raise up an host of furies for't: here comes M. Doctor. [ENTER DOCTOR CLEMENT, LORENZO SENIOR, PETO.] CLEM. What's Signior Thorello gone? PET. Ay, sir. CLEM. Heart of me, what made him leave us so abruptly? How now, sirrah; what make you here? what would you have, ha? COB. An't please your worship, I am a poor neighbour of your worship's. CLEM. A neighbour of mine, knave? COB. Ay, sir, at the sign of the Water-tankard, hard by the Green Lattice: I have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years. CLEM. What, at the Green Lattice? COB. No sir: to the parish: marry, I have seldom scaped scot-free at the Lattice. CLEM. So: but what business hath my neighbour? COB. An't like your worship, I am come to crave the peace of your worship. CLEM. Of me, knave? peace of me, knave? did I e'er hurt thee? did I ever threaten thee? or wrong thee? ha? COB. No, God's my comfort, I mean your worship's warrant, for one that hath wrong'd me, sir: his arms are at too much liberty, I would fain have them bound to a treaty of peace, an I could by any means compass it. LOR. Why, dost thou go in danger of thy life for him? COB. No, sir; but I go in danger of my death every hour by his means; an I die within a twelve-month and a day, I may swear, by the laws of the land, that he kill'd me. CLEM. How? how, knave? swear he kill'd thee? what pretext? what colour hast thou for that? COB. Marry, sir, both black and blue, colour enough, I warrant you, I have it here to shew your worship. CLEM. What is he that gave you this, sirrah? COB. A gentleman in the city, sir. CLEM. A gentleman? what call you him? COB. Signior Bobadilla. CLEM. Good: But wherefore did he beat you, sirrah? how began the quarrel 'twixt you? ha: speak truly, knave, I advise you. COB. Marry, sir, because I spake against their vagrant tobacco, as I came by them: for nothing else. CLEM. Ha, you speak against tobacco? Peto, his name. PET. What's your name, sirrah? COB. Oliver Cob, sir, set Oliver Cob, sir. CLEM. Tell Oliver Cob he shall go to the jail. PET. Oliver Cob, master Doctor says you shall go to the jail. COB. Oh, I beseech your worship, for God's love, dear master Doctor. CLEM. Nay, God's precious! an such drunken knaves as you are come to dispute of tobacco once, I have done: away with him. COB. Oh, good master Doctor, sweet gentleman. LOR. SE. Sweet Oliver, would I could do thee any good; master Doctor, let me intreat, sir. CLEM. What? a tankard-bearer, a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave that never drunk out of better than piss-pot metal in his life, and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers: Peto, away with him, by God's passion, I say, go to. COB. Dear master Doctor. LOR. SE. Alas, poor Oliver. CLEM. Peto: ay: and make him a warrant, he shall not go, I but fear the knave. COB. O divine Doctor, thanks, noble Doctor, most dainty Doctor, delicious Doctor. [EXEUNT PETO WITH COB.] CLEM. Signior Lorenzo: God's pity, man, Be merry, be merry, leave these dumps. LOR. SE. Troth, would I could, sir: but enforced mirth (In my weak judgment) has no happy birth. The mind, being once a prisoner unto cares, The more it dreams on joy, the worse it fares. A smiling look is to a heavy soul As a gilt bias to a leaden bowl, Which (in itself) appears most vile, being spent To no true use; but only for ostent. CLEM. Nay, but, good Signior, hear me a word, hear me a word, your cares are nothing; they are like my cap, soon put on, and as soon put off. What? your son is old enough to govern himself; let him run his course, it's the only way to make him a staid man: if he were an unthrift, a ruffian, a drunkard, or a licentious liver, then you had reason: you had reason to take care: but being none of these, God's passion, an I had twice so many cares as you have, I'd drown them all in a cup of sack: come, come, I muse your parcel of a soldier returns not all this while. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE IV. ENTER GIULIANO, WITH BIANCHA. GIU. Well, sister, I tell you true: and you'll find it so in the end. BIA. Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot help it; you see, my brother Prospero he brings them in here, they are his friends. GIU. His friends? his friends? 'sblood, they do nothing but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky sprites, and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought of; well, by this light, a little thing would make me play the devil with some of them; an't were not more for your husband's sake than any thing else, I'd make the house too hot for them; they should say and swear, hell were broken loose, ere they went. But by God's bread, 'tis nobody's fault but yours; for an you had done as you might have done, they should have been damn'd ere they should have come in, e'er a one of them. BIA. God's my life; did you ever hear the like? what a strange man is this! could I keep out all them, think you? I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you'd mad the patient'st body in the world, to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason. [ENTER MATHEO WITH HESPERIDA, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, LORENZO JUNIOR, PROSPERO, MUSCO.] HESP. Servant, (in troth) you are too prodigal of your wits' treasure, thus to pour it forth upon so mean a subject as my worth. MAT. You say well, you say well. GIU. Hoyday, here is stuff. LOR. JU. Oh now stand close; pray God she can get him to read it. PROS. Tut, fear not: I warrant thee he will do it of himself with much impudency. HES. Servant, what is that same, I pray you? MAT. Marry, an Elegy, an Elegy, an odd toy. GIU. Ay, to mock an ape withal. O Jesu. BIA. Sister, I pray you let's hear it. MAT. Mistress, I'll read it, if you please. HES. I pray you do, servant. GIU. Oh, here's no foppery. 'Sblood, it frets me to the gall to think on it. [EXIT.] PROS. Oh ay, it is his condition, peace: we are fairly rid of him. MAT. Faith, I did it in an humour: I know not how it is, but please you come near, signior: this gentleman hath judgment, he knows how to censure of a -- I pray you, sir, you can judge. STEP. Not I, sir: as I have a soul to be saved, as I am a gentleman. LOR. JU. Nay, it's well; so long as he doth not forswear himself. BOB. Signior, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and her fair sister. Fie, while you live avoid this prolixity. MAT. I shall, sir; well, incipere dulce. LOR. JU. How, incipere dulce? a sweet thing to be a fool indeed. PROS. What, do you take incipere in that sense? LOR. JU. You do not, you? 'Sblood, this was your villainy to gull him with a motte. PROS. Oh, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba. MAT. "Rare creature, let me speak without offence, Would God my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine." LOR. JU. 'Sheart, this is in Hero and Leander! PROS. Oh ay: peace, we shall have more of this. MAT. "Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough": How like you that, Signior? 'sblood, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it. MAT. But observe the catastrophe now, "And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel love's mother." LOR. JU. Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for he utters nothing but stolen remnants. PROS. Nay, good critic, forbear. LOR. JU. A pox on him, hang him, filching rogue, steal from the dead? it's worse than sacrilege. PROS. Sister, what have you here? verses? I pray you let's see. BIA. Do you let them go so lightly, sister? HES. Yes, faith, when they come lightly. BIA. Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would take it heavily. HES. No matter, he is able to bear. BIA. So are asses. HES. So is he. PROS. Signior Matheo, who made these verses? they are excellent good. MAT. O God, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir. Faith, I made them extempore this morning. PROS. How extempore? MAT. Ay, would I might be damn'd else; ask Signior Bobadilla. He saw me write them, at the -- (pox on it) the Mitre yonder. MUS. Well, an the Pope knew he cursed the Mitre it were enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns in the town. STEP. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses? LOR. JU. Oh, admirable, the best that ever I heard. STEP. By this fair heavens, they are admirable, The best that ever I heard. [ENTER GIULIANO.] GIU. I am vext I can hold never a bone of me still, 'Sblood, I think they mean to build a Tabernacle here, well? PROS. Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns your beauty with such encomiums and devices, you may see what it is to be the mistress of a wit that can make your perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look through them, and see him drowned over head and ears in the deep well of desire. Sister Biancha, I marvel you get you not a servant that can rhyme and do tricks too. GIU. O monster! impudence itself! tricks! BIA. Tricks, brother? what tricks? HES. Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks? BIA. Ay, never spare any body here: but say, what tricks? HES. Passion of my heart! do tricks? PROS. 'Sblood, here's a trick vied, and revied: why, you monkeys, you! what a cater-wauling do you keep! has he not given you rhymes, and verses, and tricks? GIU. Oh, see the devil! PROS. Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so: come and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant, you'll be begg'd else shortly for a concealment: go to, reward his muse, you cannot give him less than a shilling in conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston at the least. How now gallants, Lorenzo, Signior Bobadilla! what, all sons of silence? no spirit. GIU. Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere else, and not here, I wiss: this is no tavern, nor no place for such exploits. PROS. 'Sheart, how now! GIU. Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, by God's bread, ay, and you and your companions mend yourselves when I have done. PROS. My companions? GIU. Ay, your companions, sir, so I say! 'Sblood, I am not afraid of you nor them neither, you must have your poets, and your cavaliers, and your fools follow you up and down the city, and here they must come to domineer and swagger? sirrah, you ballad-singer, and slops, your fellow there, get you out; get you out: or (by the will of God) I'll cut off your ears, go to. PROS. 'Sblood, stay, let's see what he dare do: cut off his ears; you are an ass, touch any man here, and by the Lord I'll run my rapier to the hilts in thee. GIU. Yea, that would I fain see, boy. BIA. O Jesu! Piso! Matheo! murder! HES. Help, help, Piso! [THEY ALL DRAW, ENTER PISO AND SOME MORE OF THE HOUSE TO PART THEM, THE WOMEN MAKE A GREAT CRY.] LOR. JU. Gentlemen, Prospero, forbear, I pray you. BOB. Well, sirrah, you Holofernes: by my hand, I will pink thy flesh full of holes with my rapier for this, I will, by this good heaven: nay, let him come, let him come, gentlemen, by the body of St. George, I'll not kill him. [THEY OFFER TO FIGHT AGAIN, AND ARE PARTED.] PIS. Hold, hold, forbear. GIU. You whoreson, bragging coistril. [ENTER THORELLO.] THO. Why, how now? what's the matter? what stir is here? Whence springs this quarrel? Piso, where is he? Put up your weapons, and put off this rage. My wife and sister, they are cause of this. What, Piso? where is this knave? PIS. Here, sir. PROS. Come, let's go: this is one of my brother's ancient humours, this. STEP. I am glad nobody was hurt by this ancient humour. [EXIT PROSPERO, LORENZO JU., MUSCO, STEPHANO, BOBADILLA, MATHEO.] THO. Why, how now, brother, who enforced this brawl? GIU. A sort of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God nor the devil. And they must come here to read ballads and roguery, and trash. I'll mar the knot of them ere I sleep, perhaps; especially Signior Pithagoras, he that's all manner of shapes: and songs and sonnets, his fellow there. HES. Brother, indeed you are too violent, Too sudden in your courses, and you know My brother Prospero's temper will not bear Any reproof, chiefly in such a presence, Where every slight disgrace he should receive, Would wound him in opinion and respect. GIU. Respect? what talk you of respect 'mongst such As had neither spark of manhood nor good manners? By God I am ashamed to hear you: respect? [EXIT.] HES. Yes, there was one a civil gentleman, And very worthily demeaned himself. THO. Oh, that was some love of yours, sister. HES. A love of mine? i'faith, I would he were No other's love but mine. BIA. Indeed, he seem'd to be a gentleman of an exceeding fair disposition, and of very excellent good parts. [EXIT HESPERIDA, BIANCHA.] THO. Her love, by Jesu: my wife's minion, Fair disposition? excellent good parts? 'Sheart, these phrases are intolerable, Good parts? how should she know his parts? well, well, It is too plain, too clear: Piso, come hither. What, are they gone? PIS. Ay, sir, they went in. THO. Are any of the gallants within? PIS. No sir, they are all gone. THO. Art thou sure of it? PIS. Ay, sir, I can assure you. THO. Piso, what gentleman was that they praised so? PISO. One they call him Signior Lorenzo, a fair young gentleman, sir. THO. Ay, I thought so: my mind gave me as much: 'Sblood, I'll be hang'd if they have not hid him in the house, Some where, I'll go search, Piso, go with me, Be true to me and thou shalt find me bountiful. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE V. ENTER COB, TO HIM TIB. COB. What, Tib, Tib, I say. TIB. How now, what cuckold is that knocks so hard? Oh, husband, is't you? What's the news? COB. Nay, you have stunn'd me, i'faith; you have given me a knock on the forehead will stick by me: cuckold? 'Swounds, cuckold? TIB. Away, you fool, did I know it was you that knock'd? Come, come, you may call me as bad when you list. COB. May I? 'swounds, Tib, you are a whore. TIB. 'Sheart, you lie in your throat. COB. How, the lie? and in my throat too? do you long to be stabb'd, ha? TIB. Why, you are no soldier? COB. Mass, that's true, when was Bobadilla here? that rogue, that slave, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle him, i'faith. TIB. Why, what's the matter? COB. Oh, he hath basted me rarely, sumptuously: but I have it here will sauce him, oh, the doctor, the honestest old Trojan in all Italy, I do honour the very flea of his dog: a plague on him, he put me once in a villainous filthy fear: marry, it vanish'd away like the smoke of tobacco: but I was smok'd soundly first, I thank the devil, and his good angel my guest: well, wife, or Tib, (which you will) get you in, and lock the door, I charge you; let nobody into you, not Bobadilla himself, nor the devil in his likeness; you are a woman; you have flesh and blood enough in you; therefore be not tempted; keep the door shut upon all comers. TIB. I warrant you there shall nobody enter here without my consent. COB. Nor with your consent, sweet Tib, and so I leave you. TIB. It's more than you know, whether you leave me so. COB. How? TIB. Why, sweet. COB. Tut, sweet or sour, thou art a flower. Keep close thy door, I ask no more. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE VI. ENTER LORENZO JUN., PROSPERO, STEPHANO, MUSCO. LOR JU. Well, Musco, perform this business happily, And thou makest a conquest of my love for ever. PROS. I'faith, now let thy spirits put on their best habit, But at any hand remember thy message to my brother, For there's no other means to start him. MUS. I warrant you, sir, fear nothing; I have a nimble soul that hath waked all my imaginative forces by this time, and put them in true motion: what you have possest me withal, I'll discharge it amply, sir. Make no question. [EXIT MUSCO.] PROS. That's well said, Musco: faith, sirrah, how dost thou approve my wit in this device? LOR JU. Troth, well, howsoever; but excellent if it take. PROS. Take, man: why, it cannot choose but take, if the circumstances miscarry not, but tell me zealously: dost thou affect my sister Hesperida, as thou pretendest? LOR JU. Prospero, by Jesu. PROS. Come, do not protest, I believe thee: i'faith, she is a virgin of good ornament, and much modesty, unless I conceived very worthily of her, thou shouldest not have her. LOR JU. Nay, I think it a question whether I shall have her for all that. PROS. 'Sblood, thou shalt have her, by this light, thou shalt! LOR JU. Nay, do not swear. PROS. By St. Mark, thou shalt have her: I'll go fetch her presently, 'point but where to meet, and by this hand, I'll bring her! LOR JU. Hold, hold, what, all policy dead? no prevention of mischiefs stirring. PROS. Why, by -- what shall I swear by? thou shalt have her, by my soul. LOR. JU. I pray thee have patience, I am satisfied: Prospero, omit no offered occasion that may make my desires complete, I beseech thee. PROS. I warrant thee. [EXEUNT.] ACT IV. SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO SEN., PETO, MEETING MUSCO. PETO. Was your man a soldier, sir? LOR. SE. Ay, a knave, I took him up begging upon the way, This morning as I was coming to the city. Oh! here he is; come on, you make fair speed: Why, where in God's name have you been so long? MUS. Marry, (God's my comfort) where I thought I should have had little comfort of your worship's service. LOR. SE. How so? MUS. O God, sir! your coming to the city, and your entertainment of men, and your sending me to watch; indeed, all the circumstances are as open to your son as to yourself. LOR. SE. How should that be? Unless that villain Musco Have told him of the letter, and discovered All that I strictly charged him to conceal? 'tis so. MUS. I'faith, you have hit it: 'tis so indeed. LOR. SE. But how should he know thee to be my man? MUS. Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it were by the black art? is not your son a scholar, sir? LOR. SE. Yes; but I hope his soul is not allied To such a devilish practice: if it were, I had just cause to weep my part in him. And curse the time of his creation. But where didst thou find them, Portensio? MUS. Nay, sir, rather you should ask where they found me? for I'll be sworn I was going along in the street, thinking nothing, when (of a sudden) one calls, "Signior Lorenzo's man": another, he cries "soldier": and thus half a dozen of them, till they had got me within doors, where I no sooner came, but out flies their rapiers and all bent against my breast, they swore some two or three hundred oaths, and all to tell me I was but a dead man, if I did not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and about what; which, when they could not get out of me, (as God's my judge, they should have kill'd me first,) they lock'd me up into a room in the top of a house, where, by great miracle, (having a light heart) I slid down by a bottom of packthread into the street, and so scaped: but, master, thus much I can assure you, for I heard it while I was lock'd up: there were a great many merchants and rich citizens' wives with them at a banquet, and your son, Signior Lorenzo, has 'pointed one of them to meet anon at one Cob's house, a water-bearer's, that dwells by the wall: now there you shall be sure to take him: for fail he will not. LOR. SE. Nor will I fail to break this match, I doubt not; Well, go thou along with master Doctor's man, And stay there for me; at one Cob's house, say'st thou? [EXIT.] MUS. Ay, sir, there you shall have him: when can you tell? Much wench, or much son: 'sblood, when he has stay'd there three or four hours, travelling with the expectation of somewhat; and at the length be delivered of nothing: oh, the sport that I should then take to look on him if I durst; but now I mean to appear no more afore him in this shape: I have another trick to act yet; oh, that I were so happy as to light upon an ounce now of this Doctor's clerk: God save you, sir. PETO. I thank you, good sir. MUS. I have made you stay somewhat long, sir. PETO. Not a whit, sir, I pray you what, sir, do you mean? you have been lately in the wars, sir, it seems. MUS. Ay, marry have I, sir. PETO. Troth, sir, I would be glad to bestow a bottle of wine on you, if it please you to accept it. MUS. O Lord, sir. PETO. But to hear the manner of your services, and your devices in the wars, they say they be very strange, and not like those a man reads in the Roman histories. MUS. O God, no, sir, why, at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to discourse to you what I know: and more too somewhat. PETO. No better time than now, sir, we'll go to the Mermaid: there we shall have a cup of neat wine, I pray you, sir, let me request you. MUS. I'll follow you, sir, he is mine own, i'faith. [EXEUNT.] ENTER BOBADILLA, LORENZO JUN., MATHEO, STEPHANO. MAT. Signior, did you ever see the like clown of him where we were to-day: Signior Prospero's brother? I think the whole earth cannot shew his like, by Jesu. LOR. JU. We were now speaking of him, Signior Bobadillo tells me he is fallen foul of you too. MAT. Oh ay, sir, he threatened me with the bastinado. BOB. Ay, but I think I taught you a trick this morning for that. You shall kill him without all question, if you be so minded. MAT. Indeed, it is a most excellent trick. BOB. Oh, you do not give spirit enough to your motion; you are too dull, too tardy: oh, it must be done like lightning, hay! MAT. Oh, rare. BOB. Tut, 'tis nothing an't be not done in a -- LOR. JU. Signior, did you never play with any of our masters here? MAT. Oh, good sir. BOB. Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous humour, there came three or four of them to me, at a gentleman's house, where it was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat my presence at their schools, and withal so much importuned me, that (I protest to you as I am a gentleman) I was ashamed of their rude demeanour out of all measure: well, I told them that to come to a public school they should pardon me, it was opposite to my humour, but if so they would attend me at my lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could, as I was a gentleman, etc. LOR. JU. So sir, then you tried their skill. BOB. Alas, soon tried: you shall hear, sir, within two or three days after they came, and by Jesu, good Signior, believe me, I graced them exceedingly, shewed them some two or three tricks of prevention hath got them since admirable credit, they cannot deny this; and yet now they hate me, and why? because I am excellent, and for no other reason on the earth. LOR. JU. This is strange and vile as ever I heard. BOB. I will tell you, sir, upon my first coming to the city, they assaulted me some three, four, five, six of them together, as I have walk'd alone in divers places of the city; as upon the Exchange, at my lodging, and at my ordinary, where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be suppressed with multitudes. LOR. JU. Ay, by Jesu, may you, sir, and (in my conceit) our whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so. BOB. Alas, no: what's a peculiar man to a nation? not seen. LOR. JU. Ay, but your skill, sir. BOB. Indeed, that might be some loss, but who respects it? I will tell you, Signior, (in private) I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to the Duke (observe me) I would undertake (upon my head and life) for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of his subjects in general, but to save the one half, nay, three parts of his yearly charges, in holding wars generally against all his enemies; and how will I do it, think you? LOR. JU. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. BOB. Marry, thus, I would select nineteen more to myself, throughout the land, gentlemen they should be of good spirit; strong and able constitution, I would choose them by an instinct, a trick that I have, and I would teach these nineteen the special tricks, as your punto, your reverso, your stoccato, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto, till they could all play very near or altogether as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong: we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts, and would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honour refuse the combat: well, we would kill them: challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score; twenty score, that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred days kills them all, by computation, and this will I venture my life to perform: provided there be no treason practised upon us. LOR. JU. Why, are you so sure of your hand at all times? BOB. Tut, never mistrust, upon my soul. LOR. JU. Mass, I would not stand in Signior Giuliano's state, then, an you meet him, for the wealth of Florence. BOB. Why Signior, by Jesu, if he were here now, I would not draw my weapon on him, let this gentleman do his mind, but I will bastinado him (by heaven) an ever I meet him. [ENTER GIULIANO AND GOES OUT AGAIN.] MAT. Faith, and I'll have a fling at him. LOR. JU. Look, yonder he goes, I think. GIU. 'Sblood, what luck have I, I cannot meet with these bragging rascals. BOB. It's not he: is it? LOR. JU. Yes, faith, it is he. MAT. I'll be hang'd then if that were he. LOR. JU. Before God, it was he: you make me swear. STEP. Upon my salvation, it was he. BOB. Well, had I thought it had been he, he could not have gone so, but I cannot be induced to believe it was he yet. [ENTER GIU.] GIU. Oh, gallant, have I found you? draw to your tools; draw, or by God's will I'll thrash you. BOB. Signior, hear me. GIU. Draw your weapons then. BOB. Signior, I never thought it till now: body of St. George, I have a warrant of the peace served on me even now, as I came along, by a water-bearer, this gentleman saw it, Signior Matheo. GIU. The peace! 'Sblood, you will not draw? [MATHEO RUNS AWAY. HE BEATS HIM AND DISARMS HIM.] LOR. JU. Hold, Signior, hold, under thy favour forbear. GIU. Prate again as you like this, you whoreson cowardly rascal, you'll control the point, you? your consort he is gone; had he staid he had shared with you, in faith. [EXIT GIULIANO.] BOB. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the peace, by Jesu. LOR. JU. Why, and though you were, sir, the law allows you to defend yourself; that's but a poor excuse. BOB. I cannot tell; I never sustained the like disgrace (by heaven); sure I was struck with a planet then, for I had no power to touch my weapon. [EXIT.] LOR. JU. Ay, like enough; I have heard of many that have been beaten under a planet; go, get you to the surgeon's, 'sblood, an these be your tricks, your passados, and your montantos, I'll none of them: O God, that this age should bring forth such creatures! come, cousin. STEP. Mass, I'll have this cloak. LOR. JU. God's will: it's Giuliano's. STEP. Nay, but 'tis mine now, another might have ta'en it up as well as I, I'll wear it, so I will. LOR. JU. How an he see it? he'll challenge it, assure yourself. STEP. Ay, but he shall not have it; I'll say I bought it. LOR. JU. Advise you, cousin, take heed he give not you as much. [EXEUNT.] ENTER THORELLO, PROSPERO, BIANCHA, HESPERIDA. THO. Now trust me, Prospero, you were much to blame, T' incense your brother and disturb the peace Of my poor house, for there be sentinels, That every minute watch to give alarms Of civil war, without adjection Of your assistance and occasion. PROS. No harm done, brother, I warrant you: since there is no harm done, anger costs a man nothing: and a tall man is never his own man till he be angry, to keep his valour in obscurity, is to keep himself as it were in a cloak-bag: what's a musician unless he play? what's a tall man unless he fight? for indeed, all this my brother stands upon absolutely, and that made me fall in with him so resolutely. BIA. Ay, but what harm might have come of it? PROS. Might? so might the good warm clothes your husband wears be poison'd for any thing he knows, or the wholesome wine he drunk even now at the table. THO. Now, God forbid: O me! now I remember, My wife drunk to me last; and changed the cup, And bade me wear this cursed suit to-day, See if God suffer murder undiscover'd! I feel me ill; give me some mithridate, Some mithridate and oil; good sister, fetch me, Oh, I am sick at heart: I burn, I burn; If you will save my life, go fetch it me. PROS. Oh, strange humour, my very breath hath poison'd him. HES. Good brother, be content, what do you mean? The strength of these extreme conceits will kill you. BIA. Beshrew your heart-blood, brother Prospero, For putting such a toy into his head. PROS. Is a fit simile a toy? will he be poison'd with a simile? Brother Thorello, what a strange and vain imagination is this? For shame be wiser, on my soul there's no such matter. THO. Am I not sick? how am I then not poison'd? Am I not poison'd? how am I then so sick? BIA. If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick. PROS. His jealousy is the poison he hath taken. [ENTER MUSCO LIKE THE DOCTOR'S MAN.] MUS. Signior Thorello, my master, Doctor Clement, salutes you, and desires to speak with you, with all speed possible. THO. No time but now? Well, I'll wait upon his worship, Piso, Cob, I'll seek them out, and set them sentinels till I return. Piso, Cob, Piso. [EXIT.] PROS. Musco, this is rare, but how got'st thou this apparel of the Doctor's man? MUS. Marry sir. My youth would needs bestow the wine on me to hear some martial discourse; where I so marshall'd him, that I made him monstrous drunk, and because too much heat was the cause of his distemper, I stript him stark naked as he lay along asleep, and borrowed his suit to deliver this counterfeit message in, leaving a rusty armour and an old brown bill to watch him till my return: which shall be when I have pawn'd his apparel, and spent the money perhaps. PROS. Well, thou art a mad knave, Musco, his absence will be a good subject for more mirth: I pray thee return to thy young master Lorenzo, and will him to meet me and Hesperida at the Friary presently: for here, tell him, the house is so stored with jealousy, that there is no room for love to stand upright in: but I'll use such means she shall come thither, and that I think will meet best with his desires: Hie thee, good Musco. MUS. I go, sir. [EXIT.] [ENTER THORELLO, TO HIM PISO.] THO. Ho, Piso, Cob, where are these villains, trow? Oh, art thou there? Piso, hark thee here: Mark what I say to thee, I must go forth; Be careful of thy promise, keep good watch, Note every gallant and observe him well, That enters in my absence to thy mistress; If she would shew him rooms, the jest is stale, Follow them, Piso, or else hang on him, And let him not go after, mark their looks; Note if she offer but to see his band, Or any other amorous toy about him, But praise his leg, or foot, or if she say, The day is hot, and bid him feel her hand, How hot it is, oh, that's a monstrous thing: Note me all this, sweet Piso; mark their sighs, And if they do but whisper, break them off, I'll bear thee out in it: wilt thou do this? Wilt thou be true, sweet Piso? PIS. Most true, sir. THO. Thanks, gentle Piso: where is Cob? now: Cob? [EXIT THORELLO.] BIA. He's ever calling for Cob, I wonder how he employs Cob so. PROS. Indeed, sister, to ask how he employs Cob is a necessary question for you that are his wife, and a thing not very easy for you to be satisfied in: but this I'll assure you, Cob's wife is an excellent bawd indeed, and oftentimes your husband haunts her house, marry, to what end I cannot altogether accuse him, imagine you what you think convenient: but I have known fair hides have foul hearts ere now, I can tell you. BIA. Never said you truer than that, brother! Piso, fetch your cloke, and go with me, I'll after him presently: I would to Christ I could take him there, i'faith. [EXEUNT PISO AND BIANCHA.] PROS. So let them go: this may make sport anon, now, my fair sister Hesperida: ah, that you knew how happy a thing it were to be fair and beautiful! HES. That toucheth not me, brother. PROS. That's true: that's even the fault of it, for indeed beauty stands a woman in no stead, unless it procure her touching: but, sister, whether it touch you or no, it touches your beauties, and I am sure they will abide the touch, as they do not, a plague of all ceruse, say I! and it touches me too in part, though not in thee. Well, there's a dear and respected friend of mine, sister, stands very strongly affected towards you, and hath vowed to inflame whole bonfires of zeal in his heart, in honour of your perfections. I have already engaged my promise to bring you where you shall hear him confirm much more than I am able to lay down for him: Signior Lorenzo is the man: what say you, sister; shall I intreat so much favour of you for my friend, as to direct and attend you to his meeting? upon my soul, he loves you extremely, approve it, sweet Hesperida, will you? HES. Faith, I had very little confidence in mine own constancy, if I durst not meet a man: but, brother Prospero, this motion of yours savours of an old knight adventurer's servant, methinks. PROS. What's that, sister? HES. Marry, of the squire. PROS. No matter, Hesperida, if it did, I would be such an one for my friend, but say, will you go? HES. Brother, I will, and bless my happy stars. [ENTER CLEMENT AND THORELLO.] CLEM. Why, what villainy is this? my man gone on a false message, and run away when he has done, why, what trick is there in it, trow! 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. THO. How! is my wife gone forth, where is she, sister! HES. She's gone abroad with Piso. THO. Abroad with Piso? Oh, that villain dors me, He hath discovered all unto my wife, Beast that I was to trust him: whither went she? HES. I know not, sir. PROS. I'll tell you, brother, whither I suspect she's gone. THO. Whither, for God's sake! PROS. To Cob's house, I believe: but keep my counsel. THO. I will, I will, to Cob's house! doth she haunt Cob's? She's gone a purpose now to cuckold me, With that lewd rascal, who to win her favour, Hath told her all. [EXIT.] CLEM. But did your mistress see my man bring him a message? PROS. That we did, master Doctor. CLEM. And whither went the knave? PROS. To the tavern, I think, sir. CLEM. What, did Thorello give him any thing to spend for the message he brought him? if he did I should commend my man's wit exceedingly if he would make himself drunk with the joy of it, farewell, lady, keep good rule, you two, I beseech you now: by God's --; marry, my man makes me laugh. [EXIT.] PROS. What a mad doctor is this! come, sister, let's away. [EXEUNT.] [ENTER MATHEO AND BOBADILLA.] MAT. I wonder, Signior, what they will say of my going away, ha? BOB. Why, what should they say? but as of a discreet gentleman. Quick, wary, respectful of natures, Fair lineaments, and that's all. MAT. Why so, but what can they say of your beating? BOB. A rude part, a touch with soft wood, a kind of gross battery used, laid on strongly: borne most patiently, and that's all. MAT. Ay, but would any man have offered it in Venice? BOB. Tut, I assure you no: you shall have there your Nobilis, your Gentilezza, come in bravely upon your reverse, stand you close, stand you firm, stand you fair, save your retricato with his left leg, come to the assaulto with the right, thrust with brave steel, defy your base wood. But wherefore do I awake this remembrance? I was bewitch'd, by Jesu: but I will be revenged. MAT. Do you hear, is't not best to get a warrant and have him arrested, and brought before Doctor Clement? BOB. It were not amiss, would we had it. [ENTER MUSCO.] MAT. Why, here comes his man, let's speak to him. BOB. Agreed, do you speak. MAT. God save you, sir. MUS. With all my heart, sir. MAT. Sir, there is one Giuliano hath abused this gentleman and me, and we determine to make our amends by law, now if you would do us the favour to procure us a warrant, for his arrest, of your master, you shall be well considered, I assure i'faith, sir. MUS. Sir, you know my service is my living, such favours as these gotten of my master is his only preferment, and therefore you must consider me as I may make benefit of my place. MAT. How is that? MUS. Faith, sir, the thing is extraordinary, and the gentleman may be of great account: yet be what he will, if you will lay me down five crowns in my hand, you shall have it, otherwise not. MAT. How shall we do, Signior? you have no money. BOB. Not a cross, by Jesu. MAT. Nor I, before God, but two pence, left of my two shillings in the morning for wine and cakes, let's give him some pawn. BOB. Pawn? we have none to the value of his demand. MAT. O Lord, man, I'll pawn this jewel in my ear, and you may pawn your silk stockings, and pull up your boots, they will ne'er be mist. BOB. Well, an there be no remedy, I'll step aside and put them off. MAT. Do you hear, sir? we have no store of money at this time, but you shall have good pawns, look you, sir, this jewel and this gentleman's silk stockings, because we would have it dispatch'd ere we went to our chambers. MUS. I am content, sir, I will get you the warrant presently. What's his name, say you, Giuliano? MAT. Ay, ay, Giuliano. MUS. What manner of man is he? MAT. A tall, big man, sir; he goes in a cloak most commonly of silk russet, laid about with russet lace. MUS. 'Tis very good, sir. MAT. Here, sir, here's my jewel. BOB. And here are stockings. MUS. Well, gentlemen, I'll procure this warrant presently, and appoint you a varlet of the city to serve it, if you'll be upon the Realto anon, the varlet shall meet you there. MAT. Very good, sir, I wish no better. [EXEUNT BOBA. AND MAT.] MUS. This is rare, now will I go pawn this cloak of the doctor's man's at the broker's for a varlet's suit, and be the varlet myself, and get either more pawns, or more money of Giuliano for my arrest. [EXIT.] ACT V. SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO SENIOR. LOR. SE. Oh, here it is, I am glad I have found it now. Ho! who is within here? [ENTER TIB.] TIB. I am within, sir, what's your pleasure? LOR. SE. To know who is within besides yourself. TIB. Why, sir, you are no constable, I hope? LOR. SE. Oh, fear you the constable? then I doubt not, You have some guests within deserve that fear; I'll fetch him straight. TIB. O' God's name, sir. LOR. SE. Go to, tell me is not the young Lorenzo here? TIB. Young Lorenzo, I saw none such, sir, of mine honesty. LOR. SE. Go to, your honesty flies too lightly from you: There's no way but fetch the constable. TIB. The constable, the man is mad, I think. [CLAPS TO THE DOOR.] [ENTER PISO AND BIANCHA.] PISO. Ho, who keeps house here? LOR. SE. Oh, this is the female copes-mate of my son. Now shall I meet him straight. BIA. Knock, Piso, pray thee. PIS. Ho, good wife. [ENTER TIB.] TIB. Why, what's the matter with you? BIA. Why, woman, grieves it you to ope your door? Belike you get something to keep it shut. TIB. What mean these questions, pray ye? BIA. So strange you make it! is not Thorello, my tried husband, here? LOR. SE. Her husband? TIB. I hope he needs not be tried here. BIA. No, dame: he doth it not for need but pleasure. TIB. Neither for need nor pleasure is he here. LOR. SE. This is but a device to balk me withal; Soft, who's this? [ENTER THORELLO.] BIA. Oh, sir, have I forestall'd your honest market? Found your close walks? you stand amazed now, do you? I'faith (I am glad) I have smoked you yet at last; What's your jewel, trow? In: come, let's see her; Fetch forth your housewife, dame; if she be fairer In any honest judgment than myself, I'll be content with it: but she is change, She feeds you fat; she soothes your appetite, And you are well: your wife, an honest woman, Is meat twice sod to you, sir; Oh, you treachour. LOR. SE. She cannot counterfeit this palpably. THO. Out on thee, more than strumpet's impudency, Steal'st thou thus to thy haunts? and have I taken Thy bawd and thee, and thy companion, This hoary-headed letcher, this old goat, Close at your villainy, and would'st thou 'scuse it, With this stale harlot's jest, accusing me? Oh, old incontinent, dost thou not shame, When all thy powers in chastity are spent, To have a mind so hot? and to entice And feed the enticements of a lustful woman? BIA. Out, I defy thee, I, dissembling wretch? THO. Defy me, strumpet? ask thy pander here, Can he deny it? or that wicked elder. LOR. SE. Why, hear you, Signior? THO. Tut, tut, never speak, Thy guilty conscience will discover thee. LOR. SE. What lunacy is this that haunts this man? [ENTER GIU.] GIU. Oh, sister, did you see my cloak? BIA. Not I, I see none. GIU. God's life, I have lost it then, saw you Hesperida? THO. Hesperida? Is she not at home? GIU. No, she is gone abroad, and nobody can tell me of it at home. [EXIT.] THO. O heaven! abroad? what light! a harlot too! Why? why? hark you, hath she, hath she not a brother? A brother's house to keep, to look unto? But she must fling abroad, my wife hath spoil'd her, She takes right after her, she does, she does, Well, you goody bawd and -- [ENTER COB.] That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy; And you, young apple squire, and old cuckold-maker, I'll have you every one before the Doctor, Nay, you shall answer it, I charge you go. LOR. SE. Marry, with all my heart, I'll go willingly: how have I wrong'd myself in coming here. BIA. Go with thee? I'll go with thee to thy shame, I warrant thee. COB. Why, what's the matter? what's here to do? THO. What, Cob, art thou here? oh, I am abused, And in thy house, was never man so wrong'd. COB. 'Slid, in my house? who wrong'd you in my house? THO. Marry, young lust in old, and old in young here, Thy wife's their bawd, here have I taken them. COB. Do you hear? did I not charge you keep your doors shut here, and do you let them lie open for all comers, do you scratch? [COB BEATS HIS WIFE.] LOR. SE. Friend, have patience; if she have done wrong in this, let her answer it afore the Magistrate. COB. Ay, come, you shall go afore the Doctor. TIB. Nay, I will go, I'll see an you may be allowed to beat your poor wife thus at every cuckoldly knave's pleasure, the devil and the pox take you all for me: why do you not go now? THO. A bitter quean, come, we'll have you tamed. [EXEUNT.] [ENTER MUSCO ALONE.] MUS. Well, of all my disguises yet, now am I most like myself, being in this varlet's suit, a man of my present profession never counterfeits till he lay hold upon a debtor, and says he rests him, for then he brings him to all manner of unrest. A kind of little kings we are, bearing the diminutive of a mace, made like a young artichoke, that always carries pepper and salt in itself, well, I know not what danger I undergo by this exploit, pray God I come well off. [ENTER BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] MAT. See, I think yonder is the varlet. BOB. Let's go in quest of him. MAT. God save you, friend, are not you here by the appointment of Doctor Clement's man? MUS. Yes, an't please you, sir; he told me two gentlemen had will'd him to procure an arrest upon one Signior Giuliano by a warrant from his master, which I have about me. MAT. It is honestly done of you both; and see where he comes you must arrest; upon him, for God's sake, before he be 'ware. BOB. Bear back, Matheo! [ENTER STEPHANO.] MUS. Signior Giuliano, I arrest you, sir, in the Duke's name. STEP. Signior Giuliano! am I Signior Giuliano? I am one Signior Stephano, I tell you, and you do not well, by God's lid, to arrest me, I tell you truly; I am not in your master's books, I would you should well know; ay, and a plague of God on you for making me afraid thus. MUS. Why, how are you deceived, gentlemen? BOB. He wears such a cloak, and that deceived us, But see, here a comes, officer, this is he. [ENTER GIULIANO.] GIU. Why, how now, signior gull: are you a turn'd filcher of late? come, deliver my cloak. STEP. Your cloak, sir? I bought it even now in the market. MUS. Signior Giuliano, I must arrest you, sir. GIU. Arrest me, sir, at whose suit? MUS. At these two gentlemen's. GIU. I obey thee, varlet; but for these villains -- MUS. Keep the peace, I charge you, sir, in the Duke's name, sir. GIU. What's the matter, varlet? MUS. You must go before master Doctor Clement, sir, to answer what these gentlemen will object against you, hark you, sir, I will use you kindly. MAT. We'll be even with you, sir, come, Signior Bobadilla, we'll go before and prepare the Doctor: varlet, look to him. [EXEUNT BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] BOB. The varlet is a tall man, by Jesu. GIU. Away, you rascals, Signior, I shall have my cloak. STEP. Your cloak? I say once again, I bought it, and I'll keep it. GIU. You will keep it? STEP. Ay, that I will. GIU. Varlet, stay, here's thy fee, arrest him. MUS. Signior Stephano, I arrest you. STEP. Arrest me! there, take your cloak: I'll none of it. GIU. Nay, that shall not serve your turn, varlet, bring him away, I'll go with thee now to the Doctor's, and carry him along. STEP. Why, is not here your cloak? what would you have? GIU. I care not for that. MUS. I pray you, sir. GIU. Never talk of it; I will have him answer it. MUS. Well, sir, then I'll leave you, I'll take this gentleman's word for his appearance, as I have done yours. GIU. Tut, I'll have no words taken, bring him along to answer it. MUS. Good sir, I pity the gentleman's case, here's your money again. GIU. God's bread, tell not me of my money, bring him away, I say. MUS. I warrant you, he will go with you of himself. GIU. Yet more ado? MUS. I have made a fair mash of it. STEP. Must I go? [EXEUNT.] ENTER DOCTOR CLEMENT, THORELLO, LORENZO SENIOR, BIANCHA, PISO, TIB, A SERVANT OR TWO OF THE DOCTOR'S. CLEM. Nay, but stay, stay, give me leave; my chair, sirrah; you, Signior Lorenzo, say you went thither to meet your son. LOR. SE. Ay, sir. CLEM. But who directed you thither? LOR. SE. That did my man, sir. CLEM. Where is he? LOR. SE. Nay, I know not now, I left him with your clerk, And appointed him to stay here for me. CLEM. About what time was this? LOR. SE. Marry, between one and two, as I take it. CLEM. So, what time came my man with the message to you, Signior Thorello? THO. After two, sir. CLEM. Very good, but, lady, how that you were at Cob's, ha? BIA. An't please you, sir, I'll tell you: my brother Prospero told me that Cob's house was a suspected place. CLEM. So it appears, methinks; but on. BIA. And that my husband used thither daily. CLEM. No matter, so he use himself well. BIA. True, sir, but you know what grows by such haunts oftentimes. CLEM. Ay, rank fruits of a jealous brain, lady: but did you find your husband there in that case, as you suspected? THO. I found her there, sir. CLEM. Did you so? that alters the case; who gave you knowledge of your wife's being there? THO. Marry, that did my brother Prospero. CLEM. How, Prospero first tell her, then tell you after? Where is Prospero? THO. Gone with my sister, sir, I know not whither. CLEM. Why, this is a mere trick, a device; you are gulled in this most grossly: alas, poor wench, wert thou beaten for this? how now, sirrah, what's the matter? [ENTER ONE OF THE DOCTOR'S MEN.] SER. Sir, there's a gentleman in the court without desires to speak with your worship. CLEM. A gentleman? what's he? SER. A soldier, sir, he sayeth. CLEM. A soldier? fetch me my armour, my sword, quickly; a soldier speak with me, why, when, knaves? -- come on, come on, hold my cap there, so; give me my gorget, my sword; stand by, I will end your matters anon; let the soldier enter, now, sir, what have you to say to me? [ENTER BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] BOB. By your worship's favour. CLEM. Nay, keep out, sir, I know not your pretence, you send me word, sir, you are a soldier, why, sir, you shall be answered here, here be them have been amongst soldiers. Sir, your pleasure. BOB. Faith, sir, so it is: this gentleman and myself have been most violently wronged by one Signior Giuliano: a gallant of the city here; and for my own part, I protest, being a man in no sort given to this filthy humour of quarrelling, he hath assaulted me in the way of my peace, despoiled me of mine honour, disarmed me of my weapons, and beaten me in the open streets: when I not so much as once offered to resist him. CLEM. Oh, God's precious, is this the soldier? here, take my armour quickly, 'twill make him swoon, I fear; he is not fit to look on't that will put up a blow. [ENTER SERVANT.] MAT. An't please your worship, he was bound to the peace. CLEM. Why, an he were, sir, his hands were not bound, were they? SER. There is one of the varlets of the city has brought two gentlemen here upon arrest, sir. CLEM. Bid him come in, set by the picture. [ENTER MUSCO WITH GIULIANO AND STEPHANO.] Now, sir, what! Signior Giuliano? is't you that are arrested at signior freshwater's suit here? GIU. I'faith, master Doctor, and here's another brought at my suit. CLEM. What are you, sir? STEP. A gentleman, sir; oh, uncle? CLEM. Uncle? who, Lorenzo? LOR. SE. Ay, sir. STEP. God's my witness, my uncle, I am wrong'd here monstrously; he chargeth me with stealing of his cloak, and would I might never stir, if I did not find it in the street by chance. GIU. Oh, did you find it now? you said you bought it erewhile. STEP. And you said I stole it, nay, now my uncle is here I care not. CLEM. Well, let this breathe awhile; you that have cause to complain there, stand forth; had you a warrant for this arrest? BOB. Ay, an't please your worship. CLEM. Nay, do not speak in passion so, where had you it? BOB. Of your clerk, sir. CLEM. That's well, an my clerk can make warrants, and my hand not at them; where is the warrant? varlet, have you it? MUS. No, sir, your worship's man bid me do it for these gentlemen, and he would be my discharge. CLEM. Why, Signior Giuliano, are you such a novice to be arrested and never see the warrant? GIU. Why, sir, he did not arrest me. CLEM. No? how then? GIU. Marry, sir, he came to me and said he must arrest me, and he would use me kindly, and so forth. CLEM. Oh, God's pity, was it so, sir? he must arrest you. Give me my long sword there; help me off, so; come on, sir varlet, I must cut off your legs, sirrah; nay, stand up, I'll use you kindly; I must cut off your legs, I say. MUS. Oh, good sir, I beseech you, nay, good master Doctor. Oh, good sir. CLEM. I must do it; there is no remedy; I must cut off your legs, sirrah. I must cut off your ears, you rascal, I must do it; I must cut off your nose, I must cut off your head. MUS. Oh, for God's sake, good master Doctor. CLEM. Well, rise; how dost thou now? dost thou feel thyself well? hast thou no harm? MUS. No, I thank God, sir, and your good worship. CLEM. Why so? I said I must cut off thy legs, and I must cut off thy arms, and I must cut off thy head; but I did not do it so: you said you must arrest this gentleman, but you did not arrest him, you knave, you slave, you rogue, do you say you must arrest, sirrah? away with him to the jail, I'll teach you a trick for your must. MUS. Good master Doctor, I beseech you be good to me. CLEM. Marry o'God: away with him, I say. MUS. Nay, 'sblood, before I go to prison, I'll put on my old brazen face, and disclaim in my vocation: I'll discover, that's flat, an I be committed, it shall be for the committing of more villainies than this, hang me an I lose the least grain of my fame. CLEM. Why? when, knave? by God's marry, I'll clap thee by the heels too. MUS. Hold, hold, I pray you. CLEM. What's the matter? stay there. MUS. Faith, sir, afore I go to this house of bondage, I have a case to unfold to your worship: which (that it may appear more plain unto your worship's view) I do thus first of all uncase, and appear in mine own proper nature, servant to this gentleman: and known by the name of Musco. LOR. SE. Ha, Musco! STEP. Oh, uncle, Musco has been with my cousin and I all this day. CLEM. Did not I tell you there was some device? MUS. Nay, good master Doctor, since I have laid myself thus open to your worship, now stand strong for me, till the progress of my tale be ended, and then if my wit do not deserve your countenance, 'slight, throw it on a dog, and let me go hang myself. CLEM. Body of me, a merry knave, give me a bowl of sack. Signior Lorenzo, I bespeak your patience in particular, marry, your ears in general, here, knave, Doctor Clement drinks to thee. MUS. I pledge master Doctor an't were a sea to the bottom. CLEM. Fill his bowl for that, fill his bowl: so, now speak freely. MUS. Indeed, this is it will make a man speak freely. But to the point, know then that I, Musco, (being somewhat more trusted of my master than reason required, and knowing his intent to Florence,) did assume the habit of a poor soldier in wants, and minding by some means to intercept his journey in the midway, 'twixt the grange and the city, I encountered him, where begging of him in the most accomplished and true garb, (as they term it) contrary to all expectation, he reclaimed me from that bad course of life; entertained me into his service, employed me in his business, possest me with his secrets, which I no sooner had received, but (seeking my young master, and finding him at this gentleman's house) I revealed all most amply: this done, by the device of Signior Prospero and him together, I returned (as the raven did to the ark) to mine old master again, told him he should find his son in what manner he knows, at one Cob's house, where indeed he never meant to come; now my master, he to maintain the jest, went thither, and left me with your worship's clerk, who, being of a most fine supple disposition, (as most of your clerks are) proffers me the wine, which I had the grace to accept very easily, and to the tavern we went: there after much ceremony, I made him drunk in kindness, stript him to his shirt, and leaving him in that cool vein, departed, frolick, courtier-like, having obtained a suit: which suit fitting me exceedingly well, I put on, and usurping your man's phrase and action, carried a message to Signior Thorello in your name; which message was merely devised but to procure his absence, while Signior Prospero might make a conveyance of Hesperida to my master. CLEM. Stay, fill me the bowl again, here; 'twere pity of his life would not cherish such a spirit: I drink to thee, fill him wine, why, now do you perceive the trick of it? THO. Ay, ay, perceive well we were all abused. LOR. SE. Well, what remedy? CLEM. Where is Lorenzo and Prospero, canst thou tell? MUS. Ay, sir, they are at supper at the Mermaid, where I left your man. CLEM. Sirrah, go warn them hither presently before me, and if the hour of your fellow's resurrection be come, bring him too. But forward, forward, when thou has been at Thorello's. [EXIT SERVANT.] MUS. Marry, sir, coming along the street, these two gentlemen meet me, and very strongly supposing me to be your worship's scribe, entreated me to procure them a warrant for the arrest of Signior Giuliano, I promised them, upon some pair of silk stockings or a jewel, or so, to do it, and to get a varlet of the city to serve it, which varlet I appointed should meet them upon the Realto at such an hour, they no sooner gone, but I, in a mere hope of more gain by Signior Giuliano, went to one of Satan's old ingles, a broker, and there pawned your man's livery for a varlet's suit, which here, with myself, I offer unto your worship's consideration. CLEM. Well, give me thy hand; Proh. Superi ingenium magnum quis noscit Homerum. Illias aeternum si latuisset opus? I admire thee, I honour thee, and if thy master or any man here be angry with thee, I shall suspect his wit while I know him for it: do you hear, Signior Thorello, Signior Lorenzo, and the rest of my good friends, I pray you let me have peace when they come, I have sent for the two gallants and Hesperida, God's marry, I must have you, friends, how now? what noise is there? [ENTER SERVANT, THEN PETO.] SER. Sir, it is Peto is come home. CLEM. Peto, bring him hither, bring him hither, what, how now, signior drunkard, in arms against me, ha? your reason, your reason for this. PET. I beseech your worship to pardon me. CLEM. Well, sirrah, tell him I do pardon him. PET. Truly, sir, I did happen into bad company by chance, and they cast me in a sleep and stript me of all my clothes. CLEM. Tut, this is not to the purpose touching your armour, what might your armour signify? PET. Marry, sir, it hung in the room where they stript me, and I borrowed it of one of the drawers, now in the evening, to come home in, because I was loth to come through the street in my shirt. [ENTER LORENZO JUNIOR, PROSPERO, HESPERIDA.] CLEM. Well, disarm him, but it's no matter, let him stand by: who be these? oh, young gallants; welcome, welcome, and you, lady, nay, never scatter such amazed looks amongst us, Qui nil potest sperare desperet nihil. PROS. Faith, master Doctor, that's even I, my hopes are small, and my despair shall be as little. Brother, sister, brother, what, cloudy, cloudy? "and will no sunshine on these looks appear?" well, since there is such a tempest toward, I'll be the porpoise, I'll dance: wench, be of good cheer, thou hast a cloak for the rain yet, where is he? 'Sheart, how now, the picture of the prodigal, go to, I'll have the calf drest for you at my charges. LOR. SE. Well, son Lorenzo, this day's work of yours hath much deceived my hopes, troubled my peace, and stretch'd my patience further than became the spirit of duty. CLEM. Nay, God's pity, Signior Lorenzo, you shall urge it no more: come, since you are here, I'll have the disposing of all, but first, Signior Giuliano, at my request take your cloak again. GIU. Well, sir, I am content. CLEM. Stay, now let me see, oh signior snow-liver, I had almost forgotten him, and your Genius there, what, doth he suffer for a good conscience too? doth he bear his cross with patience? MUS. Nay, they have scarce one cross between them both to bear. CLEM. Why, dost thou know him? what is he? what is he? MUS. Marry, search his pocket, sir, and he'll shew you he is an author, sir. CLEM. Dic mihi musa virum: are you an author, sir? give me leave a little, come on, sir, I'll make verses with you now in honour of the gods and the goddesses for what you dare extempore; and now I begin. "Mount thee my Phlegon muse, and testify, How Saturn sitting in an ebon cloud, Disrobed his podex, white as ivory, And through the welkin thunder'd all aloud." There's for you, sir. PROS. Oh, he writes not in that height of style. CLEM. No: we'll come a step or two lower then. "From Catadupa and the banks of Nile, Where only breeds your monstrous crocodile, Now are we purposed for to fetch our style." PROS. Oh, too far-fetch'd for him still, master Doctor. CLEM. Ay, say you so? let's intreat a sight of his vein then. PROS. Signior, master Doctor desires to see a sight of your vein, nay, you must not deny him. CLEM. What, all this verse, body of me, he carries a whole realm; a commonwealth of paper in his hose, let's see some of his subjects. "Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty, Runs this poor river, charg'd with streams of zeal, Returning thee the tribute of my duty: Which here my youth, my plaints, my love reveal." Good! is this your own invention? MAT. No, sir, I translated that out of a book, called "Delia." CLEM. Oh, but I would see some of your own, some of your own. MAT. Sir, here's the beginning of a sonnet I made to my mistress. CLEM. That, that: who? to Madonna Hesperida, is she your mistress? PROS. It pleaseth him to call her so, sir. CLEM. "In summer time, when Phoebus' golden rays." You translated this too, did you not? PROS. No, this is invention; he found it in a ballad. MAT. Faith sir, I had most of the conceit of it out of a ballad indeed. CLEM. Conceit, fetch me a couple of torches, sirrah, I may see the conceit: quickly! it's very dark! GIU. Call you this poetry? LOR. JU. Poetry? nay, then call blasphemy, religion; Call devils, angels; and sin, piety: Let all things be preposterously transchanged. LOR. SE. Why, how now, son! what are you startled now? Hath the brize prick'd you, ha? go to; you see How abjectly your poetry is rank'd in general opinion. LOR. JU. Opinion, O God, let gross opinion sink and be damn'd As deep as Barathrum, If it may stand with your most wish'd content, I can refell opinion and approve The state of poesy, such as it is, Blessed, eternal, and most true divine: Indeed, if you will look on Poesy As she appears in many, poor and lame, Patch'd up in remnants and old worn rags, Half starved for want of her peculiar food: Sacred invention, then I must confirm Both your conceit and censure of her merit, But view her in her glorious ornaments, Attired in the majesty of art, Set high in spirit, with the precious taste Of sweet philosophy, and which is most, Crown'd with the rich traditions of a soul That hates to have her dignity profaned With any relish of an earthly thought: Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear. Then is she like herself, fit to be seen Of none but grave and consecrated eyes: Nor is it any blemish to her fame, That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits, Such brainless gulls, should utter their stol'n wares With such applauses in our vulgar ears: Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass From the fat judgments of the multitude, But that this barren and infected age Should set no difference 'twixt these empty spirits And a true poet: than which reverend name Nothing can more adorn humanity. [ENTER WITH TORCHES.] CLEM. Ay, Lorenzo, but election is now governed altogether by the influence of humour, which, instead of those holy flames that should direct and light the soul to eternity, hurls forth nothing but smoke and congested vapours, that stifle her up, and bereave her of all sight and motion. But she must have a store of hellebore given her to purge these gross obstructions: oh, that's well said, give me thy torch, come, lay this stuff together. So, give fire! there, see, see, how our poet's glory shines brighter and brighter, still, still it increaseth, oh, now it's at the highest, and now it declines as fast: you may see, gallants, "sic transit gloria mundi." Well now, my two signior outsides, stand forth, and lend me your large ears, to a sentence, to a sentence: first, you, Signior, shall this night to the cage, and so shall you, sir, from thence to-morrow morning, you, Signior, shall be carried to the market cross, and be there bound: and so shall you, sir, in a large motley coat, with a rod at your girdle; and you in an old suit of sackcloth, and the ashes of your papers (save the ashes, sirrah) shall mourn all day, and at night both together sing some ballad of repentance very piteously, which you shall make to the tune of "Who list to lead and a soldier's life." Sirrah bill-man, embrace you this torch, and light the gentlemen to their lodgings, and because we tender their safety, you shall watch them to-night, you are provided for the purpose, away, and look to your charge with an open eye, sirrah. BOB. Well, I am arm'd in soul against the worst of fortune. MAT. Faith, so should I be, an I had slept on it. PET. I am arm'd too, but I am not like to sleep on it. MUS. Oh, how this pleaseth me. [EXEUNT.] CLEM. Now, Signior Thorello, Giuliano, Prospero, Biancha. STEP. And not me, sir. CLEM. Yes, and you, sir: I had lost a sheep an he had not bleated, I must have you all friends: but first a word with you, young gallant, and you, lady. GIU. Well, brother Prospero, by this good light that shines here, I am loth to kindle fresh coals, but an you had come in my walk within these two hours I had given you that you should not have clawed off again in haste, by Jesus, I had done it, I am the arrant'st rogue that ever breathed else, but now beshrew my heart if I bear you any malice in the earth. PROS. Faith, I did it but to hold up a jest, and help my sister to a husband, but, brother Thorello, and sister, you have a spice of the jealous yet, both of you, (in your hose, I mean,) come, do not dwell upon your anger so much, let's all be smooth foreheaded once again. THOR. He plays upon my forehead, brother Giuliano, I pray you tell me one thing I shall ask you: is my forehead any thing rougher than it was wont to be? GIU. Rougher? your forehead is smooth enough, man. THO. Why should he then say, be smooth foreheaded, Unless he jested at the smoothness of it? And that may be, for horn is very smooth; So are my brows, by Jesu, smooth as horn! BIA. Brother, had he no haunt thither, in good faith? PROS. No, upon my soul. BIA. Nay, then, sweet-heart: nay, I pray thee, be not angry, good faith, I'll never suspect thee any more, nay, kiss me, sweet muss. THO. Tell me, Biancha, do not you play the woman with me. BIA. What's that, sweet-heart? THO. Dissemble. BIA. Dissemble? THO. Nay, do not turn away: but say i'faith was it not a match appointed 'twixt this old gentleman and you? BIA. A match? THO. Nay, if it were not, I do not care: do not weep, I pray thee, sweet Biancha, nay, so now! by Jesus, I am not jealous, but resolved I have the faithful'st wife in Italy. "For this I find, where jealousy is fed, Horns in the mind are worse than on the head. See what a drove of horns fly in the air, Wing'd with my cleansed and my credulous breath: Watch them, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall, See, see, on heads that think they have none at all. Oh, what a plenteous world of this will come, When air rains horns, all men be sure of some: CLEM. Why that's well, come then: what say you, are all agreed? doth none stand out? PROS. None but this gentleman: to whom in my own person I owe all duty and affection; but most seriously intreat pardon, for whatsoever hath past in these occurrants that might be contrary to his most desired content. LOR. SE. Faith sir, it is a virtue that pursues Any save rude and uncomposed spirits, To make a fair construction, and indeed Not to stand off, when such respective means Invite a general content in all. CLEM. Well, then I conjure you all here to put off all discontentment, first, you, Signior Lorenzo, your cares; you, and you, your jealousy; you, your anger, and you, your wit, sir; and for a peace-offering, here's one willing to be sacrificed upon this altar: say, do you approve my motion? PROS. We do, I'll be mouth for all. CLEM. Why, then I wish them all joy, and now, to make our evening happiness more full: this night you shall be all my guests: where we'll enjoy the very spirit of mirth, and carouse to the health of this heroic spirit, whom to honour the more I do invest in my own robes, desiring you two, Giuliano and Prospero, to be his supporters, the train to follow, myself will lead, ushered by my page here with this honourable verse -- "Claudite jam rivos pueri sat prata biberunt." GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be --," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you --?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the --," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the --," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of --," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd -- him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "-- order," "-- waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) -- not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to --," into the bargain; "no --," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible --," "angry --," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in --," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt --," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no --," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye -- used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no --," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for --," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in --," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder --"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt --," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in --," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking --," " -- politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER (" -- frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the --," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in --," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for --," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "-- up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "-- failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at --," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a --!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first --," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their --es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford). JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's --," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give --," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make --," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by --," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the --," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry -- in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on --," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the --" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the --," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be --," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be --," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a --," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in --," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go --," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's --," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a --," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "-- of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "-- away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in --," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make -- of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's --," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the --," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the --," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it --s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in --," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take --," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the --," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of --," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "-- a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a --," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take --," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn --," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish --," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from --," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "-- Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the --," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at --," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold --," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the --," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the -- for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I --," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("-- pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
4956	----	This eBook was edited by Charles Aldarondo (www.aldarondo.net). THE DUKE'S PRIZE. A STORY OF ART AND HEART IN FLORENCE. BY LIEUTENANT MURRAY. NEW YORK: PREFACE. THE scenes of the following story are laid in Italy, that land of the sun. They are designed to impress a goodly moral, as well as to amuse the reader--to show that patience and perseverance will conquer all things--and that a poor coat may cover a rich heart. The reader will find also herein, that love raises the humblest; and that true merit, like true genius, tramples upon misfortunes; and that "some falls are means the happier to rise." THE DUKE'S PRIZE. CHAPTER I. FLORENCE. Lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold. -Hamlet. COME with me, gentle reader, on the wings of fancy into the mild and genial latitude of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The delightful region of the Mediterranean has been the poet's ready theme for ages; then let us thitherward, with high hopes (and appreciating eyes) to enjoy the storied scenery of its shores. Touch, if you will, at Gibraltar; see how the tide flows through the straits! We go in with a flowing sail, and now we are at Corsica, Napoleon's home. Let us stop at Sardinia, with its wealth of tropical fruits; and we will even down to Sicily,--for this mimic ocean teems with subjects to delight the eye even of the most casual observer, with its majestic boundary of Alps and Apennines, and the velvet carpet of its romantic shores, while its broad breast is dotted with the sails of the picturesque craft whose rig is peculiar to these seas. It were worth the journey we have taken, if only to behold the curious maritime scene before us now-made up of the felucca, the polacre, and the bombard, or ketch all equally unknown in our own waters. Well, on with us still; let us up again and new through the canal of Piombino, touching at the isle of Elba, the "Great Emperor's" mimic domain; step into the town lying beneath this rocky bluff; which is crowned by a fort-it is Porto Ferrajo. Look off for a moment from this rocky eminence, back of the town, and see the wild beauty of these Tuscan mountains on the main land. Now, we will over to the Italian coast, and cross, if you will, from Leghorn to Florence. There, we are now in the very lap of genius and of poetry; let us pause here and breathe the dreamy, soothing, balmy air of Italy. Florence, most favored daughter of Italy, sweet, sunny Florence, where dwelleth the gallantry and beauty of Tuscany, with thy wealth of architectural beauty, thy magnificent churches and palaces, thy princely court and hoarded beauties-favorite of that genial land, we greet thee! How peacefully dost thou lay at the very foot of the cloud-topped Apennines, divided by the mountain-born Arno in its course to the sea, and over whose bosom the architectural genius of the land is displayed in arched bridges; loveliest and best beloved art thou of sunny, vine-clad Italy. The poetical luxury of Italian genius is nowhere more plainly manifested than in Florence. 'Tis the artist's favorite resort and best school; 'tis the city the traveller likes least to turn his back upon; and the spot being consecrated by poetry and art, where the blood flows quickest through the veins, warmed by a fervid and glowing clime. A clime which breathes in zephyrs of aromatic sweetness, wafted over the fragrant blossoms of the land so redolent of loveliness, that they would seem to rival the fabled Loto tree, which springs by Allah's throne, and whose flowers have a soul in every leaf. There is a breathing of the arts in the very air of Florence, whose galleries are crowded with the choicest collections of paintings and statuary in the world. Here have ever congregated the talent and beauty of every clime. With the painter, the poet, the sculptor, here sleep, in the city of the silent, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, and like spirits, rendering it hallowed ground to the lovers of art. Proud and lovely city, with thy sylvan Casino spreading its riches of green sward and noble trees along the banks of the silvery Arno, well may a Florentine be proud of his birthplace! It is in Florence, this very paradise of art, that our tale opens. Here the poor scholar or artist, who seeks to perfect himself by viewing the glorious works of the old masters, may live like a prince on the most moderate and frugal means, in a bright and sunny land, where the heart's blood leaps most swiftly to the promptings of imagination; where the female form earliest attains its wonted beauty, and longest holds its sway over the heart; where art and nature both combine to entrance the soul in admiration; in that land of the sun-genial Italy; that soft, yet wild country, whose children learn the knowledge of poetry and art from visible things, while the rest of the world derive them from books. It was noonday in Florence, and a group of artists were wending their way from the grand gallery to their midday meal. It was a motley sight to look upon them as they gaily chatted together-for among them were men of different countries. There was the rough, hearty Englishman, the light, witty Frenchman, the intelligent and manly-looking American, the dark, swarthy Spaniard side by side with the dark Italian-fit companions, both in outward hue and their native character-and many others, forming a group of peculiar interest to the beholder. As the troop emerged from a narrow street and came full upon the bright and sunny piazza, near the splendid shaft of the Campanile, the gorgeous equipage of the Grand Duke was passing the spot. The monarch was returning from a morning drive in the Casino with a small retinue, and accompanied by one or two strangers of distinction. The group paused for a moment to witness the passing of the duke and his suite, and then turned gaily towards their hotel to dine, the duke forming a new theme of conversation to those who, conversing under the disadvantage of but partially understanding each other, from the variety of tongues among them, ever chose the most visible subject for comment. "What a brilliant turn-out," said one, in honest admiration. "Those leaders are as proud as their master," said another. "But he becomes his state well, if he is proud," answered a third. "Newman couldn't get up a better four in hand," said the first speaker, a young Londoner. "Who is that by the side of the duke?" asked one. "The English consul," replied his countryman; "you ought to know him." "The whole affair now is wanting to my eye," said a young, sentimental artist. "And what does it want, pray, Mister Critic?" asked the Englishman. "A woman." "Egad, that's true! There should be a woman in the picture, if it was to be painted, if only to introduce color." "Don't be so mercenary," added the other. And the group thus idly conversing lounged on their way to dine. But see, one of their number still lingers near the base of the shaft, apparently absorbed in admiring its beautiful proportions; his pale but fine intellectual features overspread by a spirit of admiration as he beholds the column. But still there is some other motive than mere curiosity that engages him thus; he seems to have thus designedly dropped the company of the party he was just with. Now suddenly turning and satisfying himself that his late companions were out of sight, the young artist-for so his appearance evidently bespoke him-slowly and sadly retraced his steps toward the grand gallery. The expression of his countenance was that of suffering and physical pain, as well as of mental inquietude; but his late companions had none of them noticed or cared for this. They could take especial cognizance of the points of excellence in the duke's horses, but not of the grief that shaded a fellow-being's countenance. No, the single artist, who now retraced his steps from the base of the Campanile, let his cause for sadness arise from whatever source it might, was alone in his sufferings, and without any one to share his sorrows. Once or twice he seemed to hesitate and half turn round again, as if to join the party he had left; but some inward prompting appeared to prevent him from doing so, and once more he walked on by the same street which he had just came. A sigh now and then heaved his breast, as though some mental or physical suffering moved him, but his form was erect, and his step not that of one weakened by physical disease. And yet in looking upon him, an instinctive desire would have possessed the careful observer to offer him aid in some form. CHAPTER II. OUR HERO AND HEROINE. But love is blind, and lovers cannot see. -Merchant of Venice. AT the close of a long summer's day under the skies of Italy, the shades of twilight were deepening on a verdant and vine-clad hillside of the Val d'Arno, when two lovers, who had evidently been strolling together, sat down side by side under a natural trellis of vines. The twilight hour of midsummer will lend enchantment to almost any scene; but this is peculiarly the case in Italy, where every shadow seems poetic-every view fit for the painter's canvass. The gentleman was of frank and manly bearing, and as he had approached the spot where they now sat, with the graceful figure of his fair companion leaning upon his arm, he evinced that soft and persuasive mien, that easy elegance of manner and polish in his address, which travel and good society can alone impart. Around his noble forehead, now bared to the gentle breeze, his long auburn hair hung in waving ringlets, after the style of the period, while his countenance was of that intelligent and thoughtful cast, tinted by a shade of sorrow, which rarely fails to captivate the eye. In person, he was rather tall, erect and well-proportioned, though perhaps he was rather thin in flesh to appear to so good advantage as he might have done, yet altogether he was of handsome form and pleasant mien. His dress bespoke the hollowness of his purse, notwithstanding he bore about him the indelible marks of a gentleman; and the careful observer would have recognized in him the artist that had separated from his companions on the Plaza at noonday near the shaft of the Campanile. His companion was manifestly a lady of rank and a most lovely female, satisfying the eye at the first glance, and constantly pleasing the longer it dwelt upon her. When we describe an Italian lady as being beautiful, she must be so indeed; for there is no half way between beauty and the opposite extreme here. There are but few really handsome women in Tuscany, but these few are of a class of beauty that may well have ravished the rest of their sex in this fair clime. Her countenance was radiant with thought and feeling, and her large and dewy eyes of blue--nature's own sweet tint--rested fondly on him by her side. Her rich and abundant dark hair was parted smoothly across her unblemished forehead, which might have been marble, so smooth and pure, but for the warm blood that flowed through those delicate blue channels. The mouth and features were of the Grecian model, and when she smiled she showed a ravishing sweetness of expression, and teeth that rivalled those of an Indian. In form, her person was slightly voluptuous, though strictly within the most true female delicacy. Such is a sketch of the two whom we at the outset denominated as lovers; and such they were, as the progress of our story will disclose. "There is much between thee and me, Florinda," said her companion, sighing heavily; "and of a metal worse than all others-pride and gold! jailors both of the daring heart!" "Nay, dear Carlton, thou art ever foreboding ills," said the lady persuasively, and in a voice as sweet as that of the idolized Pagoda Thrush of India. "Perhaps so; and yet full well I know that I am no favorite of fortune, by stern experience." "She will smile on thee yet, believe me, Carlton; and the more sweetly for this seeming neglect. She's a fickle goddess, and often plays the coquette, but, like others of this class, she seldom chides but she smiles again the more winningly." "She has already done so through thee, Florinda." Florinda answered with her eyes. "Ah, I am blessed indeed in thee; and poorly do I appreciate the blessing of thy love, when I forget myself and complain." "Now thou art content." "In thy smiles, dearest, ever." And Carlton pressed the hand with fervor to his lip that was smilingly extended towards him. "Ah, how long it may be, before I can call this little hand mine." "It is thine already, Carlton." "Thy heart is, I trust; but the hand, Florinda, is quite another thing." "True, Carlton." "My means are so humble." "You would make them so." "But are they not, Florinda?" "Not in my eyes." "The future looks dark to me." "The great proficiency you have attained in your profession, as an artist, dear Carlton, argues well for our hopes. Already has thy name reached the Grand Duke as one of remarkable ability in thy noble art; and such constant attention and unwearied industry must ensure improvement." "True, dearest, I may in time hope to be counted, a worthy follower of those whose noble efforts grace the grand gallery, and the halls of the Palazzo Pitti; but alas, many years of toil might not place me in the pecuniary eye of the duke, as a fitting suitor for thy peerless portion. And then, Florinda, the pride of birth! Alas! I have little hopes of ever attaining my most earnest wish-that which would render me the envy of all Florence-thy hand, Florinda." "Have I not possessions enough for both of us, dear Carlton? Indeed, I am told that my rightful property bears a goodly proportion to that of the Grand Duke himself, who has the reputation here in Florence of possessing unbounded wealth-actually unequalled in amount by that of any European monarch. Until the prospect of aiding you by this amplitude of fortune occurred to my mind, I saw no value in this boasted wealth; but now that I know that you will be benefited by it, Carlton, I rejoice at its possession and its magnitude." "Dearest," said the artist, as he listened to her generous declaration. "There will be no want, no question of necessity; all shall be yours." "In your love and kindness of heart, you do not consider these things as does the world, Florinda. The greater the amount of thy riches, the farther art thou removed from me; thus reasoneth the world-the cold and calculating world." "Nay, Carlton, thou art again foreboding," said the lady in the sweet, honeyed tongue of her land. "All will yet be as our hearts could wish, I am confident." "Love sees with blind eyes, dearest." "I know the proverb; but each case is a peculiar one, and this-is not this more so than any other?" "So thy gentle heart would make it," he answered tenderly. "And will not yours assent?" "In one respect-yes." "And that is--" "Never was one so loved as thou art; and yet who could look upon those eyes, and hear thee speak thus, and know the goodness and gentleness of thy kind heart, and not love thee, Florinda?" "Ah, flatterer!" "Dost thou mean that?" said Carlton, earnestly and quickly. "Nay, forgive me, Carlton," said his fair companion. "Always but when thou shalt question my sincerity; and yet," he continued, after a moment's pause, "there are ample grounds for such suspicions." "Say not so, Carlton." "Behold thy large fortune; am I not penniless?-thy noble birth; am I not an humble citizen? O, Florinda, there are few in this cold and mercenary world that would accord to me, under these circumstances, the meed of sincerity." "There is one who will never doubt thee," said the lovely girl, placing a hand affectionately within his. "Dear Florinda, I have thought of another tie to bind us to each other still more dearly, if possible." "Pray, what is that, Carlton?" "We are both orphans, Florinda; both stand, as it were, alone in the world, without any natural protectors even from childhood." "True," said Florinda, "my parents died while I was yet too young to know or love them and thine, Carlton?" "While I was an infant." "How pleasant it must be to have parents to love and advise one. I have often envied my companions." "Ay, it must indeed be a source of happiness; and none would seem to deserve them more than so gentle a spirit as thine." "It is indeed an enviable blessing." "Father and mother are sweet words," said the artist, thoughtfully,--and drawing her gently to his side. "They are sweet words," said Florinda; while a sympathetic tear trembled for a moment beneath those long eyelashes, proving the poet's words, "that beauty's tears are lovelier than her smiles." Carlton saw and marked the truant jewel as it glided down her fair cheek. And thus they talked on of love, of griefs and hopes, Carlton pressing the hand of his lovely companion affectionately to his lips at times, with a gentle and affectionate tenderness far more eloquent than words; while the response that met this token from her expressive face might have told the most casual observer how dearly and how deeply she loved the young artist, and how the simplest token of tenderness from him was cherished by her. La Signora Florinda was a grand-daughter of the house of Carrati, one of the oldest and proudest of all Italy. Having been placed in a convent in the environs of Florence for her education, the Grand Duke by chance met her while quite young, and learning her name, he at once knew her to be an orphan, and now under the care of her uncle Signor Latrezzi. By his own request he became her guardian, and from that time Florinda became an inmate of the palace of the duke, and the constant companion of the duchess. Her parents deceased, as the reader has already gathered, while she was yet a child, leaving her an immense property, which was now in the hands of her protector, the monarch himself. About the time, or rather some months previous to the commencement, of our tale, the duchess had died of consumption. Florinda for more than a year had been her intimate and dearly loved companion, and for this reason alone was dearly prized by the Grand Duke, who still sincerely mourned his wife's death. The deep devotion and constancy of this monarch, Leopold of Tuscany, to his wife, evinced an affection rarely found in marriages of state. Inconsolable for her death, he shut himself from the world for a long time, weeping in secret the affliction he had sustained in her loss. To this day there ornaments the private apartments of the Pitti Palace busts of the grand duchess, and portraits of her by the first artists; on the walls of the duke's private study there is a full length portrait of his wife done in fresco, representing her to be what she really was, a noble and lovely woman. Since the death of the duchess, Florinda had experienced, as we have intimated, an increased degree of fatherly care and affection from the duke, because of the fact of her intimacy with her whom he had now lost. The duchess, during the period that Florinda had been with her, had contracted for her a tender affection, and did not forget in the trying moments of her last hours to commend her to the continued and true guidance of the duke. This circumstance of course rendered her an object of renewed interest and regard in the eyes of her noble protector, with whom she dwelt as though she had been his own well-beloved child. In addition to this, she presented claims to his kind protection, from the fact that she was an orphan, the last of a proud and noble house long attached to the service of the crown-a fact that had in the first place attracted his interest. "Come, Carlton," said the lady, with a sweet smile, "now tell me one of those Rhine legends which you relate with such spirit. You promised me another." "I will, dearest," was the reply; and her companion, drawing still closer to her side, began as the next chapter will relate. CHAPTER III. A RHINE LEGEND. An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. -King Richard III. "THE valley of the Rhine," commenced Carlton, "is no more famous for its classic beauty than for the romance of its historic story; and the traveller is sure, while his eyes drink in of the beauty of its scenery, to have his ears regaled with the tragic record of its neighborhood. The name of Petard-the name of as bold a bandit as ever led a company of mountain-robbers--has become classic as any historic name of the Germanic confederacy, or the Italian states, by reason of the influence he exerted, the boldness of his deeds, the oftentimes chivalric character of his conduct; but, above all, for his singular personal bravery, and his remarkable prowess in battle. Only second, as it regarded the extent of his fame, to the renowned Schinderhannes, he even exceeded that bold and romantic bandit in the general character of his purposes, and the extraordinary success that attended his plans of operation. "Petard held one of those lofty mountain-passes," continued Carlton, "that lead from the valley of the Rhine, and through which at times much travel passed. Here he had so thoroughly entrenched himself, with his band of some sixty bravadoes, at the time of our story, that ten and twenty times his own force sent against him, in the shape of the regular government troops, had utterly failed to reach even the outer walls of his retreat, they being entrapped in all manner of snares, and shot down like a herd of wild and distracted animals. Several repetitions of these attempts with similar results had fairly disheartened the officers and soldiery, and they utterly refused to proceed on any such dangerous service for the future, while the officers of the government in their weakness were quite powerless. So that Petard remained virtually the master of the district, and levied such tax as he pleased upon such of the better classes as he could arrest upon the road. "The story of Petard's generous charity to the peasantry is preserved and related to the traveller by the grateful people; and there is no doubt that, springing from this class, he felt a sympathy for them that induced this honest generosity towards them on his part. The cunning plans which he and his band adopted to obtain the necessary information for the prosecution of their designs, it would be tedious to relate. The peasantry, ever oppressed by those in authority, were, of course, most faithful to the interests of this famous outlaw, to whose open hand they often came for bread, and who was ever ready to aid them. Thus, no bribery nor offered rewards could induce one of these rough but true-hearted mountaineers to betray Petard, or disclose the secret paths that led to his lofty stronghold. "Cunning beyond what usually falls to the lot of roguery," continued Carlton, "Petard delighted in outwitting his enemies of the law, and in leading those whom he desired to fleece into his net. Thus practised in intrigue, he plumed himself in detecting any trick that was attempted against him; and thus on the constant qui vive, he was enabled to avoid detection and arrest. Every effort, however ingenious, that the officers of the government made, was therefore futile and of no advantage; and Petard was still regarded as master of his mountain home, and leader of as brave a band as ever beset a traveller's carriage, or broke the ranks of a treasury escort. "Those were wild and lawless times when the feudal spirit and power had not yet lost all its sway, and when each man's house was often made to be his castle, and himself called upon to defend it with his life. Might made right; the strong hand often carried it against the law, and justice often, slept. It sounds like romance indeed to depict those times." "It does, indeed," said Florinda; "but go on, Carlton, do not interrupt the story." "On the left bank of the noble river, in whose valley this story is laid," said Carlton, "rose the turrets and towers of Botztetz castle, the remains only of one of the fine old strongholds of the middle ages, which had by degrees descended through generations, until it was now the home of a rich, retired merchant from Coblentz, who was repairing it and removing the rubbish that age had collected about it. Himself a man of distinguished family, Karl Etzwell had retired from the bustle of his heavy business, purchased this place, and proposed here to make himself home, and here to die. The old merchant had an only child whom he idolized, and for whom alone he seemed to live since his wife and other children had died. "Bettina was one of those delicate, lovely-featured children of grace and beauty that would have been chosen in "Merrie England" to preside over a tournament, as queen of beauty, in Ivanhoe's time. Born to bloom in a peculiar period of history, her character partook in some measure of the characteristics of the times. To our age, Florinda, and our appreciation, this lovely woman would have seemed rather Amazonian. She rode her fine and dashing horse with a free rein, and in the vigor of her robust health she could walk for miles, if need be. Yet still Bettina lacked not for tenderness and gentleness of spirit. She loved her father, was fond of music, and sung most sweetly to her own accompaniment upon the guitar. "Egbert Hosfeldt was the descendant of a proud line of ancestors, and was himself now left alone of all his family. His castle was on the opposite side of the Rhine, and ere Karl Etzwell's daughter had been a twelvemonth at her father's new home among the now half-restored towers of Botztetz Castle, Egbert Hosfeldt and Bettina were the most tender friends. His boat was ever on the left shore at nightfall, though his castle was on the right. No carpet knight was he, Florinda; he pulled his own oar. He was as stout of limb as of heart, and yet was as gentle when by Bettina's side as the tame doves she fondled. His was indeed a knightly figure to look upon. He had often distinguished himself upon the tented field, and in the forest sports. He lived in an age when personal prowess was highly esteemed, and when those high in birth failed not to mature the strong muscles and stout limbs which Providence had vouchsafed to them. "My story, Florinda, opens upon one of those soft summer twilights which hang over this incomparable valley to-day, as they did centuries gone by. Two figures rested near a soft bed of flowers in the broad grounds of Botztez Castle. The luxuriant, curling hair of delicate auburn that strayed so freely over the neck and shoulders of the female figure, betrayed her to be the lovely daughter of Herr Karl Etzwell; while the reader would have recognized at once in the person by her side, the fine athletic figure of Egbert. They sat in tender proximity to each other, and Bettina was listening to Egbert's eloquent story of the olden times, and of the many chivalric deeds for which the neighborhood of this spot was celebrated. He told her, too, of legends connected with the very towers and battlements that now surrounded them, until at last the lateness of the hour warned them that they must part; and the gallant Egbert, pressing her hand tenderly to his lips, bade her a brief farewell as he said, and would meet her there again with the twilight hour on the following day. "Scarcely had he left her side when a decrepit figure, dressed in as shabby garb as ever clothed a beggar woman, tottled towards her, and in saddest tones besought the fair girl to come a few steps from the castle walls to aid her in carrying her sick infant, who she feared was dying. The chords of tender sympathy were at once touched and Bettina followed the old woman outside the walls, and beyond an angle of the ruins a few rods, when the person who had so excited her commiseration suddenly stopped, and tossing off the wretched rags he wore, he stood before her the athletic leader of banditti, Petard!" "How frightful!" said Florinda, interrupting him. "The faint scream Bettina uttered," continued Carlton, "was smothered by his ready adroitness; and seizing the fainting girl, as though she was an infant, the robber bore her away to a spot concealed by the darkness, where several of his confederates met him, as had been preconcerted; and in a few minutes after Egbert had left her side, Bettina, all unconscious, was being carried fair away to the almost impregnable stronghold of the robbers. "It would be vain to attempt a description of the consternation and misery of her father when it was found that his child-she who was everything to him; whom he loved better than life itself-was lost. Whither to seek her no one knew. The most improbable places were searched. Egbert, who was last seen with her, was sent for; but he could give them no information. He supposed, of course, that she returned directly home after he parted with her. Every conceivable means were adopted to discover some trace of the missing girl, but all in vain, and the most tantalizing anguish took possession of every bosom. Two days had passed in this fruitless and agonizing search, when a note was delivered at the castle which threw light upon her disappearance. The purport of the note was to this effect: "KARL ETZWELL:-Your daughter is safe in my possession. Her simplest wish is strictly regarded. No harm will come to her, provided you pay the ransom of one thousand marks of gold. You may not possess the ready means, rich as you are, to produce this sum at once; therefore it may be paid in four instalments, and in four months of time, if you can do no better. red When the sum shall be paid, your daughter will be restored to you as pure and unharmed as when she left you. You have two days to think upon this. My messenger will then see you, and receive the first instalment of the money. Those who know me will tell you that you had better not harm one hair of that messenger's head, but your best course will be to meet this demand. 'Signed,' PETARD. "The mystery was solved, and the father knew that the robber, vile as he was, would keep his word; that though Bettina was thus fearfully situated, Petard would protect and restore her, if he acceded to his demand. The sum named was far beyond his means to raise before the expiration of a considerable period of time; for though, as the robber chief denominated him, rich, yet the princely sum of money demanded could hardly have been raised at once, had the united interest of the country for miles round been brought to bear upon it. "After consulting with Egbert and other friends, the father saw that there was but one course left for him to pursue under the circumstances of the case, and that was to comply with the demand as far as was possible, and to get ready the first instalment of the money for the following day. It would have been madness for him-his daughter's safety, of course, being paramount to every other idea-to have called upon the authorities to serve him. They had already, as we have before stated, often failed in their efforts upon the robber; and to incense Petard against him, was for the father to sacrifice the life of his child. Thus influenced, the sum of money demanded as the first instalment was made up by the assistance of Egbert and others, and was quietly paid over to the robber messenger, by the anxious father of Bettina. "It was a fearful thought to father and lover, that there was even a possibility of Bettina's remaining in the hands of those fierce and lawless men for such a period of time as had been named. Yet it would be impossible to raise the amount of the ransom in a shorter period of time. Four months seemed to them almost as so many years, and Egbert longed, at the head of a few faithful followers, to attack the redoubtable brigand; but this would have been to sacrifice Bettina's life at once. Alas! the ransom, and the ransom only, could liberate her, all agreed. "But I weary you, dearest, and will at another time complete my story." "Nay, by no means." "But the story is not yet half told." "The more of interest is then in store." "But it will keep until our next meeting." "As you will, Carlton; and so now, indeed, good night. You will come with the sunset, tomorrow?" "I will, dearest." And Carlton turned away to seek his own humble lodgings, while the lady returned to the sumptuous apartments which she called her home, to dream of the young artist, and the tale he had thus left but half related. In the meantime with the reader we will turn to another chapter in the thread of our story. CHAPTER IV. THE DUKE'S PRIZE. I see this hath a little dashed your spirits. -Othello. CARLTON was a young American, passionately devoted to the art he was studying at Florence, the home of the arts. His pecuniary means, which were of a limited character, were, at the time our story opens, at an unusually low ebb-indeed, he was almost penniless. He had been able, by losing much valuable time upon trifling and toyish pieces, to procure nearly enough for subsistence, taken in connection with the little he already possessed. But of late he had not been able to find any spare time for the trifles he had heretofore engaged himself upon at times, when he was obliged to obtain money for daily food, for reasons which we shall understand as we proceed with our story. Though of highly respectable birth, yet he was an orphan, and dependent upon the liberality of a rich relative for the advantage he had already received in an excellent classical education, and the means of travelling while in the study of his art. A few months previous to the opening of our tale, this patron, who had been a father indeed to Carlton, died suddenly, and the news of his decease reached the young American at the time he was just expecting a remittance of money. The consequence was, he found himself friendless and without means, thousands of miles from his native land. He had incurred some small debts in anticipation of the expected remittance, which placed him in a still more unpleasant situation. It was a severe blow to Carlton to lose one who had been so kind to him almost from childhood. It was hard, too, to sink at once from a state of plenty to one of absolute want. But thus it was, and he endeavored to bear his lot with all the philosophy and resignation he could command; but it was a bitter stroke for him to bear, particularly at this time, when so much depended upon his being able to pursue his calling uninterrupted, and still make the proper appearance in his person. He felt that at no previous moment had he so much at stake as now; that at no previous time in the course of his life could such an event have been more unfortunate. But Carlton was blessed with a heart easy to keep afloat; and though his future was hard, he looked upon its sunny side, and bore bravely up against it, enduring not only mental but positive physical suffering in his manliness. For months he had been almost constantly engaged in secret upon a painting, which he designed to present to the Grand Duke, for his private collection in the Palazzo Pitti, and on which he was to stake his reputation as an artist. He worked in secret, we have said-ay, and with the pains of hunger gnawing him often, his scanty purse scarcely affording him the means of procuring sufficient to sustain life. But still he worked on unwearied, in the hope, if not to gain the hand of Florinda, at least to be thought more worthy of her. Little did she he loved know of the actual want he experienced. He was too proud to acknowledge it even to her; and often did he sit by her side faint and hungry, while he held a hand, the jewelled ornaments of which alone would have rendered a peasant independent for life. He exerted every faculty to obtain the means of dressing at least with seeming good taste; he endeavored to do this for appearance sake, and that he might pass well with the world, which scans with inquisitive eye the outside show, and pays homage accordingly. He did not fear that it would make any difference with Florinda, yet he felt some pride, of course, in that quarter. It required in his present emergency the sacrifice of many a meal to procure him a coat, or any other necessary article of clothing. Carlton was not in the practice of meeting Florinda at the palace; the manifest impropriety of the thing rendered this out of the question. It was the practice of Florinda to call at certain periods at the palace of a relation in the environs of the city, and here Carlton often went to meet her; it was hard by the monastery where she had been educated, and where they had first met. The two sat together one twilight hour; it was their chosen time of meeting. "Carlton," said Florinda. "Well, dearest." "Why dost thou--" here Florinda hesitated. "Speak freely; what would you ask?" "You will not be offended?" "Indeed, no!" "Nor think strange of me?" "Nay, I promise thee." "Then--" "Well, Florinda." "Why dost thou wear such a threadbare coat, Carlton? You know I care not for such things, but I would have thee appear among thy fellow-artists as well clad as the best of them." "You know, Florinda," said Carlton, blushing in spite of himself, "I told you of my misfortune in losing my friend and patron." "True, but what has that to do with thy coat, Carlton?" asked the lady, who, never having known the want of money, could not realize the effect of such a condition. And then, too, she did not exactly understand the dependency of Carlton upon his patron. "O, nothing particular, dearest; but one must dress according to his means, you know." Florinda mused for a moment, and at length appeared to understand the meaning of his words, when taking a rich purse of gold from her girdle, she endeavored to give it to him in such a manner as to spare his feelings, but her utterance failed her, and she burst into tears! Carlton could not accept it. He would rather have starved first; his proud spirit could not brook the deed. "No, Florinda," ho said, "I cannot accept the purse, or any assistance from thee, noble lady. But if you will bear with my humble attire for a while, I hope to be able to dress in a style to suit thy taste, and which will render me worthy, at least in point of personal appearance, to walk by thy side." "Do you forgive me, Carlton, for this? It was but the impulse of the moment. I did not mean to insult thee." "Insult me!" "Alas! I was but rude." "Nay, dearest." "You forgive me?" "Florinda, I appreciate the feeling that prompted the generous act. Forgive thee? Yes, dearest, and love thee more for it." He pressed her hand to his lips, and they parted-Florinda to the regal palace of the duke, and Carlton to his humble lodgings. That night he went to his bed without having tasted food throughout the whole day. The next morning with the first light he rose, unable to sleep from hunger, and sought his canvass. While he could summon his pride, and season it with his ambition, this formed food and stimulus enough for him-a sustaining principle equal to natural nutriment. But in his sleep, when nature asserted her power, and the physical system claimed precedence over the brain, then the gnawings of hunger could not be stilled; and thus he awoke, and, as we have said, sought his canvass to drive away the demon; for it was a demon-a tormenting fiend to him now! Among the collection of artists at Florence-as in all Italian cities-there were representatives from nearly every part of the world; and much rivalry and pride often showed itself, not only among the students of the academy, but even among the masters or teachers themselves. This feeling at the time to which we allude, prevailed to an unusual extent, and its pernicious effects had been the cause of one or two duels of fatal termination. Carlton had long since been obliged to leave the academy from want of means, and even while there, he labored under great disadvantage in not being able to keep up the appearance of a gentleman among his fellow-students, who were generally well supplied with pecuniary means. His comrades finding that he far exceeded them in point of application, and consequently in execution and general improvement, naturally disliked him; and strange enough, too, the teachers treated him with marked coolness and dislike, whether from a similar sense of his superior ability even over themselves, or otherwise, remains to be seen. "What a hang-dog look that Carlton has," said one artist to another. "But he's a master with the brush, and bids fair to distance some of us," was the reply. "For my part, I hate all Americans." "Or rather all successful rivals," suggested the other, sarcastically. "Rival or not, this Carlton is a bore." "So far I agree with you," answered the other. "He's the poorest dressed artist in Florence." "There you are right again." And thus they sneered at him. Under all these disadvantages, Carlton was by no means discouraged. He was sustained by his ambition and love of his noble art, and, above all, by the love he bore Florinda. He hoped, through the means of the picture he was engaged upon, to introduce himself to the good will of the duke; and this accomplished, one important step would be taken towards the goal his fancy had pictured in futurity. As we have said, Carlton left the academy through necessity, but he still studied constantly in the grand gallery, and other places, as his means would admit, while he worked on in secret. He had determined that his picture should be presented without a name, that it might thus rise or fall honestly, upon its own merits. The duke had offered a princely prize for the favored picture, to be selected from out a collection to be exhibited to himself and court on a certain day. The monarch was devotedly attached to the art, and thus each year, by a like method, strove to encourage the talent and industry of the students assembled at Florence. There were many competitors among the artists of the city on the occasion alluded to. Those who had gained renown in bygone years now took up the brush anew, and pupils and masters strove alike for the enviable goal. And this was not so much for the mere winning of the prize-though that was a princely object-but it was well-known that whoever succeeded in the contest, established his fame at once in Italy, and from that time forward could command his own terms for his pictures, and find a ready sale, too, for as many as he chose to complete. It was, in short, a diploma in art that was almost beyond value to the ambitious students that had devoted themselves to art in Florence. Carlton worked incessantly and in secret upon his picture, which was of a most elaborate and original design. Alone in his humble apartment he worked by himself, without any kind word of encouragement, or skilful suggestion. The time for the exhibition was fast approaching. Carlton was met by his former fellow-students every morning,--pale and emaciated, returning from his frugal meal, of which he was obliged to eat enough to serve him through the day; for with his limited means he could afford but one! They joined him often, and asked, insultingly, why he did not try for the rich prize offered by the Grand Duke for the choicest painting. Smothering the resentment he felt at these a insults, Carlton made no answer to them, but contented himself with redoubling his exertions with the brush; and it did seem to him after such encounters, and every new insult, that his hand received a fresh inspiration, and his mind renewed vigor. Perhaps he needed the incentive of pride, as well as that of love and ambition, to lead him on, and sustain him in the prosecution of his noble endeavors. Thus it was, when the long expected day at last arrived-the day which was to make or mar his hope of the future; he trembled as he realized it. The various competitors had sent in their pieces accompanied with their names, each confident in the excellence and finish of his own production. All were arranged in the favorite gallery of the Grand Duke, and among them Carlton's, simply bearing the name of "The Unknown." The hearts of the artists of Florence beat high on that day, and the moments were impatiently counted by all until the hour should arrive for the public presentation and audience in the picture gallery. The selection having been made on the previous day by the Grand Duke and his court, the time had now arrived for him to award the prize he had offered. Among the throng that crowded the gates of the palace, Carlton was observed humbly pursuing his way, turning neither to the right nor left, and passing unnoticed some of his brother artists, who ventured a jeer at his expense. "That coat of thine is not fit for the presence of the Grand Duke," said one. "Carlton, you forgot to dress, today," said another, tauntingly. "Don't bother him," added a third; "he's only a looker-on." "That is all, gentlemen," said Carlton, as he quietly passed the portals of the palace, secretly biting his lip with restrained feeling. He had other business in hand than to notice these insults. His soul was pre-occupied, and he scarcely heeded them a moment after they had been spoken. CHAPTER V. AWARDING THE PRIZE. Let the end try the man. -Henry IV. THE beauty and the aristocracy of Florence crowded the gorgeous apartments of the ducal palace, admiring the matchless pictures now first exhibited to the public view-the productions of the artists of the city for the prize of the liberal monarch. There was not one which did not draw forth high and just encomiums for its beauty and excellence; but all paused to admire above the rest, one which, from originality of conception and perfection of finish, was pronounced to surpass all its competitors, and great was the curiosity expressed as to who was the author.-Some said that Michael Angelo himself must have arisen from the tomb to produce so perfect a picture. Throughout the hours of the exhibition, until the time appointed for the awarding of the prize, the superb picture bearing the name of "The Unknown," was the constant theme of all, and the centre of attraction. Among that lovely collection of beauty and fashion stood Florinda, in all the loveliness of youth and high-born beauty, "the star of that goodly company." How different was the expression of her face from the majority of those about her. No pride or envy could be traced on that beautiful brow, stamped with innocence and gentleness; those mild deep blue eyes knew no deceit, but frankly shared the promptings of her pure, untainted soul at every glance. She looked more like the formation of the fancy in some fairy dream than a reality, so angelic did she seem amid that princely throng. She did not know that Carlton had contended for the prize; he had kept his own secret, and she expressed her unfeigned admiration of the picture by "The Unknown." She was the belle of the hour, if not of the court, and her commendation alone would have served to attract attention to the picture; but already had the duke in person pointed out some of the most prominent beauties in the piece to those about him. After a few preliminary remarks addressed by the liberal monarch to the large assembly, which was now as still as death itself, he went on to compliment the rare collection of art which was exhibited on the occasion; and to prove the sincerity of his remarks, and the compliment to all on this point, he offered a most princely price for each and all presented for the prize. He observed that had one of the pieces which had been sent in failed to have been received, he should have found it absolutely impossible to designnate the best painting from out the collection, each one of which was so excellent and perfect in itself. He then remarked that he was unable to award the prize he had proposed to present to the author of the painting which would seem to himself and court to embody the greatest degree of excellence, inasmuch as the picture which had been decided upon as possessing the most merit, in every department of its execution, had been sent to the gallery by unknown hands, and was the work of an unknown artist. He closed his remarks by saying that the piece alluded to must be the work of one high in his profession, for it fell little short of the works of the old masters themselves. "And," added the duke, "if there is any one in this assembly who can inform us as to the authorship of the piece in question, we most earnestly hope they will oblige us by doing so at this tine, that we may do the author the honor his talents merit, and also avail ourselves of his unequalled powers in his art." After a short pause, he proceeded to designate some of the most prominent points of excellence in the painting; and being a connoisseur in these matters, the assembly were highly entertained by his well-chosen remarks, and his subject being one to call forth all his admiration, he was unusually eloquent. Indeed, his remarks were so in unison with the appreciation of all who were present there and heard his voice, that he seemed to carry them along with him, and to infuse fresh enthusiasm among those who had already expressed so much admiration of the picture. There was another pause, the duke evidently awaiting an answer to his query as to the authorship of the piece. Yet there was no answer given, nor was there any perceptible movement among the group of artists, who were assembled together in one corner of the gorgeous apartment, and upon whom all eyes were turned. But they also stared at one another, wondering who could be the man. Many of them had been liberal enough to express a feeling of delight and admiration, in beholding, as they said, so noble a production of modern times, and by a living artist. There were those, among them who really loved the art they followed, and thus were constrained to acknowledge their admiration. "I hope," again repeated the duke to the assembly, "if there is any one present who can inform us as to the authorship of this masterly effort of genius, he will do so at once, and confer a personal favor upon us." There was a slight movement perceptible among the group of artists at this moment, and Carlton, the young American, was seen making his way to the front of his companions, several of whom rebuked him for his forwardness in so doing. "Why do you push forward, Carlton?" "Nay, give way but a moment," said our hero. "What would you?" "To speak to the duke." "Fie, man, don't you see he's busy now?" "Give way but a moment," was the reply. "May it please you, excellenza," said Carlton, stepping before the group of artists, and addressing the monarch in Italian, which he spoke like a native, "I am the humble author of the picture it has pleased you to compliment so highly." All eyes were turned upon the speaker, who stood forth from his companions with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, for well he knew that the eyes of all Florence, or rather its nobility, were resting upon him at that moment. The countenances of his former companions evinced no emotions of resentment, as one might have expected who understood their former feelings toward the American. No; they were too much filled with surprise to entertain any other feeling for the moment, and they looked at each other in the utmost amazement, scarcely believing their senses. The eyes of the assembly were bent upon him, and in wonder, too, at the threadbare coat and emaciated countenance, which told but too plainly the tale of hunger and want he had suffered. And so it was, as the reader has seen. Carlton was too proud to make known his necessities, and he had suffered most incredibly from want. Hardly had Carlton spoken in answer to the question of the duke, when there was a visible commotion among the high-born dames that surrounded his seat, and one was carried by the attendants from the apartment fainting. It was the duke's, ward, the Signora Florinda. The surprise and delight which crowded itself upon her gentle sensibility, was too much for her to bear, and she sank insensible into the arms of those about her. "What so strangely affected the Signora Florinda?" asked the duke. "We know not, your highness," replied one of her late companions. "She seemed regarding this young artist at the moment when she was taken ill." "Singular." "Very, your highness." "Hasten after her, and return and let me know how she is." "Si, excellenza." "Say I will join her anon." "I will, excellenza." It was many minutes before the Grand Duke recovered from the surprise occasioned by the appearance of Carlton, and the confusion consequent upon the sudden illness of his ward; but at length he put the question inquiringly: "Americano?" "Si, excellenza." "And this is the work of thy hands?" "It is, excellenza." "It is a most masterly piece, by our lady," said the duke, looking first upon the painting and then at Carlton, as if half in doubt as to the truth of the young American's assertion. "Your excellenza is pleased to honor me," said Carlton, with a respectful inclination of the head. "If the piece be thine, it is well merited," continued the duke. "It shall be proved to thy satisfaction, excellenza." Carlton thanked in his heart the long auburn hair that covered in part his burning cheeks, while he thus stood before that gallant assembly of the elite of the court of Florence. "What proof, sir artist," said the duke, "shall we have of the genuineness of this production?" "By referring to the painting, excellenza," replied Carlton; "you will find a peculiarity of expression, a want of finish in the features of the third figure on the extreme left of the canvass." "You speak truly, Signor Americano; we had before noticed the defect, and were at loss to account for it in so perfect a picture as this before us. But what of the flaw, signor?-the discovery of that which any one of thy profession would have noticed does not prove the piece to be the work of thine own hands, for we also had observed it." "Very true, excellenza," replied Carlton, "but with your permission, I will complete the expression of that countenance with a touch; and when complete, it shall agree in strength of touch, style, tone of finish, and every particular, with the rest of the piece. And, moreover, you shall be enabled therein to recognize the likeness of one of your own household. Is it the pleasure of your excellenza that I add the finish before the present assembly?" "It is our desire," said the now deeply interested monarch. A hum of admiration arose as Carlton, after retiring for a moment, returned with his palette and brush, and approached the picture. While the duke's band now played to the deeply interested assembly, Carlton, with a firm, bold touch, immediately supplied the indescribable something that had been wanting-the je ne sais quoi that had been referred to as being requisite to its proper finish. It was done with such judgment and skill, that the addition, though fresh, could not be detected unless by a very close observation. None save the author, who had purposely left that flaw, could so have remedied it. It was done almost instantly, yet with precision and accuracy. The duke gazed upon the canvass for a moment, and then exclaimed with admiration: "The Grand Chamberlain!-by our lady, what a likeness! Sir artist, thou hast the pencil of a Raphael!" "Is your excellenza satisfied?" "We are convinced that the piece is thine own. None other than its author could have accomplished that which we have just witnessed." "Come hither, gentlemen," said the duke to several of his court about him; and pointing to the canvass, and the touch it had just received, said, "This proof is incontestable!" "It is, indeed," was the response, "Are you, too, satisfied, gentlemen?" "We are." "Enough." The duke then assuming his seat of state, directed the artist to approach him. First complimenting him as a son of America, the glorious Republic of the West, and on his extraordinary genius-as he was pleased to express himself-he awarded him the rich prize prepared for the occasion, at the same time offering him a sum for the painting which would have rendered a man of moderate wishes independent for life. "The prize, your excellenza," said Carlton, "I gladly accept as a token of your liberality in advancing the interests of the noble art I follow. But as it regards the high price you have set upon my humble effort, I can only say, that I had designed it from the first as a present for your excellenza, and only ask in return, that it may find a place in your private and unrivalled collection-if, indeed, it shall be deemed worthy of that honor." "Signor Americano," said the duke, "it shall share the Tribune with our best pictures, and shall be prized alike with them." Now the Tribune, so called, was a small apartment of the duke's gallery devoted to the gems of his collection, and so named after a similar appropriation in the departments of the grand gallery of Florence. The hanging of a picture in this place was of itself alone the highest compliment the author could receive through his production; and so did Carlton understand and appreciate the honor thus designed him, which also was the more welcome, being entirely unexpected. He could hardly realize that his humble effort should be deemed worthy of such preferment, or that it could possibly possess such merit as to warrant its being placed side by side with those of the immortal masters, whose humblest follower he had ever deemed himself. No wonder his heart beat now so quickly, and he breathed so fast; the goal of his ambition was before him, and almost within his grasp. It seemed only necessary for him to reach out his hand and pluck the garland of success and of renown. The pause that had intervened here was but for a single moment of time, when it was once more broken by the duke himself, who spoke, as he felt, most kindly and in encouraging tones. "Signor Americano," said the duke, "thy habiliments are those of one whose purse is but narrowly lined, and we are at a loss to account for this willingness to part with that which has cost thee labor of months, and in which thou hast been so eminently successful. We do much crave the picture, but will nevertheless forego its possession unless it can be had at our own valuation." "As the picture was painted for your excellenza, and you design for it such honor, I could wish its free acceptance; but it must be yours on any terms," said Carlton. The assembly then dispersed, and our hero received a purse of gold for his picture, exceeding in amount his wildest expectations of what he might earn by his art in years of industry and frugality. The scene he had successfully perfected, represented two applicants for justice, standing before the Pope of Rome. They were priests, and had come before him for his judgment in the matter of contention between them. They were ushered into the presence of the pope by a high official, and to this usher had Carlton given the features of the duke's chamberlain. It was a superb design, and represented a late occurrence well-known to the people of Florence, and for this reason, aside from that of its acknowledged superiority, possessed peculiar interest at that time. The deep, yet natural expression of feeling depicted in each countenance, the perfect harmony of the general conception and its completeness of finish, rendered the picture a study requiring time to comprehend and appreciate all its many excellences. It was finished, and the work of half a year, pursued with the utmost assiduity in secret, had proved successful. All his pains and self-denials were now forgotten; he was doubly paid for all his sufferings-he even looked back upon them with a conscientious pride, and deemed that he had bought his preferment cheaply. And such is ever the fate of true genius; it rarely receives the aid of fortune in gaining fame, but struggles on, dependent upon its own slow but sure preferment. This is self-evident; for genius may remain ever latent, unless brought out and improved by stem necessity. CHAPTER VI. THE MASQUERADE BALL. Prosperity's the very bond of love. -Winter's Tale. WHAT a perfect chequer-board is this same game of life on which we all hold so transient a lease. Time is the board, and the various vicissitudes of life make up the chequered field, ourselves the wooden "men;" each and all strive for preferment, and whether it be gained or not, depends solely upon the shrewdness of him who plays the game. The "king-row" may designate the pinnacle of earthly wishes and hopes, while the various "moves" may show the struggle for that desirable goal-happiness. Ah! how many of us get "penned" and "cornered"--and many too, in their headlong course, are "jumped," and taken off the scene of action. Truly, there is a vast similitude between this game of chequers and the bolder one of life. Here was poor Carlton but lately struggling along the chequered field, now moving literally towards the king-row. In a few subsequent weeks, with a well-filled purse, he was enjoying life and his art like a true gentleman, and was the envy of every artist in Florence; and yet they all strove to do him honor, at least; so it appeared, orders for his productions crowded upon him from all the nobility, not only of Florence, but of all Tuscany. The private palaces of the environs of the city were thought incomplete in their collections, unless supplied with one at least of his pictures, the patronage of the Grand Duke, and his own work, which occupied the favored place in the Pitti Palace, having raised him to the pinnacle of fame as an artist. All Italy honored the productions of the fortunate American, and scarcely could a Raphael or a Titian have been more respected or honored. It was his own genius that had raised him and no accident of fortune. "This young American monopolizes the market with his brush just now," said one artist to another. "Ay, and gets such princely prices, too, for his pictures! Funny world, this! It is scarcely three months since he was likely to starve for want of work." "All the Grand Duke's doings; he can make as easily as he can mar a man", replied the other. "But a man must have genius to fill the place Carlton holds." "As much as you might put on a knife's point-no more," said the other, enviously. The long Italian day is past, and its shadows have died over the neighboring mountains, giving place to the voluptuous and dewy twilight, which lightly wraps itself with its soft mantle of studded stars closely about the lovely breast of the Val d'Arno. But a few hours later, and the Palazzo Pitti is one blaze of light, and the thrilling music of the duke's favorite band resounds already among the fountains and groves of the gardens; already have commenced to congregate the gay courtiers and lovely dames of this land of the sun. The diamond tiaras that sparkle on those lovely brows are less dazzling than the lovely and soul-ravishing eyes that look out from that mental diamond, the soul within; the jewelled stars upon those manly breasts well become the noble bearing of the wearers. Brilliant indeed was the soiree of the rich and liberal Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Austrian-born monarch seemed to delight in surrounding the nobles of his court with the most magnificent luxury and display that wealth could procure, as if he would fain show his Italian subjects his own national taste. "The duke spares no expense in his entertainments," said the English consul to a friend, by whom he was standing. "I have known him send to Rome frequently for an artifice to serve him a single evening," was the reply. "It may be a weakness thus to lavish expenditure, but it is a most brilliant one," said the consul. "And one which is dictated as much by policy as by his own personal gratification," said the other. "Perhaps so; but without questioning his motives, we may at all events enjoy the feast he spreads." "That is but proper and reasonable, and I most heartily subscribe to the same," It is a masked ball that occupies the gay throng in the ducal palace. That is to say, in accordance with a general custom of the times, those who please are masked until midnight, when, at the sound of the hour from the great throat of the bell, all masks are removed, and all disguises laid aside. Carlton as the successful protege of the Grand Duke, and Carlton the humble artist, was a very different person. He was the observed of all observers; and many a rich belle sought his side-nay, even leaned upon his arm, as he strolled through the gorgeous rooms of the palace. They were sufficiently disguised by their masks to remove any fear of personal recognition; and therefore, those who knew him not, save by the late scene of winning the prize, besought his escort for the dance-a piece of forwardness quite allowable during the masked part of the ball. Many were the eyes that were bent upon him; and more than one glance of jealousy was shot towards him by s young nobles, as they saw the belles drawn to his side. [SEE ENGRAVING.] Carlton was naturally graceful, dignified and handsome, and bore his new position as though he had ever filled it-now chatting gaily with this lady, now with that, but all the while striving to detect through the many disguises of dresses and masks, the one form that was to him all in all-the queen of his heart and his love, Signorina Florinda. He was himself unmasked, and wore a rich Grecian head-dress, a tunic of dark velvet, trimmed with rich ermine, and clasped close about the throat with checks of gold. His silken hose, and velvet shoes faced with silver thread, set off his fine limbs to perfection. A light, graceful dirk hung at his silver girdle, finishing a costume of great simplicity and beauty. On his right arm there now leans the peerless figure of a countess, with whom he promenades and chats in his gay and spirited way, while she is evidently much captivated with him-indeed, so much is this apparent, that a figure of less height, dressed in a simple peasant's garb and masked, steals up to his side and whispers some words into his ear; but though the reader may easily guess who that peasant girl really was, for the moment Carlton knew her not, and gently declining some proposal from her lips, he turns and walks on with the countess through the blaze of light and grandeur. "That fellow carries it with a high hand," said one young noble to another, referring to Carlton. "Ay, but he has the full countenance and favor of the duke, and none can gainsay him." "Well, he is deuced clever," said the English consul, who was talking with the other two. "Is it a fact that he is American?" asked the first speaker, still regarding him. "Undoubtedly. You know he was announced as such when he won the duke's prize." "How the ladies take to him," said the English consul. "And he to them," added another. "The Signora Florinda is said particularly to affect him, and he may win a prize there," said one of the group. "That would be too bad-the richest heiress in Florence to throw herself away thus!" "'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'" quoted the English consul, and then walking away. And thus Carlton was the unconscious theme of comment to a large portion of the assembly. But the hour approaches when the heavy bell of the palace strikes the midnight hour, and the masquerade will be broken up, and each and all appear before each other in their true characters. Peasant girls will don the attire more fitting their station; kings and queens will descend to their true estates; brigands will lay by the threatening paraphernalia of the mountain-robber, and hooded monks will assume a more worldly attire. The hour is struck, and the scene changes! All is once more life and gayety, but the mask is discarded, and each one is undisguised. See, as the grand chamberlain, with the golden key of office wrought ostentatiously upon his ample velvet mantle, aids in arranging the preliminaries of the dance, he pauses to address with respect, and yet with a degree of familiarity, a tall, manly person of noble bearing, and of handsome features, opposite to whom stands, as partner for the dance, Signora Florinda, the duke's ward. The queenly beauty of her person is the same as when we first met her, so lovely and captivating. The few months which have intervened since that period, have only served still more to perfect her ripening mould; and though scarcely nineteen summers have shed their golden wealth upon that genial land since her natal hour, yet she is in the full bloom of lovely womanhood. See how gracefully glides that beautiful form through the mazes of the dance!-how fondly, as she rests within the encircling arm of her partner, does she look up into his face, drinking from the eloquent eyes that meet her own of the nectar of love, as the Suri rose of Syria sips the dewy treasures of the twilight hour. That partner on whom she rests so fondly, gentle reader, is the humble painter who won the prize of the Grand Duke; the now rich and honored Carlton, the protege of Leopold. The generous monarch who ruled over that portion of Italy under his charge with the liberal and provident hand of a father, held most regal court-spending of his enormous revenue with a gallant and open hand. His excellency was a connoisseur in all matters of the arts, to which he was enthusiastically devoted, and also a most liberal patron to their interest; consequently he lavished all honor on him whom he thought so deserving of it, and the entire court now pointed to the envied artist as being the favorite of the Grand Duke. Carlton's new patron found qualities in the young American artist to admire and love, and there grew up between him and the duke a real and earnest friendship quite remarkable. "No more thanks," said the duke to him one day as they were together. "You challenge me to praise, to reward, and to love you, and I cannot help doing all three." "Your highness is only too lavishly kind to me," was the earnest reply. "But touching this affection which has sprung up between you and my ward. I shall have plenty of opposition in that matter; but if Florinda loves you, by our lady, she shall be yours." "Your highness is ever adding to my indebtedness to you," said Carlton. "Say no more, say no more, Carlton, but make your own terms." The consent of the duke was thus freely obtained to the marriage of Florinda and Carlton, and the observant monarch discovered the preference of his ward long before it was announced formally to him. So far from opposing the object, he even encouraged it in every way that propriety suggested; forwarding its interests by such delicate promptings as his feelings would permit. He loved Florinda as though she had been his own child. This feeling, as we have seen, was first induced by the affection which existed between his ward and his lamented wife, and was afterward strengthened by her many beauties of mind and person. Carlton and Florinda sat together in a private apartment in the royal palace. The latter was playing a favorite air upon the guitar to the artist, who sat at her feet watching with admiration every movement of that beautiful and dearly loved form. He found every attribute there worthy a heart's devotion. Like the worshippers of the sun, who believe that God sits there on his throne, so did he, in his homage, picture the good angel of all things in the heart of Florinda. Let us pause for a moment, to describe the apartment in the Palazzo Pitti, devoted to the fair Signora Florinda, and where she now sat with him she loved. It was fittingly chosen, being in a retired yet easily accessible angle of the palace; an apartment lofty and large, yet not so much so as to impart the vacant and lonely feeling that a large room is wont to do over the feelings of the occupant when alone. It was lighted by two extensive windows, reaching nearly from the ceiling to the floor. The magnificence of the furniture, the rich and well chosen paintings that ornamented the walls, and in short, the air of unostentatious richness that struck the beholder on entering it, showed at once the good taste and general character of the occupant. On a little table of elaborate and beautiful workmanship, were placed with a few rare and favorite books, some curious ornaments from the hands of the cunning artificers of the East, most beautifully fancied, and from which a moral might be read telling the fair occupant of the unhappy state of her own sex in that far off clime. The broad, heavy and richly-wrought curtains that tempered the light admitted through the gorgeously stained glass windows, were of Tuscan satin, blending, like the skies under which they were manufactured, a most happy conceit of rich and rosy colors. Pendant from the hoops in which both were gathered, hung a bunch of ostrich feathers of showy whiteness belieing, as it were, the country of their nativity-swarthy Africa. They were more for fancy than for use, though they did sometimes serve to chase the flies. The seats and couches were of stuffed and figured velvet from the manufactories of the queen of the Adriatic, Venice. The scarcely less soft and pliant carpet was of eastern ingenuity, and no richer served the Turkish Sultan himself. Two opposite sides of the apartment were ornamented each with a mirror of extensive size. About their richly gilded frames was wound, in graceful festoons, the finest Mechlin lace as a screen for the eye. On one side of the room stood an American piano, and beside it a harp of surpassing richness. Here Carlton and Florinda were seated at this time in all the confidence and enjoyment of acknowledged love. "Carlton, I told thee that fortune would smile upon thee; thou rememberest that I told thee." "It has indeed, and I am blessed." And thus saying, he pressed the delicate, jewelled hand that he held affectionately to his lips, while his eyes beamed with love. "You have promised me that you will visit my native land with me after our marriage, dear Florinda." "O, nothing will delight me more than to see the American Republic; the cities and towns of the New World, its people and customs. O, how I have ever wished to travel! Only to think, Carlton, I have scarcely been out of Italy! I once made a trip with uncle across the sea to Malaga and back, touching at the islands; that was years gone by. Since then I have been at times to Milan, Genoa, Leghorn and Bologna, but never out of Italy." "America is not like thy sunny land, Florinda." "Ay, but it is the land of thy nativity, and I will love it for thy sake, And then it is a free, republican government; there are no serfs there-all are freemen. How proud you should feel to belong to such a country." "I do indeed feel proud, dear one; and doubly so when thy eloquent tongue describes it so well." He touched the guitar lightly and gaily, while he thought of the happy tour they would make together. "How proud I shall be of thee," he continued. "How proud I am of thee." "There is little pride in thee, Florinda, or thou wouldst never have consented to marry one of my humble pretensions." "Carlton," said the lady, reproachfully. "And thou wilt marry the humble painter?" "Nay, the envied artist, and protege of the duke." "Ah, little have I coveted this advancement, but for the hope that it has given me concerning thee, Florinda! The favored friend of the Grand Duke has dared boldly to ask for that which the poor artist could only hope for." Florinda and Carlton were happy in the anticipation of future joy, foreseeing for themselves a path of roses in the fairy future. "But fortune is fickle, dearest, and even now I tremble." "You are ever suspicious, Carlton." "Not in most matters, but in those relating to thee, Florinda." "Now, I am ever looking on the sunny side of our life-picture." "It is good philosophy to do so, if one can but accomplish the purpose." "And yet, Carlton, one will sometimes be reminded that there is a shadowed side to the brightest scenes and hopes." "We will seek its bright side, dearest." "With all my heart.-Carlton, do you not remember that you left the heroine of that story you were last telling me in a most critical situation?" "True, she was carried off by the banditti. Shall I complete the story?" "Yes, pray do." CHAPTER VI. THE RHINE LEGEND COMPLETED. They laugh that win. -Othello. "WELL, Florinda, you must go with me in imagination to the mountain fastness, which I referred to as the robbers' stronghold in the mountains. A month nearly had passed since the period of Bettina's being carried away from her home, and the time I would introduce you there. It is a wild spot, almost inaccessible, unless one knows the secret paths which have been hewn up the sides of the rocks, and through the otherwise impassable undergrowth of the forest, by the perseverance and labors of the robbers. The rude castle, which I would now describe to you, was built with consummate military skill, and the walls and bastions, though small and low, could hold out a long time against any strength that might be brought against it. Ever prepared for an enemy, too, was its cautious master and his outposts were as regularly set as are those of an advancing army in an enemy's country. "Hither had the fair Bettina been conducted; and here, with a simple peasant girl to serve her, had she been treated with all respect, save that she was a prisoner. Rude were the inhabitants of this uncongenial spot; fierce in aspect, but completely under the control of the master spirit, whom they called captain. Hark! A peculiar wild cry rings over the tree-tops, and echoes among the rocks and hills; and observe how quickly those who have been loitering upon the ground spring to their feet, and Petard himself comes forth from that portion of the tower devoted to his retirement. That was some recognized signal-that cry which, to the uninitiated, might have been mistaken for the whoop of an owl, or some wild bird's cry of fright. "The secret is soon disclosed. That signal betokened the taking of a captive, and there was soon led into their midst the person of one whom misery seemed to have laid violent hands upon, with garments torn and soiled, with a step that indicated weakness almost to death itself, the face disfigured by unshorn beard and hair, and eyes that looked sunken and large from famine. Such was the bent and woe-begone figure that was now half-supported, half-led into the midst of the band. "'From whence comes this man?' asked Petard, regarding him curiously. "'He was found lurking about our outskirts, captain, and we thought it best to arrest and bring him in.' "'It is well,' continued the captain of the robbers. 'What have you to say for yourself, fellow? What brought you in these regions, away from town and habitations?' "'Give me food, food!' gasped the prisoner. "'Ay, by our lady, he's famished,' said Petard, with a natural burst of feeling. 'Here, bring bread-a flask of wine.' "He was obeyed, and the new comer drained the flask to the bottom, and devoured the food voraciously, until those about him interfered, saying that he would kill himself after so long an abstinence; and truly there seemed to be some grounds for this fear, so ravenously hungry did he seem. Gradually, as the wine warmed his veins, and the food, to which some dried meats had been added, began to satisfy the cravings of hunger, the stranger rose from his bending posture, and new life seemed infused into his system. His eyes, though somewhat hollow, seemed to brighten and light up his rugged face. There was manhood in him, and that pleased the bandits; he showed no signs of fear, and looked boldly about him, like one who was accustomed to rely on himself, and was prepared to stand forth at any moment in defence of his rights. "'If thou canst fight as well as thou canst eat, my man, thou art a jewel of a fellow,' said Petard, carefully scanning the new comer, who seemed every moment brightening up from the effects of the nourishment. "'Give me but rest and more food, and you may then try me,' was the brief reply. "'Thou art a sensible fellow,' continued Petard, who was evidently pleased with the stranger, 'and shalt be humored.' "A rude couch was spread by the robbers amidst their stacks of arms, and throwing himself upon the skins thus prepared for him, the stranger slept for hours, until the bright sun was high in the heavens on the following morning, when, after another abundant meal, he seemed like a new creature; he stood erect, and his fine dark eye shone with the fire of resolution and of strength. His story was soon told; he had outraged the laws, was seized and condemned to punishment, had effected his escape and fled to the mountains, and wandered about until half-starved, and nearly dead with fatigue, he had thus been found. "'Your story is plausible, but what shall we do with you? You know the secret of our paths through the mountain, and it is not safe to let thee go abroad to reveal them,' said the bandit chief. "'Make me one of you, then,' said the stranger. "'We make but few members,' replied Petard. 'It is not our way; and men must possess peculiar qualities to obtain a place with us, and a share of our prize-earnings.' "Probably courage, strength and a ready hand are worth something among you,' said the stranger. "'Yes, but we all possess these,' replied Petard. "'In a degree,' said the stranger, emphasizing the last word. "'What mean you?' asked Petard. "'That perhaps he who offers you his services is a better man than you take him for,' said the other. "'In what respects?' asked Petard. "'In all things that constitute manhood,' was the reply. 'Yesterday I was weak and worn; to-day I am myself again. And no man of this band can bear the palm from me in the use of those powers which Heaven has given us.' "'Without weapons, you mean to say,' added Petard. "'Without weapons I defy your best man,' said the stranger, evidently desiring to display some prowess which should gain him admission to the band. "There was a consultation between Petard and a few of his officers and men, and finally there stepped forth a large, powerful member of the troop-the bully of the band-who offered without weapons to contend with the new comer. The terms were properly stated by the captain, the ground chosen, and the contest begun. The skill, strategy and strength of the stranger were confounding to the robber, and he was cast upon the ground totally disabled in a very few moments. The robbers being angry at this, another stepped forward, was vanquished as quickly, and another, and still another, until Petard himself interfered, declaring that he who could thus fight without weapons, and with such skill and decision, must be a strong auxiliary in time of need. He was installed, therefore, with due ceremony, as a member of the band. "It was a fine, clear night," continued Carlton, "that on which it came the turn of the new comer to guard the tower in which Bettina Etzwell was confined. The stars shone out like mystic lamps, and the broad turrets of the robbers' stronghold cast deep shadows upon the open plats that had been cleared about the spot. All was still. After an evening of revelry, the band was sleeping, and the single guard paced to and fro, apparently not daring to sit down lest he should fall asleep. In the lone tower above him was the fair prisoner. She realized her true situation, and she knew that her father would use every endeavor to raise the sum requisite for her ransom. She knew enough about the habits and practices of the banditti, not to have any fears for her personal safety, since it was so much for their pecuniary advantage to protect and respect her. Indeed, Petard had frankly told her of the communications that had taken place between her father and himself concerning her ransom. "But hark! What startles the fair girl so suddenly? See, she hastens to the turret window, and listens absorbedly to the low but musical notes of a human voice. Is it because the song is so familiar to her ear, that she is thus moved? Perhaps there are recollections connected with this air that are particularly affecting to her, for her fair bosom heaves quickly, and her whole figure seems agitated, as she gazes out upon the night, and her eyes rest upon the person of the robber who guards her captivity, while a clear, manly voice, though in subdued cadence, pours forth the touching notes of a Rhine song with singular delicacy and sweetness. "'Can there be two such voices?' she asked herself. 'Is there magic at work? That is certainly the voice of Egbert, but yonder guard who sings thus is one of these detested banditti!' "In her excitement, she leaned forth from the turret-window, while at the same moment the new member of the band drew towards it. All was still; the revellers slept. Petard himself slept. Only this single sentinel and the prisoner were awake! "'Bettina, Bettina!' whispered the guard, with his hands to his mouth, so as to direct the sound to her ears alone. "'God be praised, Egbert! Is it indeed you?' she exclaimed aloud. "'Hush, it is your devoted lover; be discreet!' he answered." "I knew it was he," interrupted Florinda. Carlton continued. "'I will, I will. But this dress-the office you fill. What does this mean? I am amazed, Egbert.' "'I am here under a disguise,' he replied, 'and have just joined the robbers to liberate thee. Be careful, watchful, but never appear to regard me let what may occur, for I may be foiled at first in my purpose.' "'My father-' lisped Bettina. "'Is well,' said her lover. 'All will go well if thou wilt but be cautious.' Come to the outer door-I have the key.' "'Shall we fly?' she asked. "'Not to-night; preparation must be made. Perhaps to-morrow night, for I have the watch here for two nights, and shall see you then. Come down for a few moments.' "In an instant more the lovers were folded in each other's arms. Egbert had never before embraced her; but their present situation was one to break down all barriers of mere formality, and Bettina sobbed upon his breast, blessing him for his, courage in thus seeking to rescue her. These were precious moments, and they improved them in arranging everything for the coming night. Egbert, as she bade him good night, handed her a jewelled dagger, saying that let what might occur, she had that silent friend! "It is just four weeks since the first instalment on the robber's demanded ransom was paid, when the agent of Petard again appeared in the hall of Botzletz Castle, confident in his personal security, well knowing that the old man's daughter was the hostage held for his safety and the fulfilment of the contract, and demands a second quarter of the ransom. He was a dark, sinister looking Jew-for this was the class through whom the bandits universally performed all their business arrangements with people whom they could not personally approach-himself interested by the large percentage which was the payment for his part of the business. The Jew was most pertinacious in his demand. "Karl Etzwell, the merchant, received the Jew, listened patiently to his demand, and then calmly said: "'Two hundred and fifty marks of gold thou hast already received from me on this business.' "'I have,' replied the Jew. "'And thou now demandest an additional two hundred and fifty?' said the merchant. "'It is my business,' was the answer. "'Canst change me a good obligatory note for five hundred?' asked the merchant. "The Jew drew forth his bag of gold, and after a brief examination, said: "'If thou wilt take a few diamonds at their true valuation, I can make up the sum on the spot, but I shall charge you goodly usury.' "'It is well,' replied the merchant. "'You agree to this?' "'Count out the money,' said the old merchant. "It was done, and the Jew deposited upon the table two hundred and fifty marks of gold, partly made up by a score of fine diamonds. "'We should have some witnesses to this transaction,' said the merchant. 'I will summon them.' "'It were better done between ourselves alone,' said the Jew. "At the same moment the heavy folding-doors behind the seat occupied by Karl Etzwell were thrown open, and two persons, a lady and gentleman, advanced towards the old merchant, They were Bettina and Egbert! "'Foiled with thine own weapons!' said Egbert, advancing and securing the money which the Jew had deposited upon the table. 'This is the exact sum that was paid to thee four weeks since. It is now returned, and you are a marked man. If seen again in these parts, I will myself have thee cut in piecemeal, and hung at my castle gates. Now, villain, get thee hence!' "'Gentlemen, you forget that there is a captive who will pay the penalty of all this,' said the Jew, with a demoniacal grin. "'You are not fully informed, Sir Jew,' said Egbert. 'Your principal could inform you that his bird has flown, and I tell you that there she stands beside her father.' "The Jew uttered a smothered execration, and tore his hair for a moment in despair at the loss he had experienced. But the iron grip of Egbert's powerful hand upon his shoulder awoke him to a sense of pain and fear for his safety, and he hurried away. "The descendants of Egbert and Bettina still live happily in their ancestral home," added Carlton, "and often relate the story of the manner in which the famous bandit Petard was foiled by the gallant and daring stratagem of Egbert Hosfeldt." "This is a happy ending, indeed," said Florinda. CHAPTER VIII. A RIVAL. Excellent! I smell a device. -Twelfth Night. EVERY picture has its dark side-no scene is all sunshine; and so it is our duty to depict the shadow as well as the brightness of the fortunes of those whose story we relate. Carlton had met with opposition, circumstances which he had bravely overcome had impeded his progress, physical suffering had been patiently endured, and yet the dark side of his fortune might be said to have hardly been turned upon his gate as yet. The love of Florinda had ever sustained him; her solemn promise to be his wife, her tender love and constant affection-all these had rendered his hardships mere pastimes. But now matters were to assume a different aspect; a new stumbling-block was to appear in his path, and a most serious one, indeed. Florinda had an uncle resident at Bologna, where he had lived some three years previous to the opening of our story, filling some post delegated to him by the government. This uncle, Signor Latrezzi, was very fond of Florinda, or at least he had always appeared to be so; and up to the time the Grand Duke had become her guardian, he had himself assumed the care of his lovely young niece. Some openly declared that he had done this from mercenary motives; but be that as it may, the story will divulge his character. He had not left her surrounded by the gayety and dissipation of the court of Florence without some misgivings, lest some untoward circumstance might befall her, or that she might become entangled in some alliance contrary to her own interests and his desires. In consequence of these promptings, he had earnestly impressed upon Florinda at the time of his parting from her, on his way to Bologna, to be wary and careful. The truth was, that her uncle had laid out a plan for her future, and would have been very glad to have remained by her side in order the more surely to carry it out, but he could not decline the office to which he was now appointed, and thus he was obliged to leave. He had long designed her hand for an equally favorite nephew on his wife's side, and on this match had firmly fixed his heart. Some said that this was because he desired so earnestly to sustain the character, name and blood of the house of Carrati, of which Florinda was the sole survivor; others, more shrewd, declared that the uncle had a sinister motive beneath all of those so apparent. Florinda was no stranger to this expectation, but had never given it thought, either in favor or against the consummation of her uncle's ideas. The subject was rarely alluded to, and even her uncle deemed her still too young to entertain the idea of matrimony. In a country and among a class where matches were so commonly mere matters of business and mercenary calculation, such an affair did not create much remark or interest between even the parties themselves. Aside from the considerations of family honor, the pride of birth and noble blood, the large, nay, unequalled fortune of Florinda-always excepting that of the Grand Duke-was a strong inducement to this step. That her relation had some personal ends in view, in connection with the proposed alliance, was equally obvious to all who knew the mercenary and selfish character of his general disposition. His treatment towards Florinda had ever been kind and fatherly, but this course was adopted only that he might gain the necessary ascendancy over her mind and purpose to make sure of his plan. This plan of procedure, artfully adopted by her uncle from her very childhood, had completely deceived Florinda-as we shall have occasion to see-and she was led to believe him kind and affectionate to her, who was proud and selfish in all his dealings with the rest of the world. His nephew, Petro Giampetti, was probably the only being he really loved; nor was his regard for him unalloyed, but tempered with that selfishness that formed a prominent trait in his natural disposition. He was childless himself, and had lost his wife by death not many years previous to the time of which we write-two circumstances which had rather tended to augment his unhappy disposition. At times he was moody and thoughtful, and some matter seemed to weigh heavily upon his mind. He was, however, a peculiar man, with few personal friends and no confidants, and there were some dark hints thrown out touching his honesty in the matter of a sum of money entrusted to his care and disbursement by the government. But policy had led to this report's being hushed up on the part of government, for he was of noble blood. This nephew, Petro Giampetti, was a handsome youth after the style of the Italians, possessed of all the noble and revengeful passions so common to his countrymen, yet by no means an evil-disposed person. His dark, swarthy countenance was rendered handsome by a remarkably deep, piercing eye, about which there was a certain something which, while you could not exactly describe, yet left an unpleasant effect upon the beholder; a certain expression that seemed to say that when an object was to be gained, the means would sometimes be disregarded. He had been much with Florinda from childhood, and he was taught to consider her as his future wife. As to love, he might be said to admire her beauty of person and mind, for none knew better how to appreciate both than Petro; and, taken in connection with his anticipated union with her, he perhaps loved her as the world goes. But she had never excited in his bosom that latent passion which smoulders in every heart, and which chance, earlier or later, will eventually fan into a flame. He thought the matter settled, and lived accordingly, giving himself little trouble or thought as to the affair. He had often congratulated himself, since he had become of an age to appreciate such things, that he was to be so nobly connected, aside from the unbounded wealth there was in store for him. To speak more particularly, this latter consideration was of no little weight with one whose family coffers and private purse were sadly low and much needed replenishing. Petro held the office of private secretary to his uncle in his capacity as an officer of state, and was consequently called with him to Bologna, and there resided with him until a few months subsequent to the awarding of the prize by the Grand Duke for the favored picture presented at the Pitti palace, when the business which had called them from home being completed, he followed his uncle on his return to Florence. He came back with a light heart, little anticipating the scenes that were to follow, or deeming that his hopes of future wealth and distinction by means of the proposed alliance with Florinda, had suffered in his absence. Thus stood matters at this period of Carlton's good fortune; and here might have commenced our tale, but that we wished to show the reader "how love does not level the proud, but raiseth the humble." When Signor Latrezzi learned what had occurred during his absence-that his most darling wish was about to be frustrated, and the work of years overthrown, as it were, in a single day--his anger knew no bounds, nor did he attempt to control it. He threw aside the mask, and the storm burst about the devoted head of Florinda in all its wrath and fury. The uncle could hardly realize the present state of affairs, so unexpected was it to him, Was it to this end he had played the hypocrite so many years, that he had given away to all the caprices of a wayward girl, and humored her most annoying fancies? He could scarcely contain himself. Here was a denouement for the proud old noble-his niece engaged to an American artist; his Italian blood boiled at the thought. Petro, too, as we have intimated, little dreamed of the fire that had been kindled in Florinda's heart-a flame that all the coldness of her uncle, ay, and his assumed authority, too, could not possibly quench. She was an inmate now of her uncle's household, or rather, he had full charge of her father's house, where she resided; and though in many respects entirely independent of him, still, in the matter of forming so important a connection, she hardly dared to proceed openly and at once contrary to his expressed wish, and even orders. Immediately on her uncle's return to Florence, Florinda had removed from the duke's palace to that of her forefathers, in order to assume, in some degree, the direction of her own affairs. Here Carlton was peremptorily refused admittance by the directions of her uncle; and thus poor Florinda was little less than a prisoner, in her own house, not daring to meet Carlton, if she could have done so. Thus commenced a drama which was to have a tragical end; and Florinda and Carlton found a sudden end to their late happy and joyful intercourse which neither had anticipated. "Signor Latrezzi," said the duke one day to Florinda's uncle, "this young American is a noble fellow." "Doubtless, if your highness thinks so." "Think so-I know so, signor!" "Your highness has much befriended him." "No more than his merit deserves." Signor Latrezzi bowed, but said nothing. "Signor, you have observed his intimacy with Florinda?" "Excellenza, yes." "A fine couple they would make." "Does your excellenza think so?" "To be sure I do; and if I mistake not, so does the lady." "I know not that, excellenza." "Ask her then, Signor Latrezzi. Either I cannot read the language of her fair face, or she loves the artist." "But he's a foreigner, excellenza." "What of that?" "Nothing, save that Florinda is nobly born, and bears some of the best and oldest blood of Italy." "Time will settle the matter," said the duke, turning away. Signor Latrezzi having ascertained that the duke favored the alliance of his niece with the American artist, was too good a subject-or rather, too experienced a courtier-to attempt openly before his master to oppose the matter, taking good care to avoid any interference with one whose wish, when expressed, was law. His opposition to the proposed marriage was, however, none the less rigorous; and he determined, on such occasions as he could do so, to exercise his spirit with impunity, and he was often heard to say that the affair should never take place, even if he was himself obliged to call out the young American to single combat. The thought of the bare possibility of the connection as sanctioned by the duke, so embittered his feelings as to render him disagreeable to all about him. His conscious pride and self-interest both prompted him in this emergency; for in the case of Florinda's marrying Petro, as we have already intimated, there would be some important pecuniary interest of his own benefited thereby-and then his old aristocratic notions were shocked at the prospect of the plebeian match. Now was poor Carlton cornered on the chequer-board of life, and he must play boldly, if he would reach the desired goal. He had those to deal with who possessed every facility and advantage successfully to battle him in his hopes and plans. But then he was no longer the poor painter, who did not know where his next meal was to be obtained; he was no longer the hungry artist-the butt and jest of his old companions. No! he was under the patronage of the Grand Duke, whose personal friendship he could boast. His brush brought him daily-or as often as he was pleased to exert himself-large sums of money; and his well-lined purse was significant of his unbounded success in his profession as an artist. Carlton knew as well as those who had ever possessed the means, how best to employ them when at his command. His noble person was now garbed in the rich dress of a court favorite, while the plenty and comfort he now enjoyed had again filled his sunken cheek, and lit up the fire of his bright hazel eye; his hair, long and curling about his spirited and intelligent face, was the pride of Florinda, and the envy of the whole court. His fellow-students of the academy were also but too happy to receive the least attention from their late companion; he now moved in a grade of society far above them-a circle which was as inaccessible to them as the throne itself. What was his return to them for the spirit they had ever manifested towards him? Did he retaliate and put them to shame? He did not retaliate, and yet he put them to shame-ay, his was a noble revenge; he returned them good for evil. Carlton's kindness to those who had so illy treated him was unbounded; they received no such return from him-far from it. He encouraged in every way their studies, and even condescended gratuitously to teach them, and they were very ready and happy to thrive under his instruction. Thus did he heap coals of fire on their heads, showing them what sort of a spirit they had trampled on in its adversity. "Whither away, in such haste?" asked one young artist of another in the streets of Florence. "To Signor Carlton's, the American artist," was the reply. "All Florence is after him-what want you?" "He is to give a finishing touch to a bit of canvass for me." "That's clever of him." "Yes, since no one can do so well as he," was the ready acknowledgement. Thus were the tables completely turned. Little did his former companions and fellow-students dream of this transition of good fortune to the share of him they had so lately scoffed at in the open streets of Florence. One, to see their ready obeisance now, and their earnest endeavors to please him, would hardly think they had ever treated him with less respect. So goes the world. If ill fortune betide us, how many stand ready to give us a push on our downward course, and to scoff at our misery; but let the tide turn and set favorably on our bark, and none are so ready to do obeisance as those very curs who have barked and growled at us the loudest. Carlton, the court favorite, the unrivalled artist, the now liberal and wealthy Carlton, was a very different person from the threadbare artist who turned from his companions on the piazza at noonday. He retraced his steps towards the grand gallery at that time, faint and hungry, because he had not the means to procure for himself a dinner, avoiding his fellow-artists to escape the mortification of expressing the extent of his poverty and want. Carlton was in doubt as to the most proper course for him to pursue. He hardly dared to lay the matter in its present form before the duke, lest it might seem impertinent and obtrusive in him towards one who had already extended unprecedented kindness and protection towards him; and yet he knew no other source upon which he might rely. In this dilemma, Carlton grew quite dejected. He was one of those persons who, notwithstanding he possessed a strong mind and determination of purpose, was easily elated or depressed in his spirits; and the present state of affairs rendered him sad enough. He was rudely repulsed in every endeavor to gain an audience of Florinda by the menials of Signor Latrezzi-who had been instructed to this effect by their master-and Carlton was obliged to content himself with an epistolary communication, having to conduct even this in secret. At length one day, finding the duke in a happy mood and at leisure, he frankly stated the matter to him as it actually existed, and begged of him to advise him what course to pursue in the case. "Signor Carlton," said the duke, kindly, after hearing him to the end, "I have little love for this uncle of Florinda's, and therefore avoid any issue with him, or I would openly express my wishes on this point. But as it is, Signor Americano, there are fleet horses in Florence, and ready postilions about the gates of the city, who know the route to Bologna over the mountains! Thou hast ridden in a cabriolet, signor?" "A cabriolet?" repeated Carlton, inquiringly. "Yes, there are plenty in Florence." "Your highness is pleased to be facetious." "Not at all." "Then why speak of cabriolets in this connection?" "Canst not take the hint?" "Your excellenza speaks in riddles." "One of thy discernment, Signor Carlton, should understand me." "Would your excellenza have me clo--" "I would not have you do anything but that which your own judgment should approve," interrupted the duke. "Thanks, excellenza, I understand you." "You may be assured of my friendship in all cases when it can be reasonably exercised," continued the duke. "Your excellenza is ever kind." A new field was opened for Carlton, and he was as much elated as he had heretofore been depressed; and he resolved to take the hint of the duke, and bring matters to an issue in the most summary manner. Young Petro Giampetti immediately on his return to Florence, having learned the state of affairs between Carlton and Florinda, had resolved at once to challenge his rival; being an expert swordsman, and knowing Carlton's peaceful occupation, he made no doubt that he could easily despatch him in single combat, and thus rid himself of one who, to say the least, was a very dangerous rival. In this frame of mind, Petro sought some cause of difference with Carlton other than the true one at issue-a quarrel could hardly be raised, inasmuch as the latter remained ignorant even of the pretensions of Petro, or the design of Florinda's uncle up to the time of their return from Bologna. Failing otherwise to accomplish his purpose, Petro, whose standing and connection served him as a key to the royal presence, sought to offer at court some slight to Carlton, so public and marked as to render it necessary for him to demand satisfaction after the code of Italian honor. Three times, in pursuance of this object, he had vainly endeavored to accomplish his purpose; but each time, Carlton, basking in the sunshine of royal favor, turned by without notice the intended insult in such a manner as to show himself as feeling far above an insult from such a source, and again in so cool and diplomatic a manner, as to turn the very game upon poor Petro himself, who found that nothing save some open and decided offense could bring matters to an issue. "You don't seem to get along very fast in this little matter," said one of his friends rather tauntingly to him. "No, it doesn't look much like a draw-game between them, either," said another friend, venturing a pun. "Curse him," growled Petro, "he's a coward, and wont take offence. What can a man do in such a case as that?" "Carlton doesn't look to me just like a coward," said one of the speakers; "but he doesn't want to fight you, Petro." "Can't help it," said Petro, "he must do it." "Well, then, give him a chance, and have it over." "I'll improve the first opportunity, believe me." But Petro did not further annoy Carlton that evening; the coolness and self-possession he evinced quite nonplussed the angry Italian. CHAPTER IX. THE DUEL. What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill. -Timon of Athens. AS we have said, Petro, finding that nothing short of an open and downright insult could bring Carlton to be the challenging party, therefore resolved to make a bold attempt to accomplish this. He was revolving this matter over in his mind, when an event occurred which led him to be the challenger in fact. He was strolling home from the weekly cordon of the Grand Duke one evening, and was just turning an angle of his uncle's palace walls, when hearing the voice of a female in answer to that of a man, he paused, and following the sound, discovered Florinda leaning from a balcony in the lower range of the palace, and in close conversation with his hated rival, Carlton. This was sufficient, under the circumstances, to raise all his fiery spirit, and he determined that it should serve him as a pretext for a quarrel. Placing himself hard by where he knew Carlton must pass in his leave-taking of the palace, he patiently awaited his coming; and but a short time elapsed before Carlton, bidding good night to Florinda, was hastening from the spot, when he encountered Petro, whose dark countenance was the very picture of rage, while his large, dark eyes were wild with inward passion. "Signor Carlton!" "Signor Petro!" They exclaimed, on confronting each other. Carlton for a moment was thrown off his habitual guard, and losing his temper, was about to retort upon Petro with interest, both in frown and, if need be, with blows also. But recalling himself, he assumed his usual precaution, and looked upon the angry Italian coolly, and without the least exhibition of temper. "Well, Signor Carlton." "Well, Signor Petro." "Your mock me, signor." "You mock me, signor." "Signor, you are my enemy." "You seem to wish me so." "This talk will not serve for you, signor." "If you like it not, it were best for you to step on one side, and I will pass." The Italian bit his lips with suppressed rage, and seemed too angry to trust even his voice; but he did not remain long silent. "Signor Americano," said Petro, warmly, "you have insulted my uncle and myself by this secret interview with Signora Florinda, and I demand of you immediate satisfaction for it." "Signor Petro, I have no cause for contention with you," was the reply of Carlton. "I know you love not the lady, and you are equally aware of her feelings towards you. Why then, I ask, should there be strife between us upon this subject? Surely, you would not seek the hand of one who does not love you! This is inconsistent, Signor Petro." "Do you accept my challenge, or shall I brand you as a coward in the streets of Florence," was the abrupt and passionate rejoinder. "It would sound bravely, by our lady, to write coward against the name you have rendered so popular, sir artist, among the nobilita in Florence." "I will have no contention with thee," said Carlton, his feelings struggling warmly with his determination to avoid the course which his early education had taught him to regard with the utmost abhorrence. "Then I will brand thee as a coward!" "Until you do that, I shall never fight you," said Carlton, calmly. "I would rather lose my hand than draw the blood of one related by any ties to her I love; but if it must be so, you can take your own counsel." "This is fine language, signor." "It is honest language." "I should require other evidence to make me think so." "Because you cannot appreciate the feelings that dictate it." "In what respect?" "As they are caused by my regard for Signora Florinda." "It is well to assume a virtue, if we have it not," said the Italian, scornfully. "I assume nothing, Signor Petro." "Flatter not yourself that you can escape me by this assumed tone of feeling, Signor Americano." "You have my answer, signor." "I shall take an early opportunity to keep you at your word," was the menacing reply, and they separated. Carlton would rather have engaged with any other person in an affair of this kind than with Petro, for obvious reasons; and, as he said to him, besides which, he had the greatest aversion to "affairs of honor," but from principle only, for his was as brave a heart as ever drew sword. Petro at length hit upon a plan which must necessarily bring on the desired meeting. Accordingly, at the cordon of the Grand Duke, on the following week, at the Pitti Palace, when Carlton entered the gorgeous apartments, a murmur ran through the assembly, raised by the friends of Petro, who had preconcerted the plan, of "Coward, coward!" It was uttered, as we have said, in whispers, but it is a word that can be heard a long distance. The young American did not even change color, but turning his bright and sparkling eyes upon some of the principal offenders, he gave them a look that touched them keenly. He did not evince by any outward appearance how deeply his pride was wounded, but he felt it at heart none the less severely. He even looked more cheerful than was his wont, conversing gaily with the ladies of the court. His fine noble countenance was lit up with additional spirit, and his friends even complimented him on his happy appearance. Yet it was all forced-ay, a lie that his proud heart compelled him to. "What a goodly outside falsehood hath!" How many there are like Carlton at that moment! While they smile, they but hide a raging passion within. A smile may cover up the wildest storm of the spirit, as well as show forth its own sunshine! The giddy dance went on, and gayety was the mistress of the hour. Carlton mingled in the dance, and even by good chance succeeded in gaining the hand of Florinda for a set. Her uncle, fearing the displeasure of the duke, avoided any public opposition as we have before said, to the attentions of Carlton; consequently in public he enjoyed her society as one friend may enjoy that of another, while the world are by. The hours flew by as hours only fly along the happy, until the time had nearly arrived for the guests to depart, when Carlton, coolly walking up to Petro, who stood in an exposed situation, said, in a tone not to be mistaken: "Signor Petro, follow me!" "Si, Signor Americano," was the prompt reply. Both left the hall together, the friends of Petro alone understanding the probable design of the movement. The two sought a secluded cafe in silence, and then settled the preliminaries for a meeting, or duel, on the following morning, in which Petro declared one of them should fall. "I would have escaped this encounter for your sake as well as my own," said Carlton, after the arrangements were concluded. "I know very well that you have a reputation for being an expert swordsman, but I fear not. Justice is stronger than art, and you will find it so, Signor Petro, on the morrow." "I do not wish to anticipate, Signor Americano, but I must advise thee to prepare for death on the morrow." "True, Signor Petro," said Carlton, earnestly, "neither of us knows what the morrow may bring forth." "Signor," said Petro, now in evident good humor at his anticipated success, "you should have chosen the pistol, to have placed yourself in any possibility on equal terms with me." "I can use either," was the reply. "Ay, as a child would use them. What has thy profession to do with arms, that thou shouldst ever deign to know their use? It is not yet too late-say, shall it be pistols? You can yet choose," said Petro, touched with that spirit of honor which would sometimes actuate him. "I have already spoken on that point," said Carlton. "Very well, then, signor, with the sword. But in that case, the game will possess but little interest, being all on one side." "To-morrow's sun can speak more fittingly of these things than we can do to-night," was Carlton's reply. "You bear yourself with assurance, signor." "We will not hold any controversy, Signor Petro." "Until to-morrow." "At the appointed time I shall be ready." "Be sure I shall expect you." "We understand each other on that point." "Hold, will you bring weapons, or shall I procure them?" "Our seconds can arrange for us." "True." Thus saying, the two separated to meet on the following morning at a secluded spot in the Apennines, which rise gracefully from the very gates of Florence, gradually attaining to an immense height, and making their home among the clouds. To have travelled where we would fain have taken the reader at the outset, one must have sailed in the southern seas among the islands, have run the Gibraltar passage, and seen the blue water that lies among the Italy mountains. He must have looked upon the Apennines from the sea, and run down the coast that teems with the recollections of three thousand years. The mist was slowly creeping up the mountain's side on the following morning, scarcely three hours from the time that the duke's guests had departed, when Petro and his friends, closely followed by Carlton and his companion, sought the appointed rendezvous for the meeting. The cool, fresh breeze of the morning air, that strengthened as they ascended the mountain, one would think should cool the passions of any creature. Not so with Petro; for the Italian fire of his spirit was up-the dark, deep passions of his nature-and nought but blood could appease their cravings. The spot was gained, and each made the usual preliminary arrangements-all being prepared, the two approached each other. Carlton had disrobed himself of coat and vest, and now stood before his antagonist clothed only in his lower garments and linen. Petro laughingly told his companions that he could punish the Americano with his garments on, not deeming the task of sufficient weight to compel him to remove his tight-fitting upper garments. A few moments were passed in the usual guards and thrusts, when anon commenced the feint, the ward, as each grew warmer in the contest. It was evident to all at the outset that Carlton as well as Petro was master of his weapon. This much had surprised those who had supposed him not possessed of the least knowledge of the exercise. But Petro found him far more than a match for all his boasted skill and experience, but with great astonishment, he continued to exert himself to the utmost. It was a singular scene, that presented by the two combatants thus arraigned before each other in mortal combat. The Italian heated, his eyes and face swollen with excitement and passion, while his antagonist was as calm and unmoved in temper, as though he were fencing with the foils, and only for pleasure. It was a tragic scene, as evincing the brute nature to which man can bring himself. In the heat of the contest, Petro soon lost his temper, while Carlton, cool and collected, parried his wild and headlong thrusts with consummate skill; and at length, after showing him how fruitless were all his efforts to wound him, Carlton by a masterly movement disarmed his antagonist of his blade, at the same time striking the left hand of the Italian a blow with the flat of his sword that laid it bare to the bone! This put a stop to the duel for a few moments, when Petro, almost beside himself with rage, now threw from him his upper garments in imitation of Carlton, and having had his hand properly dressed, yet smarting under the severe wound he had received, resumed his sword-- Carlton remaining in the meantime resting upon his sword, careless, as it were, whether the fight was resumed or not. "Signor Petro," said Carlton, when they approached each other the second time, "it is evident to your friends, I presume, that you are no match for me in the weapons we hold. I advise you to withdraw from the contest. You have already expended your blood in the vindication of this system of honor, and wounded as you now are, can hardly do yourself justice." "Stand to your defence!" said the enraged Petro, whose blood was now completely up. And unheeding the generous proposal and language of his antagonist, he rushed upon Carlton almost without warning, thus essaying to take advantage of him; but the quick and practised eye of the latter saved him, and the rain of blows and thrusts that Petro made at him were as harmless as hail-stones upon a slated roof. Carlton acted entirely on the defensive; had it been otherwise, he could at any moment have drawn the heart's blood of his enemy, who, only intent on the life of his successful rival, strove not at all to protect himself from the sword of Carlton while they fought. Carlton again permitted him to work thus in his wild fury for some minutes, when at length, by another masterly effort with his weapon, he again disarmed his antagonist, throwing his blade over the heads of the company, and immediately, apparently with the same effort, he wounded Petro in the sword arm with such force and earnestness, that it fell powerless by his side. Though severely wounded in both arms, still in his wild rage the Italian could hardly be persuaded to leave the ground peaceably. Thus ended the duel between Carlton and Petro. CHAPTER X. THE ELOPEMENT. Not vanquished, but cozened and beguiled. -King Lear. THE duel described in the last chapter, it will be remembered, was not sought by Carlton. Indeed, he would gladly have avoided it, if possible-first and foremost, because it was diametrically contrary to his principles and sense of moral rectitude; and secondly, because his opponent was indirectly kin to her whom he loved above all in life. Thus much we say to place our hero rightly before the reader, who should not look upon him inconsistently. The critical reader may perhaps question the propriety of Carlton's wounding Petro at all, inasmuch as he is represented to be able to have defended himself with comparative ease from the heated and headstrong Italian's sword. In answer to this, we would say, that besides there being always the possibility of his being wounded by the enemy's sword, the very fact of his returning to the fight when severely wounded, showed that Carlton had rightly judged of his character, its vindictive impulses, when he deemed both wounds necessary. He gave the second one unwillingly; and not one moment before he thought it absolutely necessary to do so; all those on the ground could have borne testimony that there was scarcely an instant of time that Carlton had not Petro's life at his command, if he had chosen to take it. "Why, Carlton," said a merry-faced Englishman, who had been his companion during the interview, and who was now walking with him down the mountain's side, "I could hardly believe my eyes to see thee such a master of thy weapon. How hast thou possibly attained to such extraordinary proficiency with the sword?" "You remember the little Frenchman, who lived so long with me?" asked Carlton. "He who had his snuff-box ever in his hand?" "That I do," said his companion; "and a merry, studious, jocund, lazy, cowardly and brave little fellow he was. In short, I believe there was no quality, however contradictory-good, bad, or indifferent-that he did not possess." "He was a bundle of inconsistencies," added Carlton, smiling at his friend's description. The truth was, he had accurately described a certain class of that versatile nation, the French, which are often met with in every country, wanderers or exiles from home. While we write, we have one in our own mind, well known to our good citizens who is familiarly designated by the sobriquet of "the Emperor." "Well, Carlton, what of our little knight of the snuff-box, eh?" "You remember that I was poor in those days, and the clever little Frenchman offered to teach me the sword exercise, if I could teach him to speak English. It was a bargain, and so did he, and so did I, until I flatter myself both became proficients in their distinctive branches of learning. Carnot taught the exercise in the Grand Army; so he graduated in a good school, and was indeed an excellent master of the weapon. It has been my only recreation and exercise for nearly a year; and I confess I feel quite at home with a good blade in my hand." "You use it with wondrous skill." "Do you think so?" "Certainly; even his second complimented you, and said blade was never more skilfully handled." "This Petro Giampetti is also a good swordsman," said Carlton, "and with a little more coolness would carry a sure point. The pistol is the weapon for your hot-headed fellow; he does not find a chance while using it to work himself into a passion, as with the sword." "Yes; but then with powder and ball, the veriest dunce in Christendom may blow out a gentleman's brain, while it takes an artiste to run one through the body handsomely. Give me the sword, Carlton-I've a great horror, in such cases, of 'villanous saltpetre.'" "I have no taste in such matters; but knowing the boasted prowess of Signor Petro with the sword, I preferred that weapon, though I think you have seen me do some pretty things with the pistol, Brownlow? It was a silly fancy I had when a boy to learn its use." "An' I had carte and tierces at my fingers' ends as thou hast, I would give a thousand pounds," said his companion. "I'll tell thee how to gain it." "By what means?" "Shut thyself up as I have done for months together, with no companion save the brush, and no money to purchase books for perusal, and thou couldst learn it as readily as I have done; always supposing you to have as expert a teacher as that little Frenchman, Carnot, who in all else was anything but a companion-ay, a regular bore. But in mastering my aversion for him, why, you see, Brownlow, I became master of the weapon." "Very true, but I have no Carnot to teach me; and to-day I see what I lose by the want of one." "I'll teach it to thee, myself, Brownlow, when both of us have leisure," said Carlton. "Do so, and I will repay thee at any cost." And this, too, was one of those very artists, who but a few months previous had scoffed and jeered at him in the open streets of Florence. How beautiful was the prospect that spread itself out to their view as the mist cleared away from their path down the mountain. Below them lay, in all its beauty, the city of Florence, the pride of Tuscany, and the Val d'Arno, crowded with white palaces, whose walls lay sparkling in the morning sun like the trembling waves of the sea. Carlton returned to his lodgings, which were now the best and most capacious apartments of an ancient palace, the principal windows of which opened fronting the tall eminence of Fiesole, crowned by the gay old monastery where Milton passed many weeks while gathering materials for "Paradise Lost." Here Carlton had his studio, the daily resort of the beauty and fashion of Florence, while his home was also the receptacle of all that taste could suggest, or the most fastidious could desire, contrasting strongly with his late want and suffering. Even the Grand Duke honored his studio with an occasional visit, which rendered the other artists of the city more jealous and envious than ever. About a month had passed since the duel upon the mountain-side, and during that time Carlton was only able to communicate with Florinda through means of epistolary correspondence. For some time he had employed a servant of the house of Carrati as his messenger; but the fellow being bribed by the agents of Petro, intercepted the letters, and now Carlton was forced to become his own messenger or bearer of the letters he himself wrote. He was now urgent in his communications to the gentle Florinda that she should elope from her home and become united to him; and their arrangements were nearly completed, as the following letter, written at this time, will show: "DEAR FLORINDA:-I am more and more convinced of the propriety of the course I have urged upon you. You say that such a plan may jeopardize your largo property. This is a mistake, I am fully convinced; and even were it otherwise, what need we care for wealth, if we are sure for a sufficiency for life, and of each other's love? I am highly gratified, dearest, that you have at length consented to this arrangement. I will, in the meantime, make all necessary arrangements for our journey. I count the moments until we shall meet again. Guard your health, dear Florinda, and believe me, Devotedly yours, CARLTON." Carlton then proceeded immediately to perfect his plan, and to make all necessary arrangements for the proposed elopement, and in another letter to Signora Florinda, he made all preliminary arrangements with her also, so that there might be no misunderstanding in the case. It was night, and the pale moon, as if in a fickle mood, was smiling and scowling by turns, as the fleecy clouds hurried swiftly past her. The fitful and sudden glances of light appeared doubly bright from the transient shadows made by the officious clouds. They, deeming that the moon took too much credit to herself as queen' of light for the hour, designed apparently to let her know that she reigned only at their will and pleasure. Now bursting through their veiling power, the moon would for a moment cast long deep shadows down the narrow streets, and here and there would light up for an instant some antique palace front with dazzling richness, and as quickly die away again, as though it were at play with the earth. It was difficult in this alternating of light and darkness to use the eye so as to discern objects with certainty; and an individual could with difficulty be recognized between the changes, however near he might be to the observer. The character of the night was wild and threatening-a night for evil deeds. The gates of the city of Florence were just closing, and the gathering clouds had entirely obscured the light of the moon, as a caleche-and-four, with an extra postilion, dashed off from the Borg' ognisanti, on the mountain-road towards Bologna. The inmates of the vehicle exchanged not a word. The female seemed to be affrighted at the headlong speed with which the double team drew the light caleche up the mountain's side, while a postilion sat so near, and the attendant at the lady's side, together seemed an excuse for the silence, even if they were that which any one would have pronounced them, a runaway couple. Anon the gentleman would offer some polite attention to his companion, but without the exchange of a syllable; and, indeed, words could hardly have been heard at the rate they were driving through the dark, on account of the loud noise of the wheels and horses' feet among the stones and uneven soil of the rising ground. On rolled the vehicle with the speed of the wind--every one knows how Florentine horses can go when they have a mind to-until at length it pulled up at a highland roadside inn of most uninviting character. The lady was immediately assisted in silence from the vehicle, and scarcely had they entered the low, dark parlor of the inn before the gentleman whispered to her: "The priest is here, and will unite us immediately." "But why this haste, dear Carlton?" said Florinda, for it was her. "There is no time to lose," was the whispered response. "But should not--" "Hush, Florinda!" "But Carlton--" "He is here," was the whispered interruption. And in a moment more a priest made his appearance, and, without giving either time to unrobe themselves, had they been so inclined, commenced the marriage service. The ring was given in that dark room-so dark that the features even of the minister of the church could not be discerned-the prayer was made, and the two were solemnly declared to be husband and wife. The lady had essayed several times to speak aloud, as we have seen, to express some feeling or wish, and she seemed as if anticipating some encouragement from him she was about to wed; but she was each time hushed by the speed with which everything was done, or by a gentle whisper from her companion. The ceremony completed, the signora drew back to a chair, overcome by her swift ride, and the emotions that crowded themselves upon her throbbing and trembling heart. At this moment there entered the apartment the tall figure of a man apparently advanced is years, who, turning his back upon Florinda, conversed for a moment with the bridegroom, then both turning towards Florinda at the moment a couple of lamps were introduced into the room, when lo! she beheld before her Signor Latrezzi, her uncle, and her husband, Petro Giampetti! With a scream of horror and affright, she fell fainting upon the floor. The uncle and nephew were both filled with horror, for both believed that they had killed her, as they gazed upon her pale and lifeless form. Either would lave sacrificed everything to have taken all back again, and restored her to life and happiness. Can this be thee, Petro Giampetti, trembling like a child-nay, a tear actually wetting that swarthy check, as you chafe the pulse, and bathe the temples of that insensible girl? And hast thou really so tender a heart, and yet couldst enter into so hard-hearted a conspiracy? And thou, Signor Latrezzi, well mayst thou hide thy face in thy hands, for thou art the greatest sinner here; thine has been the hand that hath done this; that hath triumphed over this poor girl, whom thou shouldst have protected. "Holy virgin," cried Petro, "she's dead!" "Say not so," eagerly exclaimed her uncle. "God forgive us!" answered Petro. "Ay, we have need of forgiveness, if we have brought on such extremity," said the uncle, trying to raise the lifeless head of their inanimate victim. Leaving the guilty, nephew and uncle for a while, we will take the reader back for a moment in the thread of our story. CHAPTER XI. THE INTERCEPTED LETTER. Any man that can write may answer a letter. -Romeo and Juliet. IN such a tale as we now tell you, gentle reader, and when written within such limits, it is impossible to keep each portion of the plot equally advanced, or rather not to anticipate certain results. There is also an advantage in this mode of arrangement which perhaps is in itself sufficient excuse for the author. It heightens the plot, and renders it more absorbing to the reader, by suddenly laying before him some startling tableau and seeming inconsistency, but which the sequel of the story renders plain and reconcilable with other portions of the story. Having said thus much for the scene we have presented to the reader at the roadside inn on the Apennines, we must now go back with him to the night on which Carlton delivered his letter of arrangement to Florinda, and thus render our tale plain to the comprehension of all. Carlton, as we have said perfected his plan for the proposed elopement, and in another letter to Florinda he communicated the particulars, delivering the missive with his own hands as heretofore. There was a certain hour agreed upon between them, in which Signora Florinda was to be at the balcony of her apartment every evening; and thus, although Carlton might not be able to hold much conversation with her, yet he could deliver any written paper he might desire, without the fear of interruption or detection. It was necessary to accomplish all with the utmost secrecy in order to ensure success. Now Petro had been led to suspect by some circumstances, that the meetings between Carlton and his cousin had been renewed. He determined to ascertain if this was the case through his own personal observation; and on the occasion of the delivery of the letter in question, Petro being on the watch, discovered Carlton in the act, and also overheard the following appointment made by him with Florinda: "I will call for an answer at eleven, signora; I hope you may perfectly comprehend my plan and fully acquiesce in it." "At eleven?" "At eleven, signora." "Hark, heard you not some one?" "No, I heard nothing." "It sounded very near to the balcony." "In the street?" "Yes; I am sure I heard someone." "Some passer-by, Florinda," said Carlton. "Pray thee be careful, Carlton, we may be watched." "I will be discreet; do not fear." "There, the figure is turning yonder street!" "Ay, and pauses to observe us; I will away. You will remember." "I will await you at that time, Carlton." "Good night, Florinda," whispered Carlton, pressing the hand extended to him from over the balcony, just within reach. "Good night." And they parted from each other, not daring to hold further conversation lest they might be observed, and their future plans suspected and defeated by the agents of her uncle. Petro determined to prevent this meeting, or rather to be present at it, and he hurried from the spot without meeting Carlton, resolving to be punctually at the terrace a little before eleven. It was evident that he had formed some plan in which he placed much confidence, by the revengeful smile that played about his scornful lips. It was near the hour of eleven that night, when Carlton drew near the little terrace that jutted from the window of Florinda's apartment, He saw by the pale moonlight reflected upon the clock of the neighboring church, that it lacked yet some fifteen minutes of the appointed time for the meeting, and humming lightly to himself, to kill the minutes, he sat down within a shady angle of the palace wall. His approach was noted by the watchful Petro who, as soon as he saw him seated, determined, if possible, to obtain possession of the answer which he knew Carlton awaited! To accomplish this purpose, required much cunning and prudence; but he was fully equal to the plan-for what Italian has not cunning and intrigue in his natural disposition? In pursuance of this object, he approached the little terrace before alluded to, and which was a trifle higher than his head, and situated at this time within the shadow of the moon. By a slight and almost imperceptible noise, he essayed to attract the attention of Florinda, and led her to suppose that he was Carlton, and there awaiting the expected answer according to appointment, The wily Italian gathered the ample folds of his rich cloak about his person, so as to partially cover his face, upon which there was a most demoniac smile, picturing revenge, hate and every evil passion, to which a heavy moustache lent additional fierceness. In one hand he held a keen stiletto, while he extended the other above his head to receive the letter from the hand of Florinda. It was necessary for her to reach some distance over the edge of the small projecting terrace, in order to place it in his hand; this she did, using the customary precaution, and not venturing to utter a word as she heard footsteps approaching her room. Petro having thus possessed himself of the letter, retired to a place from whence he could watch the movements of Carlton without himself being observed by the young American. As the clock of the neighboring church struck eleven, Carlton sprang to his feet, and assuming his place under the terrace, awaited the coming of Florinda, little suspecting the trick that had been played upon him. But after awaiting somewhat impatiently for nearly an hour, he was compelled to return to his lodgings, almost trembling with fear lest some serious accident had befallen her he loved, or at least that their plan might have been discovered, and she subjected to consequent ill-treatment and fresh rigor by her uncle. All this while Florinda, as little suspecting the fraud that had been played upon them as Carlton himself, was quite contented and happy in the anticipated success of their plan, and dropped to sleep, thinking of him, after humbling herself before the throne of grace in fervent prayer-that key to the gates of Paradise. Florinda was naturally of a devotional character; and this feeling had grown and strengthened by her companionship with the late duchess, who was noted for her piety and goodness-and in fact came to her death, as is well known, by too much rigor imposed upon herself in devotional penance! Petro, after satisfying himself that the ruse had not been discovered, sought his own apartment in the palace to read the letter he had thus possessed himself of. He hesitated for a moment before he broke the seal-we will do him the justice to say so-even in this stage of his conduct, his sense of honor had not entirely left him. It had not yet become so blunted as to render him entirely reckless in the debasing deed he was about to perform. With a sort of desperate resolution-for he had never before done so mean an act-he opened the seal. The letter was brief, and ran as follows: DEAR CARLTON:-I leave every necessary arrangement to you. I will meet you as you propose to-morrow evening at the hour of ten. I would for certain reasons that it might be later, but the gates of the city I am aware close at that hour. Have a care for your own health and safety, Dear Carlton. I will meet you with a single attendant on whom I can rely, at the appointed time, and at the gate opening upon the Borg' ognisanti. Affectionately thine, "FLORINDA." "So, so; the bird had nearly flown from us," said Petro, as he read this epistle. "Here's a plot; and if I do not so counter-plot as to render it of no avail, other than for the furtherance of ny own design, then I am no man. It is well that I took this matter in hand at this time. A day-nay, an hour later might have been too late. Singular coincidence that should have brought me to the place and the subject at the most opportune moment. Little does this fellow think of the rod that is in pickle for him. But I will be even with him. I will not sleep while he pursues the game; vigilance alone must gain me my object. No, no, Signor Artist, you cannot thus pluck this beautiful flower unchallenged; you are observed, and your object is understood, Scheming requires counter-scheming; and you shall have that to your heart's content. Italy against America, by the virgin; but we will make this a national quarrel, if it be necessary." He gazed upon the letter thoughtfully for some moments. "Let me see," he continued, "this is not a very difficult hand to imitate." And he commenced to write different words and form capitals after the style of Florinda's note. "I think I can do it," he said at length. "But the seal-how shall I manage that? Stay, I can use this same one with a little care. Capital!" he exclaimed. "I'll have this business all in my own hands." And Petro Giampetti laughed outright at the prospect of his success in this vile plot against his cousin. Petro was an expert and practical penman, being, as we have said, private secretary to his uncle, Signor Latrezzi; and thus being quite an expert in the use of the pen, he was the more easily able to prosecute his dishonest purpose, Thus he commenced carefully to write a note addressed to Carlton, and purporting to come from Florinda, in answer to his note of that evening. With her note open before him, and carefully noticing its style and manner, both in chirography and composition, he cunningly traced the following lines: "DEAR CARLTON:--In consequence of an unforeseen accident which I need not now explain, I shall not be able to meet you until to-morrow night, when I will do so at the hour named, and at the place designated. Be careful of your own health and safety, and do not attempt to see me until the time we meet at the gate opening on the Borg' ognisanti. "Affectionately thine, FLORINDA." This he addressed after the style of Florinda's note, sealed very ingeniously with the identical seal she had used on the note which he had intercepted, as we have seen, and forwarded it early on the following morning by one whom he could trust to Carlton, thus fully carrying out his plot of deception against them both. Petro's heart somehow throbbed strangely in his breast, and his conscience was very ill at case. He felt that he was enacting the coward's part in this business, and already half wished himself out of it. But if the game was a bold and hazardous one, so was the prize a brilliant one; and so he closed his eye to remorse, and spurred forward. Thus we blindly pursue the goal of our wishes, little heeding the cost, though we know that retribution is sure! CHAPTER XII. NEPHEW AND UNCLE. A serpent heart hid with a flowering face. -Shakspeare. HOW ingenious are the expedients to which the mind will resort to justify itself, and endeavor to still the warnings of conscience. He who commits a sin, first deceives himself, for he is led to believe that the culpable deed will be productive of a greater degree of happiness than evil to himself, else his own selfishness would deliver him from the act. I did not mean this into evil, he will say to his conscience, as it prompts him in its own silent way. Thus Petro, by a like process of reasoning, had brought himself almost, if not quite to the relief that the end was a justifiable one, and so did not hesitate at the means necessary to accomplish it. Was not Florinda about to marry a heretic, an American, a mere artist, without any claim to noble blood, and against the wish of her uncle and guardian? How cunningly did Mahomet add a new chapter to the Koran in justification of his amour With Mary the Coptic girl! "All things are fair and honorable in love," said Petro to himself, "even as in war; and I should be a fool if I failed to take advantage of any circumstance that chance may throw in my way. No, no; honor is not to step in between me and my love-it shall not defeat my purposes. I will win the battle first, and then repent afterwards. 'Tis the only course I can pursue." Having reasoned to himself much after this manner, he communicated the whole affair to his uncle, in whom he was sure of finding one who would lend his ready aid in the accomplishment of his purpose. Signor Latrezzi having employed every other means to prevent the proposed connection between Florinda and the American artist, gladly received the proposition made to him by Petro, and fully entering into the spirit of the latter, determined to resort to stratagem to accomplish his grand object. It was accordingly agreed between Petro and his uncle that he, Petro, should be at the gate that night, as specified in Carlton's note to Florinda, where he should meet her so disguised and muffled up as not to be recognized, and thus by artful management pass for Carlton; soon after their leaving the city, they were to stop at a small public house on the road, where a priest should meet them; and having received his instructions from Signor Latrezzi as to the particulars of the case, would understand how to play his part in the deceit, uniting them without question. And thus it was agreed that Florinda should be made to marry Petro, thinking him to be Carlton. To render all things sure, and that nothing should be overlooked as it regarded necessary precaution, the uncle was to go on and stop at the inn during the afternoon with the priest, and arrange everything properly for the proposed deception. "It is the only means by which we can accomplish our purpose," said Petro to his uncle, in justification of the plan they had adopted, and snatching at any idea that might screen him in some degree from his own conscience, relative to the dishonest measure they were engaged in. "It is plain," said Signor Latrezzi, "that this Signor Carlton-this American artist, has got the girl's heart." "Irrevocably." The uncle started-the thought shooting across even his hardened and calloused heart-can this man design to marry Florinda, and yet believe, as he says, that she irrevocably loves another man? "Ay," he continued, with the purpose of justifying himself, as Petro had done, "she is so obstinate about it, too." "Yes, but this will most certainly render her perfectly tractable-no doubt," said Petro-with a laugh, thus showing how much he really loved her who was destined to become his victim. "There's little heart in this business." "True." "And after all I like it not." "Nor I, but it must be." "It does seem necessary." "Unquestionably." "If I thought otherwise, I would not consent to it, Petro." "Nor would I engage in it," said the nephew, with some degree of honesty. "We shall be sure of the duke's displeasure." "Yes, that we must count upon," "It will not, however be anything serious." "Probably not." The thought again striking Signor Latrezzi, he said: "There will be little love between thee and the girl, I fear." "It will be all her own fault if I do not become devoted to her," said Petro, in answer to this suggestion, and yet in a tone of derision; for he had his mind more upon Florinda's fortune and title than upon her person, though he did also feel an ambition to possess so rich and rare a jewel as herself. "Do you know, Petro, how Signor Carlton first became acquainted with Florinda? It has ever been a mystery to me." "'Twas at the convent, I believe," replied Petro. "I have been told that he was employed by the prioress to copy some valuable painting, and while thus engaged, formed the acquaintance." "Gita" (Florinda's maid) "has told me that it was he who taught her to play so sweetly upon the guitar. Can this be so?" "Si, signor, this also commenced at the convent. Carlton exhibited by chance one day his singular skill upon the instrument, and being engaged there for many weeks, he became acquainted with many young ladies, and among them Florinda, to whom he gave a few lessons on the instrument. Afterwards becoming better acquainted with Florinda, he taught her some of the airs of his country, and by degrees seemed to impart his really singular skill upon the instrument to her. I never knew that these Americans were such musicians before." Petro spoke truly. Carlton had first become acquainted with Florinda at the convent as stated, and while teaching her upon that most graceful instrument, the guitar, of which he was a perfect master-each learned to love the other, without realizing the fact until the time for parting arrived, when the tears stood in Florinda's eyes while they met Carlton's, and each read a volume of love and constancy there. They often met from that time, and the gentle and high-born Florinda loved the young American artist as dearly as he did the loveliest girl of the sunny Val d'Arno. Petro was safe in his calculation, at least as far as it regarded his deception and stratagem with the letter between Florinda and Carlton; for, having received the letter despatched by Petro that morning, Carlton did not for a moment question its genuineness, but proceeded at once to make his arrangements accordingly, supposing that the intended elopement was only delayed for twenty-four hours by some unforeseen circumstance which had occurred in the household of Florinda's uncle. This was a reasonable construction of the matter; and with this view of it, and as she had requested him not to attempt to see her until they met at the gate, Carlton mounted his horse and rode out of the city, proposing a pleasure trip upon the mountains until night. We will not deny that he was disappointed, but having implicit confidence in Florinda's judgment, he believed that she could not have unnecessarily delayed the appointment. Petro had made all his arrangements with a zeal and care worthy of a better cause. It is but too often the case that we find activity and zeal exerted in behalf of the wrong; for the rogue, conscious of his evil purpose, exerts every faculty to accomplish his end, and to screen himself from the detection he constantly fears. Here was an uncle and nephew plotting a young girl's misery-coolly and understandingly consigning her to a lot, which, of all others, is most to be dreaded by a female heart. She little suspected their treachery-and where should she not have first looked for deceit, rather than among those who should have proved her protectors? Florinda had ever loved her uncle and, until she had learned some of the evil traits of his character, had respected him, too. But as she grew older and more observant, these things forced themselves upon her attention, and she was obliged to concede their truth to her own heart, though she never made mention of the matter to another. Of Petro-she had never loved him; and while they were yet children and playmates together, they could never agree. The deep, dark passions that Petro inherited from his father, often broke out on the most trivial provocation, to the terror of Florinda, until she more feared than loved him. As both had grown older, Petro acquired more command over his evil passions, and Florinda had learned to look upon him with indifference; and yet she felt his absence for so long a time at Bologna to be a relief from an unpleasant restraint she felt in his or her uncle's presence. Signor Latrezzi discovered this growing dislike of his niece for himself; and this was another argument with himself why he should resort to the proposed stratagem to accomplish an end which otherwise appeared to be receding farther and farther from his grasp every hour. His earnestness in the matter showed fully that he had some private purpose in view, and this Petro suspected, and he at length ascertained his desire to cover up some pecuniary fraud he had committed upon her estate. But he was willing to let that remain in obscurity, provided he could get the management of the rest, which was indeed an immense estate in value. Such were the uncle and nephew to her. But as they stood now together-that is, the uncle and nephew-the most casual observer would have noticed that the business they were engaged in but illy suited them. They were by no means so heartless or mercenary as not to feel strong compunctions. "Petro," said the uncle, "if you marry Florinda, remember you must respect and cherish her afterwards." "Of course, I shall. You need not lay any injunctions upon that score, my good uncle." "Ay, 'twill be poor enough reparation for the loss of her freedom," mused the uncle. "Don't moralize," said Petro. "We are in for the game, and must play it out, come what may." "That is true." Saying which, the two silently saluted each other, and then separated. CHAPTER XIII. THE ROADSIDE INN. You shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work. -Hamlet. NIGHT came, and Florinda counted the moments as they passed, anxiously awaiting the time at which she must leave the palace to meet Carlton, according to his last directions. The time so anxiously anticipated at length arrived, and stealing from a private entrance to the Palazzo, accompanied by a faithful female servant, who had been her attendant for years, she hurried on foot to the designated spot. She had shrewdly avoided the employment of a vehicle, deeming it more safe and expeditious thus to make the passage to the spot on foot. There was one of the most delicate and high-born beauties of all Tuscany wending her way through the dark and deserted streets, attended by a single female as helpless as herself. She was doing this for the love she bore to Carlton; she was risking thus her character, and perhaps even her life, to be united to him she loved, the gallant Americano. On she sped, now half-running, and now retiring within the deep shade of some projecting angle of the palaces that lined the route, thus to screen herself from the observation of some passer-by. The gate was reached at the precise moment. There stood, wrapped close in his ample cloak, with his hat slouched well over his eyes, him she took for Carlton; he stood apparently expecting her at the door of a caleche. With a whisper of recognition, he assisted her into the vehicle, which immediately dashed off at a reckless speed on the mountain-road. The reader need hardly be told that this was Petro, who thus cunningly executed the plan agreed upon, as we have already seen, between him and his uncle, Signor Latrezzi. Thus we explain to the reader the tableau we have presented him at the little roadside inn on the Apennines; thus it was that Petro Giampetti, in place of Carlton, was wedded to Signora Florinda. Fatal mistake! Ay, fatal, indeed, was that unfortunate billet delivered by Florinda unwittingly to Petro. It was the author of all her present misery, and the consequences to follow were, if possible, of a still more fatal character. In that little note, Petro possessed himself of an agent which enabled him to work out his treacherous plans-a key wherewith he unlocked the purposes of Carlton, and made himself master of his secret design. We have seen, gentle reader, to what use Petro put the information he had so treacherously obtained, and now we will show the close of this fatal drama. While Florinda was still insensible, and surrounded by the servants of the house, under Petro's directions, endeavoring to resuscitate her, a single horseman rode up to the door of the inn on his way down the mountain. Dismounting, he stood by his weary steed for a moment, regarding both him and the ominous signs of the weather, then turning to the attentive hostler, he asked: "How far to Florence, sir?" "A couple of leagues, signor." "And the gates close at ten?" "Si, signor." "Can you accommodate me within?" "Si, signor." "And my horse?" "Si, signor." "I may as well stop here," said Carlton, for it was he, "as a few miles nearer the city, for I cannot enter until morning." Resolving to tarry here for the night, he threw the bridle of his weary steed to the hostler, and entered the house. He had ridden out from the city early that morning for exercise and pleasure, and had ascended many miles the wild and majestic Apennines to obtain a view of the glorious scenery presented from their lofty heights, and get a sight of the far-off Adriatic; he was belated on his way, and resolved to go no further in the deep darkness of the night. A storm, too, was evidently about to break in all its fury, and might overtake him before another shelter could be obtained. It was this latter inducement, in connection with the weary state of his horse, that led him to decide upon stopping at so uninviting a house as the one in question. It was a noble animal which he seemed to have such consideration for, and was a gift of the duke's from his own stable-an animal that had already learned to love his new master, and stood with arching neck, and brilliant eye, as though no labor or fatigue could banish his conscious pride. The young artist regarded him with undisguised admiration, petted him by a few gentle strokes upon the head and a kind word, and said, "Yes, Prince, you and I will tarry here until morning, and go back to town with renewed strength and vigor gained from this mountain air." Having seen that his horse was properly bestowed, Carlton returned to the house, and passed immediately into the little parlor of the inn where the ceremony had just been performed, little anticipating the startling scene that there awaited him. The astonishment of Carlton at beholding Florinda there, surrounded by the servants endeavoring to resuscitate her, with Petro and his uncle, Signor Latrezzi, can better be imagined than described. Twice did he dash his hand across his eyes, as if to assure himself that he was not dreaming; then thrusting them recklessly aside, he was about to raise her in his arms, when Petro, who was taken completely by surprise, recognized him and, drawing his stiletto, struck fiercely at his heart. Carlton received the blow partly upon the arm, where it inflicted a flesh wound only. Turning upon the Italian, with one blow of his muscular arm, he threw him prostrate upon the floor; and half way across the apartment; then drawing from the ample pocket of his riding-coat a pistol, he presented it at the infuriated Petro, bidding him to stand back, or his life should pay the forfeit. "By this light, one step in advance and you die!" Carlton was in earnest, and Petro could read the determination of his spirit flashing from his eye, and he quailed before it. He felt that he was in the wrong; that the manly interference of Carlton had right to back it; and this consciousness, while it unnerved his own arm, nerved that of the artist's. Carlton paused for a moment, as if to consider what to do; he was amazed and confounded, and his arm sunk by his side. Petro and his uncle drawing together, exchanged a few hasty words, while Carlton stood there mute, as though struck dumb. "We are two to one," whispered Petro, "let us upon him." "Nay, he has a pistol; we have only our swords." All this passed in one instant of time; but the next chapter must describe the close, of the scene which had assumed so tragic a character and such a fearful aspect. CHAPTER XIV. THE FINALE. Some falls are means the happier to arise. -Cymbeline. THE low rough room of that roadside inn presented a wild and tragic appearance at that moment. On the floor, her head supported by her faithful attendant, lay the insensible form of Signora Florinda. Just at her feet, and standing between her and Petro, was the tall, manly person of Carlton, his right hand holding a pistol towards the breast of the former, in whose dark countenance was depicted every evil passion of the soul. The servants in their fright at the sudden affray had retired to a distant corner of the apartment, while in another, with his hands over his face, as if to shut out the horrid scene before him, stood the person of Florinda's uncle. "What means this scene?" asked Carlton. "Can some of ye speak and tell me? Gita, what brought your mistress here, and under such escort? Speak out, girl-I'll protect you." "Treachery, signor, dark and deep!" said the girl, whom Florinda had found it necessary to make a confidant of in relation to the intended elopement and marriage. "Noble business for an uncle and nephew!" "Repeat not those words" said Petro, angrily. "I repeat them, and am ready to abide by them," said Carlton. "Cospetto!" exclaimed Petro, in a rage. "Ay, talk on," said Carlton; "so valiant a knight need have plenty of words at command." "Hold, for the love of the virgin, hold both of ye!" said Signor Latrezzi, foreseeing the catastrophe that must ensue, yet still remaining with his face hid in his outspread hands. "By our holy church," said Petro, "must I be met at every turn by this braggart of an American, who thwarts my dearest wishes, and foils me at every point? I tell thee I will have thy heart's blood!" he continued, rushing wildly towards Carlton. The pistol was raised on a level with the head of the revengeful Italian, as he advanced furiously, with his stiletto reflecting the glance of the lamps. Carlton cried to him: "Have a care, Signor Petro. Thy blood be on thine own head. Stand back, I say." "By heaven, I will not longer bear this!" "I have warned thee!" But the enraged Petro heeded not the warning of Carlton, upon whom he was just about to throw himself, when the black throat of the pistol emitted in liquid fire its fatal contents, and when the stunning effect of its voice and the smoke had subsided, there lay the lifeless corpse of Petro upon the floor at the feet of the American. The ball had passed through his brain; and thus, in the full tide of life, with health and strength, and, alas! with all the evil passions of his heart in operation, and his soul craving the blood of his fellow-man, he had rushed in one moment into eternity. A fearful death, and a fearful thought; but the deed was now done, and there was no recalling it. Its fearful consequences were inevitable, and must be borne by the actors in that scene in the drama of life. "Holy virgin, he is dead!" said Signor Latrezzi, as he bent over the inanimate form of Petro. "God forgive him!" said Carlton. "He would have taken my life with that thirsty dagger!" "By this light, you acted only in self-defence," said the trembling landlord to Carlton. "Quick, sir," said Carlton, "remove all appearance of this struggle before the lady revives." The sad finale of the tragic scene was at once enacted by the landlord and his people, who bore the body into a private apartment. Signor Latrezzi, who had himself to blame for the greater part of this fatal business, stood horror-struck by the sight now presented to his view. If he was not the actual murderer, was he not the instigator of the whole business? He put this question to his conscience, and it whispered to him in deep and thrilling tones-guilty, guilty! He would have given everything he possessed, ay, life itself, to have been able to recall the whole transaction; but alas! it was now too late, and the consciousness of his guilt drove him almost to madness. The servants, who had witnessed the whole affair, could testify that Carlton had acted only in self-defence in the matter, and from a conviction of this, they offered no interference. Signor Latrezzi, after giving direction's for the removal of the body, took his departure towards the city, without attempting to interfere with either Carlton or Florinda, whom he left to themselves unmolested. Florinda happily was insensible of the tragic scene performed in her presence. When she revived, all traces of the deed were removed, and she found herself in the care and protection of Carlton. "Where am I?" she asked, as she recovered from the insensibility which had seized upon her, when she realized the treachery that had been played upon her; her eyes resting on Carlton, she clung instinctively to him for protection. She closed them again, scarcely daring to trust their evidence, lest she should again realize that scene. "Is it a vision or reality?" she asked tremblingly of Carlton. There is nothing done but has been undone, dearest," was the answer. "You shall know more when you are more composed." "But, Carlton, the priest married us," said Florinda, shuddering at the thought. "I am his wife!" "Compose thyself, dearest; and believe me, thou art no one's wife, but still my dear Florinda. All is well." By degrees as Florinda became more composed, the whole matter was told to her; and though she deeply sorrowed at the fatal necessity, yet she could not blame Carlton for taking the life of him who was at the moment seeking his. They sought her home in Florence, from whence Carlton was no longer excluded, but came and went at will. Signor Latrezzi and he never met; but it was plain that the servants had been ordered to admit him in future, as any other respected guest of Signora Florinda's. The uncle's darling project was utterly defeated, and the hopes thereby of securing himself from his just reward for the dishonest act he had committed in appropriating a large sum of his niece's property, was rendered abortive. What course did the old man pursue in this dilemma? He did that which he should have done years before, as soon as he awoke to the realization of the crime he had committed; he went to Florinda, confessed his dishonesty, and begged her to spare his gray hairs from dishonor. She was but too happy to relieve him from his misery and suffering on this account. "Uncle," said she, "give thyself no further uneasiness on this point, but sit thee down, and draw a paper absolving thyself from the matter in proper form, and I will sign it." The paper was drawn and signed, and Signor Latrezzi from that hour became a different man; he had thoroughly repented. "You are now content?" "I am, my dear Florinda, and thankful to you for thus relieving my mind." "Say nothing about it, my dear uncle." "I will not, save in action towards you, Florinda, who have placed me under lasting obligations." Though Carlton deeply regretted the fatal occurrence of that night at the inn on the Apennines, still his conscience did not upbraid him for the part he had enacted; for though he had taken the life of Petro, it was done in self-defence, and the court of Florence so decided, Carlton having given himself up to trial. It would have gone hard with him, or any foreigner in Italy, and especially in Tuscany, who should chance to be thus situated; but Carlton had the all-powerful influence of the Grand Duke Leopold exerted in his favor, and in this case justice was rendered. True, it was some time before the American artist was again received at court, or made his appearance at the Grand Duke's weekly cordon, as public opinion was against him-and very naturally, too, for he was a foreigner, and had taken the life of a citizen of Florence, and one closely allied to the nobility and gentle blood. But after the decision of the court-which the duke took good care to have made in the most imposing and public form-was thoroughly understood, and the memory of the matter had grown a little dim, Carlton again resumed his place at court, as the protege of the Grand Duke, and royal favor was again shown him. Signor Latrezzi shut himself from society for many months almost broken-hearted, now fully realizing the error of his conduct in relation to Florinda and Petro. The generous act of the former in absolving him from the responsibility he had incurred in relation to her estate, had done much to awaken his better feelings. Petro he had loved with the affection of a father, and he now keenly mourned his untimely end. People saw the great change in Signor Latrezzi, for he no longer sought to oppress any one, but in his few public dealings he was strictly honorable and true. He had indeed thoroughly reformed; he no longer sought to interfere in the plans of his niece, who was left to follow her own wishes. Out of respect for her own feelings, and those of her uncle-whom Florinda had now begun to respect, seeing a complete change in him that showed an honest and honorable purpose-her proposed marriage was deferred for some weeks, when at length, under the sanction of the Grand Duke, Florinda and Carlton were united to each other, and found happiness in the love and constancy of their own true hearts. Thus happily ended the high thoughts and bright dreams of the humble painter. In one of the lovely palaces whose lofty walls of white bask in the warm sun of the Val d'Arno, lives the last surviving branch of the noble house of Carrati in the person of the peerless Signora Florinda. Joyful and happy in domestic felicity, there, too, is Carlton, the American artist, surrounded by everything that wealth can procure, or refined taste suggest, and master of the unbounded estates of Carrati, but above all, happy in Florinda's love. THE END. [FROM "THE FLAG OF OUR UNION."] THE PRIMA DONNA. BY M. V. ST. LEON. "WHAT is to be done?" exclaimed the manager of the principal theatre in Havana. "What is to be done?" and he paced the room in angry despair. "This is the second time within a week that Signora Buonatti has been too ill to sing-and to-night every seat is engaged, the house will be full to overflowing. The audience scarce endured the first disappointment, and how will they receive the second? O, for some expedient. I must hunt the whole city through till I find some one to supply her place decently!" and seizing his hat, Diego Cartillos rushed into the street, and was out of sight in a few minutes. "Alfin brillar, nell i rede," sang a voice of surpassing sweetness, which came from round a corner. Cartillos stopped an instant in silent ecstacy, and then hurriedly advanced in the direction of the sound. In front of a handsome house stood a young girl apparently near sixteen years of age, in poor but clean garments, and holding a mandoline in her hand with which she was playing an accompaniment to the words she was singing. The manager stood listening to it attentively, and as the rich, clear tones of the girl dwelt on the lower notes, or rose with a birdlike gush to the higher ones, he could scarce restrain some display of his delight. Such, however, it was not his policy to exhibit, and when at the close of the song, she timidly approached him, and, lifting her mandoline and large, sad eyes at the same time, besought him in broken Spanish to give her a single maravedi for pity's sake, he coldly drew forth a few small coins and handed them to her. "This is a poor way of earning your support,"' answered he. "I know it-but it is all the one I have." "It is a pity, for you seem to be an honest sort of a body, and perhaps with the assistance of friends you might be made something decent," then without noticing the indignant flush that had risen to her check, he continued. "Now I am willing to help you-that is, if you're respectable and humble-minded, and I will let you sing in my theatre, although I am sure I shall lose by it." The first impulse of the young girl was to refuse with anger, the proposal offered almost in an insulting manner, by the hard, avaricious man, but a moment's reflection showed her she could not afford to be particular in choosing the manners of an employer, and she replied: "Why are you willing to take a stranger who has no claims upon you, if you are certain you will be a loser by so doing?" "Because, although I shall be at an extra expense for a while, I am in hopes you will repay it sometime," he replied, with a scowl at being questioned. "Come, what say you?" "I am willing to better my condition, sir, and as for being humble in my manners, few are otherwise who have their living to earn," replied the maiden, with a touch of haughtiness. "Then come with me," said Cartillos, leading the way to the house he had quitted a short time previous. When they were seated, the manager commenced questioning his companion. "It is rather a singular thing for a street musician to sing such songs as you do, and in such a manner,"--then, after a pause, during which she did not volunteer any information on the subject, he renewed the attack, with, "You must have had some instruction. Who was your teacher?" "A countryman," was the reply. Baffled in this direction, Cartillos commenced in a fresh quarter. "You are an Italian, I suppose?" "I am." "Of what part are you a native?" "Before I came to Havana, I resided in Naples." The manager bit his lip at the small amount of information he obtained, and commenced again. "One of the troupe is ill, and I wish to obtain some one to supply her place-but I suppose you are unacquainted with any opera?" "I will engage to perfect myself in any one within a week." "I cannot wait so long. To-night is the evening I most desire your services," Cartillos replied, in despair. "What is announced in the programme?" "Lucia," was the gloomy response. "If that is all, sir, I ask but seven hours practice and study. I am familiar with it, but need instruction in the acting of it." Her companion eagerly replied that he would engage her for that night at least, and was departing to send some one to instruct her, when she timidly inquired: "But my dress, sir-how shall I arrange that matter?" "O, I'll see to that! You prepare yourself in the part-I'll do the rest," and he was gone in an instant. Night came, and also a crowded house. Presently the people became impatient, and with eagerness called for the commencement of the performance; at the expiration of five minutes whistling, screaming, stamping, etc., the manager made his appearance and announced "that Signora Buanatti was unable to appear, but Signorina Zampieri had kindly offered to take her place!" But the audience did not take it kindly-the lady was unknown to them, and who could say anything about her singing-besides, they had excused the favorite vocalist once, and they were not to be put off in this same way again. Accordingly, a tremendous hiss arose, in the midst of which the unfortunate manager rattled off the physician's certificate, letting his voice drop, and flat away towards the end most comically, then hastily departed for the side scenes. In a few minutes the young debutante appeared. She was received with a chilling silence, broken only by a few faint claps from some half dozen good-natured persons, in consideration of her youth and beauty. In defiance of her prepossessing appearance, the audience seemed determined that they would not be cheated or flattered into a single expression of approbation, but the manager observed with rising hope that they forbore to hiss. Undismayed, and regardless of the reception she met with, the young girl, with perfect composure, began her role. As she continued, the whole richness and beauty of her voice were brought out, and wholly unable to withstand such wonderful, unexpected melody, the people manifested their delight loudly, and at the conclusion of the opera, Signorina Zampieri was called for loudly. At the request of the manager, she came forward, and with polite indifference bowed in reply to the applause. Signora Buonatti was forgotten! The people were amazed at the nonchalant manner of the young favorite, who actually received a burst of enthusiasm, such as rarely had greeted any singer, with such coolness-who and what was this slender, youthful being, that was neither awed by their sternness, nor delighted at their praises? The selfish, scheming Cartillos at once perceived he had made a fortunate speculation, and hastened to engage his prize for a year at one third her real value, as the next day proved when notes came flocking in from all directions, urging her to name her own price. With a feeling of deep indignation Teresa Zampieri determined after her engagement with Cartillos expired, that he should never acquire another farthing by her. She speedily became the pet of the people, yet notwithstanding her surprising good fortune, nothing had the power to charm her out of the subdued manner so unnatural in one so young, or throw a lightsome sparkle into those large, dark, melancholy eyes, while almost the first exclamation made by every one on hearing her sing, was, "Her voice sounds like a fountain of tears!" The only thing that absorbed and rendered her forgetful of the present, was her music, and when in the opera, her whole being seemed merged into the character she was representing. Her large, sad eyes grew still larger and sadder, and she seemed like one in a dream-it was with her a passion, an existence. But she was subject to many annoyances from Cartillos, who constantly took advantage of her ignorance concerning money matters, which Florian Geraldi, the handsome tenor of the troupe, plainly perceived and with burning indignation. He would have protected her and prevented these impositions, but they were both young, and he feared his motives might be misunderstood, and so he continued from day to day, each showing him plainer that his heart was given to the beautiful songstress, whose course had been so like a comet, rising from darkness, and no one knew whither, for all felt instinctively that a mystery hung over the young girl.-At last some fresh act of injustice on the part of Cartillos thoroughly aroused Geraldi, who, at the risk of losing his situation, determined to tell Teresa how much she was imposed upon. The mournful tone and manner with which she replied--"Alas, I am aware I have no friends to protect me," quite startled her companion out of his composure. He had resolved never to speak of his affection till he had more reason for hope than he then possessed, but at these words his resolution was forgotten, and rapidly, earnestly, he detailed his past wishes and present hopes, and urged her to reply. For an instant she was silent, but then she addressed him in firm, sad, yet kind tones. "This declaration is wholly unexpected to me, and while I cannot but be flattered at the compliment-the highest a man can offer, I am obliged to decline it. Your pity for me has perhaps misled you into the belief that you love me, but you will soon forget one that can never be yours." Geraldi, who thought she might doubt he loved her sufficiently, was about to assure her on that point, but he had scarcely commenced speaking, ere she interrupted him. "Even supposing I loved you as I ought to the man whose heart I take into my keeping, there are obstacles-do not ask what-such being the case, is it not best to conquer all but friendship in the beginning?" "Alas, it may be easy for you to counsel who do not endure, but this is not the beginning of my love," murmured the Italian, in despairing accents, as he left her. The tone and mournful eyes made Teresa unhappy; she regretted deeply the necessity of giving pain in this world, though she felt she might unavoidably be the cause of more disappointments than even the beautiful are generally, and with a sigh realized that in accordance with her principles, she must draw yet more tightly the lines of isolation about her. Life already had but few pleasures, and even this scanty list must be curtailed. Geraldi, convinced that his poverty and comparative obscurity were the objections to him, determined they should not long remain a barrier, and immediately on the expiration of his engagement with Cartillos, departed for his native land, determined not to see Teresa Zampieri again till he had won a name worthy her acceptance. He mentioned his plans to no one, however, but bidding farewell to his friends departed on his errand. Time flew by, and Teresa was released from her engagement. Cartillos begged earnestly that she would continue with him, but the young girl told him just her sentiments regarding his conduct, and much as he regretted his past error, it did not help the matter in the least. Engagements from far and near poured in upon her, and the only difficulty was, which to choose. "Somewhat of contrast!" thought Teresa. "One short year ago, I scarce knew where to lay my head. Heigho! Methinks my present station elevated as it may appear-but what! is this foolish heart forever crying more?" and the tears so seldom permitted to visit those sad, dreamy eyes, now came unchecked. Her sorrow once indulged, returned more and more often; so to divert her mind, Teresa Zampieri visited distant countries, always avoiding Italy, however, and journeyed and sang without cessation. This constant exertion was too much for her to bear, and she was obliged to omit singing entirely for several months, during which time she travelled through many delightful places, and frequently recalled those days in after years, as some of the happiest she had known. At the expiration of her wanderings she returned to Havana refreshed, and comparatively happy, to commence a new engagement. This was the third year of her theatrical life, and Teresa was now nearly twenty years of age, and though so young, she possessed the manners of an accomplished, experienced woman. It was a matter of wonder to all, that amid such a throng of suitors as she was known to possess, she yet remained Teresa Zampieri; but few dared request the guardianship of the peerless girl, for it seemed as though between her and themselves a vast gulf lay. And notwithstanding superior rank and position, many a noble felt himself awed by the unaffected dignity of the actress. One evening as the breathless multitude were listening to the soft, high note the songstress had already sustained for several measures, as her eyes suddenly rested on a figure in a box near the stage, it was interrupted by a wild, piercing shriek from the blanched lips of Teresa, who instantly fell senseless. In a second all was confusion. The orchestra stopped short in the middle of a note, the curtain was speedily lowered, several ladies fainted, and the audience were in a fever of excitement, each one talking to his neighbor. "We must be careful of our treasure," said one, "or we shall lose it." "What is the matter?" eagerly asked another. "That last note was held too long," suggested a third. "A touch of the heart complaint I should think," etc. When the manager announced that Signorini Zampieri requested the indulgence of a few minutes before resuming her performance, there was a general expostulation, so much had she endeared herself to every heart. But the manager assured the audience that the lady thanked them for their considerate kindness, but that she was perfectly recovered, and preferred finishing the little that remained of the opera. When she reappeared, the burning cheek and glittering eye deceived many as to the suffering she endured. Her gaze restlessly sought the figure that had caused her emotion, and as she met the person's glance, a shudder passed over her. At first her voice trembled with weakness, but meeting the mocking, sneering triumph in that sarcastic face, the blood boiled in her veins, and trembling with indignation, she startled the audience with the wild burst of scorn she threw into the part she was representing. The stranger at first turned pale with anger and surprise at the surpassing delineation, but the next instant his eyes gleamed with malicious satisfaction, which seemed to chafe the singer to madness. At the conclusion of the opera, Teresa, with feverish impatience to arrive at home, was hastily leaving the theatre, when she fancied she saw in the front entrance doorway that Mephistophiles-like face, and ordering the coachman to drive to her lodgings as speedily as possible, threw herself back upon the cushions, and repressed a strong inclination to take a certain individual's web of life out of the hands of Fate. In a few minutes she arrived at the hotel, and entering her parlor stood face to face with the stranger, who had risen with the most easy coolness, and advanced to meet her. "Mille pardons m'amie, for the intrusion, but I have not seen you so long, that I was quite unable to resist the temptation of a call." Teresa, overpowered with the most painful emotions, sank into a seat and covered her face with her hands. With an expression of savage pleasure, her tormentor approached quite near, and said: "I beg, my charming friend, that you will not put yourself to the fatigue and trouble of a sentimental reception, for I assure you it will be entirely wasted." These words roused the young girl from her stupor of agony, and raising her form to its full height, she exclaimed: "Brandini Villani, it would appear that the just avenging God hath forgotten thee, miserable sinner, but it matters not; eternity, methinks, will be long enough for thy punishment." Then with less passion, but with regal, even awful dignity, she freezingly inquired--"What have you to say?" For an instant the wretch was intimidated, but noticing the tremor of Teresa's whole frame, and mistaking it for fear, concealed beneath affected scorn, he regained his assurance and tauntingly replied: "It is a trifling oversight, ma chere, to affect a callous indifference towards me, when I have the charm with a single glance to render you insensible, and to make you tremble at the mere sound of my voice-no, no, Teresa, it will not do. While my presence affects you thus, I know the power to fascinate has not yet deserted me." "Contemptuous wretch! With what feelings does the scaly, venomous serpent inspire one when he approaches with slimy track and fetid breath, with stealthy, coil and sickening glare? Think you would not that fascinate with terror, cause a tremble of disgust, and produce insensibility and delirium that such a loathsome reptile should exist and breathe the same air? Yet having now called forth that emotion in its deepest degree, you rejoice to have moved me! Truly you have, and I can conceive your mind just fitted to appreciate the honor!" The worst passions of Villani were now thoroughly awake, and he retorted with flashing eyes and a fierce tone, while his face even to his lips, turned livid white. "You may regret your liberal use of words when I unfold my errand. I will trouble you for half your proceeds for the last year!" With blazing eyes, from which sparks of fire actually seemed to flash, and a form that appeared to dilate, Teresa turned full upon Villani. "How now, traitorous villain? Is not your list of perjuries, thefts, deceptions and murders long enough, but you must add to it, ere you are qualified to become the privy councillor to the arch fiend? Get thee hence, grovelling worm, ere the lightnings of heaven blast thee!" At this instant the storm which had been gathering, burst with fury over the city, and the dazzling sheet of flame was succeeded by a deafening, rattling peal of thunder. Teresa sank on her knees beside a lounge and buried her face in silent prayer; even Villani turned pale and moved to the centre of the apartment, where he stood with folded arms and compressed lips. Presently the violence of the tempest abated, and the pallid Brandini approached Teresa, who had not changed her position, and had forgotten in the storm almost the existence of her persecutor, and in a low, dogged voice, said: "I am waiting for your reply." With a faint shriek Teresa raised her head. "I thought you were gone-do you wish to tempt me further?" "Will you give the money?" "I will not!" "Beware! Think again!" "You have my answer. Never, while life remains, will I give another reply!" Villani bent over her and whispered a word; with a wild, agonized shriek she sprang to her feet and gazed wildly into his face and in feeble, broken accents, exclaimed: "O no, no, not that-it would kill me, Villani, Villani! You are not in earnest?" "I most certainly am, madam, and I give you just five minutes to decide which alternative you will choose," and he drew out his watch and steadily gazed upon it. At the expiration of that time, Teresa, with a pale, tearful face, knelt before him, and in faint, despairing tones, murmured: "I accept your terms! Villani's eyes lighted up with a fierce pride, as he exclaimed: "I thought to bring you to terms!" "Tempt me not, Brandini Villani!" vehemently replied Teresa, rising with flashing eyes; "you may rouse me yet beyond endurance-beware!" and she pressed her hand to her heart, while an expression of pain crossed her countenance. The extreme physical suffering so plainly marked, seemed to move even the hard, unfeeling Villani, who, taking her hand, said: "I am afraid you are ill, ma belle," then as he gazed upon her lovely form and face, half affectionately, half in defiance, he suddenly exclaimed: "O Teresa, you're the handsomest woman I ever saw. I could love you so, if you'd let me. Why can't we be friends, Teresa? I know I did wrong, but why need we make an eternal quarrel of the matter. Ah, my charming prize, why not transfer to me the affection you are wasting upon one, who, perhaps ere this, is false to you, and--" "Silence! I have borne too long with you from weakness and inability to speak, but depart now, or I recant my promise of submission." "To hear is to obey-though the request might have been couched in more polite terms," returned Villani, his former cold, sarcastic manner returning with every word he uttered. "I may do myself the pleasure to call again, my love-at present I wish you a good night and pleasant dreams-of me!" and the door closed on his sardonic smile. "Alas," exclaimed Teresa, "he has a hold upon me I dare not attempt to dispute." The next morning as she was leaving the stage, after rehearsal, she was met at the green room door by a familiar face, fine, manly and handsome-yes, it was Geraldi! With a glad cry of surprise and delight, Teresa sprang forward, and taking the outstretched hand of the young man, said in her joyous, musical voice: "Welcome, my dear friend! How you have improved-I have heard of the laurels you have won!" "And you too, Signorina Zampieri-you are paler and thinner than you were when I last saw you. I know you have prospered as well as myself, for Fame has not been idle with your name." "Really signor, we are exquisitely polite and complimentary to each other, but this is hardly the place for a lengthy conversation," said Teresa, laughing, and coloring somewhat, as she met the slightly mischievous glances of the loungers who generally are to be found in theatres--"if you are at liberty, why not step into the carriage, and drive home with me?" "I shall be most happy," replied Geraldi, with a radiant, delighted smile, as he accompanied her to the vehicle. For some time the presence and vivacity of Geraldi roused Teresa from her serious, almost melancholy manners, and the wise ones looked knowing, and said:--"They had always thought it would come to something!" At last Geraldi did what every one was expecting him to; for finding Teresa alone one morning, he again offered himself with far better hopes and prospects than he had three years ago. To his infinite amazement, the color fled from Teresa's cheek, and covering her face with her hands, she sank upon a lounge with a wild burst of grief. Geraldi, quite at a loss to interpret the nature of this emotion, surprised at its excess in one so generally self-possessed, hesitated what course to pursue, but at length said, in a low tone: "May I hope?" "Hope!" repeated Teresa, in a bitter tone--"what have I or any connection with me to do with that word. O Mary mother, help me-help me!" she wailed in a fresh agony as her whole frame trembled with emotion. Geraldi knew not what to say; with any other person he would have endeavored to soothe and discover the cause of this grief, but the agitation of Teresa was so fearful, and in her so unnatural, that he dared not question; he therefore did the next best thing, which was to keep silent. In a few minutes the storm had exhausted itself, and with sternly composed features she rose and addressed Geraldi. "Forget this! It is seldom my feelings obtain such mastery over me, but my dark fate occurred so vividly to my mind, that it quite overpowered me." "Why not renounce it then? I would strive so earnestly to make a brighter one for you." After a moment's hesitation, she seemed to conquer some inward strife, and said, in a low voice: "I had thought never to have told it to any human being, but you are entitled to an explanation, and you are too honorable to expose me-Florian," here her face was averted--"Florian, I love another!" For an instant Geraldi remained without motion, then darting forward he seized her hand, imprinted one despairing kiss upon it, and without a word, was gone. Teresa wrung her hands and exclaimed--"Villani, Villani! Could you know what I suffer, even your hard heart would pity me!" The afternoon dragged heavily along, and evening was approaching, when a knock at the door aroused Teresa from a restless reverie. Bidding the person enter, she beheld Villani, who seated himself by her side, and informed her that he had something to propose which might please her. Teresa wondering what it could be, begged him to proceed. "I sincerely repent the compact I obliged you to make, and now wish to destroy it." Teresa looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "I do not think I understand you-is it your wish that I should enjoy the whole of the proceeds of my singing?" "You have said it." "And what concession am I to make in return?" she inquired, as though suspicious some greater enormity than he had yet been guilty of, was intended. "What return? O Teresa, cannot you comprehend and believe, that I expect and desire none?" "I know not how I should, since your whole conduct has hardly been such as to impress me very profoundly with the idea that generosity is a prominent characteristic of Signor Villani's!" "Say no more-let us be friends, Teresa. I will do all I can for you, and do not utter reproaches for what is a misfortune to me, although it were a glory to any other." His companion scarce credited her senses. Was it possible that Villani, her tormentor and cruel persecutor, indeed wished her well and desired to become her friend? It seemed strange, yet his manner was more like truth than she had ever seen it before, and she felt she had perhaps wronged him, that beneath all, a heart, human and accessible to some generous emotion, yet beat, and her own noble, ingenuous nature, ever ready to accuse itself and offer atonement, impelled her to extend both hands to Villani and reply: "Pardon me, I have wronged you-it is indeed worse than foolish to cherish animosity toward each other, and henceforth let us not forget we are of one great family, equally cared for by our heavenly Father!" Villani took Teresa's hands, and kissing them, thanked her so warmly and earnestly that she could not doubt his sincerity, and though she was aware love was impossible, she hoped to respect him more than she had done. Villani on his part, had acquired enough by Teresa to afford this seeming generosity, and his sole object was to win her love; he was well aware if his motive was known to her, she would not have accepted this proffered friendship, and he rejoiced that his past conduct had been such as to forbid the supposition that he sought anything more. Presently there came a pause in the conversation, and Villani, after gazing intently upon his companion, observed: "How much you have altered since I first saw you, Teresa. I suppose it is partly owing to your natural progress from childhood to womanhood-why, you must be nineteen?" "Just twenty." "Perhaps you are even handsomer than you were four years ago, although I see you have called in the aid of foreign ornament-it was the wisest course, however." The rich color which suddenly dyed Teresa's cheeks, most certainly was not the gift of art, yet she assented to Villani's words. "Not but what I think your beauty sufficient to challenge improvement-indeed, I prefer you as you used to be-but you are lovely enough to cause heart aches as it is." After some further conversation, Villani, saying it was time for Teresa to prepare for the opera, left her. No sooner did the door close, than loosening the rich masses of jetty hair which formed a veil around her and descended far below her waist, Teresa advanced to a large mirror, and without a shadow of vanity or a smile, gazed steadily at her reflection. Never had a glass shown a fairer face or form to the gazer. The image that met Teresa's glance was majestic, with a regal expression of countenance. A broad, but not too high brow, eyes dark as a raven's wing-no, they are only deep, golden brown, yet the long lashes and eyebrows of jet, together with the ever dilating pupil, give the impression that they are darker, a complexion of sunny olive, and locks which are certainly the hue of night; a form richly moulded and of perfect symmetry, from the exquisite head to the slippered foot, stood before her. Surely it was not a vision from which my lady had cause to turn in vexation, yet with an expression of scorn, and a bright flush apparently of shame, mounting to her cheek, she impatiently moved away, and commenced braiding up the rich tresses. Throwing a mantle on her shoulders, she descended to the carriage and was soon at the opera house. During the evening, in the midst of the performance, Teresa's eye lit for the first time on the nearest stage box. A mist overspread her eyes, her breath came hot and thick, a dizzy sense of overpowering fulness stole upon her, and when the time came for her response, she had hardly the strength to perform her part; yet she acquitted herself so well, that her emotion was unnoticed. The person who caused this wild tumult in Teresa's frame, was a stately, handsome man, evidently of high birth, and apparently forty-five years of age, although the raven curls around the high, majestic brow were untouched by time. The slightly aquiline features, and dark, flashing eyes, revealed the haughty spirit within, which was softened, however, by the look of sorrow around the mouth, and the general expression of a settled grief. He was dressed in black, relieved by a brilliant and splendid order on the left breast, and unaccompanied, save by a servant in white and gold livery. The nobleman, for such his appearance declared him, was evidently a stranger in the city, for every glass was levelled at him, but he seemed quite unconscious, and wholly indifferent. At the conclusion of the opera, roused from his languor by the thrilling manner in which Teresa rendered the last aria, the now animated listener rose and gracefully threw a garland of white lilies with such admirable precision, that they encircled the beautiful head of Teresa; upon which the audience, delighted at the compliment paid in so marked a manner, no less to the well known purity, than the wonderful voice of their favorite, made the theatre ring with their applause. As soon as possible, Teresa arrived at her own apartments, and throwing herself on her knees, buried her face in the cushions of a lounge, while faint murmurs and sobs alone broke the stillness. Nearly a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when the opening of the door roused her, and starting up, she beheld Villani about to enter. Hastily motioning him not to advance, she wildly said: "Forbear! Do not cross that threshold tonight! Villani, I have seen him this very evening--he sat so near I might almost have touched him-so near, and yet not a thought that I was more to him than any other of that crowd! Bear with me for this night-I must be alone." "It shall be as you wish--I will speak of what brought me here some other time, perhaps to-morrow." "To-morrow let it be then." Presently Teresa became calmer, yet through the remainder of the night she sat by the open casement without motion or apparent life, thinking over bitter memories without a gleam of hope to illumine the future. After Teresa's first agitation had subsided, the stranger's presence seemed to exert a most powerful and calming influence upon her mind. He was seldom absent at her performances, and it seemed to give her an increase of strength as well as happiness; she always received some token of his delight, and many said the Duke di Castiglioni-so he was called-had a very superior taste, and wondered what would come of it. Villani had exacted a promise from Teresa, that she would not permit an introduction to him, and shortly after left the city for a few weeks. Teresa felt relieved by his absence, although they were no longer enemies, and her mode of life was unchanged. Nearly a fortnight had elapsed, when another incident occurred that changed the whole future of her life. One evening Teresa eagerly sought the familiar face of the foreign nobleman, but in vain, and a disappointed look replaced the smile; but presently he entered the accustomed place, followed by a young man of aristocratic bearing, but no likeness bespoke them to be father and son. Teresa turned pale as marble, but a tear started to her eye as she observed the complete friendship and affection that evidently existed between them, and a thrill of anguish shot through her heart, as she murmured, while her eyes met the young stranger's gaze--"So near-yet so distant!" Several times in the course of the evening she fancied a look of recognition passed over his face, and once, when he touched his companion's arm, her heart leaped to her mouth, but in an instant, perceiving they both glanced at some one on the opposite side of the house, she smiled bitterly, and thought--"How should they know me, in this place, and so altered!" Late that night when the city was wrapped in slumber, a lamp burned brightly in Teresa's chamber, and a figure paced wildly up and down with clasped hands and floating hair. At last the restless girl stopped and exclaimed: "If I am wrong, Heaven help me-but this agony is killing me! If I sin, I am sinned against, and God judge between us, Villani!" Then hurriedly, as though fearful her resolution would falter, Teresa drew her writing-desk towards her, and wrote a note so rapidly, and with so unsteady a hand, that there was little resemblance to her usual writing, and then sought for sleep-but in vain-and at the earliest possible hour she despatched a messenger with the note. Just as the hour of eleven chimed, the door of the room where Teresa sat, was opened, and a servant, announcing Signor Da Vinci, ushered in the young stranger of the preceding night. He advanced with a puzzled, inquiring expression, and with a slightly apologetic bow, said: "I came in accordance with a request expressed in a note from Signorina Zampieri." "I presume you were somewhat surprised, signor, but my motive must be my excuse. I have a friend in whom you were greatly interested, and who wishes you to be made acquainted with the solution of the mystery which separated her from you." The gentleman had hitherto been only attentive, but at these last words, an expression of eager inquiry pervaded every feature. Teresa continued: "This lady, five years ago, was betrothed to Leonarde Da Vinci." "Myself!" "I am aware of that fact, but permit me to continue without interruption. Well knowing her father would never consent to her marriage, a plan of elopement was arranged. On the appointed night, the lady, according to agreement, stole to the palace steps, and seeing in the deep shadow a gondola which drew up as she approached, doubted not that the occupant was her lover. She was received, to her belief, in his arms, the light was burning but dimly, and for greater security her companion, who was masked, proposed in a whisper that she should cover her face also. She was nearly beside herself with agitation, and when the gondola drew up at a little chapel standing nearly by itself, she unhesitatingly accompanied him, and knelt beside the altar where stood a priest and attendants. "So absorbed with the various and conflicting emotions in her heart, she uttered the responses mechanically, and when she rose, the chapel was deserted, save by her husband and herself. Turning to him, what was her horror at seeing not Leonarde Da Vinci, as she had supposed, but Villani Brandini, a rejected suitor, and seeming friend to Da Vinci, who had discovered the plan of escape by some means, and revenged himself upon the lady in this manner. In spite of her resistance, she was carried to Brandini's palace, from whence in three days she escaped; and fearing her father would never grant his forgiveness, knowing she was forever separated from the one to whom her heart was given, she managed by the sale of several valuable jewels which she had upon her person at the time of her flight, to procure a passage to Naples, where she hoped to turn her numerous accomplishments to advantage. "Shortly after her arrival in that place, an American family, who were in need of a governess for two little girls, met with her. Her appearance spoke so strongly in her favor, that notwithstanding the absence of credentials, they engaged her, and in a little while sailed for America. When near the place of their destination, a violent storm arose, and they were shipwrecked. The young girl was lashed to a spar, and the last thing she remembered was, being washed overboard by a mountain wave. She was picked up by a merchant vessel bound for Havana. There she arrived in a state of utter destitution, and she who was once the companion of princesses, was obliged to sing in the street for a living, and now--" "Viola-my long sought love-where, where is she?" "She stands before you!" said a thrilling voice, while Teresa, now divested of her disguise, stood with clasped hands, eagerly gazing at Da Vinci, her long, bright golden curls enveloping her as with a veil. In an instant Da Vinci, recovering from his overwhelming surprise, had folded her to his heart. Viola, as we must now call her, after an instant's silence, disengaged herself, saying; "We must not forget that we can never be more than friends, Leonarde." "Never more than friends, Viola! Why do you not know that you are free?" "Free! What is it you mean?" "Is it possible you still believe yourself Brandini's wife?" "Believe myself! Am I not?" "No, my own dearest Viola! It was no priest who performed that ceremony. Two years since, a dying man confessed that for a large sum he had assumed the character of a minister of God, and performed a mock marriage between Brandini and yourself. Your father and I have been seeking you ever since your flight, and at last our dearest wish is granted." "You are sure he will forgive me?" "Forgive you! He has sought for you with the blessed hope of clasping you once more in his arms before he died-for years, O Viola, we have all suffered deeply." "We have, indeed, but now--" a shudder passed over her as she clung closer to Da Vinci, on hearing a quick footstep in the hall. Another moment and Brandini was face to face with Leonarde. We leave the scene that followed to the reader's imagination; the torrent of rage which Villani poured forth, together with the fatigue she had lately undergone, caused Teresa to faint in Da Vinci's arms, when Brandini, finding his villany was discovered, made a hasty retreat. A message was despatched for the Duke di Castiglioni, and in an hour Viola was in his arms, and receiving his fall and free pardon. A week afterward the now united family were leaving Havana, the scene of so much grief and joy. Teresa stood on the steamer's deck, with her husband gazing at the city, when the pilot came on board. "Quite an affair came off last night," he said to the captain; "an Italian gentleman, Signor Brandini, who ran through a splendid property in his own country and was a spendthrift here was found dead-blew out his brains-it was supposed to be some love affair that caused it." Teresa's cheek turned very pale, as she hid her face on Da Vinci's shoulder, who whispered: "So ends the last scene in the dark drama of thy past. Look up, my Viola! The clouds are passed, and sunshine is over all." [FROM "THE FLAG OF OUR UNION."] THE ARTIST OF FLORENCE. BY JAMES DE MILLE. IT was evening in Val d'Arno. The sun was sinking behind the horizon and twilight was descending upon the glorious vale. There lay the garden of Italy enclosed by mountains on either side, green and glowing in its verdant and luxuriant fertility, shaded by its groves of olive and cypress, with long avenues of stately trees. Flocks and herds grazed in the fields, vineyards flourished on the mountain declivities, and in the distance arose the summits of the wooded Apennines. The classic Arno flowed through the valley, bestowing gladness and plenty on every side, its waters rolling on in slow and most melodious motion. On every side, on the plain, on the sides and summits of the hills, everywhere appeared the white villas of the nobles, now hidden by the thick foliage of surrounding trees, and encircled by gardens where bloomed the most gorgeous and odoriferous flowers, now standing alone and lifting up their stately marble fronts surrounded by magnificent colonnades. In the midst of this lovely place, a queen over all around, lay Florence, the dearest and most charming city of the south-Florence, whose past glows with the brilliancy of splendid achievements in arms, arts and song, whose present state captivates the soul of every traveller, and binds around him a potent spell, making him linger long in dreamy pleasure by the gentle flow of the Arno's waters. "Here," exclaimed Byron, in a rapture, as he looked down from a neighboring mountain upon this earthly paradise--"here-- "'--the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of bills she reaps Her corn and wine, and oil, and plenty leaps To laughing life from her redundant horn"' Twilight came on, and soon the moon arose, throwing a gentle glow upon the scene, and shedding around it a more bewitching influence. It was an evening fitted for pleasing meditation, such meditation as the poet loves, and for the interview of lovers. The gardens of Boboli never appeared more beautiful than now, for the solemn shadow of the groves was relieved by the soft illumination of the broad paths; the sheets of water glistened in the quiet moonbeams, and every statue and every sculptured form was invested with a new and indescribable beauty. Upon the summit of a hill within these gardens, sat a youth and maiden engaged in most earnest conversation. The maiden was exceedingly beautiful, with a face which reminded one of the Madonna of Murillo, so gentle, so tender, and so bewitchingly lovely. The youth sat at her feet upon the green turf, and with his head turned back, gazing upon her, there was disclosed a noble and most handsome countenance. His long hair, black as night, fell from his forehead, and his eyes burnt like stars in the paleness of his face. There was an expression of genius stamped upon his lofty forehead, but there were care and anxiety in its frown. The stately form of the Palazzo Pitti was near at hand, and in the distance lay the city, with the stupendous dome of the cathedral, and the lofty form of the beautiful Campanile. "Stella," he said, in deeply musical tones--"Stella, you know all my love and the desires of my soul. All are fixed upon you. Fame and glory I only wish for as the means of obtaining you. But O, hard is the task and difficult is it for an unknown artist to gain the hand of the proud Count Borelloni's daughter. I would not grieve you by taking you without his consent, even if I were able." "Bless you! God bless you, my noble Mario for those noble words! Do not seek to draw me from him. Willingly would I give up all-wealth, and power and all-to live in obscurity with you. But my father loves me so fondly, that if I were to leave him, he would die. Let us wait, and perhaps he may overcome his prejudice toward you." "He dislikes me because I am poor and unknown. But," exclaimed Mario, with a haughty glance, "the time may come and will come, when he will not he ashamed to acknowledge me. Art can ennoble the poor and obscure." "I know you will become great, Mario. I know that your name will be spoken with honor, and that before long. When I first saw you here in Florence, when I afterwards heard you tell me your love as we walked by the waters of Lake Perugia, I knew that you would become famous." "And then, if I ever gain fame and honor, all shall be laid at your feet, Stella." "You can wait then, and seek for fame, Mario, to give you acceptance in my father's eyes. You can wait, for you know my constancy." "I know it, and I would trust it always. I know your noble soul, Stella, its lofty qualities lead me captive, and I worship you as a divinity." The impassioned youth bent down before her, but she prevented him, and suddenly asked: "How do you proceed with your painting?" "Well, I am proceeding well, for I am inspired by the thoughts of Stella." "Then I inspire you, do I?" "O Stella, you fill my soul with new conceptions of angelic beauty, and while your image dwells in my mind, I look back upon it and place every feature, every expression living upon the canvass! If this picture is completed, your father's love for art will make him respect the creator of this new piece." "And he will honor you and love you." "It must be completed in two or three months now. I seek new ideas of loveliness from you, Stella, and then my picture receives them." "And suppose you fail, Mario." said Stella. "Fail? O I cannot. But if I do, then will I despair? No, I will go to Rome and devote myself entirely to art. But it is late, Stella. We must go, and I will see you home before your father returns." And the gardens of Boboli were empty. What city is so delightful as Florence on the afternoon of a lovely day in early spring, when the sun glows above from an unclouded sky, and the Arno flows on through the midst of the city, amid its magnificent palaces, beneath its lovely bridges. Then beauty reigns everywhere. The Lung' Arno, the Casino, the Via Calziolajo are thronged with carriages, with horsemen and footmen, with offices and soldiers, men, women and children. Beautiful flower girls carry around their bouquets and bestow them on the stranger, expecting but never asking some little doucer in return. The gloomy palaces of the middle ages, the magnificent churches of early times, towers and colonnades, statues and fountains, arrest the eye and charm the beholder. All is joyousness and beauty. Among the throngs of carriages which rode along the Lung' Arno and down to the Casino, none was more noticed than that of the Count Borelloni. It was a splendid equipage drawn by two fiery horses, to guide which the utmost skill of the coachman was needed. The old count was of a remarkable appearance. His countenance was noble and his air commanding. He was noted through Florence for his wealth and taste. Artists of every kind found in him a patron. It was at his palace that Mario Fostello had first attracted attention by his genius and the beauty his pictures. He had seen Stella, had loved her, and had spoken to the old count, telling him that he would seek after fame if he would bestow his daughter upon him. But the indignation and pride of Borelloni rose high, and he contemptuously ordered Mario to withdraw and never again to enter his house. There was one feeling in the heart of the old count which far exceeded every other, and that was an intense love for his daughter. Beautiful, high-souled and accomplished, she was worthy of the highest station in the land, and such a station he desired for her. They now rode in their carriage-father and daughter; an aged oak and a young and tender vine, one supported the other, which gave it beauty and attractiveness. Stella attracted the gaze of all by her exquisite beauty, but there was one whom she saw walking swiftly past, the sight of whom sent a thrill through every vein-for well she knew the tall and stately figure of Mario. "Stella," said her father, "there goes the ambitious painter-that is the man who had the unspeakable presumption to ask your hand of me. He, a paltry artist. See him as he walks along there." Stella's blood rushed to her face, and her frame trembled with agitation. She turned away her head to hide her confusion. "Look, do you see him?" said her father. "Who?" said she. "Why, Mario, the artist, but he is out of sight. What is the matter, Stella? Tell me my child, are you ill? Why are you so pale? You change color. You are sick, my daughter. We must go home." "O no, father. Do not go home. It was but a passing faintness, I will soon get ever it." "You are very pale, my child." "It is nothing, father. But look-what is the matter with the horses?" The horses seemed fretful and impatient. They reared and kicked, they were unruly and troublesome. The coachman looked pale and anxious. "The horses? Nothing!" said her father. "They are quiet enough. I like to have a little spirit in my animals." Many of the passengers in the streets looked with alarm upon the animals whom the count dreaded so little. "Good day, Borelloni," exclaimed a gentleman on horseback; "a most beautiful day!" "Your servant, signor," answered the count. "It is a lovely day." "Your horses seem vicious, they are very unruly, are they not!" said the gentleman. "O no-they are a little excited-they will presently become calm. A very great number of people are out to-day." "Yes, a large number," replied the gentleman, looking somewhat anxiously at the horses. After a few moments he rode away. "Your excellency?" said the coachman to the count. "Well?" he replied. "Your excellency's horses are unmanageable, or will be so soon. They are not used to these crowded streets." "If they do not become so soon, they never will be," said Borelloni. The horses began to plunge, and rear, and snort more violently, so much so, that all the people were terrified and got out of the way. The coachman seemed unable to control them. Mario was in the Casino, walking beneath the shadow of the trees. The cool breeze from the mountains fanned his fevered brow, as he walked hurriedly along. "I am poor. I am an artist, unknown, uncared for but by one, and that one is the noblest of her sex. I live only to gain her. When my picture is finished, I shall be no longer obscure. When my fame exceeds that of the haughty count, I may well demand his daughter." Such were the thoughts that passed through his mind as he walked on. "I heard his words," he proceeded. "I heard his contemptuous words as I passed the carriage, and know the scorn which he feels for me. But Count Borelloni," he exclaimed, raising his hand, "I will make you know that birth alone does not constitute greatness. I will make you know that a lofty soul can struggle upwards." Suddenly, far away from the Lung' Arno, sounded a loud reverberation of many voices, an immense outcry mingled with the deep rumbling of carriage wheels, and the fierce neighing of horses. There were sounds like the rush of a great multitude, and cries of terror mingled with one another in appalling confusion. Mario started, and turned back. Casting his eye toward the city, he saw far away in places where the trees did not intercept his view, numbers of men rushing to and fro. He stood alone in the utmost perplexity, for no one was near to tell him the cause of that great uproar. The clamor and rumbling of wheels came nearer and nearer, rattling over pavements, dashing against obstacles. It came nearer, and soon he saw a carriage dragged on with terrific speed by two furious horses, who, without driver or postilion, came on unrestrained. The carriage was knocked against trees and dashed violently against stones. In it there was an old man leaning back with a pale face, expressing intense agony, and close to him, clung the form of a young girl-her arms wound round him, and her dishevelled hair floating in the breeze. "O God! Stella!" exclaimed Mario, in unspeakable horror. "Stella!-my God, she's lost!" With one bound he rushed in the midst of the course taken by the infuriated horses. His cloak fell from him, his hair flew about his pale and fixed countenance, and like a rock in the centre of a torrent, he stood in the way of the horses! He waved his hands wildly-he shouted to the steeds. On they came, lessening for a moment their speed-there was a bound forward. Mario clung at the reins with the grasp of a drowning man-there was a whirl of dust, a rush of the multitude who followed after, and then with a sound like the sudden peal of thunder, burst forth the acclamation of a thousand deep-toned voices: "Saved, saved!" They raised Mario up-they placed him in the carriage, and bore his insensible and much bruised form slowly to the palace of Borelloni. All Florence rung with the tidings of the deed--the name of Mario was spoken everywhere, and the city honored the performer of so bold an action. "Now what will Borelloni do to reward the gallant preserver of his own life and his beloved daughter!" "He will give him a thousand piastres," said one. "He will enrich him for life," said another. "He will do no such thing," said a third. "Mario is no mercenary man. He despises rewards of that kind. I will tell you. He loves the count's daughter." "Ah," said all. "And he deserves her. But for him she would not have lived to have his love, nor would Borelloni have been living to refuse." "Does he refuse?" said they. "Mario said nothing to the count. It is an old story. He has loved her long. But the count, who refused him once before, will not now retract his word, even to the preserver of his life." Mario was cared for and soon recovered. He spake not a word about his love to Borelloni. He would not ask him now, for then he would seem to demand payment for his action, and such a thing he scorned-even though it should bestow upon him the hand of his beloved. "I will wait," said he. "I will raise myself to an equality with her, and then Borelloni shall not refuse." It was summer, and the sun glanced brightly, gloriously, over the silver waters of Thrasymene's lake, for such we love to call the lake which the Italians name Perugia. The wind blew softly over the plain, and the rich groves all covered with luxuriant foliage shaded the quiet fields beneath, which more than two thousand years before had resounded with the roar of battle. The hills encircled the plain on three sides, protecting it in winter from the cold blast and causing it to bloom with perennial verdure. The lake rippled on the shore of the other side, and stretched away-a sheet of molten silver, till it watered the bases of distant hills. In this charming spot which every traveller loves to view, had the Count Borelloni reared a summer palace. It lay on the southern shore of the lake, half way up the mountains, and in from its roof a scene like one in fairy land burst upon the view, The cool winds which blew here were an alleviation to the heat of summer and Florence, with its noise and dust, was gladly exchanged for the quiet scenes of this enchanting spot. There was a boat upon the lake, and the enjoyment of sailing formed a chief attraction to visitors, for Borelloni's villa was always open to his friends. Yet at times there was danger attending this pleasure, for tempests would arise and the waters would be converted into furious waves. "How beautiful is this lovely place?" said the count to his daughter, as they walked upon the terrace! "What a scene is this for a painter. See where the sun is setting over yonder-those clouds tinged with myriad tints surrounding him in glory! See above us, how intensely blue the sky, how clear the atmosphere! Look at the opposite shore-how green, how glowing in fruits and flowers-all again appearing down in the depths of this unruffled lake! O Italy, my country, how beautiful thou art!" "And father, look at these heights around us, and on the western shore-these bold rocks with their summits all covered with spreading trees. How grandly they set off the picture!" "If I were a painter, I know no scene that I would choose to portray, rather than this." "Since you respect and love art so highly, father, why did you not learn this?" "I was too busy in my youth, Stella." "Who of all you know is best in this art?" "I know a great many excellent ones-many who excel in landscape painting-many who are good in historic pictures, but of all whom I know, the one is undoubtedly the greatest, the one who excels all others in mingled grandeur and loveliness of conception, and who approaches nearest to the grand old masters is he-the artist who saved us from death--Mario." "Mario!" "Yes, and if he had not been guilty of such great presumption, my palace and my esteem would have been thrown open to him always-first, because he is chief of artists, and especially because he saved my darling's life." "Yet is he so presumptuous, my father?" "My daughter! Stella Borelloni, can an obscure man aspire to the hand of the fairest in Tuscany?" "He may not always be obscure." "Why do you speak thus to me, Stella? Can it be possible that you-But no, it is not. I will not think of it nor speak of it." And shortly afterwards they went within. Stella retired to her chamber, and thought of her father's words. They gave her hope. He no longer despised Mario. He could not. But he was angry at his presumption. Obscurity was Mario's greatest fault in his eyes. "I will take courage," she thought. "Hope comes to me. Mario's greatness of genius has been confessed by my father. It will soon be confessed by the world." Meantime, Mario had become wearied of the heat of Florence. He longed for quiet and seclusion. He wished to spend the sultry summer months in some cooler and more agreeable retreat. "By the lake of Perugia," thought he--"Stella lives. If I go there I can see her as she walks or rides around. I can feast my eyes upon her, although I am resolved to remain unseen myself. I will take my picture there, and receive that inspiration which her angelic beauty always gives me." He came to the lake and dwelt in a small house upon its banks, scarce half a mile away. Daily he would go to the top of a cliff near by, and when Stella walked out his eyes followed her, and she, always thinking of him, knew not that he was so near. When she departed to ride along the borders of the lake, or for a sail upon its waters, he watched her, and sometimes encountered her dressed in disguise. For two weeks he remained there, and kept his resolution of never making known his presence. But soon an occurrence took place which caused him to be discovered, yet in such a way that he rejoiced at the discovery. It was a sultry morning, and desirous of coolness, Stella with a few other friends resolved to take a sail upon the lake. There was a threatening aspect about the horizon, but it was unnoticed by those who were intent on pleasure. Borelloni remained at home, being employed at some business. Mario sat at his usual place on the summit of the rock, and watching the preparations, knew their object. An awning was placed above the boat-a high and broad awning, which could effectually keep off the hot rays of the sun. Mario looked with anxiety upon the preparations, for he knew the signs of the weather, and feared the appearance of the sky. All was calm, oppressively calm, and fearful to one who knew how suddenly storms arise under such circumstances. He would have warned them, but he did not dare to, for fear of discovering himself. So he was compelled to sit in a state of inaction and watch with feverish anxiety the approaching excursion. The party left the house, they were four in number, and the heart of Mario throbbed violently as he recognized the form and features of Stella among them. They went gaily to the boat which was now completely ready, and soon were seated beneath the awning. As there was no wind, sails were useless, so they were rowed out into the lake. Two or three hours passed away, and still Mario sat gazing upon the boat which was carelessly lying still in the middle of the lake. Mario watched them with anxiety, and occasionally cast a troubled glance at the sky. He would have made signals, but they were too far away to notice them. The sky became darker, and there came a peculiar thickness and oppressiveness to the atmosphere. Still the boat moved not. "Can they be asleep? Can the rowers be insane?" thought Mario. "The sky is clouded, and they do not notice it. O heaven, what can they do! They cannot see the sky for the awning hides it." His attention was now attracted by a sudden voice from Borelloni's villa. The old count appeared upon the terrace, pale and terrified, and waved his arms in the air, and screamed to those in the boat. The shout went across the water, followed immediately by the tolling of the great bell at the villa, which was now all in confusion. Borelloni rushed about like one distracted, sending his servants after boats to go out and save his daughter. "My daughter, my daughter," he cried, "my beautiful Stella. O my daughter!" And with frantic gestures he rushed down to the water's edge, and shouted to the boat-at times gazing at the angry sky above. Those in the boat had heard his voice and seen the confusion at the villa. Instantly the rowers put out their oars and turned the boat's head toward the shore. They rowed fast, for hope was trembling and preparing to take her flight from the souls of the endangered boatmen. The deep tones of the bell, sounding loudly and fearfully, went over the country, arousing multitudes of men, who left their fields and came to see the cause of such unwonted noise. Mario sat on the rock till the boat turned toward the shore. Then viewing the dark sky and the occasional flash of lightning, he descended with fear to the shore of the lake. A half hour passed, and but three miles had been passed over. One yet separated the boat from the shore. One mile-a short period of time would suffice for the passage, yet in that short time what might not happen! But soon all suspense was over. There gleamed a sudden flash of lightning over the whole sky, intensely, terrifically bright, followed by torrents of rain. There was a short pause, and then with a crash-a roar that sounded like the wild rage of an earthquake, burst the awful peal of thunder-then peal on peal, roar on roar, rolled in long reverberations along the sky, round the rocky shores, and the heavens grew more intensely black! The storm had burst upon them! Down came the blast of the tempest's breath, in an overwhelming torrent of wind, and the whole surface of the lake rose in wild surges, foaming and tossing. When the first horrible confusion had passed away, all eyes were strained to where the boat had been. It was nowhere to be seen. Amid the gloom a few dark objects were all that could be descried in the foam of the upheaving billows. There came a scream from that aged man who had watched the boat so intently-a despairing cry, and with his white hair streaming behind him, he dashed forward to throw himself into the water. The servants seized him and prevented him. "My daughter!" cried the old man. "O my daughter, she has perished! Let me go to her!" "Look!" exclaimed a voice, pointing to the water. "I see a dark form amid the foam. I see it-it is a man, and he swims, bearing something with him." All eyes turned there. The baron revived, and again looked hopefully at the water, where the brave swimmer so gallantly breasted the waves. But could it be his daughter? They came nearer-nearer, and now the face was seen, and the hair, as it fell and rose above the water. It was-it must be-yes, that long, dark hair and those lovely features belonged only to Stella! The old man bowed down his head and wept. Nearer, nearer, and now all fear was gone, for the bold swimmer still showed an unfailing strength and energy. But his face was unknown. None had seen it before. Yet Borelloni knew it-well he knew it. The same face had appeared amid the death struggle, the dust and wild prancing of maddened horses on the Casino. And now Mario touched the land. And now he bore his senseless burden through the crowd to her father's arms. "O take her Mario, to the house-carry her there, or else she dies." But Mario laid her down at her father's feet, upon the grass, and voicelessly, nervelessly fell down beside her. They carried them both to the villa. They cared for them, and soon Mario opened his eyes and asked eagerly for Stella. "She is saved, and well. She is with her father." "Saved? then I am happy." He arose, and all dripping as he was, left the house, in spite of the eagerness of the attendants. "No," he said, "my home is near by, and why should I remain here? I will go. Leave me." And he arose and left the house. "Where is the saviour of my child?" said Borelloni, on the following morning. "Gone?" said his attendants. "Gone? Fools! Why did you send him away thus?" "He would not stay, your excellency. He said his home was near by." "Then go, I tell you, and search the country far and wide, and bring him to me." After their departure, the baron remained in deep thought for a long time. "Strange," muttered he, "passing strange, how this painter seems to be my genius. A good genius too-near in moments of peril. How he looked as his face rose above the waves, while he bore my daughter to the shore. Yet how can I give her to him? I cannot." The attendants returned at evening. Their search was unsuccessful. But one said that a tall, noble-looking man had departed in the diligence for Florence at early dawn. "'Tis well," exclaimed Borelloni. "I fear to meet him. Better is it that he should go." Summer with its heat had passed away, and mild September had now come, when Florence again becomes delightful. The villa at Thrasymene was now forsaken, and the palace of Borelloni at Florence again was all joyous and thronged with people as of yore. Again the carriage of the count rolled along the Lung' Arno, and he received the salutations of his friends. Stella was lovely as before, but in her face there was a more pensive expression than usual, a sadness that was not customary. For she had not seen him whom she adored-the brave youth who had twice esteemed his own life as nothing, in order to snatch her from death. And what could move her father if this could not? He was more thoughtful than before, and never spoke of that scene. He had never even offered to express his gratitude to her deliverer. Yet that evening she was again to go to the gardens of Boboli and meet her lover. Her heart bounded with joy at the anticipation of coming happiness; and the moments seemed like hours, as they slowly, slowly passed away. Again the beautiful gardens were arrayed in loveliness, and beneath the solemn shade of the lofty trees Mario again sat beside his Stella. They could hardly speak their hearts were full. "And so you were long by Thrasymene and never came to me, Mario," she at length said. "I would not do so. It was enough for me to be near and watch you." "But not enough for me," she cried, with tears in her eyes. "O Mario! I am doubly yours, for you have twice saved me from death." "Speak not of that," he said. "I must soon know my fate. My picture is nearly finished. In two days it will hang in yonder palace," said he, pointing to the Palazzo Pitti. "For-what do you think-the Grand Duke has visited my studio, and told me to bring it there." "The Grand Duke! Was he pleased with it?" "He praised it in unmeasured terms." "I knew so, Mario." Blissful was the interview, and sad were the lovers to separate. But they had to depart, and soon Stella was at home. Mario, filled with pleasing hope, looked at the beauty of the scene, and went out for a walk. He wandered toward the southern gate, and went out up a long avenue, where trees overhanging formed a long and shadowy archway. It was a still and peaceful walk at evening. He sat down at length behind the trunk of one of the trees, and fell into a reverie. Soon he was roused by the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked down the road, and saw two men stealthily approaching, armed, and conversing earnestly in low tones. They stopped not more than two yards from him and sat down. Mario could not be seen on account of his concealed position. "Federigo," said one, "this is bad business." "What!" said the other--"a bad business?" "I mean not bad, but dangerous. Now if it were only to take a few piastres, I would not care; but to kill a man, coldly and without provocation, is rather bad." "But we get two hundred, you know?" "Ah, there you are right. They will jingle pleasantly, will they not?" The sound of a horse's steps was heard coming down the road. The men crept into concealment and were silent. Mario also preserved silence, and clenching his stout stick more firmly, waited the issue. "He is coming," said one in an earnest whisper. "It is he-Borelloni." Mario's heart leaped within his bosom at the word. He almost determined to rush upon the villains. But it would be premature, and he would be attacked. He could save the life of Borelloni more easily by waiting. The horseman drew nearer and nearer. He was walking his horse slowly down the road. He soon came up a few yards from the spot where these men and Mario sat concealed. There he paused for a moment. "Will he stop, or go back?" whispered one. "No-hush!" said the other. Borelloni came on, he came abreast of them-then one fired a pistol, and both sprang out. One seized the horse, while the other dragged the baron to the ground, crying: "Say your prayers, old man. You must die." "Villains!" roared a loud voice behind them, and Mario, springing out, gave one bound and felled the wretch to the earth. The other, frightened and surprised, stood in speechless astonishment. Mario rushed up to him and raised his arm to strike. The man fired. His pistol was knocked aside by Mario, and the next moment he lay senseless on the ground. Mario came to Borelloni and raised him from the ground. "Are you hurt?" he inquired. "Good God! Is it possible!" "I am Mario. I thank Heaven I am here to prevent these ruffians from executing their design. Can I assist you to mount?" He assisted the count to get on his horse again. By this time a troop of soldiers, alarmed by the pistol reports, had come to the place. "Take those men with you," said Mario. "They have attempted the life of Count Borelloni. And accompany the count to the city. But what-you are wounded." "No, the bullet only grazed my head. Mario you have saved my life. I am speechless. I feel more than I can utter now." "Do not thank me. Thank Heaven who sent me here. Good-night, my lord." And turning, he was soon out of sight. Stella sat in her chamber that night thinking upon her interview with Mario. She lost herself in conjectures about the future-so dark, so obscure, and yet it might be-so bright and happy. The noise below told her of her father's arrival home, and she ran down to welcome him. "My father! How late you are! But what!" She started back in horror at the sight of his bloody forehead. "Are you hurt? are you wounded, father?" "I was set upon by two ruffians, and would probably have been killed, if--" "Attacked, wounded! O Heaven! You shall not go out alone, father, you must not. You are feeble, and cannot now defend yourself." She made him sit down, and tenderly washed his wound, and stayed the blood till the doctor came. After the wound was dressed the doctor departed and Stella spoke. "You said you were saved, but did not tell me how, nor did you tell me his name. Do you know him?" "Yes, I know him well, and have reason to know him?" "Who is he?" "Mario." "Mario again? Great Heaven!" Two days afterward Count Borelloni sat in his study, musing upon the strange occurrences of the few past months. His thoughts dwelt upon Mario, who thrice had been his benefactor. "I cannot account for it. How intense, how absorbing, how wonderful must be his love for my daughter. He has treated my scorn with kindness. When I forbade him the house, he never came here. I admire, I reverence so lofty a spirit! "Where would I be now-where would my daughter be, if Mario had not been near to save us, if he, careless of his own life, had not been our preserver? I wondered before. Twice he had come before me-a genius-a preserver of myself and my child. Now he comes again and saves me. It is wonderful! I am overcome. Pride cannot resist such greatness of soul-such magnificent actions, and Stella adores him. I do not wonder at it. Shall I then refuse to make her happy? A few short years are all that remain of life to me. I wish to leave my child happiness as her best inheritance. I can make her happy now. I can make a return to Mario for his generous actions. I can make myself happy in the contemplation of their joy. All is over. Farewell pride. What is birth and wealth and pride, when compared to the glory of such illustrious actions?" He sat down at his desk and wrote as follows: "Mario, you have conquered. I have treated you with scorn and indignity. You have returned it with kindness. You have saved my own life twice, and twice have you saved the life of one for whose happiness I would die a thousand deaths. Mario, I reverence your lofty spirit. I admire such noble feeling-such bravery and generosity. Come to my home. It shall henceforth be yours also. Come to my heart, which is proud to love and honor you. Come, and Stella shall he the reward which you shall receive as the best and most priceless gift of the grateful BORELLONI." He rose from his chair and called for Stella. She came to him speedily. "Stella," said he, "I have at last found one to whom I can confide you, who will be your protector when I am gone. What do you say to that? You change color-you tremble." "O father, why now? Why not wait for a time? I am young. I will not-I cannot leave you." "You need not leave me. Your husband shall stay here, you both shall cheer my old age." "Father, I--" "Read this, my child." Stella glanced at it, read it hurriedly, and in a transport of joy flung her arms about her father's neck and kissed him again and again, while the tears stood in his eyes as he embraced his daughter. "Yes, Stella, all is over. I bow before him and do him honor. This shall go to him, and he will come here to receive his reward." He gave the letter to his servant, and again sat down to receive the thanks and witness the happiness of his daughter. An hour passed away, and a messenger came from the duke bearing a letter to the Count Borelloni. It was a request that in an hour he should come to the Pitti Palace. "For," said he, "I have lately received as an accession to my paintings, a picture of such rare excellence, such exquisite beauty in conception, and wonderful skill in execution, that I set no bounds to my joy in obtaining it. Knowing your passion for art, I have sent to you this notice of its reception." The count hastened to prepare for his departure. He wondered what was the nature of the piece of which the duke had spoken so highly. "It must be a wonderful painting," said he, "for the duke is usually sparing in his praise. It is probably one of Rafaelle or Guido. Well, I will soon see it." Stella felt a joy which words could not utter. She recollected all that Mario had told her of his picture, and of the duke's visit, of his flattering words of commendation-and she believed at once that his picture was the one he spoke of. The count went off, and at the expiration of the hour entered the palace. He was received by the duke. He was led through the long suite of rooms where the splendor of royal magnificence is all unnoticed amid the charms of priceless paintings, for there the Madonna of Rafaelle tells of the boundless depths of a mother's love, and there Murillo's Madonna breathes forth virgin purity. At length the duke stopped before a picture covered by a screen. He turned to the count, and saying, "Now Borelloni prepare for a surprise," drew aside the curtain which covered it. The count started, for not among all the galleries of Italy, not among the priceless collections of Rome, had his eyes ever rested upon so wonderful, so living a picture! It was a living, a breathing form, which there, drawing aside a hanging, seemed to come forth to meet the gazer. Upon the countenance there was the perfection of ideal beauty. Loveliness, angelic, heavenly, was radiant upon the face, and that face was one well known to him, for Stella stood there, but Stella-glorified and immortal. "Wonderful! Miraculous!" burst from his lips. "It is the creation of a god. It is not the work of man! Who is he? Where is he? The genius who formed this? How could it happen that it should be Stella, my daughter? Who is the artist?" "He is here in the next apartment," said the duke, and going to the door he spoke to some one. He returned, leading the artist. "This is he," said the duke. "Mario Fostello." "Mario!" cried the count. "Mario, my preserver!" And he ran up to him and embraced him. "Mario, is all forgotten? Forgive me. But I wrong you in asking it." The duke looked on in wonder, and could not conceal his surprise. But the count begged him to excuse his emotion. "Would you know the cause of it?" said he. "I am all curiosity." The count then related all-told him of Mario's love for Stella, of his own pride, of Mario's actions. When it was ended, the duke, who had displayed the greatest emotion, arose and went to Mario. "Never," he cried, "most noble youth-never have I heard of more generosity and greatness of soul. Happy is he who can call you his friend. But you shall not be neglected by me, for while I live, you will always have a friend. I honor your actions. I love your noble character." Mario was overwhelmed by mingled emotions of happiness and confusion. Joy had rushed in upon him, like a torrent, and unable to speak, he could only express by his glance, the feelings of his soul. "God bless you, my lord duke!" at length he cried. "God bless you, Count Borelloni! I am unworthy of such praise, but I can never forget your kindness to an obscure artist." "An obscure artist? No, not so," answered the duke. "No longer obscure, you are the greatest in the land, and none shall call you otherwise. I name you count-and in a week your title shall be formally bestowed, so henceforth, Count Fostello, you may not be obscure." A week afterward the palace of Borelloni was all festivity. Lights gleamed in dazzling rows within the long halls where all the flower of Tuscan nobility, and all the lords and barons and great men of other lands were assembled. For this was the day when the Count Fostello led to the altar the lovely Stella Borelloni. The Grand Duke condescended to be the head groomsman. The magnificent form and features of the noble artist were the admiration of all, and only equalled by the beauty of his bride. The story of his love and constancy, of his wonderful actions and splendid achievements in the realm of art, was told to all, and the city rung with his praise. All courted his friendship. All of noble nature loved him for himself, and the baser spirits were compelled to do him homage, for in him they saw the man whom the duke "delighted to honor." [FROM "THE FLAG OF OUR UNION."] A TALE OF A CRUSADER. BY CHARLES E. WAITE. CHAPTER I. He whirls his sword, with unresisted rage, When closely prest, the Christian bands engage The high, the low, his equal prowess feel, The bravest warriors sink beneath his steel. JERUSALEM DELIVERED. THERE sat a palmer within the old baronial banqueting hall of Percy Du Bois. The wassail had not yet begun, and there was a pause in the feast. All eyes were bent upon the travel soiled pilgrim,--for he was telling a stirring tale of the martial deeds done in Palestine. The valiant Percy bent forward his anxious visage,--seamed by many a scar, gained in feudal broils and festive brawls,--and ever and anon burst forth, with uncontrollable excitement, into shouts of approval, as some daring achievement was recounted. His leathern doublet was frayed and stained by the friction of often-tried armor, and in his richly studded belt glistened a diamond handled poniard. Around his massive settle stood servants to do his bidding, while at his side were two or three shaggy hounds, resting their chins upon their master's knee-now soliciting a caress, and now a share of the banquet. Next to the sturdy baron sat the fair Joan, his daughter. Her features were regular, and surpassingly beautiful, and her moist, dark eyes strained upon the palmer, were eloquent of the deep and passionate feelings of her heart. The cut and fashion of her habit were well calculated to exhibit the contour of a bust, and waist that would have triumphed over the strictest criticism of a sculptor or painter-connoisseur. From the multitudinous folds of an ample sleeve peeped forth a little jewelled hand, white as snow, and soft and round as a child's. The chair in which she reclined, was of massive oak, inlaid richly with ivory, and canopied with purple velvet, embroidered with, flowers of gold. Her foot-encased within the smallest shoe in Burgundy, and ornamented with a flashing jewel upon the instep-rested upon a footstool of massive oak, magnificently carved and inlaid. Together with the baron and his daughter, there sat upon a dais, at the head of the board, several guests of distinction-all listening with intense eagerness to the tales of the exploits of the Crusaders, in battling for the holy sepulchre. Around the walls of the banquet-hall, were suspended the implements and spoils of war or the chase. Crossbows and hunting-spears, helmets and corselets, the tusks of the wild-boar and the antlers of the deer, were displayed in picturesque confusion upon the walls, and within the niches of the apartment. "O, it was a glorious sight to see!" said the palmer, continuing his narration, while his eyes flashed, and his whole form dilated with enthusiasm. "The gorgeous trappings of the horses glistened in the sunbeams, pennons and banners flashed and fluttered in the wind, and the axes, and morions, and gorgets of polished steel, surging and plunging, as the chargers reared, made the Christian army appear like a billowy sea of silver sheen. Before them stood a host of turbaned Moslems, defending the gates of Jerusalem. The crescents upon their turbans gleamed, and long lines of myriads of scimitars offered a barrier of naked steel against the crusading host, which had come to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. I saw in the van of the Christian array, a knight locked in complete black steel, and enveloped in all the magnificent panoply of war. His charger was coal-black, compact, and of gigantic proportions. The harnessings were of cloth of gold, which swept the ground,--the bridle was sprinkled with stars and jewels,--and pendant from the bridle-rein were fringes of the most precious stones. He rode by the side of the Prince D'Olivar, and he sat in his saddle, as if he were a part of the animal that bore him so gallantly. "'Advance,' shouted the prince. 'Now to rescue the tomb of the holy Jesus from the impious Saracen!' "That splendid array moved quickly on, in all the pomp and magnificence of chivalry. Amid the fanfares of trumpets and clarions, the clashing of cymbals, and the shouts of thousands of spectators, they charged. Peal upon peal came the ringing of steel, as sabres crashed down through morion and gorget, or sword crossed with scimitar, in unending clang. Wherever rode the knight of the sable armor, the success of the Christians was signal and complete. His dark plume was seen floating wherever the turbans were thickest, and the conflict hottest. Right into the midst of the Moslem host did his impetuosity bear him, and the heathen throng swaying uncertainly for a moment, finally broke, and dispersed in universal flight, over the field. I saw him fighting single-handed, with a band of Saracens, who had checked their headlong flight to attack him,--and then the clouds of dust took him from my view. "Just then, from amid the rabble-rout of infidels, there burst a small troop of Moorish horse. Swiftly they flew across the plain, hoping by dint of hoof to reach the city unscathed. Their silken mantles floated in the wind, as they spurred their horses to the top of their speed, and they preserved the finest order in their tumultuous flight. Before they had proceeded above a quarter of a league in their headlong course, a knight in armor left the Christian ranks, and started in pursuit. He was mounted upon a steed of blood and bone, and though the sand of the plain was hot and arid, and unfavorable in every respect for speed, yet his mettled horse bore him gallantly forward, and brought him nearer every instant to the foe. On he flies-at every stride he gains-spurs and harness jingle like the iron upon the smith's forge. The sand rolls up in huge folds behind his horse's heels-the polished steel flashes back the sunlight, as it penetrates the clouds of dust. Nearer and nearer he approaches,--madly plunged the horses of the Moslems as they strove vainly to reach the haven of safety-the walls of the holy city. It is useless. The knight has divined the object of their precipitate flight, as a stifled female shriek is borne to his ears, and nothing can exceed the impetuosity of his pursuit. "'Turn, cowards! Deliver up to me the maiden!' "On he thundered;-with a clang his sword leaped from the scabbard, and in an instant came crashing through a Moslem turban, and a Moslem skull-splitting them both in twain. Then the Moors turned. Sword strokes fell thick and fast, and nothing was heard but the clinking of iron, and nothing seen but the flashing of scimitars. Straight into the middle of the troop penetrated the knight, where supported fainting upon a rearing steed, was a beautiful Moslem lady. "'Zelica, have courage! I come to save you!' "The infidels tumbled from their horses, as the blows of the knight's good sword fell among them, and several sought safety in flight. Those who remained continued the combat desperately around the sinking maiden, as if determined to sell their captive's deliverance only with their lives. But four were left, and against these, who had drawn up in line, the knight was about to hurl himself, when a Templar, in armor glittering with jewels and gold, came scouring across a the plain, and mingled in the fight. But instead of of helping the hotly pressed knight, he cleft his morion by a dastard stroke from behind, and but for the thickly plated steel, would have thus ended his life upon the spot. The good knight was hurled dizzy from his steed upon the trodden field, and the Templar spurred against the Moors. His charger was fresh, and his blood was up, so he had but little difficulty in slaying the Infidels, and reaching the beautiful captive. Seizing her in his powerful arms, he was about to leave the spot, when 'Conrad,' burst from the maiden's lips, and the knight who had been prostrated by the felon blow, rose from the dust upon his knees, and hurled his gauntlet into the Templar's very face. "'Stop!' he thundered. 'Release the lady, or fear the vengeance of Heaven!' "The Templar's visor was up, and as the glove struck him, his face grew black with rage. "'Conrad D'Amboise!' he shouted, 'your attempts to thwart my purposes are vain. Thus do I take vengeance upon you!' And plunging his spurs into his horse's sides, he would have rode him down. Yes," continued the palmer; his eyes sparkling with fire, and his whole frame quivering with the most intense excitement, "he would have trampled his bones in the dust beneath his horse's hoofs, had not the sable knight burst upon him like a thunderbolt, and checked him in mid career. The dastardly Templar turned to fly, but the sword of the black warrior flashed from its sheath, and with a single vault that dark charger stood directly before him. "'Stand, and disgrace no longer chivalry!' "The Templar closed his visor, and drew his blade. Sparks of fire were struck from the clashing metal, and tufts of crests were borne by the wind towards the walls of Jerusalem, as plumes were mutilated by the ringing weapons. I saw that Knight Templar thrice borne to the ground, by the powerful arm in the sable mail, and thrice arise again, like a phenix from its ashes, to renew the deadly struggle. As he recovered his seat the third time, almost spent by his exertions, he threatened to plunge his sword into the heart of his senseless burden, unless the black knight desisted from the combat, and declared his motive for assailing him. "'To wipe out the foul stain with which thou hast this day sullied the fair escutcheon of chivalry, in riding down a helpless Christian knight, and ravishing a defenceless maiden from the hands that alone have a right to protect her! I will give thee thy life on one condition, craven! Surrender up to me the maiden, and thou art free to depart! But enter not a foot again into the Christian camp. An army renowned as being the mirror of French chivalry cannot honorably harbor a miscreant like thee!' "The form of the Templar quivered with rage. But his armor was split from helm to gorget--his horse bleeding and staggering with pain and terror, and certain destruction could be his only fate, if he continued the combat. "'I yield to thy conditions, but when we meet again in fair field, I shall dictate the terms of surrender!' "The black champion lifted, as if she had been an infant, the charming Zelica from the Templar's saddle-bow, and bore her senseless form to the unhorsed knight. The Templar rode slowly and sullenly away in the direction of the hills of Palestine, and I have never seen him since. It is reported that he has returned to France, and having renounced the oaths of his order, travels in the guise of a simple knight, doing deeds that dishonor chivalry, and render him universally odious. The dark mailed warrior has remained in Palestine for a long period, doing mighty deeds of valor, and sustaining the cause of Christ with his powerful arm; but he left the Holy Land about the time of my departure, and is now on his way home, to share the laurels bestowed upon the valiant defenders of the faith." The palmer ceased. All eyes were still bent upon him, and all looked sorry that his tale had closed so soon. "When did you leave the knight of the black armor?" asked the beautiful Joan, crimsoning to the temples as she put the simple question. "It was above six months since, when I saw him at Constantinople. He was on the eve of departure for France with his retinue." The fair girl blushed still more brightly, and reclining within the cushions of her splendid chair, remained silent and thoughtful during the remainder of the evening. CHAPTER II. While the pilgrim was engaged in his recital, one of the guests at the head of the festal board had listened with peculiar eagerness. He was a knight, tall and finely limbed, and attired with pointed elegance and taste. His pourpoint was barred with gold, and deep fringes of the same precious metal adorned its borders. His face was swarthy from exposure, though classical in contour, and eminently handsome in expression. His lips curled proudly, his nostrils were thin, and in every feature might be traced the unmistakable tokens of pride and sensuality. His seat was by the side of Joan, and he was assiduous in his efforts to please her-performing for her all those knightly devoirs which the gallant age of chivalry required. The eye of the palmer had more than once, during his narration, been fastened upon this handsome knight, with incomprehensible significance, and particularly as he spoke of the attempt of the Templar to ride over the prostrate champion of Zelica, did his large orbs cast upon the richly attired guest a look of mingled scorn and anger, which, had it been observed by the host or the other guests, would have tasked the skill of the greatest Odipus among them to divine. "Pass round the flagon! Let the wassail begin!" shouted the jovial Percy Du Bois. Joan retired to her chamber with her maids, and the revel began. The board groaned with the good cheer, and as the wine flowed more freely, the constant potations of the generous liquor began to have its effect upon the hilarity of the guests. They began to display unusual license, in their songs and conversation. Broad jests went round, and the hall commenced resounding with the shouts of an incipient revel. Seizing a flagon of foaming Burgundy, the knight of the gold embroidered pourpoint quaffed it to the lovely Joan Du Bois. The health was received with a general uproar of approval, and wassail was drunk to many other fair dames, by the rest of the revellers. "'Destruction and death to the cowardly Templar, who battles against defenceless maids and unhorsed knights!" As the palmer uttered this, he turned to see if all were emptying their flagons. Every one except the proud knight had quaffed his goblet to the dregs with peculiar satisfaction, and a yell of approbation. His stood untasted upon the board, and his eyes glared fiercely upon the palmer as their gazes met. "Knew you personally this Knight Templar of whom you speak?" he asked. "I did," replied the pilgrim, "and I owe him a debt which Heaven will yet afford me the means of repaying!" The scowl upon the other's brow became more savage and lowering. He moved his position, and placing himself by the palmer's side, uttered in a low tone in his ear: "Conrad D'Amboise, I know you, in spite of your disguise! Beware how you interfere with me or mine!" Without waiting for a reply, he strode haughtily from the hall. The revel was long protracted. At length the effect of the frequent libations began to show itself, and one by one the wassailers dropped unconsciously upon their benches, or staggering left the apartment for their own chambers, until the palmer, who was Conrad D'Amboise in disguise, remained the sole sensible occupant of the banquet hall. He sat silent and thoughtful, by the reeking board, listening to the murmur of the wind, as it sighed among the boughs of the trees in the adjacent forest of Ardennes. His mind was dwelling upon the events of the evening-the fierce demeanor of the knight-his insolent defiance-and his marked penchant for the lovely and sole heiress of the honors of the house of Du Bois. The hall was silent, not a sound broke the solemn stillness. The lamps gave forth a flickering light, and the vapor of the spilled wine poured up from the steaming table, and diffused itself throughout the room. Suddenly the harsh creaking of iron was borne audibly to his cars. The disguised knight was on his feet in an instant. He listened, and the same rough, grating noise was heard again distinctly--apparently issuing from the corridor which led to the outer portal. Conrad divested himself of his palmer's gown, and drawing his sword, opened the door of the banqueting-hall, and stood in the corridor. Cautiously he proceeded, and silently, until on arriving within a few yards of the castle entrance, the cause of the grating sounds which he had heard was apparent to him. The outer door stood thrown wide open, and the night wind was swinging it back and forth upon its rusty hinges, producing most mournful melody. Surprised at so unusual a circumstance, he approached the portal, and looked out into the courtyard. Before him upon the pavement were a dozen mailed warriors, mounted, armed to the teeth, and motionless as statues. The pale moon shone upon their polished helms and corselets, giving them a most spectre like and supernatural appearance. They stood directly before the arched barbacan, which formed the entrance to the court, and appeared waiting for the warder, to lower the drawbridge over the moat, for their exit. Without expressing any astonishment at the strange scene thus presented to him, Conrad D'Amboise glided from his post, and favored by the shadows of the frowning battlements, gained a postern in an angle of the wall, and stealthily left the court. Above a quarter of an hour had elapsed after his departure, when the perfidious knight who had confronted him at the banquet, issued from the unclosed portal, bearing in his arms the drooping form of Joan Du Bois. Striding hastily across the pavement, and putting himself at the head of the armed men in the court, he hailed the warder at the gate. "Ho, there! Lower the drawbridge and give us exit!" The bolts were drawn, and the chains clanked, as the bridge came rattling down across the gloomy pass. "On! Spare not the spur!" and suiting the action to the word, the knight drove his spurrowels deep into his horse's flanks. With a single vault the steed cleared the ditch, and as he came down upon his feet, stood front to front with a horseman in armor as black as night. By his side rode Conrad D'Amboise, and in the rear was a small retinue led by a mounted lady. "Stand! thou stain upon knight-errantry, thou curse of Templars, and receive thy just reward!" shouted the sable knight, while his blade flashed in the moonbeams. Paralyzed with astonishment, the false Templar slowly drew his weapon, while the followers of both knights drew back to watch the combat. Delivering the senseless Joan Du Bois to a retainer, the Templar knight plunged fiercely down upon his opponent, cutting left and right at his visor and corselet, in his progress. The black warrior parried the murderous strokes with infinite skill, and as his antagonist was employed in drawing his rein to check his steed, dealt him a blow upon the bridle arm, which split his mail and caused his limb to drop useless by his side. Infuriated with pain, and bursting with the conflict of all the savage passions of his nature, the Templar now struck with the ferocity of a madman. Blows were hailed down with most fearful vigor upon the armor of both, and great chips of steel were struck sparkling from the polished mail. Clang! Clang!-now the black champion is about to hurl his sword with awful force against the Templar's shoulder-the false villain's horse becomes unmanageable-he rushes forward towards Conrad D'Amboise, whirling his sword wildly in the air. ' "Zelica!" he shouts, with a horrid yell of astonishment, as he recognized the mounted lady. "Ha! upon one I can at least take vengeance!" And he is about to transfix her with his hacked and broken weapon, when a powerful arm intercepts his progress, and Conrad's good sword drinks his life blood, through a cleft in his gorget. It is the morning after the just punishment of the Knight Templar, before the gates of the castle of Percy Du Bois. Within a little boudoir which looks out upon the cool shades of the forest of Ardennes, sit four happy beings. They are Joan and the sable knight, and Conrad D'Amboise with Zelica. The fair faces of the maidens glow with blushes of pleasure, and the knights shine in the perfection of manly beauty. The hand of Joan is clasped within the palm of the dark hero-for she is his betrothed-and she gazes into his noble face, with a look of love and trust that would have made St. Anthony forswear his vows. "Will you renounce crusading henceforth?" "I must." "You must?" "The magic of your eyes is more potent than the cup of Circe or the song of the Syren. It would be useless to attempt to evade it, as it would have been for any mortal but the Ithacan hero to escape the Circean wiles. But trust me, my fair and true Joan, I would never attempt to leave thee, even were it possible." Joan hid her blushing face in his bosom. She was perfectly happy. She had waited long, and her fidelity had been rewarded. [FROM "THE FLAG OF OUR UNION."] THE AUSTRALIAN FOOTMAN. BY JAMES DE MILLE. CHAPTER I. SHOWING HOW LOW THE GOLD FEVER MAY REDUCE A MAN. IT was morning in Sydney harbor. The wharves were crowded with shipping from all parts of the world which were already filled with workmen busily engaged in unloading the cargoes. The hum of the thousands in the city beginning their daily work, rose into the air and spread far over the country. It was a beautiful scene. Before the city spread the noble bay which forms one of the finest harbors in the world, all smooth and unruffled, for scarce a breath of wind disturbed the air. Encircling the water rose the green shores, here verdant and smiling with fertile meadows, and there wooded and shaded by pleasant groves or orchards. Ships lay around upon the face of the water, from whose masts floated the flag of many a nation, some slowly borne on by the tide, with the wide spread sails flapping idly against the mast, others swinging slowly, from their fast anchors. And queen of all this peaceful scene-appeared the metropolis of Australia, with its white houses, lofty spires, and thronged wharves-thus she appeared-sitting in the prime of youth, laying aside her maidenhood to wed the world. Among a crowd of passengers who had just landed from one of the newly arrived emigrant ships, two youths might be seen, whose appearance denoted a station in life much above that of their fellow voyagers. One was a tall man, with a noble figure, in which strength and beauty were finely blended, and a countenance upon which rested an expression of frankness. His features were handsome, his hair being dark and glossy, his eyes black, and gleaming beneath his brows as though they might read the soul. His companion was a merry-hearted fellow, with lively features and a pleasant smile. "Well, Melville, here we are at last," said the younger of the two. "And now what do you propose to do?" "Stay here of course. Why, Marden, my boy, what else is there to do?" "Have you forgotten all that we heard coming out?" "What-that it is hard to live here now-that the emigrants suffer-that the diggings are crowded? Why, I believe it." "Well, what will you do?" "I'll look out for a situation." "Pray, how much money have you?" "Just half a crown, my dear friend," said Melville, laughingly tossing two silver pieces into the air. "Half a crown! Whew! Why, I have five pounds, and expect to starve on that." "My dear boy. A man who has his wits about him need never starve in this world." "Well, I do not see what we can do in Sydney. I thought the diggings were not more than twenty miles from here, and I find they are more than a hundred miles from Melbourne,--which is, goodness knows, how many miles from this place." "Well, Marden, take, my advice and be philosophical." "Be philosophical! It was very well to be so at Oxford, when a fellow lost a few pounds or owed a debt to some tradesman, but it's no go when a fellow is ever so many thousand miles from home, and only in the possession of enough to keep him from starving." "Do you know how much the immaculate Johnson, who came home so rich, had when he landed at Melbourne?" "No." "Just sixpence halfpenny." "The dickens! Now I tell you I'll put off Melbourne. That's the land, my hearty!" "Nonsense-you wont do any such thing." "Yes, I must. I can't do anything here. I want to get to the diggings." "Pooh, Marden. Don't be cast down. I don't care, though. I am worse off than you." "You can't leave here, unless you become a bootblack or a servant." "By the lord Harry then, I would be a servant." "What! you would-you, the brillliant, the aristocratic Melville-the 'double first' at Oxford? Bah!" "Certainly. Why not? The truly great man is he who will not let anything cast him down. In short, if the proud Dame Fortune tries to knock him down she can't come it. That's the doctrine, my boy." "Well, my mind is made up. I will go to Melbourne." "What-go to Melbourne? O nonsense!" "I will, certainly. What will you do here? Come with me to Melbourne. We can find a situation there." "No, not more easily than here. In fact I believe that it is much more crowded." "Hang it, I wish I had stayed at home." "But since you are out here, put it through, Marden." "Ah, well," said he, with a sigh. "I suppose I'll have to,--and I must be off this morning for Melbourne. The sooner the better, for I have little money left. We must part, old fellow. I don't see what you can do here, though?" "I can earn a living, I have no friends to be ashamed of me here in the antipodes. I suppose yonder is the vessel for Melbourne," said he, pointing to one at the next wharf, on which was a notice to that effect. "Yes, that is the one." "Well, I will help to carry your baggage there. Mine will remain here. I am sorry we must separate, but since we seek our fortunes, let us do what we think best. Come on." And the two youths bearing Marden's trunk, walked over to the Melbourne packet, which was soon to start. Many others appeared upon the wharves who were about to leave Sydney. Some were pale and sickly looking, others appeared like desperadoes; others had a faint gleam of hope on their countenances, but ah, very faint. "Look at those who have starved here, Melville. Can you stay? No, come. Let me go back and help you here with your trunk." "No, no, I will remain." "But, old fellow, do let me divide this money with you." "Thank you, Marden, you are a generous fellow-too generous. But I would not think of it. I have no fear but that I can live." An hour after Melville stood watching the packet, as with all sails set, she left the wharf, and sailed slowly out of the harbor. The wind springing up carried them away, and Melville, as the vessel lessened in the distance, bade good-by to the last of those friends which reminded him of home. "Now courage!" he murmured to himself--"just let us sit down and form some plans." He walked over to his trunk, and sat for a while. Strange situation for a well born and well educated gentleman! To be on a foreign shore, with but half a crown in money, and a few clothes in a small trunk as his worldly goods. After a while he opened the trunk, and taking out a piece of cake, made his morning meal. "And now for business," said he, shouldering his trunk. He walked off with it to a small boarding-house near by, where he opened it and took out all his good clothes. These he carried to a pawnbroker's who gave him twelve pounds for the lot. "Hurrah!" he cried, "twelve pounds! That I think will help me along for awhile." He then bought a suit of rough clothes, and going to his lodgings, put them on, after which he went back and sold his last suit of good clothes for three pounds more. "Fifteen pounds I have now. Good-again! I will have my watch yet to sell if anything happens. But nonsense, with fifteen pounds I can make a fortune. I may as well prepare now for prosperity at the antipodes." On the following morning there appeared among the strange crowds of people who throng the Australian capital, a man of most striking appearance. His air was high bred, but his clothes were coarse, and he walked up and down with a large barrow filled with confectionary. He looked around upon all the people with a smile of unutterable complacency, as though he were perfectly content with himself and the whole world. It was Melville! "Ha, ha, ha!" he chuckled to himself. "I think I see myself starving. By Jove, wouldn't Aldborough laugh if he were to see me here? And my eldest brother, the baronet-the head of the family-hem-shouldn't I like him to see me now! Ha, ha!" "Confectionary, confectionary," he cried, bursting into a louder tone of voice, which rang forth clear and deep-toned, as a bell. "Confectionary!" and then he added with grotesque modulations of his voice, "Confecctunarrry!" "By Jove, how this reminds me of the little fellow in London. I'll go the complete candy-seller. I might as well." "Ladies and gentlemen! Here's your fine candy, lozenges, apples, oranges, cakes and tarts! Heeeere's your chance!" He displayed the most imperturbable calmness, walked up to ladies in the streets with the utmost nonchalance, to sell his things, and they, pleased with his uncommonly handsome face and fascinating manner, invariably bought. "The ladies! Bless their kind little hearts!" said he, gazing after the last two whom he met. "And that little one-what eyes! what a smile! Who can she be, and where does she live? She looked so bewitchingly at me! I'll follow, and see where she lives." Melville slowly walked after them, keeping at a proper distance. When they stopped at a house or shop, he also stopped at another, till they went on again. Our hero saw the younger occasionally glancing back toward him, and almost fancied that she encouraged him. "What a lovely creature!" he muttered to himself. "Ah, there is her house, now. By Jove I have it!" He marked it carefully, and passing by saw the name upon the door-plate. Henry Inglis. "A finely sounding name. I heard her friend call her Emily-Emily Inglis. Ah, how dear is the name! If I were but rich, now. But I can adore her image till I become so. Yet what hope is there in this contemptible business Bah! never mind. I'll stick to it till something turns up." On the following morning, Melville dressed as before, with his barrow of confectionary, went along Summer street where Mr. Inglis resided. It was a large stone house, four stories high, and one of the best in Sydney. He rang at the door and after a time Emily herself came. She started, and a half smile came across her beautiful face. Melville himself for the first time in his life, felt embarrassed-but he spoke up, and in the tone of a courtier, said: "Fair maiden-can a poor confectioner offer you anything this morning." "What have you?" said she, with a sweet smile. He brought in his trays and the beautiful girl bent down over them, while her long, dark tresses hid her face from view. Melville's heart beat with delight. "You will find there as good candy as any in the city," he said at length, in a business way. She selected a large quantity. "O thank you, thank you, fair lady, for your kindness to a poor man like me." "You are a stranger here, are you not?" "Yes, I arrived only yesterday morning." "From England?" "Yes, and another friend came with me, but he is off to Melbourne." "And will you not go?" "I decided to stay here when he left, and now I could not-would not leave this place for the world." "You are prospering, then?" said she, with embarrassment, for Melville's dark eyes rested meaningly upon her. "Yes, and happy. I have my little--" "Emmie," said a voice at the head of the stairs. "Yes, pa, I am coming. Please bring some more to-morrow, good man," added she, in a louder voice, "and if you hear of a footman who wants a place, send him here." "Thank you, miss," said he, in the tone of a hawker, again, "I will do so. I am very much obliged, miss, for your custom, miss, and I hope it. will be continued, if I can do anything to please you, miss." CHAPTER II. HE "STOOPS TO CONQUER." "Emily," said Mr. Inglis to his daughter, "what a strange servant is this new one of ours. He is one of the handsomest and boldest fellows in the world-looks as much like a gentleman as I do, and yet he is a servant. I declare I feel quite a reluctance to order him about. And when I ride out, it is awkward to have such a noble looking fellow as my servant, riding behind my carriage. He is an energetic fellow, I saw him selling confectionary before he came here. Did not you say he sold some to you?" "Yes," said Emily, faintly. "And yet he is not impudent, but is perfectly obedient. I cannot make him out, however. He performs everything smilingly, as though it were an excellent joke. I wonder who he can be?" "He is an Englishman." "Certainly, and he is well-educated. I know so. It is amusing to see how popular he is with the servants. Ha, ha, he has got them all to admire and try to imitate him. You should have heard a lecture which he delivered last night to them. I stood out in the yard, and attracted by some noise, looked in. There our new servant was, with a short pipe in his mouth, and a mug of ale beside him. The others called out for a speech. Upon which he rose from the chair and got upon the table, and spoke to them." "What did he say?" "O I cannot tell you half of it. He made the wittiest and most brilliant speech I ever heard. It was interspersed with laughable anecdotes and poetical quotations flowed in throngs from him. The happiest hits and the most lively sallies. O, I was totally overcome! He kept them in continual roars of laughter, and I could scarcely contain myself. But now I must attend to some business. Emily, where is my desk?" "In the dining room," said she, ringing the bell. Melville came to obey the summons. "Henry," said Mr. Inglis, somewhat awkwardly, "you may a-will it be convenient? a-to-my writing desk-hem?" "Certainly, sir, a moment, sir--," and Melville disappeared. In a short time he laid the desk before Mr. Inglis, and stood in a corner of the room waiting any further orders. "Emily, I am in an awkward situation. There are some French merchants in Melbourne to whom I have to write, and I have forgotten my French. Could you write a letter in that language?" "Not grammatically, I fear." "I beg your pardon, sir," said Melville, coming forward. "If you are willing, sir, I will write it." "Do you know French?" said Mr. Inglis, in surprise. "As well as English, sir." A chair was given him, and he wrote at his master's diction. After it was over, Mr. Inglis thanked him, and said: "I wish there was another here who could relieve me in a similar way. I have to write a Spanish letter to a Spanish house in that rendez-vous of all nations, and I don't know a single word of the language." "I know it perfectly, sir," said Melville, very meekly. "You!-Spanish! Why, sir-why I mean-you are a prodigy! Can you write another letter?" "I should be delighted to do it." And Melville wrote another, after which he carried the two to the post-office. "There now! What can I make of a man like that? He knows far more than I do, and acts as though he had been accustomed to the best society. How on earth came he to be a footman?" Emily's heart beat-she knew why, but she said nothing. Several weeks passed away, and it was a lovely evening. The sun was fast descending behind the western hills, and a cool breeze from the ocean blew refreshingly upon the city. Many carriages rolled along the roads which led into the country. Men of all classes promenaded the streets after the toils of the day, and nearly all labor had ceased. Emily and her father rode along one of the avenues which lie without the city. It was a quiet place, for few people were there. Around lay green fields, orchards and groves, pastures where cattle grazed, and vast fields filled with flocks of sheep. Melville rode behind at a little distance, gazing upon Emily as though his whole soul were wrapt up in her. "What will not a man do for love? Here am I a servant for Emily's sake. Beautiful girl. I would do a thousand times as much to gain some of those tender glances which she at times bestows upon me." "Emily," said her father, "Is not your horse restive? He starts. I fear he will be troublesome." "O no, father, it is only his spirit." Melville gazed anxiously at the horse, which occasionally started, rearing a little and swinging his head in a vicious manner. "Take care! O heavens!" suddenly cried Mr. Inglis, as Emily's horse started at the sight of a blasted tree. He snatched at the reins. The horse, disturbed by this unexpected attack, reared up and pranced furiously. "Father! O save me!" cried the terrified girl. Her father sprang once more at the reins-the horse darted forward, and then with a wild neigh, stretched out his head, and away he went, away, away, with the speed of the wind! "O God! O heaven!" cried the father, in agony. For a moment Melville paused-for an instant-and then lashing his horse he rushed on furiously in pursuit of the frightened steed of Emily. On they went, the pursuing and the pursued. People who were in the road, seeing the fierce beast, shrank away. Emily, pale as marble, still kept her seat, clinging to her horse, but every moment expecting death. She heard the voice of one pursuing, and her heart told her who it was. Away they went, and nothing was gained on either side. Melville shuddered, and beat his horse to increase his speed-a little was gained, but not enough to admit of hope. On they went. At length the road took a long winding around a spot where the ground made a descent, and ended in a deep gully. Emily's horse followed the road and sped on in his headlong course. Melville suddenly paused, and looked at the gully. The ground descended gently, the gully was about twelve feet wide, but its perpendicular sides descended to an unseen depth-stones and rocks were strewed around on both sides. Melville shut his mouth tightly, and lashed his horse. With one spring he cleared the stone wall of the field, and then dashed furiously over the stony ground. It was a fearful sight. Emily saw it as she clung closely to her horse, and the yawning gulf and the fearful deed of Melville took away all thought of herself. She screamed in agony! But on went the brave horse-on to the deep gully. He prepared-Melville lashed him. One spring-one bound-and the deep chasm was cleared, and away he went-the brave youth, up the other side. Another bound and he was over into the road, just as the horse of Emily, all foaming and perspiring, came up. He rushed before the horse, and with a giant grasp seized the bridle and stopped his furious career. The jerk threw Emily backward. She fell into Melville's outstretched arms. The horse stood trembling. Melville dismounted, and took Emily to a seat near by. She looked at him so kindly, so tenderly, that a flood of happiness rushed through his soul. "O thank you, my brave preserver!" "I am recompensed beyond all that I can hope, in seeing you safe." "Where is my father?" "He is coming. There he is! He will be here in a few moments."' "You did a terrible thing," she said, as she thought shudderingly of the gully. "Did you see me?" "It was an awful thing to see. I shuddered." "O then, happy am I if I can gain the smallest share of sympathy-the smallest thought from you." "You risked your life, too,"--she did not finish, but looked at him, and their eyes met. Hers fell down. "Emily!" She did not reply, but lowered her head. Through the thick ringlets of hair which clustered around her head, Melville could see a gentle blush which overspread her lovely features. "Emily-speak, Emily-can you think well of me." She raised her eyes and again they met his. What the impassioned youth might have said, we cannot tell, but he was prevented from speaking by Mr. Inglis, who at this moment came up. He leaped from his horse. "Emily, my child, are you saved!" he cried, rushing towards her, and folding her in his arms. "Yes, I am alive, dear father, and there is my preserver." "Noble, brave youth. May the richest blessings of Heaven descend on you. You have saved my child from death. I saw you risk your own at that terrible chasm. O that I could fittingly reward you!" There was one reward which he could give. CHAPTER III. FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE! Mr. Inglis again sat in his parlor, and Emily was near. There was a thoughtful expression upon his face. Occasionally she glanced at her father, to see what he was doing, or perchance to endeavor to discover what thoughts were in his mind. "Emily," said he, at length. "Father." "I know not how to reward Henry. What can I do? I am in want of a head clerk. I wonder if he understands business. I will ask him." And he rang the bell. Melville appeared. "Good morning," said Mr. Inglis, grasping his hand. "I can have you as a servant no longer. Permit me to esteem you as a friend, for surely you are my equal, and you have laid me under unspeakable obligations to you. Do you know anything of business?" "What kind, sir?" "Any kind-shipping business." "Yes sir, thoroughly. I have been in situations where I learned it." "Take off this servile dress. Live in my house as my friend, and if you wish, I will take you as my head clerk." "Your clerk, Mr. Inglis! How-how can I thank you?" "Think not of thanks. That is my business. Come with me and I will show you what is to be done." And the two departed. Melville first went to purchase more appropriate clothing, and then went to Mr. Inglis's office. A year passed away. Melville had been prosperous beyond all his hopes. Immense profits could then be obtained from chartering ships and from exporting wool. Materials of food and clothing for the gold regions at Melbourne, could also be sold at enormous profits. Mr. Inglis had kindly advanced him money to commence independent speculations. This he had so well used, that at the end of the year the original amount had increased ten-fold. "Ten thousand pounds! In one year too! And at the same time punctually fulfilling every duty as clerk. Mr. Melville, you are the paragon of clerks. With your genius and energy you will soon be among the wealthiest in the country. You have now a fortune of your own. I have long wanted a partner in my business, for I am growing old. You can enter without feeling any great inferiority. Will you do so?" "You are overwhelming me with kindness," said Melville, in a faltering voice. "How can I ever repay you? To be in partnership with you, is such a grateful thing to me that I can never thank you enough." "O there is no need of thanks. I am happy to do this. One like you, I may say without flattery, can very rarely be found. But how very strange is the fate which threw you in my way! What wonderful circumstances! A servant in my family! A gentleman like you to be a servant? What led you to it? Surely you could have gained a living in a less unpleasant way." "It has turned out my blessing," said Melville. In the evening, Melville, the new made partner sat alone with Emily in the parlor. It was dark, and the heavy curtains which hung before the window increased the gloom. The moon's rays entered and fell softly upon the floor. "What a strange life yours has been," said Emily. "Yes. Do you remember when you saw me first?" "Well-I always shall remember it-the young confectioner with his box of candy." "I will bless that box of candy forever." "I have often wondered why you became a servant." "Ah, why should you wonder? Emily, can you not guess? Would any light cause make me do it?" She was silent. "Blessed be the day when I became a menial. I saved you from death through that. O, do you ask what made me? A light had beamed across my path. I had seen you, Emily." Still no reply. "I would have done anything. To see you daily-to be near you-to hear your voice. O, it was joy to me such as I cannot describe. And I thought at times that you looked kindly at me--that you saw through my motive-that you-yes, Emily, that you even cared something for me. Did you not, Emily? Did you not?" A low reply sounded gently in his ears: "Yes, Henry." "Emily, my own Emily. Would you call it presumption in me if I told you that I loved you? You know it already; you must know it. Can I hope, dearest Emily?" A low reply again came, which sent a thrill of rapture to the heart of Melville. He wound his arms lovingly around the happy Emily, and-- "Halloo, what are you two people doing over there in the corner?" said the voice of Mr. Inglis, half suffocated with laughter. "Fine doings-hem. Speak up, sir. What is this." Melville with his arm around the waist of Emily, and her hand in his, walked up to Mr. Inglis. "I have been seeking another partner, sir." "Ho, ho-you have, have you?" "Yes sir, and I thought--" "You thought, did you, sir, and pray, sir, what business had you to think? Were you not sure of it-sure of her, you young dog, and of me also? I love you, my brave young friend, and I felt an affection for you when you first came here. Take her and be my son. You saved her life and she is yours. But be silent, now-none of your thanks. I tell you I wont put up with them." The happy party sat down. Melville by the side of Emily, and Mr. Inglis opposite them, viewing them with the utmost delight. "But Henry, tell us something of your former life. Whose son are you?" "I was going to say, 'the son of my father,' but that not being sufficiently definite, I will tell you my father's name. I am the younger son of Sir Edmund Melville, Melville Hall, Warwickshire, England." "The-ahem!" cried Mr. Inglis. "A baronet's son! Whew, and you were my servant!" "I entered at Eton, nobody cared for me at home. I went through Oxford, took first honor in the university, then went home, but being only a cipher-alias a younger son, they treated me coldly. My father advised me to join the army. I told him I would see the army shot first. My mind was made up to come here. Two hundred guineas constituted all my fortune. All these I spent either before or during the passage out. When I landed here I only had a half crown!" "Good heavens, only half a crown!" "All that I had in the world, except my clothes. I sold them and commenced the business of confectioner. You know the rest." "Why did you decide to be a servant? Ah, I know now. You look down at that little witch of a girl who is almost crying with joy." "I'm not, pa. What nonsense!" "Crying with joy. and she looks knowingly at you. Ah, ha? You have been rehearsing the play of 'She stoops to conquer,' only it was the gentleman in this case. But now all your troubles are over." "All over. I am happy." And his large, dark eyes gleamed with the joy which dwelt within him. "Will three weeks be too soon, Emmie dearest?" said he, in a mysterious whisper. "Nonsense, Henry," and there came a smothered "don't," for Mr. Inglis had left them alone for a little time. A few days afterward Melville was standing upon a wharf watching some passengers who landed from a vessel late from Melbourne. Suddenly he started. "Why, Marden," he cried, springing forward to grasp the hand of a forlorn looking individual in a tattered hat and tattered coat. "Where are you bound, young 'un?" "Home." "Home? how is that? Have you made your fortune?" "No. I'm as poor as a rat. Only earned enough to take me back. Hang the gold country! But I declare, you look as if you had made your fortune." "I have. But tell me, would you go home if you could get a good situation here?" "No, indeed." "Then stay. But first come to a hotel and 'renovate.' If you want money, I can lend." "Hurrah! I don't want money. Since I am sure of a situation, I will lay aside the ragamuffin character, and be once more a gentleman." "And in two weeks hold yourself in readiness to--" "To--to what?" "To attend my--" "Well?" "My--well, my wedding." And he did attend his wedding--and a happy occasion the event proved to all. [FROM "THE FLAG OF OUR UNION."] THE CORSAIR OF SCIO. BY JAMES DE MILLE. CHAPTER I. The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung; Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Phobus rose and Delos sprung-- Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all except their sun is set. -BYRON. IT was morning among the islands of Greece and the dark blue sea on every side showed not a ripple upon its bosom. The sky was as calm and peaceful as the water which reflects its azure hue, and not a cloud appeared to mar its surface. The sun just rising cast a broad gleam of light over the scene, and threw upon the wide sea a long path of ruddy light. Around lay the isles of Greece--the home of classic poetry, whose trees and gentle brooks, whose groves and fields, whose very rocks and soil, bring up before the mind glorious memories of the past. There they lay, appearing double as their images were seen reflected in the mirror-like wave, the branches of their clustering trees hanging down gracefully--droopingly. But more glorious than all the lovely spots which dot these sparkling waves is Scio-the beautiful, the classic Scio. Here were the remains of many a glorious temple of the ancients. Here were rich vineyards whose vine yielded the famous Chian wine. Here the long avenues of orange trees and olives, of citron and lemons, appeared on every side, and odorous breezes from the East, laden with perfumes of spices and flowers, blew ever gently upon the blest shores of Scio. It was in the middle of the eighteenth century, when Scio was at the height of her glory and prosperity, when the people were wealthy and happy, and all was delight and pleasure-it was at such a time that a small vessel might have been seen at a short distance from her northern coast. Every stitch of her broad latteen sails was unfurled, but no favorable wind came to fill them-no motion was in the air. Upon the south the green and richly wooded shores of Scio stretched along, upon which at times appeared the sheen of some marble cliff as it jutted out among the green vegetation. The vessel was long and sharp. Two tall masts supported the broad triangular sails, and a red flag without device floated from the summit of the main; men appeared dressed in the Grecian costume lolling about the deck, some smoking, others talking, and others sleeping. At the stern the leader paced up and down. He was young, and had in his face all the high spirit and impetuous daring of youth. His features were perfectly Grecian, all as finely formed as those of some antique statue of his native land. A small fur cap was placed upon his head, from beneath which rich clusters of raven hair flowed down. His eyes were large and dark, and a jetty moustache and beard completed the manly expression of his countenance. He wore a rich crimson jacket, embroidered with gold, loose trousers with boots which reached to his knees, and a red silk scarf wound around his waist afforded a place where to put two pistols and a Turkish dagger. A larger sword dangled at his side, and in his hand he held a long light gun which, like his pistols, was richly ornamented after the oriental fashion. "Maffeo," said he to his lieutenant, "how goes the wind now!" "There is not any wind to go," said Maffeo, a strong and hardy man who was leaning over the side. "Well, I think we will have a wind very soon." "A wind? Do you? Why?" "I feel it." "You can always tell, I know not how, when there will be a wind. We are ready for it, however." "Maffeo, what was that you heard about these cursed Turks, when you were ashore?" "Didn't I tell you? Well, I heard that they had landed upon Komao, a little island near--" "I know it well." "Where there were only a hundred inhabitants. Monilon, the principal man there, was seized, beaten, robbed, and the worst of it was, his daughter Iona was carried away." "What! carried away? Iona! I have heard of her as the most beautiful of all Grecian girls." "She is gone like many others to the slave market at Constantinople." "Ah, the accursed hounds! the dogs of unbelievers! Thus they tyrannize over us, and rob our men, and carry off our virgins. But great Heaven, shall this be done longer? Ah, the wretches! Maffeo, this will make us whet our swords more readily upon the next Turks with whom we fight." "Whew!, there comes the wind! see how it blows around yon rock." "And by all the holy saints and angels, Maffeo, there is a Turkish vessel. Ha! two vessels. By heaven, there are three!" he cried, as one after another three vessels came borne by the wind around the point where it blew. "How can we get off? We have no wind. They will be upon us.-See, each vessel is larger than ours, and the decks are crowded with armed men: See that long gun. It can shatter us to pieces!" "Peace, Maffeo. Be not so fearful. The wind will come to us before they can get near enough to use that long piece. Halloa there! up my men! There are three Turkish ships behind us!" With many an oath and imprecation, the sailors rose and hastily gathered their arms. One of them strung up at the foremast another flag, on which appeared a crescent beneath a cross. "Now my brave men, we will have to run. But we do not always do so. Perhaps the time will come when we may have our turn at chasing. If they come up, fight, fight like fiends, and die like Christians!" Loud cheers arose and shouts of "Long live Ranadar! Long live our noble captain, the brave Ranadar!" And now the wind which Ranadar had prophesied, came down to them. It blew steadily and strongly, so that in a short time her sharp prow dashed the bright waves foamingly on either side. The Turkish vessels who had borne down toward the corsair, as soon as they saw him, and had felt certain of seizing him, now uttered cries of disappointment, as they saw him move away. Loud cries were sent across the water, shouts of ridicule and opprobrious names which the wind bore along to their ears. Ranadar looked back and shook his scimetar at the Turkish vessels. "Howl on! The time will come when you will tremble before me-Ranadar, the corsair!" He cried so loudly, that they seemed to have heard him, for suddenly a shot came from the long gun, but it fell short, far short of the mark. The men of Ranadar shouted in derision, and jerked the flag whenever appeared the humiliated crescent, so as to attract the notice of the Turks. Ranadar gazed anxiously upon his pursuers. Still they came bounding over the waves behind him, and his quick eye could not but see that the distance between them was gradually lessened. "Maffeo, they are coming up to us." "What, can a Turkish vessel equal our swift ship?" "These are sharp, and see what huge sails they carry. I fear they will come up with us." "Well, we will fight them-yes, all three!" "Good, Maffeo. You are a brave man. Tell this not to the men for a time, yet." Ranadar watched more anxiously. The hours of day passed on, and midday arrived. Though his own bark was swift, yet these were evidently more so. At morning, the foremost was about two miles off. Now not more than a mile separated them. "Before night it will all be up. O the scoundrelly Sciotes! Why did they not give notice of this?" and Ranadar walked anxiously about. "Men," he cried at last. "Ho, there! Listen. We are lost. These Turks will overtake us. But who will think of yielding? None?" "No, no, none," cried the men. "Then let us fight. Prepare a train, and when all is ready, when our decks are full-then fire, and blow these Infidels to perdition! We will make the Turks remember us, and when they pursue another corsair they will tremble, for they shall think of Ranadar the corsair." In obedience to his orders the train was prepared, but as it would be some time before their pursuers would come up to them, they did not make any preparation for soon firing it. Three hours more passed, and now the nearest ship had arrived within gunshot. The long gun was loaded after some trouble, and pointed directly at the corsair vessel. Ranadar and his men cried out in tones of defiance. At last the shot came. A loud explosion thundered around, a ball came whizzing by, and passed through the sails, but did not touch the mast. "What use is there to run, Maffeo?" "None, whatever, captain." "Are the guns all-ready-loaded?" "Yes, every one." "Bring them out so as to place them easily on this side." The men loosed the guns which were not very large, and made them ready to be placed on the side opposite. "Now! 'Bout ship-round with her!" The men who understood Ranadar's design, obeyed, and the vessel turning, now bore down upon the nearest Turkish vessel. Those on board seemed perfectly thunderstruck at the sight of the chase thus turning the tables upon them. "Fire!" he cried, as he arrived opposite the Turks. The guns were fired directly into the crowded ship. Loud cries and screams, and the crash of a falling mast told how well those shots had been aimed. "Now for the next!" screamed Ranadar, excited. "We will serve them in the same way!" But the others were prepared, and drew up to await their approach. On came the vessel of Ranadar, and the flags flew proudly from both masts, while the men shouted enthusiastically. Loud sounded the thunder of her guns as she passed swiftly by the two vessels. But the report and the cries from the wounded were all exceeded by that of the broadside given back by the Turks. The mainmast fell down over the side with a deafening noise! "Cut it away! Clear the ship!" cried Ranadar. In a few minutes the mast was free, but the vessel moved only slowly through the water. Her sides were shattered by those terrific broad-sides, wounded men lay stretched upon the decks. The two Turkish ships were quite near. "Give it to them again, my rovers!" cried Ranadar, as he himself picked out the Turkish captain with his gun. Another volley was fired and again another, with the same effect as before. And this was the last, for both Turkish ships coming quickly up fired broadsides, and grappled with the disabled corsair. The men poured from both ships into her. The Greeks seized their scimetars and rushed into the deadly encounter. Maffeo fought like a lion, killing three Turks in succession. Ranadar fired his pistols and killed two of the foremost leaders. Then hurling them at the heads of the followers, he rushed at them sword in hand. "Fight, Greeks, fight! Down with the Turk!" and crying this, he toiled on in the mortal strife. But bravery could avail little against such numbers. The Greeks were driven back, killed, overpowered by the vast odds against them. Forced from the quarter deck into the middle of the vessel, they stood there like their forefathers at Thermopyl', and fought for their freedom. Not a word was uttered, not a cry from either side, but foot to foot and steel to steel the combatants waged their deadly warfare. Suddenly Ranadar disappeared below, and in a few minutes returned with a beaming countenance and fresh energy. Rushing at an enormous Turk who wielded a tremendous scimetar, the corsair attacked him. In a few moments the Turk was disarmed, but springing at Ranadar, he held his sword arm tightly, and sought to throw him over. Ranadar dropped his sword, and closed with the Turk. They swayed backward and forward, they fell and rose, they whirled round in endless convolutions, so that neither Turk nor Greek could strike a blow for his countryman. But even Ranadar seemed to gain. Holding his adversary tightly by the throat, he forced him to the vessel's side. He pushed--he strained--and then--and then--with a mighty noise which seemed as though the air was rent with a dazzling flash, and smoke, and fire, and blazing brands, and shattered vestiges of broken ships, amid arms, and dead bodies, and a thousand hideous shapes and forms-Ranadar felt himself seized by some irresistible force and thrown with the fury of a tempest far out upon the water. For a moment he was senseless, and lay perfectly still, clutching to the Turk. Then he looked, and a blackened corpse lay in his arms. Shudderingly he released himself, and swam around. Where the corsair ship and her two foes had lain, nothing was seen but some blackened fragments, and the whole sea far and wide seemed covered with them. At the distance of a few hundred yards he saw the first Turkish ship which he had disabled, coming down toward the horrid scene. He himself had been uninjured. The large Turk whom he had pressed closely to him had saved his life. His clothes were partly burnt, but that was all. With a prayer of thanks for his deliverance, he swam toward the Turkish ship. "I will try how they will treat me. Better not die wilfully, since I have been so wonder. fully preserved. Great God I only! I alone out of so many!" The men in the ship saw him. A boat was lowered and he was brought on board. For a few moments he was all unnoticed, so terrible had been the calamity. Boats moved slowly over the scene, but there were no more living beings to be found. All was one wide scene of havoc and ruin. CHAPTER II. Ranadar stood in silence awaiting his fate. At last the Turkish captain approached him. "Dog of an Infidel! Who are you who are thus saved when Moslems have perished?" "I am a Greek." "I know you are, and that you are a corsair, and that you have served under Ranadar, the abhorred of heaven, whom Mahomet confound! But he is even now in Eblis." "He is not. He lives." "What! will you say that others are saved beside you?" "No." "How then can Ranadar live?" "I am Ranadar!" At that well known name the Turkish captain, laid his hand furiously upon his scimetar. The men who had been looking at the prisoner, or endeavoring to discern some living being upon the water, all turned as if by one impulse, to look at the dreaded corsair. He stood there with folded arms, glancing at them as haughtily and proudly as though he were victor, and not a captive. "You Ranadar!" "I am. I did that," said he, pointing to the blackened fragments upon the water. "What! You come here, you confess your name, and your atrocious deed? Do you hope to live?" "No." "And you shall not be disappointed. Here, come forward," said he, to some of his men, who were, armed with axes. "Hew the ruffian from limb to limb!" "Do your worst, vile Turk! I scorn you, and laugh at death. Better it is to die than live in captivity!" "Ha! say you so? Then I will bring down your proud spirit, and Ranadar the corsair shall be Ranadar the obedient slave! Men, bind him." "Look well to your bonds, then, for strong bolts and bars have before this failed to hold me." "Bind him! Gag him! Stop the mouth of the dog!" shouted the fierce Turk, in ungovernable fury. "Take him below, away out of my sight." And the corsair was bound and taken below. The Turkish ship left this scene of destruction and proceeded on her way to Constantinople. There she landed, and over the city spread the news of Ranadar's captivity, for his name was well known among the people. As he was brought ashore, a vast multitude assembled to have a look at the dreaded corsair. He looked around upon them, and save a slight smile of scorn, no emotion was visible upon his marble countenance. The Turkish captain, whose name was Achmet, took him as his own slave, swearing that he would bring down his proud spirit, and tame him as he would a wild beast-by hunger. Accordingly, Ranadar was placed in a dungeon, whose moist floor, and dank, slimy walls showed it to be beneath the surface of the sea-far down under the ground. He narrowly examined the dungeon in which he found himself confined. It was not more than ten feet square. At the side opposite from the door there was a small grating, through which entered some feeble rays of light. The iron stanchions were thick and strong, and beyond the first one which he saw, there was yet another. The aperture was about a foot square. "Ha!" he exclaimed, when he first saw it. "That is what I wished for, Achmet will leave me here without food for three days. When he comes, perhaps the bird will be flown. My manacles are off! Good!-I can use my hands." He slowly unwound the scarf which was around his waist, and disclosed beneath its folds doubled cords of silk, which, if extended, might reach forty feet. He examined this, tried its strength carefully, and then tied it round him. he then took off his Fez cap, and from beneath the lining he pulled out some small instruments. There was a knife, and a saw of the finest and hardest Damascus steel. But little light now entered the window, for it was late in the afternoon. Ranadar went up to it and tried to pull the iron from its place, but in vain. Then he quickly but stealthily prepared to saw the iron through. There were eight bars in each grating through which he would have to cut. By working steadily through the greater part of the first night, he was able to take out the first grating, and finish half of the other. "Now," said he, toward morning, "so much is done. To-morrow I will be out. But good heaven! Holy virgin!" he exclaimed, suddenly putting his hand to his breast. "Ah, kind heaven, thou hast not yet deserted me." He took out a small bundle in which there were dates, and with a portion of these he satisfied his hunger. Night came on and found him with an unconquered spirit, still laboring at his work. At last, when it might have been an hour before midnight, the outer grating was displaced, and Ranadar passed through. He found himself in a narrow passage which went for a long distance on either side. For a time he hesitated which way to choose, but at length, he turned toward the left and went on. He walked for a long distance, and at last came to a door, which, opening, disclosed a flight of steps. The blast of fresh air told Ranadar that here was a way to escape, for it led to the outside. The air also had the freshness of the sea, and brought with it the perfumes of distant shores, There was another flight of steps on the left at the top of which was a narrow chink, through which a feeble ray of light passed. The fugitive paused a moment, looked up the steps before him, and then up the others at the light. "I will go here," said he, as a sweet stream of music accompanied by a mournful female voice, came down to his ears. "I will go here," and drawing his dagger, he went up the narrow steps, and reaching the summit, he saw a small niche in which he might stand and look into the room through an aperture, apparently made for the purpose. "Ha!" he murmured, "this is some plan of Achmet. Would that I could meet the villain now!" Then gazing into the chamber, through the aperture, a beautiful sight met his view. The room was magnificently furnished. Rich curtains hung from the walls. The carpets spread upon the floor were from the looms of Persia, the couches and stools were carved in the most skilful manner. From the vaulted ceiling a brazen lamp was suspended, whose light cast a mysterious gleam upon the scene. All was in the most gorgeous and splendid style of oriental voluptuousness. Upon a couch in one corner of the room reclined a young girl whose lovely countenance threw all else into the shade. Her dark hair was loose, and her eyes were cast down droopingly, shaded by their long black lashes. She was dressed in the elegant Grecian costume, and on her head she held a small guitar which she had just finished playing. Ranadar looked at the beautiful being, filled with wonder and profound astonishment at so much beauty. What was his amazement when he saw her raise her head and gently sigh his own name? "Ranadar!" He thought that she was some unearthly being when he heard it, and looked upon her as she buried her face in her hands and wept. A sudden noise alarmed her, and she raised herself languidly upon her couch. Footsteps were heard outside, and after a time Ranadar saw the door open and his hated foe Achmet, walk in. "Allah save you, beautiful Grecian maiden! Who is there who in beauty can equal Iona? I hope you are more tender than you were yesterday?" "Leave me to myself," she cried, waving her hand. "O no, no,--do not send me away, do not deprive me of the light of your heavenly smile. You torture me. Why do you treat me so Maiden, you are my slave." "By purchase-but I yield not to you." "Hearken to me. You have defied me too long. You are in my power entirely. If you will not love me willingly, I would scorn to compel you. I have come this time expecting you to be more kind. I find you unaltered, I do not love you well enough to wait for you to change. You must die!" Ranadar shuddered with ill-suppressed rage, but the lovely Iona gazed at Achmet unshrinkingly. "I know you love another. I know your affection for that pestilent Grecian. I have watched you, seen your actions, and heard you sigh his name. He too shall die!" "He will never be in your power." "Will he not? He lies now in my lowest dungeon. There he shall starve!" Iona who had thus far been firm, when she heard that, fell back upon the couch, but ashamed of her weakness, raised herself, and again confronted her enemy. But her face was deathly pale, and her hands were clasped tightly together. "In one hour, Grecian maid-in one hour,"--and his voice sank to a deep, hard whisper--"you shall die, and nevermore shall your father behold you-nevermore shall Ranadar gaze upon you unless it be in Eblis." And Achmet departed. "Alas, he never has gazed upon me. Ranadar never has seen me, but I have seen him-ah, too often." Ranadar was filled with a variety of contending emotions. But passionate love and pity for the beautiful Iona were pre-eminent among them. He looked in silence after Achmet had gone, but suddenly remembered that no time could be lost in waiting there. "Surely," he said to himself, "there must be something else here beside this aperture, there must be some small door by which one might enter. He searched narrowly around, and at length saw a small panel which seemed fastened by a concealed bolt. This he pushed back, the door opened, and Ranadar stood before Iona. At the noise of his entrance, she started, and looking up, muttered a few words in a daring tone, as though she supposed the slaves had come to put her to death, but seeing Ranadar the great corsair, the man whom she loved beyond all words, she uttered a faint scream of joy and raised her arms and face to heaven. He caught her in his arms. "Fly with me, Iona. I know all. Come with your Ranadar. Ah, come quickly. Hark, there are sounds without. Hasten!" She seemed incapable of motion. So great were the conflicting emotions which disturbed her soul, that she neither spoke nor moved. "Iona, my own love, my soul!" he cried imploringly, and as she leaned gently upon him, he raised her in his strong arms, and passing back through the secret door, he bore her down the stairs. Then up he went with his lovely, trembling burden, up the stairs at which half an hour before he had paused, and a thrill of rapture went through him, as on reaching the top he found himself upon a low terrace which overlooked the sea. Iona's arms were clasped about his neck. The lovely girl, overcome by her sudden escape from death, from sorrow and misery--overcome at the sight of Ranadar, free, and making her free, felt a deep gush of joy and bliss, too great for utterance. Her tears of happiness flowed freely, and while she clung to him she sighed his name,--"Ranadar!" "Cling to me closer, closer, Iona! There is the water beneath us. We must escape. See, yonder there is a boat. I must carry you there." About a hundred yards away, upon the moonlit surface of the water, a small boat could be seen lying at anchor. None seemed to be on board. There Ranadar determined to swim. The water was dashing against the stone wall ten feet beneath. He unwound his scarf and fastening it firmly to an iron bar, he took Iona in his manly arm, and then descended. The cold water received the lovers and enfolded them. Iona clinging to Ranadar as he directed her feared nothing, for her lover was with her. He struck out boldly and swam slowly to the boat. Gradually he approached, and at last his hands grasped it. Raising himself stealthily, he looked into it, and found it empty. Then he placed Iona within, and crawling in after her, a few moments sufficed for him to hoist the sails. A fair wind blew from the harbor. The light boat felt its influence and started at the blast, and bounded over the waves carrying them home to Scio. CHAPTER III. Once more the waters of the �gean Sea and the blue waves of the Grecian Archipelago shone beneath the morning sun. A small ship was seen stealing along the coast of the Isle of �gina. It was gaily painted, but guns peeped through her sides, and a long one was mounted amid-ships. Aloft, a red flag streamed, and the sails, which were distended by the breeze, glistened from afar upon the blue water. She was slowly and noiselessly sailing toward a promontory, upon whose summit a strange flag was flying, apparently a signal of some kind. Upon the other side of the promontory, and sailing directly toward it was a Turkish vessel. By the listlessness of all on board, it was evident that they were ignorant that an enemy was so near. The captain leaned over the stern and gazed into the water. An aged man in the dress of a slave, but whose intellectual countenance belied his costume, was cleaning a sword. "Monilon!" cried the captain, sternly, "Why are you so long. May Allah eternally confound you, indolent heathen of a Greek!" "Achmet, you are my master. I am old. Do not beat me. I have not the strength of youth." "Insolent greybeard! Be more respectful. Since your daughter's escape, you have grown suddenly bold. Beware!" "I rejoice that Iona is out of a ruffian's power." "Dog! What! Ha!" he cried, in amaze, as turning to fell the old man to the deck, he saw the Grecian vessel rounding the promontory. "Ho, men! up! To arms! A corsair!" Instantly, every man sprung to seize his arms. The guns were made ready, and all was prepared for action. "Monilon, go below. We will blow up these knaves in your absence. You will have company soon from the slaves in yon ship." A wild shout from the corsair interrupted him. Suddenly the approaching vessel paused, and some movement was made upon her decks. "By great Allah, they are afraid. Ha! They are moving that long gun. They are pointing it." A loud noise followed his remark, and a huge ball struck the ship sending the splinters around in every direction. Then the corsair bore down upon them. Yet not more than six men appeared upon her deck. When close by she poured a broadside into the Turkish ship, wounding and killing great numbers. The Turks sent back another, and shot off some of the rigging. But now the ships were close together. A trumpet was blown by a noble and splendidly apparelled youth who seemed to be leader. Instantly a crowd of men poured out from the hold. They came thronging the deck, and rushed after their leader into the Turkish vessel. "Ranadar!" shouted Achmet. "Ha, Achmet!" and Ranadar rushed upon the Turk. Their scimetars crossed and flashed fire. Three times the steel of Ranadar started the blood of Achmet. Twice he forced him upon his knee. At last the Turk struck furiously at the corsair. But the next moment his sword was whirled from his hand, and the Moslem chief fell gasping at the feet of Ranadar. "Victory, victory! Down with the Turks," shouted the fierce corsair, as they rushed more furiously than ever upon their foes. "Victory!" and the shout which added force to the Greeks, took away the courage of the Turks. For a while the carnage raged, the Greeks cut down their enemies who still fought with the wild energy of despair. Many leaped into the sea. Others leaned against their dead comrades, and though wounded, still kept up resistance. "Yield! yield! You are conquered!" cried Ranadar! "Yield, and I will be merciful!" At this there was a pause. They threw down their swords, and acknowledged themselves prisoners. But as Ranadar turned to look upon the dead body of Achmet, and to direct his men about the ship, he saw an aged man leaning against the side of the ship. For a moment he looked, and then springing forward, he caught the old man in his arms. "Monilon, alive! Are you yet alive, then? Iona has mourned you long." "Ranadar, Heaven bless you forever. Did you save my daughter?" "I escaped, and she fled with me." "Ranadar, your name is terrible to your foes, but O, how sweet, how dear, to your friends. God bless you, is an old man's prayer." The Turkish vessel was plundered, and after dividing, enough was found to fill the corsairs with joy. The Turkish prisoners were carried to Scio, and after a long time were exchanged for Greek captives. The name of Ranadar gained new glory, and his deeds were spoken of everywhere. One tenth of the spoil was Ranadar's, but this he forced upon Monilon, in order to enable him again to rebuild his ruined home in Komao. Monilon took it, for well he knew that Ranadar would have it again-well he knew it, by the happy smile and lovely blushes of Iona. Komao rises from the sea not more than thirty miles to the north of Scio. It is a lovely spot, where trees of luxuriant foliage and richest fruit grow on every side. Here the vineyards are seen, where vines hang in graceful festoons from tree to tree; orchards filled with a thousand fruits, gardens where blooming and odorous flowers give forth their fragrance to the air--running streams and gushing fountains. In this paradise dwelt Monilon; here Iona was brought up, and here Ranadar came to take her to his home. But that home was on the same lovely island, and there they lived in happiness such as earth can seldom bestow, for if the tenderest love and the most beautiful scenes of nature can afford happiness, then Iona and Ranadar had nothing more to desire. The corsair seldom after sailed the sea. He was contented to dwell at home, and ever blessed the day when he was led captive to Achmet's dungeon. THE END. 
10769	----	A WANDERER IN FLORENCE By E.V. Lucas Preface A sentence from a "Synthetical Guidebook" which is circulated in the Florentine hotels will express what I want to say, at the threshold of this volume, much better than could unaided words of mine. It runs thus: "The natural kindness, the high spirit, of the Florentine people, the wonderful masterpieces of art created by her great men, who in every age have stood in the front of art and science, rivalize with the gentle smile of her splendid sky to render Florence one of the finest towns of beautiful Italy". These words, written, I feel sure, by a Florentine, and therefore "inspirated" (as he says elsewhere) by a patriotic feeling, are true; and it is my hope that the pages that follow will at once fortify their truth and lead others to test it. Like the synthetical author, I too have not thought it necessary to provide "too many informations concerning art and history," but there will be found a few, practically unavoidable, in the gathering together of which I have been indebted to many authors: notably Vasari, Symonds, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Ruskin, Pater, and Baedeker. Among more recent books I would mention Herr Bode's "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," Mr. F.M. Hyett's "Florence," Mr. E.L.S. Horsburgh's "Lorenzo the Magnificent" and "Savonarola," Mr. Gerald S. Davies' "Michelangelo," Mr. W.G. Waters' "Italian Sculptors," and Col. Young's "The Medici". I have to thank very heartily a good English Florentine for the construction of the historical chart at the end of the volume. E.V.L. May, 1912 Contents Preface Chapter I The Duomo I: Its Construction Chapter II The Duomo II: Its Associations Chapter III The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum Chapter IV The Campanile and the Baptistery Chapter V The Riccardi Palace and the Medici Chapter VI S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo Chapter VII Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio Chapter VIII The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors Chapter IX The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms Chapter X The Uffizi III: Botticelli Chapter XI The Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms Chapter XII "Aèrial Fiesole" Chapter XIII The Badia and Dante Chapter XIV The Bargello Chapter XV S. Croce Chapter XVI The Accademia Chapter XVII Two Monasteries and a Procession Chapter XVIII S. Marco Chapter XIX The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale Degli Innocenti Chapter XX The Cascine and the Arno Chapter XXI S. Maria Novella Chapter XXII The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità Chapter XXIII The Pitti Chapter XXIV English Poets in Florence Chapter XXV The Carmine and San Miniato Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 List of Illustrations In Colour The Duomo and Campanile, From the Via Pecori The Cloisters of San Lorenzo, Showing the Windows of the Biblioteca Laurenziana The Via Calzaioli, from the Baptistery, Showing the Bigallo and the Top of Or San Michele The Palazzo Vecchio The Loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Via de' Leoni The Loggia de' Lanzi, the Duomo, and the Palazzo Vecchio, from the Portico of the Uffizi Fiesole, from the Hill under the Monastery The Badia and the Bargello, from the Piazza S. Firenze Interior of S. Croce The Ponte S. Trinità The Ponte Vecchio and Back of the Via de' Bardi S. Maria Novella and the Corner of the Loggia di S. Paolo The Via de' Vagellai, from the Piazza S. Jacopo Trafossi The Piazza Della Signoria on a Wet Friday Afternoon View of Florence at Evening, from the Piazzale Michelangelo Evening at the Piazzale Michelangelo, Looking West In Monotone A Cantoria. By Donatello, in the Museum of the Cathedral Cain and Abel and Abraham and Isaac. By Ghiberti, from his second Baptistery Doors The Procession of the Magi. By Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Palazzo Riccardi Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. By Michelangelo, in the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo Christ and S. Thomas. By Verrocchio, in a niche by Donatello and Michelozzo in the wall of Or San Michele Putto with Dolphin. By Verrocchio, in the Palazzo Vecchio Madonna Adoring. Ascribed to Filippino Lippi, in the Uffizi The Adoration of the Magi. By Leonardo da Vinci, in the Uffizi Madonna and Child. By Luca Signorelli, in the Uffizi �The Birth of Venus. By Botticelli, in the Uffizi The Annunciation. By Botticelli, in the Uffizi San Giacomo. By Andrea del Sarto, in the Uffizi The Madonna del Cardellino. By Raphael, in the Uffizi The Madonna del Pozzo. By Franciabigio, in the Uffizi Monument to Count Ugo. By Mino da Fiesole, in the Badia David. By Donatello, in the Bargello By Verrocchio, in the Bargello St. George. By Donatello, in the Bargello Madonna and Child. By Verrocchio, in the Bargello Madonna and Child. By Luca della Robbia, in the Bargello Bust of a Boy. By Luca or Andrea della Robbia, in the Bargello *Monument to Carlo Marzuppini. By Desiderio da Settignano, in S. Croce David. By Michelangelo, in the Accademia The Flight into Egypt. By Fra Angelico, in the Accademia The Adoration of the Shepherds. By Ghirlandaio, in the Accademia The Vision of S. Bernard. By Fra Bartolommeo, in the Accademia Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Saints. By Botticelli, in the Accademia Primavera. By Botticelli, in the Accademia The Coronation of the Virgin. By Fra Angelico, in the Convent of S. Marco The Annunciation. By Luca della Robbia, in the Spedale degli Innocenti The Birth of the Virgin. By Ghirlandaio, in S. Maria Novella The Madonna del Granduca. By Raphael, in the Pitti The Madonna della Sedia. By Raphael, in the Pitti The Concert. By Giorgione, in the Pitti Madonna Adoring. By Botticini, in the Pitti The Madonna and Children. By Perugino, in the Pitti *A Gipsy. By Boccaccio Boccaccini, in the Pitti All the illustrations are from photographs by G. Brogi, except those marked �, which are by Fratelli Alinari, and that marked *, which is by R. Anderson. A WANDERER IN FLORENCE CHAPTER I The Duomo I: Its Construction The City of the Miracle--The Marble Companions--Twilight and Immensity--Arnolfo di Cambio--Dante's seat--Ruskin's "Shepherd"--Giotto the various--Giotto's fun--The indomitable Brunelleschi--Makers of Florence--The present façade. All visitors to Florence make first for the Duomo. Let us do the same. The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or St. Mary of the Flowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence herself is called the City of Flowers, and that, in the spring and summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails. A name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, the miracle being the Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces of the miracle are apparent, Florence was its very home and still can point to the greatest number of its achievements. Giotto (at the beginning of this quickening movement) may at Assisi have been more inspired as a painter; but here is his campanile and here are his S. Maria Novella and S. Croce frescoes. Fra Angelico and Donatello (in the midst of it) were never more inspired than here, where they worked and died. Michelangelo (at the end of it) may be more surprising in the Vatican; but here are his wonderful Medici tombs. How it came about that between the years 1300 and 1500 Italian soil--and chiefly Tuscan soil--threw up such masters, not only with the will and spirit to do what they did but with the power too, no one will ever be able to explain. But there it is. In the history of the world two centuries were suddenly given mysteriously to the activities of Italian men of humane genius and as suddenly the Divine gift was withdrawn. And to see the very flower of these two centuries it is to Florence we must go. It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, the Via de' Cerretani, the Via Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because then one comes instantly upon the campanile too. The upper windows--so very lovely--may have been visible at the end of the streets, with Brunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was not to diminish the effect of the first sight of the whole. Duomo and campanile make as fair a couple as ever builders brought together: the immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth, and at its side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, which as surely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot be long in Florence, looking at this tower every day and many times a day, both from near and far, without being perfectly certain that it grows--and from a bulb, I think--and was never really built at all, whatever the records may aver. The interior of the Duomo is so unexpected that one has the feeling of having entered, by some extraordinary chance, the wrong building. Outside it was so garish with its coloured marbles, under the southern sky; outside, too, one's ears were filled with all the shattering noises in which Florence is an adept; and then, one step, and behold nothing but vast and silent gloom. This surprise is the more emphatic if one happens already to have been in the Baptistery. For the Baptistery is also coloured marble without, yet within it is coloured marble and mosaic too: there is no disparity; whereas in the Duomo the walls have a Northern grey and the columns are brown. Austerity and immensity join forces. When all is said the chief merit of the Duomo is this immensity. Such works of art as it has are not very noticeable, or at any rate do not insist upon being seen; but in its vastness it overpowers. Great as are some of the churches of Florence, I suppose three or four of them could be packed within this one. And mere size with a dim light and a savour of incense is enough: it carries religion. No need for masses and chants or any ceremony whatever: the world is shut out, one is on terms with the infinite. A forest exercises the same spell; among mountains one feels it; but in such a cathedral as the Duomo one feels it perhaps most of all, for it is the work of man, yet touched with mystery and wonder, and the knowledge that man is the author of such a marvel adds to its greatness. The interior is so dim and strange as to be for a time sheer terra incognita, and to see a bat flitting from side to side, as I have often done even in the morning, is to receive no shock. In such a twilight land there must naturally be bats, one thinks. The darkness is due not to lack of windows but to time. The windows are there, but they have become opaque. None of the coloured ones in the aisle allows more than a filtration of light through it; there are only the plain, circular ones high up and those rich, coloured, circular ones under the dome to do the work. In a little while, however, one's eyes not only become accustomed to the twilight but are very grateful for it; and beginning to look inquiringly about, as they ever do in this city of beauty, they observe, just inside, an instant reminder of the antiseptic qualities of Italy. For by the first great pillar stands a receptacle for holy water, with a pretty and charming angelic figure upon it, which from its air of newness you would think was a recent gift to the cathedral by a grateful Florentine. It is six hundred years old and perhaps was designed by Giotto himself. The emptiness of the Duomo is another of its charms. Nothing is allowed to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, too, were rooted. The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets. The history of the building is briefly this. The first cathedral of Florence was the Baptistery, and S. John the Baptist is still the patron saint of the city. Then in 1182 the cathedral was transferred to S. Reparata, which stood on part of the site of the Duomo, and in 1294 the decision to rebuild S. Reparata magnificently was arrived at, and Arnolfo di Cambio was instructed to draw up plans. Arnolfo, whom we see not only on a tablet in the left aisle, in relief, with his plan, but also more than life size, seated beside Brunelleschi on the Palazzo de' Canonici on the south side of the cathedral, facing the door, was then sixty-two and an architect of great reputation. Born in 1232, he had studied under Niccolo Pisano, the sculptor of the famous pulpit at Pisa (now in the museum there), of that in the cathedral in Siena, and of the fountain at Perugia (in all of which Arnolfo probably helped), and the designer of many buildings all over Italy. Arnolfo's own unaided sculpture may be seen at its best in the ciborium in S. Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome; but it is chiefly as an architect that he is now known. He had already given Florence her extended walls and some of her most beautiful buildings--the Or San Michele and the Badia--and simultaneously he designed S. Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari has it that Arnolfo was assisted on the Duomo by Cimabue; but that is doubtful. The foundations were consecrated in 1296 and the first stone laid on September 8th, 1298, and no one was more interested in its early progress than a young, grave lawyer who used to sit on a stone seat on the south side and watch the builders, little thinking how soon he was to be driven from Florence for ever. This seat--the Sasso di Dante--was still to be seen when Wordsworth visited Florence in 1837, for he wrote a sonnet in which he tells us that he in reverence sate there too, "and, for a moment, filled that empty Throne". But one can do so no longer, for the place which it occupied has been built over and only a slab in the wall with an inscription (on the house next the Palazzo de' Canonici) marks the site. Arnolfo died in 1310, and thereupon there seems to have been a cessation or slackening of work, due no doubt to the disturbed state of the city, which was in the throes of costly wars and embroilments. Not until 1332 is there definite news of its progress, by which time the work had passed into the control of the Arte della Lana; but in that year, although Florentine affairs were by no means as flourishing as they should be, and a flood in the Arno had just destroyed three or four of the bridges, a new architect was appointed, in the person of the most various and creative man in the history of the Renaissance--none other than Giotto himself, who had already received the commission to design the campanile which should stand at the cathedral's side. Giotto was the son of a small farmer at Vespignano, near Florence. He was instructed in art by Cimabue, who discovered him drawing a lamb on a stone while herding sheep, and took him as his pupil. Cimabue, of whom more is said, together with more of Giotto as a painter, in the chapter on the Accademia, had died in 1302, leaving Giotto far beyond all living artists, and Giotto, between the age of fifty and sixty, was now residing in Cimabue's house. He had already painted frescoes in the Bargello (introducing his friend Dante), in S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, and elsewhere in Italy, particularly in the upper and lower churches at Assisi, and at the Madonna dell' Arena chapel at Padua when Dante was staying there during his exile. In those days no man was painter only or architect only; an all-round knowledge of both arts and crafts was desired by every ambitious youth who was attracted by the wish to make beautiful things, and Giotto was a universal master. It was not then surprising that on his settling finally in Florence he should be invited to design a campanile to stand for ever beside the cathedral, or that he should be appointed superintendent of the cathedral works. Giotto did not live to see even his tower completed--it is the unhappy destiny of architects to die too soon--but he was able during the four years left him to find time for certain accessory decorations, of which more will be said later, and also to paint for S. Trinità the picture which we shall see in the Accademia, together with a few other works, since perished, for the Badia and S. Giorgio. He died in 1336 and was buried in the cathedral, as the tablet, with Benedetto da Maiano's bust of him, tells. He is also to be seen full length, in stone, in a niche at the Uffizi; but the figure is misleading, for if Vasari is to be trusted (and for my part I find it amusing to trust him as much as possible) the master was insignificant in size. Giotto has suffered, I think, in reputation, from Ruskin, who took him peculiarly under his wing, persistently called him "the Shepherd," and made him appear as something between a Sunday-school superintendent and the Creator. The "Mornings in Florence" and "Giotto and his Works in Padua" so insist upon the artist's holiness and conscious purpose in all he did that his genial worldliness, shrewdness, and humour, as brought out by Dante, Vasari, Sacchetti, and Boccaccio, are utterly excluded. What we see is an intense saint where really was a very robust man. Sacchetti's story of Giotto one day stumbling over a pig that ran between his legs and remarking, "And serve me right; for I've made thousands with the help of pigs' bristles and never once given them even a cup of broth," helps to adjust the balance; while to his friend Dante he made a reply, so witty that the poet could not forget his admiration, in answer to his question how was it that Giotto's pictures were so beautiful and his six children so ugly; but I must leave the reader to hunt it for himself, as these are modest pages. Better still, for its dry humour, was his answer to King Robert of Naples, who had commanded him to that city to paint some Scriptural scenes, and, visiting the artist while he worked, on a very hot day, remarked, "Giotto, if I were you I should leave off painting for a while". "Yes," replied Giotto, "if I were you I should." To Giotto happily we come again and again in this book. Enough at present to say that upon his death in 1336 he was buried, like Arnolfo, in the cathedral, where the tablet to his memory may be studied, and was succeeded as architect, both of the church and the tower, by his friend and assistant, Andrea Pisano, whose chief title to fame is his Baptistery doors and the carving, which we are soon to examine, of the scenes round the base of the campanile. He, too, died--in 1348--before the tower was finished. Francesco Talenti was next called in, again to superintend both buildings, and not only to superintend but to extend the plans of the cathedral. Arnolfo and Giotto had both worked upon a smaller scale; Talenti determined the present floor dimensions. The revised façade was the work of a committee of artists, among them Giotto's godson and disciple, Taddeo Gaddi, then busy with the Ponte Vecchio, and Andrea Orcagna, whose tabernacle we shall see at Or San Michele. And so the work went on until the main structure was complete in the thirteen-seventies. Another longish interval then came, in which nothing of note in the construction occurred, and the next interesting date is 1418, when a competition for the design for the dome was announced, the work to be given eventually to one Filippo Brunelleschi, then an ambitious and nervously determined man, well known in Florence as an architect, of forty-one. Brunelleschi, who, again according to Vasari, was small, and therefore as different as may be from the figure which is seated on the clergy house opposite the south door of the cathedral, watching his handiwork, was born in 1377, the son of a well-to-do Florentine of good family who wished to make him a notary. The boy, however, wanted to be an artist, and was therefore placed with a goldsmith, which was in those days the natural course. As a youth he attempted everything, being of a pertinacious and inquiring mind, and he was also a great debater and student of Dante; and, taking to sculpture, he was one of those who, as we shall see in a later chapter, competed for the commission for the Baptistery gates. It was indeed his failure in that competition which decided him to concentrate on architecture. That he was a fine sculptor his competitive design, now preserved in the Bargello, and his Christ crucified in S. Maria Novella, prove; but in leading him to architecture the stars undoubtedly did rightly. It was in 1403 that the decision giving Ghiberti the Baptistery commission was made, when Brunelleschi was twenty-six and Donatello, destined to be his life-long friend, was seventeen; and when Brunelleschi decided to go to Rome for the study of his new branch of industry, architecture, Donatello went too. There they worked together, copying and measuring everything of beauty, Brunelleschi having always before his mind the problem of how to place a dome upon the cathedral of his native city. But, having a shrewd knowledge of human nature and immense patience, he did not hasten to urge upon the authorities his claims as the heaven-born architect, but contented himself with smaller works, and even assisted his rival Ghiberti with his gates, joining at that task Donatello and Luca della Robbia, and giving lessons in perspective to a youth who was to do more than any man after Giotto to assure the great days of painting and become the exemplar of the finest masters--Masaccio. It was not until 1419 that Brunelleschi's persistence and belief in his own powers satisfied the controllers of the cathedral works that he might perhaps be as good as his word and was the right man to build the dome; but at last he was able to begin. [1] For the story of his difficulties, told minutely and probably with sufficient accuracy, one must go to Vasari: it is well worth reading, and is a lurid commentary on the suspicions and jealousies of the world. The building of the dome, without scaffolding, occupied fourteen years, Brunelleschi's device embracing two domes, one within the other, tied together with stone for material support and strength. It is because of this inner dome that the impression of its size, from within the cathedral, can disappoint. Meanwhile, in spite of all the wear and tear of the work, the satisfying of incredulous busy-bodies, and the removal of such an incubus as Ghiberti, who because he was a superb modeller of bronze reliefs was made for a while joint architect with a salary that Brunelleschi felt should either be his own or no one's, the little man found time also to build beautiful churches and cloisters all over Florence. He lived to see his dome finished and the cathedral consecrated by Pope Eugenius IV in 1436, dying ten years later. He was buried in the cathedral, and his adopted son and pupil, Buggiano, made the head of him on the tablet to his memory. Brunelleschi's lantern, the model of which from his own hand we shall see in the museum of the cathedral, was not placed on the dome until 1462. The copper ball above it was the work of Verrocchio. In 1912 there are still wanting many yards of stone border to the dome. Of the man himself we know little, except that he was of iron tenacity and lived for his work. Vasari calls him witty, but gives a not good example of his wit; he seems to have been philanthropic and a patron of poor artists, and he grieved deeply at the untimely death of Masaccio, who painted him in one of the Carmine frescoes, together with Donatello and other Florentines. As one walks about Florence, visiting this church and that, and peering into cool cloisters, one's mind is always intent upon the sculpture or paintings that may be preserved there for the delectation of the eye. The tendency is to think little of the architect who made the buildings where they are treasured. Asked to name the greatest makers of this beautiful Florence, the ordinary visitor would say Michelangelo, Giotto, Raphael, Donatello, the della Robbias, Ghirlandaio, and Andrea del Sarto: all before Brunelleschi, even if he named him at all. But this is wrong. Not even Michelangelo did so much for Florence as he. Michelangelo was no doubt the greatest individualist in the whole history of art, and everything that he did grips the memory in a vice; but Florence without Michelangelo would still be very nearly Florence, whereas Florence without Brunelleschi is unthinkable. No dome to the cathedral, first of all; no S. Lorenzo church or cloisters; no S. Croce cloisters or Pazzi chapel; no Badia of Fiesole. Honour where honour is due. We should be singing the praises of Filippo Brunelleschi in every quarter of the city. After Brunelleschi the chief architect of the cathedral was Giuliano da Maiano, the artist of the beautiful intarsia woodwork in the sacristy, and the uncle of Benedetto da Maiano who made the S. Croce pulpit. The present façade is the work of the architect Emilio de Fabris, whose tablet is to be seen on the left wall. It was finished in 1887, five hundred and more years after the abandonment of Arnolfo's original design and three hundred and more years after the destruction of the second one, begun in 1357 and demolished in 1587. Of Arnolfo's façade the primitive seated statue of Boniface VIII (or John XXII) just inside the cathedral is, with a bishop in one of the sacristies, the only remnant; while of the second façade, for which Donatello and other early Renaissance sculptors worked, the giant S. John the Evangelist, in the left aisle, is perhaps the most important relic. Other statues in the cathedral were also there, while the central figure--the Madonna with enamel eyes--may be seen in the cathedral museum. Although not great, the group of the Madonna and Child now over the central door of the Duomo has much charm and benignancy. The present façade, although attractive as a mass of light, is not really good. Its patterns are trivial, its paintings and statues commonplace; and I personally have the feeling that it would have been more fitting had Giotto's marble been supplied rather with a contrast than an imitation. As it is, it is not till Giotto's tower soars above the façade that one can rightly (from the front) appreciate its roseate delicacy, so strong is this rival. CHAPTER II The Duomo II: Its Associations Dante's picture--Sir John Hawkwood--Ancestor and Descendant--The Pazzi Conspiracy--Squeamish Montesecco--Giuliano de' Medici dies--Lorenzo's escape--Vengeance on the Pazzi--Botticelli's cartoon--High Mass--Luca della Robbia--Michelangelo nearing the end--The Miracles of Zenobius--East and West meet in splendour--Marsilio Ficino and the New Learning--Beautiful glass. Of the four men most concerned in the structure of the Duomo I have already spoken. There are other men held in memory there, and certain paintings and statues, of which I wish to speak now. The picture of Dante in the left aisle was painted by command of the Republic in 1465, one hundred and sixty-three years after his banishment from the city. Lectures on Dante were frequently delivered in the churches of Florence during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it was interesting for those attending them to have a portrait on the wall. This picture was painted by Domenico di Michelino, the portrait of Dante being prepared for him by Alessio Baldovinetti, who probably took it from Giotto's fresco in the chapel of the Podestá at the Bargello. In this picture Dante stands between the Inferno and a concentrated Florence in which portions of the Duomo, the Signoria, the Badia, the Bargello, and Or San Michele are visible. Behind him is Paradise. In his hand is the "Divine Comedy". I say no more of the poet here, because a large part of the chapter on the Badia is given to him. Near the Dante picture in the left aisle are two Donatellos--the massive S. John the Evangelist, seated, who might have given ideas to Michelangelo for his Moses a century and more later; and, nearer the door, between the tablets to De Fabris and Squarciaparello, the so-called Poggio Bracciolini, a witty Italian statesman and Humanist and friend of the Medici, who, however, since he was much younger than this figure at the time of its exhibition, and is not known to have visited Florence till later, probably did not sit for it. But it is a powerful and very natural work, although its author never intended it to stand on any floor, even of so dim a cathedral as this. The S. John, I may say, was brought from the old façade--not Arnolfo's, but the committee's façade--where it had a niche about ten feet from the ground. The Poggio was also on this façade, but higher. It was Poggio's son, Jacopo, who took part in the Pazzi Conspiracy, of which we are about to read, and was very properly hanged for it. Of the two pictures on the entrance wall, so high as to be imperfectly seen, that on the right as you face it has peculiar interest to English visitors, for (painted by Paolo Uccello, whose great battle piece enriches our National Gallery) it represents Sir John Hawkwood, an English free-lance and head of the famous White Company, who after some successful raids on Papal territory in Provence, put his sword, his military genius, and his bravoes at the service of the highest bidder among the warlike cities and provinces of Italy, and, eventually passing wholly into the employment of Florence (after harrying her for other pay-masters for some years), delivered her very signally from her enemies in 1392. Hawkwood was an Essex man, the son of a tanner at Hinckford, and was born there early in the fourteenth century. He seems to have reached France as an archer under Edward III, and to have remained a free-booter, passing on to Italy, about 1362, to engage joyously in as much fighting as any English commander can ever have had, for some thirty years, with very good pay for it. Although, by all accounts, a very Salomon Brazenhead, Hawkwood had enough dignity to be appointed English Ambassador to Rome, and later to Florence, which he made his home, and where he died in 1394. He was buried in the Duomo, on the north side of the choir, and was to have reposed beneath a sumptuous monument made under his own instructions, with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi and Giuliano d'Arrigo; but something intervened, and Uccello's fresco was used instead, and this, some sixty years ago, was transferred to canvas and moved to the position in which it now is seen. Hawkwood's life, briskly told by a full-blooded hand, would make a fine book. One pleasant story at least is related of him, that on being beset by some begging friars who prefaced their mendicancy with the words, "God give you peace," he answered, "God take away your alms"; and, on their protesting, reminded them that such peace was the last thing he required, since should their pious wish come true he would die of hunger. One of the daughters of this fire-eater married John Shelley, and thus became an ancestress of Shelley the poet, who, as it chances, also found a home for a while in this city, almost within hailing distance of his ancestor's tomb and portrait, and here wrote not only his "Ode to the West Wind," but his caustic satire, "Peter Bell the Third". Hawkwood's name is steeped sufficiently in carnage; but we get to the scene of bloodshed in reality as we approach the choir, for it was here that Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated, as he attended High Mass, on April 26th, 1478, with the connivance, if not actually at the instigation, of Christ's Vicar himself, Pope Sixtus IV. Florentine history is so eventful and so tortuous that beyond the bare outline given in chapter V, I shall make in these pages but little effort to follow it, assuming a certain amount of knowledge on the part of the reader; but it must be stated here that periodical revolts against the power and prestige of the Medici often occurred, and none was more desperate than that of the Pazzi family in 1478, acting with the support of the Pope behind all and with the co-operation of Girolamo Riario, nephew of the Pope, and Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa. The Pazzi, who were not only opposed to the temporal power of the Medici, but were their rivals in business--both families being bankers--wished to rid Florence of Lorenzo and Giuliano in order to be greater both civically and financially. Girolamo wished the removal of Lorenzo and Giuliano in order that hostility to his plans for adding Forli and Faenza to the territory of Imola, which the Pope had successfully won for him against Lorenzo's opposition, might disappear. The Pope had various political reasons for wishing Lorenzo's and Giuliano's death and bringing Florence, always headstrong and dangerous, to heel. While as for Salviati, it was sufficient that he was Archbishop of Pisa, Florence's ancient rival and foe; but he was a thoroughly bad lot anyway. Assassination also was in the air, for Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan had been stabbed in church in 1476, thus to some extent paving the way for this murder, since Lorenzo and Sforza, when acting together, had been practically unassailable. In 1478 Lorenzo was twenty-nine, Giuliano twenty-five. Lorenzo had been at the head of Florentine affairs for nine years and he was steadily growing in strength and popularity. Hence it was now or never. The conspirators' first idea was to kill the brothers at a banquet which Lorenzo was to give to the great-nephew of the Pope, the youthful Cardinal Raffaello Riario, who promised to be an amenable catspaw. Giuliano, however, having hurt his leg, was not well enough to be present, but as he would attend High Mass, the conspirators decided to act then. That is to say, it was then, in the cathedral, that the death of the Medici brothers was to be effected; meanwhile another detachment of conspirators under Salviati was to rise simultaneously to capture the Signoria, while the armed men of the party who were outside and inside the walls would begin their attacks on the populace. Thus, at the same moment Medici and city would fall. Such was the plan. The actual assassins were Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, who were nominally friends of the Medici (Francesco's brother Guglielmo having married Bianca de' Medici, Lorenzo's sister), and two priests named Maffeo da Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone. A professional bravo named Montesecco was to have killed Lorenzo, but refused on learning that the scene of the murder was to be a church. At that, he said, he drew the line: murder anywhere else he could perform cheerfully, but in a sacred building it was too much to ask. He therefore did nothing, but, subsequently confessing, made the guilt of all his associates doubly certain. When High Mass began it was found that Giuliano was not present, and Francesco de' Pazzi and Bandini were sent to persuade him to come--a Judas-like errand indeed. On the way back, it is said, one of them affectionately placed his arm round Giuliano--to see if he wore a shirt of mail--remarking, to cover the action, that he was getting fat. On his arrival, Giuliano took his place at the north side of the circular choir, near the door which leads to the Via de' Servi, while Lorenzo stood at the opposite side. At the given signal Bandini and Pazzi were to stab Giuliano and the two priests were to stab Lorenzo. The signal was the breaking of the Eucharistic wafer, and at this solemn moment Giuliano was instantly killed, with one stab in the heart and nineteen elsewhere, Francesco so overdoing his attack that he severely wounded himself too; but Lorenzo was in time to see the beginning of the assault, and, making a movement to escape, he prevented the priest from doing aught but inflict a gash in his neck, and, springing away, dashed behind the altar to the old sacristy, where certain of his friends who followed him banged the heavy bronze doors on the pursuing foe. Those in the cathedral, mean-while, were in a state of hysterical alarm; the youthful cardinal was hurried into the new sacristy; Guglielmo de' Pazzi bellowed forth his innocence in loud tones; and his murderous brother and Bandini got off. Order being restored, Lorenzo was led by a strong bodyguard to the Palazzo Medici, where he appeared at a window to convince the momentarily increasing crowd that he was still living. Meanwhile things were going not much more satisfactorily for the Pazzi at the Palazzo Vecchio, where, according to the plan, the gonfalonier, Cesare Petrucci, was to be either killed or secured. The Archbishop Salviati, who was to effect this, managed his interview so clumsily that Petrucci suspected something, those being suspicious times, and, instead of submitting to capture, himself turned the key on his visitors. The Pazzi faction in the city, meanwhile, hoping that all had gone well in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as in the cathedral (as they thought), were running through the streets calling "Viva la Libertà!" to be met with counter cries of "Palle! palle!"--the palle being the balls on the Medici escutcheon, still to be seen all over Florence and its vicinity and on every curtain in the Uffizi. The truth gradually spreading, the city then rose for the Medici and justice began to be done. The Archbishop was handed at once, just as he was, from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco de' Pazzi, who had got home to bed, was dragged to the Palazzo and hanged too. The mob meanwhile were not idle, and most of the Pazzi were accounted for, together with many followers--although Lorenzo publicly implored them to be merciful. Poliziano, the scholar-poet and friend of Lorenzo, has left a vivid account of the day. With his own eyes he saw the hanging Salviati, in his last throes, bite the hanging Francesco de Pazzi. Old Jacopo succeeded in escaping, but not for long, and a day or so later he too was hanged. Bandini got as far as Constantinople, but was brought back in chains and hanged. The two priests hid in the Benedictine abbey in the city and for a while evaded search, but being found they were torn to pieces by the crowd. Montesecco, having confessed, was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello. The hanging of the chief conspirators was kept in the minds of the short-memoried Florentines by a representation outside the Palazzo Vecchio, by none other than the wistful, spiritual Botticelli; while three effigies, life size, of Lorenzo--one of them with his bandaged neck--were made by Verrocchio in coloured wax and set up in places where prayers might be offered. Commemorative medals which may be seen in the Bargello, were also struck, and the family of Pazzi was banished and its name removed by decree from the city's archives. Poor Giuliano, who was generally beloved for his charm and youthful spirits, was buried at S. Lorenzo in great state. I have often attended High Mass in this Duomo choir--the theatre of the Pazzi tragedy--but never without thinking of that scene. Luca della Robbia's doors to the new sacristy, which gave the young cardinal his safety, had been finished only eleven years. Donatello was to have designed them, but his work at Padua was too pressing. The commission was then given to Michelozzo, Donatello's partner, and to Luca della Robbia, but it seems likely that Luca did nearly all. The doors are in very high relief, thus differing absolutely from Donatello's at S. Lorenzo, which are in very low. Luca's work here is sweet and mild rather than strong, and the panels derive their principal charm from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the saints. Above the door was placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, the beautiful cantoria, also by Luca, which is now in the museum of the cathedral, while above the door of the old sacristy was Donatello's cantoria. Commonplace new ones now take their place. In the semicircle over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend of the Virgin Mary still sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello. As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that younger sculptor, the author of the Pietà at the back of the altar, near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, in 1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti. This group, which is unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, and it was meant to be part of his own tomb. Vasari, to whose "Lives of the Painters" we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so much good human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar authority, since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us that once when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he found him at work upon this Pietà, but the sculptor was so dissatisfied with one portion that he let his lantern fall in order that Vasari might not see it, saying: "I am so old that death frequently drags at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this lantern". The Pietà is still in deep gloom, as the master would have liked, but enough is revealed to prove its pathos and its power. In the east end of the nave is the chapel of S. Zenobius, containing a bronze reliquary by Ghiberti, with scenes upon it from the life of this saint, so important in Florentine religious history. It is, however, very hard to see, and should be illuminated. Zenobius was born at Florence in the reign of Constantine the Great, when Christianity was by no means the prevailing religion of the city, although the way had been paved by various martyrs. After studying philosophy and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome by Pope Damasus. On the Pope's death he became Bishop of Florence, and did much, says Butler, to "extirpate the kingdom of Satan". The saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands--one of the few survivors of Florence's hundreds of towers--at the corner of the Via Por S. Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) and the Via Lambertesca. It is called the Torre de' Girolami, and on S. Zenobius' day--May 25th--is decorated with flowers; and since never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it is a sight to see. The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, although it had not then its dome, from S. Lorenzo, in 1330, and the simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower. The result was that the tree was cut completely to pieces by relic hunters, but the column by the Baptistery, the work of Brunelleschi (erected on the site of an earlier one), fortunately remains as evidence of the miracle. Ghiberti, however, did not choose this miracle but another for representation; for not only did Zenobius dead restore animation, but while he was himself living he resuscitated two boys. The one was a ward of his own; the second was an ordinary Florentine, for whom the same modest boon was craved by his sorrowing parents. It is one of these scenes of resuscitation which Ghiberti has designed in bronze, while Ridolfo Ghirlandaio painted it in a picture in the Uffizi. We shall see S. Zenobius again in the fresco by Ridolfo's father, the great Ghirlandaio, in the Palazzo Vecchio; while the portrait on the first pillar of the left aisle, as one enters the cathedral is of Zenobius too. The date of the Pazzi Conspiracy was 1478. A few years later the same building witnessed the extraordinary effects of Savonarola's oratory, when such was the terrible picture he drew of the fate of unregenerate sinners that his listeners' hair was said actually to rise with fright. Savonarola came towards the end of the Renaissance, to give it its death-blow. By contrast there is a tablet on the right wall of the cathedral in honour of one who did much to bring about the paganism and sophistication against which the impassioned reformer uttered his fiercest denunciations: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1491), the neo-Platonist protegé of Cosimo de' Medici, and friend both of Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo. To explain Marsilio's influence it is necessary to recede a little into history. In 1439 Cosimo de' Medici succeeded in transferring the scene of the Great Council of the Church to Florence. At this conference representatives of the Western Church, centred in Rome, met those of the Eastern Church, centred in Constantinople, which was still Christian, for the purpose of discussing various matters, not the least of which was the protection of the Eastern Church against the Infidel. Not only was Constantinople continually threatened by the Turks, and in need of arms as well as sympathy, but the two branches of the Church were at enmity over a number of points. It was as much to heal these differences as to seek temporal aid that the Emperor John Palaeologus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and a vast concourse of nobles, priests, and Greek scholars, arrived in Italy, and, after sojourning at Venice and Ferrara, moved on to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo. The Emperor resided in the Peruzzi palace, now no more, near S. Croce; the Patriarch of Constantinople lodged (and as it chanced, died, for he was very old) at the Ferrantini palace, now the Casa Vernaccia, in the Borgo Pinti; while Pope Eugenius was at the convent attached to S. Maria Novella. The meetings of the Council were held where we now stand--in the cathedral, whose dome had just been placed upon it all ready for them. The Council failed in its purpose, and, as we know, Constantinople was lost some years later, and the great empire of which John Palaeologus was the last ruler ceased to be. That, however, at the moment is beside the mark. The interesting thing to us is that among the scholars who came from Constantinople, bringing with them numbers of manuscripts and systems of thought wholly new to the Florentines, was one Georgius Gemisthos, a Greek philosopher of much personal charm and comeliness, who talked a bland and beautiful Platonism that was extremely alluring not only to his youthful listeners but also to Cosimo himself. Gemisthos was, however, a Greek, and Cosimo was too busy a man in a city of enemies, or at any rate of the envious, to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts; but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was none other than a youthful scholar by name Marsilio Ficino, connected with S. Lorenzo, Cosimo's family church, and the son of Cosimo's own physician. To the young and ardent Marsilio, Plato became a god and Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the Greek invasion of Florence that proceeded the stream of culture which is known as Humanism, and which, no doubt, in time, was so largely concerned in bringing about that indifference to spiritual things which, leading to general laxity and indulgence, filled Savonarola with despair. I am not concerned to enter deeply into the subject of the Renaissance. But this must be said--that the new painting and sculpture, particularly the painting of Masaccio and the sculpture of Donatello, had shown the world that the human being could be made the measure of the Divine. The Madonna and Christ had been related to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects, so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity, naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity that was perhaps a finer thing than the religion that required all the machinery and intrigue of Rome. And when, as the knowledge of Greek spread and the minute examination of documents ensued, it was found that Rome had not disdained forgery to gain her ends, a blow was struck against the Church from which it never recovered;--and how much of this was due to this Florentine Marsilio, sitting at the feet of the Greek Gemisthos, who came to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici! The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design. They are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour. The greens in particular are very striking. But the jewel of these circular windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce. And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence to make a point of entering it every day--not, as so many Florentines do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de' Servi, and vice versâ, but to gather its spirit. It is different every hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty. CHAPTER III The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria. In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and, as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy Sepulchre. These he brought to Florence, and they are now preserved at SS. Apostoli, the little church in the Piazza del Limbo, off the Borgo SS. Apostoli, and every year the flints are used to kindle the fire needed for the right preservation of Easter Day. Gradually the ceremony enlarged until it became a spectacle indeed, which the Pazzi family for centuries controlled. After the Pazzi conspiracy they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned, the Pazzi again resumed. The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on Holy Saturday last and am about to describe. First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo, along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. I should add that anyone on the route in charge of a street shrine had the right to stop the procession in order to take a light from it; while at SS. Apostoli women congregated with tapers and lanterns in the hope of getting these kindled from the sacred flame, in order to wash their babies or cook their food in water heated with the fire. Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the Baptistery until needed again. After some haggling on the night before, I had secured a seat on a balcony facing Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors, for eleven lire, and to this place I went at half-past ten. The piazza was then filling up, and at a quarter to eleven the trams running between the Cathedral and the Baptistery were stopped. In this space was the car. The present one, which dates from 1622, is more like a catafalque, and unless one sees it in motion, with the massive white oxen pulling it, one cannot believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks) upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire, to ignite the car. The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven, and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical; picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient. At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods, and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the archbishop, very sumptuous. All having disappeared into the Baptistery, through Ghiberti's second gates, which I never saw opened before, the dove's wire was stretched and fastened, a matter needing much care; and the crowds began to surge. The cocked hats and officers had the space all to themselves, with the car, the firemen, the pyrotechnist and the few privileged and very self-conscious civilians who were allowed inside. A curious incident, which many years ago might have been magnified into a portent, occurred while the ecclesiastics were in the Artistry. Some one either bought and liberated several air balloons, or the string holding them was surreptitiously cut; but however it happened, the balls escaped and suddenly the crowd sent up a triumphant yell. At first I could see no reason for it, the Baptistery intervening, but then the balls swam into our ken and steadily floated over the cathedral out of sight amid tremendous satisfaction. And the portent? Well, as they moved against the blue sky they formed themselves into precisely the pattern of the palle on the Medici escutcheon. That is all. But think what that would have meant in the fifteenth century; the nods and frowns it would have occasioned; the dispersal of the Medici, the loss of power, and all the rest of it, that it would have presaged! At about twenty to twelve the ecclesiastics returned and were swallowed up by the Duomo, and then excitement began to be acute. The pyrotechnist was not free from it; he fussed about nervously; he tested everything again and again; he crawled under the car and out of it; he talked to officials; he inspected and re-inspected. Photographers began to adjust their distances; the detached men in bowlers looked at their watches; the cocked hats drew nearer to the Duomo door. And then we heard a tearing noise. All eyes were turned to the great door, and out rushed the dove emitting a wake of sparks, entered the car and was out again on its homeward journey before one realized what had happened. And then the explosions began, and the bells--silent since Thursday--broke out. How many explosions there were I do not know; but they seemed to go on for ten minutes. This is a great moment not only for the spectator but for all Florence, for in myriad rooms mothers have been waiting, with their babies on their knees, for the first clang of the belfries, because if a child's eyes are washed then it is unlikely ever to have weak sight, while if a baby takes its first steps to this accompaniment its legs will not be bowed. At the last explosion the pyrotechnist, now a calm man once more and a proud one, approached the car, the firemen poured water on smouldering parts, and the work of clearing up began. Then came the patient oxen, their horns and hooves gilt, and great masses of flowers on their heads, and red cloths with the lily of Florence on it over their backs--much to be regretted since they obliterated their beautiful white skins--and slowly the car lumbered off, and, the cocked hats relenting, the crowd poured after it and the Scoppio del Carro was over. The Duomo has a little sister in the shape of the Museo di Santa Maria del Fiore, or the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, situated in the Piazza opposite the apse; and we should go there now. This museum, which is at once the smallest and, with the exception of the Natural History Museum, the cheapest of the Florentine museums, for it costs but half a lira, is notable for containing the two cantorie, or singing galleries, made for the cathedral, one by Donatello and one by Luca della Robbia. A cantoria by Donatello we shall soon see in its place in S. Lorenzo; but that, beautiful as it is, cannot compare with this one, with its procession of merry, dancing children, its massiveness and grace, its joyous ebullitions of gold mosaic and blue enamel. Both the cantorie--Donatello's, begun in 1433 and finished in 1439, and Luca's, begun in 1431 and finished in 1438--fulfilled their melodious functions in the Duomo until 1688, when they were ruthlessly cleared away to make room for large wooden balconies to be used in connexion with the nuptials of Ferdinand de' Medici and the Princess Violante of Bavaria. In the year 1688 taste was at a low ebb, and no one thought the deposed cantorie even worth preservation, so that they were broken up and occasionally levied upon for cornices and so forth. The fragments were collected and taken to the Bargello in the middle of the last century, and in 1883 Signer del Moro, the then architect of the Duomo (whose bust is in the courtyard of this museum), reconstructed them to the best of his ability in their present situation. It has to be remembered not only that, with the exception of the figures, the galleries are not as their artists made them, lacking many beautiful accessories, but that, as Vasari tells us, Donatello deliberately designed his for a dim light. None the less, they remain two of the most delightful works of the Renaissance and two of the rarest treasures of Florence. The dancing boys behind the small pillars with their gold chequering, the brackets, and the urn of the cornice over the second pair of pillars from the right, are all that remain of Donatello's own handiwork. All else is new and conjectural. It is supposed that bronze heads of lions filled the two circular spaces between the brackets in the middle. But although the loss of the work as a whole is to be regretted, the dancing boys remain, to be for ever an inspiration and a pleasure. The Luca della Robbia cantoria opposite is not quite so triumphant a masterpiece, but from the point of view of suitability it is perhaps better. We can believe that Luca's children hymn the glory of the Lord, as indeed the inscription makes them, whereas Donatello's romp with a gladness that might easily be purely pagan. Luca's design is more formal, more conventional; Donatello's is rich and free and fluid with personality. The two end panels of Luca's are supplied in the cantoria by casts; the originals are on the wall below and may be carefully studied. The animation and fervour of these choristers are unforgettable. It is well, while enjoying Donatello's work, to remember that Prato is only half an hour from Florence, and that there may be seen the open-air pulpit, built on the corner of the cathedral, which Donatello, with Michelozzo, his friend and colleague, made at the same time that the cantoria was in progress, and which in its relief of happy children is very similar, although not, I think, quite so remarkable. It lacks also the peculiarly naturalistic effect gained in the cantoria by setting the dancing boys behind the pillars, which undoubtedly, as comparison with the Luca shows, assists realism. The row of pillars attracts the eye first and the boys are thus thrown into a background which almost moves. Although the cantorie dominate the museum they must not be allowed to overshadow all else. A marble relief of the Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) must be sought for: it is No. 77 and the children are the merriest in Florence. Another memorable Madonna and Child is No. 94, by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (1406-1470), who has interest for us in this place as being one of Donatello's assistants, very possibly on this very cantoria, and almost certainly on the Prato pulpit. Everything here, it must be remembered, has some association with the Duomo and was brought here for careful preservation and that whoever has fifty centimes might take pleasure in seeing it; but the great silver altar is from the Baptistery, and being made for that temple is naturally dedicated to the life of John the Baptist. Although much of it was the work of not the greatest modellers in the second half of the fourteenth century, three masters at least contributed later: Michelozzo adding the statue of the Baptist, Pollaiuolo the side relief depicting his birth, and Verrocchio that of his death, which is considered one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor, whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings, all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge of pictures of this saint--not inconsiderable--is the highest number. The next room is given to models and architectural plans and drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern. On the stairs are a series of fine bas-reliefs by Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera from the old choir screen of the Duomo, and downstairs, among many other pieces of sculpture, is a bust of Brunelleschi from a death-mask and several beautiful della Robbia designs for lunettes over doors. CHAPTER IV The Campanile and the Baptistery A short way with Veronese critics--Giotto's missing spire--Donatello's holy men--Giotto as encyclopaedist--The seven and twenty reliefs--Ruskin in American--At the top of the tower--A sea of red roofs--The restful Baptistery--Historic stones--An ex-Pope's tomb--Andrea Pisano's doors--Ghiberti's first doors--Ghiberti's second doors--Michelangelo's praise--A gentleman artist. It was in 1332, as I have said, that Giotto was made capo-maestro, and on July 18th, 1334, the first stone of his campanile was laid, the understanding being that the structure was to exceed "in magnificence, height, and excellence of workmanship" anything in the world. As some further indication of the glorious feeling of patriotism then animating the Florentines, it may be remarked that when a Veronese who happened to be in Florence ventured to suggest that the city was aiming rather too high, he was at once thrown into gaol, and, on being set free when his time was done, was shown the treasury as an object lesson. Of the wealth and purposefulness of Florence at that time, in spite of the disastrous bellicose period she had been passing through, Villani the historian, who wrote history as it was being made, gives an excellent account, which Macaulay summarizes in his vivid way. Thus: "The revenue of the Republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; a sum fully equal in exchangeable value to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only but of all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III of England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand children inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; six hundred received a learned education." Giotto died in 1386, and after his death, as I have said, Andrea Pisano came in for a while; to be followed by Talenti, who is said to have made considerable alterations in Giotto's design and to be responsible for the happy idea of increasing the height of the windows with the height of the tower and thus adding to the illusion of springing lightness. The topmost ones, so bold in size and so lovely with their spiral columns, almost seem to lift it. The campanile to-day is 276 feet in height, and Giotto proposed to add to that a spire of 105 feet. The Florentines completed the façade of the cathedral in 1887 and are now spending enormous sums on the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo; why should they not one day carry out their greatest artist's intention? The campanile as a structure had been finished in 1387, but not for many years did it receive its statues, of which something must be said, although it is impossible to get more than a vague idea of them, so high are they. A captive balloon should be arranged for the use of visitors. Those by Donatello, on the Baptistery side, are the most remarkable. The first of these--that nearest to the cathedral and the most striking as seen from the distant earth--is called John the Baptist, always a favourite subject with this sculptor, who, since he more than any at that thoughtful time endeavoured to discover and disclose the secret of character, is curiously unfortunate in the accident that has fastened names to these figures. This John, for example, bears no relation to his other Baptists; nor does the next figure represent David, as is generally supposed, but owes that error to the circumstance that when the David that originally stood here was moved to the north side, the old plinth bearing his name was left behind. This famous figure is stated by Vasari to be a portrait of a Florentine merchant named Barduccio Cherichini, and for centuries it has been known as Il Zuccone (or pumpkin) from its baldness. Donatello, according to Vasari, had a particular liking for the work, so much that he used to swear by it; while, when engaged upon it, he is said to have so believed in its reality as to exclaim, "Speak, speak! or may a dysentery seize thee!" It is now generally considered to represent Job, and we cannot too much regret the impossibility of getting near enough to study it. Next is the Jeremiah, which, according to Vasari, was a portrait of another Florentine, but which, since he bears his name on a scroll, may none the less be taken to realize the sculptor's idea of Jeremiah. It is (according to the photographs) a fine piece of rugged vivacity, and the head is absolutely that of a real man. On the opposite side of the tower is the magnificent Abraham's sacrifice from the same strong hand, and by it Habakkuk, who is no less near life than the Jeremiah and Job, but a very different type. At both Or San Michele and the Bargello we are to find Donatello perhaps in a finer mood than here, and comfortably visible. For most visitors to Florence and all disciples of Ruskin, the chief interest of the campanile ("The Shepherd's Tower" as he calls it) is the series of twenty-seven reliefs illustrating the history of the world and the progress of mankind, which are to be seen round the base, the design, it is supposed, of Giotto, executed by Andrea Pisano and Luca della Robbia. To Andrea are given all those on the west (7), south (7), east (5), and the two eastern ones on the north; to Luca the remaining five on the north. Ruskin's fascinating analysis of these reliefs should most certainly be read (without a total forgetfulness of the shepherd's other activities as a painter, architect, humorist, and friend of princes and poets), but equally certainly not in the American pirated edition which the Florentine booksellers are so ready (to their shame) to sell you. Only Ruskin in his best mood of fury could begin to do justice to the misspellings and mispunctuations of this terrible production. Ruskin, I may say, believes several of the carvings to be from Giotto's own chisel as well as design, but other and more modern authorities disagree, although opinion now inclines to the belief that the designs for Pisano's Baptistery doors are also his. Such thoroughness and ingenuity were all in Giotto's way, and they certainly suggest his active mind. The campanile series begins at the west side with the creation of man. Among the most attractive are, I think, those devoted to agriculture, with the spirited oxen, to astronomy, to architecture, to weaving, and to pottery. Giotto was even so thorough as to give one relief to the conquest of the air; and he makes Noah most satisfactorily drunk. Note also the Florentine fleur-de-lis round the base of the tower. Every fleur-de-lis in Florence is beautiful--even those on advertisements and fire-plugs--but few are more beautiful than these. I climbed the campanile one fine morning--417 steps from the ground--and was well repaid; but I think it is wiser to ascend the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, because one is higher there and, since the bulk of the dome, which intrudes from the campanile, is avoided, one has a better all-round view. Florence seen from this eminence is very red--so uniformly so that many towers rise against it almost indistinguishably, particularly the Bargello's and the Badia's. One sees at once how few straight streets there are--the Ricasoli standing out among them as the exception; and one realizes how the city has developed outside, with its boulevards where the walls once were, leaving the gates isolated, and its cincture of factories. The occasional glimpses of cloisters and verdure among the red are very pleasant. One of the objects cut off by the cathedral dome is the English cemetery, but the modern Jewish temple stands out as noticeably almost as any of the ancient buildings. The Pitti looks like nothing but a barracks and the Porta Ferdinando has prominence which it gets from no other point. The roof of the Mercato Centrale is the ugliest thing in the view. While I was there the midday gun from the Boboli fortress was fired, instantly having its punctual double effect of sending all the pigeons up in a grey cloud of simulated alarm and starting every bell in the city. Those wishing to make either the campanile or Duomo ascents must remember to do it early. The closing hour for the day being twelve, no one is allowed to start up after about a quarter past eleven: a very foolish arrangement, since Florence and the surrounding Apennines under a slanting sun are more beautiful than in the morning glare, and the ascent would be less fatiguing. As it was, on descending, after being so long at the top, I was severely reprimanded by the custodian, who had previously marked me down as a barbarian for refusing his offer of field-glasses. But the Palazzo Vecchio tower is open till five. The Baptistery is the beautiful octagonal building opposite the cathedral, and once the cathedral itself. It dates from the seventh or eighth century, but as we see it now is a product chiefly of the thirteenth. The bronze doors opposite the Via Calzaioli are open every day, a circumstance which visitors, baffled by the two sets of Ghiberti doors always so firmly closed, are apt to overlook. All children born in Florence are still baptized here, and I watched one afternoon an old priest at the task, a tiny Florentine being brought in to receive the name of Tosca, which she did with less distaste than most, considering how thorough was his sprinkling. The Baptistery is rich in colour both without and within. The floor alone is a marvel of intricate inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which reads the same backwards and forwards--"En gire torte sol ciclos et roterigne". On this very pavement Dante, who called the church his "beautiful San Giovanni," has walked. Over the altar is a gigantic and primitive Christ in mosaic, more splendid than spiritual. The mosaics in the recesses of the clerestory--grey and white--are the most soft and lovely of all. I believe the Baptistery is the most restful place in Florence; and this is rather odd considering that it is all marble and mosaic patterns. But its shape is very soothing, and age has given it a quality of its own, and there is just that touch of barbarism about it such as one gets in Byzantine buildings to lend it a peculiar character here. The most notable sculpture in the Baptistery is the tomb of the ex-Pope John XXIII, whose licentiousness was such that there was nothing for it but to depose and imprison him. He had, however, much money, and on his liberation he settled in Florence, presented a true finger of John the Baptist to the Baptistery, and arranged in return for his bones to repose in that sanctuary. One of his executors was that Niccolò da Uzzano, the head of the noble faction in the city, whose coloured bust by Donatello is in the Bargello. The tomb is exceedingly fine, the work of Donatello and his partner Michelozzo, who were engaged to make it by Giovanni de' Medici, the ex-pontiff's friend, and the father of the great Cosimo. The design is all Donatello's, and his the recumbent cleric, lying very naturally, hardly as if dead at all, a little on one side, so that his face is seen nearly full; the three figures beneath are Michelozzo's; but Donatello probably carved the seated angels who display the scroll which bears the dead Pope's name. The Madonna and Child above are by Donatello's assistant, Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, a pretty relief by whom we saw in the Museum of the Cathedral. Being in red stone, and very dusty, like Ghiberti's doors (which want the hose regularly), the lines of the tomb are much impaired. Donatello is also represented here by a Mary Magdalene in wood, on an altar at the left of the entrance door, very powerful and poignant. In the ordinary way, when visitors to Florence speak of the Baptistery doors they mean those opposite the Duomo, and when they go to the Bargello and look at the designs made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi in competition, they think that the competition was for those. But that is wrong. Ghiberti won his spurs with the doors on the north side, at which comparatively few persons look. The famous doors opposite the Duomo were commissioned many years later, when his genius was acknowledged and when he had become so accomplished as to do what he liked with his medium. Before, however, coming to Ghiberti, we ought to look at the work of an early predecessor but for whom there might have been no Ghiberti at all; for while Ghiberti was at work with his assistants on these north doors, between 1403 and 1424, the place which they occupy was filled by those executed seventy years earlier by Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), possibly from Giotto's designs, which are now at the south entrance, opposite the charming little loggia at the corner of the Via Calzaioli, called the Bigallo. These represent twenty scenes in the life of S. John the Baptist, and below them are eight figures of cardinal and Christian virtues, and they employed their sculptor from 1330 to 1336. They have three claims to notice: as being admirably simple and vigorous in themselves; as having influenced all later workers in this medium, and particularly Ghiberti and Donatello; and as being the bronze work of the sculptor of certain of the stone scenes round the base of Giotto's campanile. The panel in which the Baptist is seen up to his waist in the water is surely the very last word in audacity in bronze. Ghiberti was charged with making bronze do things that it was ill fitted for; but I do not know that even he moulded water--and transparent water--from it. The year 1399 is one of the most notable in the history of modern art, since it was then that the competition for the Baptistery gates was made public, this announcement being the spring from which many rivers flowed. In that year Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young goldsmith assisting his father, was twenty-one, and Filippo Brunelleschi, another goldsmith, was twenty-two, while Giotto had been dead sixty-three years and the impulse he had given to painting had almost worked itself out. The new doors were to be of the same shape and size as those by Andrea Pisano, which were already getting on for seventy years old, and candidates were invited to make a specimen relief to scale, representing the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, although the subject-matter of the doors was to be the Life of S. John the Baptist. Among the judges was that Florentine banker whose name was beginning to be known in the city as a synonym for philanthropy, enlightenment, and sagacity, Giovanni de' Medici. In 1401 the specimens were ready, and after much deliberation as to which was the better, Ghiberti's or Brunelleschi's--assisted, some say, by Brunelleschi's own advice in favour of his rival--the award was given to Ghiberti, and he was instructed to proceed with his task; while Brunelleschi, as we have seen, being a man of determined ambition, left for Rome to study architecture, having made up his mind to be second to no one in whichever of the arts and crafts he decided to pursue. Here then was the first result of the competition--that it turned Brunelleschi to architecture. Ghiberti began seriously in 1408 and continued till 1424, when the doors were finished; but, in order to carry out the work, he required assistance in casting and so forth, and for that purpose engaged among others a sculptor named Donatello (born in 1386), a younger sculptor named Luca della Robbia (born in 1400), and a gigantic young painter called Masaccio (born in 1401), each of whom was destined, taking fire no doubt from Ghiberti and his fine free way, to be a powerful innovator--Donatello (apart from other and rarer achievements) being the first sculptor since antiquity to place a statue on a pedestal around which observers could walk; Masaccio being the first painter to make pictures in the modern use of the term, with men and women of flesh and blood in them, as distinguished from decorative saints, and to be by example the instructor of all the greatest masters, from his pupil Lippo Lippi to Leonardo and Michelangelo; and Luca della Robbia being the inspired discoverer of an inexpensive means of glazing terra-cotta so that his beautiful and radiant Madonnas could be brought within the purchasing means of the poorest congregation in Italy. These alone are remarkable enough results, but when we recollect also that Brunelleschi's defeat led to the building of the cathedral dome, the significance of the event becomes the more extraordinary. The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see their installation. In the number and shape of the panels Pisano set the standard, but Ghiberti's work resembled that of his predecessor very little in other ways, for he had a mind of domestic sweetness without austerity and he was interested in making everything as easy and fluid and beautiful as might be. His thoroughness recalls Giotto in certain of his frescoes. The impression left by Pisano's doors is akin to that left by reading the New Testament; but Ghiberti makes everything happier than that. Two scenes--both on the level of the eye--I particularly like: the "Annunciation," with its little, lithe, reluctant Virgin, and the "Adoration". The border of the Pisano doors is, I think, finer than that of Ghiberti's; but it is a later work. Looking at them even now, with eyes that remember so much of the best art that followed them and took inspiration from them, we can understand the better how delighted Florence must have been with this new picture gallery and how the doors were besieged by sightseers. But greater still was to come. Ghiberti at once received the commission to make two more doors on his own scale for the south side of the Baptistery, and in 1425 he had begun on them. These were not finished until 1452, so that Ghiberti, then a man of seventy-four, had given practically his whole life to the making of four bronze doors. It is true that he did a few other things besides, such as the casket of S. Zenobius in the Duomo, and the Baptist and S. Matthew for Or San Michele; but he may be said justly to live by his doors, and particularly by the second pair, although it was the first pair that had the greater effect on his contemporaries and followers. Among his assistants on these were Antonio Pollaiuolo (born in 1429), who designed the quail in the left border, and Paolo Uccello (born in 1397), both destined to be men of influence. The bald head on the right door is a portrait of Ghiberti; that of the old man on the left is his father, who helped him to polish the original competition plaque. Although commissioned for the south side they were placed where they now are, on the east, as being most worthy of the position of honour, and Pisano's doors, which used to be here, were moved to the south, where they now are. On Ghiberti's workshop opposite S. Maria Nuova, in the Via Bufalini, the memorial tablet mentions Michelangelo's praise--that these doors were beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. After that what is an ordinary person to say? That they are lovely is a commonplace. But they are more. They are so sensitive; bronze, the medium which Horace has called, by implication, the most durable of all, has become in Ghiberti's hands almost as soft as wax and tender as flesh. It does all he asks; it almost moves; every trace of sternness has vanished from it. Nothing in plastic art that we have ever seen or shall see is more easy and ingratiating than these almost living pictures. Before them there is steadily a little knot of admirers, and on Sundays you may always see country people explaining the panels to each other. Every one has his favourite among these fascinating Biblical scenes, and mine are Cain and Abel, with the ploughing, and Abraham and Isaac, with its row of fir trees. It has been explained by the purists that the sculptor stretched the bounds of plastic art too far and made bronze paint pictures; but most persons will agree to ignore that. Of the charm of Ghiberti's mind the border gives further evidence, with its fruits and foliage, birds and woodland creatures, so true to life, and here fixed for all time, so naturally, that if these animals should ever (as is not unlikely in Italy where every one has a gun and shoots at his pleasure) become extinct, they could be created again from these designs. Ghiberti, who enjoyed great honour in his life and a considerable salary as joint architect of the dome with Brunelleschi, died three years after the completion of the second doors and was buried in S. Croce. His place in Florentine art is unique and glorious. The broken porphyry pillars by these second doors were a gift from Pisa to Florence in recognition of Florence's watchfulness over Pisa while the Pisans were away subduing the Balearic islanders. The bronze group over Ghiberti's first doors, representing John the Baptist preaching between a Pharisee and a Levite, are the work (either alone or assisted by his master Leonardo da Vinci) of an interesting Florentine sculptor, Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1474-1554), who was remarkable among the artists of his time in being what we should call an amateur, having a competence of his own and the manners of a patron. Placing himself under Verrocchio, he became closely attached to Leonardo, a fellow-pupil, and made him his model rather than the older man. He took his art lightly, and lived, in Vasari's phrase, "free from care," having such beguilements as a tame menagerie (Leonardo, it will be remembered, loved animals too and had a habit of buying small caged birds in order to set them free), and two or three dining clubs, the members of which vied with each other in devising curious and exotic dishes. Andrea del Sarto, for example, once brought as his contribution to the feast a model of this very church we are studying, the Baptistery, of which the floor was constructed of jelly, the pillars of sausages, and the choir desk of cold veal, while the choristers were roast thrushes. Rustici further paved the way to a life free from care by appointing a steward of his estate whose duty it was to see that his money-box, to which he went whenever he wanted anything, always had money in it. This box he never locked, having learned that he need fear no robbery by once leaving his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, after the Medici expulsion, and, like Leonardo, took service with Francis the First. He died at the age of eighty. I had an hour and more exactly opposite the Rustici group, on the same level, while waiting for the Scoppio del Carro, and I find it easy to believe that Leonardo himself had a hand in the work. The figure of the Baptist is superb, the attitude of his listeners masterly. CHAPTER V The Riccardi Palace and the Medici An evasion of history--"Il Caparra"--The Gozzoli frescoes--Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci)--Cosimo de' Medici--The first banishment--Piero de' Medici--Lorenzo de' Medici--Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--The second banishment--Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici--Leo X--Lorenzo di Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--Clement VII--Third banishment of the Medici--The siege of Florence--Alessandro de' Medici--Ippolito de' Medici--Lorenzino de' Medici--Giovanni delle Bande Nere--Cosimo I--The Grand Dukes. The natural step from the Baptistery would be to the Uffizi. But for us not yet; because in order to understand Florence, and particularly the Florence that existed between the extreme dates that I have chosen as containing the fascinating period--namely 1296, when the Duomo was begun, and 1564, when Michelangelo died--one must understand who and what the Medici were. While I have been enjoying the pleasant task of writing this book--which has been more agreeable than any literary work I have ever done--I have continually been conscious of a plaintive voice at my shoulder, proceeding from one of the vigilant and embarrassing imps who sit there and do duty as conscience, inquiring if the time is not about ripe for introducing that historical sketch of Florence without which no account such as this can be rightly understood. And ever I have replied with words of a soothing and procrastinating nature. But now that we are face to face with the Medici family, in their very house, I am conscious that the occasion for that historical sketch is here indeed, and equally I am conscious of being quite incapable of supplying it. For the history of Florence between, say the birth of Giotto or Dante and the return of Cosimo de' Medici from exile, when the absolute Medici rule began, is so turbulent, crowded, and complex that it would require the whole of this volume to describe it. The changes in the government of the city would alone occupy a good third, so constant and complicated were they. I should have to explain the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the Neri and the Bianchi, the Guilds and the Priors, the gonfalonieri and the podesta, the secondo popolo and the buonuomini. Rather than do this imperfectly I have chosen to do it not at all; and the curious must resort to historians proper. But there is at the end of the volume a table of the chief dates in Florentine and European history in the period chosen, together with births and deaths of artists and poets and other important persons, so that a bird's-eye view of the progress of affairs can be quickly gained, while in this chapter I offer an outline of the great family of rulers of Florence who made the little city an aesthetic lawgiver to the world and with whom her later fame, good or ill, is indissolubly united. For the rest, is there not the library? The Medici, once so powerful and stimulating, are still ever in the background of Florence as one wanders hither and thither. They are behind many of the best pictures and most of the best statues. Their escutcheon is everywhere. I ought, I believe, to have made them the subject of my first chapter. But since I did not, let us without further delay turn to the Via Cavour, which runs away to the north from the Baptistery, being a continuation of the Via de' Martelli, and pause at the massive and dignified palace at the first corner on the left. For that is the Medici's home; and afterwards we will step into S. Lorenzo and see the church which Brunelleschi and Donatello made beautiful and Michelangelo wonderful that the Medici might lie there. Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see. In the courtyard are certain fragments of antique sculpture arranged against the walls, and a sarcophagus is shown in which an early member of the family, Guccio de' Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1299, once reposed. There too are Donatello's eight medallions, but they are not very interesting, being only enlarged copies of old medals and cameos and not notable for his own characteristics. Hence it is that, after Gozzoli, by far the most interesting part of this building is its associations. For here lived Cosimo de' Medici, whose building of the palace was interrupted by his banishment as a citizen of dangerous ambition; here lived Piero de' Medici, for whom Gozzoli worked; here was born and here lived Lorenzo the Magnificent. To this palace came the Pazzi conspirators to lure Giuliano to the Duomo and his doom. Here did Charles VIII--Savonarola's "Flagellum Dei"--lodge and loot, and it was here that Capponi frightened him with the threat of the Florentine bells; hither came in 1494 the fickle and terrible Florentine mob, always passionate in its pursuit of change and excitement, and now inflamed by the sermons of Savonarola, to destroy the priceless manuscripts and works of art; here was brought up for a year or so the little Catherine de' Medici, and next door was the house in which Alessandro de' Medici was murdered. It was in the seventeenth century that the palace passed to the Riccardi family, who made many additions. A century later Florence acquired it, and to-day it is the seat of the Prefect of the city. Cosimo's original building was smaller; but much of it remains untouched. The exquisite cornice is Michelozzo's original, and the courtyard has merely lost its statues, among which are Donatello's Judith, now in the Loggia de' Lanzi, and his bronze David, now in the Bargello, while Verrocchio's David was probably on the stairs. The escutcheon on the corner of the house gives us the period of its erection. The seven plain balls proclaim it Cosimo's. Each of the Medici sported these palle, although each had also his private crest. Under Giovanni, Cosimo's father, the balls were eight in number; under Cosimo, seven; under Piero, seven, with the fleur-de-lis of France on the uppermost, given him by Louis XI; under Lorenzo, six; and as one walks about Florence one can approximately fix the date of a building by remembering these changes. How many times they occur on the façades of Florence and its vicinity, probably no one could say; but they are everywhere. The French wits, who were amused to derive Catherine de' Medici from a family of apothecaries, called them pills. The beautiful lantern at the corner was added by Lorenzo and was the work of an odd ironsmith in Florence for whom he had a great liking--Niccolò Grosso. For Lorenzo had all that delight in character which belongs so often to the born patron and usually to the born connoisseur. This Grosso was a man of humorous independence and bluntness. He had the admirable custom of carrying out his commissions in the order in which they arrived, so that if he was at work upon a set of fire-irons for a poor client, not even Lorenzo himself (who as a matter of fact often tried) could induce him to turn to something more lucrative. The rich who cannot wait he forced to wait. Grosso also always insisted upon something in advance and payment on delivery, and pleasantly described his workshop as being the Sign of the Burning Books,--since if his books were burnt how could he enter a debt? This rule earned for him from Lorenzo the nickname of "Il Caparra" (earnest money). Another of Grosso's eccentricities was to refuse to work for Jews. Within the palace, up stairs, is the little chapel which Gozzoli made so gay and fascinating that it is probably the very gem among the private chapels of the world. Here not only did the Medici perform their devotions--Lorenzo's corner seat is still shown, and anyone may sit in it--but their splendour and taste are reflected on the walls. Cosimo, as we shall see when we reach S. Marco, invited Fra Angelico to paint upon the walls of that convent sweet and simple frescoes to the glory of God. Piero employed Fra Angelico's pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli to decorate this chapel. In the year 1439, as chapter II related, through the instrumentality of Cosimo a great episcopal Council was held at Florence, at which John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, met Pope Eugenius IV. In that year Cosimo's son Piero was twenty-three, and Gozzoli nineteen, and probably upon both, but certainly on the young artist, such pomp and splendour and gorgeousness of costume as then were visible in Florence made a deep impression. When therefore Piero, after becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should recall this historic occasion. We thus get the pageantry of the East with more than common realism, while the portraits, or at any rate representations, of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the first king) and the Emperor (the second king) are here, together with those of certain Medici, for the youthful third king is none other than Piero's eldest son Lorenzo. Among their followers are (the third on the left) Cosimo de' Medici, who is included as among the living, although, like the Patriarch of Constantinople, he was dead, and his brother Lorenzo (the middle one of the three), whose existence is forgotten so completely until the accession of Cosimo I, in 1537, brings his branch of the family into power; while on the right is Piero de' Medici himself. Piero's second son Giuliano is on the white horse, preceded by a negro carrying his bow. The head immediately above Giuliano I do not know, but that one a little to the left above it is Gozzoli's own. Among the throng are men of learning who either came to Florence from the East or Florentines who assimilated their philosophy--such as Georgius Gemisthos, Marsilio Ficino, and perhaps certain painters among them, all protégés of Cosimo and Piero, and all makers of the Renaissance. The assemblage alone, apart altogether from any beauty and charm that the painting possesses, makes these frescoes valuable. But the painting is a delight. We have a pretty Gozzoli in our National Gallery--No. 283--but it gives no indication of the ripeness and richness and incident of this work; while the famous Biblical series in the Campo Santo of Pisa has so largely perished as to be scarcely evidence to his colour. The first impression made by the Medici frescoes is their sumptuousness. When Gozzoli painted--if the story be true--he had only candle light: the window over the altar is new. But think of candle light being all the illumination of these walls as the painter worked! A new door and window have also been cut in the wall opposite the altar close to the three daughters of Piero, by vandal hands; and "Bruta, bruta!" says the guardian, very rightly. The landscape behind the procession is hardly less interesting than the procession itself; but it is when we come to the meadows of paradise, with the angels and roses, the cypresses and birds, in the two chancel scenes, that this side of Gozzoli's art is most fascinating. He has travelled a long way from his master Fra Angelico here: the heaven is of the visible rather than the invisible eye; sense is present as well as the rapturous spirit. The little Medici who endured the tedium of the services here are to be felicitated with upon such an adorable presentment of glory. With plenty of altar candles the sight of these gardens of the blest must have beguiled many a mass. Thinking here in England upon the Medici chapel, I find that the impression it has left upon me is chiefly cypresses--cypresses black and comely, disposed by a master hand, with a glint of gold among them. The picture that was over the altar has gone. It was a Lippo Lippi and is now in Berlin. The first of the Medici family to rise to the highest power was Giovanni d'Averardo de' Medici (known as Giovanni di Bicci), 1360-1429, who, a wealthy banker living in what is now the Piazza del Duomo, was well known for his philanthropy and interest in the welfare of the Florentines, but does not come much into public notice until 1401, when he was appointed one of the judges in the Baptistery door competition. He was a retiring, watchful man. Whether he was personally ambitious is not too evident, but he was opposed to tyranny and was the steady foe of the Albizzi faction, who at that time were endeavouring to obtain supreme power in Florentine affairs. In 1419 Giovanni increased his popularity by founding the Spedale degli Innocenti, and in 1421 he was elected gonfalonier, or, as we might now say, President of the Republic. In this capacity he made his position secure and reduced the nobles (chief of whom was Niccolò da Uzzano) to political weakness. Giovanni died in 1429, leaving one son, Cosimo, aged forty, a second, Lorenzo, aged thirtyfour, a fragrant memory and an immense fortune. To Lorenzo, who remained a private citizen, we shall return in time; it is Cosimo (1389-1464) with whom we are now concerned. Cosimo de' Medici was a man of great mental and practical ability: he had been educated as well as possible; he had a passion both for art and letters; he inherited his father's financial ability and generosity, while he added to these gifts a certain genius for the management of men. One of the first things that Cosimo did after his father's death was to begin the palace where we now are, rejecting a plan by Brunelleschi as too splendid, and choosing instead one by Michelozzo, the partner of Donatello, two artists who remained his personal friends through life. Cosimo selected this site, in what was then the Via Larga but is now the Via Cavour, partly because his father had once lived there, and partly because it was close to S. Lorenzo, which his father, with six other families, had begun to rebuild, a work he intended himself to carry on. The palace was begun in 1430 abd was still in progress in 1433 when the Albizzi, who had always viewed the rise of the Medici family with apprehension and misgiving, and were now strengthened by the death of Niccolò da Uzzano, who, though powerful, had been a very cautious and temperate adviser, succeeded in getting a majority in the Signoria and passing a sentence of banishment on the whole Medici tribe as being too rich and ambitious to be good citizens of a simple and frugal Republic. Cosimo therefore, after some days of imprisonment in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, during which he expected execution at any moment, left Florence for Venice, taking his architect with him. In 1434, however, the Florentines, realizing that under the Albizzi they were losing their independence, and what was to be a democracy was become an oligarchy, revolted, and Cosimo was recalled, and, like his father, was elected gonfalonier. With this recall began his long supremacy; for he returned like a king and like a king remained, quickly establishing himself as the leading man in the city, the power behind the Signoria. Not only did he never lose that position, but he made it so naturally his own that when he died he was able to transmit it to his son. Cosimo de' Medici was, I think, the wisest and best ruler that Florence ever had and ranks high among the rulers that any state ever had. But he changed the Florentines from an independent people to a dependent one. In his capacity of Father of his Country he saw to it that his children lost their proud spirit. He had to be absolute; and this end he achieved in many ways, but chiefly by his wealth, which made it possible to break the rich rebel and to enslave the poor. His greatest asset--next his wealth--was his knowledge of the Florentine character. To know anything of this capricious, fickle, turbulent folk even after the event was in itself a task of such magnitude that almost no one else had compassed it; but Cosimo did more, he knew what they were likely to do. By this knowledge, together with his riches, his craft, his tact, his business ramifications as an international banker, his open-handedness and air of personal simplicity, Cosimo made himself a power. For Florence could he not do enough. By inviting the Pope and the Greek Emperor to meet there he gave it great political importance, and incidentally brought about the New Learning. He established the Platonic Academy and formed the first public library in the west. He rebuilt and endowed the monastery of S. Marco. He built and rebuilt other churches. He gave Donatello a free hand in sculpture and Fra Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico in painting. He distributed altogether in charity and churches four hundred thousand of those golden coins which were invented by Florence and named florins after her--a sum equal to a million pounds of to-day. In every direction one comes upon traces of his generosity and thoroughness. After his death it was decided that as Pater Patriae, or Father of his Country, he should be for ever known. Cosimo died in 1464, leaving an invalid son, Piero, aged forty-eight, known for his almost continuous gout as Il Gottoso. Giovanni and Cosimo had had to work for their power; Piero stepped naturally into it, although almost immediately he had to deal with a plot--the first for thirty years--to ruin the Medici prestige, the leader of which was that Luca Pitti who began the Pitti palace in order to have a better house than the Medici. The plot failed, not a little owing to young Lorenzo de' Medici's address, and the remaining few years of Piero's life were tranquil. He was a quiet, kindly man with the traditional family love of the arts, and it was for him that Gozzoli worked. He died in 1469, leaving two sons, Lorenzo (1449-1492) and Giuliano (1453-1478). Lorenzo had been brought up as the future leading citizen of Florence: he had every advantage of education and environment, and was rich in the aristocratic spirit which often blossoms most richly in the second or third generation of wealthy business families. Giovanni had been a banker before everything, Cosimo an administrator, Piero a faithful inheritor of his father's wishes; it was left for Lorenzo to be the first poet and natural prince of the Medici blood. Lorenzo continued to bank but mismanaged the work and lost heavily; while his poetical tendencies no doubt distracted his attention generally from affairs. Yet such was his sympathetic understanding and his native splendour and gift of leadership that he could not but be at the head of everything, the first to be consulted and ingratiated. Not only was he the first Medici poet but the first of the family to marry not for love but for policy, and that too was a sign of decadence. Lorenzo came into power when only twenty, and at the age of forty-two he was dead, but in the interval, by his interest in every kind of intellectual and artistic activity, by his passion for the greatness and glory of Florence, he made for himself a name that must always connote liberality, splendour, and enlightenment. But it is beyond question that under Lorenzo the Florentines changed deeply and for the worse. The old thrift and simplicity gave way to extravagance and ostentation; the old faith gave way too, but that was not wholly the effect of Lorenzo's natural inclination towards Platonic philosophy, fostered by his tutor Marsilio Ficino and his friends Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola, but was due in no small measure also to the hostility of Pope Sixtus, which culminated in the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478 and the murder of Giuliano. Looking at the history of Florence from our present vantage-point we can see that although under Lorenzo the Magnificent she was the centre of the world's culture and distinction, there was behind this dazzling front no seriousness of purpose. She was in short enjoying the fruits of her labours as though the time of rest had come; and this when strenuousness was more than ever important. Lorenzo carried on every good work of his father and grandfather (he spent £65,000 a year in books alone) and was as jealous of Florentine interests; but he was also "The Magnificent," and in that lay the peril. Florence could do with wealth and power, but magnificence went to her head. Lorenzo died in 1492, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest, Piero (1471-1503), succeeded him. Never was such a decadence. In a moment the Medici prestige, which had been steadily growing under Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo until it was world famous, crumbled to dust. Piero was a coarse-minded, pleasure-loving youth--"The Headstrong" his father had called him--whose one idea of power was to be sensual and tyrannical; and the enemies of Florence and of Italy took advantage of this fact. Savonarola's sermons had paved the way from within too. In 1494 Charles VIII of France marched into Italy; Piero pulled himself together and visited the king to make terms for Florence, but made such terms that on returning to the city he found an order of banishment and obeyed it. On November 9th, 1494, he and his family were expelled, and the mob, forgetting so quickly all that they owed to the Medici who had gone before, rushed to this beautiful palace and looted it. The losses that art and learning sustained in a few hours can never be estimated. A certain number of treasures were subsequently collected again, such as Donatello's David and Verrocchio's David, while Donatello's Judith was removed to the Palazzo Vecchio, where an inscription was placed upon it saying that her short way with Holofernes was a warning to all traitors; but priceless pictures, sculpture, and MSS. were ruthlessly demolished. In the chapter on S. Marco we shall read of what experiments in government the Florentines substituted for that of the Medici, Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici returned--the change being the work of Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni de' Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing him in the Church. Piero having been drowned long since, his admirable but ill-starred brother Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, now thirty-three, assumed the control, always under Leo X; while their cousin, Giulio, also a Churchman, and the natural son of the murdered Giuliano, was busy, behind the scenes, with the family fortunes. Giuliano lived only till 1516 and was succeeded by his nephew Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, a son of Peiro, a young man of no more political use than his father, and one who quickly became almost equally unpopular. Things indeed were going so badly that Leo X sent Giulio de' Medici (now a cardinal) from Rome to straighten them out, and by some sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of the bitterness in the city. Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this palace, who was destined to make history--Catherine de' Medici--and no son. When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however, was no bar to his having the noblest tomb in the world, at S. Lorenzo), the succession should have passed to the other branch of the Medici family, the descendants of old Giovanni's second son Lorenzo, brother of Cosimo. But Giulio, at Rome, always at the ear of the indolent, pleasure-loving Leo X, had other projects. Born in 1478, the illegitimate son of a charming father, Giulio had none of the great Medici traditions, and the Medici name never stood so low as during his period of power. Himself illegitimate, he was the father of an illegitimate son, Alessandro, for whose advancement he toiled much as Alexander VI had toiled for that of Caesar Borgia. He had not the black, bold wickedness of Alexander VI, but as Pope Clement VII, which he became in 1523, he was little less admirable. He was cunning, ambitious, and tyrannical, and during his pontificate he contrived not only to make many powerful enemies and to see both Rome and Florence under siege, but to lose England for the Church. We move, however, too fast. The year is 1519 and Lorenzo is dead, and the rightful heir to the Medici wealth and power was to be kept out. To do this Giulio himself moved to Florence and settled in the Medici palace, and on his return to Rome Cardinal Passerini was installed in the Medici palace in his stead, nominally as the custodian of little Catherine de' Medici and Ippolito, a boy of ten, the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours. That Florence should have put up with this Roman control shows us how enfeebled was her once proud spirit. In 1521 Leo X died, to be succeeded, in spite of all Giulio's efforts, by Adrian of Utrecht, as Adrian VI, a good, sincere man who, had he lived, might have enormously changed the course not only of Italian but of English history. He survived, however, for less than two years, and then came Giulio's chance, and he was elected Pope Clement VII. Clement's first duty was to make Florence secure, and he therefore sent his son Alessandro, then about thirteen, to join the others at the Medici palace, which thus now contained a resident cardinal, watchful of Medici interests; a legitimate daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino (but owing to quarrels she was removed to a convent); an illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the nominal heir and already a member of the Government; and the Pope's illegitimate son, of whose origin, however, nothing was said, although it was implied that Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours, was his father. This was the state of affairs during Clement's war with the Emperor Charles V, [2] which ended with the siege of Rome and the imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo for some months until he contrived to escape to Orvieto; and meanwhile Florence, realizing his powerlessness, uttered a decree again banishing the Medici family, and in 1527 they were sent forth from the city for the third time. But even now, when the move was so safe, Florence lacked courage to carry it out until a member of the Medici family, furious at the presence of the base-born Medici in the palace, and a professed hater of her base-born uncle Clement VII and all his ways--Clarice Strozzi, née Clarice de' Medici, granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent--came herself to this house and drove the usurpers from it with her extremely capable tongue. To explain clearly the position of the Florentine Republic at this time would be too deeply to delve into history, but it may briefly be said that by means of humiliating surrenders and much crafty diplomacy, Clement VII was able to bring about in 1529 peace between the Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France, by which Charles was left master of Italy, while his partner and ally in these transactions, Clement, expected for his own share certain benefits in which the humiliation of Florence and the exaltation of Alessandro came first. Florence, having taken sides with Francis, found herself in any case very badly left, with the result that at the end of 1529 Charles V's army, with the papal forces to assist, laid siege to her. The siege lasted for ten months, in which the city was most ably defended by Ferrucci, that gallant soldier whose portrait by Piero di Cosimo is in our National Gallery--No. 895--and then came a decisive battle in which the Emperor and Pope were conquerors, a thousand brave Florentines were put to death and others were imprisoned. Alessandro de' Medici arrived at the Medici palace in 1531, and in 1532 the glorious Florentine Republic of so many years' growth, for the establishment of which so much good blood had been spilt, was declared to be at an end. Alessandro being proclaimed Duke, his first act was to order the demolition of the great bell of the Signoria which had so often called the citizens to arms or meetings of independence. Meanwhile Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and therefore the rightful heir, after having been sent on various missions by Clement VII, to keep him out of the way, settled at Bologna and took to poetry. He was a kindly, melancholy man with a deep sense of human injustice; and in 1535, when, after Clement VII's very welcome demise, the Florentine exiles who either had been banished from Florence by Alessandro or had left of their own volition rather than live in the city under such a contemptible ruler, sent an embassy to the Emperor Charles V to help them against this new tyrant, Ippolito headed it; but Alessandro prudently arranged for his assassination en route. It is unlikely, however, that the Emperor would have done anything, for in the following year he allowed his daughter Margaret to become Alessandro's wife. That was in 1536. In January, 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, a cousin, one of the younger branch of the family, assuming the mantle of Brutus, or liberator, stabbed Alessandro to death while he was keeping an assignation in the house that then adjoined this palace. Thus died, at the age of twenty-six, one of the most worthless of men, and, although illegitimate, the last of the direct line of Cosimo de' Medici, the Father of his Country, to govern Florence. The next ruler came from the younger branch, to which we now turn. Old Giovanni di Bicci had two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo. Lorenzo's son, Pier Francesco de' Medici, had a son Giovanni de' Medici. This Giovanni, who married Caterina Sforza of Milan, had also a son named Giovanni, born in 1498, and it was he who was the rightful heir when Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died in 1519. He was connected with both sides of the family, for his father, as I have said, was the great grandson of the first Medici on our list, and his wife was Maria Salviati, daughter of Lucrezia de' Medici--herself a daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent--and Jacopo Salviati, a wealthy Florentine. When, however, Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died in 1519, Giovanni was a young man of twenty-one with an absorbing passion for fighting, which Clement VII (then Giulio) was only too keen to foster, since he wished him out of the way in order that his own projects for the ultimate advancement of the base-born Alessandro, and meanwhile of the catspaw, the base-born Ippolito, might be furthered. Giovanni had already done some good service in the field, was becoming famous as the head of his company of Black Bands, and was known as Giovanni delle Bande Nere; and his marriage to his cousin Maria Salviati and the birth of his only son Cosimo in 1519 made no difference to his delight in warfare. He was happy only when in the field of battle, and the struggle between Francis and Charles gave him ample opportunities, fighting on the side of Charles and the Pope and doing many brave and dashing things. He died at an early age, only twenty-eight, in 1526, the idol of his men, leaving a widow and child in poverty. Almost immediately afterwards came the third banishment of the Medici family from Florence. Giovanni's widow and their son Cosimo got along as best they could until the murder of Alessandro in 1537, when Cosimo was nearly eighteen. He was a quiet, reserved youth, who had apparently taken but little interest in public affairs, and had spent his time in the country with his mother, chiefly in field sports. But no sooner was Alessandro dead, and his slayer Lorenzino had escaped, than Cosimo approached the Florentine council and claimed to be appointed to his rightful place as head of the State, and this claim he put, or suggested, with so much humility that his wish was granted. Instantly one of the most remarkable transitions in history occurred: the youth grew up almost in a day and at once began to exert unsuspected reserves of power and authority. In despair a number of the chief Florentines made an effort to depose him, and a battle was fought at Montemurlo, a few miles from Florence, between Cosimo's troops, fortified by some French allies, and the insurgents. That was in 1537; the victory fell to Cosimo; and his long and remarkable reign began with the imprisonment and execution of the chief rebels. Although Cosimo made so bloody a beginning he was the first imaginative and thoughtful administrator that Florence had had since Lorenzo the Magnificent. He set himself grimly to build upon the ruins which the past forty and more years had produced; and by the end of his reign he had worked wonders. As first he lived in the Medici palace, but after marrying a wealthy wife, Eleanora of Toledo, he transferred his home to the Signoria, now called the Palazzo Vecchio, as a safer spot, and established a bodyguard of Swiss lancers in Orcagna's loggia, close by. [3] Later he bought the unfinished Pitti palace with his wife's money, finished it, and moved there. Meanwhile he was strengthening his position in every way by alliances and treaties, and also by the convenient murder of Lorenzino, the Brutus who had rid Florence of Alessandro ten years earlier, and whose presence in the flesh could not but be a cause of anxiety since Lorenzino derived from an elder son of the Medici, and Cosimo from a younger. In 1555 the ancient republic of Siena fell to Cosimo's troops after a cruel and barbarous siege and was thereafter merged in Tuscany, and in 1570 Cosimo assumed the title of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was crowned at Rome. Whether or not the common accusation against the Medici as a family, that they had but one motive--mercenary ambition and self-aggrandisement--is true, the fact remains that the crown did not reach their brows until one hundred and seventy years from the first appearance of old Giovanni di Bicci in Florentine affairs. The statue of Cosimo I in the Piazza della Signoria has a bas-relief of his coronation. He was then fifty-one; he lived but four more years, and when he died he left a dukedom flourishing in every way: rich, powerful, busy, and enlightened. He had developed and encouraged the arts, capriciously, as Cellini's "Autobiography" tells us, but genuinely too, as we can see at the Uffizi and the Pitti. The arts, however, were not what they had been, for the great period had passed and Florence was in the trough of the wave. Yet Cosimo found the best men he could--Cellini, Bronzino, and Vasari--and kept them busy. But his greatest achievement as a connoisseur was his interest in Etruscan remains and the excavations at Arezzo and elsewhere which yielded the priceless relics now at the Archaeological Museum. With Cosimo I this swift review of the Medici family ends. The rest have little interest for the visitor to Florence to-day, for whom Cellini's Perseus, made to Cosimo I's order, is the last great artistic achievement in the city in point of time. But I may say that Cosimo I's direct descendants occupied the throne (as it had now become) until the death of Gian Gastone, son of Cosimo III, who died in 1737. Tuscany passed to Austria until 1801. In 1807 it became French, and in 1814 Austrian again. In 1860 it was merged in the Kingdom of Italy under the rule of the monarch who has given his name to the great new Piazza--Vittorio Emmanuele. After Gian Gastone's death one other Medici remained alive: Anna Maria Ludovica, daughter of Cosimo III. Born in 1667, she married the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and survived until 1743. It was she who left to the city the priceless Medici collections, as I have stated in chapter VIII. The earlier and greatest of the Medici are buried in the church of S. Lorenzo or in Michelangelo's sacristy; the later Medici, beginning with Giovanni delle Bande Nere and his wife, and their son Cosimo I, are in the gorgeous mausoleum that adjoins S. Lorenzo and is still being enriched with precious marbles. Such is an outline of the history of this wonderful family, and we leave their ancient home, built by the greatest and wisest of them, with mixed feelings of admiration and pity. They were seldom lovable; they were often despicable; but where they were great they were very great indeed. A Latin inscription in the courtyard reminds the traveller of the distinction which the house possesses, calling it the home not only of princes but of knowledge herself and a treasury of the arts. But Florence, although it bought the palace from the Riccardi family a century and more ago, has never cared to give it back its rightful name. CHAPTER VI S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo A forlorn façade--The church of the Medici--Cosimo's parents' tomb--Donatello's cantoria and pulpits--Brunelleschi's sacristy--Donatello again--The palace of the dead Grand Dukes--Costly intarsia--Michelangelo's sacristy--A weary Titan's life--The victim of capricious pontiffs--The Medici tombs--Mementi mori--The Casa Buonarroti--Brunelleschi's cloisters--A model library. Architecturally S. Lorenzo does not attract as S. Croce and S. Maria Novella do; but certain treasures of sculpture make it unique. Yet it is a cool scene of noble grey arches, and the ceiling is very happily picked out with gold and colour. Savonarola preached some of his most important sermons here; here Lorenzo the Magnificent was married. The façade has never yet been finished: it is just ragged brickwork waiting for its marble, and likely to wait, although such expenditure on marble is going on within a few yards of it as makes one gasp. Not very far away, in the Via Ghibellina, is a house which contains some rough plans by a master hand for this façade, drawn some four hundred years ago--the hand of none other than Michelangelo, whose scheme was to make it not only a wonder of architecture but a wonder also of statuary, the façade having many niches, each to be filled with a sacred figure. But Michelangelo always dreamed on a scale utterly disproportionate to the foolish little span of life allotted to us and the S. Lorenzo façade was never even begun. The piazza which these untidy bricks overlook is now given up to stalls and is the centre of the cheap clothing district. Looking diagonally across it from the church one sees the great walls of the courtyard of what is now the Riccardi palace, but was in the great days the Medici palace; and at the corner, facing the Borgo S. Lorenzo, is Giovanni delle Bande Nere, in stone, by the impossible Bandinelli, looking at least twenty years older than he ever lived to be. S. Lorenzo was a very old church in the time of Giovanni de' Medici, the first great man of the family, and had already been restored once, in the eleventh century, but it was his favourite church, chosen by him for his own resting-place, and he spent great sums in improving it. All this with the assistance of Brunelleschi, who is responsible for the interior as we now see it, and would, had he lived, have completed the façade. After Giovanni came Cosimo, who also devoted great sums to the glory of this church, not only assisting Brunelleschi with his work but inducing Donatello to lavish his genius upon it; and the church was thus established as the family vault of the Medici race. Giovanni lies here; Cosimo lies here; and Piero; while Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano and certain descendants were buried in the Michelangelo sacristy, and all the Grand Dukes in the ostentatious chapel behind the altar. Cosimo is buried beneath the floor in front of the high altar, in obedience to his wish, and by the special permission of the Roman Church; and in the same vault lies Donatello. Cosimo, who was buried with all simplicity on August 22nd, 1464, in his last illness recommended Donatello, who was then seventy-eight, to his son Piero. The old sculptor survived his illustrious patron and friend only two and a half years, declining gently into the grave, and his body was brought here in December, 1466. A monument to his memory was erected in the church in 1896. Piero (the Gouty), who survived until 1469, lies close by, his bronze monument, with that of his brother, being that between the sacristy and the adjoining chapel, in an imposing porphyry and bronze casket, the work of Verrocchio, one of the richest and most impressive of all the memorial sculptures of the Renaissance. The marble pediment is supported by four tortoises, such as support the monoliths in the Piazza S. Maria Novella. The iron rope work that divides the sacristy from the chapel is a marvel of workmanship. But we go too fast: the church before the sacristy, and the glories of the church are Donatello's. We have seen his cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral. Here is another, not so riotous and jocund in spirit, but in its own way hardly less satisfying. The Museum cantoria has the wonderful frieze of dancing figures; this is an exercise in marble intarsia. It has the same row of pillars with little specks of mosaic gold; but its beauty is that of delicate proportions and soft tones. The cantoria is in the left aisle, in its original place; the two bronze pulpits are in the nave. These have a double interest as being not only Donatello's work but his latest work. They were incomplete at his death, and were finished by his pupil Bertoldo (1410-1491), and since, as we shall see, Bertoldo became the master of Michelangelo, when he was a lad of fifteen and Bertoldo an old man of eighty, these pulpits may be said to form a link between the two great S. Lorenzo sculptors. How fine and free and spirited Bertoldo could be, alone, we shall see at the Bargello. The S. Lorenzo pulpits are very difficult to study: nothing wants a stronger light than a bronze relief, and in Florence students of bronze reliefs are accustomed to it, since the most famous of all--the Ghiberti doors--are in the open air. Only in course of time can one discern the scenes here. The left pulpit is the finer, for it contains the "Crucifixion" and the "Deposition," which to me form the most striking of the panels. The other piece of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the right transept--an exquisite work by this rare and playful and distinguished hand. It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for he was Donatello's favourite pupil. The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly charming, although there is a "Deposition" upon it; the little Boy is adorable; but one sees it with the greatest difficulty owing to the crowded state of the altar and the dim light. The altar picture in the Martelli chapel, where the sympathetic Donatello monument (in the same medium as his "Annunciation" at S. Croce) is found--on the way to the Library--is by Lippo Lippi, and is notable for the pretty Virgin receiving the angel's news. There is nice colour in the predella. As I have said in the first chapter, we are too prone to ignore the architect. We look at the jewels and forget the casket. Brunelleschi is a far greater maker of Florence than either Donatello or Michelangelo; but one thinks of him rather as an abstraction than a man or forgets him altogether. Yet the S. Lorenzo sacristy is one of the few perfect things in the world. What most people, however, remember is its tombs, its doors, and its reliefs; the proportions escape them. I think its shallow easy dome beyond description beautiful. Brunelleschi, who had an investigating genius, himself painted the quaint constellations in the ceiling over the altar. At the Pazzi chapel we shall find similar architecture; but there extraneous colour was allowed to come in. Here such reliefs as were admitted are white too. The tomb under the great marble and porphyry table in the centre is that of Giovanni di Bicci, the father, and Piccarda, the mother, of Cosimo Pater, and is usually attributed to Buggiano, the adopted son of Brunelleschi, but other authorities give it either to Donatello alone or to Donatello with Michelozzo: both from the evidence of the design and because it is unlikely that Cosimo would ask any one else than one of these two friends of his to carry out a commission so near his heart. The table is part of the scheme and not a chance covering. I think the porphyry centre ought to be movable, so that the beautiful flying figures on the sarcophagus could be seen. But Donatello's most striking achievement here is the bronze doors, which are at once so simple and so strong and so surprising by the activity of the virile and spirited holy men, all converting each other, thereon depicted. These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti's, in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous. Donatello presides over this room (under Brunelleschi). The vivacious, speaking terra-cotta bust of the young S. Lorenzo on the altar is his; the altar railing is probably his; the frieze of terra-cotta cherubs may be his; the four low reliefs in the spandrels, which it is so difficult to discern but which photographs prove to be wonderful scenes in the life of S. John the Evangelist--so like, as one peers up at them, plastic Piranesis, with their fine masonry--are his. The other reliefs are Donatello's too; but the lavabo in the inner sacristy is Verrocchio's, and Verrocchio's tomb of Piero can never be overlooked even amid such a wealth of the greater master's work. From this fascinating room--fascinating both in itself and in its possessions--we pass, after distributing the necessary largesse to the sacristan, to a turnstile which admits, on payment of a lira, to the Chapel of the Princes and to Michelangelo's sacristy. Here is contrast, indeed: the sacristy, austere and classic, and the chapel a very exhibition building of floridity and coloured ornateness, dating from the seventeenth century and not finished yet. In paying the necessary fee to see these buildings one thinks again what the feelings of Giovanni and Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and even of Cosimo I, all such generous patrons of Florence, would be, if they could see the present feverish collection of lire in their beautiful city. Of the Chapel of the Princes I have little to say. To pass from Michelangelo's sacristy to this is an error; see it, if see it you must, first. While the façade of S. Lorenzo is still neglected and the cornice of Brunelleschi's dome is still unfinished, this lapidary's show-room is being completed at a cost of millions of lire. Ever since 1888 has the floor been in progress, and there are many years' work yet. An enthusiastic custodian gave me a list of the stones which were used in the designs of the coats of arms of Tuscan cities, of which that of Fiesole is the most attractive:--Sicily jasper, French jasper, Tuscany jasper, petrified wood, white and yellow, Corsican granite, Corsican jasper, Oriental alabaster, French marble, lapis lazuli, verde antico, African marble, Siena marble, Carrara marble, rose agate, mother of pearl, and coral. The names of the Medici are in porphyry and ivory. It is all very marvellous and occasionally beautiful; but... This pretentious building was designed by a natural son of Cosimo I in 1604, and was begun as the state mausoleum of the Grand Dukes; and all lie here. All the Grand Duchesses too, save Bianca Capella, wife of Francis I, who was buried none knows where. It is strange to realize as one stands here that this pavement covers all those ladies, buried in their wonderful clothes. We shall see Eleanor of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, in Bronzino's famous picture at the Uffizi, in an amazing brocaded dress: it is that dress in which she reposes beneath us! They had their jewels too, and each Grand Duke his crown and sceptre; but these, with one or two exceptions, were stolen during the French occupation of Tuscany, 1801-1814. Only two of the Grand Dukes have their statues--Ferdinand I and Cosimo II--and the Medici no longer exist in the Florentine memory; and yet the quiet brick floor is having all this money squandered on it to superimpose costly marbles which cannot matter to anybody. Michelangelo's chapel, called the New Sacristy, was begun for Leo X and finished for Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of the murdered Giuliano and afterwards Pope Clement VII. Brunelleschi's design for the Old Sacristy was followed but made more severe. This, one would feel to be the very home of dead princes even if there were no statues. The only colours are the white of the walls and the brown of the pillars and windows; the dome was to have been painted, but it fortunately escaped. The contrast between Michelangelo's dome and Brunelleschi's is complete--Brunelleschi's so suave and gentle in its rise, with its grey lines to help the eye, and this soaring so boldly to its lantern, with its rigid device of dwindling squares. The odd thing is that with these two domes to teach him better the designer of the Chapel of the Princes should have indulged in such floridity. Such is the force of the architecture in the sacristy that one is profoundly conscious of being in melancholy's most perfect home; and the building is so much a part of Michelangelo's life and it contains such marvels from his hand that I choose it as a place to tell his story. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6th, 1475, at Caprese, of which town his father was Podestà. At that time Brunelleschi had been dead twenty-nine years, Fra Angelico twenty years, Donatello nine years, Leonardo da Vinci was twenty-three years old, and Raphael was not yet born. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been on what was virtually the throne of Florence since 1469 and was a young man of twenty-six. For foster-mother the child had the wife of a stone-mason at Settignano, whither the family soon moved, and Michelangelo used to say that it was with her milk that he imbibed the stone-cutting art. It was from the air too, for Settignano's principal industry was sculpture. The village being only three miles from Florence, from it the boy could see the city very much as we see it now--its Duomo, its campanile, with the same attendant spires. He was sent to Florence to school and intended for either the wool or silk trade, as so many Florentines were; but displaying artistic ability, he induced his father to apprentice him, at the age of thirteen, to a famous goldsmith and painter of Florence who had a busy atelier--no other than Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was then a man of thirty-nine. Michelangelo remained with him for three years, and although his power and imagination were already greater than his master's, he learned much, and would never have made his Sixtine Chapel frescoes with the ease he did but for this early grounding. For Ghirlandaio, although not of the first rank of painters in genius, was pre-eminently there in thoroughness, while he was good for the boy too in spirit, having a large way with him. The first work of Ghirlandaio which the boy saw in the making was the beautiful "Adoration of the Magi," in the Church of the Spedale degli Innocenti, completed in 1488, and the S. Maria Novella frescoes, and it is reasonable to suppose that he helped with the frescoes in colour grinding, even if he did not, as some have said, paint with his own hand the beggar sitting on the steps in the scene representing the "Presentation of the Virgin". That he was already clever with his pencil, we know, for he had made some caricatures and corrected a drawing or two. The three years with Ghirlandaio were reduced eventually to one, the boy having the good fortune to be chosen as one of enough promise to be worth instruction, both by precept and example, in the famous Medici garden. Here he was more at home than in a painting room, for plastic art was his passion, and not only had Lorenzo the Magnificent gathered together there many of those masterpieces of ancient sculpture which we shall see at the Uffizi, but Bertoldo, the aged head of this informal school, was the possessor of a private collection of Donatellos and other Renaissance work of extraordinary beauty and worth. Donatello's influence on the boy held long enough for him to make the low relief of the Madonna, much in his style, which is now preserved in the Casa Buonarroti, while the plaque of the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae which is also there shows Bertoldo's influence. The boy's first encounter with Lorenzo occurred while he was modelling the head of an aged faun. His magnificent patron stopped to watch him, pointing out that so old a creature would probably not have such a fine set of teeth, and Michelangelo, taking the hint, in a moment had not only knocked out a tooth or two but--and here his observation told--hollowed the gums and cheeks a little in sympathy. Lorenzo was so pleased with his quickness and skill that he received him into his house as the companion of his three sons: of Piero, who was so soon and so disastrously to succeed his father, but was now a high-spirited youth; of Giovanni, who, as Pope Leo X many years after, was to give Michelangelo the commission for this very sacristy; and of Giuliano, who lies beneath one of the tombs. As their companion he enjoyed the advantage of sharing their lessons under Poliziano, the poet, and of hearing the conversation of Pico della Mirandola, who was usually with Lorenzo; and to these early fastidious and intellectual surroundings the artist owed much. That he read much, we know, the Bible and Dante being constant companions; and we know also that in addition to modelling and copying under Bertoldo, he was assiduous in studying Masaccio's frescoes at the church of the Carmine across the river, which had become a school of painting. It was there that his fellow-pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, who was always his enemy and a bully, broke his nose with one blow and flew to Rome from the rage of Lorenzo. It was when Michelangelo was seventeen that Lorenzo died, at the early age of forty-two, and although the garden still existed and the Medici palace was still open to the youth, the spirit had passed. Piero, who succeeded his father, had none of his ability or sagacity, and in two years was a refugee from the city, while the treasures of the garden were disposed by auction, and Michelangelo, too conspicuous as a Medici protégé to be safe, hurried away to Bologna. He was now nineteen. Of his travels I say nothing here, for we must keep to Florence, whither he thought it safe to return in 1495. The city was now governed by the Great Council and the Medici banished. Michelangelo remained only a brief time and then went to Rome, where he made his first Pietà, at which he was working during the trial and execution of Savonarola, whom he admired and reverenced, and where he remained until 1501, when, aged twenty-six, he returned to Florence to do some of his most famous work. The Medici were still in exile. It was in August, 1501, that the authorities of the cathedral asked Michelangelo to do what he could with a great block of marble on their hands, from which he carved that statue of David of which I tell the story in chapter XVI. This established his pre-eminence as a sculptor. Other commissions for statues poured in, and in 1504 he was invited to design a cartoon for the Palazzo Vecchio, to accompany one by Leonardo, and a studio was given him in the Via Guelfa for the purpose. This cartoon, when finished, so far established him also as the greatest of painters that the Masaccios in the Carmine were deserted by young artists in order that this might be studied instead. The cartoon, as I relate in the chapter on the Palazzo Vecchio, no longer exists. The next year, 1505, Michelangelo, nearing his thirtieth birthday, returned to Rome and entered upon the second and tragic period of his life, for he arrived there only to receive the order for the Julius tomb which poisoned his remaining years, and of which more is said in the chapter on the Accademia, where we see so many vestiges of it both in marble and plaster. But I might remark here that this vain and capricious pontiff, whose pride and indecision robbed the world of no one can ever say what glorious work from Michelangelo's hand, is the benevolent-looking old man whose portrait by Raphael is in the Pitti and Uffizi in colour, in the Corsini Palace in charcoal, and again in our own National Gallery in colour. Of Michelangelo at Rome and Carrara, whither he went to superintend in person the quarrying of the marble that was to be transferred to life and where he had endless vexations and mortifications, I say nothing. Enough that the election of his boy friend Giovanni de' Medici as Pope Leo X in 1513 brought him again to Florence, the Pope having a strong wish that Michelangelo should complete the façade of the Medici family church, S. Lorenzo, where we now are. As we know, the scheme was not carried out, but in 1520 the Pope substituted another and more attractive one: namely, a chapel to contain the tombs not only of his father the Magnificent, and his uncle, who had been murdered in the Duomo many years before, but also his nephew Piero de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, who had just died, in 1519, and his younger brother (and Michelangelo's early playmate) Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, who had died in 1516. These were not Medici of the highest class, but family pride was strong. It is, however, odd that no memorial of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, who had been drowned at the age of twenty-two in 1503, was required; perhaps it may have been that since it was Piero's folly that had brought the Medici into such disgrace in 1494, the less thought of him the better. Michelangelo took fire at once, and again hastened to Carrara to arrange for marble to be sent to his studio in the Via Mozzi, now the Via S. Zenobi; while the building stone was brought from Fiesole. Leo X lived only to know that the great man had begun, the new patron being Giulio de' Medici, natural son of the murdered Giuliano, now a cardinal, and soon, in 1523, to become Pope Clement VII. This Pope showed deep interest in the project, but wished not only to add tombs of himself and Pope Leo X, but also to build a library for the Laurentian collection, which Michelangelo must design. A little later he had decided that he would prefer to lie in the choir of the church, and Leo X with him, and instead therefore of tombs Michelangelo might merely make a colossal statue of him to stand in the piazza before the church. The sculptor's temper had not been improved by his many years' experience of papal caprice, and he replied to this suggestion with a letter unique even in the annals of infuriated artists. Let the statue be made, of course, he said, but let it be useful as well as ornamental: the lower portion to be also a barber's shop, and the head, since it would be empty, a greengrocer's. The Pope allowed himself to be rebuked, and abandoned the statue, writing a mild and even pathetic reply. Until 1527 Michelangelo worked away at the building and the tombs, always secretly, behind impenetrable barriers; and then came the troubles which led to the siege of Florence, following upon the banishment of Alessandro, Duke of Urbino, natural son of the very Lorenzo whom the sculptor was to dignify for all time. By the Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII the city was attacked, and Michelangelo was called away from Clement's sacristy to fortify Florence against Clement's soldiers. Part of his ramparts at S. Miniato still remain, and he strengthened all the gates; but, feeling himself slighted and hating the whole affair, he suddenly disappeared. One story is that he hid in the church tower of S. Niccolò, below what is now the Piazzale dedicated to his memory. Wherever he was, he was proclaimed an outlaw, and then, on Florence finding that she could not do without him, was pardoned, and so returned, the city meanwhile having surrendered and the Medici again being restored to power. The Pope showed either fine magnanimity or compounded with facts in the interest of the sacristy; for he encouraged Michelangelo to proceed, and the pacific work was taken up once more after the martial interregnum, and in a desultory way he was busy at it, always secretly and moodily, until 1533, when he tired completely and never touched it again. A year later Clement VII died, having seen only drawings of the tombs, if those. But though left unfinished, the sacristy is wholly satisfying--more indeed than satisfying, conquering. Whatever help Michelangelo may have had from his assistants, it is known that the symbolical figures on the tombs and the two seated Medici are from his hand. Of the two finished or practically finished tombs--to my mind as finished as they should be--that of Lorenzo is the finer. The presentment of Lorenzo in armour brooding and planning is more splendid than that of Giuliano; while the old man, whose head anticipates everything that is considered most original in Rodin's work, is among the best of Michelangelo's statuary. Much speculation has been indulged in as to the meaning of the symbolism of these tombs, and having no theory of my own to offer, I am glad to borrow Mr. Gerald S. Davies' summary from his monograph on Michelangelo. The figure of Giuliano typifies energy and leadership in repose; while the man on his tomb typifies Day and the woman Night, or the man Action and the woman the sleep and rest that produce Action. The figure of Lorenzo typifies Contemplation, the woman Dawn, and the man Twilight, the states which lie between light and darkness, action and rest. What Michelangelo--who owed nothing to any Medici save only Lorenzo the Magnificent and had seen the best years of his life frittered away in the service of them and other proud princes--may also have intended we shall never know; but he was a saturnine man with a long memory, and he might easily have made the tombs a vehicle for criticism. One would not have another touch of the chisel on either of the symbolical male figures. Although a tomb to Lorenzo the Magnificent by Michelangelo would surely have been a wonderful thing, there is something startling and arresting in the circumstance that he has none at all from any hand, but lies here unrecorded. His grandfather, in the church itself, rests beneath a plain slab, which aimed so consciously at modesty as thereby to achieve special distinction: Lorenzo, leaving no such directions, has nothing, while in the same room are monuments to two common-place descendants to thrill the soul. The disparity is in itself monumental. That Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on the slab which covers the dust of Lorenzo and his brother is a chance. The saints on either side are S. Cosimo and S. Damian, the patron saints of old Cosimo de' Medici, and are by Michelangelo's assistants. The Madonna was intended for the altar of the sacristy. Into this work the sculptor put much of his melancholy and, one feels, disappointment. The face of the Madonna is already sad and hopeless; but the Child is perhaps the most splendid and determined of any in all Renaissance sculpture. He may, if we like, symbolize the new generation that is always deriving sustenance from the old, without care or thought of what the old has to suffer; he crushes his head against his mother's breast in a very passion of vigorous dependence. [4] Whatever was originally intended, it is certain that in Michelangelo's sacristy disillusionment reigns as well as death. But how beautiful it is! In a little room leading from the sacristy I was shown by a smiling custodian Lorenzo the Magnificent's coffin, crumbling away, and photographs of the skulls of the two brothers: Giuliano's with one of Francesco de' Pazzi's dagger wounds in it, and Lorenzo's, ghastly in its decay. I gave the man half a lira. While he was working on the tombs Michelangelo had undertaken now and then a small commission, and to this period belongs the David which we shall see in the little room on the ground floor of the Bargello. In 1534, when he finally abandoned the sacristy, and, leaving Florence for ever, settled in Rome, the Laurentian library was only begun, and he had little interest in it. He never saw it again. At Rome his time was fully occupied in painting the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel, and in various architectural works. But Florence at any rate has two marble masterpieces that belong to the later period--the Brutus in the Bargello and the Pietà in the Duomo, which we have seen--that poignantly impressive rendering of the entombment upon which the old man was at work when he died, and which he meant for his own grave. His death came in 1564, on February 23rd, when he was nearly eighty-nine, and his body was brought to Florence and buried amid universal grief in S. Croce, where it has a florid monument. Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes' distant--at No. 64 Via Ghibellina--where certain early works and personal relics are preserved. Michelangelo gave the house to his nephew Leonardo; it was decorated early in the seventeenth century with scenes in the life of the master, and finally bequeathed to the city as a heritage in 1858. It is perhaps the best example of the rapacity of the Florentines; for notwithstanding that it was left freely in this way a lira is charged for admission. The house contains more collateral curiosities, as they might be called, than those in the direct line; but there are architectural drawings from the wonderful hand, colour drawings of a Madonna, a few studies, and two early pieces of sculpture--the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs, a relief marked by tremendous vigour and full of movement, and a Madonna and Child, also in relief, with many marks of greatness upon it. In a recess in Room IV are some personal relics of the artist, which his great nephew, the poet, who was named after him, began to collect early in the seventeenth century. As a whole the house is disappointing. Upstairs have been arranged a quantity of prints and drawings illustrating the history of Florence. The S. Lorenzo cloisters may be entered either from a side door in the church close to the Old Sacristy or from the piazza. Although an official in uniform keeps the piazza door, they are free. Brunelleschi is again the architect, and from the loggia at the entrance to the library you see most acceptably the whole of his cathedral dome and half of Giotto's tower. It is impossible for Florentine cloisters--or indeed any cloisters--not to have a certain beauty, and these are unusually charming and light, seen both from the loggia and the ground. Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana, which leads from them, is one of the most perfect of sombre buildings, the very home of well-ordered scholarship. The staircase is impressive, although perhaps a little too severe; the long room could not be more satisfying to the eye. Michelangelo died before it was finished, but it is his in design, even to the ceiling and cases for MSS. in which the library is so rich, and the rich red wood ceiling. Vasari, Michelangelo's pupil and friend and the biographer to whom we are so much indebted, carried on the work. His scheme of windows has been upset on the side opposite the cloisters by the recent addition of a rotunda leading from the main room. If ever rectangular windows were more exquisitely and nobly proportioned I should like to see them. The library is free for students, and the attendants are very good in calling stray visitors' attention to illuminated missals, old MSS., early books and so forth. One of Galileo's fingers, stolen from his body, used to be kept here, in a glass case, and may be here still; but I did not see it. I saw, however, the portraits, in an old volume, of Petrarch and his Laura. This wonderful collection was begun by Cosimo de' Medici; others added to it until it became one of the most valuable in the world, not, however, without various vicissitudes incident to any Florentine institution: while one of its most cherished treasures, the Virgil of the fourth or fifth century, was even carried to Paris by Napoleon and not returned until the great year of restoration, 1816. Among the holograph MSS. is Cellini's "Autobiography". The library, in time, after being confiscated by the Republic and sold to the monks of S. Marco, again passed into the possession of a Medici, Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and then of Clement VII, and he it was who commissioned Michelangelo to house it with dignity. An old daily custom in the cloisters of S. Lorenzo was the feeding of cats; but it has long since been dropped. If you look at Mr. Hewlett's "Earthwork out of Tuscany" you will find an entertaining description of what it used to be like. CHAPTER VII Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of independence. Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo, in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the minutest study. The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia, whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza, facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any charitable work of necessity. For the most part they carry ambulances to the scenes of accident and perform the last offices for the dead in the poorer districts. When on duty they wear black robes and hoods. Their headquarters comprise a chapel, with an altar by Andrea della Robbia, and a statue of the patron saint of the Misericordia, S. Sebastian. But their real patron saint is their founder, a common porter named Pietro Borsi. In the thirteenth century it was the custom for the porters and loafers connected with the old market to meet in a shelter here and pass the time away as best they could. Borsi, joining them, was distressed to find how unprofitable were the hours, and he suggested the formation of a society to be of some real use, the money to support it to be obtained by fines in payment for oaths and blasphemies. A litter or two were soon bought and the machinery started. The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy. That was in 1240 to 1250. To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part, and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King. Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto. San Michele in Orto, or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin, and this picture had the power of working miracles. Early in the fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele, the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio. Where the picture then was, I cannot say--whether inside the building or out--but the principal use of the building was to serve as a granary. After 1348, when Florence was visited by that ravaging plague which Boccaccio describes in such gruesome detail at the beginning of the "Decameron" and which sent his gay company of ladies and gentlemen to the Villa Palmieri to take refuge in story telling, and when this sacred picture was more than commonly busy and efficacious, it was decided to apply the enormous sums of money given to the shrine from gratitude in beautifying the church still more, and chiefly in providing a casket worthy of holding such a pictorial treasure. Hence came about the noble edifice of to-day. A man of universal genius was called in to execute the tabernacle: Andrea Orcagna, a pupil probably of Andrea Pisano, and also much influenced by Giotto, whom though he had not known he idolized, and one who, like Michelangelo later, was not only a painter and sculptor but an architect and a poet. Orcagna, or, to give him his right name, Andrea di Cione, for Orcagna was an abbreviation of Arcagnolo, flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century. Among his best-known works in painting are the Dantesque frescoes in the Strozzi chapel at S. Maria Novella, and that terrible allegory of Death and Judgment in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in which the gay riding party come upon the three open graves. Orcagna put all his strength into the tabernacle of Or San Michele, which is a most sumptuous, beautiful and thoughtful shrine, yet owing to the darkness of the church is almost invisible. Guides, it is true, will emerge from the gloom and hold lighted tapers to it, but a right conception of it is impossible. The famous miraculous picture over the altar is notable rather for its properties than for its intrinsic beauty; it is the panels of the altar, which contain Orcagna's most exquisite work, representing scenes in the life of the Virgin, with emblematical figures interspersed, that one wishes to see. Only the back, however, can be seen really well, and this only when a door opposite to it--in the Via Calzaioli--is opened. It should always be open, with a grille across it, that passers-by might have constant sight of this almost unknown Florentine treasure. It is in the relief of the death of the Virgin on the back that--on the extreme right--Orcagna introduced his own portrait. The marble employed is of a delicate softness, and Orcagna had enough of Giotto's tradition to make the Virgin a reality and to interest Her, for example, as a mother in the washing of Her Baby, as few painters have done, and in particular, as, according to Ruskin, poor Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture "Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione, sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among the most interesting and various of the forerunners of the Renaissance. Within Or San Michele you learn the secret of the stoned-up windows which one sees with regret from without. Each, or nearly each, has an altar against it. What the old glass was like one can divine from the lovely and sombre top lights in exquisite patterns that are left; that on the centre of the right wall of the church, as one enters, having jewels of green glass as lovely as any I ever saw. But blues, purples, and reds predominate. The tabernacle apart, the main appeal of Or San Michele is the statuary and stone-work of the exterior; for here we find the early masters at their best. The building being the head-quarters of the twelve Florentine guilds, the statues and decorations were commissioned by them. It is as though our City companies should unite in beautifying the Guildhall. Donatello is the greatest artist here, and it was for the Armourers that he made his S. George, which stands now, as he carved it in marble, in the Bargello, but has a bronze substitute in its original niche, below which is a relief of the slaying of the dragon from Donatello's chisel. Of this glorious S. George more will be said later. But I may remark now that in its place here it instantly proves the modernity and realistic vigour of its sculptor. Fine though they be, all the other statues of this building are conventional; they carry on a tradition of religious sculpture such as Niccolò Pisano respected, many years earlier, when he worked at the Pisan pulpit. But Donatello's S. George is new and is as beautiful as a Greek god, with something of real human life added. Donatello (with Michelozzo) also made the exquisite border of the niche in the Via Calzaioli façade, in which Christ and S. Thomas now stand. He was also to have made the figures (for the Merchants' Guild) but was busy elsewhere, and they fell to Verrocchio, of whom also we shall have much to see and say at the Bargello, and to my mind they are the most beautiful of all. The John the Baptist (made for the Cloth-dealers), also on this façade, is by Ghiberti of the Baptistery gates. On the façade of the Via de' Lamberti is Donatello's superb S. Mark (for the Joiners), which led to Michelangelo's criticism that he had never seen a man who looked more virtuous, and if S. Mark were really like that he would believe all his words. "Why don't you speak to me?" he also said to this statue, as Donatello had said to the Zuccone. Higher on this façade is Luca della Robbia's famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen, and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall, are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and the blacksmith's saint a noble figure. The little square reliefs let into the wall at intervals are often charming, and the stone-work of the windows is very lovely. In fact, the four walls of this fortress church are almost inexhaustible. Within, its vaulted roof is so noble, its proportions so satisfying. One should often sit quietly here, in the gloom, and do nothing. The little building just across the way was the Guild House of the Arte della Lana, or Wool-combers, and is now the head-quarters of the Italian Dante Society, who hold a conference every Thursday in the large room over Or San Michele, gained by the flying buttress-bridge. The dark picture on the outer wall is the very Madonna to which, when its position was at the Mercato Vecchio, condemned criminals used to pray on their way to execution. Before we leave Or San Michele and the Arte della Lana, a word on the guilds of Florence is necessary, for at a period in Florentine history between, say, the middle of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, they were the very powerful controllers of the domestic affairs of the city; and it is possible that it would have been better for the Florentines had they continued to be so. For Florence was essentially mercantile and the guilds were composed of business men; and it is natural that business men should know better than noblemen what a business city needed. They were divided into major guilds, chief of which were the woollen merchants--the Arte della Lana--and the silk merchants--the Calimala--and it was their pride to put their riches at the city's service. Thus, the Arte della Lana had charge of the building of the cathedral. Each of the major guilds provided a Prior, and the Priors elected the Signoria, who governed the city. It is one of the principal charges that is brought against Cosimo de' Medici that he broke the power of the guilds. Returning to the Via Calzaioli, and turning to the right, we come very quickly to the Piazza della Signoria, and see before us, diagonally across it, the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio, with the gleaming, gigantic figure of Michelangelo's David against the dark gateway. This, more than the Piazza del Duomo, is the centre of Florence. The Palazzo Vecchio was for centuries called the Signoria, being the home of the Gonfalonier of Florence and the Signoria who assisted his councils. It was begun by Arnolfo, the architect of the Duomo and S. Croce, at the end of the thirteenth century, that being, as we have seen, a period of great prosperity and ambition in Florence, but many alterations and additions were made--by Michelozzo, Cronaca, Vasari, and others--to bring it to what it now is. After being the scene of many riots, executions, and much political strife and dubiety, it became a ducal palace in 1532, and is now a civic building and show-place. In the old days the Palazzo had a ringhiera, or platform, in front of it, from which proclamations were made. To know what this was like one has but to go to S. Trinità on a very fine morning and look at Ghirlandaio's fresco of the granting of the charter to S. Francis. The scene, painted in 1485, includes not only the Signoria but the Loggia de' Lanzi (then the Loggia dell' Orcagna)--both before any statues were set up. Every façade of the Palazzo Vecchio is splendid. I cannot say which I admire more--that which one sees from the Loggia de' Lanzi, with its beautiful coping of corbels, at once so heavy and so light, with coloured escutcheons between them, or that in the Via de' Gondi, with its fine jumble of old brickwork among the stones. The Palazzo Vecchio is one of the most resolute and independent buildings in the world; and it had need to be strong, for the waves of Florentine revolt were always breaking against it. The tower rising from this square fortress has at once grace and strength and presents a complete contrast to Giotto's campanile; for Giotto's campanile is so light and delicate and reasonable and this tower of the Signoria so stern and noble. There is a difference as between a beautiful woman and a powerful man. In the functions of the two towers--the dominating towers of Florence--is a wide difference also, for the campanile calls to prayer, while for years the sombre notes of the great Signoria bell--the Vacca--rang out only to bid the citizens to conclave or battle or to sound an alarm. It was this Vacca wich (with others) the brave Piero Capponi threatened to ring when Charles VIII wished, in 1494, to force a disgraceful treaty on the city. The scene was the Medici Palace in the Via Larga. The paper was ready for signature and Capponi would not sign. "Then I must bid my trumpets blow," said Charles. "If you sound your trumpets," Capponi replied, "we will ring our bells;" and the King gave way, for he knew that his men had no chance in this city if it rose suddenly against them. But the glory of the Palazzo Vecchio tower--afer its proportions--is that brilliant inspiration of the architect which led him, so to speak, to begin again by setting the four columns on the top of the solid portion. These pillars are indescribably right: so solid and yet so light, so powerful and yet so comely. Their duty was to support the bells, and particularly the Vacca, when he rocked his gigantic weight of green bronze to and fro to warn the city. Seen from a distance the columns are always beautiful; seen close by they are each a tower of comfortable strength. And how the wind blows through them from the Apennines! The David on the left of the Palazzo Vecchio main door is only a copy. The original stood there until 1873, when, after three hundred and sixty-nine years, it was moved to a covered spot in the Accademia, as we shall there see and learn its history. If we want to know what the Palazzo Vecchio looked like at the time David was placed there, a picture by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery tells us, for he makes it the background of his portrait of Ferrucci, No. 895. The group on the right represents Hercules and Cacus, [5] and is by Baccio Bandinelli (1485-1560), a coarse and offensive man, jealous of most people and particularly of Michelangelo, to whom, but for his displeasing Pope Clement VII, the block of marble from which the Hercules was carved would have been given. Bandinelli in his delight at obtaining it vowed to surpass that master's David, and those who want to know what Florence thought of his effort should consult the amusing and malicious pages of Cellini's Autobiography. On its way to Bandinelli's studio the block fell into the Arrio, and it was a joke of the time that it had drowned itself to avoid its fate at the sculptor's hands. Even after he had half done it, there was a moment when Michelangelo had an opportunity of taking over the stone and turning it into a Samson, but the siege of Florence intervened, and eventually Bandinelli had his way and the hideous thing now on view was evolved. The lion at the left end of the façade is also a copy, the original by Donatello being in the Bargello, close by; but the pedestal is Donatello's original. This lion is the Marzocco, the legendary guardian of the Florentine republic, and it stood here for four centuries and more, superseding one which was kissed as a sign of submission by thousands of Pisan prisoners in 1364. The Florentine fleur-de-lis on the pediment is very beautiful. The same lion may be seen in iron on his staff at the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower, and again on the Bargello, bravely flourishing his lily against the sky. The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo in Rome. Though born a Fleming and called a Florentine, his great fountain at Bologna, which is really a fine thing, has identified his fame with that city. Had not Ammanati's design better pleased Cosimo I, the Bologna fountain would be here, for it was designed for this piazza. Gian's best-known work is the Flying Mercury in the Bargello, which we have seen, on mantelpieces and in shop windows, everywhere; but what is considered his masterpiece is over there, in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the very beautiful building on the right of the Palazzo, the "Rape of the Sabines," a group which, to me, gives no pleasure. The bronze reliefs under the Cosimo statue--this Cosimo being, of course, far other than Cosimo de' Medici, Father of his Country: Cosimo I of Tuscany, who insisted upon a crown and reigned from 1537 to 1575--represents his assumption of rule on the death of Alessandro in 1537; his triumphant entry into Siena when he conquered it and absorbed it; and his reception of the rank of Grand Duke. Of Cosimo (whom we met in Chapter V) more will be said when we enter the Palazzo Vecchio. Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498, that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death. The ancient palace on the Duomo side of the piazza is attributed in design to Raphael, who, like most of the great artists of his time, was also an architect and was the designer of the Palazzo Pandolfini in the Via San Gallo, No. 74. The Palazzo we are now admiring for its blend of massiveness and beauty is the Uguccione, and anybody who wishes may probably have a whole floor of it to-day for a few shillings a week. The building which completes the piazza on the right of us, with coats of arms on its façade, is now given to the Board of Agriculture and has been recently restored. It was once a Court of Justice. The great building at the opposite side of the piazza, where the trams start, is a good example of modern Florentine architecture based on the old: the Palazzo Landi, built in 1871 and now chiefly an insurance office. In London we have a more attractive though smaller derivative of the great days of Florentine building, in Standen's wool shop in Jermyn Street. The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of neglecting some. The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers the Loggia de' Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect structure. One should not allow this to happen; one should let the Palazzo Vecchio's solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate on the beauty of Orcagna's three arches. Coming so freshly from his tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility of the early artists. This structure, originally called the Loggia de' Priori or Loggia d'Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves. It was here that Savonarola's ordeal by fire would have had place had it not been frustrated. Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches. The Loggia, which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post office in the Uffizi to read in comfort. A barometer and thermometer are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth century would notice. The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian Bologna's two muscular and restless groups. The best of the antiques is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is a superb creation. Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, being a champion of the Florentine republic. In 1495, after Cosimo's worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty. This position being needed for Michelangelo's David, in 1506, Judith was moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is. In 1560 it took up its present position. Cellini's Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini's own, setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in connexion with this statue. Cellini, whatever one may think of his veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of Cosimo I which he draws for us is probably very near the truth. We see him haughty, familiar, capricious, vain, impulsive, clear-sighted, and easily flattered; intensely pleased to be in a position to command the services of artists and very unwilling to pay. Cellini was a blend of lackey, child, and genius. He left Francis I in order to serve Cosimo and never ceased to regret the change. The Perseus was his greatest accomplishment for Cosimo, and the narrative of its casting is terrific and not a little like Dumas. When it was uncovered in its present position all Florence flocked to the Loggia to praise it; the poets placed commendatory sonnets on the pillars, and the sculptor peacocked up and down in an ecstasy of triumph. Then, however, his troubles once more began, for Cosimo had the craft to force Cellini to name the price, and we see Cellini in an agony between desire for enough and fear lest if he named enough he would offend his patron. The whole book is a comedy of vanity and jealousy and Florentine vigour, with Courts as a background. It is good to read it; it is good, having read it, to study once again the unfevered resolute features of Donatello's S. George. Cellini himself we may see among the statues under the Uffizi and again in the place of honour (as a goldsmith) in the centre of the Ponte Vecchio. Looking at the Perseus and remembering Donatello, one realizes that what Cellini wanted was character. He had temperament enough but no character. Perseus is superb, commanding, distinguished, and one doesn't care a fig for it. On entering the Palazzo Vecchio we come instantly to one of the most charming things in Florence--Verrocchio's fountain--which stands in the midst of the courtyard. This adorable work--a little bronze Cupid struggling with a spouting dolphin--was made for Lorenzo de' Medici's country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor, and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water so musically. Notice the rich decorations of the pillars of this courtyard and the rich colour and power of the pillars themselves. The half-obliterated frescoes of Austrian towns on the walls were made to prevent Joanna from being homesick, but were more likely, one would guess, to stimulate that malady. In the left corner is the entrance to the old armoury, now empty, with openings in the walls through which pieces might be discharged at various angles on any advancing host. The groined ceiling could support a pyramid. The Palazzo Vecchio's ground floor is a series of thoroughfares in which people are passing continually amid huge pillars and along dark passages; but our way is up the stone steps immediately to the left on leaving the courtyard where Verrocchio's child eternally smiles, for the steps take us to that vast hall designed by Cronaca for Savonarola's Great Council, which was called into being for the government of Florence after the luckless Piero de' Medici had been banished in 1494. Here much history was made. As to its structure and its architect, Vasari, who later was called in to restore it, has a deal to say, but it is too technical for us. It was built by Simone di Pollaiuolo, who was known as Cronaca (the Chronicler) from his vivid way of telling his adventures. Cronaca (1454-1508), who was a personal friend and devotee of Savonarola, drew up his plan in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (although then so young: only nineteen or twenty) and others. Its peculiarity is that it is one of the largest rooms in existence without pillars. From the foot of the steps to the further wall I make it fifty-eight paces, and thirty wide; and the proportions strike the eye as perfect. The wall behind the steps is not at right angles with the other--and this must be as peculiar as the absence of pillars. Once there were to be paintings here by the greatest of all, for masters no less than Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to decorate it, each with a great historical painting: a high honour for the youthful Michelangelo. The loss of these works is one of the tragedies of art. Leonardo chose for his subject the battle of Anghiari, an incident of 1440 when the Florentines defeated Piccinino and saved their Republic from the Milanese and Visconti. But both the cartoon and the fresco have gone for ever, and our sense of loss is not diminished by reading in Leonardo's Thoughts on Painting the directions which he wrote for the use of artists who proposed to paint battles: one of the most interesting and exciting pieces of writing in the literature of art. Michelangelo's work, which never reached the wall of the room, as Leonardo's had done, was completed as a cartoon in 1504 to 1506 in his studio in the hospital of the dyers in Sant' Onofrio, which is now the Via Guelfa. The subject was also military: an incident in the long and bitter struggle between Florence and Pisa, when Sir John Hawkwood (then in the pay of the Pisans, before he came over finally to the Florentines) attacked a body of Florentines who were bathing in the river. The scene gave the young artist scope both for his power of delineating a spirited incident and for his drawing of the nude, and those who saw it said of this work that it was finer than anything the painter ever did. While it was in progress all the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students. What became of the cartoon is not definitely known, but Vasari's story is that Bandinelli, the sculptor of the Hercules and Cacus outside the Palazzo, who was one of the most diligent copyists of the cartoon after it was placed in a room in this building, had the key of the door counterfeited, and, obtaining entrance during a moment of tumult, destroyed the picture. The reasons given are: (1, and a very poor one) that he desired to own the pieces; (2) that he wished to deprive other and rival students of the advantage of copying it; (3) that he wanted Leonardo to be the only painter of the Palazzo to be considered; and (4, and sufficient) that he hated Michelangelo. At this time Bandinelli could not have been more than eighteen. Vasari's story is uncorroborated. Leonardo's battle merely perished, being done in some fugitive medium; and the walls are now covered with the works of Vasari himself and his pupils and do not matter, while the ceiling is a muddle of undistinguished paint. There are many statues which also do not matter; but at the raised end is Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the first Medici Pope, and at the other a colossal modern statue of Savonarola, who was in person the dominating influence here for the years between 1494 and 1497; who is to many the central figure in the history of this building; and whose last night on earth was spent with his companions in this very room. But to him we come in the chapter on S. Marco. Many rooms in the Palazzo are to be seen only on special occasions, but the great hall is always accessible. Certain rooms upstairs, mostly with rich red and yellow floors, are also visible daily, all interesting; but most notable is the Salle de Lys, with its lovely blue walls of lilies, its glorious ceiling of gold and roses, Ghirlandaio's fresco of S. Zenobius, and the perfect marble doorway containing the wooden doors of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, with the heads of Dante and Petrarch in intarsia. Note the figures of Charity and Temperance in the doorway and the charming youthful Baptist. In Eleanor of Toledo's dining-room there are some rich and elaborate green jugs which I remember very clearly and also the ceiling of her workroom with its choice of Penelope as the presiding genius. Both Eleanor's chapel and that in which Savonarola prayed before his execution are shown. But the most popular room of all with visitors--and quite naturally--is the little boudoiresque study of Francis I, with its voluptuous ladies on the ceiling and the secret treasure-room leading from it, while on the way, just outside the door, is a convenient oubliette into which to push any inconvenient visitor. The loggia, which Mr. Morley has painted from the Via Castellani, is also always accessible, and from it one has one of those pleasant views of warm roofs in which Florence abounds. One of the most attractive of the smaller rooms usually on view is that one which leads from the lily-room and contains nothing but maps of the world: the most decorative things conceivable, next to Chinese paintings. Looking naturally for Sussex on the English map, I found Winchelsey, Battel, Rye, Lewes, Sorham, Arônde, and Cicestra. From the map-room a little room is gained where the debates in the Great Council Hall might be secretly overheard by interested eavesdroppers, but in particular by Cosimo I. A part of the cornice has holes in it for this purppse, but on regaining the hall itself I found that the disparity in the pattern was perfectly evident even to my eye, so that every one in those suspicious days must have been aware of the listener. The tower should certainly be ascended--not only for the view and to be so near the bells and the pillars, but also for historic associations. After a little way we come to the cell where Cosimo de' Medici, later to be the Father of his Country, was imprisoned, before that exile which ended in recall and triumph in 1433. This cell, although not exactly "a home from home," is possible. What is to be said of that other, some thousands of steps (as it seems) higher, where Savonarola was kept for forty days, varied only by intervals of torture? For Savonarola's cell, which is very near the top, is nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to Florentine character! CHAPTER VIII The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors The growth of a gallery--Vasari's Passaggio--Cosimo I--Francis I--Ferdinand I--Ferdinand II--Cosimo III--Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici--Pietro-Leopoldo--The statues of the façade--Art, literature, arms, science, and learning--The omissions--Florentine rapacity--An antique custom--Window views--The Uffizi drawings--The best picture. The foreigner should understand at once that any inquiries into the history of the Uffizi family--such as for example yield interesting results in the case of the Pazzi and the Albizzi--are doomed to failure; because Uffizi merely means offices. The Palazzo degli Uffizi, or palace of offices, was built by Vasari, the biographer of the artists, for Cosimo I, who having taken the Signoria, or Palazzo Vecchio, for his own home, wished to provide another building for the municipal government. It was begun in 1560 and still so far fulfils its original purpose as to contain the general post office, while it also houses certain Tuscan archives and the national library. A glance at Piero di Cosimo's portrait of Ferrucci in our National Gallery will show that an ordinary Florentine street preceded the erection of the Uffizi. At that time the top storey of the building, as it now exists, was an open terrace affording a pleasant promenade from the Palazzo Vecchio down to the river and back to the Loggia de' Lanzi. Beneath this were studios and workrooms where Cosimo's army of artists and craftsmen (with Bronzino and Cellini as the most famous) were kept busy; while the public offices were on the ground floor. Then, as his family increased, Cosimo decided to move, and the incomplete and abandoned Pitti Palace was bought and finished. In 1565, as we have seen, Francis, Cosimo's son, married and was installed in the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was then that Vasari was called upon to construct the Passaggio which unites the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti, crossing the river by the Ponte Vecchio--Cosimo's idea (borrowed it is said from Homer's description of the passage uniting the palaces of Priam and Hector) being not only that he and his son might have access to each other, but that in the event of danger on the other side of the river a body of soldiers could be swiftly and secretly mobilized there. Cosimo I died in 1574, and Francis I (1574-1587) succeeded him not only in rule but in that patronage of the arts which was one of the finest Medicean traditions; and it was he who first thought of making the Uffizi a picture gallery. To do this was simple: it merely meant the loss of part of the terrace by walling and roofing it in. Ferdinand I (1587-1609) added the pretty Tribuna and other rooms, and brought hither a number of the treasures from the Villa Medici at Rome. Cosimo II (1609-1621) did little, but Ferdinand II (1621-1670) completed the roofing in of the terraces, placed there his own collection of drawings and a valuable collection of Venetian pictures which he had bought, together with those that his wife Vittoria della Rovere had brought him from Urbino, while his brothers, Cardinal Giovanni Carlo de' Medici and Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici (the extremely ugly man with the curling chin, at the head of the Uffizi stairs), added theirs. Giovanni Carlo's pictures, which mostly went to the Pitti were varied; but Leopold's were chiefly portraits of artists, wherever possible painted by themselves, a collection which is steadily being added to at the present time and is to be seen in several rooms of the Uffizi, and those miniature portraits of men of eminence which we shall see in the corridor between the Poccetti Gallery and Salon of Justice at the Pitti. Cosimo III (1670-1723) added the Dutch pictures and the famous Venus de' Medici and other Tribuna statuary. The galleries remained the private property of the Medici family until the Electress Palatine, Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici, daughter of Cosimo III and great niece of the Cardinal Leopold, bequeathed all these treasures, to which she had greatly added, together with bronzes now in the Bargello, Etruscan antiquities now in the Archaeological Museum, tapestries also there, and books in the Laurentian library, to Florence for ever, on condition that they should never be removed from Florence and should exist for the benefit of the public. Her death was in 1743, and with her passed away the last descendant of that Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1429) whom we saw giving commissions to Donatello, building the children's hospital, and helping Florence to the best of his power: so that the first Medici and the last were akin in love of art and in generosity to their beautiful city. The new Austrian Grand Dukes continued to add to the Uffizi, particularly Pietro-Leopoldo (1765-1790), who also founded the Accademia. To him was due the assembling, under the Uffizi roof, of all the outlying pictures then belonging to the State, including those in the gallery of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, which owned, among others, the famous Hugo van der Goes. It was he also who brought together from Rome the Niobe statues and constructed a room for them. Leopold II added the Iscrizioni. It was as recently as 1842 to 1856 that the statues of the great Florentines were placed in the portico. These, beginning at the Palazzo Vecchio, are, first, against the inner wall, Cosimo Pater (1389-1464) and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1450-1492); then, outside: Orcagna; Andrea Pisano, of the first Baptistery doors; Giotto and Donatello; Alberti, who could do everything and who designed the façade of S. Maria Novella; Leonardo and Michelangelo. Next, three poets, Dante (1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Then Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the statesman, and Francesco Guicciardini (1482-1540), the historian. That completes the first side. At the end are Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1516), the explorer, who gave his name to America, and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the astronomer; and above is Cosimo I, the first Grand Duke. On the Uffizi's river façade are four figures only--and hundreds of swallows' nests. The figures are Francesco Ferrucci, who died in 1530, the general painted by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery, who recaptured Volterra from Pope Clement VII in 1529; Giovanni delle Bande Nere (1500-1527), father of Cosimo I, and a great fighting man; Piero Capponi, who died in 1496, and delivered Florence from Charles VIII in 1494, by threatening to ring the city bells; and Farinata degli Uberti, an earlier soldier, who died in 1264 and is in the "Divina Commedia" as a hero. It was he who repulsed the Ghibelline suggestion that Florence should be destroyed and the inhabitants emigrate to Empoli. Working back towards the Loggia de' Lanzi we find less-known names: Pietro Antonio Michele (1679-1737), the botanist; Francesco Redi (1626-1697), a poet and a man of science; Paolo Mascagni (1732-1815), the anatomist; Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603), the philosopher; S. Antonio (died 1461), Prior of the Convent of S. Marco and Archbishop of Florence; Francesco Accorso (1182-1229), the jurist; Guido Aretino (eleventh century), musician; and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572), the goldsmith and sculptor. The most notable omissions are Arnolfo and Brunelleschi (but these are, as we have seen, on the façade of the Palazzo de' Canonici, opposite the south side of the cathedral), Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. Personally I should like to have still others here, among them Giorgio Vasari, in recognition of his enthusiastic and entertaining biographies of the Florentine artists, to say nothing of the circumstance that he designed this building. Before we enter any Florentine gallery let me say that there is only one free day and that the crowded Sabbath. Admittance to nearly all is a lira. Moreover, there is no re-admission. The charge strikes English visitors, accustomed to the open portals of their own museums and galleries, as an outrage, and it explains also the little interest in their treasures which most Florentines display, for being essentially a frugal people they have seldom seen them. Visitors who can satisfy the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been made. Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but the revenue which the gallery entrance-fees represent cannot reach any great volume, and such as it is it had much better, I should say, be raised by other means. Meanwhile, the foreigner chiefly pays it. What Giovanni de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici, and--even more--what Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici, who bequeathed to the State these possessions, would think could they see this feverish and implacable pursuit of pence, I have not imagination, or scorn, enough to set down. Infirm and languid visitors should get it clearly into their heads (1) that the tour of the Uffizi means a long walk and (2) that there is a lift. You find it in the umbrella room--at every Florentine gallery and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your umbrella--and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more. But walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together with other fine sculptured things. One of the quaintest symbols of conservatism in Florence is the scissors of the officials who supply tickets of entrance. Apparently the perforated line is unknown in Italy; hence the ticket is divided from its counterfoil (which I assume goes to the authorities in order that they may check their horrid takings) by a huge pair of shears. These things are snip-snapping all over Italy, all day long. Having obtained your ticket you hand it to another official at a turn-stile, and at last you are free of cupidity and red tape and may breathe easily again and examine the products of the light-hearted, generous Renaissance in the right spirit. One should never forget, in any gallery of Florence, to look out of the windows. There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges and mountains. From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her little room, feeding them with maize. Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti and the Uffizi--unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no air. A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It is hard worked only on Sundays. The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close study--covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art: from, say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci. But as they are from time to time changed it is useless to say more of them. There is also on the first landing of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked. How the authorities have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander into bad hands. To name the most wonderful picture in the Uffizi would be a very difficult task. At the Accademia, if a plebiscite were taken, there is little doubt but that Botticelli's "Primavera" would win. At the Pitti I personally would name Giorgione's "Concert" without any hesitation at all; but probably the public vote would go to Raphael's "Madonna della Sedia". But the Uffizi? Here we are amid such wealth of masterpieces, and yet when one comes to pass them in review in memory none stands out as those other two I have named. Perhaps Botticelli would win again, with his "Birth of Venus". Were the Leonardo finished ... but it is only a sketch. Luca Signorelli's wild flowers in No. 74 seem to abide with me as vividly and graciously as anything; but they are but a detail and it is a very personal predilection. Perhaps the great exotic work painted far away in Belgium--the Van der Goes triptych--is the most memorable; but to choose an alien canvas is to break the rules of the game. Is it perhaps the unfinished Leonardo after all? If not, and not the Botticelli, it is beyond question that lovely adoring Madonna, so gentle and sweet, against the purest and bluest of Tuscan skies, which is attributed to Filippino Lippi: No. 1354. CHAPTER IX The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms Lorenzo Monaco--Fra Angelico--Mariotto Albertinelli turns innkeeper--The Venetian rooms--Giorgione's death--Titian--Mantegna uniting north and south--Giovanni Bellini--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Michelangelo--Luca Signorelli--Wild flowers--Leonardo da Vinci--Paolo Uccello. The first and second rooms are Venetian; but I am inclined to think that it is better to take the second door on the left--the first Tuscan salon--and walking straight across it come at once to the Salon of Lorenzo Monaco and the primitives. For the earliest good pictures are here. Here especially one should remember that the pictures were painted never for a gallery but for churches. Lorenzo Monaco (Lawrence the Monk, 1370-c. 1425), who gives his name to this room, was a monk of the Camaldolese order in the Monastery of the Angeli, and was a little earlier than Fra Angelico (the Angelic Brother), the more famous painting monk, whose dates are 1387-1455. Lorenzo was influenced by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson, friend, pupil, and assistant. His greatest work is this large Uffizi altar-piece--he painted nothing but altar-pieces--depicting the Coronation of the Virgin: a great gay scene of splendour, containing pretty angels who must have been the delight of children in church. The predella--and here let me advise the visitor never to overlook the predellas, where the artist often throws off formality and allows his more natural feelings to have play, almost as though he painted the picture for others and the predella for himself--is peculiarly interesting. Look, at the left, at the death of an old Saint attended by monks and nuns, whose grief is profound. One other good Lorenzo is here, an "Adoration of the Magi," No. 39, a little out of drawing but full of life. But for most people the glory of the room is not Lorenzo the Monk, but Brother Giovanni of Fiesole, known ever more as Beato, or Fra, Angelico. Of that most adoring and most adorable of painters I say much in the chapter on the Accademia, where he is very fully represented, and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are in this room--the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the "Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the "Coronation," which is a blaze of pious fervour and glory. The group of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia. Already, however, we have learned his love of blue. Another altar-piece with a subtle quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d. 1357), in which the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly. It is all very primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of age. This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which earned him two sonnets of eulogy. It is also two Sienese painters who have made the gayest thing in this room, the predella, No. 1304, by Neroccio di Siena (1447-1500) and Francesco di Giorgio di Siena (1439-1502), containing scenes in the life of S. Benedetto. Neroccio did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very fine it is. Another delightful predella is that by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1498), Fra Angelico's pupil, whom we have seen at the Riccardi palace. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64, which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint. After the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) is very fine. It is now a ruin, but enough remains to show that it must have been impressive. These collaborators, although intimate friends, ultimately went different ways, for Fra Bartolommeo came under the influence of Savonarola, burned his nude drawings, and entered the Convent of S. Marco; whereas Albertinelli, who was a convivial follower of Venus, tiring of art and even more of art jargon, took an inn outside the S. Gallo gate and a tavern on the Ponte Vecchio, remarking that he had found a way of life that needed no knowledge of muscles, foreshortening, or perspective, and better still, was without critics. Among his pupils was Franciabigio, whose lovely Madonna of the Well we are coming to in the Tribuna. Chief among the other pictures are two by the delightful Alessio Baldovinetti, the master of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Nos. 60 and 56; and a large early altar-piece by the brothers Orcagna, painted in 1367 for S. Maria Nuova, now the principal hospital of Florence and once the home of many beautiful pictures. This work is rather dingy now, but it is interesting as coming in part from the hand that designed the tabernacle in Or San Michele and the Loggia de' Lanzi. Another less-known painter represented here is Francesco Granacci (1469-1543), the author of Nos. 1541 and 1280, both rich and warm and pleasing. Granacci was a fellow-pupil of Michelangelo both in Lorenzo de' Medici's garden and in Ghirlandaio's workshop, and the bosom friend of that great man all his life. Like Piero di Cosimo, Granacci was a great hand at pageantry, and Lorenzo de' Medici kept him busy. He was not dependent upon art for his living, but painted for love of it, and Vasari makes him a very agreeable man. Here too is Gio. Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544), also a rare painter, with a finely coloured and finely drawn "Disputa," No. 63. This painter seems to have had the same devotion to his master, Lorenzo di Credi, that di Credi had for his master, Verrocchio. Vasari calls Sogliani a worthy religious man who minded his own affairs--a good epitaph. His work is rarely met with in Florence, but he has a large fresco at S. Marco. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537) himself has two pretty circular paintings here, of which No. 1528 is particularly sweet: "The Virgin and Child with St. John and Angels," all comfortable and happy in a Tuscan meadow; while on an easel is another circular picture, by Pacchiarotto (1477-1535). This has good colour and twilight beauty, but it does not touch one and is not too felicitously composed. Over the door to the Venetian room is a Cosimo Rosselli with a prettily affectionate Madonna and Child. From this miscellaneous Tuscan room we pass to the two rooms which contain the Venetian pictures, of which I shall say less than might perhaps be expected, not because I do not intensely admire them but because I feel that the chief space in a Florentine book should be given to Florentine or Tuscan things. As a matter of fact, I find myself when in the Uffizi continually drawn to revisit these walls. The chief treasures are the Titians, the Giorgiones, the Mantegnas, the Carpaccio, and the Bellini allegory. These alone would make the Uffizi a Mecca of connoisseurs. Giorgione is to be found in his richest perfection at the Pitti, in his one unforgettable work that is preserved there, but here he is wonderful too, with his Cavalier of Malta, black and golden, and the two rich scenes, Nos. 621 and 630, nominally from Scripture, but really from romantic Italy. To me these three pictures are the jewels of the Venetian collection. To describe them is impossible: enough to say that some glowing genius produced them; and whatever the experts admit, personally I prefer to consider that genius Giorgione. Giorgione, who was born in 1477 and died young--at thirty-three--was, like Titian, the pupil of Bellini, but was greatly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Later he became Titian's master. He was passionately devoted to music and to ladies, and it was indeed from a lady that he had his early death, for he continued to kiss her after she had taken the plague. (No bad way to die, either; for to be in the power of an emotion that sways one to such foolishness is surely better than to live the lukewarm calculating lives of most of us.) Giorgione's claim to distinction is that not only was he a glorious colourist and master of light and shade, but may be said to have invented small genre pictures that could be earned about and hung in this or that room at pleasure--such pictures as many of the best Dutch painters were to bend their genius to almost exclusively--his favourite subjects being music parties and picnics. These Moses and Solomon pictures in the Uffizi are of course only a pretext for gloriously coloured arrangements of people with rich scenic backgrounds. No.621 is the finer. The way in which the baby is being held in the other indicates how little Giorgione thought of verisimilitude. The colour was the thing. After the Giorgiones the Titians, chief of which is No.633, "The Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Anthony," sometimes called the "Madonna of the Roses," a work which throws a pallor over all Tuscan pictures; No.626, the golden Flora, who glows more gloriously every moment (whom we shall see again, at the Pitti, as the Magdalen); the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Nos.605 and 599, the Duchess set at a window with what looks so curiously like a deep blue Surrey landscape through it and a village spire in the midst; and 618, an unfinished Madonna and Child in which the Master's methods can be followed. The Child, completed save for the final bath of light, is a miracle of draughtsmanship. The triptych by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) is of inexhaustible interest, for here, as ever, Mantegna is full of thought and purpose. The left panel represents the Ascension, Christ being borne upwards by eleven cherubim in a solid cloud; the right panel--by far the best, I think--shows the Circumcision, where the painter has set himself various difficulties of architecture and goldsmith's work for the pleasure of overcoming them, every detail being painted with Dutch minuteness and yet leaving the picture big; while the middle panel, which is concave, depicts an Adoration of the Magi that will bear much study. The whole effect is very northern: not much less so than our own new National Gallery Mabuse. Mantegna also has a charming Madonna and Child, No. 1025, with pleasing pastoral and stone-quarrying activities in the distance. On the right of the triptych is the so-called Carpaccio (1450-1519), a confused but glorious melee of youths and halberds, reds and yellows and browns, very modern and splendid and totally unlike anything else in the whole gallery. Uccello may possibly be recalled, but only for subject. Finally there is Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516), master of Titian and Giorgione, with his "Sacra Conversazione," No. 631, which means I know not what but has a haunting quality. Later we shall see a picture by Michelangelo which has been accused of blending Christianity and paganism; but Bellini's sole purpose was to do this. We have children from a Bacchic vase and the crowned Virgin; two naked saints and a Venetian lady; and a centaur watching a hermit. The foreground is a mosaic terrace; the background is rocks and water. It is all bizarre and very curious and memorable and quite unique. For the rest, I should mention two charming Guardis; a rich little Canaletto; a nice scene of sheep by Jacopo Bassano; the portrait of an unknown young man by an unknown painter, No. 1157; and Tintoretto's daring "Abraham and Isaac". The other Venetian room is almost wholly devoted to portraits, chief among them being a red-headed Tintoretto burning furiously, No. 613, and Titian's sly and sinister Caterina Cornaro in her gorgeous dress, No. 648; Piombo's "L'Uomo Ammalato"; Tintoretto's Jacopo Sansovino, the sculptor, the grave old man holding his calipers who made that wonderful Greek Bacchus at the Bargello; Schiavone's ripe, bearded "Ignoto," No. 649, and, perhaps above all, the Moroni, No. 386, black against grey. There is also Paolo Veronese's "Holy Family with S. Catherine," superbly masterly and golden but suggesting the Rialto rather than Nazareth. One picture gives the next room, the Sala di Michelangelo, its name; but entering from the Venetian room we come first on the right to a very well-known Lippo Lippi, copied in every picture shop in Florence: No. 1307, a Madonna and two Children. Few pictures are so beset by delighted observers, but apart from the perfection of it as an early painting, leaving nothing to later dexterity, its appeal to me is weak. The Madonna (whose head-dress, as so often in Lippo Lippi, foreshadows Botticelli) and the landscape equally delight; the children almost repel, and the decorative furniture in the corner quite repels. The picture is interesting also for its colour, which is unlike anything else in the gallery, the green of the Madonna's dress being especially lovely and distinguished, and vulgarizing the Ghirlandaio--No. 1297--which hangs next. This picture is far too hot throughout, and would indeed be almost displeasing but for the irradiation of the Virgin's face. The other Ghirlandaio--No. 1295--in this room is far finer and sweeter; but at the Accademia and the Badia we are to see him at his best in this class of work. None the less, No. 1295 is a charming thing, and the little Mother and her happy Child, whose big toe is being so reverently adored by the ancient mage, are very near real simple life. This artist, we shall see, always paints healthy, honest babies. The seaport in the distance is charming too. Ghirlandaio's place in this room is interesting on account of his relation to Michelangelo as first instructor; but by the time that the great master's "Holy Family," hanging here, was painted all traces of Ghirlandaio's influence had disappeared, and if any forerunner is noticeable it is Luca Signorelli. But we must first glance at the pretty little Lorenzo di Credi, No. 1160, the Annunciation, an artificial work full of nice thoughts and touches, with the prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture would find a prominent place. The "Holy Family" of Michelangelo--No. 1139--is remarkable for more than one reason. It is, to begin with, the only finished easel picture that exists from his brush. It is also his one work in oils, for he afterwards despised that medium as being fit "only for children". The frame is contemporary and was made for it, the whole being commissioned by Angelo Doni, a wealthy connoisseur whose portrait by Raphael we shall see in the Pitti, and who, according to Vasari, did his best to get it cheaper than his bargain, and had in the end to pay dearer. The period of the picture is about 1503, while the great David was in progress, when the painter was twenty-eight. That it is masterly and superb there can be no doubt, but, like so much of Michelangelo's work, it suffers from its author's greatness. There is an austerity of power here that ill consorts with the tender domesticity of the scene, and the Child is a young Hercules. The nude figures in the background introduce an alien element and suggest the conflict between Christianity and paganism, the new religion and the old: in short, the Twilight of the Gods. Whether Michelangelo intended this we shall not know; but there it is. The prevailing impression left by the picture is immense power and virtuosity and no religion. In the beautiful Luca Signorelli--No.74--next it, we find at once a curious similarity and difference. The Madonna and Child only are in the foreground, a not too radiant but very tender couple; in the background are male figures nearly nude: not quite, as Michelangelo made them, and suggesting no discord as in his picture. Luca was born in 1441, and was thus thirty-four years older than Michelangelo. This picture is perhaps that one presented by Luca to Lorenzo de' Medici, of which Vasari tells, and if so it was probably on a wall in the Medici palace when Michelangelo as a boy was taught with Lorenzo's sons. Luca's sweetness was alien to Michelangelo, but not his melancholy or his sense of composition; while Luca's devotion to the human form as the unit of expression was in Michelangelo carried out to its highest power. Vasari, who was a relative of Luca's and a pupil of Michelangelo's, says that his master had the greatest admiration for Luca's genius. Luca Signorelli was born at Cortona, and was instructed by Piero della Francesca, whose one Uffizi painting is in a later room. His chief work is at Cortona, at Rome (in the Sixtine Chapel), and at Orvieto. His fame was sufficient in Florence in 1491 for him to be made one of the judges of the designs for the façade of the Duomo. Luca lived to a great age, not dying till 1524, and was much beloved. He was magnificent in his habits and loved fine clothes, was very kindly and helpful in disposition, and the influence of his naturalness and sincerity upon art was great. One very pretty sad story is told of him, to the effect that when his son, whom he had dearly loved, was killed at Cortona, he caused the body to be stripped, and painted it with the utmost exactitude, that through his own handiwork he might be able to contemplate that treasure of which fate had robbed him. Perhaps the most beautiful or at any rate the most idiosyncratic thing in the picture before us is its lovely profusion of wayside flowers. These come out but poorly in the photograph, but in the painting they are exquisite both in form and in detail. Luca painted them as if he loved them. (There is a hint of the same thoughtful care in the flowers in No. 1133, by Luca, in our National Gallery; but these at Florence are the best.) No. 74 is in tempera: the next, also by Luca, No.1291, is in oil, a "Holy Family," a work at once powerful, rich, and sweet. Here, again, we may trace an influence on Michelangelo, for the child is shown deprecating a book which his mother is displaying, while in the beautiful marble tondo of the "Madonna and Child" by Michelangelo, which we are soon to see in the Bargello, a reading lesson is in progress, and the child wearying of it. We find Luca again in the next large picture--No.1547--a Crucifixion, with various Saints, done in collaboration with Perugino. The design suggests Luca rather than his companion, and the woman at the foot of the cross is surely the type of which he was so fond. The drawing of Christ is masterly and all too sombre for Perugino. Finally, there is a Luca predella, No. 1298, representing the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ (in which Joseph is older almost than in any version), and the Adoration of the Magi, all notable for freedom and richness. Note the realism and charm and the costume of the two pages of the Magi. And now we come to what is perhaps the most lovely picture in the whole gallery, judged purely as colour and sweetness and design--No.1549--a "Madonna Adoring," with Filippino Lippi's name and an interrogation mark beneath it. Who painted it if not Filippino? That is the question; but into such problems, which confront one at every turn in Florence, I am neither qualified nor anxious to enter. When doctors disagree any one may decide before me. The thought, moreover, that always occurs in the presence of these good debatable pictures, is that any doubt as to their origin merely enriches this already over-rich period, since some one had to paint them. Simon not pure becomes hardly less remarkable than Simon pure. If only the Baby were more pleasing, this would be perhaps the most delightful picture in the world: as it is, its blues alone lift it to the heavens of delectableness. By an unusual stroke of fortune a crack in the paint where the panels join has made a star in the tender blue sky. The Tuscan landscape is very still and beautiful; the flowers, although conventional and not accurate like Luca's, are as pretty as can be; the one unsatisfying element is the Baby, who is a little clumsy and a little in pain, but diffuses radiance none the less. And the Mother--the Mother is all perfection and winsomeness. Her face and hands are exquisite, and the Tuscan twilight behind her is so lovely. I have given a reproduction, but colour is essential. The remaining three pictures in the room are a Bastiano and a Pollaiolo, which are rather for the student than for the wanderer, and a charming Ignoto, No. 75, which I like immensely. But Ignoto nearly always paints well. In the Sala di Leonardo are two pictures which bear the name of this most fascinating of all the painters of the world. One is the Annunciation, No. 1288, upon the authenticity of which much has been said and written, and the other an unfinished Adoration of the Magi which cannot be questioned by anyone. The probabilities are that the Annunciation is an early work and that the ascription is accurate: at Oxford is a drawing known to be Leonardo's that is almost certainly a study for a detail of this work, while among the Leonardo drawings in the His de la Salle collection at the Louvre is something very like a first sketch of the whole. Certainly one can think of no one else who could have given the picture its quality, which increases in richness with every visit to the gallery; but the workshop of Verrocchio, where Leonardo worked, together with Lorenzo di Credi and Perugino, with Andrea of the True Eye over all, no doubt put forth wonderful things. The Annunciation is unique in the collection, both in colour and character: nothing in the Uffizi so deepens. There are no cypresses like these in any other picture, no finer drawing than that of Mary's hands. Luca's flowers are better, in the adjoining room; one is not too happy about the pedestal of the reading-desk; and there are Virgins whom we can like more; but as a whole it is perhaps the most fascinating picture of all, for it has the Leonardo darkness as well as light. Of Leonardo I could write for ever, but this book is not the place; for though he was a Florentine, Florence has very little of his work: these pictures only, and one of these only for certain, together with an angel in a work by Verrocchio at the Accademia which we shall see, and possibly a sculptured figure over the north door of the Baptistery. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Francis I of France, lured him away, to the eternal loss of his own city. It is Milan and Paris that are richest in his work, and after that London, which has at South Kensington a sculptured relief by him as well as a painting at the National Gallery, a cartoon at Burlington House, and the British Museum drawings. His other work here--No. 1252--in the grave brown frame, was to have been Leonardo's greatest picture in oil, so Vasari says: larger, in fact, than any known picture at that time. Being very indistinct, it is, curiously enough, best as the light begins to fail and the beautiful wistful faces emerge from the gloom. In their presence one recalls Leonardo's remark in one of his notebooks that faces are most interesting beneath a troubled sky. "You should make your portrait," he adds, "at the hour of the fall of the evening when it is cloudy or misty, for the light then is perfect." In the background one can discern the prancing horses of the Magi's suite; a staircase with figures ascending and descending; the rocks and trees of Tuscany; and looking at it one cannot but ponder upon the fatality which seems to have pursued this divine and magical genius, ordaining that almost everything that he put forth should be either destroyed or unfinished: his work in the Castello at Milan, which might otherwise be an eighth wonder of the world, perished; his "Last Supper" at Milan perishing; his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by madman or knave. Among the other pictures in this room is the rather hot "Adoration of the Magi," by Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), over the Leonardo "Annunciation," a glowing scene of colour and animation: this Cosimo being the Cosimo from whom Piero di Cosimo took his name, and an associate of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Luca Signorelli on the Sixtine Chapel frescoes. On the left wall is Uccello's battle piece, No. 52, very like that in our National Gallery: rich and glorious as decoration, but quite bearing out Vasari's statement that Uccello could not draw horses. Uccello was a most laborious student of animal life and so absorbed in the mysteries of perspective that he preferred them to bed; but he does not seem to have been able to unite them. He was a perpetual butt of Donatello. It is told of him that having a commission to paint a fresco for the Mercato Vecchio he kept the progress of the work a secret and allowed no one to see it. At last, when it was finished, he drew aside the sheet for Donatello, who was buying fruit, to admire. "Ah, Paolo," said the sculptor reproachfully, "now that you ought to be covering it up, you uncover it." There remain a superb nude study of Venus by Lorenzo di Credi, No. 3452--one of the pictures which escaped Savonarola's bonfire of vanities, and No. 1305, a Virgin and Child with various Saints by Domenico Veneziano (1400-1461), who taught Gentile da Fabriano, the teacher of Jacopo Bellini. This picture is a complete contrast to the Uccello: for that is all tapestry, richness, and belligerence, and this is so pale and gentle, with its lovely light green, a rare colour in this gallery. CHAPTER X The Uffizi III: Botticelli A painter apart--Sandro Filipepi--Artists' names--Piero de' Medici--The "Adoration of the Magi"--The "Judith" pictures--Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Lorenzo and Giuliano's mother--The Tournaments--The "Birth of Venus" and the "Primavera"--Simonetta--A new star--Sacred pictures--Savonarola and "The Calumny"--The National Gallery--Botticelli's old age and death. We come next to the Sala di Botticelli, and such is the position held by this painter in the affection of visitors to Florence, and such the wealth of works from his hand that the Uffizi possesses, that I feel that a single chapter may well be devoted to his genius, more particularly as many of his pictures were so closely associated with Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici. We see Botticelli here at his most varied. The Accademia also is very rich in his work, having above all the "Primavera," and in this chapter I shall glance at the Accademia pictures too, returning to them when we reach that gallery in due course. Among the great Florentine masters Botticelli stands apart by reason not only of the sensitive wistful delicacy of his work, but for the profound interest of his personality. He is not essentially more beautiful than his friend Filippino Lippi or--occasionally--than Fra Lippo Lippi his master; but he is always deeper. One feels that he too felt the emotion that his characters display; he did not merely paint, he thought and suffered. Hence his work is dramatic. Again Botticelli had far wider sympathies than most of his contemporaries. He was a friend of the Medici, a neo-Platonist, a student of theology with the poet Palmieri, an illustrator of Dante, and a devoted follower of Savonarola. Of the part that women played in his life we know nothing: in fact we know less of him intimately than of almost any of the great painters; but this we may guess, that he was never a happy man. His work falls naturally into divisions corresponding to his early devotion to Piero de' Medici and his wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni, in whose house for a while he lived; to his interest in their sons Lorenzo and Giuliano; and finally to his belief in Savonarola. Sublime he never is; comforting he never is; but he is everything else. One can never forget in his presence the tragedy that attends the too earnest seeker after beauty: not "all is vanity" does Botticelli say, but "all is transitory". Botticelli, as we now call him, was the son of Mariano Filipepi and was born in Florence in 1447. According to one account he was called Sandro di Botticelli because he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of that name; according to another his brother Antonio, a goldsmith, was known as Botticello (which means a little barrel), and Sandro being with him was called Sandro di Botticello. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that the name of Filipepi is rarely used. And here a word as to the capriciousness of the nomenclature of artists. We know some by their Christian names; some by their surnames; some by their nicknames; some by the names of their towns, and some by the names of their masters. Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, was so clever in designing a pretty garland for women's hair that he was called Ghirlandaio, the garland-maker, and his painter son Domenico is therefore known for ever as Uomenico Ghirlandaio. Paolo Doni, a painter of battle scenes, was so fond of birds that he was known as Uccello (a bird) and now has no other name; Pietro Vannucci coming from Perugia was called Perugino; Agnolo di Francesco di Migliore happened to be a tailor with a genius of a son, Andrea; that genius is therefore Andrea of the Tailor--del Sarto--for all time. And so forth. To return to Botticelli. In 1447, when he was born, Fra Angelico was sixty; and Masaccio had been dead for some years. At the age of twelve the boy was placed with Fra Lippo Lippi, then a man of a little more than fifty, to learn painting. That Lippo was his master one may see continually, but particularly by comparison of his headdresses with almost any of Botticelli's. Both were minutely careful in this detail. But where Lippo was beautifully obvious, Sandro was beautifully analytical: he was also, as I have said, much more interesting and dramatic. Botticelli's best patron was Piero de' Medici, who took him into his house, much as his son Lorenzo was to take Michelangelo into his, and made him one of the family. For Piero, Botticelli always had affection and respect, and when he painted his "Fortitude" as one of the Pollaiuoli's series of the Virtues for the Mercatanzia (of which several are in this gallery), he made the figure symbolize Piero's life and character--or so it is possible, if one wishes to believe. But it should be understood that almost nothing is known about Botticelli and the origin of his pictures. At Piero's request Botticelli painted the "Adoration of the Magi" (No. 1286) which was to hang in S. Maria Novella as an offering of gratitude for Piero's escape from the conspiracy of Luca Pitti in 1466. Piero had but just succeeded to Cosimo when Pitti, considering him merely an invalid, struck his blow. By virtue largely of the young Lorenzo's address the attack miscarried: hence the presence of Lorenzo in the picture, on the extreme left, with a sword. Piero himself in scarlet kneels in the middle; Giuliano, his second son, doomed to an early death by assassination, is kneeling on his right. The picture is not only a sacred painting but (like the Gozzoli fresco at the Riccardi palace) an exaltation of the Medici family. The dead Cosimo is at the Child's feet; the dead Giovanni, Piero's brother, stands close to the kneeling Giuliano. Among the other persons represented are collateral Medici and certain of their friends. It is by some accepted that the figure in yellow, on the extreme right, looking out of this picture, is Botticelli himself. But for a portrait of the painter of more authenticity we must go to the Carmine, where, in the Brancacci chapel, we shall see a fresco by Botticelli's friend Filippino Lippi representing the Crucifixion of S. Peter, in which our painter is depicted on the right, looking on at the scene--a rather coarse heavy face, with a large mouth and long hair. He wears a purple cap and red cloak. Vasari tells us that Botticelli, although so profoundly thoughtful and melancholy in his work, was extravagant, pleasure loving, and given to practical jokes. Part at least of this might be gathered from observation of Filippino Lippi's portrait of him. According to Vasari it was No. 1286 which brought Botticelli his invitation to Rome from Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine Chapel. But that was several years later and much was to happen in the interval. The two little "Judith" pictures (Nos. 1156 and 1158) were painted for Piero de' Medici and had their place in the Medici palace. In 1494, when Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici was banished from Florence and the palace looted, they were stolen and lost sight of; but during the reign of Francis I they reappeared and were presented to his wife Bianca Capella and once more placed with the Medici treasures. No. 1156, the Judith walking springily along, sword in hand, having slain the tyrant, is one of the masterpieces of paint. Everything about it is radiant, superb, and unforgettable. One other picture which the young painter made for his patron--or in this case his patroness, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero's wife--is the "Madonna of the Magnificat," No. 1267, with its beautiful children and sweet Madonna, its lovely landscape but not too attractive Child. The two boys are Lorenzo, on the left, and Giuliano, in yellow. One of their sisters leans over them. Here the boys are perhaps, in Botticelli's way, typified rather than portrayed. Although this picture came so early in his career Botticelli never excelled its richness, beauty, and depth of feeling, nor its liquid delicacy of treatment. Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar. She survived Piero by thirteen years and her son Giuliano by five. Botticelli painted her portrait, which is now in Berlin. These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period, which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period of mourning for him. He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery, belonging to this epoch. But in order to understand them we must again go to history. Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young painter, now twenty-two years of age. In 1474 Lorenzo devised for his brother Giuliano a tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce very like that which Piero had given for Lorenzo on the occasion of his betrothal in 1469; and Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo to make pictures commemorating the event. Verrocchio again helped with the costumes; Lucrezia Donati again was Queen of the Tournament; but the Queen of Beauty was the sixteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci--the lovely Simonetta Cattaneo, a lady greatly beloved by all and a close friend both of Giuliano and Lorenzo. The praises of Lorenzo's tournament had been sung by Luca Pulci: Giuliano's were sung by Poliziano, under the title "La Giostra di Giuliano de' Medici," and it is this poem which Botticelli may be said to have illustrated, for both poet and artist employ the same imagery. Thus Poliziano, or Politian (of whom we shall hear more in the chapter on S. Marco) compares Simonetta to Venus, and in stanzas 100 and 101 speaks of her birth, describing her blown to earth over the sea by the breath of the Zephyrs, and welcomed there by the Hours, one of whom offers her a robe. This, Botticelli translates into exquisite tempera with a wealth of pretty thoughts. The cornflowers and daisies on the Hour's dress are alone a perennial joy. Simonetta as Venus has some of the wistfulness of the Madonnas; and not without reason does Botticelli give her this expression, for her days were very short. In the "Primavera," which we are to see at the Accademia, but which must be described here, we find Simonetta again but we do not see her first. We see first that slender upright commanding figure, all flowers and youth and conquest, in her lovely floral dress, advancing over the grass like thistle-down. Never before in painting had anything been done at once so distinguished and joyous and pagan as this. For a kindred emotion one had to go to Greek sculpture, but Botticelli, while his grace and joy are Hellenic, was intensely modern too: the problems of the Renaissance, the tragedy of Christianity, equally cloud his brow. The symbolism of the "Primavera" is interesting. Glorious Spring is returning to earth--in the presence of Venus--once more to make all glad, and with her her attendants to dance and sing, and the Zephyrs to bring the soft breezes; and by Spring Botticelli meant the reign of Lorenzo, whose tournament motto was "Le temps revient". Simonetta is again the central figure, and never did Botticelli paint more exquisitely than here. Her bosom is the prettiest in Florence; the lining of her robe over her right arm has such green and blue and gold as never were seen elsewhere; her golden sandals are delicate as gossamer. Over her head a little cupid hovers, directing his arrow at Mercury, on the extreme left, beside the three Graces. In Mercury, who is touching the trees with his caduceus and bidding them burgeon, some see Giuliano de' Medici, who was not yet betrothed. But when the picture was painted both Giuliano and Simonetta were dead: Simonetta first, of consumption, in 1476, and Giuliano, by stabbing in 1478. Lorenzo, who was at Pisa during Simonetta's illness, detailed his own physician for her care. On hearing of her death he walked out into the night and noticed for the first time a brilliant star. "See," he said, "either the soul of that most gentle lady hath been transferred into that new star or else hath it been joined together thereunto." Of Giuliano's end we have read in Chapter II, and it was Botticelli, whose destinies were so closely bound up with the Medici, who was commissioned to paint portraits of the murderous Pazzi to be displayed outside the Palazzo Vecchio. A third picture in what may be called the tournament period is found by some in the "Venus and Mars," No. 915, in our National Gallery. Here Giuliano would be Mars, and Venus either one woman in particular whom Florence wished him to marry, or all women, typified by one, trying to lure him from other pre-occupations, such as hunting. To make her Simonetta is to go too far; for she is not like the Simonetta of the other pictures, and Simonetta was but recently married and a very model of fair repute. In No. 916 in the National Gallery is a "Venus with Cupids" (which might be by Botticelli and might be by that interesting painter of whom Mr. Berenson has written so attractively as Amico di Sandro), in which Politian's description of Venus, in his poem, is again closely followed. After the tournament pictures we come in Botticelli's career to the Sixtine Chapel frescoes, and on his return to Florence to other frescoes, including that lovely one at the Villa Lemmi (then the Villa Tornabuoni) which is now on the staircase of the Louvre. These are followed by at least two more Medici pictures--the portrait of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, in this room, No. 1154, the sad-faced youth with the medal; and the "Pallas and the Centaur" at the Pitti, an historical record of Lorenzo's success as a diplomatist when he went to Naples in 1480. The latter part of Botticelli's life was spent under the influence of Savonarola and in despair at the wickedness of the world and its treatment of that prophet. His pictures became wholly religious, but it was religion without joy. Never capable of disguising the sorrow that underlies all human happiness--or, as I think of it in looking at his work, the sense of transience--Botticelli, as age came upon him, was more than ever depressed. One has the feeling that he was persuaded that only through devotion and self-negation could peace of mind be gained, and yet for himself could find none. The sceptic was too strong in him. Savonarola's eloquence could not make him serene, however much he may have come beneath its spell. It but served to increase his melancholy. Hence these wistful despondent Madonnas, all so conscious of the tragedy before their Child; hence these troubled angels and shadowed saints. Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498, and Botticelli paid a last tribute to his friend in the picture in this room called "The Calumny". Under the pretence of merely illustrating a passage in Lucian, who was one of his favourite authors, Botticelli has represented the campaign against the great reformer. The hall represents Florence; the judge (with the ears of an ass) the Signoria and the Pope. Into these ears Ignorance and Suspicion are whispering. Calumny, with Envy at her side and tended by Fraud and Deception, holds a torch in one hand and with the other drags her victim, who personifies (but with no attempt at a likeness) Savonarola. Behind are the figures of Remorse, cloaked and miserable, and Truth, naked and unafraid. The statues in the niches ironically represent abstract virtues. Everything in the decoration of the palace points to enlightenment and content; and beyond is the calmest and greenest of seas. One more picture was Botticelli to paint, and this also was to the glory of Savonarola. By good fortune it belongs to the English people and is No. 1034 in the National Gallery. It has upon it a Greek inscription in the painter's own hand which runs in English as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd, 1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his discipline. S. John says, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy"; the painter makes three, Savonarola having had two comrades with him. The picture was intended to give heart to the followers of Savonarola and bring promise of ultimate triumph. After the death of Savonarola, Botticelli became both poor and infirm. He had saved no money and all his friends were dead--Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Lucrezia, Simonetta, Filippino Lippi, and Savonarola. He hobbled about on crutches for a while, a pensioner of the Medici family, and dying at the age of seventy-eight was buried in Ognissanti, but without a tombstone for fear of desecration by the enemies of Savonarola's adherents. Such is the outline of Botticelli's life. We will now look at such of the pictures in this room as have not been mentioned. Entering from the Sala di Leonardo, the first picture on the right is the "Birth of Venus". Then the very typical circular picture--a shape which has come to be intimately associated with this painter--No. 1289, "The Madonna of the Pomegranate," one of his most beautiful works, and possibly yet another designed for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for the curl on the forehead of the boy to the left of the Madonna--who is more than usually troubled--is very like that for which Giuliano de' Medici was famous. This is a very lovely work, although its colour is a little depressed. Next is the most remarkable of the Piero de' Medici pictures, which I have already touched upon--No. 1286, "The Adoration of the Magi," as different from the Venus as could be: the Venus so cool and transparent, and this so hot and rich, with its haughty Florentines and sumptuous cloaks. Above it is No. 23, a less subtle group--the Madonna, the Child and angels--difficult to see. And then comes the beautiful "Magnificat," which we know to have been painted for Lucrezia Tornabuoni and which shall here introduce a passage from Pater: "For with Botticelli she too, although she holds in her hands the 'Desire of all nations,' is one of those who are neither for Jehovah nor for His enemies; and her choice is on her face. The white light on it is cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when snow lies upon the ground, and the children look up with surprise at the strange whiteness of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very caress of the mysterious child, whose gaze is always far from her, and who has already that sweet look of devotion which men have never been able altogether to love, and which still makes the born saint an object almost of suspicion to his earthly brethren. Once, indeed, he guides her hand to transcribe in a book the words of her exaltation, the 'Ave,' and the 'Magnificat,' and the 'Gaude Maria,' and the young angels, glad to rouse her for a moment from her devotion, are eager to hold the ink-horn and to support the book. But the pen almost drops from her hand, and the high cold words have no meaning for her, and her true children are those others among whom, in her rude home, the intolerable honour came to her, with that look of wistful inquiry on their irregular faces which you see in startled animals--gipsy children, such as those who, in Apennine villages, still hold out their long brown arms to beg of you, with their thick black hair nicely combed, and fair white linen on their sunburnt throats." The picture's frame is that which was made for it four hundred and fifty years ago: by whom, I cannot say, but it was the custom at that time for the painter himself to be responsible also for the frame. The glory of the end wall is the "Annunciation," reproduced in this book. The picture is a work that may perhaps not wholly please at first, the cause largely of the vermilion on the floor, but in the end conquers. The hands are among the most beautiful in existence, and the landscape, with its one tree and its fairy architecture, is a continual delight. Among "Annunciations," as among pictures, it stands very high. It has more of sophistication than most: the Virgin not only recognizes the honour, but the doom, which the painter himself foreshadows in the predella, where Christ is seen rising from the grave. None of Fra Angelico's simple radiance here, and none of Fra Lippo Lippi's glorified matter-of-fact. Here is tragedy. The painting of the Virgin's head-dress is again marvellous. Next the "Annunciation" on the left is, to my eyes, one of Botticelli's most attractive works: No. 1303, just the Madonna and Child again, in a niche, with roses climbing behind them: the Madonna one of his youngest, and more placid and simple than most, with more than a hint of the Verrocchio type in her face. To the "School of Botticelli" this is sometimes attributed: it may be rightly. Its pendant is another "Madonna and Child," No. 76, more like Lippo Lippi and very beautiful in its darker graver way. The other wall has the "Fortitude," the "Calumny," and the two little "Judith and Holofernes" pictures. Upon the "Fortitude," to which I have already alluded, it is well to look at Ruskin, who, however, was not aware that the artist intended any symbolic reference to the character and career of Piero de' Medici. The criticism is in "Mornings in Florence" and it is followed by some fine pages on the "Judith". The "Justice," "Prudence," and "Charity" of the Pollaiuolo brothers, belonging to the same series as the "Fortitude," are also here; but after the "Fortitude" one does not look at them. CHAPTER XI the Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms S. Zenobius--Piero della Francesca--Federigo da Montefeltro--Melozzo da Forli--The Tribuna--Raphael--Re-arrangement--The gems--The self-painted portraits--A northern room--Hugo van der Goes-- Tommaso Portinari--The sympathetic Memling--Rubens riotous--Vittoria della Rovere--Baroccio--Honthorst--Giovanni the indiscreet--The Medusa--Medici miniatures--Hercules Seghers--The Sala di Niobe-- Beautiful antiques. Passing from the Sala di Botticelli through the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco and the first Tuscan rooms to the corridor, we come to the second Tuscan room, which is dominated by Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531), whose "Madonna and Child," with "S. Francis and S. John the Evangelist"--No. 112--is certainly the favourite picture here, as it is, in reproduction, in so many homes; but, apart from the Child, I like far better the "S. Giacomo"--No. 1254--so sympathetic and rich in colour, which is reproduced in this volume. Another good Andrea is No. 93--a soft and misty apparition of Christ to the Magdalen. The Sodoma (1477-1549) on the easel--"S. Sebastian," No. 1279--is very beautiful in its Leonardesque hues and romantic landscape, and the two Ridolfo Ghirlandaios (1483-1561) near it are interesting as representing, with much hard force, scenes in the story of S. Zenobius, of Florence, of whom we read in chapter II. In one he restores life to the dead child in the midst of a Florentine crowd; in the other his bier, passing the Baptistery, reanimates the dead tree. Giotto's tower and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio are to be seen on the left. A very different picture is the Cosimo Rosselli, No. 1280 his, a comely "Madonna and Saints," with a motherly thought in the treatment of the bodice. Among the other pictures is a naked sprawling scene of bodies and limbs by Cosimo I's favourite painter, Bronzino (1502-1572), called "The Saviour in Hell," and two nice Medici children from the same brush, which was kept busy both on the living and ancestral lineaments of that family; two Filippino Lippis, both fine if with a little too much colour for this painter: one--No. 1257--approaching the hotness of a Ghirlandaio carpet piece, but a great feat of crowded activity; the other, No. 1268, having a beautiful blue Madonna and a pretty little cherub with a red book. Piero di Cosimo is here, religious and not mythological; and here are a very straightforward and satisfying Mariotto Albertinelli--the "Virgin and S. Elizabeth," very like a Fra Bartolommeo; a very rich and beautiful "Deposition" by Botticini, one of Verrocchio's pupils, with a gay little predella underneath it, and a pretty "Holy Family" by Franciabigio. But Andrea remains the king of the walls. From this Sala a little room is gained which I advise all tired visitors to the Uffizi to make their harbour of refuge and recuperation; for it has only three or four pictures in it and three or four pieces of sculpture and some pleasant maps and tapestry on the walls, and from its windows you look across the brown-red tiles to S. Miniato. The pictures, although so few, are peculiarly attractive, being the work of two very rare hands, Piero della Francesca (? 1398-1492) and Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National Gallery--again hanging next to Piero della Francesca--but they are not the equal of these in charm, although very charming. These grow more attractive with every visit: the eager advancing angel with his lily, and the timid little Virgin in her green dress, with folded hands. The two Pieros are, of course, superb. Piero never painted anything that was not distinguished and liquid, and here he gives us of his best: portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and Battista, his second Duchess, with classical scenes behind them. Piero della Francesca has ever been one of my favourite painters, and here he is wholly a joy. Of his works Florence has but few, since he was not a Florentine, nor did he work here, being engaged chiefly at Urbino, Ferrara, Arezzo, and Rome. His life ended sadly, for he became totally blind. In addition to his painting he was a mathematician of much repute. The Duke of Urbino here depicted is Federigo da Montefeltro, who ruled from 1444 to 1482, and in 1459 married as his second wife a daughter of Alessandro Sforza, of Pesaro, the wedding being the occasion of Piero's pictures. The duke stands out among the many Italian lords of that time as a humane and beneficent ruler and collector, and eager to administer well. He was a born fighter, and it was owing to the loss of his right eye and the fracture of his noble old nose that he is seen here in such a determined profile against the lovely light over the Umbrian hills. The symbolical chariots in the landscape at the back represent respectively the Triumph of Fame (the Duke's) and the Triumph of Chastity (that of the Duchess). The Duke's companions are Victory, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance; the little Duchess's are Love, Hope, Faith, Charity, and Innocence; and if these are not exquisite pictures I never saw any. The statues in the room should not be missed, particularly the little Genius of Love, the Bacchus and Ampelos, and the spoilt little comely boy supposed to represent--and quite conceivably--the infant Nero. Crossing the large Tuscan room again, we come to a little narrow room filled with what are now called cabinet pictures: far too many to study properly, but comprising a benignant old man's head, No. 1167, which is sometimes called a Filippino Lippi and sometimes a Masaccio, a fragment of a fresco; a boy from the serene perfect hand of Perugino, No. 1217; two little panels by Fra Bartolommeo--No. 1161--painted for a tabernacle to hold a Donatello relief and representing the Circumcision and Nativity, in colours, and at the back a pretty Annunciation in monochrome; No. 1235, on the opposite wall, a very sweet Mother and Child by the same artist; a Perseus liberating Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo, No. 1312; two or three Lorenzo di Credis; two or three Alloris; a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by Antonio Pollaiuolo; and three charming little scenes from the lives of S. John the Baptist and the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which belong properly to the predella of an altar-piece that we saw in the first room we entered--No. 1290, "The Coronation of the Virgin". No. 1162 has the gayest green dress in it imaginable. And here we enter the Tribuna, which is to the Uffizi what the Salon Carré is to the Louvre: the special treasure-room of the gallery, holding its most valuable pictures. But to-day there are as good works outside it as in; for the Michelangelo has been moved to another room, and Botticelli (to name no other) is not represented here at all. Probably the statue famous as the Venus de' Medici would be considered the Tribuna's chief possession; but not by me. Nor should I vote either for Titian's Venus. In sculpture I should choose rather the "Knife-sharpener," and among the pictures Raphael's "Madonna del Cardellino," No. 1129. But this is not to suggest that everything is not a masterpiece, for it is. Beginning at the door leading from the room of the little pictures, we find, on our left, Raphael's "Ignota," No. 1120, so rich and unfeeling, and then Francia's portrait of Evangelista Scappi, so rich and real and a picture that one never forgets. Raphael's Julius II comes next, not so powerful as the version in the Pitti, and above that Titian's famous Venus. In Perugino's portrait of Francesco delle Opere, No. 287, we find an evening sky and landscape still more lovely than Francia's. This Francesco was brother of Giovanni delle Corniole, a protégé of Lorenzo de' Medici, famous as a carver of intaglios, whose portrait of Savonarola in this medium, now preserved in the Uffizi, in the Gem Room, was said by Michelangelo to carry art to its farthest possible point. A placid and typical Perugino--the Virgin and two saints--comes next, and then a northern air sweeps in with Van Dyck's Giovanni di Montfort, now darkening into gloom but very fine and commanding. Titian's second Venus is above, for which his daughter Lavinia acted as model (the Venus of the other version being possibly the Marchesa della Rovere), and under it is the only Luini in the Uffizi, unmistakably from the sweet hand and full of Leonardesque influence. Beneath this is a rich and decorative work of the Veronese school, a portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga, with another evening sky. Then we go north again, to Dürer's Adoration of the Magi, a picture full of pleasant detail--a little mountain town here, a knight in difficulties with his horse there, two butterflies close to the Madonna--and interesting also for the treatment of the main theme in Dürer's masterly careful way; and then to Spain to Spagnoletto's "S. Jerome" in sombre chiaroscuro; then north again to a painfully real Christ crowned with thorns, by Lucas van Leyden, and the mousy, Reynoldsy, first wife of Peter Paul Rubens, while a Van Dyck portrait under a superb Domenichino and an "Adam and Eve" by Lucas Cranach complete the northern group. And so we come to the two Correggios--so accomplished and rich and untouching--all delightful virtuosity without feeling. The favourite is, of course, No. 1134, for its adorable Baby, whose natural charm atones for its theatrical Mother. On the other side of the door is No. 1129, the perfect "Madonna del Cardellino" of Raphael, so called from the goldfinch that the little boys are caressing. This, one is forced to consider one of the perfect pictures of the world, even though others may communicate more pleasure. The landscape is so exquisite and the mild sweetness of the whole work so complete; and yet, although the technical mastery is almost thrilling, the "Madonna del Pozzo" by Andrea del Sarto's friend Franciabigio, close by--No. 1125--arouses infinitely livelier feelings in the observer, so much movement and happiness has it. Raphael is perfect but cold; Franciabigio is less perfect (although exceedingly accomplished) but warm with life. The charm of this picture is as notable as the skill of Raphael's: it is wholly joyous, and the little Madonna really once lived. Both are reproduced in this volume. Raphael's neighbouring youthful "John the Baptist" is almost a Giorgione for richness, but is as truly Raphael as the Sebastian del Piombo, once (like the Franciabigio also) called a Raphael, is not. How it came to be considered Raphael, except that there may be a faint likeness to the Fornarina, is a mystery. The rooms next the Tribuna have for some time been under reconstruction, and of these I say little, nor of what pictures are to be placed there. But with the Tribuna, in any case, the collection suddenly declines, begins to crumble. The first of these rooms, in the spring of this year, 1912, was opened with a number of small Italian paintings; but they are probably only temporarily there. Chief among them was a Parmigianino, a Boltraffio, a pretty little Guido Reni, a Cosimo Tura, a Lorenzo Costa, but nothing really important. In the tiny Gem Room at the end of the corridor are wonders of the lapidary's art--and here is the famous intaglio portrait of Savonarola--but they want better treatment. The vases and other ornaments should have the light all round them, as in the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre. These are packed together in wall cases and are hard to see. Passing through the end corridor, where the beautiful Matrona reclines so placidly on her couch against the light, and where we have such pleasant views of the Ponte Vecchio, the Trinita bridge, the Arno, and the Apennines, so fresh and real and soothing after so much paint, we come to the rooms containing the famous collection of self-painted portraits, which, moved hither from Rome, has been accumulating in the Uffizi for many years and is still growing, to be invited to contribute to it being one of the highest honours a painter can receive. The portraits occupy eight rooms and a passage. Though the collection is historically and biographically valuable, it contains for every interesting portrait three or four dull ones, and thus becomes something of a weariness. Among the best are Lucas Cranach, Anton More, Van Dyck, Rembrandt (three), Rubens, Seybold, Jordaens, Reynolds, and Romney, all of which remind us of Michelangelo's dry comment, "Every painter draws himself well". Among the most interesting to us, wandering in Florence, are the two Andreas, one youthful and the other grown fatter than one likes and very different from the melancholy romantic figure in the Pitti; Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi; Carlo Dolci, surprising by its good sense and humour; Raphael, angelic, wistful, and weak; Tintoretto, old and powerful; and Jacopo Bassano, old and simple. Among the moderns, Corot's portrait of himself is one of the most memorable, but Fantin Latour, Flandrin, Leon Bonnat, and Lenbach are all strong and modest; which one cannot say of our own Leighton. Among the later English heads Orchardson's is notable, but Mr. Sargent's is disappointing. We now come to one of the most remarkable rooms in the gallery, where every picture is a gem; but since all are northern pictures, imported, I give no reproductions. This is the Sala di Van der Goes, so called from the great work here, the triptych, painted in 1474 to 1477 by Hugo van der Goes, who died in 1482, and was born at Ghent or Leyden about 1405. This painter, of whose genius there can be no question, is supposed to have been a pupil of the Van Eycks. Not much is known of him save that he painted at Bruges and Ghent and in 1476 entered a convent at Brussels where he was allowed to dine with distinguished strangers who came to see him and where he drank so much wine that his natural excitability turned to insanity. He seems, however, to have recovered, and if ever a picture showed few signs of a deranged or inflamed mind it is this, which was painted for the agent of the Medici bank at Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, who presented it to the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova in his native city of Florence, which had been founded by his ancestor Folco, the father of Dante's Beatrice. The left panel shows Tommaso praying with his two sons Antonio and Pigallo, the right his wife Maria Portinari and their adorably quaint little daughter with her charming head-dress and costume. The flowers in the centre panel are among the most beautiful things in any Florentine picture: not wild and wayward like Luca Signorelli's, but most exquisitely done: irises, red lilies, columbines and dark red clove pinks--all unexpected and all very unlikely to be in such a wintry landscape at all. On the ground are violets. The whole work is grave, austere, cool, and as different as can be from the Tuscan spirit; yet it is said to have had a deep influence on the painters of the time and must have drawn throngs to the Hospital to see it. The other Flemish and German pictures in the room are all remarkable and all warmer in tone. No. 906, an unknown work, is perhaps the finest: a Crucifixion, which might have borrowed its richness from the Carpaccio, we saw in the Venetian room. There is a fine Adoration of the Magi, by Gerard David (1460-1523); an unknown portrait of Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife, with a lovely landscape; a jewel of paint by Hans Memling (1425-1492)--No. 703--the Madonna Enthroned; a masterpiece of drawing by Dürer, "Calvary"; an austere and poignant Transportation of Christ to the Sepulchre, by Roger van der Weyden (1400-1464); and several very beautiful portraits by Memling, notably Nos. 769 and 780 with their lovely evening light. Memling, indeed, I never liked better than here. Other fine pictures are a Spanish prince by Lucas van Leyden; an old Dutch scholar by an artist unknown, No. 784; and a young husband and wife by Joost van Cleef the Elder, and a Breughel the Elder, like an old Crome--a beauty--No. 928. The room is interesting both for itself and also as showing how the Flemish brushes were working at the time that so many of the great Italians were engaged on similar themes. After the cool, self-contained, scientific work of these northerners it is a change to enter the Sala di Rubens and find that luxuriant giant--their compatriot, but how different!--once more. In the Uffizi, Rubens seems more foreign, far, than any one, so fleshly pagan is he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety, might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room, "Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into Paris after Ivry," with its confusing muddle of naked warriors and spears. Only Rubens could have painted these spirited, impossible, glorious things, which for all their greatness send one's thoughts back longingly to the portrait of his wife, in the Tribuna, while No. 216--the Bacchanale--is so coarse as almost to send one's feet there too. Looking round the room, after Rubens has been dismissed, it is too evident that the best of the Uffizi collection is behind us. There are interesting portraits here, but biographically rather than artistically. Here are one or two fine Sustermans' (1597-1681), that imported painter whom we shall find in such rare form at the Pitti. Here, for example, is Ferdinand II, who did so much for the Uffizi and so little for Galileo; and his cousin and wife Vittoria della Rovere, daughter of Claudia de' Medici (whose portrait, No. 763, is on the easel), and Federigo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This silly, plump lady had been married at the age of fourteen, and she brought her husband a little money and many pictures from Urbino, notably those delightful portraits of an earlier Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, and also the two Titian "Venuses" in the Tribuna. Ferdinand II and his Grand Duchess were on bad terms for most of their lives, and she behaved foolishly, and brought up her son Cosimo III foolishly, and altogether was a misfortune to Florence. Sustermans the painter she held in the highest esteem, and in return he painted her not only as herself but in various unlikely characters, among them a Vestal Virgin and even the Madonna. Here also is No. 196, Van Dyck's portrait of Margherita of Lorraine, whose daughter became Cosimo III's wife--a mischievous, weak face but magnificently painted; and No. 1536, a vividly-painted elderly widow by Jordaens (1593-1678); and on each side of the outrageous Rubens a distinguished Dutch gentleman and lady by the placid, refined Mierevelt. The two priceless rooms devoted to Iscrizioni come next, but we will finish the pictures first and therefore pass on to the Sala di Baroccio. Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612) is one of the later painters for whom I, at any rate, cannot feel any enthusiasm. His position in the Uffizi is due rather to the circumstance that he was a protégé of the Cardinal della Rovere at Rome, whose collection came here, than to his genius. This room again is of interest rather historically than artistically. Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring Ferdinand I beside her. Eleanora, as we saw in chapter V. was the first mistress of the Pitti palace, and the lady who so disliked Cellini and got him into such trouble through his lying tongue. Bronzino's little Maria de' Medici--No. 1164--is more pleasing, for the other picture has a sinister air. This child, the first-born of Cosimo I and Eleanora, died when only sixteen. Baroccio has a fine portrait--Francesco Maria II, last Duke of Urbino, and the grandfather of the Vittoria della Rovere whom we saw in the Sala di Rubens. Here also is a portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari, but it is of small value since Vasari was not born till after Lorenzo's death. The Galileo by Sustermans--No. 163--on the contrary would be from life; and after the Tribuna portrait of Rubens' first wife it is interesting to find here his pleasant portrait of Helen Fourment, his second. To my eyes two of the most attractive pictures in the room are the Young Sculptor--No. 1266--by Bronzino, and the version of Leonardo's S. Anne at the Louvre by Andrea Salaino of Milan (1483?-1520?). I like also the hints of tenderness of Bernardino Luini which break through the hardness of the Aurelio Luini picture--No. 204. For the rest there are some sickly Guido Renis and Carlo Dolcis and a sentimental Guercino. But the most popular works--on Sundays--are the two Gerard Honthorsts, and not without reason, for they are dramatic and bold and vivid, and there is a Baby in each that goes straight to the maternal heart. No. 157 is perhaps the more satisfying, but I have more reason to remember the larger one--the Adoration of the Shepherds--for I watched a copyist produce a most remarkable replica of it in something under a week, on the same scale. He was a short, swarthy man with a neck like a bull's, and he carried the task off with astonishing brio, never drawing a line, finishing each part as he came to it, and talking to a friend or an official the whole time. Somehow one felt him to be precisely the type of copyist that Gherardo della Notte ought to have. This painter was born at Utrecht in 1590 but went early to Italy, and settling in Rome devoted himself to mastering the methods of Amerighi, better known as Caravaggio (1569-1609), who specialized in strong contrasts of light and shade. After learning all he could in Rome, Honthorst returned to Holland and made much money and fame, for his hand was swift and sure. Charles I engaged him to decorate Whitehall. He died in 1656. These two Honthorsts are, as I say, the most popular of the pictures on Sunday, when the Uffizi is free; but their supremacy is challenged by the five inlaid tables, one of which, chiefly in lapis lazuli, must be the bluest thing on earth. Passing for the present the Sala di Niobe, we come to the Sala di Giovanni di San Giovanni, which is given to a second-rate painter who was born in 1599 and died in 1636. His best work is a fresco at the Badia of Fiesole. Here he has some theatrical things, including one picture which sends English ladies out blushing. Here also are some Lelys, including "Nelly Gwynn". Next are two rooms, one leading from the other, given to German and Flemish pictures and to miniatures, both of which are interesting. In the first are more Dürers, and that alone would make it a desirable resort. Here is a "Virgin and Child"--No. 851--very naive and homely, and the beautiful portrait of his father--No. 766---a symphony of brown and green. Less attractive works from the same hand are the "Apostle Philip"--No. 777--and "S. Giacomo Maggiore," an old man very coarsely painted by comparison with the artist's father. Here also is a very beautiful portrait of Richard Southwell, by Holbein, with the peacock-green background that we know so well and always rejoice to see; a typical candle-light Schalcken, No. 800; several golden Poelenburghs; an anonymous portrait of Virgilius von Hytta of Zuicham, No. 784; a clever smiling lady by Sustermans, No. 709; the Signora Puliciani and her husband, No. 699; a rather crudely coloured Rubens--"Venus and Adonis"--No. 812; the same artist's "Three Graces," in monochrome, very naked; and some quaint portraits by Lucas Cranach. But no doubt to many persons the most enchaining picture here is the Medusa's head, which used to be called a Leonardo and quite satisfied Ruskin of its genuineness, but is now attributed to the Flemish school. The head, at any rate, would seem to be very similar to that of which Vasari speaks, painted by Leonardo for a peasant, but retained by his father. Time has dealt hardly with the paint, and one has to study minutely before Medusa's horrors are visible. Whether Leonardo's or not, it is not uninteresting to read how the picture affected Shelley when he saw it here in 1819:-- ... Its Horror and its Beauty are divine. Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death. The little room leading from this one should be neglected by no one interested in Medicean history, for most of the family is here, in miniature, by Bronzino's hand. Here also are miniatures by other great painters, such as Pourbus, Guido Reni, Bassano, Clouet, Holbein. Look particularly at No. 3382, a woman with brown hair, in purple--a most fascinating little picture. The Ignota in No. 3348 might easily be Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. The other exhibits are copies in miniature of famous pictures, notable among them a Raphael--No. 3386--and a Breughel--No. 3445--while No. 3341, the robing of a monk, is worth attention. We come now to the last pictures of the collection--in three little rooms at the end, near the bronze sleeping Cupid. Those in the first room were being rearranged when I was last here; the others contain Dutch works notable for a few masterpieces. There are too many Poelenburghs, but the taste shown as a whole is good. Perhaps to the English enthusiast for painting the fine landscape by Hercules Seghers will, in view of the recent agitation over Lord Lansdowne's Rembrandt, "The Mill,"--ascribed in some quarters to Seghers--be the most interesting picture of all. It is a sombre, powerful scene of rugged coast which any artist would have been proud to sign; but it in no way recalls "The Mill's" serene strength. Among the best of its companions are a very good Terburg, a very good Metsu, and an extremely beautiful Ruysdael. And so we are at the end of the pictures--but only to return again and again--and are not unwilling to fall into the trap of the official who sits here, and allow him to unlock the door behind the Laocöon group and enjoy what he recommends as a "bella vista" from the open space, which turns out to be the roof of the Loggia de' Lanzi. From this high point one may see much of Florence and its mountains, while, on looking down, over the coping, one finds the busy Piazza della Signoria below, with all its cabs and wayfarers. Returning to the gallery, we come quickly on the right to the first of the neglected statuary rooms, the beautiful Sala di Niobe, which contains some interesting Medicean and other tapestries, and the sixteen statues of Niobe and her children from the Temple of Apollo, which the Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici acquired, and which were for many years at the Villa Medici at Rome. A suggested reconstruction of the group will be found by the door. I cannot pretend to a deep interest in the figures, but I like to be in the room. The famous Medicean vase is in the middle of it. Sculpture more ingratiating is close by, in the two rooms given to Iscrizioni: a collection of priceless antiques which are not only beautiful but peculiarly interesting in that they can be compared with the work of Donatello, Verrocchio, and other of the Renaissance sculptors. For in such a case comparisons are anything but odious and become fascinating. In the first room there is, for example, a Mercury, isolated on the left, in marble, who is a blood relation of Donatello's bronze David in the Bargello; and certain reliefs of merry children, on the right, low down, as one approaches the second room, are cousins of the same sculptor's cantoria romps. Not that Donatello ever reproduced the antique spirit as Michelangelo nearly did in his Bacchus, and Sansovino absolutely did in his Bacchus, both at the Bargello: Donatello was of his time, and the spirit of his time animates his creations, but he had studied the Greek art in Rome and profited by his lessons, and his evenly-balanced humane mind had a warm corner for pagan joyfulness. Among other statues in this first room is a Sacerdotessa, wearing a marble robe with long folds, whose hands can be seen through the drapery. Opposite the door are Bacchus and Ampelos, superbly pagan, while a sleeping Cupid is most lovely. Among the various fine heads is one of Cicero, of an Unknown--No. 377--and of Homer in bronze (called by the photographers Aristophanes). But each thing in turn is almost the best. The trouble is that the Uffizi is so vast, and the Renaissance seems to be so eminently the only proper study of mankind when one is here, that to attune oneself to the enjoyment of antique sculpture needs a special effort which not all are ready to make. In the centre of the next room is the punctual Hermaphrodite without which no large Continental gallery is complete. But more worthy of attention is the torso of a faun on the left, on a revolving pedestal which (unlike those in the Bargello, as we shall discover) really does revolve and enables you to admire the perfect back. There is also a torso in basalt or porphyry which one should study from all points, and on the walls some wonderful portions of a frieze from the Ara Pacis, erected in Rome, B.C. 139, with wonderful figures of men, women, and children on it. Among the heads is a colossal Alexander, very fine indeed, a beautiful Antoninus, a benign and silly Roman lady in whose existence one can quite believe, and a melancholy Seneca. Look also at Nos. 330 and 332, on the wall: 330, a charming genius, carrying one of Jove's thunderbolts; and 332, a boy who is sheer Luca della Robbia centuries before his birth. I ought to add that, in addition to the various salons in the Uffizi, the long corridors are hung with pictures too, in chronological order, the earliest of all being to the right of the entrance door, and in the corridors there is also some admirable statuary. But the pictures here, although not the equals of those in the rooms, receive far too little attention, while the sculpture receives even less, whether the beutiful full-length athletes or the reliefs on the cisterns, several of which have riotous Dionysian processions. On the stairs, too, are some very beautiful works; while at the top, in the turnstile room, is the original of the boar which Tacca copied in bronze for the Mercato Nuovo, and just outside it are the Medici who were chiefly concerned with the formation of the collection. On the first landing, nearest the ground, is a very beautiful and youthful Bacchus. The ceilings of the Uffizi rooms and corridors also are painted, thoughtfully and dexterously, in the Pompeian manner; but there are limits to the receptive capacity of travellers' eyes, and I must plead guilty to consistently neglecting them. CHAPTER XII "Aërial Fiesole" Andrea del Sarto--Fiesole sights--The Villa Palmieri and the "Decameron"--Botticini's picture in the National Gallery--S. Francesco--The Roman amphitheatre--The Etruscan museum--A sculptor's walk--The Badia di Fiesole--Brunelleschi again--Giovanni di San Giovanni. After all these pictures, how about a little climbing? From so many windows in Florence, along so many streets, from so many loggias and towers, and perhaps, above all, from the Piazzale di Michelangelo, Fiesole is to be seen on her hill, with the beautiful campanile of her church in the dip between the two eminences, that very soon one comes to feel that this surely is the promised land. Florence lies so low, and the delectable mountain is so near and so alluring. But I am not sure that to dream of Fiesole as desirable, and to murmur its beautiful syllables, is not best. Let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine, And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole --that was Andrea's way and not an unwise one. For Fiesole at nearer view can easily disappoint. It is beautifully set on its hill and it has a fascinating past; but the journey thither on foot is very wearisome, by the electric tram vexatious and noisy, and in a horse-drawn carriage expensive and cruel; and when you are there you become once more a tourist without alleviation and are pestered by beggars, and by nice little girls who ought to know better, whose peculiar importunacy it is to thrust flowers into the hand or buttonhole without any denial. What should have been a mountain retreat from the city has become a kind of Devil's Dyke. But if one is resolute, and, defying all, walks up to the little monastery of S. Francesco at the very top of the hill, one may rest almost undisturbed, with Florence in the valley below, and gardens and vineyards undulating beneath, and a monk or two ascending or descending the steps, and three or four picture-postcard hawkers gambling in a corner, and lizards on the wall. Here it is good to be in the late afternoon, when the light is mellowing; and if you want tea there is a little loggia a few yards down this narrow steep path where it may be found. How many beautiful villas in which one could be happy sunning oneself among the lizards lie between this point and Florence! Who, sitting here, can fail to think that? In walking to Fiesole one follows the high walls of the Villa Palmieri, which is now very private American property, but is famous for ever as the first refuge of Boccaccio's seven young women and three young men when they fled from plague-stricken Florence in 1348 and told tales for ten halcyon days. It is now generally agreed that if Boccaccio had any particular house in his mind it was this. It used to be thought that the Villa Poggio Gherardo, Mrs. Ross's beautiful home on the way to Settignano, was the first refuge, and the Villa Palmieri the second, but the latest researches have it that the Palmieri was the first and the Podere della Fonte, or Villa di Boccaccio, as it is called, near Camerata, a little village below S. Domenico, the other. The Villa Palmieri has another and somewhat different historical association, for it was there that Queen Victoria resided for a while in 1888. But the most interesting thing of all about it is the circumstance that it was the home of Matteo Palmieri, the poet, and Botticelli's friend and fellow-speculator on the riddle of life. Palmieri was the author of a remarkable poem called "La Citta della Vita" (The City of Life) which developed a scheme of theology that had many attractions to Botticelli's curious mind. The poem was banned by Rome, although not until after its author's death. In our National Gallery is a picture which used to be considered Botticelli's--No. 1126, "The Assumption of the Virgin"--especially as it is mentioned with some particularity by Vasari, together with the circumstance that the poet and painter devised it in collaboration, in which the poem is translated into pigment. As to the theology, I say nothing, nor as to its new ascription to Botticini; but the picture has a greater interest for us in that it contains a view of Florence with its wall of towers around it in about 1475. The exact spot where the painter sat has been identified by Miss Stokes in "Six Months in the Apennines". On the left immediately below the painter's vantage-ground is the Mugnone, with a bridge over it. On the bank in front is the Villa Palmieri, and on the picture's extreme left is the Badia of Fiesole. On leaving S. Domenico, if still bent on walking, one should keep straight on and not follow the tram lines to the right. This is the old and terribly steep road which Lorenzo the Magnificent and his friends Politian and Pico della Mirandola had to travel whenever they visited the Medici villa, just under Fiesole, with its drive lined with cypresses. Here must have been great talk and much conviviality. It is now called the Villa McCalmont. Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing, and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself arranged them, is very striking and memorable. Fiesole's darling son is Mino the sculptor--the "Raphael of the chisel"--whose radiant Madonnas and children and delicate tombs may be seen here and there all over Florence. The piazza is named after him; he is celebrated on a marble slab outside the museum, where all the famous names of the vicinity may be read too; and in the church is one of his most charming groups and finest heads. They are in a little chapel on the right of the choir. The head is that of Bishop Salutati, humorous, wise, and benign, and the group represents the adoration of a merry little Christ by a merry little S. John and others. As for the church itself, it is severe and cool, with such stone columns in it as must last for ever. But the main interest of Fiesole to most people is not the cypress-covered hill of S. Francesco; not the view from the summit; not the straw mementoes; not the Mino relief in the church; but the Roman arena. The excavators have made of this a very complete place. One can stand at the top of the steps and reconstruct it all--the audience, the performance, the performers. A very little time spent on building would be needed to restore the amphitheatre to its original form. Beyond it are baths, and in a hollow the remains of a temple with the altar where it ever was; and then one walks a little farther and is on the ancient Etruscan wall, built when Fiesole was an Etruscan fortified hill city. So do the centuries fall away here! But everywhere, among the ancient Roman stones so massive and exact, and the Etruscan stones, are the wild flowers which Luca Signorelli painted in that picture in the Uffizi which I love so much. After the amphitheatre one visits the Museum--with the same ticket--a little building filled with trophies of the spade. There is nothing very wonderful--nothing to compare with the treasures of the Archaeological Museum in Florence--but it is well worth a visit. On leaving the Museum on the last occasion that I was there--in April--I walked to Settignano. The road for a while is between houses, for Fiesole stretches a long way farther than one suspects, very high, looking over the valley of the Mugnone; and then after a period between pine trees and grape-hyacinths one turns to the right and begins to descend. Until Poggio del Castello, a noble villa, on an isolated eminence, the descent is very gradual, with views of Florence round the shoulder of Monte Ceceri; but afterwards the road winds, to ease the fall, and the wayfarer turns off into the woods and tumbles down the hill by a dry water-course, amid crags and stones, to the beginnings of civilization again, at the Via di Desiderio da Settignano, a sculptor who stands to his native town in precisely the same relation as Mino to his. Settignano is a mere village, with villas all about it, and the thing to remember there is not only that Desiderio was born there but that Michelangelo's foster-mother was the wife of a local stone-cutter--stone-cutting at that time being the staple industry. On the way back to Florence in the tram, one passes on the right a gateway surmounted by statues of the poets, the Villa Poggio Gherardo, of which I have spoken earlier in the chapter. There is no villa with a nobler mien than this. That is one walk from Fiesole. Another is even more a sculptors' way: for it would include Maiano too, where Benedetto was born. The road is by way of the tram lines to that acute angle just below Fiesole when they turn back to S. Domenico, and so straight on down the hill. But if one is returning to Florence direct after leaving Fiesole it is well to walk down the precipitous paths to S. Domenico, and before again taking the tram visit the Badia overlooking the valley of the Mugnone. This is done by turning to the right just opposite the church of S. Domenico, which has little interest structurally but is famous as being the chapel of the monastery where Fra Angelico was once a monk. The Badia (Abbey) di Fiesole, as it now is, was built on the site of an older monastery, by Cosimo Pater. Here Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Academy used to meet, in the loggia and in the little temple which one gains from the cloisters, and here Pico della Mirandola composed his curious gloss on Genesis. The dilapidated marble façade of the church and its rugged stone-work are exceedingly ancient--dating in fact from the eleventh century; the new building is by Brunelleschi and to my mind is one of his most beautiful works, its lovely proportions and cool, unfretted white spaces communicating even more pleasure than the Pazzi chapel itself. The decoration has been kept simple and severe, and the colour is just the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, of which the lovely arches are made, all most exquisitely chiselled, and the pure white of the walls and ceilings. This church was a favourite with the Medici, and the youthful Giovanni, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, received his cardinal's hat here in 1492, at the age of sixteen. He afterwards became Pope Leo X. How many of the boys, now in the school--for the monastery has become a Jesuit school--will, one wonders, rise to similar eminence. In the beautiful cloisters we have the same colour scheme as in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius for proportion is to be found. Here and there are foliations and other exquisite tracery by pupils of Desiderio da Settignano. The refectory has a high-spirited fresco by that artist whose room in the Uffizi is so carefully avoided by discreet chaperons--Giovanni di San Giovanni--representing Christ eating at a table, his ministrants being a crowd of little roguish angels and cherubim, one of whom (on the right) is in despair at having broken a plate. In the entrance lobby is a lavabo by Mino da Fiesole, with two little boys of the whitest and softest marble on it, which is worth study. And now we will return to the heart of Florence once more. CHAPTER XIII The Badia and Dante Filippino Lippi--Buffalmacco--Mino da Fiesole--The Dante quarter--Dante and Beatrice--Monna Tessa--Gemma Donati--Dante in exile--Dante memorials in Florence--The Torre della Castagna--The Borgo degli Albizzi and the old palaces--S. Ambrogio--Mino's tabernacle--Wayside masterpieces--S. Egidio. Opposite the Bargello is a church with a very beautiful doorway designed by Benedetto da Rovezzano. This church is known as the Badia, and its delicate spire is a joy in the landscape from every point of vantage. The Badia is very ancient, but the restorers have been busy and little of Arnolfo's thirteenth-century work is left. It is chiefly famous now for its Filippino Lippi and two tombs by Mino da Fiesole, but historically it is interesting as being the burial-place of the chief Florentine families in the Middle Ages and as being the scene of Boccaccio's lectures on Dante in 1373. The Filippino altar-piece, which represents S. Bernard's Vision of the Virgin (a subject we shall see treated very beautifully by Fra Bartolommeo at the Accademia) is one of the most perfect and charming pictures by this artist: very grave and real and sweet, and the saint's hands exquisitely painted. The figure praying in the right-hand corner is the patron, Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, who commissioned this picture for the church of La Campora, outside the Porta Romana, where it was honoured until 1529, when Clement VII's troops advancing, it was brought here for safety and has here remained. Close by--in the same chapel--is a little door which the sacristan will open, disclosing a portion of Arnolfo's building with perishing frescoes which are attributed to Buffalmacco, an artist as to whose reality much scepticism prevails. They are not in themselves of much interest, although the sacristan's eagerness should not be discouraged; but Buffalmacco being Boccaccio's, Sacchetti's, Vasari's (and, later, Anatole France's) amusing hero, it is pleasant to look at his work and think of his freakishness. Buffalmacco (if he ever existed) was one of the earlier painters, flourishing between 1311 and 1350, and was a pupil of Andrea Tafi. This simple man he plagued very divertingly, once frightening him clean out of his house by fixing little lighted candles to the backs of beetles and steering them into Tafi's bedroom at night. Tafi was terrified, but on being told by Buffalmacco (who was a lazy rascal) that these devils were merely showing their objection to early rising, he became calm again, and agreed to lie in bed to a reasonable hour. Cupidity, however, conquering, he again ordered his pupil to be up betimes, when the beetles again re-appeared and continued to do so until the order was revoked. The sculptor Mino da Fiesole, whom we shall shortly see again, at the Bargello, in portrait busts and Madonna reliefs, is at his best here, in the superb monument to Count Ugo, who founded, with his mother, the Benedictine Abbey of which the Badia is the relic. Here all Mino's sweet thoughts, gaiety and charm are apparent, together with the perfection of radiant workmanship. The quiet dignity of the recumbent figure is no less masterly than the group above it. Note the impulsive urgency of the splendid Charity, with her two babies, and the quiet beauty of the Madonna and Child above all, while the proportions and delicate patterns of the tomb as a whole still remain to excite one's pleasure and admiration. We shall see many tombs in Florence--few not beautiful--but none more joyously accomplished than this. The tomb of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce by Desiderio da Settignano, which awaits us, was undoubtedly the parent of the Ugo, Mino following his master very closely; but his charm was his own. According to Vasari, the Ugo tomb was considered to be Mino's finest achievement, and he deliberately made the Madonna and Child as like the types of his beloved Desiderio as he could. It was finished in 1481, and Mino died in 1484, from a chill following over-exertion in moving heavy stones. Mino also has here a monument to Bernardo Giugni, a famous gonfalonier in the time of Cosimo de' Medici, marked by the same distinction, but not quite so memorable. The Ugo is his masterpiece. The carved wooden ceiling, which is a very wonderful piece of work and of the deepest and most glorious hue, should not be forgotten; but nothing is easier than to overlook ceilings. The cloisters are small, but they atone for that--if it is a fault--by having a loggia. From the loggia the top of the noble tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is seen to perfection. Upon the upper walls is a series of frescoes illustrating the life of S. Benedict which must have been very gay and spirited once but are now faded. The Badia may be said to be the heart of the Dante quarter. Dante must often have been in the church before it was restored as we now see it, and a quotation from the "Divine Comedy" is on its façade. The Via Dante and the Piazza Donati are close by, and in the Via Dante are many reminders of the poet besides his alleged birthplace. Elsewhere in the city we find incised quotations from his poem; but the Baptistery--his "beautiful San Giovanni"--is the only building in the city proper now remaining which Dante would feel at home in could he return to it, and where we can feel assured of sharing his presence. The same pavement is there on which his feet once stood, and on the same mosaic of Christ above the altar would his eyes have fallen. When Dante was exiled in 1302 the cathedral had been in progress only for six or eight years; but it is known that he took the deepest interest in its construction, and we have seen the stone marking the place where he sat, watching the builders. The façade of the Badia of Fiesole and the church of S. Miniato can also remember Dante; no others. Here, however, we are on that ground which is richest in personal associations with him and his, for in spite of re-building and certain modern changes the air is heavy with antiquity in these narrow streets and passages where the poet had his childhood and youth. The son of a lawyer named Alighieri, Dante was born in 1265, but whether or not in this Casa Dante is an open question, and it was in the Baptistery that he received the name of Durante, afterwards abbreviated to Dante--Durante meaning enduring, and Dante giving. Those who have read the "Vita Nuova," either in the original or in Rossetti's translation, may be surprised to learn that the boy was only nine when he first met his Beatrice, who was seven, and for ever passed into bondage to her. Who Beatrice was is again a mystery, but it has been agreed to consider her in real life a daughter of Folco Portinari, a wealthy Florentine and the founder of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, one of whose descendants commissioned Hugo van der Goes to paint the great triptych in the Uffizi. Folco's tomb is in S. Egidio, the hospital church, while in the passage to the cloisters is a stone figure of Monna Tessa (of whom we are about to see a coloured bust in the Bargello), who was not only Beatrice's nurse (if Beatrice were truly of the Portinari) but the instigator, it is said, of Folco's deed of charity. Of Dante's rapt adoration of his lady, the "Vita Nuova" tells. According to that strangest monument of devotion it was not until another nine years had passed that he had speech of her; and then Beatrice, meeting him in the street, saluted him as she passed him with such ineffable courtesy and grace that he was lifted into a seventh heaven of devotion and set upon the writing of his book. The two seem to have had no closer intercourse: Beatrice shone distantly like a star and her lover worshipped her with increasing loyalty and fervour, overlaying the idea of her, as one might say, with gold and radiance, very much as we shall see Fra Angelico adding glory to the Madonna and Saints in his pictures, and with a similar intensity of ecstasy. Then one day Beatrice married, and not long afterwards, being always very fragile, she died, at the age of twenty-three. The fact that she was no longer on earth hardly affected her poet, whose worship of her had always so little of a physical character; and she continued to dominate his thoughts. In 1293, however, Dante married, one Gemma Donati of the powerful Guelph family of that name, of which Corso Donati was the turbulent head; and by her he had many children. For Gemma, however, he seems to have had no affection; and when in 1301 he left Florence, never to return, he left his wife for ever too. In 1289 Dante had been present at the battle of Campaldino, fighting with the Guelphs against the Ghibellines, and on settling down in Florence and taking to politics it was as a Guelph, or rather as one of that branch of the Guelph party which had become White--the Bianchi--as opposed to the other party which was Black--the Neri. The feuds between these divisions took the place of those between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, since Florence was never happy without internal strife, and it cannot have added to Dante's home comfort that his wife was related to Corso Donati, who led the Neri and swaggered in his bullying way about the city with proprietary, intolerant airs that must have been infuriating to a man with Dante's stern sense of right and justice. It was Corso who brought about Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road to Hell. But this is going too fast. In 1300, when Dante was thirty-five, he was sufficiently important to be made one of the six priors of the city, and in that capacity was called upon to quell a Neri and Bianchi disturbance. It is characteristic of him that he was a party to the banishment of the leaders of both factions, among whom was his closest friend, Guido Cavalcanti the poet, who was one of the Bianchi. Whether it was because of Guide's illness in his exile, or from what motive, we shall not know; but the sentence was lightened in the case of this Bianco, a circumstance which did not add to Dante's chances when the Neri, having plotted successfully with Charles of Valois, captured supreme power in Florence. This was in the year 1301, Dante being absent from that city on an embassy to Rome to obtain help for the Bianchi. He never came back; for the Neri plans succeeded; the Neri assumed control; and in January, 1302, he was formally fined and banished. The nominal charge against him was of misappropriating funds while a prior; but that was merely a matter of form. His real offence was in being one of the Bianchi, an enemy of the Neri, and a man of parts. In the rest of Dante's life Florence had no part, except in his thoughts. How he viewed her the "Divine Comedy" tells us, and that he longed to return we also know. The chance was indeed once offered, but under the impossible condition that he should do public penance in the Baptistery for his offence. This he refused. He wandered here and there, and settled finally in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. The "Divine Comedy" anticipating printing by so many years--the invention did not reach Florence until 1471--Dante could not make much popular way as a poet before that time; but to his genius certain Florentines were earlier no strangers, not only by perusing MS. copies of his great work, which by its richness in Florentine allusions excited an interest apart altogether from that created by its beauty, but by public lectures on the poem, delivered in the churches by order of the Signoria. The first Dante professor to be appointed was Giovanni Boccaccio, the author of the "Decameron," who was born in 1313, eight years before Dante's death, and became an enthusiast upon the poet. The picture in the Duomo was placed there in 1465. Then came printing to Florence and Dante passed quickly into his countrymen's thoughts and language. Michelangelo, who was born in time--1475--to enjoy in Lorenzo the Magnificent's house the new and precious advantage of printed books, became as a boy a profound student of the poet, and when later an appeal was made from Florence to the Pope to sanction the removal of Dante's bones to Florence, Michelangelo was among the signatories. But it was not done. His death-mask from Ravenna is in the Bargello: a few of his bones and their coffin are still in Ravenna, in the monastery of Classe, piously preserved in a room filled with Dante relics and literature; his tomb is elsewhere at Ravenna, a shrine visited by thousands every year. Ever since has Dante's fame been growing, so that only the Bible has led to more literature; and to-day Florence is more proud of him than any of her sons, except perhaps Michelangelo. We have seen one or two reminders of him already; more are here where we stand. We have seen the picture in honour of him which the Republic set up in the cathedral; his head on a beautiful inlaid door in the Palazzo Vecchio, the building where his sentence of banishment was devised and carried, to be followed by death sentence thrice repeated (burning alive, to be exact); and we have seen the head-quarters of the Florentine Dante society in the guild house at Or San Michele. We have still to see his statue opposite S. Croce, another fresco head in S. Maria Novella, certain holograph relics at the library at S. Lorenzo, and his head again by his friend Giotto, in the Bargello, where he would have been confined while waiting for death had he been captured. Dante's house has been rebuilt, very recently, and next to it is a newer building still, with a long inscription in Italian upon it, to the effect that the residence of Bella and Bellincione Alighieri stood hereabouts, and in that abode was Dante born. The Commune of Florence, it goes on to say, having secured possession of the site, "built this edifice on the remains of the ancestral house as fresh evidence of the public veneration of the divine poet". The Torre della Castagna, across the way, has an inscription in Italian, which may be translated thus: "This Tower, the so-called Tower of the Chestnut, is the solitary remnant of the head-quarters from which the Priors of the Arts governed Florence, before the power and glory of the Florentine Commune procured the erection of the Palace of the Signoria". Few persons in the real city of Florence, it may be said confidently, live in a house built for them; but hereabouts none at all. In fact, it is the exception anywhere near the centre of the city to live in a house built less than three centuries ago. Palaces abound, cut up into offices, flats, rooms, and even cinema theatres. The telegraph office in the Via del Proconsolo is a palace commissioned by the Strozzi but never completed: hence its name, Nonfinito; next it is the superb Palazzo Quaratesi, which Brunelleschi designed, now the head-quarters of a score of firms and an Ecclesiastical School whence sounds of sacred song continually emerge. Since we have Mino da Fiesole in our minds and are on the subject of old palaces let us walk from the Dante quarter in a straight line from the Corso, that very busy street of small shops, across the Via del Proconsolo and down the Borgo degli Albizzi to S. Ambrogio, where Mino was buried. This Borgo is a street of palaces and an excellent one in which to reflect upon the strange habit which wealthy Florentines then indulged of setting their mansions within a few feet of those opposite. Houses--or rather fortresses--that must have cost fortunes and have been occupied by families of wealth and splendour were erected so close to their vis-à-vis that two carts could not pass abreast between them. Side by side contiguity one can understand, but not this other adjacence. Every ground floor window is barred like a gaol. Those bars tell us something of the perils of life in Florence in the great days of faction ambition; while the thickness of the walls and solidity of construction tell us something too of the integrity of the Florentine builders. These ancient palaces, one feels, whatever may happen to them, can never fall to ruin. Such stones as are placed one upon the other in the Pitti and the Strozzi and the Riccardi nothing can displace. It is an odd thought that several Florentine palaces and villas built before Columbus sailed for America are now occupied by rich Americans, some of them draw possibly much of their income from the manufacture of steel girders for sky-scrapers. These ancient streets with their stern and sombre palaces specially touched the imagination of Dickens when he was in Florence in 1844, but in his "Pictures from Italy" he gave the city only fugitive mention. The old prison, which then adjoined the Palazzo Vecchio, and in which the prisoners could be seen, also moved him. The Borgo degli Albizzi, as I have said, is crowded with Palazzi. No. 24--and there is something very incongruous in palaces having numbers at all--is memorable in history as being one of the homes of the Pazzi family who organized the conspiracy against the Medici in 1478, as I have related in the second chapter, and failed so completely. Donatello designed the coat of arms here. The palace at No. 18 belonged to the Altoviti. No. 12 is the Palazzo Albizzi, the residence of one of the most powerful of the Florentine families, whose allies were all about them in this quarter, as it was wise to be. As a change from picture galleries, I can think of nothing more delightful than to wander about these ancient streets, and, wherever a courtyard or garden shines, penetrate to it; stopping now and again to enjoy the vista, the red Duomo, or Giotto's tower, so often mounting into the sky at one end, or an indigo Apennine at the other. Standing in the middle of the Via Ricasoli, for example, one has sight of both. At the Piazza S. Pietro we see one of the old towers of Florence, of which there were once so many, into which the women and children might retreat in times of great danger, and here too is a series of arches which fruit and vegetable shops make gay. The next Piazza is that of S. Ambrogio. This church is interesting not only for doing its work in a poor quarter--one has the feeling at once that it is a right church in the right place--but as containing, as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it. Over the altar of Mino's little chapel is a large tabernacle from his hand, in which the gayest little Boy gives the benediction, own brother to that one by Desiderio at S. Lorenzo. The tabernacle must be one of the master's finest works, and beneath it is a relief in which a priest pours something--perhaps the very blood of Christ which is kept here--from one chalice to another held by a kneeling woman, surrounded by other kneeling women, which is a marvel of flowing beauty and life. The lines of it are peculiarly lovely. On the wall of the same little chapel is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli which must once have been a delight, representing a procession of Corpus Christi--this chapel being dedicated to the miracle of the Sacrament--and it contains, according to Vasari, a speaking likeness of Pico della Mirandola. Other graves in the church are those of Cronaca, the architect of the Palazzo Vecchio's great Council Room, a friend of Savonarola and Rosselli's nephew by marriage; and Verrocchio, the sculptor, whose beautiful work we are now to see in the Bargello. It is said that Lorenzo di Credi also lies here, and Albertinelli, who gave up the brush for innkeeping. Opposite the church, on a house at the corner of the Borgo S. Croce and the Via de' Macci, is a della Robbia saint--one of many such mural works of art in Florence. Thus, at the corner of the Via Cavour and the Via de' Pucci, opposite the Riccardi palace, is a beautiful Madonna and Child by Donatello. In the Via Zannetti, which leads out of the Via Cerretani, is a very pretty example by Mino, a few houses on the right. These are sculpture. And everywhere in the older streets you may see shrines built into the wall: there is even one in the prison, in the Via dell' Agnolo, once the convent of the Murate, where Catherine de' Medici was imprisoned as a girl; but many of them are covered with glass which has been allowed to become black. A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications. The façade is in a state of decay, old frescoes peeling off it, but one picture has been enclosed for protection--a gay and busy scene of the consecration of the church by Pope Martin V. Within, it is a church of the poor, notable for its general florid comfort (comparatively) and Folco's gothic tomb. In the chancel is a pretty little tabernacle by Mino, which used to have a bronze door by Ghiberti, but has it no longer, and a very fine della Robbia Madonna and Child, probably by Andrea. Behind a grille, upstairs, sit the hospital nurses. In the adjoining cloisters--one of the high roads to the hospital proper--is the ancient statue of old Monna Tessa, Beatrice's nurse, and, in a niche, a pretty symbolical painting of Charity by that curious painter Giovanni di San Giovanni. It was in the hospital that the famous Van der Goes triptych used to hang. A tablet on a house opposite S. Egidio, a little to the right, states that it was there that Ghiberti made the Baptistery gates which Michelangelo considered fit to be the portals of Paradise. CHAPTER XIV The Bargello Plastic art--Blood-soaked stones--The faithful artists--Michelangelo--Italian custodians--The famous Davids--Michelangelo's tondo--Brutus--Benedetto da Rovezzano--Donatello's life-work--The S. George--Verrocchio--Ghiberti and Brunelleschi and the Baptistery doors--Benvenuto Cellini--John of Bologna--Antonio Pollaiuolo--Verrocchio again--Mino da Fiesole--The Florentine wealth of sculpture--Beautiful ladies--The della Robbias--South Kensington and the Louvre. Before my last visit but one to Florence, plastic art was less attractive to me than pictorial art. But now I am not sure. At any rate when, here in England, I think of Florence, as so often I do, I find myself visiting in imagination the Bargello before the Uffizi. Pictures in any number can bewilder and dazzle as much as they delight. The eye tires. And so, it is true, can a multiplicity of antique statuary such as one finds at the Vatican or at the Louvre; but a small collection of Renaissance work, so soft and human, as at the Bargello, is not only joy-giving but refreshing too. The soft contours soothe as well as enrapture the eye: the tenderness of the Madonnas, the gentleness of the Florentine ladies and youths, as Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole, Donatello, and Pollaiuolo moulded them, calm one where the perfection of Phidias and Praxiteles excites. Hence the very special charm of the Bargello, whose plastic treasures are comparatively few and picked, as against the heaped profusion of paint in the Uffizi and the Pitti. It pairs off rather with the Accademia, and has this further point in common with that choicest of galleries, that Michelangelo's chisel is represented in both. The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow Via del Proconsolo--so narrow that if you take one step off the pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen, and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and its strong tower than for its massive façades. Its history is soaked in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo, or Podestà, first appointed soon after the return of the Guelphs in 1251, and it so remained, with such natural Florentine vicissitudes as destruction by mobs and fire, for four hundred years, when, in 1574, it was converted into a prison and place of execution and the head-quarters of the police, and changed its name from the Palazzo del Podestà to that by which it is now known, so called after the Bargello, or chief of the police. It is indeed fortunate that no rioters succeeded in obliterating Giotto's fresco in the Bargello chapel, which he painted probably in 1300, when his friend Dante was a Prior of the city. Giotto introduced the portrait of Dante which has drawn so many people to this little room, together with portraits of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini, Dante's tutor. Whitewash covered it for two centuries. Dante's head has been restored. It was in 1857 that the Bargello was again converted, this time to its present gracious office of preserving the very flower of Renaissance plastic art. Passing through the entrance hall, which has a remarkable collection of Medicean armour and weapons, and in which (I have read but not seen) is an oubliette under one of the great pillars, the famous court is gained and the famous staircase. Of this court what can I say? Its quality is not to be communicated in words; and even the photographs of it that are sold have to be made from pictures, which the assiduous Signor Giuliani, among others, is always so faithfully painting, stone for stone. One forgets all the horrors that once were enacted here--the execution of honourable Florentine patriots whose only offence was that in their service of this proud and beautiful city they differed from those in power; one thinks only of the soft light on the immemorial walls, the sturdy graceful columns, the carved escutcheons, the resolute steps, the spaciousness and stern calm of it all. In the colonnade are a number of statues, the most famous of which is perhaps the "Dying Adonis" which Baedeker gives to Michelangelo but the curator to Vincenzo di Rossi; an ascription that would annoy Michelangelo exceedingly, if it were a mistake, since Rossi was a pupil of his enemy, the absurd Bandinelli. Mr. W.G. Waters, in his "Italian Sculptors," considers not only that Michelangelo was the sculptor, but that the work was intended to form part of the tomb of Pope Julius. In the second room opposite the main entrance across the courtyard, we come however to Michelangelo authentic and supreme, for here are his small David, his Brutus, his Bacchus, and a tondo of the Madonna and Child. According to Baedeker the Bacchus and the David revolve. Certainly they are on revolving stands, but to say that they revolve is to disregard utterly the character of the Italian official. A catch holds each in its place, and any effort to release this or to induce the custodian to release it is equally futile. "Chiuso" (closed), he replies, and that is final. Useless to explain that the backs of statues can be beautiful as the front; that one of the triumphs of great statuary is its equal perfection from every point; that the revolving stand was not made for a joke but for a serious purpose. "Chiuso," he replies. The museum custodians of Italy are either like this--jaded figures of apathy--or they are enthusiasts. To each enthusiast there are ninety-nine of the other, who either sit in a kind of stupor and watch you with sullen suspicion, or clear their throats as no gentleman should. The result is that when one meets the enthusiasts one remembers them. There is a little dark fellow in the Brera at Milan whose zeal in displaying the merits of Mantegna's foreshortened Christ is as unforgettable as a striking piece of character-acting in a theatre. There is a more reserved but hardly less appreciative official in the Accademia at Bologna with a genuine if incommunicable passion for Guido Reni. And, lastly, there is Alfred Branconi, at S. Croce, with his continual and rapturous "It is faine! It is faine!" but he is a private guide. The Bargello custodians belong to the other camp. The fondness of sculptors for David as a subject is due to the fact that the Florentines, who had spent so much of their time under tyrants and so much of their blood in resisting them, were captivated by the idea of this stripling freeing his compatriots from Goliath and the Philistines. David, as I have said in my remarks on the Piazza della Signoria, stood to them, with Judith, as a champion of liberty. He was alluring also on account of his youth, so attractive to Renaissance sculptors and poets, and the Florentines' admiration was not diminished by the circumstance that his task was a singularly light one, since he never came to close quarters with his antagonist at all and had the Lord of Hosts on his side. A David of mythology, Perseus, another Florentine hero, a stripling with what looked like a formidable enemy, also enjoyed supernatural assistance. David appealed to the greatest sculptors of all--to Michelangelo, to Donatello, and to Verrocchio; and Michelangelo made two figures, one of which is here and the other at the Accademia, and Donatello two figures, both of which are here, so that, Verrocchio's example being also here, very interesting comparisons are possible. Personally I put Michelangelo's small David first; it is the one in which, apart from its beauty, you can best believe. His colossal David seems to me one of the most glorious things in the world; but it is not David; not the simple, ruddy shepherd lad of the Bible. This David could obviously defeat anybody. Donatello's more famous David, in the hat, upstairs, is the most charming creature you ever saw, but it had been far better to call him something else. Both he and Verrocchio's David, also upstairs, are young tournament nobles rather than shepherd lads who have slung a stone at a Philistine bully. I see them both--but particularly perhaps Verrocchio's--in the intervals of strife most acceptably holding up a lady's train, or lying at her feet reading one of Boccaccio's stories; neither could ever have watched a flock. Donatello's second David, behind the more famous one, has more reality; but I would put Michelangelo's smaller one first. And what beautiful marble it is--so rich and warm! One point which both Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining to a special reverential mood distinguished from ordinary moods of dailiness. His David, as I have said, is a comely, cultured boy, who belongs to the very flower of chivalry and romance. Verrocchio's is akin to him, but he has less radiant mastery. Donatello's David might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors, and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands; for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked. Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject, ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way, for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book: a pretty touch. Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta. The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend of Cæsar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten. Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace, Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones; but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves. In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door. The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see in its proper position instead of upright against the wall; and a stone font in the middle which is very fine. There is also a beautiful tomb by Giusti da Settignano, and the iron gates are worth attention. From Michelangelo let us ascend the stairs, past the splendid gates, to Donatello; and here a word about that sculptor, for though we meet him again and again in Florence (yet never often enough) it is in the upper room in the Bargello that he is enthroned. Of Donatello there is nothing known but good, and good of the most captivating variety. Not only was he a great creative genius, equally the first modern sculptor and the sanest, but he was himself tall and comely, open-handed, a warm friend, humorous and of vigorous intellect. A hint of the affection in which he was held is obtained from his name Donatello, which is a pet diminutive of Donato--his full style being Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi. Born in 1386, four years before Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political energy in these times. Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors, being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them. At sixteen he was himself enrolled as a sculptor. It was soon after this that, as I have said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi, who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile and for Or San Michele. In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo, and became, with him, a protégé of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives. In 1433 he was in Rome again, probably not sorry to be there since Cosimo had been banished and had taken Michelozzo with him. On the triumphant return of Cosimo in 1434 Donatello's most prosperous period began; for he was intimate with the most powerful man in Florence, was honoured by him, and was himself at the useful age of forty-four. Of Donatello as an innovator I have said something above, in considering the Florentine Davids, but he was also the inventor of that low relief in which his school worked, called rilievo stiacciato, of which there are some excellent examples at South Kensington. In Ghiberti's high relief, breaking out often into completely detached figures, he was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine, but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico, although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady, observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti, Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself. Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de' Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari, "nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling, so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there, and he would not alter his will. The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is, I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections, including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that charming example to Donatello's pupil Desiderio; and various other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins running through it just where the head is, with the result that the face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild. The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici, to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi), and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate, no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure, or more masterly within its limits. After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake, which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta bust called Niccolò da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young Gentleman and the Roman Emperor remain most clearly in my mind. But the authorship of the Roman Emperor is very doubtful. And lastly the glorious Marzocco--the lion from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, firmly holding the Florentine escutcheon against the world. Florence has other Donatellos--the Judith in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the figures on Giotto's campanile, the Annunciation in S. Croce, and above all the cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral; but this room holds most of his strong sweet genius. Here (for there are seldom more than two or three persons in it) you can be on terms with him. After the Donatellos we should see the other Renaissance sculpture. But first the Carrand collection of ivories, pictures, jewels, carvings, vestments, plaquettes, and objets d'art, bequeathed to Florence in 1888. Everything here is good and worth examination. Among the outstanding things is a plaquette, No. 393, a Satyr and a Bacchante, attributed to Donatello, under the title "Allegory of Spring," which is the work of a master and a very riot of mythological imagery. The neighbouring plaquettes, many of them of the school of Donatello, are all beautiful. We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio's David, of which I have already spoken. This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps than Donatello's, although not quite so radiantly distinguished, illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo. At the Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio's boy with the dolphin--that happy bronze lyric--and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, with the flying cherubim beneath. But as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello to see him, in Florence, most intimately. For here are not only his David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze, marble, or paint, but--upstairs--certain other wonderfully beautiful things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here to say a little about their author. Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye. Andrea's real name was de' Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough, his must have been true indeed. It is probable that he was a pupil of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and in time he was to become the master of Leonardo: thus are the great artists related. The history of Florentine art is practically the history of a family; one artist leads to the other--the genealogy of genius. The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel contributed by Leonardo to his master's picture of the Baptism of Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more, just as Ghiberti's superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac drove Brunelleschi from sculpture. If this be so, it accounts for the extraordinarily small number of pictures by him. Like many artists of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as a musician. Both Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this charming David and the boy and the dolphin. His greatest work of all is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous position just for the good of the people. It was while at work upon this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three. His body was brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him, and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence. Lorenzo di Credi painted his portrait, which is now in the Uffizi--a plump, undistinguished-looking little man. In the David room are also the extremely interesting rival bronze reliefs of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, which were made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi as trials of skill to see which would win the commission to design the new gates of the Baptistery, as I have told earlier in this book. Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer sense of grouping. He filled the space at his disposal more easily and his hand was more fluent; but there is a very engaging vivacity in the other work, the realistic details of which are so arresting as to make one regret that Brunelleschi had for sculpture so little time. In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce. Of Ghiberti's Baptistery gates I have said more elsewhere. Enough here to add that the episode of Abraham and Isaac does not occur in them. This little room also has a Cassa Reliquiaria by Ghiberti, below a fine relief by Bertoldo, Michelangelo's master in sculpture, representing a battle between the Romans and the Barbarians; cases of exquisite bronzes; the head, in bronze (No. 25), of an old placid, shrewd woman, executed from a death-mask, which the photographers call Contessina de' Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, by Donatello, but which cannot be so, since the sculptor died first; heads of Apollo and two babies, over the Ghiberti and Brunelleschi competition reliefs; a crucifixion by Bertoldo; a row of babies representing the triumph of Bacchus; and below these a case of medals and plaquettes, every one a masterpiece. The next room, Sala VII, is apportioned chiefly between Cellini and Gian or Giovanni da Bologna, the two sculptors who dominate the Loggia de' Lanzi. Here we may see models for Cellini's Perseus in bronze and wax and also for the relief of the rescue of Andromeda, under the statue; his Cosimo I, with the wart (omitted by Bandinelli in the head downstairs, which pairs with Michelangelo's Brutus); and various smaller works. But personally I find that Cellini will not do in such near proximity to Donatello, Verrocchio, and their gentle followers. He was, of course, far later. He was not born (in 1500) until Donatello had been dead thirty-four years, Mino da Fiesole sixteen years, Desiderio da Settignano thirty-six years, and Verrocchio twelve years. He thus did not begin to work until the finer impulses of the Renaissance were exhausted. Giovanni da Bologna, although he, it is true, was even later (1524-1608), I find more sympathetic; while Landor boldly proclaimed him superior to Michelangelo. His "Mercury," in the middle of the room, which one sees counterfeited in all the statuary shops of Florence, is truly very nearly light as air. If ever bronze floated, this figure does. His cherubs and dolphins are very skilful and merry; his turkey and eagle and other animals indicate that he had humility. John of Bologna is best known at Florence by his Rape of the Sabines and Hercules and Nessus in the Loggia de' Lanzi; but the Boboli gardens have a fine group of Oceanus and river gods by him in the midst of a lake. Before leaving this room look at the relief of Christ in glory (No. 35), to the left of the door, by Jacopo Sansovino, a rival of Michelangelo, which is most admirable, and at the case of bronze animals by Pietro Tacca, John of Bologna's pupil, who made the famous boar (a copy of an ancient marble) at the Mercato Nuovo and the reliefs for the pediment of the statue of Cosimo I (by his master) in the Piazza della Signoria. But I believe that the most beautiful thing in this room is the bronze figure for the tomb of Mariano Sozzino by Lorenzo di Pietro. Before we look at the della Robbias, which are in the two large rooms upstairs, let us finish with the marble and terra-cotta statuary in the two smaller rooms to the left as one passes through the first della Robbia room. In the first of them, corresponding to the room with Verrocchio's David downstairs, we find Verrocchio again, with a bust of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (whom Botticelli painted in the Uffizi holding a medal in his hand) and a most exquisite Madonna and Child in terra-cotta from S. Maria Nuova. (This is on a hinge, for better light, but the official skies will fall if you touch it.) Here also is the bust of a young warrior by Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) who was Verrocchio's closest rival and one of Ghiberti's assistants for the second Baptistery doors. His greatest work is at Rome, but this bust is indescribably charming, and the softness of the boy's contours is almost of life. It is sometimes called Giuliano de' Medici. Other beautiful objects in the room are the terra-cotta Madonna and Child by Andrea Sansovino (1460-1529), Pollaiuolo's pupil, which is as radiant although not so domestically lovely as Verrocchio's; the bust by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) of Pietro Mellini, that shrewd and wrinkled patron of the Church who presented to S. Croce the famous pulpit by this sculptor; an ancient lady, by the door, in coloured terra-cotta, who is thought to represent Monna Tessa, the nurse of Dante's Beatrice; and certain other works by that delightful and prolific person Ignoto Fiorentino, who here, and in the next room, which we now enter, is at his best. This next priceless room is chiefly memorable for Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole. We come to Verrocchio at once, on the left, where his relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (on a tiny bed only half as long as herself) may be seen. This poor lady, who died in childbirth, was the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni, and he it was who employed Ghirlandaio to make the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell, in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and who has such pretty shoulders. Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs. In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is, and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello. In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio, whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him gives him freshness too. This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room; and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised. In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists, beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini. And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course, for most people, his putti on the façade of that building are the della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in volume. Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art--that is, the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes benevolence and safety--carried out to its highest power. Tenderness, happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here. Had Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it would be a paradise. And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but that they left the world sweeter than they found it. Such examples of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the popular vision must have engendered kindness. I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4, 6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca. These, by the way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always agree. Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca; but the Bargello director says Andrea. In Herr Bode's fascinating monograph, "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," he goes very carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew, master and pupil. In all the groups, for example, he says that Luca places the Child on the Madonna's left arm, Andrea on the right. In the second room I have marked particularly Nos. 21, 28, and 31, by Luca, 28 being a deeper relief than usual, and the Madonna not adoring but holding and delighting in one of the most adorable of Babies. Observe in the reproduction of this relief in this volume-- how the Mother's fingers sink into the child's flesh. Luca was the first sculptor to notice that. No. 31 is the lovely Madonna of the Rose Bower. But nothing gives me more pleasure than the boy's head of which I have just spoken, attributed to Andrea and also reproduced here. The "Giovane Donna" which pairs with it has extraordinary charm and delicacy too. I have marked also, by Andrea, Nos. 71 and 76. Giovanni della Robbia's best is perhaps No. 15, in the other room. One curious thing that one notes about della Robbia pottery is its inability to travel. It was made for the church and it should remain there. Even in the Bargello, where there is an ancient environment, it loses half its charm; while in an English museum it becomes hard and cold. But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles, with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for the open air--as in the façade of the Children's Hospital, or at the Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella, where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic, by Andrea--they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough; but it would not do to transplant any of these reliefs to an English façade. There was once, I might add, in Florence a Via della Robbia, but it is now the Via Nazionale. I suppose this injustice to the great potters came about in the eighteen-sixties, when popular political enthusiasm led to every kind of similar re-naming. In the room leading out of the second della Robbia room is a collection of vestments and brocades bequeathed by Baron Giulio Franchetti, where you may see, dating from as far back as the sixth century, designs that for beauty and splendour and durability put to shame most of the stuffs now woven; but the top floor of the Museo Archeologico in the Via della Colonna is the chief home in Florence of such treasures. There are other beautiful things in the Bargello of which I have said nothing--a gallery of mediaeval bells most exquisitely designed, from famous steeples; cases of carved ivory; and many of such treasures as one sees at the Cluny in Paris. But it is for its courtyard and for the Renaissance sculpture that one goes to the Bargello, and returns again and again to the Bargello, and it is for these that one remembers it. On returning to London the first duty of every one who has drunk deep of delight in the Bargello is to visit that too much neglected treasure-house of our own, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. There may be nothing at South Kensington as fine as the Bargello's finest, but it is a priceless collection and is superior to the Bargello in one respect at any rate, for it has a relief attributed to Leonardo. Here also is an adorable Madonna and laughing Child, beyond anything in Florence for sheer gaiety if not mischief, which the South Kensington authorities call a Rossellino but Herr Bode a Desiderio da Settignano. The room is rich too in Donatello and in Verrocchio, and altogether it makes a perfect footnote to the Bargello. It also has within call learned gentlemen who can give intimate information about the exhibits, which the Bargello badly lacks. The Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin--but particularly the Kaiser Friedrich since Herr Bode, who has such a passion for this period, became its director--have priceless treasures, and in Paris I have had the privilege of seeing the little but exquisite collection formed by M. Gustave Dreyfus, dominated by that mirthful Italian child which the Bargello authorities consider to be by Donatello, but Herr Bode gives to Desiderio. At the Louvre, in galleries on the ground floor gained through the Egyptian sculpture section and opened very capriciously, may be seen the finest of the prisoners from Michelangelo's tomb for Pope Julius; Donatello's youthful Baptist; a Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio, whom we saw at the Museum of the Cathedral; an early coloured terra-cotta by Luca della Robbia, and No. 316, a terra-cotta Madonna and Child without ascription, which looks very like Rossellino. In addition to originals there are at South Kensington casts of many of the Bargello's most valuable possessions, such as Donatello's and Verrocchio's Davids, Donatello's Baptist and many heads, Mino da Fiesole's best Madonna, Pollaiuolo's Young Warrior, and so forth; so that to loiter there is most attractively to recapture something of the Florentine feeling. CHAPTER XV S. Croce An historic piazza--Marble façades--Florence's Westminster Abbey--Galileo's ancestor and Ruskin--Benedetto's pulpit--Michelangelo's tomb--A fond lady--Donatello's Annunciation--Giotto's frescoes--S. Francis--Donatello magnanimous--The gifted Alberti--Desiderio's great tomb--The sacristy--The Medici chapel--The Pazzi chapel--Old Jacopo desecrated--A Restoration. The piazza S. Croce now belongs to children. The church is at one end, bizarre buildings are on either side, the Dante statue is in the middle, and harsh gravel covers the ground. Everywhere are children, all dirty, and all rather squalid and mostly bow-legged, showing that they were of the wrong age to take their first steps on Holy Saturday at noon. The long brown building on the right, as we face S. Croce, is a seventeenth-century palazzo. For the rest, the architecture is chiefly notable for green shutters. The frigid and florid Dante memorial, which was unveiled in 1865 on the six hundredth anniversary of the poet's birthday, looks gloomily upon what once was a scene of splendour and animation, for in 1469 Piero de' Medici devised here a tournament in honour of the betrothal of Lorenzo to Clarice Orsini. The Queen of the tournament was Lucrezia Donati, and she awarded the first prize to Lorenzo. The tournament cost 10,000 gold florins and was very splendid, Verrocchio and other artists being called in to design costumes, and it is thought that Pollaiuolo's terra-cotta of the Young Warrior in the Bargello represents the comely Giuliano de' Medici as he appeared in his armour in the lists. The piazza was the scene also of that famous tournament given by Lorenzo de' Medici for Giuliano in 1474, of which the beautiful Simonetta was the Queen of Beauty, and to which, as I have said elsewhere, we owe Botticelli's two most famous pictures. Difficult to reconstruct in the Piazza any of those glories to-day. The new façade of S. Croce, endowed not long since by an Englishman, has been much abused, but it is not so bad. As the front of so beautiful and wonderful a church it may be inadequate, but as a structure of black and white marble it will do. To my mind nothing satisfactory can now be done in this medium, which, unless it is centuries old, is always harsh and cuts the sky like a knife, instead of resting against it as architecture should. But when it is old, as at S. Miniato, it is right. S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. Although outside the church is disappointing, within it is the most beautiful in Florence. It has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most attractive floor--of gentle red--and an apse almost wholly made of coloured glass. Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the yellow walls. It also has the finest circular window in Florence, over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti. The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two windows had to be closed. The circular window over the altar upon which a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, should have known better. To him was entrusted the restoration of the church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the most famous of all the Franciscan churches--that at Assisi, which was begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey. The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never." The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard to the church. Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and speaking excellent English, which he taught himself. The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis. These are all most gently and persuasively done, influenced, of course, by the Baptistery doors, but individual too, and full of a kindred sweetness and liveliness. The scenes are the "Confirmation of the Franciscan Order" (the best, I think); the "Burning of the Books"; the "Stigmata," which we shall see again in the church, in fresco, for here we are all dedicated to the saint of Assisi, not yet having come upon the stern S. Dominic, the ruler at S. Marco and S. Maria Novella; the "Death of S. Francis," very real and touching, which we shall also see again; and the execution of certain Franciscans. Benedetto, who was also an architect and made the plan of the Strozzi palace, was so unwilling that anything should mar the scheme of his pulpit, that after strengthening this pillar with the greatest care and thoroughness, he hollowed it and placed the stairs inside. The first tomb on the right, close to this pulpit, is Michelangelo's, a mass of allegory, designed by his friend Vasari, the author of the "Lives of the Artists," the reading of which is perhaps the best preparation for the understanding of Florence. "If life pleases us," Michelangelo once said, "we ought not to be grieved by death, which comes from the same Giver." Michelangelo had intended the Pietà, now in the Duomo, to stand above his grave; but Vasari, who had a little of the Pepys in his nature, thought to do him greater honour by this ornateness. The artist was laid to his rest in 1564, but not before his body was exhumed, by his nephew, at Rome, where the great man had died, and a series of elaborate ceremonies had been performed, which Vasari, who is here trustworthy enough, describes minutely. All the artists in Florence vied in celebrating the dead master in memorial paintings for his catafalque and its surroundings, which have now perished; but probably the loss is not great, except as an example of homage, for that was a bad period. How bad it was may be a little gauged by Vasari's tributory tomb and his window over the high altar. Opposite Michelangelo's tomb, on the pillar, is the pretty but rather Victorian "Madonna del Latte," surrounded by angels, by Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), brother of the author of the great tomb at S. Miniato. This pretty relief was commissioned as a family memorial by that Francesco Nori, the close friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, who was killed in the Duomo during the Pazzi conspiracy in his effort to save Lorenzo from the assassins. The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy. This curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the '45, and led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with her and offered his protection. Together she and the poet remained, apparently contented with each other and received by society, even by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after exclaiming that she had lost all--"consolations, support, society, all, all!"--and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the Stuart and Alfieri. Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human affection was so necessary. She herself is buried close by, in the chapel of the Castellani. Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Glimpses of Italian Society," mentions seeing in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender. Though old and sickly, he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, and wore the garter. Other tombs in the right aisle are those of Machiavelli, the statesman and author of "The Prince," and Rossini, the composer of "William Tell," who died in Paris in 1868, but was brought here for burial. These tombs are modern and of no artistic value, but there is near them a fine fifteenth-century example in the monument by Bernardo Rossellino to another statesman and author, Leonardo Bruni, known as Aretino, who wrote the lives of Dante and Petrarch and a Latin history of Florence, a copy of which was placed on his heart at his funeral. This tomb is considered to be Rossellino's masterpiece; but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it. There is also a work of sculpture near it, in the same wall, which draws away the eyes--Donatello's "Annunciation". The experts now think this to belong to the sculptor's middle period, but Vasari thought it earlier, and makes it the work which had most influence in establishing his reputation; while according to the archives it was placed in the church before Donatello was living. Vasari ought to be better informed upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for whose altar the relief was made--that of the Cavalcanti family--was removed. The relief now stands unrelated to anything. Every detail of it should be examined; but Alfred Branconi will see to that. The stone is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done. By a pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument in S. Lorenzo has followed the master's lead. Almost everything of Donatello's that one sees is in turn the best; but standing before this lovely work one is more than commonly conscious of being in the presence of a wonderful creator. The Virgin is wholly unlike any other woman, and She is surprising and modern even for Donatello with his vast range. The charming terra-cotta boys above are almost without doubt from the same hand, but they cannot have been made for this monument. To the della Robbias we come in the Castellani chapel in the right transept, which has two full-length statues by either Luca or Andrea, in the gentle glazed medium, of S. Francis and S. Bernard, quite different from anything we have seen or shall see, because isolated. The other full-size figures by these masters--such as those at Impruneta--are placed against the wall. The S. Bernard, on the left as one enters the chapel, is far the finer. It surely must be one of the most beautiful male draped figures in the world. The next chapel, at the end of the transept, was once enriched by Giotto frescoes, but they no longer exist. There are, however, an interesting but restored series of scenes in the life of the Virgin by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson; a Madonna ascending to heaven, by Mainardi, who was Ghirlandaio's pupil, and so satisfactory a one that he was rewarded by the hand of his master's sister; and a pretty piece of Gothic sculpture with the Christ Child upon it. Hereabouts, I may remark, we have continually to be walking over floor-tombs, now ruined beyond hope, their ruin being perhaps the cause of a protecting rail being placed round the others; although a floor-tomb should have, I think, a little wearing from the feet of worshippers, just to soften the lines. Those at the Certosa are, for example, far too sharp and clean. Let us complete the round of the church before we examine the sacristy, and go now to the two chapels, where Giotto may be found at his best, although restored too, on this side of the high altar. The Peruzzi chapel has scenes from the lives of the two S. Johns, the Baptist, and the Evangelist: all rather too thoroughly re-painted, although following Giotto's groundwork closely enough to retain much of their interest and value. And here once again one should consult the "Mornings in Florence," where the wilful discerning enthusiast is, like his revered subject, also at his best. Giotto's thoughtfulness could not be better illustrated than in S. Croce. One sees him, as ever, thinking of everything: not a very remarkable attribute of the fresco painter since then, but very remarkable then, when any kind of facile saintliness sufficed. Signor Bianchi, who found these paintings under the whitewash in 1853, and restored them, overdid his part, there is no doubt; but as I have said, their interest is unharmed, and it is that which one so delights in. Look, for instance, at the attitude of Drusiana, suddenly twitched by S. John back again into this vale of tears, while her bier is on its way to the cemetery outside the pretty city. "Am I really to live again?" she so plainly says to the inexorable miracle-worker. The dancing of Herodias' daughter, which offered Giotto less scope, is original too--original not because it came so early, but because Giotto's mind was original and innovating and creative. The musician is charming. The last scene of all is a delightful blend of religious fervour and reality: the miraculous ascent from the tomb, through an elegant Florentine loggia, to everlasting glory, in a blaze of gold, and Christ and an apostle leaning out of heaven with outstretched hands to pull the saint in, as into a boat. Such a Christ as that could not but be believed in. In the next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential. It was a task which, since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi decorator that he was. No choice could have been better at any time in the history of art. Giotto chose the following scenes, one or two of which coincide with those on Benedetto da Maiano's pulpit, which came of course many years later: the "Confirmation of the Rules of the Franciscans," "S. Francis before the Sultan and the Magi," "S. Francis Sick and Appearing to the Bishop of Assisi," "S. Francis Fleeing from His Father's House and His Reception by the Bishop of Assisi," and the "Death of S. Francis". Giotto's Assisi frescoes, which preceded these, anticipate them; but in some cases these are considered to be better, although in others not so good. It is generally agreed that the death scene is the best. Note the characteristic touch by which Giotto makes one of the monks at the head of the bed look up at the precise moment when the saint dies, seeing him being received into heaven. According to Vasari, one of the two monks (on the extreme left, as I suppose) is Giotto's portrait of the architect of the church, Amolfo. The altar picture, consisting of many more scenes in the life of S. Francis, is often attributed to Cimabue, Giotto's master, but probably is by another hand. In one of these scenes the saint is found preaching to what must be the most attentive birds on record. The figures on the ceiling represent Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, which all Franciscans are pledged to observe. The glass is coeval with the building, which has been described as the most perfect Gothic chapel in existence. The founder of this chapel was Ridolfo de' Bardi, whose family early in the fourteenth century bade fair to become as powerful as the Medici, and by the same means, their business being banking and money-lending, in association with the founders of the adjoining chapel, the Peruzzi. Ridolfo's father died in 1310, and his son, who had become a Franciscan, in 1327; and the chapel was built, and Giotto probably painted the frescoes, soon after the father's death. Both the Bardi and Peruzzi were brought low by our King Edward III, who borrowed from them money with which to fight the French, at Crecy and Poitiers, and omitted to repay it. The chapels in the left transept are less interesting, except perhaps to students of painting in its early days. In the chapel at the end we find Donatello's wooden crucifix which led to that friendly rivalry on the part of Brunelleschi, the story of which is one of the best in all Vasari. Donatello, having finished this wooden crucifix, and being unusually satisfied with it, asked Brunelleschi's opinion, confidently expecting praise. But Brunelleschi, who was sufficiently close a friend to say what he thought, replied that the type was too rough and common: it was not Christ but a peasant. Christ, of course, was a peasant; but by peasant Brunelleschi meant a stupid, dull man. Donatello, chagrined, had recourse to what has always been a popular retort to critics, and challenged him to make a better. Brunelleschi took it very quietly: he said nothing in reply, but secretly for many months, in the intervals of his architecture, worked at his own version, and then one day, when it was finished, invited Donatello to dinner, stopping at the Mercato Vecchio to get some eggs and other things. These he gave Donatello to carry, and sent him on before him to the studio, where the crucifix was standing unveiled. When Brunelleschi arrived he found the eggs scattered and broken on the floor and Donatello before his carving in an ecstasy of admiration. "But what are we going to have for dinner?" the host inquired. "Dinner!" said Donatello; "I've had all the dinner I require. To thee it is given to carve Christs: to me only peasants." No one should forget this pretty story, either here or at S. Maria Novella, where Brunelleschi's crucifix now is. The flexible Siena iron grille of this end chapel dates from 1335. Note its ivy border. On entering the left aisle we find the tombs of Cherubini, the composer, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the façade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. It is at Rimini that he was perhaps most wonderful. Lorenzo de' Medici greatly valued his society, and he was a leader in the Platonic Academy. But the most human achievement to his credit is his powerful plea for using the vernacular in literature, rather than concealing one's best thoughts, as was fashionable before his protest, in Latin. So much for Alberti's intellectual side. Physically he was remarkable too, and one of his accomplishments was to jump over a man standing upright, while he was also able to throw a coin on to the highest tower, even, I suppose, the Campanile, and ride any horse, however wild. At the Bargello may be seen Alberti's portrait, on a medal designed by Pisanello. The old medals are indeed the best authority for the lineaments of the great men of the Renaissance, better far than paint. At South Kensington thousands may be seen, either in the original or in reproduction. In the right aisle we saw Bernardo Rossellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni; in the left is that of Bruni's successor as Secretary of State, Carlo Marsuppini, by Desiderio da Settignano, which is high among the most beautiful monuments that exist. "Faine, faine!" says Alfred Branconi, with his black eyes dimmed; and this though he has seen it every day for years and explained its beauties in the same words. Everything about it is beautiful, as the photograph which I give in this volume will help the reader to believe: proportions, figures, and tracery; but I still consider Mino's monument to Ugo in the Badia the finest Florentine example of the gentler memorial style, as contrasted with the severe Michelangelesque manner. Mino, it must be remembered, was Desiderio's pupil, as Desiderio was Donatello's. Note how Desiderio, by an inspiration, opened the leaf-work at each side of the sarcophagus and instantly the great solid mass of marble became light, almost buoyant. Never can a few strokes of the chisel have had so transforming an effect. There is some doubt as to whether the boys are just where the sculptor set them, and the upper ones with their garlands are thought to be a later addition; but we are never likely to know. The returned visitor from Florence will like to be reminded that, as of so many others of the best Florentine sculptures, there is a cast of this at South Kensington. The last tomb of the highest importance in the church is that of Galileo, the astronomer, who died in 1642; but it is not interesting as a work of art. In the centre of the church is a floor-tomb by Ghiberti, with a bronze figure of a famous Franciscan, Francesco Sansoni da Brescia. Next the sacristy. Italian priests apparently have no resentment against inquisitive foreigners who are led into their dressing-rooms while sumptuous and significant vestments are being donned; but I must confess to feeling it for them, and if my impressions of the S. Croce sacristy are meagre and confused it is because of a certain delicacy that I experienced in intruding upon their rites. For on both occasions when I visited the sacristy there were several priests either robing or disrobing. Apart from a natural disinclination to invade privacy, I am so poor a Roman Catholic as to be in some doubt as to whether one has a right to be so near such a mystery at all. But I recollect that in this sacristy are treasures of wood and iron--the most beautiful intarsia wainscotting I ever saw, by Giovanni di Michele, with a frieze of wolves and foliage, and fourteenth-century iron gates to the little chapel, pure Gothic in design, with a little rose window at the top, delicate beyond words: all which things once again turn the thoughts to this wonderful Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, when not even the best was good enough for those who built churches, but something miraculous was demanded from every craftsman. At the end of the passage in which the sacristy is situated is the exquisite little Cappella Medici, which Michelozzo, the architect of S. Marco and the Palazzo Medici, and for a while Donatello's partner, built for his friend Cosimo de' Medici, who though a Dominican in his cell at S. Marco was a Franciscan here, but by being equally a patron dissociated himself from partisanship. Three treasures in particular does this little temple hold: Giotto's "Coronation of the Virgin"; the della Robbia altar relief, and Mino da Fiesole's tabernacle. Giotto's picture, which is signed, once stood as altar-piece in the Baroncelli chapel of the church proper. In addition to the beautiful della Robbia altar-piece, so happy and holy--which Alfred Branconi boldly calls Luca--there is over the door Christ between two angels, a lovely example of the same art. For a subtler, more modern and less religious mind, we have but to turn to the tabernacle by Mino, every inch of which is exquisite. On the same wall is a curious thing. In the eighteen-sixties died a Signor Lombardi, who owned certain reliefs which he believed to be Donatello's. When his monument was made these ancient works were built into them and here and there gilded (for it is a wicked world and there was no taste at that time). One's impulse is not to look at this encroaching piece of novelty at all; but one should resist that feeling, because, on examination, the Madonna and Children above Signor Lombardi's head become exceedingly interesting. Her hands are the work of a great artist, and they are really holding the Child. Why this should not be an early Donatello I do not see. The cloisters of S. Croce are entered from the piazza, just to the right of the church: the first, a little ornate, by Arnolfo, and the second, until recently used as a barracks but now being restored to a more pacific end, by Brunelleschi, and among the most perfect of his works. Brunelleschi is also the designer of the Pazzi chapel in the first cloisters. The severity of the façade is delightfully softened and enlivened by a frieze of mischievous cherubs' heads, the joint work of Donatello and Desiderio. Donatello's are on the right, and one sees at once that his was the bolder, stronger hand. Look particularly at the laughing head fourth from the right. But that one of Desiderio's over the middle columns has much charm and power. The doors, from Brunelleschi's own hand, in a doorway perfect in scale, are noble and worthy. The chapel itself I find too severe and a little fretted by its della Robbias and the multiplicity of circles. It is called Brunelleschi's masterpiece, but I prefer both the Badia of Fiesole and the Old Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and I remember with more pleasure the beautiful doorway leading from the Arnolfo cloisters to the Brunelleschi cloisters, which probably is his too. The della Robbia reliefs, once one can forgive them for being here, are worth study. Nothing could be more charming (or less conducive to a methodical literary morning) than the angel who holds S. Matthew's ink-pot. But I think my favourite of all is the pensive apostle who leans his cheek on his hand and his elbow on his book. This figure alone proves what a sculptor Luca was, apart altogether from the charm of his mind and the fascination of his chosen medium. This chapel was once the scene of a gruesome ceremony. Old Jacopo Pazzi, the head of the family at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici, after being hanged from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio, was buried here. Some short while afterwards Florence was inundated by rain to such an extent that the vengeance of God was inferred, and, casting about for a reason, the Florentines decided that it was because Jacopo had been allowed to rest in sacred soil. A mob therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and dragged his body through the streets, stopping on their way at the Pazzi palace to knock on the door with his skull. He was then thrown into the swollen Arno and borne away by the tide. In the old refectory of the convent are now a number of pictures and fragments of sculpture. The "Last Supper," by Taddeo Gaddi, on the wall, is notable for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in Taddeo's picture, the answer to Christ's question, which Leonardo at Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone conclusion. The "Crucifixion" on the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having been painted for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza Cavour) and removed here. All the gates of Florence had religious frescoes in them, some of which still remain. The great bronze bishop is said to be by Donatello and to have been meant for Or San Michele; but one does not much mind. One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the Florentine disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly a pleasure to see the progress that is being made in restoring Brunelleschi's perfect cloisters at S. Croce to their original form. When they were turned into barracks the Loggia was walled in all round and made into a series of rooms. These walls are now gradually coming away, the lovely pillars being again isolated, the chimneys removed, and everything lightly washed. Grass has also been sown in the great central square. The crumbling of the decorative medals in the spandrels of the cloisters cannot of course be restored; but one does not complain of such natural decay as that. CHAPTER XVI The Accademia Michelangelo--The David--The tomb of Julius--A contrast--Fra Angelico--The beatific painter--Cimabue and Giotto--Masaccio--Gentile da Fabriano--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Fra Angelico again--Fra Bartolommeo--Perugino--Botticelli--The "Primavera"--Leonardo da Vinci and Verrocchio--Botticelli's sacred pictures--Botticini--Tapestries of Eden. The Accademia delle Belle Arti is in the Via Ricasoli, that street which seen from the top of the Campanile is the straightest thing in Florence, running like a ruled line from the Duomo to the valley of the Mugnone. Upstairs are modern painters: but upstairs I have never been. It is the ground-floor rooms that are so memorable, containing as they do a small but very choice collection of pictures illustrating the growth of Italian art, with particular emphasis on Florentine art; the best assemblage of the work of Fra Angelico that exists; and a large gallery given up to Michelangelo's sculpture: originals and casts. The principal magnets that draw people here, no doubt, are the Fra Angelicos and Botticelli's "Primavera"; but in five at least of the rooms there is not an uninteresting picture, while the collection is so small that one can study it without fatigue--no little matter after the crowded Uffizi and Pitti. It is a simple matter to choose in such a book as this the best place in which to tell something of the life-story of, say, Giotto and Brunelleschi and the della Robbias; for at a certain point their genius is found concentrated--Donatello's and the della Robbias' in the Bargello and those others at the Duomo and Campanile. But with Michelangelo it is different, he is so distributed over the city--his gigantic David here, the Medici tombs at S. Lorenzo, his fortifications at S. Miniato, his tomb at S. Croce, while there remains his house as a natural focus of all his activities. I have, however, chosen the Medici chapel as the spot best suited for his biography, and therefore will here dwell only on the originals that are preserved about the David. The David himself, superb and confident, is the first thing you see in entering the doors of the gallery. He stands at the end, white and glorious, with his eyes steadfastly measuring his antagonist and calculating upon what will be his next move if the sling misdirects the stone. Of the objection to the statue as being not representative of the Biblical figure I have said something in the chapter on the Bargello, where several Davids come under review. Yet, after all that can be said against its dramatic fitness, the statue remains an impressive and majestic yet strangely human thing. There it is--a sign of what a little Italian sculptor with a broken nose could fashion with his mallet and chisel from a mass of marble four hundred and more years ago. Its history is curious. In 1501, when Michelangelo was twenty-six and had just returned to Florence from Rome with a great reputation as a sculptor, the joint authorities of the cathedral and the Arte della Lana offered him a huge block of marble that had been in their possession for thirty-five years, having been worked upon clumsily by a sculptor named Baccellino and then set aside. Michelangelo was told that if he accepted it he must carve from it a David and have it done in two years. He began in September, 1501, and finished in January, 1504, and a committee was appointed to decide upon its position, among them being Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, and Andrea della Robbia, There were three suggested sites: the Loggia de' Lanzi; the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, where Verrocchio's little boudoir David then stood (now in the Bargello) and where his Cupid and dolphin now are; and the place where it now stands, then occupied by Donatello's Judith and Holofernes. This last was finally selected, not by the committee but by the determination of Michelangelo himself, and Judith and Holofernes were moved to the Loggia de' Lanzi to their present position. The David was set up in May, 1504, and remained there for three hundred and sixty-nine years, suffering no harm from the weather but having an arm broken in the Medici riots in 1527. In 1878, however, it was decided that further exposure might be injurious, and so the statue was moved here to its frigid niche and a replica in marble afterwards set up in its place. Since this glorious figure is to be seen thrice in Florence, he may be said to have become the second symbol of the city, next the fleur-de-lis. The Tribuna del David, as the Michelangelo salon is called, has among other originals several figures intended for that tomb of Pope Julius II (whose portrait by Raphael we have seen at the Uffizi) which was to be the eighth wonder of the world, and by which the last years of the sculptor's life were rendered so unhappy. The story is a miserable one. Of the various component parts of the tomb, finished or unfinished, the best known is the Moses at S. Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, reproduced in plaster here, in the Accademia, beneath the bronze head of its author. Various other parts are in Rome too; others here; one or two may be at the Bargello (although some authorities give these supposed Michelangelos to Vincenzo Danti); others are in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens; and the Louvre has what is in some respects the finest of the "Prisoners". The first statue on the right of the entrance of the Tribuna del David is a group called "Genio Vittorioso". Here in the old man we see rock actually turned to life; in the various "Prisoners" near we see life emerging from rock; in the David we forget the rock altogether. One wonders how Michelangelo went to work. Did the shape of the block of marble influence him, or did he with his mind's eye, the Röntgen rays of genius, see the figure within it, embedded in the midst, and hew and chip until it disclosed? On the back of the fourth statue on the left a monkish face has been incised: probably some visitor to the studio. After looking at these originals and casts, and remembering those other Michelangelo sculptures elsewhere in Florence--the tombs of the Medici, the Brutus and the smaller David--turn to the bronze head over the cast of Moses and reflect upon the author of it all: the profoundly sorrowful eyes behind which so much power and ambition and disappointment dwelt. It is peculiarly interesting to walk out of the Michelangelo gallery into the little room containing the Fra Angelicos: to pass from a great melancholy saturnine sculptor, the victim of the caprice of princes temporal and spiritual, his eyes troubled with world knowledge and world weariness, to the child-like celebrant of the joy of simple faith who painted these gay and happy pictures. Fra Angelico--the sweetest of all the Florentine painters--was a monk of Fiesole, whose real name was Guido Petri da Mugello, but becoming a Dominican he called himself Giovanni, and now through the sanctity and happiness of his brush is for all time Beato Angelico. He was born in 1390, nearly sixty years after Giotto's death, when Chaucer was fifty, and Richard II on the English throne. His early years were spent in exile from Fiesole, the brothers having come into difficulties with the Archbishop, but by 1418 he was again at Fiesole, and when in 1436 Cosimo de' Medici, returned from exile at Venice, set his friend Michelozzo upon building the convent of S. Marco, Fra Angelico was fetched from Fiesole to decorate the walls. There, and here, in the Accademia, are his chief works assembled; but he worked also at Fiesole, at Cortona, and at Rome, where he painted frescoes in the chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican and where he died, aged sixty-eight, and was buried. It was while at Rome that the Pope offered him the priorship of S. Marco, which he declined as being unworthy, but recommended Antonio, "the good archbishop".--That practically is his whole life. As to his character, let Vasari tell us. "He would often say that whosoever practised art needed a quiet life and freedom from care, and he who occupies himself with the things of Christ ought always to be with Christ. . . . Some say that Fra Giovanni never took up his brush without first making a prayer. . . . He never made a crucifix when the tears did not course down his cheeks." The one curious thing--to me--about Fra Angelico is that he has not been canonized. If ever a son of the Church toiled for her honour and for the happiness of mankind it was he. There are examples of Fra Angelico's work elsewhere in Florence; the large picture in Room I of this gallery; the large altar-piece at the Uffizi, with certain others; the series of mural paintings in the cells of S. Marco; and his pictures will be found not only elsewhere in Florence and Italy but in the chief galleries of the world; for he was very assiduous. We have an excellent example at the National Gallery, No. 663; but this little room gives us the artist and rhapsodist most completely. In looking at his pictures, three things in particular strike the mind: the skill with which he composed them; his mastery of light; and--and here he is unique--the pleasure he must have had in painting them. All seem to have been play; he enjoyed the toil exactly as a child enjoys the labour of building a house with toy bricks. Nor, one feels, could he be depressed. Even in his Crucifixions there is a certain underlying happiness, due to his knowledge that the Crucified was to rise again and ascend to Heaven and enjoy eternal felicity. Knowing this (as he did know it) how could he be wholly cast down? You see it again in the Flagellation of Christ, in the series of six scenes (No. 237). The scourging is almost a festival. But best of all I like the Flight into Egypt, in No. 235. Everything here is joyous and (in spite of the terrible cause of the journey) bathed in the sunny light of the age of innocence: the landscape; Joseph, younger than usual, brave and resolute and undismayed by the curious turn in his fortunes; and Mary with the child in her arms, happy and pretty, seated securely on an amiable donkey that has neither bit nor bridle. It is when one looks at Fra Angelico that one understands how wise were the Old Masters to seek their inspiration in the life of Christ. One cannot imagine Fra Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation of the Virgin, for their beauty of light. In the photographs No. 246--a Deposition--is unusually striking, but in the original, although beautiful, it is far less radiant than usual with this painter. It has, however, such feeling as to make it especially memorable among the many treatments of this subject. What is generally considered the most important work in this room is the Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is in a very acceptable mood. The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these have much of the charm of little flowers. But in delineating the damned the painter is in strange country. It was a subject of which he knew nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order of S. Francis is mere party politics and a blot. There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for them. Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation; and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very quaint. And in Angelico's rooms there is a little, modest Annunciation by one of his school--No. 256--which shows what a good influence he was, and to which the eye returns and returns. Here also, on easels, are two portraits of Vallombrosan monks by Fra Bartolommeo, serene, and very sympathetically painted, which cause one to regret the deterioration in Italian ecclesiastic physiognomy; and Andrea del Sarto's two pretty angels, which one so often finds in reproduction, are here too. Let us now enter the first room of the collection proper and begin at the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti. The student may here trace the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks and downwards again. The Accademia was established with this purpose by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1784. Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do not impair the original idea. For the serious student the first room is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue (? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca Signorelli (? 1450-1523). For the most part the pictures in this room appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention--a Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio. Before reaching these, let us look at the walls. The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition from Byzantine art to Italian art. Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240. At that time there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols of the Faith to humanity itself. One can understand this large panel being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was) in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael. The Madonna is above life; the Child is a little man. This was painted, say, in 1280, as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinità at Florence. Next came Giotto, Cimabue's pupil, born about 1267, whom we have met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the second picture in this room, from Giotto's brush, we see life really awakening. The Madonna is vivifying; the Child is nearer childhood; we can believe that here are veins with blood in them. Moreover, whereas Cimabue's angels brought masonry, these bring flowers. It is crude, no doubt, but it is enough; the new art, which was to counterfeit and even extend nature, has really begun; the mystery and glory of painting are assured and the door opened for Botticelli. But much had to happen first, particularly the mastery of the laws of perspective, and it was not (as we have seen) until Ghiberti had got to work on his first doors, and Brunelleschi was studying architecture and Uccello sitting up all night at his desk, that painting as we know it--painting of men and women "in the round"--could be done, and it was left for a youth who was not born until Giotto had been dead sixty-four years to do this first as a master--one Tommaso di Ser Giovanni Guido da Castel San Giovanni, known as Masaccio, or Big Tom. The three great names then in the evolution of Italian painting, a subject to which I return in chapter XXV, on the Carmine, are Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio. We pass on at the Accademia from Cimabue's pupil Giotto, to Giotto's followers, Taddeo Gaddi and Bernardo Daddi, and Daddi's follower Spinello Aretino, and the long dependent and interdependent line of painters. For the most part they painted altar-pieces, these early craftsmen, the Church being the principal patron of art. These works are many of them faded and so elementary as to have but an antiquarian interest; but think of the excitement in those days when the picture was at last ready, and, gay in its gold, was erected in the chapel! Among the purely ecclesiastical works No. 137, an Annunciation by Giovanni del Biondo (second half of the fourteenth century), is light and cheerful, and No. 142, the Crowning of the Virgin, by Rosello di Jacopo Franchi (1376-1456), has some delightful details and is everywhere joyous, with a charming green pattern in it. The wedding scenes in No. 147 give us Florentine life on the mundane side with some valuable thoroughness, and the Pietro Lorenzetti above--scenes in the life of S. Umilita--is very quaint and cheery and was painted as early as 1316. The little Virgin adoring, No. 160, in the corner, by the fertile Ignoto, is charmingly pretty. And now for the three screens, notable among the screens of the galleries of Europe as holding three of the happiest pictures ever painted. The first is the Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile da Fabriano, an artist of whom one sees too little. His full name was Gentile di Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, and he was born at Fabriano between 1360 and 1370, some twenty years before Fra Angelico. According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I have seen. Gentile did much work at Venice before he came to Florence, in 1422, and this picture, which is considered his masterpiece, was painted in 1423 for S. Trinita. He died four years later. Gentile was charming rather than great, and to this work might be applied Ruskin's sarcastic description of poor Ghirlandaio's frescoes, that they are mere goldsmith's work; and yet it is much more, for it has gaiety and sweetness and the nice thoughtfulness that made the Child a real child, interested like a child in the bald head of the kneeling mage; while the predella is not to be excelled in its modest, tender beauty by any in Florence; and predellas, I may remark again, should never be overlooked, strong as the tendency is to miss them. Many a painter has failed in the large space or made only a perfunctory success, but in the small has achieved real feeling. Gentile's Holy Family on its way to Egypt is never to be forgotten. Not so radiant as Fra Angelico's, in the room we have visited out of due course, but as charming in its own manner--both in personages and landscape; while the city to which Joseph leads the donkey (again without reins) is the most perfect thing out of fairyland. Ghirlandaio's picture, which is the neighbour of Gentile's, is as a whole nearer life and one of his most attractive works. It is, I think, excelled only by his very similar Adoration of the Magi at the Spedale degli Innocenti, which, however, it is difficult to see; and it is far beyond the examples at the Uffizi, which are too hot. Of the life of this artist, who was Michelangelo's master, I shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of which the shepherds feed their flocks, comes the imposing procession of the Magi. Joseph is more than commonly perplexed, and the disparity between his own and his wife's age, which the old masters agreed to make considerable, is more considerable than usual. Both Gentile and Ghirlandaio chose a happy subject and made it happier; Fra Angelico (for the third screen picture) chose a melancholy subject and made it happy, not because that was his intention, but because he could not help it. He had only one set of colours and one set of countenances, and since the colours were of the gayest and the countenances of the serenest, the result was bound to be peaceful and glad. This picture is a large "Deposizione della Croce," an altar-piece for S. Trinità. There is such joy in the painting and light in the sky that a child would clap his hands at it all, and not least at the vermilion of the Redeemer's blood. Fra Angelico gave thought to every touch: and his beatific holiness floods the work. Each of these three great pictures, I may add, has its original frame. The room which leads from this one is much less valuable; but Fra Bartolommeo's Vision of S. Bernard has lately been brought to an easel here to give it character. I find this the Frate's most beautiful work. It may have details that are a little crude, and the pointed nose of the Virgin is not perhaps in accordance with the best tradition, while she is too real for an apparition; but the figure of the kneeling saint is masterly and the landscape lovely in subject and feeling. Here too is Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola, in which the reformer is shown as personating S. Peter Martyr. The picture was not painted from life, but from an earlier portrait. Fra Bartolommeo had some reason to know what Savonarola was like, for he was his personal friend and a brother in the same convent of S. Marco, a few yards from the Accademia, across the square. He was born in 1475 and was apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli; but he learned more from studying Masaccio's frescoes at the Carmine and the work of Leonardo da Vinci. It was in 1495 that he came under the influence of Savonarola, and he was the first artist to run home and burn his studies from the nude in response to the preacher's denunciations. Three years later, when Savonarola was an object of hatred and the convent of S. Marco was besieged, the artist was with him, and he then made a vow that if he lived he would join the order; and this promise he kept, although not until Savonarola had been executed. For a while, as a monk, he laid aside the brush, but in 1506 he resumed it and painted until his death, in 1517. He was buried at S. Marco. In his less regenerate days Fra Bartolommeo's greatest friend was the jovial Mariotto Albertinelli, whose rather theatrical Annunciation hangs between a number of the monk's other portraits, all very interesting. Of Albertinelli I have spoken earlier. Before leaving, look at the tiny Ignoto next the door--a Madonna and Child, the child eating a pomegranate. It is a little picture to steal. In the next room are a number of the later and showy painters, such as Carlo Dolci, Lorenzo Lippi, and Francesco Furini, all bold, dashing, self-satisfied hands, in whom (so near the real thing) one can take no interest. Nothing to steal here. Returning through Sala Prima we come to the Sala del Perugino and are among the masters once more--riper and richer than most of those we have already seen, for Tuscan art here reaches its finest flower. Perugino is here and Botticelli, Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo, Luca Signorelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi. And here is a Masaccio. The great Perugino Assumption has all his mellow sunset calm, and never was a landscape more tenderly sympathetic. The same painter's Deposition hangs next, and the custodian brings a magnifying glass that the tears on the Magdalen's cheek may be more closely observed; but the third, No. 53, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is finer, and here again the landscape and light are perfect. For the rest, there is a Royal Academy Andrea and a formal Ghirlandaio. And now we come to Botticelli, who although less richly represented in numbers than at the Uffizi, is for the majority of his admirers more to be sought here, by reason of the "Primavera" allegory, which is the Accademia's most powerful magnet. The Botticellis are divided between two rooms, the "Primavera" being in the first. The first feeling one has is how much cooler it is here than among the Peruginos, and how much gayer; for not only is there the "Primavera," but Fra Lippo Lippi is here too, with a company of angels helping to crown the Virgin, and a very sweet, almost transparent, little Madonna adoring--No. 79--which one cannot forget. The "Primavera" is not wearing too well: one sees that at once. Being in tempera it cannot be cleaned, and a dulness is overlaying it; but nothing can deprive the figure of Spring of her joy and movement, a floating type of conquering beauty and youth. The most wonderful thing about this wonderful picture is that it should have been painted when it was: that, suddenly, out of a solid phalanx of Madonnas should have stepped these radiant creatures of the joyous earth, earthy and joyful. And not only that they should have so surprisingly and suddenly emerged, but that after all these years this figure of Spring should still be the finest of her kind. That is the miracle! Luca Signorelli's flowers at the Uffizi remain the best, but Botticelli's are very thoughtful and before the grass turned black they must have been very lovely; the exquisite drawing of the irises in the right-hand corner can still be traced, although the colour has gone. The effect now is rather like a Chinese painting. For the history of the "Primavera" and its signification, one must turn back to Chapter X. I spoke just now of Luca's flowers. There are others in his picture in this room--botanist's flowers as distinguished from painter's flowers: the wild strawberry beautifully straggling. This picture is one of the most remarkable in all Florence to me: a Crucifixion to which the perishing of the colour has given an effect of extreme delicacy, while the group round the cross on the distant mound has a quality for which one usually goes to Spanish art. The Magdalen is curiously sulky and human. Into the skull at the foot of the cross creeps a lizard. This room has three Lippo Lippis, which is an interesting circumstance when we remember that that dissolute brother was the greatest influence on Botticelli. The largest is the Coronation of the Virgin with its many lilies--a picture which one must delight in, so happy and crowded is it, but which never seems to me quite what it should be. The most fascinating part of it is the figures in the two little medallions: two perfect pieces of colour and design. The kneeling monk on the right is Lippo Lippi himself. Near it is the Madonna adoring, No. 79, of which I have spoken, with herself so luminous and the background so dark; the other--No. 82--is less remarkable. No. 81, above it, is by Browning's Pacchiorotto (who worked in distemper); close by is the Masaccio, which has a deep, quiet beauty; and beneath it is a richly coloured predella by Andrea del Sarto, the work of a few hours, I should guess, and full of spirit and vigour. It consists of four scriptural scenes which might be called the direct forerunners of Sir John Gilbert and the modern illustrators. Lastly we have what is in many ways the most interesting picture in Florence--No. 71, the Baptism of Christ--for it is held by some authorities to be the only known painting by Verrocchio, whose sculptures we saw in the Bargello and at Or San Michele, while in one of the angels--that surely on the left--we are to see the hand of his pupil Leonardo da Vinci. Their faces are singularly sweet. Other authorities consider not only that Verrocchio painted the whole picture himself but that he painted also the Annunciation at the Uffizi to which Leonardo's name is given. Be that as it may--and we shall never know--this is a beautiful thing. According to Vasari it was the excellence of Leonardo's contribution which decided Verrocchio to give up the brush. Among the thoughts of Leonardo is one which comes to mind with peculiar force before this work when we know its story: "Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master". The second Sala di Botticelli has not the value of the first. It has magnificent examples of Botticelli's sacred work, but the other pictures are not the equal of those in the other rooms. Chief of the Botticellis is No. 85, "The Virgin and Child with divers Saints," in which there are certain annoying and restless elements. One feels that in the accessories--the flooring, the curtains, and gilt--the painter was wasting his time, while the Child is too big. Botticelli was seldom too happy with his babies. But the face of the Saint in green and blue on the left is most exquisitely painted, and the Virgin has rather less troubled beauty than usual. The whole effect is not quite spiritual, and the symbolism of the nails and the crown of thorns held up for the Child to see is rather too cruel and obvious. I like better the smaller picture with the same title--No. 88--in which the Saints at each side are wholly beautiful in Botticelli's wistful way, and the painting of their heads and head-dresses is so perfect as to fill one with a kind of despair. But taken altogether one must consider Botticelli's triumph in the Accademia to be pagan rather than sacred. No. 8, called officially School of Verrocchio, and by one firm of photographers Botticini, and by another Botticelli, is a fine free thing, low in colour, with a quiet landscape, and is altogether a delight. It represents Tobias and the three angels, and Raphael moves nobly, although not with quite such a step as the radiant figure in a somewhat similar picture in our own National Gallery--No. 781--which, once confidently given to Verrocchio, is now attributed to Botticini; while our No. 296, which the visitor from Florence on returning to London should hasten to examine, is no longer Verrocchio but School of Verrocchio. When we think of these attributions and then look at No. 154 in the Accademia--another Tobias and the Angel, here given to Botticini--we have a concrete object lesson in the perilous career that awaits the art expert, The other pictures here are two sunny panels by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, high up, with nice easy colouring; No. 92, an Adoration of the Shepherds by Lorenzo di Credi, with a good landscape and all very sweet and quiet; No. 98, a Deposition by Filippino Lippi and Perugino, in collaboration, with very few signs of Filippino; and No. 90, a Resurrection by Raffaellino del Garbo, an uncommon painter in Florence; the whole thing a tour de force, but not important. And now let us look at the Angelicos again. Before leaving the Accademia for the last time, one should glance at the tapestries near the main entrance, just for fun. That one in which Adam names the animals is so delightfully naive that it ought to be reproduced as a nursery wall-paper. The creatures pass in review in four processions, and Adam must have had to be uncommonly quick to make up his mind first and then rattle out their resultant names in the time. The main procession is that of the larger quadrupeds, headed by the unicorn in single glory; and the moment chosen by the artist is that in which the elephant, having just heard his name (for the first time) and not altogether liking it, is turning towards Adam in surprised remonstrance. The second procession is of reptiles, led by the snail; the third, the smaller quadrupeds, led by four rats, followed desperately close (but of course under the white flag) by two cats; while the fourth--all sorts and conditions of birds--streams through the air. The others in this series are all delightful, not the least being that in which God, having finished His work, takes Adam's arm and flies with him over the earth to point out its merits. CHAPTER XVII Two Monasteries and a Procession The Certosa--A Company of Uncles--The Cells--Machiavelli--Impruneta--The della Robbias--Pontassieve--Pelago--Milton's simile--Vallombrosa--S. Gualberto--Prato and the Lippis--The Grassina Albergo--An American invasion--The Procession of the Dead Christ--My loss. Everyone who merely visits Florence holds it a duty to bring home at least one flask of the Val d'Ema liqueur from the Carthusian monastery four or five miles distant from the city, not because that fiery distillation is peculiarly attractive but because the vessels which contain it are at once pretty decorations and evidences of travel and culture. They can be bought in Florence itself, it is true (at a shop at the corner of the Via de' Cerretani, close to the Baptistery), but the Certosa is far too interesting to miss, if one has time to spare from the city's own treasures. The trams start from the Mercato Nuovo and come along the Via dell' Arcivescovado to the Baptistery, and so to the Porta Romana and out into the hilly country. The ride is dull and rather tiresome, for there is much waiting at sidings, but the expedition becomes attractive immediately the tram is left. There is then a short walk, principally up the long narrow approach to the monastery gates, outside which, when I was there, was sitting a beggar at a stone table, waiting for the bowl of soup to which all who ask are entitled. Passing within the courtyard you ring the bell on the right and enter the waiting hall, from which, in the course of time, when a sufficient party has been gathered, an elderly monk in a white robe leads you away. How many monks there may be, I cannot say; but of the few of whom I caught a glimpse, all were alike in the possession of white beards, and all suggested uncles in fancy dress. Ours spoke good French and was clearly a man of parts. Lulled by his soothing descriptions I passed in a kind of dream through this ancient abode of peace. The Certosa dates from 1341 and was built and endowed by a wealthy merchant named Niccolo Acciaioli, after whom the Lungarno Acciaioli is named. The members of the family are still buried here, certain of the tombstones bearing dates of the present century. To-day it is little but a show place, the cells of the monks being mostly empty and the sale of the liqueur its principal reason for existence. But the monks who are left take a pride in their church, which is attributed to Orcagna, and its possessions, among which come first the relief monuments of early Acciaioli in the floor of one of the chapels--the founder's being perhaps also the work of Orcagna, while that of his son Lorenzo, who died in 1353, is attributed by our cicerone to Donatello, but by others to an unknown hand. It is certainly very beautiful. These tombs are the very reverse of those which we saw in S. Croce; for those bear the obliterating traces of centuries of footsteps, so that some are nearly flat with the stones, whereas these have been railed off for ever and have lost nothing. The other famous Certosa tomb is that of Cardinal Angelo Acciaioli, which, once given to Donatello, is now sometimes attributed to Giuliano di Sangallo and sometimes to his son Francesco. The Certosa has a few good pictures, but it is as a monastery that it is most interesting: as one of the myriad lonely convents of Italy, which one sees so constantly from the train, perched among the Apennines, and did not expect ever to enter. The cloisters which surround the garden, in the centre of which is a well, and beneath which is the distillery, are very memorable, not only for their beauty but for the sixty and more medallions of saints and evangelists all round it by Giovanni della Robbia. Here the monks have sunned themselves, and here been buried, these five and a half centuries. One suite of rooms is shown, with its own little private garden and no striking discomfort except the hole in the wall by the bed, through which the sleeper is awakened. From its balcony one sees the Etna far below and hears the roar of a weir, and away in the distance is Florence with the Duomo and a third of Giotto's Campanile visible above the intervening hills. Having shown you all the sights the monk leads you again to the entrance hall and bids you good-bye, with murmurs of surprise and a hint of reproach on discovering a coin in his hand, for which, however, none the less, he manages in the recesses of his robe to find a place; and you are then directed to the room where the liqueur, together with sweets and picture post-cards, is sold by another monk, assisted by a lay attendant, and the visit to the Certosa is over. The tram that passes the Certosa continues to S. Casciano in the Chianti district (but much wine is called Chianti that never came from here), where there is a point of interest in the house to which Machiavelli retired in 1512, to give himself to literature and to live that wonderful double life--a peasant loafer by day in the fields and the village inn, and at night, dressed in his noblest clothes, the cold, sagacious mentor of the rulers of mankind. But at S. Casciano I did not stop. And farther still one comes to the village of Impruneta, after climbing higher and higher, with lovely calm valleys on either side coloured by silver olive groves and vivid wheat and maize, and studded with white villas and villages and church towers. On the road every woman in every doorway plaits straw with rapid fingers just as if we were in Bedfordshire. Impruneta is famous for its new terra-cotta vessels and its ancient della Robbias. For in the church is some of Luca's most exquisite work--an altarpiece with a frieze of aerial angels under it, and a stately white saint on either side, and the loveliest decorated columns imaginable; while in an adjoining chapel is a Christ crucified mourned by the most dignified and melancholy of Magdalens. Andrea della Robbia is here too, and here also is a richly designed cantoria by Mino da Fiesole. The village is not in the regular programme of visitors, and Baedeker ignores it; hence perhaps the excitement which an arrival from Florence causes, for the children turn out in battalions. The church is very dirty, and so indeed is everything else; but no amount of grime can disguise the charm of the cloisters. The Certosa is a mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, whose little villas cling to the western slopes among the lizards, and, in summer, are smitten unbearably by the sun. But the best way to visit the monastery and the groves is by road. A motor-car no doubt makes little of the journey; but a carriage and pair such as I chartered at Florence for forty-five lire has to be away before seven, and, allowing three hours on the top, is not back again until the same hour in the evening; and this, the ancient way, with the beat of eight hoofs in one's ears, is the right way. For several miles the road and the river--the Arno--run side by side--and the railway close by too--through venerable villages whose inhabitants derive their living either from the soil or the water, and amid vineyards all the time. Here and there a white villa is seen, but for the most part this is peasants' district: one such villa on the left, before Pontassieve, having about it, and on each side of its drive, such cypresses as one seldom sees and only Gozzoli or Mr. Sargent could rightly paint, each in his own style. Not far beyond, in a scrap of meadow by the road, sat a girl knitting in the morning sun--with a placid glance at us as we rattled by; and ten hours later, when we rattled past again, there she still was, still knitting, in the evening sun, and again her quiet eyes were just raised and dropped. At Pontassieve we stopped a while for coffee at an inn at the corner of the square of pollarded limes, and while it was preparing watched the little crumbling town at work, particularly the cooper opposite, who was finishing a massive cask within whose recesses good Chianti is doubtless now maturing; and then on the white road again, to the turning, a mile farther on, to the left, where one bids the Arno farewell till the late afternoon. Steady climbing now, and then a turn to the right and we see Pelago before us, perched on its crags, and by and by come to it--a tiny town, with a clean and alluring inn, very different from the squalor of Pontassieve: famous in art and particularly Florentine art as being the birthplace of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who made the Baptistery doors. From Pelago the road descends with extreme steepness to a brook in a rocky valley, at a bridge over which the real climb begins, to go steadily on (save for another swift drop before Tosi) until Vallombrosa is reached, winding through woods all the way, chiefly chestnut--those woods which gave Milton, who was here in 1638, his famous simile. [6] The heat was now becoming intense (it was mid-September) and the horses were suffering, and most of this last stage was done at walking pace; but such was the exhilaration of the air, such the delight of the aromas which the breeze continually wafted from the woods, now sweet, now pungent, and always refreshing, that one felt no fatigue even though walking too. And so at last the monastery, and what was at that moment better than anything, lunch. The beauty and joy of Vallombrosa, I may say at once, are Nature's, not man's. The monastery, which is now a Government school of forestry, is ugly and unkempt; the hotel is unattractive; the few people one meets want to sell something or take you for a drive. But in an instant in any direction one can be in the woods--and at this level they are pine woods, soft underfoot and richly perfumed--and a quarter of an hour's walking brings the view. It is then that you realize you are on a mountain indeed. Florence is to the north-west in the long Arno valley, which is here precipitous and narrow. The river is far below--if you slipped you would slide into it--fed by tumbling Apennine streams from both walls. The top of the mountain is heathery like Scotland, and open; but not long will it be so, for everywhere are the fenced parallelograms which indicate that a villa is to be erected. Nothing, however, can change the mountain air or the glory of the surrounding heights. Another view, unbroken by villas but including the monastery and the Foresters' Hotel in the immediate foreground, and extending as far as Florence itself (on suitable days), is obtained from Il Paradisino, a white building on a ledge which one sees from the hotel above the monastery. But that is not by any means the top. The view covers much of the way by which we came hither. Of the monastery of Vallombrosa we have had foreshadowings in Florence. We saw at the Accademia two exquisite portraits by Fra Bartolommeo of Vallombrosan monks. We saw at the Bargello the remains of a wonderful frieze by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the tomb of the founder of the order, S. Giovanni Gualberto; we shall see at S. Miniato scenes in the saint's life on the site of the ancient chapel where the crucifix bent and blessed him. As the head of the monastery Gualberto was famous for the severity and thoroughness of his discipline. But though a martinet as an abbot, personally he was humble and mild. His advice on all kinds of matters is said to have been invited even by kings and popes. He invented the system of lay brothers to help with the domestic work of the convent; and after a life of holiness, which comprised several miracles, he died in 1073 and was subsequently canonized. The monastery, as I have said, is now secularized, save for the chapel, where three resident monks perform service. One may wander through its rooms and see in the refectory, beneath portraits of famous brothers, the tables now laid for young foresters. The museum of forestry is interesting to those interested in museums of forestry. It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill. But the abbot could not break the rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to Florence. Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is said, Milton had done two centuries earlier. At such a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, for I knew him not), "what he meant was, 'thick as thieves'." We returned by way of Sant' Ellero, the gallant horses trotting steadily down the hill, and then beside the Arno once more all the way to Florence. It chanced to be a great day in the city--September 20th, the anniversary of the final defeat of papal temporal power, in 1870--which we were not sorry to have missed, the first tidings coming to us from the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio which in honour of the occasion had been picked out with fairy lamps. Among the excursions which I think ought to be made if one is in Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato. This ancient town one should see for several things: for its age and for its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still would be! But probably most people are attracted to Prato chiefly by Donatello and Michelozzo's outdoor pulpit, the frieze of which is a kind of prentice work for the famous cantoria in the museum of the cathedral at Florence, with just such wanton boys dancing round it. On Good Friday evening in the lovely dying April light I paid thirty centimes to be taken by tram to Grassina to see the famous procession of the Gesù Morto. The number of people on the same errand having thrown out the tram service, we had very long waits, while the road was thronged with other vehicles; and the result was I was tired enough--having been standing all the way--when Grassina was reached, for festivals six miles out of Florence at seven in the evening disarrange good habits. But a few pence spent in the albergo on bread and cheese and wine soon restored me. A queer cavern of a place, this inn, with rough tables, rows and rows of wine flasks, and an open fire behind the bar, tended by an old woman, from which everything good to eat proceeded rapidly without dismay--roast chicken and fish in particular. A strapping girl with high cheek bones and a broad dark comely face washed plates and glasses assiduously, and two waiters, with eyes as near together as monkeys', served the customers with bewildering intelligence. It was the sort of inn that in England would throw up its hands if you asked even for cold beef. The piazza of Grassina, which, although merely a village, is enterprising enough to have a cinematoscope hall, was full of stalls given chiefly to the preparation and sale of cake like the Dutch wafelen, and among the stalls were conjurors, cheap-jacks, singers, and dice throwers; while every moment brought its fresh motor-car or carriage load, nearly all speaking English with a nasal twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at any rate know their own future. No rushing over the globe for them, but the simple natural home life and children. In the gloom the younger girls in white muslin were like pretty ghosts, each followed by a solicitous mother giving a touch here and a touch there--mothers who once wore muslin too, will wear it no more, and are now happy in pride in their daughters. And very little girls too--mere tots--wearing wings, who very soon were to join the procession as angels. And all the while the darkness was growing, and on the hill where the church stands lights were beginning to move about, in that mysterious way which torches have when a procession is being mobilized, while all the villas on the hills around had their rows of candles. And then the shifting flames came gradually into a mass and took a steady upward progress, and the melancholy strains of an ancient ecclesiastical lamentation reached our listening ears. As the lights drew nearer I left the bank where all the Mamies and Sadies with their Mommas were stationed and walked down into the river valley to meet the vanguard. On the bridge I found a little band of Roman soldiers on horseback, without stirrups, and had a few words with one of them as to his anachronistic cigarette, and then the first torches arrived, carried by proud little boys in red; and after the torches the little girls in muslin veils, which were, however, for the most part disarranged for the better recognition of relations and even more perhaps for recognition by relations: and very pretty this recognition was on both sides. And then the village priests in full canonicals, looking a little self-conscious; and after them the dead Christ on a litter carried by a dozen contadini who had a good deal to say to each other as they bore Him. This was the same dead Christ which had been lying in state in the church, for the past few days, to be worshipped and kissed by the peasantry. I had seen a similar image at Settignano the day before and had watched how the men took it. They began by standing in groups in the piazza, gossipping. Then two or three would break away and make for the church. There, all among the women and children, half-shyly, half-defiantly, they pecked at the plaster flesh and returned to resume the conversation in the piazza with a new serenity and confidence in their hearts. After the dead Christ came a triumphal car of the very little girls with wings, signifying I know not what, but intensely satisfying to the onlookers. One little wet-nosed cherub I patted, so chubby and innocent she was; and Heaven send that the impulse profited me! This car was drawn by an ancient white horse, amiable and tractable as a saint, but as bewildered as I as to the meaning of the whole strange business. After the car of angels a stalwart body of white-vestmented singers, sturdy fellows with black moustaches who had been all day among the vines, or steering placid white oxen through the furrows, and were now lifting their voices in a miserere. And after them the painted plaster Virgin, carried as upright as possible, and then more torches and the wailing band; and after the band another guard of Roman soldiers. Such was the Grassina procession. It passed slowly and solemnly through the town from the hill and up the hill again; and not soon shall I forget the mournfulness of the music, which nothing of tawdriness in the constituents of the procession itself could rid of impressiveness and beauty. One thing is certain--all processions, by day or night, should first descend a hill and then ascend one. All should walk to melancholy strains. Indeed, a joyful procession becomes an impossible thought after this. And then I sank luxuriously into a corner seat in the waiting tram, and, seeking for the return journey's thirty centimes, found that during the proceedings my purse had been stolen. CHAPTER XVIII S. Marco Andrea del Castagno--"The Last Supper"--The stolen Madonna--Fra Angelico's frescoes--"Little Antony"--The good archbishop--The Buonuomini--Savonarola--The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent--Pope Alexander VI--The Ordeal by Fire--The execution--The S. Marco cells--The cloister frescoes--Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper"--Relics of old Florence--Pico and Politian--Piero di Cosimo--Andrea del Sarto. From the Accademia it is but a step to S. Marco, across the Piazza, but it is well first to go a little beyond that in order to see a certain painting which both chronologically and as an influence comes before a painting that we shall find in the Museo S. Marco. We therefore cross the Piazza S. Marco to the Via d'Arrazzieri, which leads into the Via 27 Aprile, [7] where at a door on the left, marked A, is an ancient refectory, preserved as a picture gallery: the Cenacolo di S. Apollonia, all that is kept sacred of the monastery of S. Apollonia, now a military establishment. This room is important to students of art in containing so much work of Andrea del Castagno (1390-1457), to whom Vasari gives so black a character. The portrait frescoes are from the Villa Pandolfini (previously Carducci), and among them are Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante--who is here rather less ascetic than usual--none of whom the painter could have seen. There is also a very charming little cupid carrying a huge peacock plume. But "The Last Supper" is the glory of the room. This work, which belongs to the middle of the fifteenth century, is interesting as a real effort at psychology. Leonardo makes Judas leave his seat to ask if it is he that is meant--that being the dramatic moment chosen by this prince of painters: Castagno calls attention to Judas as an undesirable member of the little band of disciples by placing him apart, the only one on his side of the table; which was avoiding the real task, since naturally when one of the company was forced into so sinister a position the question would be already answered. Castagno indeed renders Judas so obviously untrustworthy as to make it a surprise that he ever was admitted among the disciples (or wished to be one) at all; while Vasari blandly suggests that he is the very image of the painter himself. Other positions which later artists converted into a convention may also be noted: John, for example, is reclining on the table in an ecstasy of affection and fidelity; while the Florentine loggia as the scene of the meal was often reproduced later. Andrea del Castagno began life as a farm lad, but was educated as an artist at the cost of one of the less notable Medici. He had a vigorous way with his brush, as we see here and have seen elsewhere. In the Duomo, for example, we saw his equestrian portrait of Niccolò da Tolentino, a companion to Uccello's Hawkwood. When the Albizzi and Peruzzi intrigues which had led to the banishment of Cosimo de' Medici came to their final frustration with the triumphant return of Cosimo, it was Andrea who was commissioned by the Signoria to paint for the outside of the Bargello a picture of the leaders of the insurrection, upside down. Vasari is less to be trusted in his dates and facts in his memoir of Andrea del Castagno than anywhere else; for he states that he commemorated the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy (which occurred twenty years after his death), and accuses him not only of murdering his fellow-painter Domenico Veneziano but confessing to the crime; the best answer to which allegation is that Domenico survived Andrea by four years. We may now return to S. Marco. The convent as we now see it was built by Michelozzo, Donatello's friend and partner and the friend also of Cosimo de' Medici, at whose cost he worked here. Antonino, the saintly head of the monastery, having suggested to Cosimo that he should apply some of his wealth, not always too nicely obtained, to the Lord, Cosimo began literally to squander money on S. Marco, dividing his affection between S. Lorenzo, which he completed upon the lines laid down by his father, and this Dominican monastery, where he even had a cell reserved for his own use, with a bedroom in addition, whither he might now and again retire for spiritual refreshment and quiet. It was at S. Marco that Cosimo kept the MSS. which he was constantly collecting, and which now, after curious vicissitudes, are lodged in Michelangelo's library at S. Lorenzo; and on his death he left them to the monks. Cosimo's librarian was Tommaso Parenticelli, a little busy man, who, to the general astonishment, on the death of Eugenius IV became Pope and took the name of Nicholas V. His energies as Pontiff went rather towards learning and art than anything else: he laid the foundations of the Vatican library, on the model of Cosimo's, and persuaded Fra Angelico to Rome to paint Vatican frescoes. The magnets which draw every one who visits Florence to S. Marco are first Fra Angelico, and secondly Savonarola, or first Savonarola, and secondly Fra Angelico, according as one is constituted. Fra Angelico, at Cosimo's desire and cost, came from Fiesole to paint here; while Girolamo Savonarola, forced to leave Ferrara during the war, entered these walls in 1482. Fra Angelico in his single crucifixion picture in the first cloisters and in his great scene of the Mount of Olives in the chapter house shows himself less incapable of depicting unhappiness than we have yet seen him; but the most memorable of the ground-floor frescoes is the symbol of hospitality over the door of the wayfarers' room, where Christ is being welcomed by two Dominicans in the way that Dominicans (as contrasted with scoundrelly Franciscans) would of course welcome Him. In this Ospizio are three reliquaries which Fra Angelico painted for S. Maria Novella, now preserved here in a glass case. They represent the Madonna della Stella, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Adoration of the Magi. All are in Angelico's happiest manner, with plenty of gold; and the predella of the Coronation is the prettiest thing possible, with its blue saints gathered about a blue Mary and Joseph, who bend over the Baby. The Madonna della Stella is the picture which was stolen in 1911, but quickly recovered. It is part of the strange complexity of this world that it should equally contain artists such as Fra Angelico and thieves such as those who planned and carried out this robbery: nominally custodians of the museum. To repeat one of Vasari's sentences: "Some say that he never took up his brush without first making a prayer".... The "Peter" with his finger to his lips, over the sacristy, is reminding the monks that that room is vowed to silence. In the chapter house is the large Crucifixion by the same gentle hand, his greatest work in Florence, and very fine and true in character. Beneath it are portraits of seventeen famous Dominicans with S. Dominic in the midst. Note the girl with the scroll in the right--how gay and light the colouring. Upstairs, in the cells, and pre-eminently in the passage, where his best known Annunciation is to be seen, Angelico is at his best. In each cell is a little fresco reminding the brother of the life of Christ--and of those by Angelico it may be said that each is as simple as it can be and as sweet: easy lines, easy colours, with the very spirit of holiness shining out. I think perhaps that the Coronation of the Virgin in the ninth cell, reproduced in this volume, is my favourite, as it is of many persons; but the Annunciation in the third, the two Maries at the Sepulchre in the eighth, and the Child in the Stable in the fifth, are ever memorable too. In the cell set apart for Cosimo de' Medici, No. 38, which the officials point out, is an Adoration of the Magi, painted there at Cosimo's express wish, that he might be reminded of the humility proper to rulers; and here we get one of the infrequent glimpses of this best and wisest of the Medici, for a portrait of him adorns it, with a wrong death-date on it. Here also is a sensitive terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, Cosimo's friend and another pride of the monastery: the monk who was also Archbishop of Florence until his death, and whom we saw, in stone, in a niche under the Uffizi. His cell was the thirty-first cell, opposite the entrance. This benign old man, who has one of the kindest faces of his time, which was often introduced into pictures, was appointed to the see at the suggestion of Fra Angelico, to whom Pope Eugenius (who consecrated the new S. Marco in 1442 and occupied Cosimo de' Medici's cell on his visit) had offered it; but the painter declined and put forward Antonio in his stead. Antonio Pierozzi, whose destiny it was to occupy this high post, to be a confidant of Cosimo de' Medici, and ultimately, in 1523, to be enrolled among the saints, was born at Florence in 1389. According to Butler, from the cradle "Antonino" or "Little Antony," as the Florentines affectionately called him, had "no inclination but to piety," and was an enemy even as an infant "both to sloth and to the amusements of children". As a schoolboy his only pleasure was to read the lives of the saints, converse with pious persons or to pray. When not at home or at school he was in church, either kneeling or lying prostrate before a crucifix, "with a perseverance that astonished everybody". S. Dominic himself, preaching at Fiesole, made him a Dominican, his answers to an examination of the whole decree of Gratian being the deciding cause, although Little Antony was then but sixteen. As a priest he was "never seen at the altar but bathed in tears". After being prior of a number of convents and a counsellor of much weight in convocation, he was made Archbishop of Florence: but was so anxious to avoid the honour and responsibility that he hid in the island of Sardinia. On being discovered he wrote a letter praying to be excused and watered it with his tears; but at last he consented and was consecrated in 1446. As archbishop his life was a model of simplicity and solicitude. He thought only of his duties and the well-being of the poor. His purse was open to all in need, and he "often sold" his single mule in order to relieve some necessitous person. He gave up his garden to the growth of vegetables for the poor, and kept an ungrateful leper whose sores he dressed with his own hands. He died in 1459 and was canonized in 1523. His body was still free from corruption in 1559, when it was translated to the chapel in S. Marco prepared for it by the Salviati. But perhaps the good Antonino's finest work was the foundation of a philanthropic society of Florentines which still carries on its good work. Antonino's sympathy lay in particular with the reduced families of Florence, and it was to bring help secretly to them--too proud to beg--that he called for volunteers. The society was known in the city as the Buonuomini (good men) of S. Martino, the little church close to Dante's house, behind the Badia: S. Martin being famous among saints for his impulsive yet wise generosity with his cloak. The other and most famous prior of S. Marco was Savonarola. Girolamo Savonarola was born of noble family at Ferrara in 1452, and after a profound education, in which he concentrated chiefly upon religion and philosophy, he entered the Dominican order at the age of twenty-two. He first came to S. Marco at the age of thirty and preached there in Lent in 1482, but without attracting much notice. When, however, he returned to S. Marco seven years later it was to be instantly hailed both as a powerful preacher and reformer. His eloquent and burning declarations were hurled both at Florence and Rome: at the apathy and greed of the Church as a whole, and at the sinfulness and luxury of this city, while Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was then at the height of his influence, surrounded by accomplished and witty hedonists, and happiest when adding to his collection of pictures, jewels, and sculpture, in particular did the priest rebuke. Savonarola stood for the spiritual ideals and asceticism of the Baptist, Christ, and S. Paul; Lorenzo, in his eyes, made only for sensuality and decadence. The two men, however, recognized each other's genius, and Lorenzo, with the tolerance which was as much a mark of the first three Medici rulers as its absence was notable in most of the later ones, rather encouraged Savonarola in his crusade than not. He visited him in the monastery and did not resent being kept waiting; and he went to hear him preach. In 1492 Lorenzo died, sending for Savonarola on his death-bed, which was watched by the two closest of his scholarly friends, Pico della Mirandola and Politian. The story of what happened has been variously told. According to the account of Politian, Lorenzo met his end with fortitude, and Savonarola prayed with the dying man and gave him his blessing; according to another account, Lorenzo was called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved. These promises were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) to give back to Florence her liberty. But the probabilities are in favour of Politian's account being the true one, and the later story a political invention. Lorenzo dead and Piero his son so incapable, Savonarola came to his own. He had long foreseen a revolution following on the death of Lorenzo, and in one of his most powerful sermons he had suggested that the "Flagellum Dei" to punish the wicked Florentines might be a foreign invader. When therefore in 1493 the French king Charles VIII arrived in Italy with his army, Savonarola was recognized not only as a teacher but as a prophet; and when the Medici had been again banished and Charles, having asked too much, had retreated from Florence, the Republic was remodelled with Savonarola virtually controlling its Great Council. For a year or two his power was supreme. This was the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria in which costly dresses, jewels, false hair and studies from the nude were destroyed. Savonarola, meanwhile, was not only chastising and reforming Florence, but with fatal audacity was attacking with even less mincing of words the licentiousness of the Pope. As to the character of Lorenzo de' Medici there can be two opinions, and indeed the historians of Florence are widely divided in their estimates; but of Roderigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) there is but one, and Savonarola held it. Savonarola was excommunicated, but refused to obey the edict. Popes, however, although Florence had to a large extent put itself out of reach, have long arms, and gradually--taking advantage of the city's growing discontent with piety and tears and recurring unquiet, there being still a strong pro-Medici party, and building not a little on his knowledge of the Florentine love of change--the Pope gathered together sufficient supporters of his determination to crush this too outspoken critic and humiliate his fellow-citizens. Events helped the pontiff. A pro-Medici conspiracy excited the populace; a second bonfire of vanities led to rioting, for the Florentines were beginning to tire of virtue; and the preaching of a Franciscan monk against Savonarola (and the gentle Fra Angelico has shown us, in the Accademia, how Franciscans and Dominicans could hate each other) brought matters to a head, for he challenged Savaronola to an ordeal by fire in the Loggia de' Lanzi, to test which of them spoke with the real voice of God. A Dominican volunteered to make the essay with a Franciscan. This ceremony, anticipated with the liveliest eagerness by the Florentines, was at the last moment forbidden, and Savonarola, who had to bear the responsibility of such a bitter disappointment to a pleasure-loving people, became an unpopular figure. Everything just then was against him, for Charles VIII, with whom he had an understanding and of whom the Pope was afraid, chose that moment to die. The Pope drove home his advantage, and getting more power among individuals on the Council forced them to indict their firebrand. No means were spared, however base; forgery and false witness were as nothing. The summons arrived on April 8th, 1497, when Savonarola was at S. Marco. The monks, who adored him, refused to let him go, and for a whole day the convent was under siege. But might, of course, prevailed, and Savonarola was dragged from the church to the Palazzo Vecchio and prosecuted for the offence of claiming to have supernatural power and fomenting political disturbance. He was imprisoned in a tiny cell in the tower for many days, and under constant torture he no doubt uttered words which would never have passed his lips had he been in control of himself; but we may dismiss, as false, the evidence which makes them into confessions. Evidence there had to be, and evidence naturally was forthcoming; and sentence of death was passed. In that cell, when not under torture, he managed to write meditations on the thirteenth psalm, "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped," and a little work entitled "A Rule for Living a Christian Life". Before the last day he administered the Sacrament to his two companions, who were to die with him, with perfect composure, and the night preceding they spent together in prayer in the Great Hall which he had once dominated. The execution was on May 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd filled the Piazza. The three monks went to their death unafraid. When his friar's gown was taken from him, Savonarola said: "Holy gown, thou wert granted to me by God's grace and I have ever kept thee unstained. Now I forsake thee not but am bereft of thee." (This very garment is in the glass case in Savonarola's cell at S. Marco.) The Bishop replied hastily: "I separate thee from the Church militant and triumphant". "Militant," replied Savonarola, "not triumphant, for that rests not with you." The monks were first hanged and then burned. The larger picture of the execution which hangs in Savonarola's cell, although interesting and up to a point credible, is of course not right. The square must have been crowded: in fact we know it was. The picture has still other claims on the attention, for it shows the Judith and Holofernes as the only statue before the Palazzo Vecchio, standing where David now is; it shows the old ringhiera, the Marzocco (very inaccurately drawn), and the Loggia de' Lanzi empty of statuary. We have in the National Gallery a little portrait of Savonarola--No. 1301--with another representation of the execution on the back of it. So far as I can understand Savonarola, his failure was due to two causes: firstly, his fatal blending of religion and politics, and secondly, the conviction which his temporary success with the susceptible Florentines bred in his heated mind that he was destined to carry all before him, totally failing to appreciate the Florentine character with all its swift and deadly changes and love of change. As I see it, Savonarola's special mission at that time was to be a wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position of political power and never to become rooted. The peculiar tragedy of his career is that he left Florence no better than he found it: indeed, very likely worse; for in a reaction from a spiritual revival a lower depth can be reached than if there had been no revival at all; while the visit of the French army to Italy, for which Savonarola took such credit to himself, merely ended in disaster for Italy, disease for Europe, and the spreading of the very Renaissance spirit which he had toiled to destroy. But, when all is said as to his tragedy, personal and political, there remains this magnificent isolated figure, single-minded, austere and self-sacrificing, in an age of indulgence. For most people "Romola" is the medium through which Savonarola is visualized; but there he is probably made too theatrical. Yet he must have had something of the theatre in him even to consent to the ordeal by fire. That he was an intense visionary is beyond doubt, but a very real man too we must believe when we read of the devotion of his monks to his person, and of his success for a while with the shrewd, worldly Great Council. Savonarola had many staunch friends among the artists. We have seen Lorenzo di Credi and Fra Bartolommeo under his influence. After his death Fra Bartolommeo entered S. Marco (his cell was No. 34), and di Credi, who was noted for his clean living, entered S. Maria Nuova. Two of Luca della Robbia's nephews were also monks under Savonarola. We have seen Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola in the Accademia, and there is another of him here. Cronaca, who built the Great Council's hall, survived Savonarola only ten years, and during that time all his stories were of him. Michelangelo, who was a young man when he heard him preach, read his sermons to the end of his long life. But upon Botticelli his influence was most powerful, for he turned that master's hand from such pagan allegories as the "Primavera" and the "Birth of Venus" wholly to religious subjects. Savonarola had three adjoining cells. In the first is a monument to him, his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo and three frescoes by the same hand. In the next room is the glass case containing his robe, his hair shirt, and rosary; and here also are his desk and some books. In the bedroom is a crucifixion by Fra Angelico on linen. No one knowing Savonarola's story can remain here unmoved. We find Fra Bartolommeo again with a pencil drawing of S. Antonio in that saint's cell. Here also is Antonino's death-mask. The terra-cotta bust of him in Cosimo's cell is the most like life, but there is an excellent and vivacious bronze in the right transept of S. Maria Novella. Before passing downstairs again the library should be visited, that delightful assemblage of grey pillars and arches. Without its desks and cases it would be one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence. All the books have gone, save the illuminated music. In the first cloisters, which are more liveable-in than the ordinary Florentine cloisters, having a great shady tree in the midst with a seat round it, and flowers, are the Fra Angelicos I have mentioned. The other painting is rather theatrical and poor. In the refectory is a large scene of the miracle of the Providenza, when S. Dominic and his companions, during a famine, were fed by two angels with bread; while at the back S. Antonio watches the crucified Christ. The artist is Sogliano. In addition to Fra Angelico's great crucifixion fresco in the chapter house, is a single Christ crucified, with a monk mourning, by Antonio Pollaiuolo, very like the Fra Angelico in the cloisters; but the colour has left it, and what must have been some noble cypresses are now ghosts dimly visible. The frame is superb. One other painting we must see--the "Last Supper" of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Florence has two "Last Suppers" by this artist--one at the Ognissanti and this. The two works are very similar and have much entertaining interest, but the debt which this owes to Castagno is very obvious: it is indeed Castagno sweetened. Although psychologically this picture is weak, or at any rate not strong, it is full of pleasant touches: the supper really is a supper, as it too often is not, with fruit and dishes and a generous number of flasks; the tablecloth would delight a good housekeeper; a cat sits close to Judas, his only companion; a peacock perches in a niche; there are flowers on the wall, and at the back of the charming loggia where the feast is held are luxuriant trees, and fruits, and flying birds. The monks at food in this small refectory had compensation for their silence in so engaging a scene. This room also contains a beautiful della Robbia "Deposition". The little refectory, which is at the foot of the stairs leading to the cells, opens on the second cloisters, and these few visitors ever enter. But they are of deep interest to any one with a passion for the Florence of the great days, for it is here that the municipality preserves the most remarkable relics of buildings that have had to be destroyed. It is in fact the museum of the ancient city. Here, for example, is that famous figure of Abundance, in grey stone, which Donatello made for the old market, where the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele now is, in the midst of which she poured forth her fruits from a cornucopia high on a column for all to see. Opposite is a magnificent doorway designed by Donatello for the Pazzi garden. Old windows, chimney-pieces, fragments of cornice, carved pillars, painted beams, coats of arms, are everywhere. In cell No. 3 is a pretty little coloured relief of the Virgin adoring, which I covet, from a tabernacle in the old Piazza di Brunelleschi. Here too are relics of the guild houses of some of the smaller Arti, while perhaps the most humanly interesting thing of all is the great mournful bell of S. Marco in Savonarola's time, known as La Piagnone. In the church of S. Marco lie two of the learned men, friends of Lorenzo de' Medici, whose talk at the Medici table was one of the youthful Michelangelo's educative influences, what time he was studying in the Medici garden, close by: Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), the poet and the tutor of the three Medici boys, and the marvellous Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), the enchanted scholar. Pico was one of the most fascinating and comely figures of his time. He was born in 1463, the son of the Count of Mirandola, and took early to scholarship, spending his time among philosophies as other boys among games or S. Antonio at his devotions, but by no means neglecting polished life too, for we know him to have been handsome, accomplished, and a knight in the court of Venus. In 1486 he challenged the whole world to meet him in Rome and dispute publicly upon nine hundred theses; but so many of them seemed likely to be paradoxes against the true faith, too brilliantly defended, that the Pope forbade the contest. Pico dabbled in the black arts, wrote learnedly (in his room at the Badia of Fiesole) on the Mosaic law, was an amorous poet in Italian as well as a serious poet in Latin, and in everything he did was interesting and curious, steeped in Renaissance culture, and inspired by the wish to reconcile the past and the present and humanize Christ and the Fathers. He found time also to travel much, and he gave most of his fortune to establish a fund to provide penniless girls with marriage portions. He had enough imagination to be the close friend both of Lorenzo de' Medici and Savonarola. Savonarola clothed his dead body in Dominican robes and made him posthumously one of the order which for some time before his death he had desired to join. He died in 1494 at the early age of thirty-one, two years after Lorenzo. Angelo Poliziano, known as Politian, was also a Renaissance scholar and also a friend of Lorenzo, and his companion, with Pico, at his death-bed; but although in precocity, brilliancy of gifts, and literary charm he may be classed with Pico, the comparison there ends, for he was a gross sensualist of mean exterior and capable of much pettiness. He was tutor to Lorenzo's sons until their mother interfered, holding that his views were far too loose, but while in that capacity he taught also Michelangelo and put him upon the designing of his relief of the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs. At the time of Lorenzo and Giuliano's famous tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce, Poliziano wrote, as I have said, the descriptive allegorical poem which gave Botticelli ideas for his "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue. His elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to have esteemed that friend and patron. Like Pico, he survived Lorenzo only two years, and he also was buried in Dominican robes. Perhaps the finest feat of Poliziano's life was his action in slamming the sacristy doors in the face of Lorenzo's pursuers on that fatal day in the Duomo when Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed. Ghirlandaio's fresco in S. Trinità of the granting of the charter to S. Francis gives portraits both of Poliziano and Lorenzo in the year 1485. Lorenzo stands in a little group of four in the right-hand corner, holding out his hand towards Poliziano, who, with Lorenzo's son Giuliano on his right and followed by two other boys, is advancing up the steps. Poliziano is seen again in a Ghirlandaio fresco at S. Maria Novella. From S. Marco we are going to SS. Annunziata, but first let us just take a few steps down the Via Cavour, in order to pass the Casino Medici, since it is built on the site of the old Medici garden where Lorenzo de' Medici established Bertoldo, the sculptor, as head of a school of instruction, amid those beautiful antiques which we have seen in the Uffizi, and where the boy Michelangelo was a student. A few steps farther on the left, towards the Fiesole heights, which we can see rising at the end of the street, we come, at No. 69, to a little doorway which leads to a little courtyard--the Chiostro dello Scalzo--decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio and containing the earliest work of both artists. The frescoes are in monochrome, which is very unusual, but their interest is not impaired thereby: one does not miss other colours. No. 7, the Baptism of Christ, is the first fresco these two associates ever did; and several years elapsed between that and the best that are here, such as the group representing Charity and the figure of Faith, for the work was long interrupted. The boys on the staircase in the fresco which shows S. John leaving his father's house are very much alive. This is by Franciabigio, as is also S. John meeting with Christ, a very charming scene. Andrea's best and latest is the Birth of the Baptist, which has the fine figure of Zacharias writing in it. But what he should be writing at that time and place one cannot imagine: more reasonably might he be called a physician preparing a prescription. On the wall is a terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, making him much younger than is usual. Andrea's suave brush we find all over Florence, both in fresco and picture, and this is an excellent place to say something of the man of whom English people have perhaps a more intimate impression than of any other of the old masters, by reason largely of Browning's poem and not a little by that beautiful portrait which for so long was erroneously considered to represent the painter himself, in our National Gallery. Andrea's life was not very happy. No painter had more honour in his own day, and none had a greater number of pupils, but these stopped with him only a short time, owing to the demeanour towards them of Andrea's wife, who developed into a flirt and shrew, dowered with a thousand jealousies. Andrea, the son of a tailor, was born in 1486 and apprenticed to a goldsmith. Showing, however, more drawing than designing ability, he was transferred to a painter named Barile and then passed to that curious man of genius who painted the fascinating picture "The Death of Procris" which hangs near Andrea's portrait in our National Gallery--Piero di Cosimo. Piero carried oddity to strange lengths. He lived alone in indescribable dirt, and lived wholly on hard-boiled eggs, which he cooked, with his glue, by the fifty, and ate as he felt inclined. He forbade all pruning of trees as an act of insubordination to Nature, and delighted in rain but cowered in terror from thunder and lightning. He peered curiously at clouds to find strange shapes in them, and in his pursuit of the grotesque examined the spittle of sick persons on the walls or ground, hoping for suggestions of monsters, combats of horses, or fantastic landscapes. But why this should have been thought madness in Cosimo when Leonardo in his directions to artists explicitly advises them to look hard at spotty walls for inspiration, I cannot say. He was also the first, to my knowledge, to don ear-caps in tedious society--as Herbert Spencer later used to do. He had many pupils, but latterly could not bear them in his presence and was therefore but an indifferent instructor. As a deviser of pageants he was more in demand than as a painter; but his brush was not idle. Both London and Paris have, I think, better examples of his genius than the Uffizi; but he is well represented at S. Spirito. Piero sent Andrea to the Palazzo Vecchio to study the Leonardo and Michelangelo cartoons, and there he met Franciabigio, with whom he struck up one of his close friendships, and together they took a studio and began to paint for a living. Their first work together was the Baptism of Christ at which we are now looking. The next commission after the Scalzo was to decorate the courtyard of the Convent of the Servi, now known as the Church of the Annunciation; and moving into adjacent lodgings, Andrea met Jacopo Sansovino, the Venetian sculptor, whose portrait by Bassano is in the Uffizi, a capable all-round man who had studied in Rome and was in the way of helping the young Andrea at all points. It was then too that he met the agreeable and convivial Rustici, of whom I have said something in the chapter on the Baptistery, and quickly became something of a blood--for by this time, the second decade of the sixteenth century, the simplicity of the early artists had given place to dashing sophistication and the great period was nearly over. For this change the brilliant complex inquiring mind of Leonardo da Vinci was largely responsible, together with the encouragement and example of Lorenzo de' Medici and such of his cultured sceptical friends as Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and Poliziano. But that is a subject too large for this book. Enough that a worldly splendour and vivacity had come into artistic life and Andrea was an impressionable young man in the midst of it. It does not seem to have affected the power and dexterity of his hand, but it made him a religious court-painter instead of a religious painter. His sweetness and an underlying note of pathos give his work a peculiar and genuine character; but he is just not of the greatest. Not so great really as Luca Signorelli, for example, whom few visitors to the galleries rush at with gurgling cries of rapture as they rush at Andrea. When Andrea was twenty-six he married. The lady was the widow of a hatter. Andrea had long loved her, but the hatter clung outrageously to life. In 1513, however, she was free, and, giving her hand to the painter, his freedom passed for ever. Vasari being among Andrea's pupils may be trusted here, and Vasari gives her a bad character, which Browning completes. Andrea painted her often, notably in the fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," to which we shall soon come at the Annunziata: a fine statuesque woman by no means unwilling to have the most popular artist in Florence as her slave. Of the rest of Andrea's life I need say little. He grew steadily in favour and was always busy; he met Michelangelo and admired him, and Michelangelo warned Raphael in Rome of a little fellow in Florence who would "make him sweat". Browning, in his monologue, makes this remark of Michelangelo's, and the comparison between Andrea and Raphael that follows, the kernel of the poem. Like Leonardo and Rustici, Andrea accepted, in 1518, an invitation from Francis I to visit Paris and once there began to paint for that royal patron. But although his wife did not love him, she wanted him back, and in the midst of his success he returned, taking with him a large sum of money from Francis with which to buy for the king works of art in Italy. That money he misapplied to his own extravagant ends, and although Francis took no punitive steps, the event cannot have improved either Andrea's position or his peace of mind; while it caused Francis to vow that he had done with Florentines. Andrea died in 1531, of fever, nursed by no one, for his wife, fearing it might be the dreaded plague, kept away. CHAPTER XIX The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale degli Innocenti Andrea del Sarto again--Franciabigio outraged--Alessio Baldovinetti--Piero de' Medici's church--An Easter Sunday congregation--Andrea's "Madonna del Sacco"--"The Statue and the Bust"--Henri IV--The Spedale degli Innocenti--Andrea della Robbia--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Cosimo I and the Etruscans--Bronzes and tapestries--Perugino's triptych--S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi--"Very sacred human dust". From S. Marco it is an easy step, along the Via Sapienza, to the Piazza dell' Annunziata, where one finds the church of that name, the Palazzo Riccardi-Mannelli, and opposite it, gay with the famous della Robbia reliefs of swaddled children, the Spedale degli Innocenti. First the church, which is notable for possessing in its courtyard Andrea del Sarto's finest frescoes. This series, of which he was the chief painter, with his friend Franciabigio again as his principal ally, depict scenes in the life of the Virgin and S. Filippo. The scene of the Birth of the Virgin has been called the triumph of fresco painting, and certainly it is very gay and life-like in that medium. The whole picture very charming and easy, with the pleasantest colouring imaginable and pretty details, such as the washing of the baby and the boy warming his hands, while of the two women in the foreground, that on the left, facing the spectator, is a portrait of Andrea's wife, Lucrezia. In the Arrival of the Magi we find Andrea himself, the figure second from the right-hand side, pointing; while next to him, on the left, is his friend Jacopo Sansovino. The "Dead Man Restored to Life by S. Filippo" is Andrea's next best. Franciabigio did the scene of the Marriage of the Virgin, which contains another of his well-drawn boys on the steps. The injury to this fresco--the disfigurement of Mary's face--was the work of the painter himself, in a rage that the monks should have inspected it before it was ready. Vasari is interesting on this work. He draws attention to it as illustrating "Joseph's great faith in taking her, his face expressing as much fear as joy". He also says that the blow which the man is giving Joseph was part of the marriage ceremony at that time in Florence. Franciabigio, in spite of his action in the matter of this fresco, seems to have been a very sweet-natured man, who painted rather to be able to provide for his poor relations than from any stronger inner impulse, and when he saw some works by Raphael gave up altogether, as Verrocchio gave up after Leonardo matured. Franciabigio was a few years older than Andrea, but died at the same age. Possibly it was through watching his friend's domestic troubles that he remained single, remarking that he who takes a wife endures strife. His most charming work is that "Madonna of the Well" in the Uffizi, which is reproduced in this volume. Franciabigio's master was Mariotto Albertinelli, who had learned from Cosimo Rosselli, the teacher of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea's master--another illustration of the interdependence of Florentine artists. One of the most attractive works in the courtyard must once have been the "Adoration of the Shepherds" by Alessio Baldovinetti, at the left of the entrance to the church. It is badly damaged and the colour has gone, but one can see that the valley landscape, when it was painted, was a dream of gaiety and happiness. The particular treasure of the church is the extremely ornate chapel of the Virgin, containing a picture of the Virgin displayed once a year on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, in the painting of which the Virgin herself took part, descending from heaven for that purpose. The artist thus divinely assisted was Pietro Cavallini, a pupil of Giotto. The silver shrine for the picture was designed by Michelozzo and was a beautiful thing before the canopy and all the distressing accessories were added. It was made at the order of Piero de' Medici, who was as fond of this church as his father Cosimo was of S. Lorenzo. Michelozzo only designed it; the sculpture was done by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, whose Madonna is over the tomb of Pope John by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Baptistery. Among the altar-pieces are two by Perugino; but of Florentine altar-pieces one can say little or nothing in a book of reasonable dimensions. There are so many and they are for the most part so difficult to see. Now and then one arrests the eye and holds it; but for the most part they go unstudied. The rotunda of the choir is interesting, for here we meet again Alberti, who completed it from designs by Michelozzo. It does not seem to fit the church from within, and even less so from without, but it is a fine structure. The seventeenth-century painting of the dome is almost impressive. But one can forget and forgive all the church's gaudiness and floridity when the choir is in good voice and the strings play Palestrina as they did last Easter Sunday. The Annunziata is famous for its music, and on the great occasions people crowd there as nowhere else. At High Mass the singing was fine but the instrumental music finer. One is accustomed to seeing vicarious worship in Italy; but never was there so vicarious a congregation as ours, and indeed if it had not been for the sight of the busy celibates at the altar one would not have known that one was worshipping at all. The culmination of detachment came when a family of Siamese or Burmese children, in native dress, entered. A positive hum went round, and not an eye but was fixed on the little Orientals. When, however, the organ was for a while superseded and the violas and violins quivered under the plangent melody of Palestrina, our roving attention was fixed and held. I am not sure that the Andrea in the cloisters is not the best of all his work. It is very simple and wholly beautiful, and in spite of years of ravage the colouring is still wonderful, perhaps indeed better for the hand of Time. It is called the "Madonna del Sacco" (grain sack), and fills the lunette over the door leading from the church. The Madonna--Andrea's favourite type, with the eyes set widely in the flat brow over the little trustful nose--has her Son, older than usual, sprawling on her knee. Her robes are ample and rich; a cloak of green is over her pretty head. By her sits S. Joseph, on the sack, reading with very long sight. That is all; but one does not forget it. For the rest the cloisters are a huddle of memorial slabs and indifferent frescoes. In the middle is a well with nice iron work. No grass at all. The second cloisters, into which it is not easy to get, have a gaunt John the Baptist in terra-cotta by Michelozzo. On leaving the church, our natural destination is the Spedale, on the left, but one should pause a moment in the doorway of the courtyard (if the beggars who are always there do not make it too difficult) to look down the Via de' Servi running straight away to the cathedral, which, with its great red warm dome, closes the street. The statue in the middle of the piazza is that of the Grand Duke Ferdinand by Giovanni da Bologna, cast from metal taken from the Italians' ancient enemies the Turks, while the fountains are by Tacca, Giovanni's pupil, who made the bronze boar at the Mercato Nuovo. "The Synthetical Guide Book," from which I have already quoted, warns its readers not to overlook "the puzzling bees" at the back of Ferdinand's statue. "Try to count them," it adds. (I accepted the challenge and found one hundred and one.) The bees have reference to Ferdinand's emblem--a swarm of these insects, with the words "Majestate tantum". The statue, by the way, is interesting for two other reasons than its subject. First, it is that to which Browning's poem, "The Statue and the Bust," refers, and which, according to the poet, was set here at Ferdinand's command to gaze adoringly for ever at the della Robbia bust of the lady whom he loved in vain. But the bust no longer is visible, if ever it was. John of Douay (as Gian Bologna was also called)-- John of Douay shall effect my plan, Set me on horseback here aloft, Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, In the very square I have crossed so oft: That men may admire, when future suns Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze-- Admire and say, "when he was alive How he would take his pleasure once!" The other point of interest is that when Maria de' Medici, Ferdinand's niece, wished to erect a statue of Henri IV (her late husband) at the Pont Neuf in Paris she asked to borrow Gian Bologna. But the sculptor was too old to go and therefore only a bronze cast of this same horse was offered. In the end Tacca completed both statues, and Henri IV was set up in 1614 (after having fallen overboard on the voyage from Leghorn to Havre). The present statue at the Pont Neuf is, however, a modern substitute. The façade of the Spedale degli Innocenti, or children's hospital, when first seen by the visitor evokes perhaps the quickest and happiest cry of recognition in all Florence by reason of its row of della Robbia babies, each in its blue circle, reproductions of which have gone all over the world. These are thought to be by Andrea, Luca's nephew, and were added long after the building was completed. Luca probably helped him. The hospital was begun by Brunelleschi at the cost of old Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's father, but the Guild of the Silk Weavers, for whom Luca made the exquisite coat of arms on Or San Michele, took it over and finished it. Andrea not only modelled the babies outside but the beautiful Annunciation (of which I give a reproduction in this volume) in the court: one of his best works. The photograph will show how full of pretty thoughts it is, but in colour it is more charming still and the green of the lily stalks is not the least delightful circumstance. Not only among works of sculpture but among Annunciations this relief holds a very high place. Few of the artists devised a scene in which the great news was brought more engagingly, in sweeter surroundings, or received more simply. The door of the chapel close by leads to another work of art equally adapted to its situation--Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi: one of the perfect pictures for children. We have seen Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Shepherds at the Accademia: this is its own brother. It has the sweetest, mildest little Mother, and in addition to the elderly Magi two tiny little saintlings adore too. In the distance is an enchanted landscape about a fairy estuary. This hospital is a very busy one, and the authorities are glad to show it to visitors who really take an interest in such work. Rich Italians carry on a fine rivalry in generosity to such institutions. Bologna, for instance, could probably give lessons in thoughtful charity to the whole world. The building opposite the hospital has a loggia which is notable for a series of four arches, like those of the Mercato Nuovo, and in summer for the flowers that hang down from the little balconies. A pretty building. Before turning to the right under the last of the arches of the hospital loggia, which opens on the Via della Colonna and from the piazza always frames such a charming picture of houses and mountains, it is well, with so much of Andrea del Sarto's work warm in one's memory, to take a few steps up the Via Gino Capponi (which also always frames an Apennine vista under its arch) to No. 24, and see Andrea's house, on the right, marked with a tablet. In the Via della Colonna we find, at No. 26 on the left, the Palazzo Crocetta, which is now a Museum of Antiquities, and for its Etruscan exhibits is of the greatest historical value and interest to visitors to Tuscany, such as ourselves. For here you may see what civilization was like centuries before Christ and Rome. The beginnings of the Etruscan people are indistinct, but about 1000 B.C. has been agreed to as the dawn of their era. Etruria comprised Tuscany, Perugia, and Rome itself. Florence has no remains, but Fiesole was a fortified Etruscan town, and many traces of its original builders may be seen there, together with Etruscan relics in the little museum. For the best reconstructions of an Etruscan city one must go to Volterra, where so many of the treasures in the present building were found. The Etruscans in their heyday were the most powerful people in the world, but after the fifth century their supremacy gradually disappeared, the Gauls on the one side and the Romans on the other wearing them down. All our knowledge of them comes through the spade. Excavations at Volterra and elsewhere have revealed some thousands of inscriptions which have been in part deciphered; but nothing has thrown so much light on this accomplished people as their habit of providing the ashes of their dead with everything likely to be needed for the next world, whose requirements fortunately so exactly tallied with those of this that a complete system of domestic civilization can be deduced. In arts and sciences they were most enviably advanced, as a visit to the British Museum will show in a moment. But it is to this Florentine Museum of Antiquities that all students of Etruria must go. The garden contains a number of the tombs themselves, rebuilt and refurnished exactly as they were found; while on the ground floor is the amazing collection of articles which the tombs yielded. The grave has preserved them for us, not quite so perfectly as the volcanic dust of Vesuvius preserved the domestic appliances of Pompeii, but very nearly so. Jewels, vessels, weapons, ornaments--many of them of a beauty never since reproduced--are to be seen in profusion, now gathered together for study only a short distance from the districts in which centuries ago they were made and used for actual life. Upstairs we find relics of an older civilization still, the Egyptian, and a few rooms of works of art, all found in Etruscan soil, the property of the Pierpont Morgans and George Saltings of that ancient day, who had collected them exactly as we do now. Certain of the statues are world-famous. Here, for example, in Sala IX, is the bronze Minerva which was found near Arezzo in 1554 by Cosimo's workmen. Here is the Chimæra, also from Arezzo in 1554, which Cellini restored for Cosimo and tells us about in his Autobiography. Here is the superb Orator from Lake Trasimene, another of Cosimo's discoveries. In Sala X look at the bronze situla in an isolated glass case, of such a peacock blue as only centuries could give it. Upstairs in Sala XVI are many more Greek and Roman bronzes, among which I noticed a faun with two pipes as being especially good; while the little room leading from it has some fine life-size heads, including a noble one of a horse, and the famous Idolino on its elaborate pedestal--a full-length Greek bronze from the earth of Pesaro, where it was found in 1530. The top floor is given to tapestries and embroideries. The collection is vast and comprises much foreign work; but Cosimo I introducing tapestry weaving into Florence, many of the examples come from the city's looms. The finest, or at any rate most interesting, series is that depicting the court of France under Catherine de' Medici, with portraits: very sumptuous and gay examples of Flemish work. The trouble at Florence is that one wants the days to be ten times as long in order that one may see its wonderful possessions properly. Here is this dry-looking archaeological museum, with antipathetic custodians at the door who refuse to get change for twenty-lira pieces: nothing could be more unpromising than they or their building; and yet you find yourself instantly among countless vestiges of a past people who had risen to power and crumbled again before Christ was born--but at a time when man was so vastly more sensitive to beauty than he now is that every appliance for daily life was the work of an artist. Well, a collection like this demands days and days of patient examination, and one has only a few hours. Were I Joshua--had I his curious gift--it is to Florence I would straightway fare. The sun should stand still there: no rock more motionless. Continuing along the Via della Colonna, we come, on the right, at No. 8, to the convent of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, which is now a barracks but keeps sacred one room in which Perugino painted a crucifixion, his masterpiece in fresco. The work is in three panels, of which that on the left, representing the Virgin and S. Bernard, is the most beautiful. Indeed, there is no more beautiful light in any picture we shall see, and the Virgin's melancholy face is inexpressibly sweet. Perugino is best represented at the Accademia, and there are works of his at the Uffizi and Pitti and in various Florentine churches; but here he is at his best. Vasari tells us that he made much money and was very fond of it; also that he liked his young wife to wear light head-dresses both out of doors and in the house, and often dressed her himself. His master was Verrocchio and his best pupil Raphael. S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, a member of the same family that plotted against the Medici and owned the sacred flints, was born in 1566, and, says Miss Dunbar, [8] "showed extraordinary piety from a very tender age". When only a child herself she used to teach small children, and she daily carried lunch to the prisoners. Her real name was Catherine, but becoming a nun she called herself Mary Magdalene. In an illness in which she was given up for dead, she lay on her bed for forty days, during which she saw continual visions, and then recovered. Like S. Catherine of Bologna she embroidered well and painted miraculously, and she once healed a leprosy by licking it. She died in 1607. The old English Cemetery, as it is usually called--the Protestant Cemetery, as it should be called--is an oval garden of death in the Piazza Donatello, at the end of the Via di Pinti and the Via Alfieri, rising up from the boulevard that surrounds the northern half of Florence. (The new Protestant Cemetery is outside the city on the road to the Certosa.) I noticed, as I walked beneath the cypresses, the grave of Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet of "Dipsychus," who died here in Florence on November 13th, 1861; of Walter Savage Landor, that old lion (born January 30th, 1775; died September 17th, 1864), of whom I shall say much more in a later chapter; of his son Arnold, who was born in 1818 and died in 1871; and of Mrs. Holman Hunt, who died in 1866. But the most famous grave is that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who lies beneath a massive tomb that bears only the initials E.B.B. and the date 1861. "Italy," wrote James Thomson, the poet of "The City of Dreadful Night," on hearing of Mrs. Browning's death, "Italy, you hold in trust Very sacred human dust." CHAPTER XX The Cascine and the Arno Florence's Bois de Boulogne--Shelley--The races--The game of Pallone--SS. Ognissanti--Botticelli and Ghirlandaio--Amerigo Vespucci--The Platonic Academy's garden--Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai--Melancholy decay--Two smiling boys--The Corsini palace--The Trinità bridge--The Borgo San Jacopo from the back--Home fishing--SS. Apostoli--A sensitive river--The Ponte Vecchio--The goldsmiths--S. Stefano. The Cascine is the "Bois" of Florence; but it does not compare with the Parisian expanse either in size or attraction. Here the wealthy Florentines drive, the middle classes saunter and ride bicycles, the poor enjoy picnics, and the English take country walks. The further one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes love, with pollarded trees on either side. Among the trees of one of these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind". The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting boxes, and all. And why not?--for after all Florence is quite small in size, however remarkable in character. Here funny little race-meetings are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until the weather gets too hot. The Florentines pour out in their hundreds and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their fives and tens back their fancies. The system is the pari-mutuel, and here one seems to be more at its mercy even than in France. The odds keep distressingly low; but no one seems to be either elated or depressed, whatever happens. To be at the races is the thing--to walk about and watch the people and enjoy the air. It is the most orderly frugal scene, and the baleful and mysterious power of the racehorse to poison life and landscape, as in England, does not exist here. To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of pallone? I would not call pallone a good game. Compared with tennis, it is nothing; compared with lawn tennis, it is poor; compared with football, it is anaemic; yet in an Italian city, after the galleries have closed, on a warm afternoon, it will do, and it will more than do as affording an opportunity of seeing muscular Italian athletes in the pink of condition. The game is played by six, three each side: a battitore, who smites the ball, which is served to him very much as in rounders; the spalla, who plays back; and the terzino, who plays forward. The court is sixty or more yards long, on one side being a very high wall and on the other and at each end netting. The implements are the ball, which is hollow and of leather, about half the size of a football, and a cylinder studded with spikes, rather like a huge fir-cone or pine-apple, which is placed over the wrist and forearm to hit the ball with; and the game is much as in tennis, only there is no central net: merely a line. Each man's ambition, however, is less to defeat the returning power of the foe than to paralyse it by hitting the ball out of reach. It is as though a batsman were out if he failed to hit three wides. A good battitore, for instance, can smite the ball right down the sixty yards into the net, above the head of the opposing spalla who stands awaiting it at the far end. Such a stroke is to the English mind a blot, and it is no uncommon thing, after each side has had a good rally, to see the battitore put every ball into the net in this way and so win the game without his opponents having one return; which is the very negation of sport. Each innings lasts until one side has gained eight points, the points going to whichever player makes the successful stroke. This means that the betting--and of course there is betting--is upon individuals and not upon sides. The pari-mutuel system is that which is adopted at both the pallone courts in Florence (there is another at the Piazza Beccaria), and the unit is two lire. Bets are invited on the winner and the second, and place-money is paid on both. No wonder then that as the game draws to a close the excitement becomes intense; while during its progress feeling runs high too. For how can a young Florentine who has his money on, say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri's arm fails and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it. From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta S. Frediano. Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church of All Saints--S. Salvadore d'Ognissanti, which must be visited since it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too lies Botticelli's beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died. According to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by Botticelli were done in competition. They were painted, as it happens, elsewhere, but moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author--a Lord Avebury of the canon--with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth is linen. Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to exploration. His discoveries were important, but America is not really among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially, got there first. By a mistake in the date in his account of his travels, Vespucci's name came to be given to the new continent, and it was then too late to alter it. He became a naturalized Spaniard and died in 1512. Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia; while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick. The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which is displayed once a year on October 4th. In the refectory is a "Last Supper" by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno's at the Cenacolo di Sant' Apollonia. The predestined Judas is once more on the wrong side of the table. Returning to the river bank again, we are at once among the hotels and pensions, which continue cheek by jowl right away to the Ponte Vecchio and beyond. In the Piazza Goldoni, where the Ponte Carraia springs off, several streets meet, best of them and busiest of them being that Via della Vigna Nuova which one should miss few opportunities of walking along, for here is the palazzo--at No. 20--which Leon Battista Alberti designed for the Rucellai. The Rucellai family's present palace, I may say here, is in the Via della Scala, and by good fortune I found at the door sunning himself a complacent major-domo who, the house being empty of its august owners, allowed me to walk through into the famous garden--the Orti Oricellari--where the Platonic Academy met for a while in Bernardo Rucellai's day. A monument inscribed with their names has been erected among the evergreens. Afterwards the garden was given by Francis I to his beloved Bianca Capella. Its natural beauties are impaired by a gigantic statue of Polyphemus, bigger than any other statue in Florence. The new Rucellai palace does not compare with the old, which is, I think, the most beautiful of all the private houses of the great day, and is more easily seen too, for there is a little piazza in front of it. The palace, with its lovely design and its pilastered windows, is now a rookery, while various industries thrive beneath it. Part of the right side has been knocked away; but even still the proportions are noble. This is a bad quarter for vandalism; for in the piazza opposite is a most exquisite little loggia, built in 1468, the three lovely arches of which have been filled in and now form the windows of an English establishment known as "The Artistic White House". An absurd name, for if it were really artistic it would open up the arches again. The Rucellai chapel, behind the palace, is in the Via della Spada, and the key must be asked for in the palace stables. It is in a shocking state, and quite in keeping with the traditions of the neighbourhood, while the old church of S. Pancrazio, its neighbour, is now a Government tobacco factory. The Rucellai chapel contains a model of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem, in marble and intarsia, by the great Alberti--one of the most jewel-like little buildings imaginable. Within it are the faint vestiges of a fresco which the stable-boy calls a Botticelli, and indeed the hands and faces of the angels, such as one can see of them with a farthing dip, do not render the suggestion impossible. On the altar is a terra-cotta Christ which he calls a Donatello, and again he may be right; but fury at a condition of things that can permit such a beautiful place to be so desecrated renders it impossible to be properly appreciative. Since we are here, instead of returning direct to the river let us go a few yards along this Via della Spada to the left, cross the Via de' Fossi, and so come to the busy Via di Pallazzuolo, on the left of which, past the piazza of S. Paolino, is the little church of S. Francesco de' Vanchetoni. This church is usually locked, but the key is next door, on the right, and it has to be obtained because over the right sacristy door is a boy's head by Rossellino, and over the left a boy's head by Desiderio da Settignano, and each is joyful and perfect. The Via de' Fossi will bring us again to the Piazza Goldoni and the Arno, and a few yards farther along there is a palace to be seen, the Corsini, the only palazzo still inhabited by its family to which strangers are admitted--the long low white façade with statues on the top and a large courtyard, on the Lungarno Corsini, just after the Piazza Goldoni. It is not very interesting and belongs to the wrong period, the seventeenth century. It is open on fixed days, and free save that one manservant receives the visitor and another conducts him from room to room. There are many pictures, but few of outstanding merit, and the authorship of some of these has been challenged. Thus, the cartoon of Julius II, which is called a Raphael and seems to be the sketch for one of the well-known portraits at the Pitti, Uffizi, or our National Gallery, is held to be not by Raphael at all. Among the pleasantest pictures are a Lippo Lippi Madonna and Child, a Filippino Lippi Madonna and Child with Angels, and a similar group by Botticelli; but one has a feeling that Carlo Dolci and Guido Reni are the true heroes of the house. Guido Reni's Lucrezia Romana, with a dagger which she has already thrust two inches into her bosom, as though it were cheese, is one of the most foolish pictures I ever saw. The Corsini family having given the world a pope, a case of papal vestments is here. It was this Pope when Cardinal Corsini who said to Dr. Johnson's friend, Mrs. Piozzi, meeting him in Florence in 1785, "Well, Madam, you never saw one of us red-legged partridges before, I believe". There may be more beautiful bridges in the world than the Trinità, but I have seen none. Its curve is so gentle and soft, and its three arches so light and graceful, that I wonder that whenever new bridges are necessary the authorities do not insist upon the Trinità being copied. The Ponte Vecchio, of course, has a separate interest of its own, and stands apart, like the Rialto. It is a bridge by chance, one might almost say. But the Trinità is a bridge in intent and supreme at that, the most perfect union of two river banks imaginable. It shows to what depths modern Florence can fall--how little she esteems her past--that the iron bridge by the Cascine should ever have been built. The various yellows of Florence--the prevailing colours--are spread out nowhere so favourably as on the Pitti side of the river between the Trinità and the Ponte Vecchio on the backs of the houses of the Borgo San Jacopo, and just so must this row have looked for four hundred years. Certain of the occupants of these tenements, even on the upper floors, have fishing nets, on pulleys, which they let down at intervals during the day for the minute fish which seem to be as precious to Italian fishermen as sparrows and wrens to Italian gunners. The great palace at the Trinità end of this stretch of yellow buildings--the Frescobaldi--must have been very striking when the loggia was open: the three rows of double arches that are now walled in. From this point, as well as from similar points on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, one realizes the mischief done by Cosimo I's secret passage across it; for not only does the passage impose a straight line on a bridge that was never intended to have one, but it cuts Florence in two. If it were not for its large central arches one would, from the other bridges or the embankment, see nothing whatever of the further side of the city; but as it is, through these arches one has heavenly vignettes. We leave the river again for a few minutes about fifty yards along the Lungarno Acciaioli beyond the Trinità and turn up a narrow passage to see the little church of SS. Apostoli, where there is a delightful gay ciborium, all bright colours and happiness, attributed to Andrea della Robbia, with pretty cherubs and pretty angels, and a benignant Christ and flowers and fruit which cannot but chase away gloom and dubiety. Here also is a fine tomb by the sculptor of the elaborate chimney-piece which we saw in the Bargello, Benedetto da Rovezzano, who also designed the church's very beautiful door. Whether or not it is true that SS. Apostoli was built by Charlemagne, it is certainly very old and architecturally of great interest. Vasari says that Brunelleschi acquired from it his inspiration for S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito. To many Florentines its principal importance is its custody of the Pazzi flints for the igniting of the sacred fire which in turn ignites the famous Carro. Returning again to the embankment, we are quickly at the Ponte Vecchio, where it is pleasant at all times to loiter and observe both the river and the people; while from its central arches one sees the mountains. From no point are the hill of S. Miniato and its stately cypresses more beautiful; but one cannot see the church itself--only the church of S. Niccolò below it, and of course the bronze "David". In dry weather the Arno is green; in rainy weather yellow. It is so sensitive that one can almost see it respond to the most distant shower; but directly the rain falls and it is fed by a thousand Apennine torrents it foams past this bridge in fury. The Ponte Vecchio was the work, upon a Roman foundation, of Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson, in the middle of the fourteenth century, but the shops are, of course, more recent. The passage between the Pitti and Uffizi was added in 1564. Gaddi, who was a fresco painter first and architect afterwards, was employed because Giotto was absent in Milan, Giotto being the first thought of every one in difficulties at that time. The need, however, was pressing, for a flood in 1333 had destroyed a large part of the Roman bridge. Gaddi builded so well that when, two hundred and more years later, another flood severely damaged three other bridges, the Ponte Vecchio was unharmed. None the less it is not Gaddi's bust but Cellini's that has the post of honour in the centre; but this is, of course, because Cellini was a goldsmith, and it is to goldsmiths that the shops belong. Once it was the butchers' quarter! I never cross the Ponte Vecchio and see these artificers in their blouses through the windows, without wondering if in any of their boy assistants is the Michelangelo, or Orcagna, or Ghirlandaio, or even Cellini, of the future, since all of those, and countless others of the Renaissance masters, began in precisely this way. The odd thing is that one is on the Ponte Vecchio, from either end, before one knows it to be a bridge at all. A street of sudden steepness is what it seems to be. Not the least charming thing upon it is the masses of groundsel which have established themselves on the pent roof over the goldsmiths' shops. Every visitor to Florence must have longed to occupy one of these little bridge houses; but I am not aware that any has done so. One of the oldest streets in Florence must be the Via Girolami, from the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, under an arch. A turning to the left brings one to the Piazza S. Stefano, where the barn-like church of S. Stefano is entered; and close by is the Torre de' Girolami, where S. Zenobius lived. S. Stefano, although it is now so easily overlooked, was of importance in its day, and it was here that Niccolò da Uzzano, the leader of the nobles, held a meeting to devise means of checking the growing power of the people early in the fifteenth century and was thwarted by old Giovanni de' Medici. From that thwarting proceeded the power of the Medici family and the gloriously endowed Florence that we travel to see. CHAPTER XXI S. Maria Novella The great churches of Florence--A Dominican cathedral--The "Decameron" begins--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Alessio Baldovinetti--The Louvre--The S. Maria Novella frescoes--Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni--Ruskin implacable--Cimabue's Madonna--Filippino Lippi--Orcagna's "Last Judgment"--The Cloisters of Florence--The Spanish Chapel--S. Dominic triumphant--Giotto at his sweetest--The "Wanderer's" doom--The Piazza, as an arena. S. Maria Novella is usually bracketed with S. Croce as the most interesting Florentine church after the Duomo, but S. Lorenzo has of course to be reckoned with very seriously. I think that for interest I should place S. Maria Novella fifth, including also the Baptistery before it, but architecturally second. Its interior is second in beauty only to S. Croce. S. Croce is its immediate religious rival, for it was because the Dominicans had S. Maria Novella, begun in 1278, that several years later the Franciscans determined to have an equally important church and built S. Croce. The S. Maria Novella architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, and Leon Battista Alberti the marble façade, many years later. The richest patrons of S. Maria Novella--corresponding to the Medici at S. Lorenzo and the Bardi at S. Croce--were the Rucellai, whose palace, designed also by the wonderful versatile Alberti, we have seen. The interior of S. Maria Novella is very fine and spacious, and it gathers and preserves an exquisite light at all times of the day. Nowhere in Florence is there a finer aisle, with the roof springing so nobly and masterfully from the eight columns on either side. The whole effect, like that of S. Croce, is rather northern, the result of the yellow and brown hues; but whereas S. Croce has a crushing flat roof, this one is all soaring gladness. The finest view of the interior is from the altar steps looking back to the beautiful circular window over the entrance, a mass of happy colour. In the afternoon the little plain circular windows high up in the aisle shoot shafts of golden light upon the yellow walls. The high altar of inlaid marble is, I think, too bright and too large. The church is more impressive on Good Friday, when over this altar is built a Calvary with the crucifix on the summit and life-size mourners at its foot; while a choir and string orchestra make superbly mournful music. I like to think that it was within the older S. Maria Novella that those seven mirthful young ladies of Florence remained one morning in 1348, after Mass, to discuss plans of escape from the city during the plague. As here they chatted and plotted, there entered the church three young men; and what simpler than to engage them as companions in their retreat, especially as all three, like all seven of the young women, were accomplished tellers of stories with no fear whatever of Mrs. Grundy? And thus the "Decameron" of Giovanni Boccaccio came about. S. Maria Novella also resembles S. Croce in its moving groups of sight-seers each in the hands of a guide. These one sees always and hears always: so much so that a reminder has been printed and set up here and there in this church, to the effect that it is primarily the house of God and for worshippers. But S. Maria Novella has not a tithe of S. Croce's treasures. Having almost no tombs of first importance, it has to rely upon its interior beauty and upon its frescoes, and its chief glory, whatever Mr. Ruskin, who hated them, might say, is, for most people, Ghirlandaio's series of scenes in the life of the Virgin and S. John the Baptist. These cover the walls of the choir and for more than four centuries have given delight to Florentines and foreigners. Such was the thoroughness of their painter in his colour mixing (in which the boy Michelangelo assisted him) that, although they have sadly dimmed and require the best morning light, they should endure for centuries longer, a reminder not only of the thoughtful sincere interesting art of Ghirlandaio and of the pious generosity of the Tornabuoni family, who gave them, but also of the costumes and carriage of the Florentine ladies at the end of the fifteenth century when Lorenzo the Magnificent was in his zenith. Domenico Ghirlandaio may not be quite of the highest rank among the makers of Florence; but he comes very near it, and indeed, by reason of being Michelangelo's first instructor, perhaps should stand amid them. But one thing is certain--that without him Florence would be the poorer by many beautiful works. He was born in 1449, twenty-one years after the death of Masaccio and three before Leonardo, twenty-six before Michelangelo, and thirty-four before Raphael. His full name was Domenico or Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi, but his father Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, having hit upon a peculiarly attractive way of making garlands for the hair, was known as Ghirlandaio, the garland maker; and time has effaced the Bigordi completely. The portraits of both Tommaso and Domenico, side by side, occur in the fresco representing Joachim driven from the Temple: Domenico, who is to be seen second from the extreme right, a little resembles our Charles II. Like his father, and, as we have seen, like most of the artists of Florence, he too became a goldsmith, and his love of the jewels that goldsmiths made may be traced in his pictures; but at an early age he was sent to Alessio Baldovinetti to learn to be a painter. Alessio's work we find all over Florence: a Last Judgment in the Accademia, for example, but that is not a very pleasing thing; a Madonna Enthroned, in the Uffizi; the S. Miniato frescoes; the S. Trinità frescoes; and that extremely charming although faded work in the outer court of SS. Annunziata. For the most delightful picture from his hand, however, one has to go to the Louvre, where there is a Madonna and Child (1300 a), in the early Tuscan room, which has a charm not excelled by any such group that I know. The photographers still call it a Piero della Francesca, and the Louvre authorities omit to name it at all; but it is Alessio beyond question. Next it hangs the best Ghirlandaio that I know--the very beautiful Visitation, and, to add to the interest of this room to the returning Florentine wanderer, on the same wall are two far more attractive works by Bastiano Mainardi (Ghirlandaio's brother-in-law and assistant at S. Maria Novella) than any in Florence. Alessio, who was born in 1427, was an open-handed ingenious man who could not only paint and do mosaic but once made a wonderful clock for Lorenzo. His experiments with colour were disastrous: hence most of his frescoes have perished; but possibly it was through Alessio's mistakes that Ghirlandaio acquired the use of such a lasting medium. Alessio was an independent man who painted from taste and not necessity. Ghirlandaio's chief influences, however, were Masaccio, at the Carmine, Fra Lippo Lippi, and Verrocchio, who is thought also to have been Baldovinetti's pupil and whose Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia, painted when Ghirlandaio was seventeen, must have given Ghirlandaio the lines for his own treatment of the incident in this church. One has also only to compare Verrocchio's sculptured Madonnas in the Bargello with many of Ghirlandaio's to see the influence again; both were attracted by a similar type of sweet, easy-natured girl. When he was twenty-six Ghirlandaio went to Rome to paint the Sixtine library, and then to San Gimignano, where he was assisted by Mainardi, who was to remain his most valuable ally in executing the large commissions which were to come to his workshop. His earliest Florentine frescoes are those which we shall see at Ognissanti; the Madonna della Misericordia and the Deposition painted for the Vespucci family and only recently discovered, together with the S. Jerome, in the church, and the Last Supper, in the refectory. By this time Ghirlandaio and Botticelli were in some sort of rivalry, although, so far as I know, friendly enough, and both went to Rome in 1481, together with Perugino, Piero di Cosimo, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, at the command of Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine chapel, the excommunication of all Florentines which the Pope had decreed after the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy to destroy the Medici (as we saw in chapter II) having been removed in order to get these excellent workmen to the Holy City. Painting very rapidly the little band had finished their work in six months, and Ghirlandaio was at home again with such an ambition and industry in him that he once expressed the wish that every inch of the walls of Florence might be covered by his brush--and in those days Florence had walls all round it, with twenty-odd towers in addition to the gates. His next great frescoes were those in the Palazzo Vecchio and S. Trinita. It was in 1485 that he painted his delightful Adoration, at the Accademia, and in 1486 he began his great series at S. Maria Novella, finishing them in 1490, his assistants being his brother David, Benedetto Mainardi, who married Ghirlandaio's sister, and certain apprentices, among them the youthful Michelangelo, who came to the studio in 1488. The story of the frescoes is this. Ghirlandaio when in Rome had met Giovanni Tornabuoni, a wealthy merchant whose wife had died in childbirth. Her death we have already seen treated in relief by Verrocchio in the Bargello. Ghirlandaio was first asked to beautify in her honour the Minerva at Rome, where she was buried, and this he did. Later when Giovanni Tornabuoni wished to present S. Maria Novella with a handsome benefaction, he induced the Ricci family, who owned this chapel, to allow him to re-decorate it, and engaged Ghirlandaio for the task. This meant first covering the fast fading frescoes by Orcagna, which were already there, and then painting over them. What the Orcagnas were like we cannot know; but the substitute, although probably it had less of curious genius in it was undoubtedly more attractive to the ordinary observer. The right wall, as one faces the window (whose richness of coloured glass, although so fine in the church as a whole, is here such a privation), is occupied by scenes in the story of the Baptist; the left by the life of the Virgin. The left of the lowest pair on the right wall represents S. Mary and S. Elizabeth, and in it a party of Ghirlandaio's stately Florentine ladies watch the greeting of the two saints outside Florence itself, symbolized rather than portrayed, very near the church in which we stand. The girl in yellow, on the right of the picture, with her handkerchief in her hand and wearing a rich dress, is Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni at the Villa Lemmi near Florence, that villa from which Botticelli's exquisite fresco, now in the Louvre at the top of the main staircase, in which she again is to be seen, was taken. Her life was a sad one, for her husband was one of those who conspired with Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici for his return some ten years later, and was beheaded. S. Elizabeth is of course the older woman. The companion to this picture represents the angel appearing to S. Zacharias, and here again Ghirlandaio gives us contemporary Florentines, portraits of distinguished Tornabuoni men and certain friends of eminence among them. In the little group low down on the left, for example, are Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist. Above--but seeing is beginning to be difficult--the pair of frescoes represent, on the right, the birth of the Baptist, and on the left, his naming. The birth scene has much beauty, and is as well composed as any, and there is a girl in it of superb grace and nobility; but the birth scene of the Virgin, on the opposite wall, is perhaps the finer and certainly more easily seen. In the naming of the child we find Medici portraits once more, that family being related to the Tornabuoni; and Mr. Davies, in his book on Ghirlandaio, offers the interesting suggestion, which he supports very reasonably, that the painter has made the incident refer to the naming of Lorenzo de' Medici's third son, Giovanni (or John), who afterwards became Pope Leo X. In that case the man on the left, in green, with his hand on his hip, would be Lorenzo himself, whom he certainly resembles. Who the sponsor is is not known. The landscape and architecture are alike charming. Above these we faintly see that strange Baptism of Christ, so curiously like the Verrocchio in the Accademia, and the Baptist preaching. The left wall is perhaps the favourite. We begin with Joachim being driven from the Temple, one of the lowest pair; and this has a peculiar interest in giving us a portrait of the painter and his associates--the figure on the extreme right being Benedetto Mainardi; then Domenico Ghirlandaio; then his father; and lastly his brother David. On the opposite side of the picture is the fated Lorenzo Tornabuoni, of whom I have spoken above, the figure farthest from the edge, with his hand on his hip. The companion picture is the most popular of all--the Birth of the Virgin--certainly one of the most charming interiors in Florence. Here again we have portraits--no doubt Tornabuoni ladies--and much pleasant fancy on the part of the painter, who made everything as beautiful as he could, totally unmindful of the probabilities. Ruskin is angry with him for neglecting to show the splashing of the water in the vessel, but it would be quite possible for no splashing to be visible, especially if the pouring had only just begun; but for Ruskin's strictures you must go to "Mornings in Florence," where poor Ghirlandaio gets a lash for every virtue of Giotto. Next--above, on the left--we have the Presentation of the Virgin and on the right her Marriage. The Presentation is considered by Mr. Davies to be almost wholly the work of Ghirlandaio's assistants, while the youthful Michelangelo himself has been credited with the half-naked figure on the steps, although Mr. Davies gives it to Mainardi. Mainardi again is probably the author of the companion scene. The remaining frescoes are of less interest and much damaged; but in the window wall one should notice the portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and Francesca di Luca Pitti, his wife, kneeling, because this Giovanni was the donor of the frescoes, and his sister Lucrezia was the wife of Piero de' Medici and therefore the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while Francesca Tornabuoni, the poor lady who died in childbirth, was the daughter of that proud Florentine who began the Pitti palace but ended his life in disgrace. And so we leave this beautiful recess, where pure religious feeling may perhaps be wanting but where the best spirit of the Renaissance is to be found: everything making for harmony and pleasure; and on returning to London the visitor should make a point of seeing the Florentine girl by the same hand in our National Gallery, No. 1230, for she is very typical of his genius. On the entrance wall of the church is what must once have been a fine Masaccio--"The Trinity"--but it is in very bad condition; while in the Cappella Rucellai in the right transept is what purports to be a Cimabue, very like the one in the Accademia, but with a rather more matured Child in it. Vasari tells us that on its completion this picture was carried in stately procession from the painter's studio to the church, in great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, the populace being moved not only by religious ecstasy but by pride in an artist who could make such a beautiful and spacious painting, the largest then known. Vasari adds that when Cimabue was at work upon it, Charles of Anjou, visiting Florence, was taken to his studio, to see the wonderful painter, and a number of Florentines entering too, they broke out into such rejoicings that the locality was known ever after as Borgo Allegro, or Joyful Quarter. This would be about 1290. There was a certain fitness in Cimabue painting this Madonna, for it is said that he had his education in the convent which stood here before the present church was begun. But I should add that of Cimabue we know practically nothing, and that most of Vasari's statements have been confuted, while the painter of the S. Maria Novella Madonna is held by some authorities to be Duccio of Siena. So where are we? The little chapel next the choir on the right is that of Filippo Strozzi the elder who was one of the witnesses of the Pazzi outrage in the Duomo in 1478. This was the Filippo Strozzi who began the Strozzi palace in 1489, father of the Filippo Strozzi who married Lorenzo de' Medici's noble grand-daughter Clarice and came to a tragic end under Cosimo I. Old Filippo's tomb here was designed by Benedetto da Maiano, who made the famous Franciscan pulpit in S. Croce, and was Ghirlandaio's friend and the Strozzi palace's first architect. The beautiful circular relief of the Virgin and Child, with a border of roses and flying worshipping angels all about it, behind the altar, is Benedetto's too, and very lovely and human are both Mother and Child. The frescoes in this chapel, by Filippino Lippi, are interesting, particularly that one on the left, depicting the Resuscitation of Drusiana by S. John the Evangelist, at Rome, in which the group of women and children on the right, with the little dog, is full of life and most naturally done. Above (but almost impossible to see) is S. John in his cauldron of boiling oil between Roman soldiers and the denouncing Emperor, under the banner S.P.Q.R.--a work in which Roman local colour completely excludes religious feeling. Opposite, below, we see S. Philip exorcising a dragon, a very florid scene, and, above, a painfully spirited and realistic representation of the Crucifixion. The sweetness of the figures of Charity and Faith in monochrome and gold helps, with Benedetto's tondo, to engentle the air. We then come again to the Choir, with Ghirlandaio's urbane Florentine pageant in the guise of sacred history, and pass on to the next chapel, the Cappella Gondi, where that crucifix in wood is to be seen which Brunelleschi carved as a lesson to Donatello, who received it like the gentleman he was. I have told the story in Chapter XV. The left transept ends in the chapel of the Strozzi family, of which Filippo was the head in his day, and here we find Andrea Orcagna and his brother's fresco of Heaven, the Last Judgment and Hell. It was the two Orcagnas who, according to Vasari, had covered the Choir with those scenes in the life of the Virgin which Ghirlandaio was allowed to paint over, and Vasari adds that the later artist availed himself of many of the ideas of his predecessors. This, however, is not very likely, I think, except perhaps in choice of subject. Orcagna, like Giotto, and later, Michelangelo, was a student of Dante, and the Strozzi chapel frescoes follow the poet's descriptions. In the Last Judgment, Dante himself is to be seen, among the elect, in the attitude of prayer. Petrarch is with him. The sacristy is by Talenti (of the Campanile) and was added in 1350. Among its treasures once were the three reliquaries painted by Fra Angelico, but they are now at S. Marco. It has still rich vestments, fine woodwork, and a gay and elaborate lavabo by one of the della Robbias, with its wealth of ornament and colour and its charming Madonna and Child with angels. A little doorway close by used to lead to the cloisters, and a mercenary sacristan was never far distant, only too ready to unlock for a fee what should never have been locked, and black with fury if he got nothing. But all this has now been done away with, and the entrance to the cloisters is from the Piazza, just to the left of the church, and there is a turnstile and a fee of fifty centimes. At S. Lorenzo the cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open to all. Children should be encouraged to play there. Since, however, S. Maria Novella imposes a fee we must pay it, and the new arrangement at any rate carries this advantage with it, that one knows what one is expected to pay and can count on entrance. The cloisters are everywhere interesting to loiter in, but their chief fame is derived from the Spanish Chapel, which gained that name when in 1566 it was put at the disposal of Eleanor of Toledo's suite on the occasion of her marriage to Cosimo I. Nothing Spanish about it otherwise. Both structure and frescoes belong to the fourteenth century. Of these frescoes, which are of historical and human interest rather than artistically beautiful, that one on the right wall as we enter is the most famous. It is a pictorial glorification of the Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin of the word Dominican in the episode of the wolves (or heretics) being attacked by black and white dogs, the Canes Domini, or hounds of the Lord. The "Mornings in Florence" should here be consulted again, for Ruskin made a very thorough and characteristically decisive analysis of these paintings, which, whether one agrees with it or not, is profoundly interesting. Poor old Vasari, who so patiently described them too and named a number of the originals of the portraits, is now shelved, and from both his artists, Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, has the authorship been taken by modern experts. Some one, however, must have done the work. The Duomo as represented here is not the Duomo of fact, which had not then its dome, but of anticipation. Opposite, we see a representation of the triumph of the greatest of the Dominicans, after its founder, S. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the "Summa Theologiae," who died in 1274. The painter shows the Angelic Doctor enthroned amid saints and patriarchs and heavenly attendants, while three powerful heretics grovel at his feet, and beneath are the Sciences and Moral Qualities and certain distinguished men who served them conspicuously, such as Aristotle, the logician, whom S. Thomas Aquinas edited, and Cicero, the rhetorician. In real life Aquinas was so modest and retiring that he would accept no exalted post from the Church, but remained closeted with his books and scholars; and we can conceive what his horror would be could he view this apotheosis. On the ceiling is a quaint rendering of the walking on the water, S. Peter's failure being watched from the ship with the utmost closeness by the other disciples, but attracting no notice whatever from an angler, close by, on the shore. The chapel is desolate and unkempt, and those of us who are not Dominicans are not sorry to leave it and look for the simple sweetness of the Giottos. These are to be found, with some difficulty, on the walls of the niche where the tomb of the Marchese Ridolfo stands. They are certainly very simple and telling, and I advise every one to open the "Mornings in Florence" and learn how the wilful magical pen deals with them; but it would be a pity to give up Ghirlandaio because Giotto was so different, as Ruskin wished. Room for both. One scene represents the meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna outside a mediaeval city's walls, and it has some pretty Giottesque touches, such as the man carrying doves to the Temple and the angel uniting the two saints in friendliness; and the other is the Birth of the Virgin, which Ruskin was so pleased to pit against Ghirlandaio's treatment of the same incident. Well, it is given to some of us to see only what we want to see and be blind to the rest; and Ruskin was of these the very king. I agree with him that Ghirlandaio in both his Nativity frescoes thought little of the exhaustion of the mothers; but it is arguable that two such accouchements might with propriety be treated as abnormal--as indeed every painter has treated the birth of Christ, where the Virgin, fully dressed, is receiving the Magi a few moments after. Ruskin, after making his deadly comparisons, concludes thus genially of the Giotto version--"If you can be pleased with this, you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it." The S. Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S. Croce habit. Both churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo, which is dark, and S. Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made and attendants to discourage. An effort should be made at S. Maria Novella to get into the old cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it once was. But there is no certainty. The way is to go through to the Palaestra and hope for the best. Here, as I have said in the second chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came to the Council of Florence in 1439. These large and beautiful green cloisters are now deserted. Through certain windows on the left one may see chemists at work compounding drugs and perfumes after old Dominican recipes, to be sold at the Farmacia in the Via della Scala close by. The great refectory has been turned into a gymnasium. The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you may see representations of these races. The charming loggia opposite S. Maria Novella, with della Robbia decorations, is the Loggia di S. Paolo, a school designed, it is thought, by Brunelleschi, and here, at the right hand end, we see S. Dominic himself in a friendly embrace with S. Francis, a very beautiful group by either Luca or Andrea della Robbia. In the loggia cabmen now wrangle all day and all night. From it S. Maria Novella is seen under the best conditions, always cheerful and serene; while far behind the church is the huge Apennine where most of the weather of Florence seems to be manufactured. In mid April this year (1912) it still had its cap of snow. CHAPTER XXII The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità A city of trams--The old market--Donatello's figure of Abundance--An evening resort--A hall of variety--Florentines of to-day--The war with Turkey--Homecoming heroes--Restaurants--The new market--The bronze boar--A fifteenth century palace--Old Florentine life reconstructed--Where changes are few--S. Trinità--Ghirlandaio again--S. Francis--The Strozzi palace--Clarice de' Medici. Florence is not simple to the stranger. Like all very old cities built fortuitously it is difficult to learn: the points of the compass are elusive; the streets are so narrow that the sky is no constant guide; the names of the streets are often not there; the policemen have no high standard of helpfulness. There are trams, it is true--too many and too noisy, and too near the pavement--but the names of their outward destinations, from the centre, too rarely correspond to any point of interest that one is desiring. Hence one has many embarrassments and even annoyances. Yet I daresay this is best: an orderly Florence is unthinkable. Since, however, the trams that are returning to the centre nearly all go to the Duomo, either passing it or stopping there, the tram becomes one's best friend and the Duomo one's starting point for most excursions. Supposing ourselves to be there once more, let us quickly get through the horrid necessity, which confronts one in all ancient Italian cities, of seeing the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. In an earlier chapter we left the Baptistery and walked along the Via Calzaioli. Again starting from the Baptistery let us take the Via dell' Arcivescovado, which is parallel with the Via Calzaioli, on the right of it, and again walk straight forward. We shall come almost at once to the great modern square. No Italian city or town is complete without a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele and a statue of that monarch. In Florence the sturdy king bestrides his horse here. Italy being so old and Vittorio Emmanuele so new, it follows in most cases that the square or street named after him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old name was not wholly obliterated. In Florence, in order to honour the first king of United Italy, much grave violence was done to antiquity, for a very picturesque quarter had to be cleared away for the huge brasseries, stores and hotels which make up the west side; which in their turn marked the site of the old market where Donatello and Brunelleschi and all the later artists of the great days did their shopping and met to exchange ideals and banter; and that market in its turn marked the site of the Roman forum. One of the features of the old market was the charming Loggia di Pesce; another, Donatello's figure of Abundance, surmounting a column. This figure is now in the museum of ancient city relics in the monastery of S. Marco, where one confronts her on a level instead of looking up at her in mid sky. But she is very good, none the less. In talking to elderly persons who can remember Florence forty and fifty years ago I find that nothing so distresses them as the loss of the old quarter for the making of this new spacious piazza; and probably nothing can so delight the younger Florentines as its possession, for, having nothing to do in the evenings, they do it chiefly in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Chairs and tables spring up like mushrooms in the roadway, among which too few waiters distribute those very inexpensive refreshments which seem to be purchased rather for the right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy a table on an expenditure of fourpence. I do not mean that there are no theatres in Florence. There are many, but they are not very good; and the young men can do without them. Curious old theatres, faded and artificial, all apparently built for the comedies of Goldoni. There are cinema theatres too, at prices which would delight the English public addicted to those insidious entertainments, but horrify English managers; and the Teatro Salvini at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio is occasionally transformed into a Folies Bergères (as it is called) where one after another comediennes sing each two or three songs rapidly to an audience who regard them with apathy and converse without ceasing. The only sign of interest which one observes is the murmur which follows anything a little off the beaten track--a sound that might equally be encouragement or disapproval. But a really pretty woman entering a box moves them. Then they employ every note in the gamut; and curiously enough the pretty woman in the box is usually as cool under the fusillade as a professional and hardened sister would be. A strange music hall this to the English eye, where the orchestra smokes, and no numbers are put up, and every one talks, and the intervals seem to be hours long. But the Florentines do not mind, for they have not the English thirst for entertainment and escape; they carry their entertainment with them and do not wish to escape--going to such places only because they are warmer than out of doors. Sitting here and watching their ironical negligence of the stage and their interest in each other's company; their animated talk and rapid decisions as to the merits and charms of a performer; the comfort of their attitudes and carelessness (although never quite slovenliness) in dress; one seems to realize the nation better than anywhere. The old fighting passion may have gone; but much of the quickness, the shrewdness and the humour remains, together with the determination of each man to have if possible his own way and, whether possible or not, his own say. Seeing them in great numbers one quickly learns and steadily corroborates the fact that the Florentines are not beautiful. A pretty woman or a handsome man is a rarity; but a dull-looking man or woman is equally rare. They are shrewd, philosophic, cynical, and very ready for laughter. They look contented also: Florence clearly is the best place to be born in, to live in, and to die in. Let all the world come to Florence, by all means, and spend its money there; but don't ask Florence to go to the world. Don't in fact ask Florence to do anything very much. Civilization and modern conditions have done the Florentines no good. Their destiny was to live in a walled city in turbulent days, when the foe came against it, or tyranny threatened from within and had to be resisted. They were then Florentines and everything mattered. To-day they are Italians and nothing matters very much. Moreover, it must be galling to have somewhere in the recesses of their consciousness the knowledge that their famous city, built and cemented with their ancestors' blood, is now only a museum. When it is fine and warm the music hall does not exist, and it is in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele that the Florentines sit and talk, or walk and talk, or listen to the band which periodically inhabits a stand near the centre; and it was here that I watched the reception of the news that Italy had declared war on Turkey, a decision which while it rejoiced the national warlike spirit of the populace could not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles falling to proud bearers too; while the women clapped from the upper windows, the shrewd shopkeepers cheered from their doorways, and the crowd which followed and surrounded the hero every moment increased. As for the heroes, they looked for the most part a good deal less foolish than Englishmen would have done; but here and there was one whose expression suggested that the Turks were nothing to this. One poor fellow had his coat dragged from his back and torn into a thousand souvenirs. The restaurants of Florence are those of a city where the natives are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni--Doney e Nipoti or Doney et Neveux--where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a deliberation which can drive a hungry man--and one is always hungry in this fine Tuscan air--to despair. I like better the excellent old-fashioned purely Italian food and Chianti and speed at Bonciani's in the Via de Panzani, close to the station. These twain are the best. But it is more interesting to go to the huge Gambrinus in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, because so much is going on all the time. One curious Florentine habit is quickly discovered and resented by the stranger who frequents a restaurant, and that is the system of changing waiters from one set of tables to another; so that whereas in London and Paris the wise diner is true to a corner because it carries the same service with it, in Florence he must follow the service. But if the restaurants have odd ways, and a limited range of dishes and those not very interesting, they make up for it by being astonishingly quick. Things are cooked almost miraculously. The Florentines eat little. But greediness is not an Italian fault. No greedy people would have a five-syllabled word for waiter. Continuing along the Via dell' Arcivescovado, which after the Piazza becomes the Via Celimana, we come to that very beautiful structure the Mercato Nuovo, which, however, is not so wonderfully new, having been built as long ago as 1547-1551. Its columns and arched roof are exquisitely proportioned. As a market it seems to be a poor affair, the chief commodity being straw hats. For the principal food market one has to go to the Via d'Ariento, near S. Lorenzo, and this is, I think, well worth doing early in the morning. Lovers of Hans Andersen go to the Mercato Nuovo to see the famous bronze boar (or "metal pig," as it was called in the translation on which I was brought up) that stands here, on whose back the little street boy had such adventures. The boar himself was the work of Pietro Tacca (1586-1650), a copy from an ancient marble original, now in the Uffizi, at the top of the entrance stairs; but the pedestal with its collection of creeping things is modern. The Florentines who stand in the market niches are Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith and one of Ghiberti's assistants, who introduced printing into Florence in 1471 and began with an edition of Virgil; Giovanni Villani, who was the city's first serious historian, beginning in 1300 and continuing till his death in 1348; and Michele Lando, the wool-carder, who on July 22nd, 1378, at the head of a mob, overturned the power of the Signory. By continuing straight on we should come to that crowded and fussy little street which crosses the river by the Ponte Vecchio and eventually becomes the Roman way; but let us instead turn to the right this side of the market, down the Via Porta Rossa, because here is the Palazzo Davanzati, which has a profound interest to lovers of the Florentine past in that it has been restored exactly to its ancient state when Pope Eugenius IV lodged here, and has been filled with fourteenth and fifteenth century furniture. In those days it was the home of the Davizza family. The Davanzati bought it late in the sixteenth century and retained it until 1838. In 1904 it was bought by Professor Elia Volpi, who restored its ancient conditions and presented it to the city as a permanent monument of the past. Here we see a mediaeval Florentine palace precisely as it was when its Florentine owner lived his uncomfortable life there. For say what one may, there is no question that life must have been uncomfortable. In early and late summer, when the weather was fine and warm, these stone floors and continuous draughts may have been solacing; but in winter and early spring, when Florentine weather can be so bitterly hostile, what then? That there was a big fire we know by the smoky condition of Michelozzo's charming frieze on the chimney piece; but the room--I refer to that on the first floor--is so vast that this fire can have done little for any one but an immediate vis-à-vis; and the room, moreover, was between the open world on the one side, and the open court (now roofed in with glass) on the other, with such additional opportunities for draughts as the four trap-doors in the floor offered. It was through these traps that the stone cannon-balls still stacked in the window seats were dropped, or a few gallons of boiling oil poured, whenever the city or a faction of it turned against the householder. Not comfortable, you see, at least not in our northern sense of the word, although to the hardy frugal Florentine it may have seemed a haven of luxury. The furniture of the salon is simple and sparse and very hard. A bust here, a picture there, a coloured plate, a crucifix, and a Madonna and Child in a niche: that was all the decoration save tapestry. An hour glass, a pepper mill, a compass, an inkstand, stand for utility, and quaint and twisted musical instruments and a backgammon board for beguilement. In the salle-à-manger adjoining is less light, and here also is a symbol of Florentine unrest in the shape of a hole in the wall (beneath the niche which holds the Madonna and Child) through which the advancing foe, who had successfully avoided the cannon balls and the oil, might be prodded with lances, or even fired at. The next room is the kitchen, curiously far from the well, the opening to which is in the salon, and then a bedroom (with some guns in it) and smaller rooms gained from the central court. The rest of the building is the same--a series of self-contained flats, but all dipping for water from the same shaft and all depending anxiously upon the success of the first floor with invaders. At the top is a beautiful loggia with Florence beneath it. The odd thing to remember is that for the poor of Florence, who now inhabit houses of the same age as the Davanzati palace, the conditions are almost as they were in the fifteenth century. A few changes have come in, but hardly any. Myriads of the tenements have no water laid on: it must still be pulled up in buckets exactly as here. Indeed you may often see the top floor at work in this way; and there is a row of houses on the left of the road to the Certosa, a little way out of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many gardens to one well. Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and lowering the money for them. The postman delivers letters in this way, too. Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, down the wall of the court; but one has but to walk along the Via Lambertesca, between the Uffizi and the Via Por S. Maria, and peer into the alleys, to see that these pipes are common enough yet. In fact, directly one leaves the big streets Florence is still fifteenth century. Less colour in the costumes, and a few anachronisms, such as gas or electric light, posters, newspapers, cigarettes, and bicycles, which dart like dragon flies (every Florentine cyclist being a trick cyclist); but for the rest there is no change. The business of life has not altered; the same food is eaten, the same vessels contain it, the same fire cooks it, the same red wine is made from the same grapes in the same vineyards, the same language (almost) is spoken. The babies are christened at the same font, the parents visit the same churches. Similarly the handicrafts can have altered little. The coppersmith, the blacksmith, the cobbler, the woodcarver, the goldsmiths in their yellow smocks, must be just as they were, and certainly the cellars and caverns under the big houses in which they work have not changed. Where the change is, is among the better-to-do, the rich, and in the government. For no longer is a man afraid to talk freely of politics; no longer does he shudder as he passes the Bargello; no longer is the name of Medici on his lips. Everything else is practically as it was. The Via Porta Rossa runs to the Piazza S. Trinità, the church of S. Trinità being our destination. For here are some interesting frescoes. First, however, let us look at the sculpture: a very beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the fifth chapel of the right aisle; a monument by Luca della Robbia to one of the archbishops of Fiesole, once in S. Pancrazio (which is now a tobacco factory) in the Via della Spada and brought here for safe keeping--a beautiful example of Luca's genius, not only as a modeller but also as a very treasury of pretty thoughts, for the border of flowers and leaves is beyond praise delightful. The best green in Florence (after Nature's, which is seen through so many doorways and which splashes over so many white walls and mingles with gay fruits in so many shops) is here. In the fifth chapel of the left aisle is a Magdalen carved in wood by Desiderio da Settignano and finished by Benedetto da Maiano; while S. Trinità now possesses, but shows only on Good Friday, the very crucifix from S. Miniato which bowed down and blessed S. Gualberto. The porphyry tombs of the Sassetti, in the chapel of that family, by Giuliano di Sangallo, are magnificent. It is in the Sassetti chapel that we find the Ghirlandaio frescoes of scenes in the life of S. Francis which bring so many strangers to this church. The painting which depicts S. Francis receiving the charter from the Emperor Honorius is interesting both for its history and its painting; for it contains a valuable record of what the Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia de' Lanzi were like in 1485, and also many portraits: among them Lorenzo the Magnificent, on the extreme right holding out his hand: Poliziano, tutor of the Medici boys, coming first up the stairs; and on the extreme left very probably Verrocchio, one of Ghirlandaio's favourite painters. We find old Florence again in the very attractive picture of the resuscitation of the nice little girl in violet, a daughter of the Spini family, who fell from a window of the Spini palace (as we see in the distance on the left, this being one of the old synchronized scenes) and was brought to life by S. Francis, who chanced to be flying by. The scene is intensely local: just outside the church, looking along what is now the Piazza S. Trinità and the old Trinità bridge. The Spini palace is still there, but is now called the Ferroni, and it accommodates no longer Florentine aristocrats but consuls and bank clerks. Among the portraits in the fresco are noble friends of the Spini family--Albrizzi, Acciaioli, Strozzi and so forth. The little girl is very quaint and perfectly ready to take up once more the threads of her life. How long she lived this second time and what became of her I have not been able to discover. Her tiny sister, behind the bier, is even quainter. On the left is a little group of the comely Florentine ladies in whom Ghirlandaio so delighted, tall and serene, with a few youths among them. It is interesting to note that Ghirlandaio in his S. Trinità frescoes and Benedetto da Maiano in his S. Croce pulpit reliefs chose exactly the same scenes in the life of S. Francis: interesting because when Ghirlandaio was painting frescoes at San Gimignano in 1475, Benedetto was at work on the altar for the same church of S. Fina, and they were friends. Where Ghirlandaio and Giotto, also in S. Croce, also coincide in choice of subject some interesting comparisons may be made, all to the advantage of Giotto in spiritual feeling and unsophisticated charm, but by no means to Ghirlandaio's detriment as a fascinating historian in colour. In the scene of the death of S. Francis we find Ghirlandaio and Giotto again on the same ground, and here it is probable that the later painter went to the earlier for inspiration; for he has followed Giotto in the fine thought that makes one of the attendant brothers glance up as though at the saint's ascending spirit. It is remarkable how, with every picture that one sees, Giotto's completeness of equipment as a religious painter becomes more marked. His hand may have been ignorant of many masterly devices for which the time was not ripe; but his head and heart knew all. The patriarchs in the spandrels of the choir are by Ghirlandaio's master, Alessio Baldovinetti, of whom I said something in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. They once more testify to this painter's charm and brilliance. Almost more than that of any other does one regret the scarcity of his work. It was fitting that he should have painted the choir, for his name-saint, S. Alessio, guards the façade of the church. The column opposite the church came from the baths of Caracalla and was set up by Cosimo I, upon the attainment of his life-long ambition of a grand-dukeship and a crown. The figure at the top is Justice. S. Trinità is a good starting-point for the leisurely examination of the older and narrower streets, an occupation which so many visitors to Florence prefer to the study of picture galleries and churches. And perhaps rightly. In no city can they carry on their researches with such ease, for Florence is incurious about them. Either the Florentines are too much engrossed in their own affairs or the peering foreigner has become too familiar an object to merit notice, but one may drift about even in the narrowest alleys beside the Arno, east and west, and attract few eyes. And the city here is at its most romantic: between the Piazza S. Trinità and the Via Por S. Maria, all about the Borgo SS. Apostoli. We have just been discussing Benedetto da Maiano the sculptor. If we turn to the left on leaving S. Trinità, instead of losing ourselves in the little streets, we are in the Via Tornabuoni, where the best shops are and American is the prevailing language. We shall soon come, on the right, to an example of Benedetto's work as an architect, for the first draft of the famous Palazzo Strozzi, the four-square fortress-home which Filippo Strozzi began for himself in 1489, was his. Benedetto continued the work until his death in 1507, when Cronaca, who built the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, took it over and added the famous cornice. The iron lantern and other smithwork were by Lorenzo the Magnificent's sardonic friend, "Il Caparro," of the Sign of the Burning Books, of whom I wrote in the chapter on the Medici palace. The first mistress of the Strozzi palace was Clarice Strozzi, née Clarice de' Medici, the daughter of Piero, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. She was born in 1493 and married Filippo Strozzi the younger in 1508, during the family's second period of exile. They then lived at Rome, but were allowed to return to Florence in 1510. Clarice's chief title to fame is her proud outburst when she turned Ippolito and Alessandro out of the Medici palace. She died in 1528 and was buried in S. Maria Novella. The unfortunate Filippo met his end nine years later in the Boboli fortezza, which his money had helped to build and in which he was imprisoned for his share in a conspiracy against Cosimo I. Cosimo confiscated the palace and all Strozzi's other possessions, but later made some restitution. To-day the family occupy the upper part of their famous imperishable home, and beneath there is an exhibition of pictures and antiquities for sale. No private individual, whatever his wealth or ambition, will probably ever again succeed in building a house half so strong or noble as this. CHAPTER XXIII The Pitti Luca Pitti's pride--Preliminary caution--A terrace view--A collection but not a gallery--The personally-conducted--Giorgione the superb--Sustermans--The "Madonna del Granduca"--The "Madonna della Sedia"--From Cimabue to Raphael--Andrea del Sarto--Two Popes and a bastard--The ill-fated Ippolito--The National Gallery--Royal apartments--"Pallas Subduing the Centaur"--The Boboli Gardens. The Pitti approached from the Via Guicciardini is far liker a prison than a palace. It was commissioned by Luca Pitti, one of the proudest and richest of the rivals of the Medici, in 1441. Cosimo de' Medici, as we have seen, had rejected Brunelleschi's plans for a palazzo as being too pretentious and gone instead to his friend Michelozzo for something that externally at any rate was more modest; Pitti, whose one ambition was to exceed Cosimo in power, popularity, and visible wealth, deliberately chose Brunelleschi, and gave him carte blanche to make the most magnificent mansion possible. Pitti, however, plotting against Cosimo's son Piero, was frustrated and condemned to death; and although Piero obtained his pardon he lost all his friends and passed into utter disrespect in the city. Meanwhile his palace remained unfinished and neglected, and continued so for a century, when it was acquired by the Grand Duchess Eleanor of Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I, who though she saw only the beginnings of its splendours lived there awhile and there brought up her doomed brood. Eleanor's architect--or rather Cosimo's, for though the Grand Duchess paid, the Grand Duke controlled--was Ammanati, the designer of the Neptune fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. Other important additions were made later. The last Medicean Grand Duke to occupy the Pitti was Gian Gastone, a bizarre detrimental, whose head, in a monstrous wig, may be seen at the top of the stairs leading to the Uffizi gallery. He died in 1737. As I have said in chapter VIII, it was by the will of Gian Gastone's sister, widow of the Elector Palatine, who died in 1743, that the Medicean collections became the property of the Florentines. This bequest did not, however, prevent the migration of many of the best pictures to Paris under Napoleon, but after Waterloo they came back. The Pitti continued to be the home of princes after Gian Gastone quitted a world which he found strange and made more so; but they were not of the Medici blood. It is now a residence of the royal family. The first thing to do if by evil chance one enters the Pitti by the covered way from the Uffizi is, just before emerging into the palace, to avoid the room where copies of pictures are sold, for not only is it a very catacomb of headache, from the fresh paint, but the copies are in themselves horrible and lead to disquieting reflections on the subject of sweated labour. The next thing to do, on at last emerging, is to walk out on the roof from the little room at the top of the stairs, and get a supply of fresh air for the gallery, and see Florence, which is very beautiful from here. Looking over the city one notices that the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is almost more dominating than the Duomo, the work of the same architect who began this palace. Between the two is Fiesole. The Signoria tower is, as I say, the highest. Then the Duomo. Then Giotto's Campanile. The Bargello is hidden, but the graceful Badia tower is seen; also the little white Baptistery roof with its lantern just showing. From the fortezza come the sounds of drums and bugles. Returning from this terrace we skirt a vast porphyry basin and reach the top landing of the stairs (which was, I presume, once a loggia) where there is a very charming marble fountain; and from this we enter the first room of the gallery. The Pitti walls are so congested and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. The only pictures in short that are properly visible are those on screens or hinges; and these are, fortunately almost without exception, the best. The Pitti rooms were never made for pictures at all, and it is really absurd that so many beautiful things should be massed here without reasonable lighting. The Pitti also is always crowded. The Uffizi is never crowded; the Accademia is always comfortable; the Bargello is sparsely attended. But the Pitti is normally congested, not only by individuals but by flocks, whose guides, speaking broken English, and sometimes broken American, lead from room to room. I need hardly say that they form the tightest knots before the works of Raphael. All this is proper enough, of course, but it serves to render the Pitti a difficult gallery rightly to study pictures in. In the first chapter on the Uffizi I have said how simple it is, in the Pitti, to name the best picture of all, and how difficult in most galleries. But the Pitti has one particular jewel which throws everything into the background: the work not of a Florentine but of a Venetian: "The Concert" of Giorgione, which stands on an easel in the Sala di Marte. [9] It is true that modern criticism has doubted the lightness of the ascription, and many critics, whose one idea seems to be to deprive Giorgione of any pictures at all, leaving him but a glorious name without anything to account for it, call it an early Titian; but this need not trouble us. There the picture is, and never do I think to see anything more satisfying. Piece by piece, it is not more than fine rich painting, but as a whole it is impressive and mysterious and enchanting. Pater compares the effect of it to music; and he is right. The Sala dell' Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at) is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door: "La Donna Gravida," No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has been made its pendant, No. 224, an "Incognita" by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, very firmly painted, but harder still. Between them is the first of the many Pitti Andrea del Sartos: No. 225, an "Assumption of the Madonna," opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite the finest traits of this artist. But the youth with outstretched hand at the tomb is nobly done. No. 265, "Principe Mathias de' Medici," is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a far better--a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of Denmark, son of Frederick III. Justus Sustermans, who has so many portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597, who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III. Van Dyck greatly admired his work and painted him. He died at Florence in 1681. No. 208, a "Virgin Enthroned," by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco, and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still. The Child is very attractive, as almost always in this artist's work, but the picture as a whole has grown rather dingy. By the window is a Velasquez, the first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here among the Italians. In the next large room--the Sala di Saturno--we come again to Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite "Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door. Here we have the simplest colouring and perfect sweetness, and such serenity of mastery as must be the despair of the copyists, who, however, never cease attempting it. The only defect is a little clumsiness in the Madonna's hand. The picture was lost for two centuries and it then changed owners for twelve crowns, the seller being a poor woman and the buyer a bookseller. The bookseller found a ready purchaser in the director of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III's gallery, and the Grand Duke so esteemed it that he carried it with him on all his journeys, just as Sir George Beaumont, the English connoisseur, never travelled without a favourite Claude. Hence its name. Another Andrea del Sarto, the "Disputa sulla Trinita," No. 172, is close by, nobly drawn but again not of his absolute best, and then five more Raphaels or putative Raphaels--No. 171, Tommaso Inghirami; No. 61, Angelo Doni, the collector and the friend of artists, for whom Michelangelo painted his "Holy Family" in the Uffizi; No. 59, Maddalena Doni; and above all No. 174, "The Vision of Ezekiel," that little great picture, so strong and spirited, and--to coin a word--Sixtinish. All these, I may say, are questioned by experts; but some very fine hand is to be seen in them any way. Over the "Ezekiel" is still another, No. 165, the "Madonna detta del Baldacchino," which is so much better in the photographs. Next this group--No. 164--we find Raphael's friend Perugino with an Entombment, but it lacks his divine glow; and above it a soft and mellow and easy Andrea del Sarto, No. 163, which ought to be in a church rather than here. A better Perugino is No. 42, which has all his sweetness, but to call it the Magdalen is surely wrong; and close by it a rather formal Fra Bartolommeo, No. 159, "Gesu Resuscitato," from the church of SS. Annunziata, in which once again the babies who hold the circular landscape are the best part. After another doubtful Raphael--the sly Cardinal Divizio da Bibbiena, No. 158--let us look at an unquestioned one, No. 151, the most popular picture in Florence, if not the whole world, Raphael's "Madonna della Sedia," that beautiful rich scene of maternal tenderness and infantine peace. Personally I do not find myself often under Raphael's spell; but here he conquers. The Madonna again is without enough expression, but her arms are right, and the Child is right, and the colour is so rich, almost Venetian in that odd way in which Raphael now and then could suggest Venice. It is interesting to compare Raphael's two famous Madonnas in this room: this one belonging to his Roman period and the other, opposite it, to Florence, with the differences so marked. For by the time he painted this he knew more of life and human affection. This picture, I suppose, might be called the consummation of Renaissance painting in fullest bloom: the latest triumph of that impulse. I do not say it is the best; but it may be called a crown on the whole movement both in subject and treatment. Think of the gulf between the Cimabue Madonna and the Giotto Madonna, side by side, which we saw in the Accademia, and this. With so many vivid sympathies Giotto must have wanted with all his soul to make the mother motherly and the child childlike; but the time was not yet; his hand was neither free nor fit. Between Giotto and Raphael had to come many things before such treatment as this was possible; most of all, I think, Luca della Robbia had to come between, for he was the most valuable reconciler of God and man of them all. He was the first to bring a tender humanity into the Church, the first to know that a mother's fingers, holding a baby, sink into its soft little body. Without Luca I doubt if the "Madonna della Sedia" could be the idyll of protective solicitude and loving pride that it is. The Sala di Giove brings us to Venetian painting indeed, and glorious painting too, for next the door is Titian's "Bella," No. 18, the lady in the peacock-blue dress with purple sleeves, all richly embroidered in gold, whom to see once is to remember for ever. On the other side of the door is Andrea's brilliant "S. John the Baptist as a Boy," No. 272, and then the noblest Fra Bartolommeo here, a Deposition, No. 64, not good in colour, but superbly drawn and pitiful. In this room also is the monk's great spirited figure of S. Marco, for the convent of that name. Between them is a Tintoretto, No. 131, Vincenzo Zeino, one of his ruddy old men, with a glimpse of Venice, under an angry sky, through the window. Over the door, No. 124, is an Annunciation by Andrea, with a slight variation in it, for two angels accompany that one who brings the news, and the announcement is made from the right instead of the left, while the incident is being watched by some people on the terrace over a classical portico. A greater Andrea hangs next: No. 123, the Madonna in Glory, fine but rather formal, and, like all Andrea's work, hall-marked by its woman type. The other notable pictures are Raphael's Fornarina, No. 245, which is far more Venetian than the "Madonna della Sedia," and has been given to Sebastian del Piombo; and the Venetian group on the right of the door, which is not only interesting for its own charm but as being a foretaste of the superb and glorious Giorgione in the Sala di Marte, which we now enter. Here we find a Rembrandt, No. 16, an old man: age and dignity emerging golden from the gloom; and as a pendant a portrait, with somewhat similar characteristics, but softer, by Tintoretto, No. 83. Between them is a prosperous, ruddy group of scholars by Rubens, who has placed a vase of tulips before the bust of Seneca. And we find Rubens again with a sprawling, brilliant feat entitled "The Consequences of War," but what those consequences are, beyond nakedness, one has difficulty in discerning. Raphael's Holy Family, No. 94 (also known as the "Madonna dell' Impannata"), next it might be called the perfection of drawing without feeling. The authorities consider it a school piece: that is to say, chiefly the work of his imitators. The vivacity of the Child's face is very remarkable. The best Andrea is in this room--a Holy Family, No. 81, which gets sweeter and simpler and richer with every glance. Other Andreas are here too, notably on the right of the further door a sweet mother and sprawling, vigorous Child. But every Andrea that I see makes me think more highly of the "Madonna della Sacco," in the cloisters of SS. Annunziata. Van Dyck, who painted much in Italy before settling down at the English court, we find in this room with a masterly full-length seated portrait of an astute cardinal. But the room's greatest glory, as I have said, is the Giorgione on the easel. In the Sala di Apollo, at the right of the door as we enter, is Andrea's portrait of himself, a serious and mysterious face shining out of darkness, and below it is Titian's golden Magdalen, No. 67, the same ripe creature that we saw at the Uffizi posing as Flora, again diffusing Venetian light. On the other side of the door we find, for the first time in Florence, Murillo, who has two groups of the Madonna and Child on this wall, the better being No. 63, which is both sweet and masterly. In No. 56 the Child becomes a pretty Spanish boy playing with a rosary, and in both He has a faint nimbus instead of the halo to which we are accustomed. On the same wall is another fine Andrea, who is most lavishly represented in this gallery, No. 58, a Deposition, all gentle melancholy rather than grief. The kneeling girl is very beautiful. Finally there are Van Dyck's very charming portrait of Charles I of England and Henrietta, a most deft and distinguished work, and Raphael's famous portrait of Leo X with two companions: rather dingy, and too like three persons set for the camera, but powerful and deeply interesting to us, because here we see the first Medici pope, Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni, who gave Michelangelo the commission for the Medici tombs and the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo; and in the young man on the Pope's right hand we see none other than Giulio, natural son of Giuliano de' Medici, Lorenzo's brother, who afterwards became Pope as Clement VII. It was he who laid siege to Florence when Michelangelo was called upon to fortify it; and it was during his pontificate that Henry VIII threw off the shackles of Rome and became the Defender of the Faith. Himself a bastard, Giulio became the father of the base-born Alessandro of Urbino, first Duke of Florence, who, after procuring the death of Ippolito and living a life of horrible excess, was himself murdered by his cousin Lorenzino in order to rid Florence of her worst tyrant. In his portrait Leo X has an illuminated missal and a magnifying glass, as indication of his scholarly tastes. That he was also a good liver his form and features testify. Of this picture an interesting story is told. After the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Clement VII wishing to be friendly with the Marquis of Gonzaga, a powerful ally of the Emperor Charles V, asked him what he could do for him, and Gonzaga expressed a wish for the portrait of Leo X, then in the Medici palace. Clement complied, but wishing to retain at any rate a semblance of the original, directed that the picture should be copied, and Andrea del Sarto was chosen for that task. The copy turned out to be so close that Gonzaga never obtained the original at all. In the next room--the Sala di Venere, and the last room in the long suite--we find another Raphael portrait, and another Pope, this time Julius II, that Pontiff whose caprice and pride together rendered null and void and unhappy so many years of Michelangelo's life, since it was for him that the great Julian tomb, never completed, was designed. A replica of this picture is in our National Gallery. Here also are a wistful and poignant John the Baptist by Dossi, No. 380; two Dürers--an Adam and an Eve, very naked and primitive, facing each other from opposite walls; and two Rubens landscapes not equal to ours at Trafalgar Square, but spacious and lively. The gem of the room is a lovely Titian, No. 92, on an easel, a golden work of supreme quietude and disguised power. The portrait is called sometimes the Duke of Norfolk, sometimes the "Young Englishman". Returning to the first room--the Sala of the Iliad--we enter the Sala dell' Educazione di Giove, and find on the left a little gipsy portrait by Boccaccio Boccaccino (1497-1518) which has extraordinary charm: a grave, wistful, childish face in a blue handkerchief: quite a new kind of picture here. I reproduce it in this volume, but it wants its colour. For the rest, the room belongs to less-known and later men, in particular to Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), with his famous Judith, reproduced in all the picture shops of Florence. This work is no favourite of mine, but one cannot deny it power and richness. The Guido Reni opposite, in which an affected fat actress poses as Cleopatra with the asp, is not, however, even tolerable. We next pass, after a glance perhaps at the adjoining tapestry room on the left (where the bronze Cain and Abel are), the most elegant bathroom imaginable, fit for anything rather than soap and splashes, and come to the Sala di Ulisse and some good Venetian portraits: a bearded senator in a sable robe by Paolo Veronese, No. 216, and, No. 201, Titian's fine portrait of the ill-fated Ippolito de' Medici, son of that Giuliano de' Medici, Duc de Nemours, whose tomb by Michelangelo is at S. Lorenzo. This amiable young man was brought up by Leo X until the age of twelve, when the Pope died, and the boy was sent to Florence to live at the Medici palace, with the base-born Alessandro, under the care of Cardinal Passerini, where he remained until Clarice de' Strozzi ordered both the boys to quit. In 1527 came the third expulsion of the Medici from Florence, and Ippolito wandered about until Clement VII, the second Medici Pope, was in Rome, after the sack, and, joining him there, he was, against his will, made a cardinal, and sent to Hungary: Clement's idea being to establish Alessandro (his natural son) as Duke of Florence, and squeeze Ippolito, the rightful heir, out. This, Clement succeeded in doing, and the repulsive and squalid-minded Alessandro--known as the Mule--was installed. Ippolito, in whom this proceeding caused deep grief, settled in Bologna and took to scholarship, among other tasks translating part of the Aeneid into Italian blank verse; but when Clement died and thus liberated Rome from a vile tyranny, he was with him and protected his corpse from the angry mob. That was in 1534, when Ippolito was twenty-seven. In the following year a number of exiles from Florence who could not endure Alessandro's offensive ways, or had been forced by him to fly, decided to appeal to the Emperor Charles V for assistance against such a contemptible ruler; and Ippolito headed the mission; but before he could reach the Emperor an emissary of Alessandro's succeeded in poisoning him. Such was Ippolito de' Medici, grandson of the great Lorenzo, whom Titian painted, probably when he was in Bologna, in 1533 or 1534. This room also contains a nice little open decorative scene--like a sketch for a fresco--of the Death of Lucrezia, No. 388, attributed to the School of Botticelli, and above it a good Royal Academy Andrea del Sarto. The next is the best of these small rooms--the Sala of Prometheus--where on Sundays most people spend their time in astonishment over the inlaid tables, but where Tuscan art also is very beautiful. The most famous picture is, I suppose, the circular Filippino Lippi, No. 343, but although the lively background is very entertaining and the Virgin most wonderfully painted, the Child is a serious blemish. The next favourite, if not the first, is the Perugino on the easel--No. 219--one of his loveliest small pictures, with an evening glow among the Apennines such as no other painter could capture. Other fine works here are the Fra Bartolommeo, No. 256, over the door, a Holy Family, very pretty and characteristic, and his "Ecce Homo," next it; the adorable circular Botticini (as the catalogue calls it, although the photographers waver between Botticelli and Filippino Lippi), No. 347, with its myriad roses and children with their little folded hands and the Mother and Child diffusing happy sweetness, which, if only it were a little less painty, would be one of the chief magnets of the gallery. Hereabout are many Botticelli school pictures, chief of these the curious girl, called foolishly "La Bella Simonetta," which Mr. Berenson attributes to that unknown disciple of Botticelli to whom he has given the charming name of Amico di Sandro. This study in browns, yellow, and grey always has its public. Other popular Botticelli derivatives are Nos. 348 and 357. Look also at the sly and curious woman (No. 102), near the window, by Ubertini, a new artist here; and the pretty Jacopo del Sellaio, No. 364; a finely drawn S. Sebastian by Pollaiuolo; the Holy Family by Jacopo di Boateri, No. 362, with very pleasant colouring; No. 140, the "Incognita," which people used to think was by Leonardo--for some reason difficult to understand except on the principle of making the wish father to the thought--and is now given to Bugiardini; and lastly a rich and comely example of Lombardy art, No. 299. From this room we will enter first the Corridio delle Colonne where Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici's miniature portraits are hung, all remarkable and some superb, but unfortunately not named, together with a few larger works, all very interesting. That Young Goldsmith, No. 207, which used to be given to Leonardo but is now Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's, is here; a Franciabigio, No. 43; a questioned Raphael, No. 44; a fine and sensitive head of one of the Gonzaga family by Mantegna, No. 375; the coarse head of Giovanni Bentivoglio by da Costa, No. 376; and a Pollaiuolo, No. 370, S. Jerome, whose fine rapt countenance is beautifully drawn. In the Sala della Giustizia we come again to the Venetians: a noble Piombo, No. 409; the fine Aretino and Tommaso Mosti by Titian; Tintoretto's portrait of a man, No. 410; and two good Moronis. But I am not sure that Dosso Dossi's "Nymph and Satyr" on the easel is not the most remarkable achievement here. I do not, however, care greatly for it. In the Sala di Flora we find some interesting Andreas; a beautiful portrait by Puligo, No. 184; and Giulio Romano's famous frieze of dancers. Also a fine portrait by Allori, No. 72. The end room of all is notable for a Ruysdael. Finally there is the Sala del Poccetti, out of the Sala di Prometeo, which, together with the preceding two rooms that I have described, has lately been rearranged. Here now is the hard but masterly Holy Family of Bronzino, who has an enormous amount of work in Florence, chiefly Medicean portraits, but nowhere, I think, reaches the level of his "Allegory" in our National Gallery, or the portrait in the Taylor collection sold at Christie's in 1912. Here also are four rich Poussins; two typical Salvator Rosa landscapes and a battle piece from the same hand; and, by some strange chance, a portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Sir Peter Lely. But the stone table again wins most attention. And here, as we leave the last of the great picture collections of Florence, I would say how interesting it is to the returned visitor to London to go quickly to the National Gallery and see how we compare with them. Florence is naturally far richer than we, but although only now and then have we the advantage, we can valuably supplement in a great many cases. And the National Gallery keeps up its quality throughout--it does not suddenly fall to pieces as the Uffizi does. Thus, I doubt if Florence with all her Andreas has so exquisite a thing from his hand as our portrait of a "Young Sculptor," so long called a portrait of the painter himself; and we have two Michelangelo paintings to the Uffizi's one. In Leonardo the Louvre is of course far richer, even without the Gioconda, but we have at Burlington House the cartoon for the Louvre's S. Anne which may pair off with the Uffizi's unfinished Madonna, and we have also at the National Gallery his finished "Virgin of the Rocks," while to Burlington House one must go too for Michelangelo's beautiful tondo. In Piero di Cosimo we are more fortunate than the Uffizi; and we have Raphaels as important as those of the Pitti. We are strong too in Perugino, Filippino Lippi, and Luca Signorelli, while when it comes to Piero della Francesca we lead absolutely. Our Verrocchio, or School of Verrocchio, is a superb thing, while our Cimabue (from S. Croce) has a quality of richness not excelled by any that I have seen elsewhere. But in Botticelli Florence wins. The Pitti palace contains also the apartments in which the King and Queen of Italy reside when they visit Florence, which is not often. Florence became the capital of Italy in 1865, on the day of the sixth anniversary of the birth of Dante. It remained the capital until 1870, when Rome was chosen. The rooms are shown thrice a week, and are not, I think, worth the time that one must give to the perambulation. Beyond this there is nothing to say, except that they would delight children. Visitors are hurried through in small bands, and dallying is discouraged. Hence one is merely tantalized by the presence of their greatest treasure, Botticelli's "Pallas subduing the Centaur," painted to commemorate Lorenzo de' Medici's successful diplomatic mission to the King of Naples in 1480, to bring about the end of the war with Sixtus IV, the prime instigator of the Pazzi Conspiracy and the bitter enemy of Lorenzo in particular--whose only fault, as he drily expressed it, had been to "escape being murdered in the Cathedral"--and of all Tuscany in general. Botticelli, whom we have already seen as a Medicean allegorist, always ready with his glancing genius to extol and commend the virtues of that family, here makes the centaur typify war and oppression while the beautiful figure which is taming and subduing him by reason represents Pallas, or the arts of peace, here identifiable with Lorenzo by the laurel wreath and the pattern of her robe, which is composed of his private crest of diamond rings intertwined. This exquisite picture--so rich in colour and of such power and impressiveness--ought to be removed to an easel in the Pitti Gallery proper. The "Madonna della Rosa," by Botticelli or his School, is also here, and I had a moment before a very alluring Holbein. But my memory of this part of the palace is made up of gilt and tinsel and plush and candelabra, with two pieces of furniture outstanding--a blue and silver bed, and a dining table rather larger than a lawn-tennis court. The Boboli gardens, which climb the hill from the Pitti, are also opened only on three afternoons a week. The panorama of Florence and the surrounding Apennines which one has from the Belvedere makes a visit worth while; but the gardens themselves are, from the English point of view, poor, save in extent and in the groves on the way to the stables (scuderie). Like all gardens where clipped walks are the principal feature, they want people. They were made for people to enjoy them, rather than for flowers to grow in, and at every turn there is a new and charming vista in a green frame. It was from the Boboli hill-side before it was a garden that much of the stone of Florence was quarried. With such stones so near it is less to be wondered at that the buildings are what they are. And yet it is wonderful too--that these little inland Italian citizens should so have built their houses for all time. It proves them to have had great gifts of character. There is no such building any more. The Grotto close to the Pitti entrance, which contains some of Michelangelo's less remarkable "Prisoners," intended for the great Julian tomb, is so "grottesque" that the statues are almost lost, and altogether it is rather an Old Rye House affair; and though Giovanni da Bologna's fountain in the midst of a lake is very fine, I doubt if the walk is quite worth it. My advice rather is to climb at once to the top, at the back of the Pitti, by way of the amphitheatre where the gentlemen and ladies used to watch court pageants, and past that ingenious fountain above it, in which Neptune's trident itself spouts water, and rest in the pretty flower garden on the very summit of the hill, among the lizards. There, seated on the wall, you may watch the peasants at work in the vineyards, and the white oxen ploughing in the olive groves, in the valley between this hill and S. Miniato. In spring the contrast between the greens of the crops and the silver grey of the olives is vivid and gladsome; in September, one may see the grapes being picked and piled into the barrels, immediately below, and hear the squdge as the wooden pestle is driven into the purple mass and the juice gushes out. CHAPTER XXIV English Poets in Florence Casa Guidi--The Brownings--Giotto's missing spire--James Russell Lowell--Lander's early life--Fra Bartolommeo before Raphael--The Tuscan gardener--The "Villa Landor" to-day--Storms on the hillside--Pastoral poetry--Italian memories in England--The final outburst--Last days in Florence--The old lion's beguilements--The famous epitaph. On a house in the Piazza S. Felice, obliquely facing the Pitti, with windows both in the Via Maggio and Via Mazzetta, is a tablet, placed there by grateful Florence, stating that it was the home of Robert and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and that her verse made a golden ring to link England to Italy. In other words, this is Casa Guidi. A third member of the family, Flush the spaniel, was also with them, and they moved here in 1848, and it was here that Mrs. Browning died, in 1861. But it was not their first Florentine home, for in 1847 they had gone into rooms in the Via delle Belle Donne--the Street of Beautiful Ladies--whose name so fascinated Ruskin, near S. Maria Novella. At Casa Guidi Browning wrote, among other poems, "Christinas Eve and Easter Day," "The Statue and the Bust" of which I have said something in chapter XIX, and the "Old Pictures in Florence," that philosophic commentary on Vasari, which ends with the spirited appeal for the crowning of Giotto's Campanile with the addition of the golden spire that its builder intended-- Fine as the beak of a young beccaccia The campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. But I suppose that the monologues "Andrea del Sarto" and "Fra Lippo Lippi" would be considered the finest fruit of Browning's Florentine sojourn, as "Casa Guidi Windows" is of Mrs. Browning's. Her great poem is indeed as passionate a plea for Italian liberty as anything by an Italian poet. Here also she wrote much if not all of "Aurora Leigh," "The Poems before Congress," and those other Italian political pieces which when her husband collected them as "Last Poems" he dedicated "to 'grateful Florence'". In these Casa Guidi rooms the happiest days of both lives were spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, on a later visit, "I am tired to death of 'em,... and then most of them are so bad. I like best the earlier ones, that say so much in their half-unconscious prattle, and talk nature to me instead of high art." But "the older streets," he says, "have a noble mediaeval distance and reserve for me--a frown I was going to call it, not of hostility, but of haughty doubt. These grim palace fronts meet you with an aristocratic start that puts you to the proof of your credentials. There is to me something wholesome in that that makes you feel your place." The Brownings are the two English poets who first spring to mind in connexion with Florence; but they had had very illustrious predecessors. In August and September, 1638, during the reign of Ferdinand II, John Milton was here, and again in the spring of 1639. He read Latin poems to fellow-scholars in the city and received complimentary sonnets in reply. Here he met Galileo, and from here he made the excursion to Vallombrosa which gave him some of his most famous lines. He also learned enough of the language to write love poetry to a lady in Bologna, although he is said to have offended Italians generally by his strict morality. Skipping a hundred and eighty years we find Shelley in Florence, in 1819, and it was here that his son was born, receiving the names Percy Florence. Here he wrote, as I have said, his "Ode to the West Wind" and that grimly comic work "Peter Bell the Third". But next the Brownings it is Walter Savage Landor of whom I always think as the greatest English Florentine. Florence became his second home when he was middle-aged and strong; and then again, when he was a very old man, shipwrecked by his impulsive and impossible temper, it became his last haven. It was Browning who found him his final resting-place--a floor of rooms not far from where we now stand, in the Via Nunziatina. Florence is so intimately associated with Landor, and Landor was so happy in Florence, that a brief outline of his life seems to be imperative. Born in 1775, the heir to considerable estates, the boy soon developed that whirlwind headstrong impatience which was to make him as notorious as his exquisite genius has made him famous. He was sent to Rugby, but disapproving of the headmaster's judgment of his Latin verses, he produced such a lampoon upon him, also in Latin, as made removal or expulsion a necessity. At Oxford his Latin and Greek verses were still his delight, but he took also to politics, was called a mad Jacobin, and, in order to prove his sanity and show his disapproval of a person obnoxious to him, fired a gun at his shutters and was sent down for a year. He never returned. After a period of strained relations with his father and hot repudiations of all the plans for his future which were made for him--such as entering the militia, reading law, and so forth--he retired to Wales on a small allowance and wrote "Gebir" which came out in 1798, when its author was twenty-three. In 1808 Landor threw in his lot with the Spaniards against the French, saw some fighting and opened his purse for the victims of the war; but the usual personal quarrel intervened. Returning to England he bought Llanthony Abbey, stocked it with Spanish sheep, planted extensively, and was to be the squire of squires; and at the same time seeing a pretty penniless girl at a ball in Bath, he made a bet he would marry her, and won it. As a squire he became quickly involved with neighbours (an inevitable proceeding with him) and also with a Bishop concerning the restoration of the church. Lawsuits followed, and such expenses and vexations occurred that Landor decided to leave England--always a popular resource with his kind. His mother took over the estate and allowed him an income upon which he travelled from place to place for a few years, quarrelling with his wife and making it up, writing Latin verses everywhere and on everything, and coming into collision not only with individuals but with municipalities. He settled in Florence in 1821, finding rooms in the Palazzo Medici, or, rather, Riccardi. There he remained for five years, which no doubt would have been a longer period had he not accused his landlord, the Marquis, who was then the head of the family, of seducing away his coachman. Landor wrote stating the charge; the Marquis, calling in reply, entered the room with his hat on, and Landor first knocked it off and then gave notice. It was at the Palazzo Medici that Landor was visited by Hazlitt in 1825, and here also he began the "Imaginary Conversations," his best-known work, although it is of course such brief and faultless lyrics as "Rose Aylmer" and "To Ianthe" that have given him his widest public. On leaving the Palazzo, Landor acquired the Villa Gherardesca, on the hill-side below Fiesole, and a very beautiful little estate in which the stream Affrico rises. Crabb Robinson, the friend of so many men of genius, who was in Florence in 1880, in rooms at 1341 Via della Nuova Vigna, met Landor frequently at his villa and has left his impressions. Landor had made up his mind to live and die in Italy, but hated the Italians. He would rather, he said, follow his daughter to the grave than to her wedding with an Italian husband. Talking on art, he said he preferred John of Bologna to Michelangelo, a statement he repeated to Emerson, but afterwards, I believe, recanted. He said also to Robinson that he would not give 1000 Pounds for Raphael's "Transfiguration," but ten times that sum for Fra Bartolommeo's picture of S. Mark in the Pitti. Next to Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo he loved Perugino. Landor soon became quite the husbandman. Writing to his sisters in 1831, he says: "I have planted 200 cypresses, 600 vines, 400 roses, 200 arbutuses, and 70 bays, besides laurustinas, etc., etc., and 60 fruit trees of the best qualities from France. I have not had a moment's illness since I resided here, nor have the children. My wife runs after colds; it would be strange if she did not take them; but she has taken none here; hers are all from Florence. I have the best water, the best air, and the best oil in the world. They speak highly of the wine too; but here I doubt. In fact, I hate wine, unless hock or claret.... "Italy is a fine climate, but Swansea better. That however is the only spot in Great Britain where we have warmth without wet. Still, Italy is the country I would live in.... In two [years] I hope to have a hundred good peaches every day at table during two months: at present I have had as many bad ones. My land is said to produce the best figs in Tuscany; I have usually six or seven bushels of them." I have walked through Lander's little paradise--now called the Villa Landor and reached by the narrow rugged road to the right just below the village of S. Domenico. Its cypresses, planted, as I imagine, by Lander's own hand, are stately as minarets and its lawn is as green and soft as that of an Oxford college. The orchard, in April, was a mass of blossom. Thrushes sang in the evergreens and the first swallow of the year darted through the cypresses just as we reached the gates. It is truly a poet's house and garden. In 1833 a French neighbour accused Landor of robbing him of water by stopping an underground stream, and Landor naturally challenged him to a duel. The meeting was avoided through the tact of Lander's second, the English consul at Florence, and the two men became friends. At his villa Landor wrote much of his best prose--the "Pentameron," "Pericles and Aspasia" and the "Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing "--and he was in the main happy, having so much planting and harvesting to do, his children to play with, and now and then a visitor. In the main too he managed very well with the country people, but one day was amused to overhear a conversation over the hedge between two passing contadini. "All the English are mad," said one, "but as for this one...!" There was a story of Landor current in Florence in those days which depicted him, furious with a spoiled dish, throwing his cook out of the window, and then, realizing where he would fall, exclaiming in an agony, "Good God, I forgot the violets!" Such was Landor's impossible way on occasion that he succeeded in getting himself exiled from Tuscany; but the Grand Duke was called in as pacificator, and, though the order of expulsion was not rescinded, it was not carried out. In 1835 Landor wrote some verses to his friend Ablett, who had lent him the money to buy the villa, professing himself wholly happy-- Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me My citron groves of Fiesole, My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook, My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, Which runs away and giggles in their faces; Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places-- but later in the year came a serious break. Landor's relations with Mrs. Landor, never of such a nature as to give any sense of security, had grown steadily worse as he became more explosive, and they now reached such a point that he flung out of the house one day and did not return for many years, completing the action by a poem in which he took a final (as he thought) farewell of Italy:-- I leave thee, beauteous Italy! No more From the high terraces, at even-tide, To look supine into thy depths of sky, The golden moon between the cliff and me, Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses Bordering the channel of the milky way. Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams, Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico Murmur to me but the poet's song. Landor gave his son Arnold the villa, settling a sum on his wife for the other children's maintenance, and himself returned to Bath, where he added to his friends Sir William Napier (who first found a resemblance to a lion in Landor's features), John Forster, who afterwards wrote his life, and Charles Dickens, who named a child after him and touched off his merrier turbulent side most charmingly as Leonard Boythom in "Bleak House". But his most constant companion was a Pomeranian dog; in dogs indeed he found comfort all his life, right to the end. Landor's love of his villa and estate finds expression again and again in his verse written at this time. The most charming of all these charming poems--the perfection of the light verse of a serious poet--is the letter from England to his youngest boy, speculating on his Italian pursuits. I begin at the passage describing the villa's cat:-- Does Cincirillo follow thee about, Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That feared not you and me--alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along my knee, And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes To ponder on my lecture in the shade. I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, And in some minor matters (may I say it?) Could wish him rather sager. But from thee God hold back wisdom yet for many years! Whether in early season or in late It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast I have no lesson; it for me has many. Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares (Since there are none too young for these) engage Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, Walter and you, with those sly labourers, Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, To build more solidly your broken dam Among the poplars, whence the nightingale Inquisitively watch'd you all day long? I was not of your council in the scheme, Or might have saved you silver without end, And sighs too without number. Art thou gone Below the mulberry, where that cold pool Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast? Or art though panting in this summer noon Upon the lowest step before the hall, Drawing a slice of watermelon, long As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips (Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop The sable seeds from all their separate cells, And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, Redder than coral round Calypso's cave? In 1853 Landor put forth what he thought his last book, under the title "Last Fruit off an Old Tree". Unhappily it was not his last, for in 1858 he issued yet one more, "Dry Sticks faggotted by W. S. Landor," in which was a malicious copy of verses reflecting upon a lady. He was sued for libel, lost the case with heavy damages, and once more and for the last time left England for Florence. He was now eighty-three. At first he went to the Villa Gherardesco, then the home of his son Arnold, but his outbursts were unbearable, and three times he broke away, to be three times brought back. In July, 1859, he made a fourth escape, and then escaped altogether, for Browning took the matter in hand and established him, after a period in Siena, in lodgings in the Via Nunziatina. From this time till his death in 1864 Landor may be said at last to have been at rest. He had found safe anchorage and never left it. Many friends came to see him, chief among them Browning, who was at once his adviser, his admirer and his shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk nonsense with." Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It was Giallo who led to the profound couplet-- He is foolish who supposes Dogs are ill that have hot noses. Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man." But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition; but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne, who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September 17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready--as nine years earlier he had promised it should-- To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city, whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance in the English language:-- I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life, It sinks, and I am ready to depart. It should be cut on his tombstone. CHAPTER XXV The Carmine and San Miniato The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The reluctant departure. The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases, but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so exact that, since the human body does not change with the times, a medical student could learn everything from them in the most gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine, I confess, quailed before the end. The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen: here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer, for he had become totally blind. The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes, binoculars, and other mysteries. The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella, that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in 1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family were outraged by the mésalliance and the young couple had to flee to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000 ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were, they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died. One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino in our National Gallery--No. 650--and many in Florence.) There was, however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile, Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray, she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately, but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned. Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife; but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown. The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous. S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine pieces of sculpture--one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in Rome--there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence; but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or are denied, and that is the end of it. The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here we are on very sacred ground in art--for it was here, as I have had occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino, born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned, apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he was only twenty-one. Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest innovator in painting--the father of real painting; Masaccio was the second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life. From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings, with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was that religion should be reconciled with life. It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who, while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary person is to enjoy the picture. Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see, was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how. It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy, just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy, for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries, including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi, Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed. Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange portentous meteor in art. The Pitti side of the river is less interesting than the other, but it has some very fascinating old and narrow streets, although they are less comfortable for foreigners to wander in than those, for example, about the Borgo SS. Apostoli. They are far dirtier. From the Pitti end of the Ponte Vecchio one can obtain a most charming walk. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the best gate of all that is left--a true gate in being an inlet into a fortified city--that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on, but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees. It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death, and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo, for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather. The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns of immense size and strength. From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram, for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato. The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street, named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions, such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth--but you can see the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond, over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy, both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo, where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines. S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo, deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble façades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon--the ideal time to visit it--is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green and white façade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold. On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church, the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling, which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified, for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches. The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him, who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures (designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in Rossellino's and Luca's city. No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and pardon--by bending towards him--upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray, Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk, himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073. I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree. Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace: that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well. Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has, framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene. Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 Artists' Dates. 1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366) 1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240) 1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368) 1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?) 1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410) 1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?) 1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283) 1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270) 1356 Lippo Memmi died 1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300) 1368 Andrea Orcagna died 1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425) Gentile da Fabriano born (d. 1450) 1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438) 1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446) 1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455) 1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466) 1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455) 1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472) 1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457) 1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475) 1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482) 1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?) 1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472) 1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469) 1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464) 1410 Spinello Aretino died 1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492) 1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498) 1425 Il Monaco died Alessio Baldovinetti born (d. 1499) 1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478) 1428 (?) Masaccio died 1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464) 1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516) Antonio Pollaiuolo born (d. 1498) 1430 Cosimo Tura died 1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506) 1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484) 1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488) Andrea della Robbia born (d. 1525) 1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494) 1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507) 1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523) 1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497) 1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510) 1446 Brunelleschi died Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24) Francesco Botticini born (d. 1498) 1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494) 1450 Gentile da Fabriano died 1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519) 1455 Ghiberti died Fra Angelico died 1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537) 1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9) Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504) Andrea del Castagno died 1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521) 1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died 1464 Bernardo Rossellino died 1466 Donatello died 1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529) Lippo Lippi died 1472 Michelozzo died Alberti died 1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556) Rustici born (d. 1554) Mariotto Albertinelli born (d. 1515) 1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517) Michelangelo Buonarroti born (d. 1564) 1477 Titian born (d. 1576) Giorgione born (d. 1510) 1478 Antonio Rossellino died 1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523) Guicciardini born (d. 1540) 1483 Raphael born (d. 1520) Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born (d. 1561) 1484 Mino da Fiesole died 1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547) 1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570) 1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531) 1488 Verrocchio died Baccio Bandinelli born (d. 1560) 1492 Piero della Francesco died 1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556) Correggio born (d. 1534) Domenico Ghirlandaio died Melozzo da Forli died 1497 Benedetto da Maiano died Benozzo Gozzoli died 1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died Francesco Botticini died 1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died 1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572) 1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572) 1504 Filippino Lippi died 1506 Mantegna died 1507 Cosimo Rosselli died 1508 Cronaca died 1510 Botticelli died Giorgione died 1511 Vasari born (d. 1574) 1515 Albertinelli died 1516 Giovanni Bellini died 1517 Fra Bartolommeo died 1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594) 1519 Leonardo da Vinci died 1520 Raphael died 1521 Piero di Cosimo died 1523 Signorelli died Perugino died 1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608) 1525 Andrea della Robbia died Francia Bigio died 1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588) Federigo Baroccio born (d. 1612) 1529 Giovanni della Robbia died 1531 Andrea del Sarto died 1534 Correggio died 1537 Credi died 1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died 1554 Rustici died 1556 Pontormo died Benedetto da Rovezzano died 1560 Baccio Bandinelli died 1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died 1564 Michael Angelo died Some Important Florentine Dates 1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated 1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo di Cambio 1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi and Xeri Guido Cavalcanti died 1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27 1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374) 1308 Death of Corso Donati 1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII 1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375) 1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265) 1333 Destructive floods 1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid 1337 Or San Michele begun 1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished 1348 Black Death of the Decameron Giovanni Villani died (b. 1275 c.) 1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born 1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi 1374 Petrarch died 1375 Boccaccio died 1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced 1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected Gonfaloniere 1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born 1390 War with Milan 1394 Sir John Hawkwood died 1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates 1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born 1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence Giovanni de' Medici elected Gonfaloniere Spedale degli Innocenti commenced 1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up 1429 Giovanni de' Medici died 1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died 1433 Marsilio Ficino born Cosimo de' Medici banished, Oct. 3 1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29 Banishment of Albizzi and Strozzi 1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence 1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed The Duomo consecrated 1439 Council of Florence Gemisthos Plethon in Florence 1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace 1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent born) 1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up Savonarola born 1454 Politian born 1463 Pico della Mirandola born 1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was succeeded by Piero 1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy 1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb. Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice Orsini, June Death of Piero, Dec. Niccolò Machiavelli born 1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born Visit of Galeazzo Sforza to Florence Cennini's Press established in Florence 1474 Ariosto born 1475 Giuliano's Tournament 1478 Pazzi Conspiracy Giuliano murdered 1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died Piero succeeded 1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy Piero banished Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of Medici Palace Florence governed by General Council Savonarola in power Politian died Pico della Mirandola died 1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere Piero attempted to return to Florence 1498 Savonarola burnt 1499 Marsilio Ficino died Amerigo Vespucci reached America 1503 Death of Piero di Medici 1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, reinstated in Florence Great Council abolished 1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power Catherine de' Medici born 1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power 1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence 1528 Machiavelli died 1529-30 Siege of Florence 1530 Capitulation of Florence 1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic 1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence Battle of Montemurlo Lorenzino assassinated in Venice 1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved to Palazzo Vecchio 1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace 1564 Galileo Galilei born Popes. Boniface VIII 1303 Benedict XI 1305 Clement V 1316 John XXII 1334 Benedict XII 1337 Boniface VIII 1342 Clement VI 1352 Innocent VI 1362 Urban V 1370 Gregory XI 1378 Urban VI 1389 Boniface IX 1404 Innocent VII 1406 Gregory XII 1409 Alex. V 1410 John XXIII 1417 Martin V 1431 Eugenius IV 1447 Nicolas V 1455 Calixtus III 1458 Pius II 1464 Paul II 1471 Sixtus IV 1484 Innocent VIII 1492 Alex. VI 1503 Pius III Julius II 1513 Leo X 1522 Hadrian VI 1523 Clement VII 1534 Paul III 1550 Julius III 1555 Marcellus II Paul IV 1559 Pius IV French Kings. Philip IV 1314 Louis X 1316 John I Philip V 1322 Charles IV 1328 Philip VI Philip 1350 John II 1364 Charles V 1380 Charles VI 1422 Charles VII 1461 Louis XI 1483 Charles VIII 1498 Louis XII 1515 Francis I 1547 Henry II 1559 Francis II 1560 Charles IX English Kings. Edward I 1307 Edward II 1327 Edward III 1377 Richard II 1422 Charles VII 1461 Edward IV 1483 Edward V Richard III 1485 Henry VII 1509 Henry VIII 1547 Edward VI 1553 Mary 1558 Elizabeth Milan. 1310 Matteo Visconti 1322 Galeazzo Visconti 1328 1329 Azzo Visconti 1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti 1349 Giovanni Visconti 1354 Matteó Bernabò Galeazzo 1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti 1402 Gian Maria Visconti 1412 Filippo Maria Visconti 1447...1450 Francesco Sforza 1466 Galeazzo Sforza 1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent) 1495 Ludovico Sforza 1499 Ludovico exiled Some Important General Dates 1298 Battle of Falkirk 1306 Coronation of Bruce 1314 Battle of Bannockburn 1324 (?) John Wyclif born 1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?) 1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War 1346 Battle of Crécy 1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome Edward III took Calais 1348-9 Black Death in England 1348 S. Catherine of Siena born 1356 Battle of Poictiers 1362 First draft of Piers Plowman 1379 Thomas à Kempis born 1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died 1414 Council of Constance 1428 Siege of Orléans 1431 Joan of Arc burnt 1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born 1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz Jack Cade's Insurrection 1453 Fall of Constantinople 1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses 1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528) 1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555) 1471 Albert Dürer born (d. 1528) Caxton's Press established in Westminster 1476 Chevalier Bayard born 1482 Hugo van der Goes died 1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553) Martin Luther born Murder of the Princes in the Tower 1491 Ignatius Loyola born 1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus 1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533) 1505 John Knox born (d. 1582) 1509 Calvin born 1516 More's Utopia published 1519 First Voyage round the world (Ferd. Magellan) 1519-21 Conquest of Mexico 1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold 1527 Brantôme born (d. 1614) 1528 Albert Dürer died 1531-2 Conquest of Peru 1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592) 1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church 1537 Sack of Rome 1544 Torquato Tasso born 1553 Edmund Spenser born 1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey Sir Philip Sidney born 1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt 1558 Calais recaptured by the French 1564 Shakespeare born NOTES [1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end, as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus was born. [2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to be kept in a glass case. [3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi. [4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David, two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus. [5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake, however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules strangled him. [6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost," Book I. 300-304):-- "He called His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades, High over-arched, embower." Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, in honour of Milton's association with it. [7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed. [8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women". [9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often changes. 
37793	----	Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved. The Story of Florence All rights reserved First Edition, September 1900. Second Edition, December 1900. [Illustration: _Pallas taming a Centaur, by Botticelli._ (THE TRIUMPH OF LORENZO.)] The Story of Florence by Edmund G. Gardner Illustrated by Nelly Erichsen London: J. M. Dent & Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden W.C. 1900 To MY SISTER MONICA MARY GARDNER PREFACE The present volume is intended to supply a popular history of the Florentine Republic, in such a form that it can also be used as a guide-book. It has been my endeavour, while keeping within the necessary limits of this series of _Mediæval Towns_, to point out briefly the most salient features in the story of Florence, to tell again the tale of those of her streets and buildings, and indicate those of her artistic treasures, which are either most intimately connected with that story or most beautiful in themselves. Those who know best what an intensely fascinating and many-sided history that of Florence has been, who have studied most closely the work and characters of those strange and wonderful personalities who have lived within (and, in the case of the greatest, died without) her walls, will best appreciate my difficulty in compressing even a portion of all this wealth and profusion into the narrow bounds enjoined by the aim and scope of this book. Much has necessarily been curtailed over which it would have been tempting to linger, much inevitably omitted which the historian could not have passed over, nor the compiler of a guide-book failed to mention. In what I have selected for treatment and what omitted, I have usually let myself be guided by the remembrance of my own needs when I first commenced to visit Florence and to study her arts and history. It is needless to say that the number of books, old and new, is very considerable indeed, to which anyone venturing in these days to write yet another book on Florence must have had recourse, and to whose authors he is bound to be indebted--from the earliest Florentine chroniclers down to the most recent biographers of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of Savonarola, of Michelangelo--from Vasari down to our modern scientific art critics--from Richa and Moreni down to the Misses Horner. My obligations can hardly be acknowledged here in detail; but, to mention a few modern works alone, I am most largely indebted to Capponi's _Storia della Repubblica di Firenze_, to various writings of Professor Pasquale Villari, and to Mr Armstrong's _Lorenzo de' Medici_; to the works of Ruskin and J. A. Symonds, of M. Reymond and Mr Berenson; and, in the domains of topography, to Baedeker's _Hand Book_. In judging of the merits and the authorship of individual pictures and statues, I have usually given more weight to the results of modern criticism than to the pleasantness of old tradition. Carlyle's translation of the _Inferno_ and Mr Wicksteed's of the _Paradiso_ are usually quoted. If this little book should be found helpful in initiating the English-speaking visitor to the City of Flowers into more of the historical atmosphere of Florence and her monuments than guide-books and catalogues can supply, it will amply have fulfilled its object. E. G. G. ROEHAMPTON, May 1900. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE _The Commune and People of Florence_ 1 CHAPTER II _The Times of Dante and Boccaccio_ 32 CHAPTER III _The Medici and the Quattrocento_ 71 CHAPTER IV _From Fra Girolamo to Duke Cosimo_ 111 CHAPTER V _The Palazzo Vecchio--The Piazza della Signoria--The Uffizi_ 146 CHAPTER VI _Or San Michele and the Sesto di San Piero_ 184 CHAPTER VII _From the Bargello past Santa Croce_ 214 CHAPTER VIII _The Baptistery, the Campanile, and the Duomo_ 246 CHAPTER IX _The Palazzo Riccardi--San Lorenzo--San Marco_ 283 CHAPTER X _The Accademia delle Belle Arti--The Santissima Annunziata, and other Buildings_ 314 CHAPTER XI _The Bridges--The Quarter of Santa Maria Novella_ 340 CHAPTER XII _Across the Arno_ 374 CHAPTER XIII _Conclusion_ 409 * * * * * _Genealogical Table of the Medici_ 423 _Chronological Index of Architects, Sculptors and Painters_ 424 _General Index_ 430 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE _Pallas taming a Centaur (Photogravure)_[1] Frontispiece _Florence from the Boboli Gardens_ 3 _The Buondelmonte Tower_ 20 _The Palace of the Parte Guelfa_ 29 _Arms of Parte Guelfa_ 31 _Florentine Families_ 33 _Corso Donati's Tower_ 40 _Across the Ponte Vecchio_ 47 _Mercato Nuovo, the Flower Market_ 51 _The Campanile_ 63 _Cross of the Florentine People_ 70 _Florence in the Days of Lorenzo the Magnificent_ 80 _The Badia of Fiesole_ 83 "_In the Sculptor's Work-shop_" (_Nanni di Banco_) 97 _Arms of the Pazzi_ 110 _The Death of Savonarola_ 135 "_The Dawn_" (_Michelangelo_) 144 _The Palazzo Vecchio_ 147 _Looking through Vasari's Loggia, Uffizi_ 161 "_Venus_" (_Sandro Botticelli_) 178 _Orcagna's Tabernacle, Or San Michele_ 185 _Window of Or San Michele_ 191 _Tower of the Arte della Lana_ 201 _House of Dante_ 207 _Arms of the Sesto di San Piero_ 213 _Bargello Courtyard and Staircase_ 217 _Santa Croce_ 233 _Old Houses on the Arno_ 245 _The Baptistery_ 251 _The Bigallo_ 264 _Porta della Mandorla, Duomo_ 267 _Statue of Boniface VIII_ 270 _Arms of the Medici from the Badia at Fiesole_ 283 _Tomb of Giovanni and Piero dei Medici_ 288 _The Well of S. Marco_ 299 _The Cloister of the Innocenti_ 331 _A Florentine Suburb_ 337 _The Ponte Vecchio_ 343 _The Tower of S. Zanobi_ 347 _Arms of the Strozzi_ 353 _In the Green Cloisters, S. Maria Novella_ 357 _In the Boboli Gardens_ 374 _The Fortifications of Michelangelo_ 399 _Porta San Giorgio_ 403 _Map of Florence facing_ 422 [1] "_The Frontispiece and the Illustrations facing pages 97, 135, 144, 178 and 288 are reproduced, by permission, from photographs by Messrs Alinari of Florence._" The Story of Florence CHAPTER I _The People and Commune of Florence_ "La bellissima e famosissima figlia di Roma, Fiorenza." --_Dante._ Before the imagination of a thirteenth century poet, one of the sweetest singers of the _dolce stil novo_, there rose a phantasy of a transfigured city, transformed into a capital of Fairyland, with his lady and himself as fairy queen and king: "Amor, eo chero mea donna in domino, l'Arno balsamo fino, le mura di Fiorenza inargentate, le rughe di cristallo lastricate, fortezze alte e merlate, mio fedel fosse ciaschedun Latino."[2] [2] "Love, I demand to have my lady in fee, Fine balm let Arno be, The walls of Florence all of silver rear'd, And crystal pavements in the public way; With castles make me fear'd, Till every Latin soul have owned my sway." --LAPO GIANNI (_Rossetti_). But is not the reality even more beautiful than the dreamland Florence of Lapo Gianni's fancy? We stand on the heights of San Miniato, either in front of the Basilica itself or lower down in the Piazzale Michelangelo. Below us, on either bank of the silvery Arno, lies outstretched Dante's "most famous and most beauteous daughter of Rome," once the Queen of Etruria and centre of the most wonderful culture that the world has known since Athens, later the first capital of United Italy, and still, though shorn of much of her former splendour and beauty, one of the loveliest cities of Christendom. Opposite to us, to the north, rises the hill upon which stands Etruscan Fiesole, from which the people of Florence originally came: "that ungrateful and malignant people," Dante once called them, "who of old came down from Fiesole." Behind us stand the fortifications which mark the death of the Republic, thrown up or at least strengthened by Michelangelo in the city's last agony, when she barred her gates and defied the united power of Pope and Emperor to take the State that had once chosen Christ for her king. "O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour; Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender: The light-invested angel Poesy Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee. "And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught By loftiest meditations; marble knew The sculptor's fearless soul--and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom grew." Between Fiesole and San Miniato, then, the story of the Florentine Republic may be said to be written. The beginnings of Florence are lost in cloudy legend, and her early chroniclers on the slenderest foundations have reared for her an unsubstantial, if imposing, fabric of fables--the tales which the women of old Florence, in the _Paradiso_, told to their house-holds-- "dei Troiani, di Fiesole, e di Roma." [Illustration: FLORENCE FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS] Setting aside the Trojans ("Priam" was mediæval for "Adam," as a modern novelist has remarked), there is no doubt that both Etruscan Fiesole and Imperial Rome united to found the "great city on the banks of the Arno." Fiesole or Faesulae upon its hill was an important Etruscan city, and a place of consequence in the days of the Roman Republic; fallen though it now is, traces of its old greatness remain. Behind the Romanesque cathedral are considerable remains of Etruscan walls and of a Roman theatre. Opposite it to the west we may ascend to enjoy the glorious view from the Convent of the Franciscans, where once the old citadel of Faesulae stood. Faesulae was ever the centre of Italian and democratic discontent against Rome and her Senate (_sempre ribelli di Roma_, says Villani of its inhabitants); and it was here, in October B.C. 62, that Caius Manlius planted the Eagle of revolt--an eagle which Marius had borne in the war against the Cimbri--and thus commenced the Catilinarian war, which resulted in the annihilation of Catiline's army near Pistoia. This, according to Villani, was the origin of Florence. According to him, Fiesole, after enduring the stupendous siege, was forced to surrender to the Romans under Julius Cæsar, and utterly razed to the ground. In the second sphere of Paradise, Justinian reminds Dante of how the Roman Eagle "seemed bitter to that hill beneath which thou wast born." Then, in order that Fiesole might never raise its head again, the Senate ordained that the greatest lords of Rome, who had been at the siege, should join with Cæsar in building a new city on the banks of the Arno. Florence, thus founded by Cæsar, was populated by the noblest citizens of Rome, who received into their number those of the inhabitants of fallen Fiesole who wished to live there. "Note then," says the old chronicler, "that it is not wonderful that the Florentines are always at war and in dissensions among themselves, being drawn and born from two peoples, so contrary and hostile and diverse in habits, as were the noble and virtuous Romans, and the savage and contentious folk of Fiesole." Dante similarly, in Canto XV. of the _Inferno_, ascribes the injustice of the Florentines towards himself to this mingling of the people of Fiesole with the true Roman nobility (with special reference, however, to the union of Florence with conquered Fiesole in the twelfth century):-- "che tra li lazzi sorbi si disconvien fruttare al dolce fico."[3] [3] "For amongst the tart sorbs, it befits not the sweet fig to fructify." And Brunetto Latini bids him keep himself free from their pollution:-- "Faccian le bestie Fiesolane strame di lor medesme, e non tocchin la pianta, s'alcuna surge ancor nel lor letame, in cui riviva la semente santa di quei Roman che vi rimaser quando fu fatto il nido di malizia tanta." [4] [4] "Let the beasts of Fiesole make litter of themselves, and not touch the plant, if any yet springs up amid their rankness, in which the holy seed revives of those Romans who remained there when it became the nest of so much malice." The truth appears to be that Florence was originally founded by Etruscans from Fiesole, who came down from their mountain to the plain by the Arno for commercial purposes. This Etruscan colony was probably destroyed during the wars between Marius and Sulla, and a Roman military colony established here--probably in the time of Sulla, and augmented later by Cæsar and by Augustus. It has, indeed, been urged of late that the old Florentine story has some truth in it, and that Cæsar, not only in legend but in fact, may be regarded as the true first founder of Florence. Thus the Roman colony of Florentia gradually grew into a little city--_come una altra piccola Roma_, declares her patriotic chronicler. It had its capitol and its forum in the centre of the city, where the Mercato Vecchio once stood; it had an amphitheatre outside the walls, somewhere near where the Borgo dei Greci and the Piazza Peruzzi are to-day. It had baths and temples, though doubtless on a small scale. It had the shape and form of a Roman camp, which (together with the Roman walls in which it was inclosed) it may be said to have retained down to the middle of the twelfth century, in spite of legendary demolitions by Attila and Totila, and equally legendary reconstructions by Charlemagne. Above all, it had a grand temple to Mars, which almost certainly occupied the site of the present Baptistery, if not actually identical with it. Giovanni Villani tells us--and we shall have to return to his statement--that the wonderful octagonal building, now known as the Baptistery or the Church of St John, was consecrated as a temple by the Romans in honour of Mars, for their victory over the Fiesolans, and that Mars was the patron of the Florentines as long as paganism lasted. Round the equestrian statue that was supposed to have once stood in the midst of this temple, numberless legends have gathered. Dante refers to it again and again. In Santa Maria Novella you shall see how a great painter of the early Renaissance, Filippino Lippi, conceived of his city's first patron. When Florence changed him for the Baptist, and the people of Mars became the sheepfold of St John, this statue was removed from the temple and set upon a tower by the side of the Arno:-- "The Florentines took up their idol which they called the God Mars, and set him upon a high tower near the river Arno; and they would not break or shatter it, seeing that in their ancient records they found that the said idol of Mars had been consecrated under the ascendency of such a planet, that if it should be broken or put in a dishonourable place, the city would suffer danger and damage and great mutation. And although the Florentines had newly become Christians, they still retained many customs of paganism, and retained them for a long time; and they greatly feared their ancient idol of Mars; so little perfect were they as yet in the Holy Faith." This tower is said to have been destroyed like the rest of Florence by the Goths, the statue falling into the Arno, where it lurked in hiding all the time that the city lay in ruins. On the legendary rebuilding of Florence by Charlemagne, the statue, too--or rather the mutilated fragment that remained--was restored to light and honour. Thus Villani:-- "It is said that the ancients held the opinion that there was no power to rebuild the city, if that marble image, consecrated by necromancy to Mars by the first Pagan builders, was not first found again and drawn out of the Arno, in which it had been from the destruction of Florence down to that time. And, when found, they set it upon a pillar on the bank of the said river, where is now the head of the Ponte Vecchio. This we neither affirm nor believe, inasmuch as it appeareth to us to be the opinion of augurers and pagans, and not reasonable, but great folly, to hold that a statue so made could work thus; but commonly it was said by the ancients that, if it were changed, our city would needs suffer great mutation." Thus it became _quella pietra scema che guarda il ponte_, in Dantesque phrase; and we shall see what terrible sacrifice its clients unconsciously paid to it. Here it remained, much honoured by the Florentines; street boys were solemnly warned of the fearful judgments that fell on all who dared to throw mud or stones at it; until at last, in 1333, a great flood carried away bridge and statue alike, and it was seen no more. It has recently been suggested that the statue was, in reality, an equestrian monument in honour of some barbaric king, belonging to the fifth or sixth century. Florence, however, seems to have been--in spite of Villani's describing it as the Chamber of the Empire and the like--a place of very slight importance under the Empire. Tacitus mentions that a deputation was sent from Florentia to Tiberius to prevent the Chiana being turned into the Arno. Christianity is said to have been first introduced in the days of Nero; the Decian persecution raged here as elsewhere, and the soil was hallowed with the blood of the martyr, Miniatus. Christian worship is said to have been first offered up on the hill where a stately eleventh century Basilica now bears his name. When the greater peace of the Church was established under Constantine, a church dedicated to the Baptist on the site of the Martian temple and a basilica outside the walls, where now stands San Lorenzo, were among the earliest churches in Tuscany. In the year 405, the Goth leader Rhadagaisus, _omnium antiquorum praesentiumque hostium longe immanissimus_, as Orosius calls him, suddenly inundated Italy with more than 200,000 Goths, vowing to sacrifice all the blood of the Romans to his gods. In their terror the Romans seemed about to return to their old paganism, since Christ had failed to protect them. _Fervent tota urbe blasphemiae_, writes Orosius. They advanced towards Rome through the Tuscan Apennines, and are said to have besieged Florence, though there is no hint of this in Orosius. On the approach of Stilicho, at the head of thirty legions with a large force of barbarian auxiliaries, Rhadagaisus and his hordes--miraculously struck helpless with terror, as Orosius implies--let themselves be hemmed in in the mountains behind Fiesole, and all perished, by famine and exhaustion rather than by the sword. Villani ascribes the salvation of Florence to the prayers of its bishop, Zenobius, and adds that as this victory of "the Romans and Florentines" took place on the feast of the virgin martyr Reparata, her name was given to the church afterwards to become the Cathedral of Florence. Zenobius, now a somewhat misty figure, is the first great Florentine of history, and an impressive personage in Florentine art. We dimly discern in him an ideal bishop and father of his people; a man of great austerity and boundless charity, almost an earlier Antoninus. Perhaps the fact that some of the intervening Florentine bishops were anything but edifying, has made these two--almost at the beginning and end of the Middle Ages--stand forth in a somewhat ideal light. He appears to have lived a monastic life outside the walls in a small church on the site of the present San Lorenzo, with two young ecclesiastics, trained by him and St Ambrose, Eugenius and Crescentius. They died before him and are commonly united with him by the painters. Here he was frequently visited by St Ambrose--here he dispensed his charities and worked his miracles (according to the legend, he had a special gift of raising children to life)--here at length he died in the odour of sanctity, A.D. 424. The beautiful legend of his translation should be familiar to every student of Italian painting. I give it in the words of a monkish writer of the fourteenth century:-- "About five years after he had been buried, there was made bishop one named Andrew, and this holy bishop summoned a great chapter of bishops and clerics, and said in the chapter that it was meet to bear the body of St Zenobius to the Cathedral Church of San Salvatore; and so it was ordained. Wherefore, on the 26th of January, he caused him to be unburied and borne to the Church of San Salvatore by four bishops; and these bishops bearing the body of St Zenobius were so pressed upon by the people that they fell near an elm, the which was close unto the Church of St John the Baptist; and when they fell, the case where the body of St Zenobius lay was broken, so that the body touched the elm, and gradually, as the elm was touched, it brought forth flowers and leaves, and lasted all that year with the flowers and leaves. The people, seeing the miracle, broke up all the elm, and with devotion carried the branches away. And the Florentines, beholding what was done, made a column of marble with a cross where the elm had been, so that the miracle should ever be remembered by the people." Like the statue of Mars, this column was destroyed by the flood of 1333, and the one now standing to the north of the Baptistery was set up after that year. It was at one time the custom for the clergy on the feast of the translation to go in procession and fasten a green bough to this column. Zenobius now stands with St Reparata on the cathedral façade. Domenico Ghirlandaio painted him, together with his pupils Eugenius and Crescentius, in the Sala dei Gigli of the Palazzo della Signoria; an unknown follower of Orcagna had painted a similar picture for a pillar in the Duomo. Ghiberti cast his miracles in bronze for the shrine in the Chapel of the Sacrament; Verrocchio and Lorenzo di Credi at Pistoia placed him and the Baptist on either side of Madonna's throne. In a picture by some other follower of Verrocchio's in the Uffizi he is seen offering up a model of his city to the Blessed Virgin. Two of the most famous of his miracles, the raising of a child to life and the flowering of the elm tree at his translation, are superbly rendered in two pictures by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. On May 25th the people still throng the Duomo with bunches of roses and other flowers, which they press to the reliquary which contains his head, and so obtain the "benedizione di San Zenobio." Thus does his memory live fresh and green among the people to whom he so faithfully ministered. Another barbarian king, the last Gothic hero Totila, advancing upon Rome in 542, took the same shorter but more difficult route across the Apennines. According to the legend, he utterly destroyed all Florence, with the exception of the Church of San Giovanni, and rebuilt Fiesole to oppose Rome and prevent Florence from being restored. The truth appears to be that he did not personally attack Florence, but sent a portion of his troops under his lieutenants. They were successfully resisted by Justin, who commanded the imperial garrison, and, on the advance of reinforcements from Ravenna, they drew off into the valley of the Mugello, where they turned upon the pursuing "Romans" (whose army consisted of worse barbarians than Goths) and completely routed them. Fiesole, which had apparently recovered from its old destruction, was probably too difficult to be assailed; but it appears to have been gradually growing at the expense of Florence--the citizens of the latter emigrating to it for greater safety. This was especially the case during the Lombard invasion, when the fortunes of Florence were at their lowest, and, indeed, in the second half of the eighth century, Florence almost sank to being a suburb of Fiesole. With the advent of Charlemagne and the restoration of the Empire, brighter days commenced for Florence,--so much so that the story ran that he had renewed the work of Julius Caesar and founded the city again. In 786 he wintered here with his court on his third visit to Rome; and, according to legend, he was here again in great wealth and pomp in 805, and founded the Church of Santissimi Apostoli--the oldest existing Florentine building after the Baptistery. Upon its façade you may still read a pompous inscription concerning the Emperor's reception in Florence, and how the Church was consecrated by Archbishop Turpin in the presence of Oliver and Roland, the Paladins! Florence was becoming a power in Tuscany, or at least beginning to see more of Popes and Emperors. The Ottos stayed within her walls on their way to be crowned at Rome; Popes, flying from their rebellious subjects, found shelter here. In 1055 Victor II. held a council in Florence. Beautiful Romanesque churches began to rise--notably the SS. Apostoli and San Miniato, both probably dating from the eleventh century. Great churchmen appeared among her sons, as San Giovanni Gualberto--the "merciful knight" of Burne-Jones' unforgettable picture--the reformer of the Benedictines and the founder of Vallombrosa. The early reformers, while Hildebrand was still "Archdeacon of the Roman Church," were specially active in Florence; and one of them, known as Peter Igneus, in 1068 endured the ordeal of fire and is said to have passed unhurt through the flames, to convict the Bishop of Florence of simony. This, with other matters relating to the times of Giovanni Gualberto and the struggles of the reformers of the clergy, you may see in the Bargello in a series of noteworthy marble bas-reliefs (terribly damaged, it is true), from the hand of Benedetto da Rovezzano. Although we already begin to hear of the "Florentine people" and the "Florentine citizens," Florence was at this time subject to the Margraves of Tuscany. One of them, Hugh the Great, who is said to have acted as vicar of the Emperor Otto III., and who died at the beginning of the eleventh century, lies buried in the Badia which had been founded by his mother, the Countess Willa, in 978. His tomb, one of the most noteworthy monuments of the fifteenth century, by Mino da Fiesole, may still be seen, near Filippino Lippi's Vision of St Bernard. It was while Florence was nominally under the sway of Hugo's most famous successor, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, that Dante's ancestor Cacciaguida was born; and, in the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of the _Paradiso_, he draws an ideal picture of that austere old Florence, _dentro dalla cerchia antica_, still within her Roman walls. We can still partly trace and partly conjecture the position of these walls. The city stood a little way back from the river, and had four master gates; the Porta San Piero on the east, the Porta del Duomo on the north, the Porta San Pancrazio on the west, the Porta Santa Maria on the south (towards the Ponte Vecchio). The heart of the city, the Forum or, as it came to be called, the Mercato Vecchio, has indeed been destroyed of late years to make way for the cold and altogether hideous Piazza Vittorio Emanuele; but we can still perceive that at its south-east corner the two main streets of this old _Florentia quadrata_ intersected,--Calimara, running from the Porta Santa Maria to the Porta del Duomo, south to north, and the Corso, running east to west from the Porta San Piero to the Porta San Pancrazio, along the lines of the present Corso, Via degli Speziali, and Via degli Strozzi. The Porta San Piero probably stood about where the Via del Corso joins the Via del Proconsolo, and there was a suburb reaching out to the Church of San Piero Maggiore. Then the walls ran along the lines of the present Via del Proconsolo and Via dei Balestrieri, inclosing Santa Reparata and the Baptistery, to the Duomo Gate beyond the Bishop's palace--probably somewhere near the opening of the modern Borgo San Lorenzo. Then along the Via Cerretani, Piazza Antinori, Via Tornabuoni, to the Gate of San Pancrazio, which was somewhere near the present Palazzo Strozzi; and so on to where the Church of Santa Trinità now stands, near which there was a postern gate called the Porta Rossa. Then they turned east along the present Via delle Terme to the Porta Santa Maria, which was somewhere near the end of the Mercato Nuovo, after which their course back to the Porta San Piero is more uncertain. Outside the walls were churches and ever-increasing suburbs, and Florence was already becoming an important commercial centre. Matilda's beneficent sway left it in practical independence to work out its own destinies; she protected it from imperial aggressions, and curbed the nobles of the contrada, who were of Teutonic descent and who, from their feudal castles round, looked with hostility upon the rich burgher city of pure Latin blood that was gradually reducing their power and territorial sway. At intervals the great Countess entered Florence, and either in person or by her deputies and judges (members of the chief Florentine families) administered justice in the Forum. Indeed she played the part of Dante's ideal Emperor in the _De Monarchia_; made Roman law obeyed through her dominions; established peace and curbed disorder; and therefore, in spite of her support of papal claims for political empire, when the _Divina Commedia_ came to be written, Dante placed her as guardian of the Earthly Paradise to which the Emperor should guide man, and made her the type of the glorified active life. Her praises, _la lauda di Matelda_, were long sung in the Florentine churches, as may be gathered from a passage in Boccaccio. It is from the death of Matilda in 1115 that the history of the Commune dates. During her lifetime she seems to have gradually, especially while engaged in her conflicts with the Emperor Henry, delegated her powers to the chief Florentine citizens themselves; and in her name they made war upon the aggressive nobility in the country round, in the interests of their commerce. For Dante the first half of this twelfth century represents the golden age in which his ancestor lived, when the great citizen nobles--Bellincion Berti, Ubertino Donati, and the heads of the Nerli and Vecchietti and the rest--lived simple and patriotic lives, filled the offices of state and led the troops against the foes of the Commune. In a grand burst of triumph that old Florentine crusader, Cacciaguida, closes the sixteenth canto of the _Paradiso_: "Con queste genti, e con altre con esse, vid'io Fiorenza in sì fatto riposo, che non avea cagion onde piangesse; con queste genti vid'io glorioso, e giusto il popol suo tanto, che'l giglio non era ad asta mai posto a ritroso, nè per division fatto vermiglio."[5] [5] "With these folk, and with others with them, did I see Florence in such full repose, she had not cause for wailing; With these folk I saw her people so glorious and so just, ne'er was the lily on the shaft reversed, nor yet by faction dyed vermilion."--Wicksteed's translation. When Matilda died, and the Popes and Emperors prepared to struggle for her legacy (which thus initiated the strifes of Guelfs and Ghibellines), the Florentine Republic asserted its independence: the citizen nobles who had been her delegates and judges now became the Consuls of the Commune and the leaders of the republican forces in war. In 1119 the Florentines assailed the castle of Monte Cascioli, and killed the imperial vicar who defended it; in 1125 they took and destroyed Fiesole, which had always been a refuge for robber nobles and all who hated the Republic. But already signs of division were seen in the city itself, though it was a century before it came to a head; and the great family of the Uberti--who, like the nobles of the contrada, were of Teutonic descent--were prominently to the front, but soon to be _disfatti per la lor superbia_. Scarcely was Matilda dead than they appear to have attempted to seize on the supreme power, and to have only been defeated with much bloodshed and burning of houses. Still the Republic pursued its victorious course through the twelfth century--putting down the feudal barons, forcing them to enter the city and join the Commune, and extending their commerce and influence as well as their territory on all sides. And already these nobles within and without the city were beginning to build their lofty towers, and to associate themselves into Societies of the Towers; while the people were grouped into associations which afterwards became the Greater and Lesser Arts or Guilds. Villani sees the origin of future contests in the mingling of races, Roman and Fiesolan; modern writers find it in the distinction, mentioned already, between the nobles, of partly Teutonic origin and imperial sympathies, and the burghers, who were the true Italians, the descendants of those over whom successive tides of barbarian conquest had swept, and to whom the ascendency of the nobles would mean an alien yoke. This struggle between a landed military and feudal nobility, waning in power and authority, and a commercial democracy of more purely Latin descent, ever increasing in wealth and importance, is what lies at the bottom of the contest between Florentine Guelfs and Ghibellines; and the rival claims of Pope and Emperor are of secondary importance, as far as Tuscany is concerned. In 1173 (as the most recent historian of Florence has shown, and not in the eleventh century as formerly supposed), the second circle of walls was built, and included a much larger tract of city, though many of the churches which we have been wont to consider the most essential things in Florence stand outside them. A new Porta San Piero, just beyond the present façade of the ruined church of San Piero Maggiore, enclosed the Borgo di San Piero; thence the walls passed round to the Porta di Borgo San Lorenzo, just to the north of the present Piazza, and swept round, with two gates of minor importance, past the chief western Porta San Pancrazio or Porta San Paolo, beyond which the present Piazza di Santa Maria Novella stands, down to the Arno where there was a Porta alla Carraia, at the point where the bridge was built later. Hence a lower wall ran along the Arno, taking in the parts excluded from the older circuit down to the Ponte Vecchio. About half-way between this and the Ponte Rubaconte, the walls turned up from the Arno, with several small gates, until they reached the place where the present Piazza di Santa Croce lies--which was outside. Here, just beyond the old site of the Amphitheatre, there was a gate, after which they ran straight without gate or postern to San Piero, where they had commenced. Instead of the old Quarters, named from the gates, the city was now divided into six corresponding Sesti or sextaries; the Sesto di Porta San Piero, the Sesto still called from the old Porta del Duomo, the Sesto di Porta Pancrazio, the Sesto di San Piero Scheraggio (a church near the Palazzo Vecchio, but now totally destroyed), and the Sesto di Borgo Santissimi Apostoli--these two replacing the old Quarter of Porta Santa Maria. Across the river lay the Sesto d'Oltrarno--then for the most part unfortified. At that time the inhabitants of Oltrarno were mostly the poor and the lower classes, but not a few noble families settled there later on. The Consuls, the supreme officers of the state, were elected annually, two for each sesto, usually nobles of popular tendencies; there was a council of a hundred, elected every year, its members being mainly chosen from the Guilds as the Consuls from the Towers; and a Parliament of the people could be summoned in the Piazza. Thus the popular government was constituted. Hardly had the new walls risen when the Uberti in 1177 attempted to overthrow the Consuls and seize the government of the city; they were partially successful, in that they managed to make the administration more aristocratic, after a prolonged civil struggle of two years' duration. In 1185 Frederick Barbarossa took away the privileges of the Republic and deprived it of its contrada; but his son, Henry VI., apparently gave it back. With the beginning of the thirteenth century we find the Consuls replaced by a Podestà, a foreign noble elected by the citizens themselves; and the Florentines, not content with having back their contrada, beginning to make wars of conquest upon their neighbours, especially the Sienese, from whom they exacted a cession of territory in 1208. [Illustration: THE BUONDELMONTE TOWER] In 1215 there was enacted a deed in which poets and chroniclers have seen a turning point in the history of Florence. Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, "a right winsome and comely knight," as Villani calls him, had pledged himself for political reasons to marry a maiden of the Amidei family--the kinsmen of the proud Uberti and Fifanti. But, at the instigation of Gualdrada Donati, he deserted his betrothed and married Gualdrada's own daughter, a girl of great beauty. Upon this the nobles of the kindred of the deserted girl held a council together to decide what vengeance to take, in which "Mosca dei Lamberti spoke the evil word: _Cosa fatta, capo ha_; to wit, that he should be slain; and so it was done." On Easter Sunday the Amidei and their associates assembled, after hearing mass in San Stefano, in a palace of the Amidei, which was on the Lungarno at the opening of the present Via Por Santa Maria; and they watched young Buondelmonte coming from Oltrarno, riding over the Ponte Vecchio "dressed nobly in a new robe all white and on a white palfrey," crowned with a garland, making his way towards the palaces of his kindred in Borgo Santissimi Apostoli. As soon as he had reached this side, at the foot of the pillar on which stood the statue of Mars, they rushed out upon him. Schiatta degli Uberti struck him from his horse with a mace, and Mosca dei Lamberti, Lambertuccio degli Amidei, Oderigo Fifanti, and one of the Gangalandi, stabbed him to death with their daggers at the foot of the statue. "Verily is it shown," writes Villani, "that the enemy of human nature by reason of the sins of the Florentines had power in this idol of Mars, which the pagan Florentines adored of old; for at the foot of his figure was this murder committed, whence such great evil followed to the city of Florence." The body was placed upon a bier, and, with the young bride supporting the dead head of her bridegroom, carried through the streets to urge the people to vengeance. Headed by the Uberti, the older and more aristocratic families took up the cause of the Amidei; the burghers and the democratically inclined nobles supported the Buondelmonti, and from this the chronicler dates the beginning of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence. But it was only the names that were then introduced, to intensify a struggle which had in reality commenced a century before this, in 1115, on the death of Matilda. As far as Guelf and Ghibelline meant a struggle of the commune of burghers and traders with a military aristocracy of Teutonic descent and feudal imperial tendencies, the thing is already clearly defined in the old contest between the Uberti and the Consuls. This, however, precipitated matters, and initiated fifty years of perpetual conflict. Dante, through Cacciaguida, touches upon the tragedy in his great way in _Paradiso_ XVI., where he calls it the ruin of old Florence. "La casa di che nacque il vostro fleto, per lo giusto disdegno che v'ha morti e posto fine al vostro viver lieto, era onorata ed essa e suoi consorti. O Buondelmonte, quanto mal fuggisti le nozze sue per gli altrui conforti! Molti sarebbon lieti, che son tristi, se Dio t'avesse conceduto ad Ema la prima volta che a città venisti. Ma conveniasi a quella pietra scema che guarda il ponte, che Fiorenza fesse vittima nella sua pace postrema."[6] [6] "The house from which your wailing sprang, because of the just anger which hath slain you and placed a term upon your joyous life, "was honoured, it and its associates. Oh Buondelmonte, how ill didst thou flee its nuptials at the prompting of another! "Joyous had many been who now are sad, had God committed thee unto the Ema the first time that thou camest to the city. "But to that mutilated stone which guardeth the bridge 'twas meet that Florence should give a victim in her last time of peace." And again, in the Hell of the sowers of discord, where they are horribly mutilated by the devil's sword, he meets the miserable Mosca. "Ed un, ch'avea l'una e l'altra man mozza, levando i moncherin per l'aura fosca, sì che il sangue facea la faccia sozza, gridò: Ricorderaiti anche del Mosca, che dissi, lasso! 'Capo ha cosa fatta,' che fu il mal seme per la gente tosca."[7] [7] "And one who had both hands cut off, raising the stumps through the dim air so that their blood defiled his face, cried: 'Thou wilt recollect the Mosca too, ah me! who said, "A thing done has an end!" which was the seed of evil to the Tuscan people.'" (_Inf._ xxviii.) For a time the Commune remained Guelf and powerful, in spite of dissensions; it adhered to the Pope against Frederick II., and waged successful wars with its Ghibelline rivals, Pisa and Siena. Of the other Tuscan cities Lucca was Guelf, Pistoia Ghibelline. A religious feud mingled with the political dissensions; heretics, the Paterini, Epicureans and other sects, were multiplying in Italy, favoured by Frederick II. and patronised by the Ghibellines. Fra Pietro of Verona, better known as St Peter Martyr, organised a crusade, and, with his white-robed captains of the Faith, hunted them in arms through the streets of Florence; at the Croce al Trebbio, near Santa Maria Novella, and in the Piazza di Santa Felicità over the Arno, columns still mark the place where he fell furiously upon them, _con l'uficio apostolico_. But in 1249, at the instigation of Frederick II., the Uberti and Ghibelline nobles rose in arms; and, after a desperate conflict with the Guelf magnates and the people, gained possession of the city, with the aid of the Emperor's German troops. And, on the night of February 2nd, the Guelf leaders with a great following of people armed and bearing torches buried Rustico Marignolli, who had fallen in defending the banner of the Lily, with military honours in San Lorenzo, and then sternly passed into exile. Their palaces and towers were destroyed, while the Uberti and their allies with the Emperor's German troops held the city. This lasted not two years. In 1250, on the death of Frederick II., the Republic threw off the yoke, and the first democratic constitution of Florence was established, the _Primo Popolo_, in which the People were for the first time regularly organised both for peace and for war under a new officer, the Captain of the People, whose appointment was intended to outweigh the Podestà, the head of the Commune and the leader of the nobles. The Captain was intrusted with the white and red Gonfalon of the People, and associated with the central government of the Ancients of the people, who to some extent corresponded to the Consuls of olden time. This _Primo Popolo_ ran a victorious course of ten years, years of internal prosperity and almost continuous external victory. It was under it that the banner of the Commune was changed from a white lily on a red field to a red lily on a white field--_per division fatto vermiglio_, as Dante puts it--after the Uberti and Lamberti with the turbulent Ghibellines had been expelled. Pisa was humbled; Pistoia and Volterra forced to submit. But it came to a terrible end, illuminated only by the heroism of one of its conquerors. A conspiracy on the part of the Uberti to take the government from the people and subject the city to the great Ghibelline prince, Manfredi, King of Apulia and Sicily, son of Frederick II., was discovered and severely punished. Headed by Farinata degli Uberti and aided by King Manfredi's German mercenaries, the exiles gathered at Siena, against which the Florentine Republic declared war. In 1260 the Florentine army approached Siena. A preliminary skirmish, in which a band of German horsemen was cut to pieces and the royal banner captured, only led a few months later to the disastrous defeat of Montaperti, _che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso_; in which, after enormous slaughter and loss of the Carroccio, or battle car of the Republic, "the ancient people of Florence was broken and annihilated" on September 4th, 1260. Without waiting for the armies of the conqueror, the Guelf nobles with their families and many of the burghers fled the city, mainly to Lucca; and, on the 16th of September, the Germans under Count Giordano, Manfredi's vicar, with Farinata and the exiles, entered Florence as conquerors. All liberty was destroyed, the houses of Guelfs razed to the ground, the Count Guido Novello--the lord of Poppi and a ruthless Ghibelline--made Podestà. The Via Ghibellina is his record. It was finally proposed in a great Ghibelline council at Empoli to raze Florence to the ground; but the fiery eloquence of Farinata degli Uberti, who declared that, even if he stood alone, he would defend her sword in hand as long as life lasted, saved his city. Marked out with all his house for the relentless hate of the Florentine people, Dante has secured to him a lurid crown of glory even in Hell. Out of the burning tombs of the heretics he rises, _come avesse l'inferno in gran dispitto_, still the unvanquished hero who, when all consented to destroy Florence, "alone with open face defended her." For nearly six years the life of the Florentine people was suspended, and lay crushed beneath an oppressive despotism of Ghibelline nobles and German soldiery under Guido Novello, the vicar of King Manfredi. Excluded from all political interests, the people imperceptibly organised their greater and lesser guilds, and waited the event. During this gloom Farinata degli Uberti died in 1264, and in the following year, 1265, Dante Alighieri was born. That same year, 1265, Charles of Anjou, the champion of the Church, invited by Clement IV. to take the crown of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, entered Italy, and in February 1266 annihilated the army of Manfredi at the battle of Benevento. Foremost in the ranks of the crusaders--for as such the French were regarded--fought the Guelf exiles from Florence, under the Papal banner specially granted them by Pope Clement--a red eagle clutching a green dragon on a white field. This, with the addition of a red lily over the eagle's head, became the arms of the society known as the Parte Guelfa; you may see it on the Porta San Niccolò and in other parts of the city between the cross of the People and the red lily of the Commune. Many of the noble Florentines were knighted by the hand of King Charles before the battle, and did great deeds of valour upon the field. "These men cannot lose to-day," exclaimed Manfredi, as he watched their advance; and when the silver eagle of the house of Suabia fell from Manfredi's helmet and he died in the melée crying _Hoc est signum Dei_, the triumph of the Guelfs was complete and German rule at an end in Italy. Of Manfredi's heroic death and the dishonour done by the Pope's legate to his body, Dante has sung in the _Purgatorio_. When the news reached Florence, the Ghibellines trembled for their safety, and the people prepared to win back their own. An attempt at compromise was first made, under the auspices of Pope Clement. Two _Frati Gaudenti_ or "Cavalieri di Maria," members of an order of warrior monks from Bologna, were made Podestàs, one a Guelf and one a Ghibelline, to come to terms with the burghers. You may still trace the place where the Bottega and court of the Calimala stood in Mercato Nuovo (the Calimala being the Guild of dressers of foreign cloth--panni franceschi, as Villani calls it), near where the Via Porta Rossa now enters the present Via Calzaioli. Here the new council of thirty-six of the best citizens, burghers and artizans, with a few trusted members of the nobility, met every day to settle the affairs of the State. Dante has branded these two warrior monks as hypocrites, but, as Capponi says, from this Bottega issued at once and almost spontaneously the Republic of Florence. Their great achievement was the thorough organisation of the seven greater Guilds, of which more presently, to each of which were given consuls and rectors, and a gonfalon or ensign of its own, around which its followers might assemble in arms in defence of People and Commune. To counteract this, Guido Novello brought in more troops from the Ghibelline cities of Tuscany, and increased the taxes to pay his Germans; until he had fifteen hundred horsemen in the city under his command. With their aid the nobles, headed by the Lamberti, rushed to arms. The people rose _en masse_ and, headed by a Ghibelline noble, Gianni dei Soldanieri, who apparently had deserted his party in order to get control of the State (and who is placed by Dante in the Hell of traitors), raised barricades in the Piazza di Santa Trinità and in the Borgo SS. Apostoli, at the foot of the Tower of the Girolami, which still stands. The Ghibellines and Germans gathered in the Piazza di San Giovanni, held all the north-east of the town, and swept down upon the people's barricades under a heavy fire of darts and stones from towers and windows. But the street fighting put the horsemen at a hopeless disadvantage, and, repulsed in the assault, the Count and his followers evacuated the town. This was on St Martin's day, November 11th, 1266. The next day a half-hearted attempt to re-enter the city at the gate near the Ponte alla Carraia was made, but easily driven off; and for two centuries and more no foreigner set foot as conqueror in Florence. Not that Florence either obtained or desired absolute independence. The first step was to choose Charles of Anjou, the new King of Naples and Sicily, for their suzerain for ten years; but, cruel tyrant as he was elsewhere, he showed himself a true friend to the Florentines, and his suzerainty seldom weighed upon them oppressively. The Uberti and others were expelled, and some, who held out among the castles, were put to death at his orders. But the government became truly democratic. There was a central administration of twelve Ancients, elected annually, two for each sesto; with a council of one hundred "good men of the People, without whose deliberation no great thing or expense could be done"; and, nominally at least, a parliament. Next came the Captain of the People (usually an alien noble of democratic sympathies), with a special council or _credenza_, called the Council of the Captain and Capetudini (the Capetudini composed of the consuls of the Guilds), of 80 members; and a general council of 300 (including the 80), all _popolani_ and Guelfs. Next came the Podestà, always an alien noble (appointed at first by King Charles), with the Council of the Podestà of 90 members, and the general Council of the Commune of 300--in both of which nobles could sit as well as popolani. Measures presented by the 12 to the 100 were then submitted successively to the two councils of the Captain, and then, on the next day, to the councils of the Podestà and the Commune. Occasionally measures were concerted between the magistrates and a specially summoned council of _richiesti_, without the formalities and delays of these various councils. Each of the seven greater Arts[8] was further organised with its own officers and councils and banners, like a miniature republic, and its consuls (forming the Capetudini) always sat in the Captain's council and usually in that of the Podestà likewise. [8] The Arte di Calimala, or of the Mercatanti di Calimala, the dressers of foreign cloth; the Arte della Lana, or wool; the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, judges and notaries, also called the Arte del Proconsolo; the Arte del Cambio or dei Cambiatori, money-changers; the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, physicians and apothecaries; the Arte della Seta, or silk, also called the Arte di Por Santa Maria; and the Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, the furriers. The Minor Arts were organised later. [Illustration: THE PALACE OF THE PARTE GUELFA] There was one dark spot. A new organisation was set on foot, under the auspices of Pope Clement and King Charles, known as the Parte Guelfa--another miniature republic within the republic--with six captains (three nobles and three popolani) and two councils, mainly to persecute the Ghibellines, to manage confiscated goods, and uphold Guelf principles in the State. In later days these Captains of the Guelf Party became exceedingly powerful and oppressive, and were the cause of much dissension. They met at first in the Church of S. Maria sopra la Porta (now the Church of S. Biagio), and later had a special palace of their own--which still stands, partly in the Via delle Terme, as you pass up it from the Via Por Santa Maria on the right, and partly in the Piazza di San Biagio. It is an imposing and somewhat threatening mass, partly of the fourteenth and partly of the early fifteenth century. The church, which retains in part its structure of the thirteenth century, had been a place of secret meeting for the Guelfs during Guido Novello's rule; it still stands, but converted into a barracks for the firemen of Florence. Thus was the greatest and most triumphant Republic of the Middle Ages organised--the constitution under which the most glorious culture and art of the modern world was to flourish. The great Guilds were henceforth a power in the State, and the _Secondo Popolo_ had arisen--the democracy that Dante and Boccaccio were to know. [Illustration: ARMS OF PARTE GUELFA] CHAPTER II _The Times of Dante and Boccaccio_ "Godi, Fiorenza, poi che sei sì grande che per mare e per terra batti l'ali, e per l'inferno il tuo nome si spande." --_Dante._ The century that passed from the birth of Dante in 1265 to the deaths of Petrarch and Boccaccio, in 1374 and 1375 respectively, may be styled the _Trecento_, although it includes the last quarter of the thirteenth century and excludes the closing years of the fourteenth. In general Italian history, it runs from the downfall of the German Imperial power at the battle of Benevento, in 1266, to the return of the Popes from Avignon in 1377. In art, it is the epoch of the completion of Italian Gothic in architecture, of the followers and successors of Niccolò and Giovanni Pisano in sculpture, of the school of Giotto in painting. In letters, it is the great period of pure Tuscan prose and verse. Dante and Giovanni Villani, Dino Compagni, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Sacchetti, paint the age for us in all its aspects; and a note of mysticism is heard at the close (though not from a Florentine) in the Epistles of St. Catherine of Siena, of whom a living Italian poet has written--_Nel Giardino del conoscimento di sè ella è come una rosa di fuoco._ But at the same time it is a century full of civil war and sanguinary factions, in which every Italian city was divided against itself; and nowhere were these divisions more notable or more bitterly fought out than in Florence. Yet, in spite of it all, the Republic proceeded majestically on its triumphant course. Machiavelli lays much stress upon this in the Proem to his _Istorie Fiorentine_. "In Florence," he says, "at first the nobles were divided against each other, then the people against the nobles, and lastly the people against the populace; and it ofttimes happened that when one of these parties got the upper hand, it split into two. And from these divisions there resulted so many deaths, so many banishments, so many destructions of families, as never befell in any other city of which we have record. Verily, in my opinion, nothing manifests more clearly the power of our city than the result of these divisions, which would have been able to destroy every great and most potent city. Nevertheless ours seemed thereby to grow ever greater; such was the virtue of those citizens, and the power of their genius and disposition to make themselves and their country great, that those who remained free from these evils could exalt her with their virtue more than the malignity of those accidents, which had diminished them, had been able to cast her down. And without doubt, if only Florence, after her liberation from the Empire, had had the felicity of adopting a form of government which would have kept her united, I know not what republic, whether modern or ancient, would have surpassed her--with such great virtue in war and in peace would she have been filled." [Illustration: FLORENTINE FAMILIES, EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY, WITH A PORTION OF THE SECOND WALLS INDICATED (_Temple Classics: Paradiso_). (The representation is approximate only: the Cerchi Palace near the Corso degli Adimari should be more to the right.)] The first thirty-four years of this epoch are among the brightest in Florentine history, the years that ran from the triumph of the Guelfs to the sequel to the Jubilee of 1300, from the establishment of the _Secondo Popolo_ to its split into Neri and Bianchi, into Black Guelfs and White Guelfs. Externally Florence became the chief power of Tuscany, and all the neighbouring towns gradually, to a greater or less extent, acknowledged her sway; internally, in spite of growing friction between the burghers and the new Guelf nobility, between _popolani_ and _grandi_ or magnates, she was daily advancing in wealth and prosperity, in beauty and artistic power. The exquisite poetry of the _dolce stil novo_ was heard. Guido Cavalcanti, a noble Guelf who had married the daughter of Farinata degli Uberti, and, later, the notary Lapo Gianni and Dante Alighieri, showed the Italians what true lyric song was; philosophers like Brunetto Latini served the state; modern history was born with Giovanni Villani. Great palaces were built for the officers of the Republic; vast Gothic churches arose. Women of rare beauty, eternalised as Beatrice, Giovanna, Lagia and the like, passed through the streets and adorned the social gatherings in the open loggias of the palaces. Splendid pageants and processions hailed the Calends of May and the Nativity of the Baptist, and marked the civil and ecclesiastical festivities and state solemnities. The people advanced more and more in power and patriotism; while the magnates, in their towers and palace-fortresses, were partly forced to enter the life of the guilds, partly held aloof and plotted to recover their lost authority, but were always ready to officer the burgher forces in time of war, or to extend Florentine influence by serving as Podestàs and Captains in other Italian cities. Dante was born in the Sesto di San Piero Maggiore in May 1265, some eighteen months before the liberation of the city. He lost his mother in his infancy, and his father while he was still a boy. This father appears to have been a notary, and came from a noble but decadent family, who were probably connected with the Elisei, an aristocratic house of supposed Roman descent, who had by this time almost entirely disappeared. The Alighieri, who were Guelfs, do not seem to have ranked officially as _grandi_ or magnates; one of Dante's uncles had fought heroically at Montaperti. Almost all the families connected with the story of Dante's life had their houses in the Sesto di San Piero Maggiore, and their sites may in some instances still be traced. Here were the Cerchi, with whom he was to be politically associated in after years; the Donati, from whom sprung one of his dearest friends, Forese, with one of his deadliest foes, Messer Corso, and Dante's own wife, Gemma; and the Portinari, the house according to tradition of Beatrice, the "giver of blessing" of Dante's _Vita Nuova_, the mystical lady of the _Paradiso_. Guido Cavalcanti, the first and best of all his friends, lived a little apart from this Sesto di Scandali--as St Peter's section of the town came to be called--between the Mercato Nuovo and San Michele in Orto. Unlike the Alighieri, though not of such ancient birth as theirs, the Cavalcanti were exceedingly rich and powerful, and ranked officially among the _grandi_, the Guelf magnates. At this epoch, as Signor Carocci observes in his _Firenze scomparsa_, Florence must have presented the aspect of a vast forest of towers. These towers rose over the houses of powerful and wealthy families, to be used for offence or defence, when the faction fights raged, or to be dismantled and cut down when the people gained the upper hand. The best idea of such a mediæval city, on a smaller scale, can still be got at San Gemignano, "the fair town called of the Fair Towers," where dozens of these _torri_ still stand; and also, though to a less extent, at Gubbio. A few have been preserved here in Florence, and there are a number of narrow streets, on both sides of the Arno, which still retain some of their mediæval characteristics. In the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, for instance, and in the Via Lambertesca, there are several striking towers of this kind, with remnants of palaces of the _grandi_; and, on the other side of the river, especially in the Via dei Bardi and the Borgo San Jacopo. When one family, or several associated families, had palaces on either side of a narrow street defended by such towers, and could throw chains and barricades across at a moment's notice, it will readily be understood that in times of popular tumult Florence bristled with fortresses in every direction. In 1282, the year before that in which Dante received the "most sweet salutation," _dolcissimo salutare_, of "the glorious lady of my mind who was called by many Beatrice, that knew not how she was called," and saw the vision of the Lord of terrible aspect in the mist of the colour of fire (the vision which inspired the first of his sonnets which has been preserved to us), the democratic government of the _Secondo Popolo_ was confirmed by being placed entirely in the hands of the _Arti Maggiori_ or Greater Guilds. The Signoria was henceforth to be composed of the Priors of the Arts, chosen from the chief members of the Greater Guilds, who now became the supreme magistrates of the State. They were, at this epoch of Florentine history, six in number, one to represent each Sesto, and held office for two months only; on leaving office, they joined with the Capetudini, and other citizens summoned for the purpose, to elect their successors. At a later period this was done, ostensibly at least, by lot instead of election. The glorious Palazzo Vecchio had not yet been built, and the Priors met at first in a house belonging to the monks of the Badia, defended by the Torre della Castagna; and afterwards in a palace belonging to the Cerchi (both tower and palace are still standing). Of the seven Greater Arts--the _Calimala_, the Money-changers, the Wool-merchants, the Silk-merchants, the Physicians and Apothecaries, the traders in furs and skins, the Judges and Notaries--the latter alone do not seem at first to have been represented in the Priorate; but to a certain extent they exercised control over all the Guilds, sat in all their tribunals, and had a Proconsul, who came next to the Signoria in all state processions, and had a certain jurisdiction over all the Arts. It was thus essentially a government of those who were actually engaged in industry and commerce. "Henceforth," writes Pasquale Villari, "the Republic is properly a republic of merchants, and only he who is ascribed to the Arts can govern it: every grade of nobility, ancient or new, is more a loss than a privilege." The double organisation of the People under the Captain with his two councils, and the Commune under the Podestà with his special council and the general council (in these two latter alone, it will be remembered, could nobles sit and vote) still remained; but the authority of the Podestà was naturally diminished. [Illustration: CORSO DONATI'S TOWER] Florence was now the predominant power in central Italy; the cities of Tuscany looked to her as the head of the Guelfic League, although, says Dino Compagni, "they love her more in discord than in peace, and obey her more for fear than for love." A protracted war against Pisa and Arezzo, carried on from 1287 to 1292, drew even Dante from his poetry and his study; it is believed that he took part in the great battle of Campaldino in 1289, in which the last efforts of the old Tuscan Ghibellinism were shattered by the Florentines and their allies, fighting under the royal banner of the House of Anjou. Amerigo di Narbona, one of the captains of King Charles II. of Naples, was in command of the Guelfic forces. From many points of view, this is one of the more interesting battles of the Middle Ages. It is said to have been almost the last Italian battle in which the burgher forces, and not the mercenary soldiery of the Condottieri, carried the day. Corso Donati and Vieri dei Cerchi, soon to be in deadly feud in the political arena, were among the captains of the Florentine host; and Dante himself is said to have served in the front rank of the cavalry. In a fragment of a letter ascribed to him by one of his earlier biographers, Dante speaks of this battle of Campaldino; "wherein I had much dread, and at the end the greatest gladness, by reason of the varying chances of that battle." One of the Ghibelline leaders, Buonconte da Montefeltro, who was mortally wounded and died in the rout, meets the divine poet on the shores of the Mountain of Purgation, and, in lines of almost ineffable pathos, tells him the whole story of his last moments. Villani, ever mindful of Florence being the daughter of Rome, assures us that the news of the great victory was miraculously brought to the Priors in the Cerchi Palace, in much the same way as the tidings of Lake Regillus to the expectant Fathers at the gate of Rome. Several of the exiled Uberti had fallen in the ranks of the enemy, fighting against their own country. In the cloisters of the Annunziata you will find a contemporary monument of the battle, let into the west wall of the church near the ground; the marble figure of an armed knight on horseback, with the golden lilies of France over his surcoat, charging down upon the foe. It is the tomb of the French cavalier, Guglielmo Berardi, "balius" of Amerigo di Narbona, who fell upon the field. The eleven years that follow Campaldino, culminating in the Jubilee of Pope Boniface VIII. and the opening of the fourteenth century, are the years of Dante's political life. They witnessed the great political reforms which confirmed the democratic character of the government, and the marvellous artistic embellishment of the city under Arnolfo di Cambio and his contemporaries. During these years the Palazzo Vecchio, the Duomo, and the grandest churches of Florence were founded; and the Third Walls, whose gates and some scanty remnants are with us to-day, were begun. Favoured by the Popes and the Angevin sovereigns of Naples, now that the old Ghibelline nobility, save in a few valleys and mountain fortresses, was almost extinct, the new nobles, the _grandi_ or Guelf magnates, proud of their exploits at Campaldino, and chafing against the burgher rule, began to adopt an overbearing line of conduct towards the people, and to be more factious than ever among themselves. Strong measures were adopted against them, such as the complete enfranchisement of the peasants of the contrada in 1289--measures which culminated in the famous Ordinances of Justice, passed in 1293, by which the magnates were completely excluded from the administration, severe laws made to restrain their rough usage of the people, and a special magistrate, the _Gonfaloniere_ or "Standard-bearer of Justice," added to the Priors, to hold office like them for two months in rotation from each sesto of the city, and to rigidly enforce the laws against the magnates. This Gonfaloniere became practically the head of the Signoria, and was destined to become the supreme head of the State in the latter days of the Florentine Republic; to him was publicly assigned the great Gonfalon of the People, with its red cross on a white field; and he had a large force of armed popolani under his command to execute these ordinances, against which there was no appeal allowed.[9] These Ordinances also fixed the number of the Guilds at twenty-one--seven Arti Maggiori, mainly engaged in wholesale commerce, exportation and importation, fourteen Arti Minori, which carried on the retail traffic and internal trade of the city--and renewed their statutes. [9] Some years later a new officer, the Executor of Justice, was instituted to carry out these ordinances instead of leaving them to the Gonfaloniere. This Executor of Justice was associated with the Captain, but was usually a foreign Guelf burgher; later he developed into the Bargello, head of police and governor of the gaol. It will, of course, be seen that while Podestà, Captain, Executore (the _Rettori_), were aliens, the Gonfaloniere and Priors (the _Signori_) were necessarily Florentines and popolani. The hero of this Magna Charta of Florence is a certain Giano della Bella, a noble who had fought at Campaldino and had now joined the people; a man of untractable temper, who knew not how to make concessions; somewhat anti-clerical and obnoxious to the Pope, but consumed by an intense and savage thirst for justice, upon which the craftier politicians of both sides played. "Let the State perish, rather than such things be tolerated," was his constant political formula: _Perisca innanzi la città, che tante opere rie si sostengano._ But the magnates, from whom he was endeavouring to snatch their last political refuge, the Parte Guelfa, muttered, "Let us smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered"; and at length, after an ineffectual conspiracy against his life, Giano was driven out of the city, on March 5th, 1295, by a temporary alliance of the burghers and magnates against him. The _popolo minuto_ and artizans, upon whom he had mainly relied and whose interests he had sustained, deserted him; and the government remained henceforth in the hands of the wealthy burghers, the _popolo grosso_. Already a cleavage was becoming visible between these Arti Maggiori, who ruled the State, and the Arti Minori whose gains lay in local merchandise and traffic, partly dependent upon the magnates. And a butcher, nicknamed Pecora, or, as we may call him, Lambkin, appears prominently as a would-be politician; he cuts a quaintly fierce figure in Dino Compagni's chronicle. In this same year, 1295, Dante Alighieri entered public life, and, on July 6th, he spoke in the General Council of the Commune in support of certain modifications in the Ordinances of Justice, whereby nobles, by leaving their order and matriculating in one or other of the Arts, even without exercising it, could be free from their disabilities, and could share in the government of the State, and hold office in the Signoria. He himself, in this same year, matriculated in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, the great guild which included the painters and the book-sellers. The growing dissensions in the Guelf Republic came to a head in 1300, the famous year of jubilee in which the Pope was said to have declared that the Florentines were the "fifth element." The rival factions of Bianchi and Neri, White Guelfs and Black Guelfs, which were now to divide the whole city, arose partly from the deadly hostility of two families each with a large following, the Cerchi and the Donati, headed respectively by Vieri dei Cerchi and Corso Donati, the two heroes of Campaldino; partly from an analogous feud in Pistoia, which was governed from Florence; partly from the political discord between that party in the State that clung to the (modified) Ordinances of Justice and supported the Signoria, and another party that hated the Ordinances and loved the tyrannical Parte Guelfa. They were further complicated by the intrigues of the "black" magnates with Pope Boniface VIII., who apparently hoped by their means to repress the burgher government and unite the city in obedience to himself. With this end in view, he had been endeavouring to obtain from Albert of Austria the renunciation, in favour of the Holy See, of all rights claimed by the Emperors over Tuscany. Dante himself, Guido Cavalcanti, and most of the best men in Florence either directly adhered to, or at least favoured, the Cerchi and the Whites; the populace, on the other hand, was taken with the dash and display of the more aristocratic Blacks, and would gladly have seen Messer Corso--"il Barone," as they called him--lord of the city. Rioting, in which Guido Cavalcanti played a wild and fantastic part, was of daily occurrence, especially in the Sesto di San Piero. The adherents of the Signoria had their head-quarters in the Cerchi Palace, in the Via della Condotta; the Blacks found their legal fortress in that of the Captains of the Parte Guelfa in the Via delle Terme. At last, on May 1st, the two factions "came to blood" in the Piazza di Santa Trinità on the occasion of a dance of girls to usher in the May. On June 15th Dante was elected one of the six Priors, to hold office till August 15th, and he at once took a strong line in resisting all interference from Rome, and in maintaining order within the city. In consequence of an assault upon the officers of the Guilds on St. John's Eve, the Signoria, probably on Dante's initiative, put under bounds a certain number of factious magnates, chosen impartially from both parties, including Corso Donati and Guido Cavalcanti. From his place of banishment at Sarzana, Guido, sick to death, wrote the most pathetic of all his lyrics:-- "Because I think not ever to return, Ballad, to Tuscany,-- Go therefore thou for me Straight to my lady's face, Who, of her noble grace, Shall show thee courtesy. * * * * * "Surely thou knowest, Ballad, how that Death Assails me, till my life is almost sped: Thou knowest how my heart still travaileth Through the sore pangs which in my soul are bred:-- My body being now so nearly dead, It cannot suffer more. Then, going, I implore That this my soul thou take (Nay, do so for my sake), When my heart sets it free."[10] [10] Rossetti's translation of the _ripresa_ and second stanza of the Ballata _Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai_. And at the end of August, when Dante had left office, Guido returned to Florence with the rest of the Bianchi, only to die. For more than a year the "white" burghers were supreme, not only in Florence, but throughout a greater part of Tuscany; and in the following May they procured the expulsion of the Blacks from Pistoia. But Corso Donati at Rome was biding his time; and, on November 1st, 1301, Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip of France, entered Florence with some 1200 horsemen, partly French and partly Italian,--ostensibly as papal peacemaker, but preparing to "joust with the lance of Judas." In Santa Maria Novella he solemnly swore, as the son of a king, to preserve the peace and well-being of the city; and at once armed his followers. Magnates and burghers alike, seeing themselves betrayed, began to barricade their houses and streets. On the same day (November 5th) Corso Donati, acting in unison with the French, appeared in the suburbs, entered the city by a postern gate in the second walls, near S. Piero Maggiore, and swept through the streets with an armed force, burst open the prisons, and drove the Priors out of their new Palace. For days the French and the Neri sacked the city and the contrada at their will, Charles being only intent upon securing a large share of the spoils for himself. But even he did not dare to alter the popular constitution, and was forced to content himself with substituting "black" for "white" burghers in the Signoria, and establishing a Podestà of his own following, Cante de' Gabbrielli of Gubbio, in the Palace of the Commune. An apparently genuine attempt on the part of the Pope, by a second "peacemaker," to undo the harm that his first had done, came to nothing; and the work of proscription commenced, under the direction of the new Podestà. Dante was one of the first victims. The two sentences against him (in each case with a few other names) are dated January 27th, 1302, and March 10th--and there were to be others later. It is the second decree that contains the famous clause, condemning him to be burned to death, if ever he fall into the power of the Commune. At the beginning of April all the leaders of the "white" faction, who had not already fled or turned "black," with their chief followers, magnates and burghers alike, were hounded into exile; and Charles left Florence to enter upon an almost equally shameful campaign in Sicily. [Illustration: ACROSS THE PONTE VECCHIO] Dante is believed to have been absent from Florence on an embassy to the Pope when Charles of Valois came, and to have heard the news of his ruin at Siena as he hurried homewards--though both embassy and absence have been questioned by Dante scholars of repute. His ancestor, Cacciaguida, tells him in the _Paradiso_:-- "Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta più caramente, e questo è quello strale che l'arco dello esilio pria saetta. Tu proverai sì come sa di sale lo pane altrui, e com'è duro calle lo scendere e il salir per l'altrui scale."[11] [11] "Thou shall abandon everything beloved most dearly; this is the arrow which the bow of exile shall first shoot. "Thou shalt make trial of how salt doth taste another's bread, and how hard the path to descend and mount upon another's stair." Wicksteed's translation. The rest of Dante's life was passed in exile, and only touches the story of Florence indirectly at certain points. "Since it was the pleasure of the citizens of the most beautiful and most famous daughter of Rome, Florence," he tells us in his _Convivio_, "to cast me forth from her most sweet bosom (in which I was born and nourished up to the summit of my life, and in which, with her good will, I desire with all my heart to rest my weary soul and end the time given me), I have gone through almost all the parts to which this language extends, a pilgrim, almost a beggar, showing against my will the wound of fortune, which is wont unjustly to be ofttimes reputed to the wounded." Attempts of the exiles to win their return to Florence by force of arms, with aid from the Ubaldini and the Tuscan Ghibellines, were easily repressed. But the victorious Neri themselves now split into two factions; the one, headed by Corso Donati and composed mainly of magnates, had a kind of doubtful support in the favour of the populace; the other, led by Rosso della Tosa, inclined to the Signoria and the _popolo grosso_. It was something like the old contest between Messer Corso and Vieri dei Cerchi, but with more entirely selfish ends; and there was evidently going to be a hard tussle between Messer Corso and Messer Rosso for the possession of the State. Civil war was renewed in the city, and the confusion was heightened by the restoration of a certain number of Bianchi, who were reconciled to the Government. The new Pope, Benedict XI., was ardently striving to pacify Florence and all Italy; and his legate, the Cardinal Niccolò da Prato, took up the cause of the exiles. Pompous peace-meetings were held in the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, for the friars of St Dominic--to which order the new Pope belonged--had the welfare of the city deeply at heart; and at one of these meetings the exiled lawyer, Ser Petracco dall'Ancisa (in a few days to be the father of Italy's second poet), acted as the representative of his party. Attempts were made to revive the May-day pageants of brighter days--but they only resulted in a horrible disaster on the Ponte alla Carraia, of which more presently. The fiends of faction broke loose again; and in order to annihilate the Cavalcanti, who were still rich and powerful round about the Mercato Nuovo, the leaders of the Neri deliberately burned a large portion of the city. On July 20th, 1304, an attempt by the now allied Bianchi and Ghibellines to surprise the city proved a disastrous failure; and, on that very day (Dante being now far away at Verona, forming a party by himself), Francesco di Petracco--who was to call himself Petrarca and is called by us Petrarch--was born in exile at Arezzo. [Illustration: MERCATO NUOVO, THE FLOWER MARKET] This miserable chapter of Florentine history ended tragically in 1308, with the death of Corso Donati. In his old age he had married a daughter of Florence's deadliest foe, the great Ghibelline champion, Uguccione della Faggiuola; and, in secret understanding with Uguccione and the Cardinal Napoleone degli Orsini (Pope Clement V. had already transferred the papal chair to Avignon and commenced the Babylonian captivity), he was preparing to overthrow the Signoria, abolish the Ordinances, and make himself Lord of Florence. But the people anticipated him. On Sunday morning, October 16th, the Priors ordered their great bell to be sounded; Corso was accused, condemned as a traitor and rebel, and sentence pronounced in less than an hour; and with the great Gonfalon of the People displayed, the forces of the Commune, supported by the swordsmen of the Della Tosa and a band of Catalan mercenaries in the service of the King of Naples, marched upon the Piazza di San Piero Maggiore. Over the Corbizzi tower floated the banner of the Donati, but only a handful of men gathered round the fierce old noble who, himself unable by reason of his gout to bear arms, encouraged them by his fiery words to hold out to the last. But the soldiery of Uguccione never came, and not a single magnate in the city stirred to aid him. Corso, forced at last to abandon his position, broke through his enemies, and, hotly pursued, fled through the Porta alla Croce. He was overtaken, captured, and barbarously slain by the lances of the hireling soldiery, near the Badia di San Salvi, at the instigation, as it was whispered, of Rosso della Tosa and Pazzino dei Pazzi. The monks carried him, as he lay dying, into the Abbey, where they gave him humble sepulchre for fear of the people. With all his crimes, there was nothing small in anything that Messer Corso did; he was a great spirit, one who could have accomplished mighty things in other circumstances, but who could not breathe freely in the atmosphere of a mercantile republic. "His life was perilous," says Dino Compagni sententiously, "and his death was blame-worthy." A brief but glorious chapter follows, though denounced in Dante's bitterest words. Hardly was Corso dead when, after their long silence, the imperial trumpets were again heard in the Garden of the Empire. Henry of Luxemburg, the last hero of the Middle Ages, elected Emperor as Henry VII., crossed the Alps in September 1310, resolved to heal the wounds of Italy, and to revive the fading mediæval dream of the Holy Roman Empire. In three wild and terrible letters, Dante announced to the princes and peoples of Italy the advent of this "peaceful king," this "new Moses"; threatened the Florentines with the vengeance of the Imperial Eagle; urged Cæsar on against the city--"the sick sheep that infecteth all the flock of the Lord with her contagion." But the Florentines rose to the occasion, and with the aid of their ally, the King of Naples, formed what was practically an Italian confederation to oppose the imperial invader. "It was at this moment," writes Professor Villari, "that the small merchant republic initiated a truly national policy, and became a great power in Italy." From the middle of September till the end of October, 1312, the imperial army lay round Florence. The Emperor, sick with fever, had his head-quarters in San Salvi. But he dared not venture upon an attack, although the fortifications were unfinished; and, in the following August, the Signoria of Florence could write exultantly to their allies, and announce "the blessed tidings" that "the most savage tyrant, Henry, late Count of Luxemburg, whom the rebellious persecutors of the Church, and treacherous foes of ourselves and you, called King of the Romans and Emperor of Germany," had died at Buonconvento. But in the Empyrean Heaven of Heavens, in the mystical convent of white stoles, Beatrice shows Dante the throne of glory prepared for the soul of the noble-hearted Cæsar:-- "In quel gran seggio, a che tu gli occhi tieni per la corona che già v'è su posta, prima che tu a queste nozze ceni, sederà l'alma, che fia giù agosta, dell'alto Enrico, ch'a drizzare Italia verrà in prima che ella sia disposta." [12] [12] "On that great seat where thou dost fix thine eyes, for the crown's sake already placed above it, ere at this wedding feast thyself do sup, "Shall sit the soul (on earth 'twill be imperial) of the lofty Henry, who shall come to straighten Italy ere she be ready for it." After this, darker days fell upon Florence. Dante, with a renewed sentence of death upon his head, was finishing his _Divina Commedia_ at Verona and Ravenna,--until, on September 14th, 1321, he passed away in the latter city, with the music of the pine-forest in his ears and the monuments of dead emperors before his dying eyes. Petrarch, after a childhood spent at Carpentras, was studying law at Montpellier and Bologna--until, on that famous April morning in Santa Chiara at Avignon, he saw the golden-haired girl who made him the greatest lyrist of the Middle Ages. It was in the year 1327 that Laura--if such was really her name--thus crossed his path. Boccaccio, born at Certaldo in 1313, the year of the Emperor Henry's death, was growing up in Florence, a sharp and precocious boy. But the city was in a woeful plight; harassed still by factious magnates and burghers, plundered by foreign adventurers, who pretended to serve her, heavily taxed by the Angevin sovereigns--the _Reali_--of Naples. Florence had taken first King Robert, and then his son, Charles of Calabria, as overlord, for defence against external foes (first Henry VII., then Uguccione della Faggiuola, and then Castruccio Interminelli); and the vicars of these Neapolitan princes replaced for a while the Podestàs; their marshals robbed and corrupted; their Catalan soldiers clamoured for pay. The wars with Uguccione and Castruccio were most disastrous to the Republic; and the fortunate coincidence of the deaths of Castruccio and Charles of Calabria, in 1328, gave Florence back her liberty at the very moment when she no longer needed a defender. Although the Florentines professed to regard this suzerainty of the Reali di Napoli as an alliance rather than a subjection,--_compagnia e non servitù_ as Machiavelli puts it--it was an undoubted relief when it ended. The State was reorganised, and a new constitution confirmed in a solemn Parliament held in the Piazza. Henceforth the nomination of the Priors and Gonfaloniere was effected by lot, and controlled by a complicated process of scrutiny; the old councils were all annulled; and in future there were to be only two chief councils--the Council of the People, composed of 300 _popolani_, presided over by the Captain, and the Council of the Commune, of 250, presided over by the Podestà, in which latter (as in former councils of the kind) both _popolani_ and _grandi_ could sit. Measures proposed by the Government were submitted first to the Council of the People, and then, if approved, to that of the Commune. Within the next few years, in spite of famine, disease, and a terrible inundation of the Arno in 1333, the Republic largely extended its sway. Pistoia, Arezzo, and other places of less account owned its signory; but an attempt to get possession of Lucca--with the incongruous aid of the Germans--failed. After the flood, the work of restoration was first directed by Giotto; and to this epoch we owe the most beautiful building in Florence, the Campanile. The discontent, excited by the mismanagement of the war against Lucca, threw the Republic into the arms of a new and peculiarly atrocious tyrant, Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, a French soldier of fortune, connected by blood with the _Reali_ of Naples. Elected first as war captain and chief justice, he acquired credit with the populace and the magnates by his executions of unpopular burghers; and finally, on September 8th, 1342, in the Piazza della Signoria, he was appointed Lord of Florence for life, amidst the acclamations of the lowest sections of the mob and the paid retainers of the treacherous nobles. The Priors were driven from their palace, the books of the Ordinances destroyed, and the Duke's banner erected upon the People's tower, while the church bells rang out the _Te Deum_. Arezzo, Pistoia, Colle di Val d'Elsa, San Gemignano, and Volterra acknowledged his rule; and with a curious mixture of hypocrisy, immorality, and revolting cruelty, he reigned as absolute lord until the following summer, backed by French and Burgundian soldiers who flocked to him from all quarters. By that time he had utterly disgusted all classes in the State, even the magnates by whose favour he had won his throne and the populace who had acclaimed him; and on the Feast of St. Anne, July 26th, 1343, there was a general rising. The instruments of his cruelty were literally torn to pieces by the people, and he was besieged in the Palazzo Vecchio, which he had transformed into a fortress, and at length capitulated on August 3rd. The Sienese and Count Simone de' Conti Guidi, who had come to mediate, took him over the Ponte Rubaconte, through the Porta San Niccolò and thence into the Casentino, where they made him solemnly ratify his abdication. "Note," says Giovanni Villani, who was present at most of these things and has given us a most vivid picture of them, "that even as the Duke with fraud and treason took away the liberty of the Republic of Florence on the day of Our Lady in September,[13] not regarding the reverence due to her, so, as it were in divine vengeance, God permitted that the free citizens with armed hand should win it back on the day of her mother, Madonna Santa Anna, on the 26th day of July 1343; and for this grace it was ordained by the Commune that the Feast of St. Anne should ever be kept like Easter in Florence, and that there should be celebrated a solemn office and great offerings by the Commune and all the Arts of Florence." St. Anne henceforth became the chief patroness and protectoress of the Republic, as Fra Bartolommeo painted her in his great unfinished picture in the Uffizi; and the solemn office and offerings were duly paid and celebrated in Or San Michele. One of Villani's minor grievances against the Duke is that he introduced frivolous French fashions of dress into the city, instead of the stately old Florentine costume, which the republicans considered to be the authentic garb of ancient Rome. That there was some ground for this complaint will readily be seen, by comparing the figure of a French cavalier in the Allegory of the Church in the Spanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella (the figure formerly called Cimabue and now sometimes said to represent Walter de Brienne himself), with the simple grandeur and dignity of the dress worn by the burghers on their tombs in Santa Croce, or by Dante in the Duomo portrait. [13] _i.e._ The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. Only two months after the expulsion of the Duke of Athens, the great quarrel between the magnates and the people was fought to a finish, in September 1343. On the northern side of the Arno, the magnates made head at the houses of the Adimari near San Giovanni, at the opening of the present Via Calzaioli, where one of their towers still stands, at the houses of the Pazzi and Donati in the Piazza di San Pier Maggiore, and round those of the Cavalcanti in Mercato Nuovo. The people under their great gonfalon and the standards of the companies, led by the Medici and Rondinelli, stormed one position after another, forcing the defenders to surrender. On the other side of the Arno, the magnates and their retainers held the bridges and the narrow streets beyond. The Porta San Giorgio was in their hands, and, through it, reinforcements were hurried up from the country. Repulsed at the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Rubaconte, the forces of the people with their victorious standards at last carried the Ponte alla Carraia, which was held by the Nerli; and next, joined by the populace of the Oltrarno, forced the Rossi and Frescobaldi to yield. The Bardi alone remained; and, in that narrow street which still bears their name, and on the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Rubaconte, they withstood single-handed the onslaught of the whole might of the people, until they were assailed in the rear from the direction of the Via Romana. The infuriated populace sacked their houses, destroyed and burned the greater part of their palaces and towers. The long struggle between _grandi_ and _popolani_ was thus ended at last. "This was the cause," says Machiavelli, "that Florence was stripped not only of all martial skill, but also of all generosity." The government was again reformed, and the minor arts admitted to a larger share; between the _popolo grosso_ and them, between burghers and populace, lay the struggle now, which was to end in the Medicean rule. But on all these perpetual changes in the form of the government of Florence the last word had, perhaps, been said in Dante's sarcastic outburst a quarter of a century before:-- "Atene e Lacedemone, che fenno l'antiche leggi, e furon sì civili, fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno verso di te, che fai tanto sottili provvedimenti, che a mezzo novembre non giunge quel che tu d'ottobre fili. Quante volte del tempo che rimembre, legge, moneta, offizio, e costume hai tu mutato, e rinnovato membre? E se ben ti ricordi, e vedi lume, vedrai te simigliante a quella inferma, che non può trovar posa in su le piume, ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma."[14] [14] _Purg. VI._-- "Athens and Lacedæmon, they who made The ancient laws, and were so civilised, Made towards living well a little sign Compared with thee, who makest such fine-spun Provisions, that to middle of November Reaches not what thou in October spinnest. How oft, within the time of thy remembrance, Laws, money, offices and usages Hast thou remodelled, and renewed thy members? And if thou mind thee well, and see the light, Thou shalt behold thyself like a sick woman, Who cannot find repose upon her down, But by her tossing wardeth off her pain." --_Longfellow._ The terrible pestilence, known as the Black Death, swept over Europe in 1348. During the five months in which it devastated Florence three-fifths of the population perished, all civic life was suspended, and the gayest and most beautiful of cities seemed for a while to be transformed into the dim valley of disease and sin that lies outstretched at the bottom of Dante's Malebolge. It has been described, in all its horrors, in one of the most famous passages of modern prose--that appalling introduction to Boccaccio's _Decameron_. From the city in her agony, Boccaccio's three noble youths and seven "honest ladies" fled to the villas of Settignano and Fiesole, where they strove to drown the horror of the time by their music and dancing, their feasting and too often sadly obscene stories. Giovanni Villani was among the victims in Florence, and Petrarch's Laura at Avignon. The first canto of Petrarch's _Triumph of Death_ appears to be, in part, an allegorical representation--written many years later--of this fearful year. During the third quarter of this fourteenth century--the years which still saw the Popes remaining in their Babylonian exile at Avignon--the Florentines gradually regained their lost supremacy over the cities of Tuscany: Colle di Val d'Elsa, San Gemignano, Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, San Miniato dei Tedeschi. They carried on a war with the formidable tyrant of Milan, the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, whose growing power was a perpetual menace to the liberties of the Tuscan communes. They made good use of the descent of the feeble emperor, Charles IV., into Italy; waged a new war with their old rival, Pisa; and readily accommodated themselves to the baser conditions of warfare that prevailed, now that Italy was the prey of the companies of mercenaries, ready to be hired by whatever prince or republic could afford the largest pay, or to fall upon whatever city seemed most likely to yield the heaviest ransom. Within the State itself the _popolo minuto_ and the Minor Guilds were advancing in power; Florence was now divided into four quarters (San Giovanni, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito), instead of the old Sesti; and the Signoria was now composed of the Gonfaloniere and _eight_ Priors, two from each quarter (instead of the former six), of whom two belonged to the Minor Arts. These, of course, still held office for only two months. Next came the twelve Buonuomini, who were the counsellors of the Signoria, and held office for three months; and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the city companies, four from each quarter, holding office for four months. And there were, as before, the two great Councils of the People and the Commune; and still the three great officers who carried out their decrees, the Podestà, the Captain, the Executor of Justice. The feuds of Ricci and Albizzi kept up the inevitable factions, much as the Buondelmonti and Uberti, Cerchi and Donati had done of old; and an iniquitous system of "admonishing" those who were suspected of Ghibelline descent (the _ammoniti_ being excluded from office under heavy penalties) threw much power into the hands of the captains of the Parte Guelfa, whose oppressive conduct earned them deadly hatred. "To such arrogance," says Machiavelli, "did the captains of the Party mount, that they were feared more than the members of the Signoria, and less reverence was paid to the latter than to the former; the palace of the Party was more esteemed than that of the Signoria, so that no ambassador came to Florence without having commissions to the captains." [Illustration: THE CAMPANILE] Pope Gregory XI preceded his return to Rome by an attempted reconquest of the States of the Church, by means of foreign legates and hireling soldiers, of whom the worst were Bretons and English; although St. Catherine of Siena implored him, in the name of Christ, to come with the Cross in hand, like a meek lamb, and not with armed bands. The horrible atrocities committed in Romagna by these mercenaries, especially at Faenza and Cesena, stained what might have been a noble pontificate. Against Pope Gregory and his legates, the Florentines carried on a long and disastrous war; round the Otto della Guerra, the eight magistrates to whom the management of the war was intrusted, rallied those who hated the Parte Guelfa. The return of Gregory to Rome in 1377 opens a new epoch in Italian history. Echoes of this unnatural struggle between Florence and the Pope reach us in the letters of St Catherine and the canzoni of Franco Sacchetti; in the latter is some faint sound of Dante's _saeva indignatio_ against the unworthy pastors of the Church, but in the former we are lifted far above the miserable realities of a conflict carried on by political intrigue and foreign mercenaries, into the mystical realms of pure faith and divine charity. In 1376, the Loggia dei Priori, now less pleasantly known as the Loggia dei Lanzi, was founded; and in 1378 the bulk of the Duomo was practically completed. This may be taken as the close of the first or "heroic" epoch of Florentine Art, which runs simultaneously with the great democratic period of Florentine history, represented in literature by Dante and Boccaccio. The Duomo, the Palace of the Podestà, the Palace of the Priors, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, Or San Michele, the Loggia of the Bigallo, and the Third Walls of the City (of which, on the northern side of the Arno, the gates alone remain), are its supreme monuments in architecture. Its heroes of greatest name are Arnolfo di Cambio, Giotto di Bondone, Andrea Pisano, Andrea di Cione or Orcagna (the "Archangel"), and, lastly and but recently recognised, Francesco Talenti. "No Italian architect," says Addington Symonds, "has enjoyed the proud privilege of stamping his own individuality more strongly on his native city than Arnolfo." At present, the walls of the city (or what remains of them)--_le mura di Fiorenza_ which Lapo Gianni would fain see _inargentate_--and the bulk of the Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Croce, alone represent Arnolfo's work. But the Duomo (mainly, in its present form, due to Francesco Talenti) probably still retains in part his design; and the glorious Church of Or San Michele, of which the actual architect is not certainly known, stands on the site of his Loggia. Giovanni Cimabue, the father of Florentine painting as Arnolfo of Florentine architecture, survives only as a name in Dante's immortal verse. Not a single authentic work remains from his hand in Florence. His supposed portrait in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella is now held to be that of a French knight; the famous picture of the Madonna and Child with her angelic ministers, in the Rucellai Chapel, is shown to be the work of a Sienese master; and the other paintings once ascribed to him have absolutely no claims to bear his name. But the Borgo Allegro still bears its title from the rejoicings that hailed his masterpiece, and perhaps it is best that his achievement should thus live, only as a holy memory:-- "Credette Cimabue nella pittura tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido, sì che la fama di colui è oscura."[15] [15] "In painting Cimabue thought that he Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry, So that the other's fame is growing dim." Of Cimabue's great pupil, Dante's friend and contemporary, Giotto, we know and possess much more. Through him mediæval Italy first spoke out through painting, and with no uncertain sound. He was born some ten years later than Dante. Cimabue--or so the legend runs, which is told by Leonardo da Vinci amongst others--found him among the mountains, guarding his father's flocks and drawing upon the stones the movements of the goats committed to his care. He was a typical Florentine craftsman; favoured by popes, admitted to the familiarity of kings, he remained to the end the same unspoilt shepherd whom Cimabue had found. Many choice and piquant tales are told by the novelists about his ugly presence and rare personality, his perpetual good humour, his sharp and witty answers to king and rustic alike, his hatred of all pretentiousness, carried to such an extent that he conceived a rooted objection to hearing himself called _maestro_. Padua and Assisi possess some of his very best work; but Florence can still show much. Two chapels in Santa Croce are painted by his hand; of the smaller pictures ascribed to him in churches and galleries, there is one authentic--the Madonna in the Accademia; and, perhaps most beautiful of all, the Campanile which he designed and commenced still rises in the midst of the city. Giotto died in 1336; his work was carried on by Andrea Pisano and practically finished by Francesco Talenti. Andrea di Ugolino Pisano (1270-1348), usually simply called Andrea Pisano, is similarly the father of Florentine sculpture. Vasari's curiously inaccurate account of him has somewhat blurred his real figure in the history of art. His great achievements are the casting of the first gate of the Baptistery in bronze, his work--apparently from Giotto's designs--in the lower series of marble reliefs round the Campanile, and his continuation of the Campanile itself after Giotto's death. He is said by Vasari to have built the Porta di San Frediano. There is little individuality in the followers of Giotto, who carried on his tradition and worked in his manner. They are very much below their master, and are often surpassed by the contemporary painters of Siena, such as Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Taddeo Gaddi and his son, Agnolo, Giovanni di Milano, Bernardo Daddi, are their leaders; the chief title to fame of the first-named being the renowned Ponte Vecchio. But their total achievement, in conjunction with the Sienese, was of heroic magnitude. They covered the walls of churches and chapels, especially those connected with the Franciscans and Dominicans, with the scenes of Scripture, with the lives of Madonna and her saints; they set forth in all its fullness the whole Gospel story, for those who could neither read nor write; they conceived vast allegories of human life and human destinies; they filled the palaces of the republics with painted parables of good government. "By the grace of God," says a statute of Sienese painters, "we are the men who make manifest to the ignorant and unlettered the miraculous things achieved by the power and virtue of the Faith." At Siena, at Pisa and at Assisi, are perhaps the greatest works of this school; but here, in Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, there is much, and of a very noble and characteristic kind. Spinello Aretino (1333-1410) may be regarded as the last of the Giotteschi; you may see his best series of frescoes in San Miniato, setting forth with much skill and power the life of the great Italian monk, whose face Dante so earnestly prayed to behold unveiled in Paradise. This heroic age of sculpture and painting culminated in Andrea Orcagna (1308-1368), Andrea Pisano's great pupil. Painter and sculptor, architect and poet, Orcagna is at once the inheritor of Niccolò and Giovanni Pisano, and of Giotto. The famous frescoes in the Pisan Campo Santo are now known to be the work of some other hand; his paintings in Santa Croce, with their priceless portraits, have perished; and, although frequently consulted in the construction of the Duomo, it is tolerably certain that he was not the architect of any of the Florentine buildings once ascribed to him. The Strozzi chapel of St Thomas in Santa Maria Novella, the oratory of the Madonna in San Michele in Orto, contain all his extant works; and they are sufficient to prove him, next to Giotto, the greatest painter of his century, with a feeling for grace and beauty even above Giotto's, and only less excellent in marble. Several of his poems have been preserved, mostly of a slightly satirical character; one, a sonnet on the nature of love, _Molti volendo dir che fosse Amore_, has had the honour of being ascribed to Dante. With the third quarter of the century, the first great epoch of Italian letters closes also. On the overthrow of the House of Suabia at Benevento, the centre of culture had shifted from Sicily to Tuscany, from Palermo to Florence. The prose and poetry of this epoch is almost entirely Tuscan, although the second of its greatest poets, Francesco Petrarca, comparatively seldom set foot within its boundaries. "My old nest is restored to me," he wrote to the Signoria, when they sent Boccaccio to invite his friend to return to Florence, "I can fly back to it, and I can fold there my wandering wings." But, save for a few flying visits, Petrarch had little inclination to attach himself to one city, when he felt that all Italy was his country. Dante had set forth all that was noblest in mediæval thought in imperishable form, supremely in his _Divina Commedia_, but appreciably and nobly in his various minor works as well, both verse and prose. Villani had started historical Italian prose on its triumphant course. Petrarch and Boccaccio, besides their great gifts to Italian literature, in the ethereal poetry of the one, painting every varying mood of the human soul, and the licentious prose of the other, hymning the triumph of the flesh, stand on the threshold of the Renaissance. Other names crowd in upon us at each stage of this epoch. Apart from his rare personality, Guido Cavalcanti's _ballate_ are his chief title to poetic fame, but, even so, less than the monument of glory that Dante has reared to him in the _Vita Nuova_, in the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, in the _Divina Commedia_. Dino Compagni, the chronicler of the Whites and Blacks, was only less admirable as a patriot than as a historian. Matteo Villani, the brother of Giovanni, and Matteo's son, Filippo, carried on the great chronicler's work. Fra Jacopo Passavanti, the Dominican prior of Santa Maria Novella, in the middle of the century, showed how the purest Florentine vernacular could be used for the purpose of simple religious edification. Franco Sacchetti, politician, novelist and poet, may be taken as the last Florentine writer of this period; he anticipates the popular lyrism of the Quattrocento, rather in the same way as a group of scholars who at the same time gathered round the Augustinian, Luigi Marsili, in his cell at Santo Spirito heralds the coming of the humanists. It fell to Franco Sacchetti to sing the dirge of this heroic period of art and letters, in his elegiac canzoni on the deaths of Petrarch and Boccaccio:-- "Sonati sono i corni d'ogni parte a ricolta; la stagione è rivolta: se tornerà non so, ma credo tardi." [Illustration: CROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLE (FROM OLD HOUSE ON NORTH SIDE OF DUOMO)] CHAPTER III _The Medici and the Quattrocento_ "Tiranno è nome di uomo di mala vita, e pessimo fra tutti gli altri uomini, che per forza sopra tutti vuol regnare, massime quello che di cittadino è fatto tiranno."--_Savonarola._ "The Renaissance of the fifteenth century was in many things great, rather by what it designed or aspired to do, than by what it actually achieved."--_Walter Pater._ _Non già Salvestro ma Salvator mundi_, "thou that with noble wisdom hast saved thy country." Thus in a sonnet does Franco Sacchetti hail Salvestro dei Medici, the originator of the greatness of his house. In 1378, while the hatred between the Parte Guelfa and the adherents of the Otto della Guerra--the rivalry between the Palace of the Party and the Palace of the Signory--was at its height, the Captains of the Party conspired to seize upon the Palace of the Priors and take possession of the State. Their plans were frustrated by Salvestro dei Medici, a rich merchant and head of his ambitious and rising family, who was then Gonfaloniere of Justice. He proposed to restore the Ordinances against the magnates, and, when this petition was rejected by the Signoria and the Colleges,[16] he appealed to the Council of the People. The result was a riot, followed by a long series of tumults throughout the city; the _Arti Minori_ came to the front in arms; and, finally, the bloody revolution known as the Tumult of the Ciompi burst over Florence. These Ciompi, the lowest class of artizans and all those who were not represented in the Arts, headed by those who were subject to the great Arte della Lana, had been much favoured by the Duke of Athens, and had been given consuls and a standard with an angel painted upon it. On the fall of the Duke, these Ciompi, or _popolo minuto_, had lost these privileges, and were probably much oppressed by the consuls of the Arte della Lana. Secretly instigated by Salvestro--who thus initiated the Medicean policy of undermining the Republic by means of the populace--they rose _en masse_ on July 20th, captured the Palace of the Podestà, burnt the houses of their enemies and the Bottega of the Arte della Lana, seized the standard of the people, and, with it and the banners of the Guilds displayed, came into the Piazza to demand a share in the government. On July 22nd they burst into the Palace of the Priors, headed by a wool-comber, Michele di Lando, carrying in his hands the great Gonfalon; him they acclaimed Gonfaloniere and lord of the city. [16] The "Colleges" were the twelve Buonuomini and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies. Measures proposed by the Signoria had to be carried in the Colleges before being submitted to the Council of the People, and afterwards to the Council of the Commune. This rough and half-naked wool-comber, whose mother made pots and pans and whose wife sold greens, is one of the heroes of Florentine history; and his noble simplicity throughout the whole affair is in striking contrast with the self-seeking and intrigues of the rich aristocratic merchants whose tool, to some extent, he appears to have been. The pious historian, Jacopo Nardi, likens him to the heroes of ancient Rome, Curius and Fabricius, and ranks him as a patriot and deliverer of the city, far above even Farinata degli Uberti. The next day the Parliament was duly summoned in the Piazza, Michele confirmed in his office, and a Balìa (or commission) given to him, together with the Eight and the Syndics of the Arts, to reform the State and elect the new Signoria--in which the newly constituted Guilds of the populace were to have a third with those of the greater and minor Arts. But, before Michele's term of office was over, the Ciompi were in arms again, fiercer than ever and with more outrageous demands, following the standards of the Angel and some of the minor Arts (who appear to have in part joined them). From Santa Maria Novella, their chosen head-quarters, on the last day of August they sent two representatives to overawe the Signoria. But Michele di Lando, answering their insolence with violence, rode through the city with the standard of Justice floating before him, while the great bell of the Priors' tower called the Guilds to arms; and by evening the populace had melted away, and the government of the people was re-established. The new Signoria was greeted in a canzone by Sacchetti, in which he declares that Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance are once more reinstated in the city. For the next few years the Minor Arts predominated in the government. Salvestro dei Medici kept in the background, but was presently banished. Michele di Lando seemed contented to have saved the State, and took little further share in the politics of the city. He appears later on to have been put under bounds at Chioggia; but to have returned to Florence before his death in 1401, when he was buried in Santa Croce. There were still tumults and conspiracies, resulting in frequent executions and banishments; while, without, inglorious wars were carried on by the companies of mercenary soldiers. This is the epoch in which the great English captain, Hawkwood, entered the service of the Florentine State. In 1382, after the execution of Giorgio Scali and the banishment of Tommaso Strozzi (noble burghers who headed the populace), the newly constituted Guilds were abolished, and the government returned to the greater Arts, who now held two-thirds of the offices--a proportion which was later increased to three-quarters. The period which follows, from 1382 to 1434, sees the close of the democratic government of Florence. The Republic, nominally still ruled by the greater Guilds, is in reality sustained and swayed by the _nobili popolani_ or _Ottimati_, members of wealthy families risen by riches or talent out of these greater Guilds into a new kind of burgher aristocracy. The struggle is now no longer between the Palace of the Signory and the Palace of the Party--for the days of the power of the Parte Guelfa are at an end--but between the Palace and the Piazza. The party of the Minor Arts and the Populace is repressed and ground down with war taxes; but behind them the Medici lurk and wait--first Vieri, then Giovanni di Averardo, then Cosimo di Giovanni--ever on the watch to put themselves at their head, and through them overturn the State. The party of the Ottimati is first led by Maso degli Albizzi, then by Niccolò da Uzzano, and lastly by Rinaldo degli Albizzi and his adherents--illustrious citizens not altogether unworthy of the great Republic that they swayed--the sort of dignified civic patricians whose figures, a little later, were to throng the frescoes of Masaccio and Ghirlandaio. But they were divided among themselves, persecuted their adversaries with proscription and banishment, thus making the exiles a perpetual source of danger to the State, and they were hated by the populace because of the war taxes. These wars were mainly carried on by mercenaries--who were now more usually Italians than foreigners--and, in spite of frequent defeats, generally ended well for Florence. Arezzo was purchased in 1384. A fierce struggle was carried on a few years later (1390-1402) with the "great serpent," Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, who hoped to make himself King of Italy by violence as he had made himself Duke of Milan by treachery, and intended to be crowned in Florence. Pisa was finally and cruelly conquered in 1406; Cortona was obtained as the result of a prolonged war with King Ladislaus of Naples in 1414, in which the Republic had seemed once more in danger of falling into the hands of a foreign tyrant; and in 1421 Leghorn was sold to the Florentines by the Genoese, thus opening the sea to their merchandise. The deaths of Giovanni Galeazzo and Ladislaus freed the city from her most formidable external foes; and for a while she became the seat of the Papacy, the centre of Christendom. In 1419, after the schism, Pope Martin V. took up his abode in Florence; the great condottiere, Braccio, came with his victorious troops to do him honour; and the deposed John XXIII. humbled himself before the new Pontiff, and was at last laid to rest among the shadows of the Baptistery. In his _Storia Florentina_ Guicciardini declares that the government at this epoch was the wisest, the most glorious and the happiest that the city had ever had. It was the dawn of the Renaissance, and Florence was already full of artists and scholars, to whom these _nobili popolani_ were as generous and as enlightened patrons as their successors, the Medici, were to be. Even Cosimo's fervent admirer, the librarian Vespasiano Bisticci, endorses Guicciardini's verdict: "In that time," he says, "from 1422 to 1433, the city of Florence was in a most blissful state, abounding with excellent men in every faculty, and it was full of admirable citizens." Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417; and his successors in the oligarchy--the aged Niccolò da Uzzano, who stood throughout for moderation, and the fiery but less competent Rinaldo degli Albizzi--were no match for the rising and unscrupulous Medici. With the Albizzi was associated the noblest and most generous Florentine of the century, Palla Strozzi. The war with Filippo Visconti, resulting in the disastrous rout of Zagonara, and an unjust campaign against Lucca, in which horrible atrocities were committed by the Florentine commissioner, Astorre Gianni, shook their government. Giovanni dei Medici, the richest banker in Italy, was now the acknowledged head of the opposition; he had been Gonfaloniere in 1421, but would not put himself actively forward, although urged on by his sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo. He died in 1429; Niccolò da Uzzano followed him to the grave in 1432; and the final struggle between the fiercer spirits, Rinaldo and Cosimo, was at hand. "All these citizens," said Niccolò, shortly before his death, "some through ignorance, some through malice, are ready to sell this republic; and, thanks to their good fortune, they have found the purchaser." Shortly before this date, Masaccio painted all the leading spirits of the time in a fresco in the cloisters of the Carmine. This has been destroyed, but you may see a fine contemporary portrait of Giovanni in the Uffizi. The much admired and famous coloured bust in the Bargello, called the portrait of Niccolò da Uzzano by Donatello, has probably nothing to do either with Niccolò or with Donatello. Giovanni has the air of a prosperous and unpretending Florentine tradesman, but with a certain obvious parade of his lack of pushfulness. In 1433 the storm broke. A Signory hostile to Cosimo being elected, he was summoned to the Palace and imprisoned in an apartment high up in the Tower, a place known as the Alberghettino. Rinaldo degli Albizzi held the Piazza with his soldiery, and Cosimo heard the great bell ringing to call the people to Parliament, to grant a Balìa to reform the government and decide upon his fate. But he was too powerful at home and abroad; his popularity with those whom he had raised from low estate, and those whom he had relieved by his wealth, his influence with the foreign powers, such as Venice and Ferrara, were so great that his foes dared not take his life; and, indeed, they were hardly the men to have attempted such a crime. Banished to Padua (his brother Lorenzo and other members of his family being put under bounds at different cities), he was received everywhere, not as a fugitive, but as a prince; and the library of the Benedictines, built by Michelozzo at his expense, once bore witness to his stay in Venice. Hardly a year had passed when a new Signory was chosen, favourable to the Medici; Rinaldo degli Albizzi, after a vain show of resistance, laid down his arms on the intervention of Pope Eugenius, who was then at Santa Maria Novella, and was banished for ever from the city with his principal adherents. And finally, in a triumphant progress from Venice, "carried back to his country upon the shoulders of all Italy," as he said, Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo entered Florence on October 6th, 1434, rode past the deserted palaces of the Albizzi to the Palace of the Priors, and next day returned in triumph to their own house in the Via Larga. The Republic had practically fallen; the head of the Medici was virtually prince of the city and of her fair dominion. But Florence was not Milan or Naples, and Cosimo's part as tyrant was a peculiar one. The forms of the government were, with modifications, preserved; but by means of a Balìa empowered to elect the chief magistrates for a period of five years, and then renewed every five years, he secured that the Signoria should always be in his hands, or in those of his adherents. The grand Palace of the Priors was still ostensibly the seat of government; but, in reality, the State was in the firm grasp of the thin, dark-faced merchant in the Palace in the Via Larga, which we now know as the Palazzo Riccardi. Although in the earlier part of his reign he was occasionally elected Gonfaloniere, he otherwise held no office ostensibly, and affected the republican manner of a mere wealthy citizen. His personality, combined with the widely ramifying banking relations of the Medici, gave him an almost European influence. His popularity among the mountaineers and in the country districts, from which armed soldiery were ever ready to pour down into the city in his defence, made him the fitting man for the ever increasing external sway of Florence. The forms of the Republic were preserved, but he consolidated his power by a general levelling and disintegration, by severing the nerves of the State and breaking the power of the Guilds. He had certain hard and cynical maxims for guidance: "Better a city ruined than a city lost," "States are not ruled by Pater-Nosters," "New and worthy citizens can be made by a few ells of crimson cloth." So he elevated to wealth and power men of low kind, devoted to and dependent on himself; crushed the families opposed to him, or citizens who seemed too powerful, by wholesale banishments, or by ruining them with fines and taxation, although there was comparatively little blood shed. He was utterly ruthless in all this, and many of the noblest Florentine citizens fell victims. One murder must be laid to his charge, and it is one of peculiar, for him, unusual atrocity. Baldaccio d'Anghiari, a young captain of infantry, who promised fair to take a high place among the condottieri of the day, was treacherously invited to speak with the Gonfaloniere in the Palace of the Priors, and there stabbed to death by hireling assassins from the hills, and his body flung ignominiously into the Piazza. Cosimo's motive is said to have been partly jealousy of a possible rival, Neri Capponi, who had won popularity by his conquest of the Casentino for Florence in 1440, and who was intimate with Baldaccio; and partly desire to gratify Francesco Sforza, whose treacherous designs upon Milan he was furthering by the gold wrung from his over-taxed Florentines, and to whose plans Baldaccio was prepared to offer an obstacle. Florence was still for a time the seat of the Papacy. In January 1439, the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, and the Emperor of the East, John Paleologus, came to meet Pope Eugenius for the Council of Florence, which was intended to unite the Churches of Christendom. The Patriarch died here, and is buried in Santa Maria Novella. In the Riccardi Palace you may see him and the Emperor, forced, as it were, to take part in the triumph of the Medici in Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco--riding with them in the gorgeous train, that sets out ostensibly to seek the Babe of Bethlehem, and evidently has no intention of finding Him. Pope Eugenius returned to Rome in 1444; and in 1453 Mahomet II. stormed Constantinople, and Greek exiles thronged to Rome and Florence. In 1459, marvellous pageants greeted Pius II. in the city, on his way to stir up the Crusade that never went. In his foreign policy Cosimo inaugurated a totally new departure for Florence; he commenced a line of action which was of the utmost importance in Italian politics, and which his son and grandson carried still further. The long wars with which the last of the Visconti, Filippo Maria, harassed Italy and pressed Florence hard (in the last of these Rinaldo degli Albizzi and the exiles approached near enough to catch a distant glimpse of the city from which they were relentlessly shut out), ended with his death in 1447. Cosimo dei Medici now allied himself with the great condottiere, Francesco Sforza, and aided him with money to make good his claims upon the Duchy of Milan. Henceforth this new alliance between Florence and Milan, between the Medici and the Sforza, although most odious in the eyes of the Florentine people, became one of the chief factors in the balance of power in Italy. Soon afterwards Alfonso, the Aragonese ruler of Naples, entered into this triple alliance; Venice and Rome to some extent being regarded as a double alliance to counterbalance this. To these foreign princes Cosimo was almost as much prince of Florence as they of their dominions; and by what was practically a _coup d'état_ in 1459, Cosimo and his son Piero forcibly overthrew the last attempt of their opponents to get the Signoria out of their hands, and, by means of the creation of a new and permanent Council of a hundred of their chief adherents, more firmly than ever secured their hold upon the State. [Illustration: FLORENCE IN THE DAYS OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT (_From an engraving, of about 1490, in the Berlin Museum_)] In his private life Cosimo was the simplest and most unpretentious of tyrants, and lived the life of a wealthy merchant-burgher of the day in its nobler aspects. He was an ideal father, a perfect man of business, an apparently kindly fellow-citizen to all. Above all things he loved the society of artists and men of letters; Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, Donatello and Fra Lippo Lippi--to name only a few more intimately connected with him--found in him the most generous and discerning of patrons; many of the noblest Early Renaissance churches and convents in Florence and its neighbourhood are due to his munificence--San Lorenzo and San Marco and the Badia of Fiesole are the most typical--and he even founded a hospital in Jerusalem. To a certain extent this was what we should now call "conscience money." His friend and biographer, Vespasiano Bisticci, writes: "He did these things because it appeared to him that he held money, not over well acquired; and he was wont to say that to God he had never given so much as to find Him on his books a debtor. And likewise he said: I know the humours of this city; fifty years will not pass before we are driven out; but the buildings will remain." The Greeks, who came to the Council of Florence or fled from the in-coming Turk, stimulated the study of their language and philosophy--though this had really commenced in the days of the Republic, before the deaths of Petrarch and Boccaccio--and found in Cosimo an ardent supporter. He founded great libraries in San Marco and in the Badia of Fiesole, the former with part of the codices collected by the scholar Niccolò Niccoli; although he had banished the old Palla Strozzi, the true renovator of the Florentine University, into hopeless exile. Into the Neo-Platonism of the Renaissance Cosimo threw himself heart and soul. "To Cosimo," writes Burckhardt, "belongs the special glory of recognising in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, of inspiring his friends with the same belief, and thus of fostering within humanistic circles themselves another and a higher resuscitation of antiquity." In a youth of Figline, Marsilio Ficino, the son of a doctor, Cosimo found a future high priest of this new religion of love and beauty; and bidding him minister to the minds of men rather than to their bodies, brought him into his palace, and gave him a house in the city and a beautiful farm near Careggi. Thus was founded the famous Platonic Academy, the centre of the richest Italian thought of the century. As his end drew near, Cosimo turned to the consolations of religion, and would pass long hours in his chosen cell in San Marco, communing with the Dominican Archbishop, Antonino, and Fra Angelico, the painter of mediæval Paradise. And with these thoughts, mingled with the readings of Marsilio's growing translation of Plato, he passed away at his villa at Careggi in 1464, on the first of August. Shortly before his death he had lost his favourite son, Giovanni; and had been carried through his palace, in the Via Larga, sighing that it was now too large a house for so small a family. Entitled by public decree _Pater Patriae_, he was buried at his own request without any pompous funeral, beneath a simple marble in front of the high altar of San Lorenzo. [Illustration: THE BADIA OF FIESOLE] Cosimo was succeeded, not without some opposition from rivals to the Medici within their own party, by his son Piero. Piero's health was in a shattered condition--il Gottoso, he was called--and for the most part he lived in retirement at Careggi, occasionally carried into Florence in his litter, leaving his brilliant young son Lorenzo to act as a more ornamental figure-head for the State. The personal appearance of Piero is very different to that of his father or son; in his portrait bust by Mino da Fiesole in the Bargello, and in the picture by Bronzino in the National Gallery, there is less craft and a certain air of frank and manly resolution. In his daring move in support of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, when, on the death of Francesco, it seemed for a moment that the Milanese dynasty was tottering, and his promptness in crushing the formidable conspiracy of the "mountain" against himself, Piero showed that sickness had not destroyed his faculty of energetic action at the critical moment. He completely followed out his father's policy, drawing still tighter the bonds which united Florence with Milan and Naples, lavishing money on the decoration of the city and the corruption of the people. The opposition was headed by Luca Pitti, Agnolo Acciaiuoli, Dietisalvi Neroni and others, who had been reckoned as Cosimo's friends, but who were now intriguing with Venice and Ferrara to overthrow his son. Hoping to eclipse the Medici in their own special field of artistic display and wholesale corruption, Luca Pitti commenced that enormous palace which still bears the name of his family, filled it with bravos and refugees, resorted to all means fair or foul to get money to build and corrupt. It seemed for a moment that the adherents of the Mountain (as the opponents of the Medici were called, from this highly situated Pitti Palace) and the adherents of the Plain (where the comparatively modest Medicean palace--now the Palazzo Riccardi--stood in the Via Larga) might renew the old factions of Blacks and Whites. But in the late summer of 1466 the party of the Mountain was finally crushed; they were punished with more mercy than the Medici generally showed, and Luca Pitti was practically pardoned and left to a dishonourable old age in the unfinished palace, which was in after years to become the residence of the successors of his foes. About the same time Filippo Strozzi and other exiles were allowed to return, and another great palace began to rear its walls in the Via Tornabuoni, in after years to be a centre of anti-Medicean intrigue. The brilliancy and splendour of Lorenzo's youth--he who was hereafter to be known in history as the Magnificent--sheds a rich glow of colour round the closing months of Piero's pain-haunted life. Piero himself had been content with a Florentine wife, Lucrezia dei Tornabuoni, and he had married his daughters to Florentine citizens, Guglielmo Pazzi and Bernardo Rucellai; but Lorenzo must make a great foreign match, and was therefore given Clarice Orsini, the daughter of a great Roman noble. The splendid pageant in the Piazza Santa Croce, and the even more gorgeous marriage festivities in the palace in the Via Larga, were followed by a triumphal progress of the young bridegroom through Tuscany and the Riviera to Milan, to the court of that faithful ally of his house, but most abominable monster, Giovanni Maria Sforza. Piero died on December 3rd, 1469, and, like Cosimo, desired the simple burial which his sons piously gave him. His plain but beautiful monument designed by Verrocchio is in the older sacristy of San Lorenzo, where he lies with his brother Giovanni. "The second day after his death," writes Lorenzo in his diary, "although I, Lorenzo, was very young, in fact only in my twenty-first year, the leading men of the city and of the ruling party came to our house to express their sorrow for our misfortune, and to persuade me to take upon myself the charge of the government of the city, as my grandfather and father had already done. This proposal being contrary to the instincts of my age, and entailing great labour and danger, I accepted against my will, and only for the sake of protecting my friends, and our own fortunes, for in Florence one can ill live in the possession of wealth without control of the government."[17] [17] From Mr Armstrong's _Lorenzo de' Medici_. These two youths, Lorenzo and Giuliano, were now, to all intents and purposes, lords and masters of Florence. Lorenzo was the ruling spirit; outwardly, in spite of his singularly harsh and unprepossessing appearance, devoted to the cult of love and beauty, delighting in sport and every kind of luxury, he was inwardly as hard and cruel as tempered steel, and firmly fixed from the outset upon developing the hardly defined prepotency of his house into a complete personal despotism. You may see him as a gallant boy in Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco in the palace of his father and grandfather, riding under a bay tree, and crowned with roses; and then, in early manhood, in Botticelli's famous Adoration of the Magi; and lastly, as a fully developed, omniscient and all-embracing tyrant, in that truly terrible picture by Vasari in the Uffizi, constructed out of contemporary materials--surely as eloquent a sermon against the iniquity of tyranny as the pages of Savonarola's _Reggimento di Firenze_. Giuliano was a kindlier and gentler soul, completely given up to pleasure and athletics; he lives for us still in many a picture from the hand of Sandro Botticelli, sometimes directly portrayed, as in the painting which Morelli bequeathed to Bergamo, more often idealised as Mars or as Hermes; his love for the fair Simonetta inspired Botticellian allegories and the most finished and courtly stanzas of Poliziano. The sons of both these brothers were destined to sit upon the throne of the Fisherman. A long step in despotism was gained in 1470, when the two great Councils of the People and the Commune were deprived of all their functions, which were now invested in the thoroughly Medicean Council of the Hundred. The next year Lorenzo's friend and ally, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, with his Duchess and courtiers, came to Florence. They were sumptuously received in the Medicean palace. The licence and wantonness of these Milanese scandalised even the lax Florentines, and largely added to the growing corruption of the city. The accidental burning of Santo Spirito during the performance of a miracle play was regarded as a certain sign of divine wrath. During his stay in Florence the Duke, in contrast with whom the worst of the Medici seems almost a saint, sat to one of the Pollaiuoli for the portrait still seen in the Uffizi; by comparison with him even Lorenzo looks charming; at the back of the picture there is a figure of Charity--but the Duke has very appropriately driven it to the wall. Unpopular though this Medicean-Sforza alliance was in Florence, it was undoubtedly one of the safe-guards of the harmony which, superficially, still existed between the five great powers of Italy. When Galeazzo Maria met the fate he so richly deserved, and was stabbed to death in the Church of San Stefano at Milan on December 20th, 1476, Pope Sixtus gave solemn utterance to the general dismay: _Oggi è morta la pace d'Italia._ But Sixtus and his nephews did not in their hearts desire peace in Italy, and were plotting against Lorenzo with the Pazzi, who, although united to the Medici by marriage, had secret and growing grievances against them. On the morning of Sunday April 26th, 1478, the conspirators set upon the two brothers at Mass in the Duomo; Giuliano perished beneath nineteen dagger-stabs; Lorenzo escaped with a slight wound in the neck. The Archbishop Salviati of Pisa in the meantime attempted to seize the Palace of the Priors, but was arrested by the Gonfaloniere, and promptly hung out of the window for his trouble. Jacopo Pazzi rode madly through the streets with an armed force, calling the people to arms, with the old shout of _Popolo e Libertà_, but was only answered by the ringing cries of _Palle, Palle_.[18] The vengeance taken by the people upon the conspirators was so prompt and terrible that Lorenzo had little left him to do (though that little he did to excess, punishing the innocent with the guilty); and the result of the plot simply was to leave him alone in the government, securely enthroned above the splash of blood. The Pope appears not to have been actually privy to the murder, but he promptly took up the cause of the murderers. It was followed by a general break-up of the Italian peace and a disastrous war, carried on mainly by mercenary soldiers, in which all the powers of Italy were more or less engaged; and Florence was terribly hard pressed by the allied forces of Naples and Rome. The plague broke out in the city; Lorenzo was practically deserted by his allies, and on the brink of financial ruin. Then was it that he did one of the most noteworthy, perhaps the noblest, of the actions of his life, and saved himself and the State by voluntarily going to Naples and putting himself in the power of King Ferrante, an infamous tyrant, who would readily have murdered his guest, if it had seemed to his advantage to do so. But, like all the Italians of the Renaissance, Ferrante was open to reason, and the eloquence of the Magnifico won him over to grant an honourable peace, with which Lorenzo returned to Florence in March 1480. "If Lorenzo was great when he left Florence," writes Machiavelli, "he returned much greater than ever; and he was received with such joy by the city as his great qualities and his fresh merits deserved, seeing that he had exposed his own life to restore peace to his country." Botticelli's noble allegory of the olive-decked Medicean Pallas, taming the Centaur of war and disorder, appears to have been painted in commemoration of this event. In the following August the Turks landed in Italy and stormed Otranto, and the need of union, in the face of "the common enemy Ottoman," reconciled the Pope to Florence, and secured for the time an uneasy peace among the powers of Italy. [18] The _Palle_, it will be remembered, were the golden balls on the Medicean arms, and hence the rallying cry of their adherents. Lorenzo's power in Florence and influence throughout Italy was now secure. By the institution in 1480 of a Council of Seventy, a permanent council to manage and control the election of the Signoria (with two special committees drawn from the Seventy every six months, the _Otto di pratica_ for foreign affairs and the _Dodici Procuratori_ for internal), the State was firmly established in his hands--the older councils still remaining, as was usual in every Florentine reformation of government. Ten years later, in 1490, this council showed signs of independence; and Lorenzo therefore reduced the authority of electing the Signoria to a small committee with a reforming Balìa of seventeen, of which he was one. Had he lived longer, he would undoubtedly have crowned his policy either by being made Gonfaloniere for life, or by obtaining some similar constitutional confirmation of his position as head of the State. Externally his influence was thrown into the scale for peace, and, on the death of Sixtus IV. in 1484, he established friendly relations and a family alliance with the new Pontiff, Innocent VIII. Sarzana with Pietrasanta were won back for Florence, and portions of the Sienese territory which had been lost during the war with Naples and the Church; a virtual protectorate was established over portions of Umbria and Romagna, where the daggers of assassins daily emptied the thrones of minor tyrants. Two attempts on his life failed. In the last years of his foreign policy and diplomacy he showed himself truly the magnificent. East and West united to do him honour; the Sultan of the Turks and the Soldan of Egypt sent ambassadors and presents; the rulers of France and Germany treated him as an equal. Soon the torrent of foreign invasion was to sweep over the Alps and inundate all the "Ausonian" land; Milan and Naples were ready to rend each other; Ludovico Sforza was plotting his own rise upon the ruin of Italy, and already intriguing with France; but, for the present, Lorenzo succeeded in maintaining the balance of power between the five great Italian states, which seemed as though they might present a united front for mutual defence against the coming of the barbarians. _Sarebbe impossibile avesse avuto un tiranno migliore e più piacevole_, writes Guicciardini: "Florence could not have had a better or more delightful tyrant." The externals of life were splendid and gorgeous indeed in the city where Lorenzo ruled, but everything was in his hands and had virtually to proceed from him. His spies were everywhere; marriages might only be arranged and celebrated according to his good pleasure; the least sign of independence was promptly and severely repressed. By perpetual festivities and splendid shows, he strove to keep the minds of the citizens contented and occupied; tournaments, pageants, masques and triumphs filled the streets; and the strains of licentious songs, of which many were Lorenzo's own composition, helped to sap the morality of that people which Dante had once dreamed of as _sobria e pudica_. But around the Magnifico were grouped the greatest artists and scholars of the age, who found in him an enlightened Maecenas and most charming companion. _Amava maravigliosamente qualunque era in una arte eccellente_, writes Machiavelli of him; and that word--_maravigliosamente_--so entirely characteristic of Lorenzo and his ways, occurs again and again, repeated with studied persistence, in the chapter which closes Machiavelli's History. He was said to have sounded the depths of Platonic philosophy; he was a true poet, within certain limitations; few men have been more keenly alive to beauty in all its manifestations, physical and spiritual alike. Though profoundly immoral, _nelle cose veneree maravigliosamente involto_, he was a tolerable husband, and the fondest of fathers with his children, whom he adored. The delight of his closing days was the elevation of his favourite son, Giovanni, to the Cardinalate at the age of fourteen; it gave the Medici a voice in the Curia like the other princes of Europe, and pleased all Florence; but more than half Lorenzo's joy proceeded from paternal pride and love, and the letter of advice which he wrote for his son on the occasion shows both father and boy in a very amiable, even edifying light. And yet this same man had ruined the happiness of countless homes, and had even seized upon the doweries of Florentine maidens to fill his own coffers and pay his mercenaries. But the _bel viver italiano_ of the Quattrocento, with all its loveliness and all its immorality--more lovely and far less immoral in Florence than anywhere else--was drawing to an end. A new prophet had arisen, and, from the pulpits of San Marco and Santa Maria del Fiore, the stern Dominican, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, denounced the corruption of the day and announced that speedy judgment was at hand; the Church should be chastised, and that speedily, and renovation should follow. Prodigies were seen. The lions tore and rent each other in their cages; lightning struck the cupola of the Duomo on the side towards the Medicean palace; while in his villa at Careggi the Magnifico lay dying, watched over by his sister Bianca and the poet Poliziano. A visit from the young Pico della Mirandola cheered his last hours. He received the Last Sacraments, with every sign of contrition and humility. Then Savonarola came to his bedside. There are two accounts of what happened between these two terrible men, the corruptor of Florence and the prophet of renovation, and they are altogether inconsistent. The ultimate source of the one is apparently Savonarola's fellow-martyr, Fra Silvestro, an utterly untrustworthy witness; that of the other, Lorenzo's intimate, Poliziano. According to Savonarola's biographers and adherents, Lorenzo, overwhelmed with remorse and terror, had sent for the Frate to give him the absolution which his courtly confessor dared not refuse (_io non ho mai trovato uno che sia vero frate, se non lui_); and when the Dominican, seeming to soar above his natural height, bade him restore liberty to Florence, the Magnifico sullenly turned his back upon him and shortly afterwards died in despair.[19] According to Poliziano, an eyewitness and an absolutely whole-hearted adherent of the Medici, Fra Girolamo simply spoke a few words of priestly exhortation to the dying man; then, as he turned away, Lorenzo cried, "Your blessing, father, before you depart" (_Heus, benedictionem, Pater, priusquam a nobis proficisceris_) and the two together repeated word for word the Church's prayers for the departing; then Savonarola returned to his convent, and Lorenzo passed away in peace and consolation. Reverently and solemnly the body was brought from Careggi to Florence, rested for a while in San Marco, and was then buried, with all external simplicity, with his murdered brother in San Lorenzo. It was the beginning of April 1492, and the Magnifico was only in his forty-fourth year. The words of old Sixtus must have risen to the lips of many: _Oggi è morta la pace d'Italia_. "This man," said Ferrante of Naples, "lived long enough to make good his own title to immortality, but not long enough for Italy." [19] The familiar legend that Lorenzo told Savonarola that the three sins which lay heaviest on his conscience were the sack of Volterra, the robbery of the Monte delle Doti, and the vengeance he had taken for the Pazzi conspiracy, is only valuable as showing what were popularly supposed by the Florentines to be his greatest crimes. Lorenzo left three sons--Piero, who virtually succeeded him in the same rather undefined princedom; the young Cardinal Giovanni; and Giuliano. Their father was wont to call Piero the "mad," Giovanni the "wise," Giuliano the "good"; and to a certain extent their after-lives corresponded with his characterisation. There was also a boy Giulio, Lorenzo's nephew, an illegitimate child of Giuliano the elder by a girl of the lower class; him Lorenzo left to the charge of Cardinal Giovanni--the future Pope Clement to the future Pope Leo. Piero had none of his father's abilities, and was not the man to guide the ship of State through the storm that was rising; he was a wild licentious young fellow, devoted to sport and athletics, with a great shock of dark hair; he was practically the only handsome member of his family, as you may see in a peculiarly fascinating Botticellian portrait in the Uffizi, where he is holding a medallion of his great grandfather Cosimo, and gazing out of the picture with a rather pathetic expression, as if the Florentines who set a price upon his head had misunderstood him. Piero's folly at once began to undo his father's work. A part of Lorenzo's policy had been to keep his family united, including those not belonging to the reigning branch. There were two young Medici then in the city, about Piero's own age; Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pier Francesco, the grandsons of Cosimo's brother Lorenzo (you may see Giovanni with his father in a picture by Filippino Lippi in the Uffizi). Lorenzo the Magnificent had made a point of keeping on good terms with them, for they were beloved of the people. Giovanni was destined, in a way, to play the part of Banquo to the Magnificent's Macbeth, had there been a Florentine prophet to tell him, "Thou shalt get kings though thou be none." But Piero disliked the two; at a dance he struck Giovanni, and then, when the brothers showed resentment, he arrested both and, not daring to take their lives, confined them to their villas. And these were times when a stronger head than Piero's might well have reeled. Italy's day had ended, and she was now to be the battle-ground for the gigantic forces of the monarchies of Europe. That same year in which Lorenzo died, Alexander VI. was elected to the Papacy he had so shamelessly bought. A mysterious terror fell upon the people; an agony of apprehension consumed their rulers throughout the length and breadth of the land. In 1494 the crash came. The old King Ferrante of Naples died, and his successor Alfonso prepared to meet the torrent of French arms which Ludovico Sforza, the usurping Duke of Milan, had invited into Italy. * * * * * In art and in letters, as well as in life and general conduct, this epoch of the Quattrocento is one of the most marvellous chapters in the history of human thought; the Renaissance as a wave broke over Italy, and from Italy surged on to the bounds of Europe. And of this "discovery by man of himself and of the world," Florence was the centre; in its hothouse of learning and culture the rarest personalities flourished, and its strangest and most brilliant flower, in whose hard brilliancy a suggestion of poison lurked, was Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. In both art and letters, the Renaissance had fully commenced before the accession of the Medici to power. Ghiberti's first bronze gates of the Baptistery and Masaccio's frescoes in the Carmine were executed under the regime of the _nobili popolani_, the Albizzi and their allies. Many of the men whom the Medici swept relentlessly from their path were in the fore-front of the movement, such as the noble and generous Palla Strozzi, one of the reformers of the Florentine Studio, who brought the Greek, Emanuel Chrysolaras, at the close of the fourteenth century, to make Florence the centre of Italian Hellenism. Palla lavished his wealth in the hunting of codices, and at last, when banished on Cosimo's return, died in harness at Padua at the venerable age of ninety-two. His house had always been full of learned men, and his reform of the university had brought throngs of students to Florence. Put under bounds for ten years at Padua, he lived the life of an ancient philosopher and of exemplary Christian virtue. Persecuted at the end of every ten years with a new sentence, the last--of ten more years--when he was eighty-two; robbed by death of his wife and sons; he bore all with the utmost patience and fortitude, until, in Vespasiano's words, "arrived at the age of ninety-two years, in perfect health of body and of mind, he gave up his soul to his Redeemer like a most faithful and good Christian." In 1401, the first year of the fifteenth century, the competition was announced for the second gates of the Baptistery, which marks the beginning of Renaissance sculpture; and the same year witnessed the birth of Masaccio, who, in the words of Leonardo da Vinci, "showed with his perfect work how those painters who follow aught but Nature, the mistress of the masters, laboured in vain," Morelli calls this Quattrocento the epoch of "character"; "that is, the period when it was the principal aim of art to seize and represent the outward appearances of persons and things, determined by inward and moral conditions." The intimate connection of arts and crafts is characteristic of the Quattrocento, as also the mutual interaction of art with art. Sculpture was in advance of painting in the opening stage of the century, and, indeed, influenced it profoundly throughout; about the middle of the century they met, and ran henceforth hand in hand. Many of the painters and sculptors, as, notably, Ghiberti and Botticelli, had been apprentices in the workshops of the goldsmiths; nor would the greatest painters disdain to undertake the adornment of a _cassone_, or chest for wedding presents, nor the most illustrious sculptor decline a commission for the button of a prelate's cope or some mere trifle of household furniture. The medals in the National Museum and the metal work on the exterior of the Strozzi Palace are as typical of the art of Renaissance Florence as the grandest statues and most elaborate altar-pieces. [Illustration: IN THE SCULPTORS' WORKSHOP BY NANNI DI BANCO (For the Guild of Masters in Stone and Timber)] With the work of the individual artists we shall become better acquainted in subsequent chapters. Here we can merely name their leaders. In architecture and sculpture respectively, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and Donatello (1386-1466) are the ruling spirits of the age. Their mutual friendship and brotherly rivalry almost recall the loves of Dante and Cavalcanti in an earlier day. Although Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) justly won the competition for the second gates of the Baptistery, it is now thought that Filippo ran his successful rival much more closely than the critics of an earlier day supposed. Mr Perkins remarks that "indirectly Brunelleschi was the master of all the great painters and sculptors of his time, for he taught them how to apply science to art, and so far both Ghiberti and Donatello were his pupils, but the last was almost literally so, since the great architect was not only his friend, but also his counsellor and guide." Contemporaneous with these three _spiriti magni_ in their earlier works, and even to some extent anticipating them, is Nanni di Banco (died in 1421), a most excellent master, both in large monumental statues and in bas-reliefs, whose works are to be seen and loved outside and inside the Duomo, and in the niches round San Michele in Orto. A pleasant friendship united him with Donatello, although to regard him as that supreme master's pupil and follower, as Vasari does, is an anachronism. To this same earlier portion of the Quattrocento belong Leo Battista Alberti (1405-1472), a rare genius, but a wandering stone who, as an architect, accomplished comparatively little; Michelozzo Michelozzi (1396-1472), who worked as a sculptor with Ghiberti and Donatello, but is best known as the favoured architect of the Medici, for whom he built the palace so often mentioned in these pages, and now known as the Palazzo Riccardi, and the convent of San Marco; and Luca della Robbia (1399-1482), that beloved master of marble music, whose enamelled terra-cotta Madonnas are a perpetual fund of the purest delight. To Michelozzo and Luca in collaboration we owe the bronze gates of the Duomo sacristy, a work only inferior to Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise." Slightly later come Donatello's great pupils, Desiderio da Settignano (1428-1464), Andrea Verrocchio (1435-1488), and Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498). The two latter are almost equally famous as painters. Contemporaneous with them are Mino da Fiesole, Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino, Giuliano da San Gallo, Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, of whom the last-named was the first architect of the Strozzi Palace. The last great architect of the Quattrocento is Simone del Pollaiuolo, known as Cronaca (1457-1508); and its last great sculptor is Andrea della Robbia, Luca's nephew, who was born in 1435, and lived on until 1525. Andrea's best works--and they are very numerous indeed, in the same enamelled terra-cotta--hardly yield in charm and fascination to those of Luca himself; in some of them, devotional art seems to reach its last perfection in sculpture. Giovanni, Andrea's son, and others of the family carried on the tradition--with cruder colours and less delicate feeling. Masaccio (1401-1428), one of "the inheritors of unfulfilled renown," is the first great painter of the Renaissance, and bears much the same relation to the fifteenth as Giotto to the fourteenth century. Vasari's statement that Masaccio's master, Masolino, was Ghiberti's assistant appears to be incorrect; but it illustrates the dependence of the painting of this epoch upon sculpture. Masaccio's frescoes in the Carmine, which became the school of all Italian painting, were entirely executed before the Medicean regime. The Dominican, Fra Angelico da Fiesole (1387-1455), seems in his San Marco frescoes to bring the denizens of the Empyrean, of which the mediæval mystics dreamed, down to earth to dwell among the black and white robed children of St Dominic. The Carmelite, Fra Lippo Lippi (1406-1469), the favourite of Cosimo, inferior to the angelical painter in spiritual insight, had a keener eye for the beauty of the external world and a surer touch upon reality. His buoyant humour and excellent colouring make "the glad monk's gift" one of the most acceptable that the Quattrocento has to offer us. Andrea del Castagno (died in 1457) and Domenico Veneziano (died in 1461), together with Paolo Uccello (died in 1475), were all absorbed in scientific researches with an eye to the extension of the resources of their art; but the two former found time to paint a few masterpieces in their kind--especially a Cenacolo by Andrea in Santa Appollonia, which is the grandest representation of its sublime theme, until the time that Leonardo da Vinci painted on the walls of the Dominican convent at Milan. Problems of the anatomical construction of the human frame and the rendering of movement occupied Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) and Andrea Verrocchio (1435-1488); their work was taken up and completed a little later by two greater men, Luca Signorelli of Cortona and Leonardo da Vinci. The Florentine painting of this epoch culminates in the work of two men--Sandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli (1447-1510), and Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494). If the greatest pictures were painted poems, as some have held, then Sandro Botticelli's masterpieces would be among the greatest of all time. In his rendering of religious themes, in his intensely poetic and strangely wistful attitude towards the fair myths of antiquity, and in his Neo-Platonic mingling of the two, he is the most complete and typical exponent of the finest spirit of the Quattrocento, to which, in spite of the date of his death, his art entirely belongs. Domenico's function, on the other hand, is to translate the external pomp and circumstance of his times into the most uninspired of painted prose, but with enormous technical skill and with considerable power of portraiture; this he effected above all in his ostensibly religious frescoes in Santa Maria Novella and Santa Trinità. Elsewhere he shows a certain pathetic sympathy with humbler life, as in his Santa Fina frescoes at San Gemignano, and in the admirable Adoration of the Shepherds in the Accademia; but this is a less characteristic vein. Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), the son of the Carmelite and the pupil of Botticelli, has a certain wayward charm, especially in his earlier works, but as a rule falls much below his master. He may be regarded as the last direct inheritor of the traditions of Masaccio. Associated with these are two lesser men, who lived considerably beyond the limits of the fifteenth century, but whose artistic methods never went past it; Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521) and Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537). The former (called after Cosimo Rosselli, his master) was one of the most piquant personalities in the art world of Florence, as all readers of _Romola_ know. As a painter, he has been very much overestimated; at his best, he is a sort of Botticelli, with the Botticellian grace and the Botticellian poetry almost all left out. He was magnificent at designing pageants; and of one of his exploits in this kind, we shall hear more presently. Lorenzo di Credi, Verrocchio's favourite pupil, was later, like Botticelli and others, to fall under the spell of Fra Girolamo; his pictures breathe a true religious sentiment and are very carefully finished; but for the most part, though there are exceptions, they lack virility. Before this epoch closed, the two greatest heroes of Florentine art had appeared upon the scenes, but their great work lay still in the future. Leonardo da Vinci (born in 1452) had learned to paint in the school of Verrocchio; but painting was to occupy but a small portion of his time and labour. His mind roamed freely over every field of human activity, and plunged deeply into every sphere of human thought; nor is he adequately represented even by the greatest of the pictures that he has left. There is nothing of him now in Florence, save a few drawings in the Uffizi and an unfinished picture of the Epiphany. Leonardo finished little, and, with that little, time and man have dealt hardly. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in the Casentino in 1475, and nurtured among the stone quarries of Settignano. At the age of thirteen, his father apprenticed him to the Ghirlandaii, Domenico and his brother David; and, with his friend and fellow-student, Francesco Granacci, the boy began to frequent the gardens of the Medici, near San Marco, where in the midst of a rich collection of antiquities Donatello's pupil and successor, Bertoldo, directed a kind of Academy. Here Michelangelo attracted the attention of Lorenzo himself, by the head of an old satyr which he had hammered out of a piece of marble that fell to his hand; and the Magnifico took him into his household. This youthful period in the great master's career was occupied in drinking in culture from the Medicean circle, in studying the antique and, of the moderns, especially the works of Donatello and Masaccio. But, with the exception of a few early fragments from his hand, Michelangelo's work commenced with his first visit to Rome, in 1496, and belongs to the following epoch. Turning from art to letters, the Quattrocento is an intermediate period between the mainly Tuscan literary movement of the fourteenth century and the general Italian literature of the sixteenth. The first part of this century is the time of the discovery of the old authors, of the copying of manuscripts (printing was not introduced into Florence until 1471), of the eager search for classical relics and antiquities, the comparative neglect of Italian when Latinity became the test of all. Florence was the centre of the Humanism of the Renaissance, the revival of Grecian culture, the blending of Christianity and Paganism, the aping of antiquity in theory and in practice. In the pages of Vespasiano we are given a series of lifelike portraits of the scholars of this epoch, who thronged to Florence, served the State as Secretary of the Republic or occupied chairs in her newly reorganised university, or basked in the sun of Strozzian or Medicean patronage. Niccolò Niccoli, who died in 1437, is one of the most typical of these scholars; an ardent collector of ancient manuscripts, his library, purchased after his death by Cosimo dei Medici, forms the nucleus of the Biblioteca Laurenziana. His house was adorned with all that was held most choice and precious; he always wore long sweeping red robes, and had his table covered with ancient vases and precious Greek cups and the like. In fact he played the ancient sage to such perfection that simply to watch him eat his dinner was a liberal education in itself! _A vederlo in tavola, così antico come era, era una gentilezza._ Vespasiano tells a delightful yarn of how one fine day this Niccolò Niccoli, "who was another Socrates or another Cato for continence and virtue," was taking a constitutional round the Palazzo del Podestà, when he chanced to espy a youth of most comely aspect, one who was entirely devoted to worldly pleasures and delights, young Piero Pazzi. Calling him and learning his name, Niccolò proceeded to question him as to his profession. "Having a high old time," answered the ingenuous youth: _attendo a darmi buon tempo_. "Being thy father's son and so handsome," said the Sage severely, "it is a shame that thou dost not set thyself to learn the Latin language, which would be a great ornament to thee; and if thou dost not learn it, thou wilt be esteemed of no account; yea, when the flower of thy youth is past, thou shalt find thyself without any _virtù_." Messer Piero was converted on the spot; Niccolò straightway found him a master and provided him with books; and the pleasure-loving youth became a scholar and a patron of scholars. Vespasiano assures us that, if he had lived, _lo inconveniente che seguitò_--so he euphoniously terms the Pazzi conspiracy--would never have happened. Leonardo Bruni is the nearest approach to a really great figure in the Florentine literary world of the first half of the century. His translations of Plato and Aristotle, especially the former, mark an epoch. His Latin history of Florence shows genuine critical insight; but he is, perhaps, best known at the present day by his little Life of Dante in Italian, a charming and valuable sketch, which has preserved for us some fragments of Dantesque letters and several bits of really precious information about the divine poet, which seem to be authentic and which we do not find elsewhere. Leonardo appears to have undertaken it as a kind of holiday task, for recreation after the work of composing his more ponderous history. As Secretary of the Republic he exercised considerable political influence; his fame was so great that people came to Florence only to look at him; on his death in 1444, he was solemnly crowned on the bier as poet laureate, and buried in Santa Croce with stately pomp and applauded funeral orations. Leonardo's successors, Carlo Marsuppini (like him, an Aretine by birth) and Poggio Bracciolini--the one noted for his frank paganism, the other for the foulness of his literary invective--are less attractive figures; though the latter was no less famous and influential in his day. Giannozzo Manetti, who pronounced Bruni's funeral oration, was noted for his eloquence and incorruptibility, and stands out prominently amidst the scholars and humanists by virtue of his nobleness of character; like that other hero of the new learning, Palla Strozzi, he was driven into exile and persecuted by the Mediceans. Far more interesting are the men of light and learning who gathered round Lorenzo dei Medici in the latter half of the century. This is the epoch of the Platonic Academy, which Marsilio Ficino had founded under the auspices of Cosimo. The discussions held in the convent retreat among the forests of Camaldoli, the meetings in the Badia at the foot of Fiesole, the mystical banquets celebrated in Lorenzo's villa at Careggi in honour of the anniversary of Plato's birth and death, may have added little to the sum of man's philosophic thought; but the Neo-Platonic religion of love and beauty, which was there proclaimed to the modern world, has left eternal traces in the poetic literature both of Italy and of England. Spenser and Shelley might have sat with the nine guests, whose number honoured the nine Muses, at the famous Platonic banquet at Careggi, of which Marsilio Ficino himself has left us an account in his commentary on the _Symposium_. You may read a later Italian echo of it, when Marsilio Ficino had passed away and his academy was a thing of the past, in the impassioned and rapturous discourse on love and beauty poured forth by Pietro Bembo, at that wonderful daybreak which ends the discussions of Urbino's courtiers in Castiglione's treatise. In a creed that could find one formula to cover both the reception of the Stigmata by St Francis and the mystical flights of the Platonic Socrates and Plotinus; that could unite the Sibyls and Diotima with the Magdalene and the Virgin Martyrs; many a perplexed Italian of that epoch might find more than temporary rest for his soul. Simultaneously with this new Platonic movement there came a great revival of Italian literature, alike in poetry and in prose; what Carducci calls _il rinascimento della vita italiana nella forma classica_. The earlier humanists had scorned, or at least neglected the language of Dante; and the circle that surrounded Lorenzo was undoubtedly instrumental in this Italian reaction. Cristoforo Landini, one of the principal members of the Platonic Academy, now wrote the first Renaissance commentary upon the _Divina Commedia_; Leo Battista Alberti, also a leader in these Platonic disputations, defended the dignity of the Italian language, as Dante himself had done in an earlier day. Lorenzo himself compiled the so-called _Raccolta Aragonese_ of early Italian lyrics, and sent them to Frederick of Aragon, together with a letter full of enthusiasm for the Tuscan tongue, and with critical remarks on the individual poets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Upon the popular poetry of Tuscany Lorenzo himself, and his favourite Angelo Ambrogini of Montepulciano, better known as Poliziano, founded a new school of Italian song. Luigi Pulci, the gay scoffer and cynical sceptic, entertained the festive gatherings in the Medicean palace with his wild tales, and, in his _Morgante Maggiore_, was practically the first to work up the popular legends of Orlando and the Paladins into a noteworthy poem--a poem of which Savonarola and his followers were afterwards to burn every copy that fell into their hands. Poliziano is at once the truest classical scholar, and, with the possible exception of Boiardo (who belongs to Ferrara, and does not come within the scope of the present volume), the greatest Italian poet of the fifteenth century. He is, indeed, the last and most perfect fruit of Florentine Humanism. His father, Benedetto Ambrogini, had been murdered in Montepulciano by the faction hostile to the Medici; and the boy Angelo, coming to Florence, and studying under Ficino and his colleagues, was received into Lorenzo's household as tutor to the younger Piero. His lectures at the Studio attracted students from all Europe, and his labours in the field of textual criticism won a fame that has lasted to the present day. In Italian he wrote the _Orfeo_ in two days for performance at Mantua, when he was eighteen, a lyrical tragedy which stamps him as the father of Italian dramatic opera; the scene of the descent of Orpheus into Hades contains lyrical passages of great melodiousness. Shortly before the Pazzi conspiracy, he composed his famous _Stanze_ in celebration of a tournament given by Giuliano dei Medici, and in honour of the _bella Simonetta_. There is absolutely no "fundamental brain work" about these exquisitely finished stanzas; but they are full of dainty mythological pictures quite in the Botticellian style, overladen, perhaps, with adulation of the reigning house and its _ben nato Lauro_. In his lyrics he gave artistic form to the _rispetti_ and _strambotti_ of the people, and wrote exceedingly musical _ballate_, or _canzoni a ballo_, which are the best of their kind in the whole range of Italian poetry. There is, however, little genuine passion in his love poems for his lady, Madonna Ippolita Leoncina of Prato; though in all that he wrote there is, as Villari puts it, "a fineness of taste that was almost Greek." Lorenzo dei Medici stands second to his friend as a poet; but he is a good second. His early affection for the fair Lucrezia Donati, with its inevitable sonnets and a commentary somewhat in the manner of Dante's _Vita Nuova_, is more fanciful than earnest, although Poliziano assures us of "La lunga fedeltà del franco Lauro." But Lorenzo's intense love of external nature, his power of close observation and graphic description, are more clearly shown in such poems as the _Caccia col Falcone_ and the _Ambra_, written among the woods and hills in the country round his new villa of Poggio a Caiano. Elsewhere he gives free scope to the animal side of his sensual nature, and in his famous _Canti carnascialeschi_, songs to be sung at carnival and in masquerades, he at times revelled in pruriency, less for its own sake than for the deliberate corruption of the Florentines. And, for a time, their music drowned the impassioned voice of Savonarola, whose stern cry of warning and exhortation to repentance had for the nonce passed unheeded. There is extant a miracle play from Lorenzo's hand, the acts of the martyrs Giovanni and Paolo, who suffered in the days of the emperor Julian. Two sides of Lorenzo's nature are ever in conflict--the Lorenzo of the ballate and the carnival songs--the Lorenzo of the _laude_ and spiritual poems, many of which have the unmistakable ring of sincerity. And, in the story of his last days and the summoning of Savonarola to his bed-side, the triumph of the man's spiritual side is seen at the end; he is, indeed, in the position of the dying Julian of his own play:-- "Fallace vita! O nostra vana cura! Lo spirto è già fuor del mio petto spinto: O Cristo Galileo, tu hai vinto." Such was likewise the attitude of several members of the Medicean circle, when the crash came. Poliziano followed his friend and patron to the grave, in September 1494; his last hours received the consolations of religion from Savonarola's most devoted follower, Fra Domenico da Pescia (of whom more anon); after death, he was robed in the habit of St Dominic and buried in San Marco. Pico della Mirandola, too, had been present at the Magnifico's death-bed, though not there when the end actually came; he too, in 1494, received the Dominican habit in death, and was buried by Savonarola's friars in San Marco. Marsilio Ficino outlived his friends and denied Fra Girolamo; he died in 1499, and lies at rest in the Duomo. Of all these Medicean Platonists, Pico della Mirandola is the most fascinating. A young Lombard noble of almost feminine beauty, full of the pride of having mastered all the knowledge of his day, he first came to Florence in 1480 or 1482, almost at the very moment in which Marsilio Ficino finished his translation of Plato. He became at once the chosen friend of all the choicest spirits of Lorenzo's circle. Not only classical learning, but the mysterious East and the sacred lore of the Jews had rendered up their treasures for his intellectual feast; his mysticism shot far beyond even Ficino; all knowledge and all religions were to him a revelation of the Deity. Not only to Lorenzo and his associates did young Pico seem a phoenix of earthly and celestial wisdom, _uomo quasi divino_ as Machiavelli puts it; but even Savonarola in his _Triumphus Crucis_, written after Pico's death, declares that, by reason of his loftiness of intellect and the sublimity of his doctrine, he should be numbered amongst the miracles of God and Nature. Pico had been much beloved of many women, and not always a Platonic lover, but, towards the close of his short flower-like life, he burnt "fyve bokes that in his youthe of wanton versis of love with other lyke fantasies he had made," and all else seemed absorbed in the vision of love Divine. "The substance that I have left," he told his nephew, "I intend to give out to poor people, and, fencing myself with the crucifix, barefoot walking about the world, in every town and castle I purpose to preach of Christ." Savonarola, to whom he had confided all the secrets of his heart, was not the only martyr who revered the memory of the man whom Lorenzo the Magnificent had loved. Thomas More translated his life and letters, and reckoned him a saint. He would die at the time of the lilies, so a lady had told Pico; and he died indeed on the very day that the golden lilies on the royal standard of France were borne into Florence through the Porta San Frediano--consoled with wondrous visions of the Queen of Heaven, and speaking as though he beheld the heavens opened. A month or two earlier, the pen had dropped from the hand of Matteo Maria Boiardo, as he watched the French army descending the Alps; and he brought his unfinished _Orlando Innamorato_ to an abrupt close, too sick at heart to sing of the vain love of Fiordespina for Brandiamante:-- "Mentre che io canto, o Dio Redentore, Vedo l'Italia tutta a fiamma e foco, Per questi Galli, che con gran valore Vengon, per disertar non so che loco." "Whilst I sing, Oh my God, I see all Italy in flame and fire, through these Gauls, who with great valour come, to lay waste I know not what place." On this note of vague terror, in the onrush of the barbarian hosts, the Quattrocento closes. [Illustration: ARMS OF THE PAZZI] CHAPTER IV _From Fra Girolamo to Duke Cosimo_ "Vedendo lo omnipotente Dio multiplicare li peccati della Italia, maxime nelli capi così ecclesiastici come seculari, non potendo più sostenere, determinò purgare la Chiesa sua per uno gran flagello. Et perchè come è scripto in Amos propheta, Non faciet Dominus Deus verbum nisi revelaverit secretum suum ad servos suos prophetas: volse per la salute delli suoi electi acciò che inanzi al flagello si preparassino ad sofferire, che nella Italia questo flagello fussi prenuntiato. Et essendo Firenze in mezzo la Italia come il core in mezzo il corpo, s'è dignato di eleggere questa città; nella quale siano tale cose prenuntiate: acciò che per lei si sparghino negli altri luoghi."--_Savonarola._ _Gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter_, "the Sword of the Lord upon the earth soon and speedily." These words rang ever in the ears of the Dominican friar who was now to eclipse the Medicean rulers of Florence. Girolamo Savonarola, the grandson of a famous Paduan physician who had settled at the court of Ferrara, had entered the order of St Dominic at Bologna in 1474, moved by the great misery of the world and the wickedness of men, and in 1481 had been sent to the convent of San Marco at Florence. The corruption of the Church, the vicious lives of her chief pastors, the growing immorality of the people, the tyranny and oppression of their rulers, had entered into his very soul--had found utterance in allegorical poetry, in an ode _De Ruina Mundi_, written whilst still in the world, in another, _De Ruina Ecclesiae_, composed in the silence of his Bolognese cloister--that cloister which, in better days, had been hallowed by the presence of St Dominic and the Angelical Doctor, Thomas Aquinas. And he believed himself set by God as a watchman in the centre of Italy, to announce to the people and princes that the sword was to fall upon them: "If the sword come, and thou hast not announced it," said the spirit voice that spoke to him in the silence as the dæmon to Socrates, "and they perish unwarned, I will require their blood at thy hands and thou shalt bear the penalty." But at first the Florentines would not hear him; the gay dancings and the wild carnival songs of their rulers drowned his voice; courtly preachers like the Augustinian of Santo Spirito, Fra Mariano da Gennazano, laid more flattering unction to their souls. Other cities were more ready; San Gemignano first heard the word of prophecy that was soon to resound beneath the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, even as, some two hundred years before, she had listened to the speech of Dante Alighieri. At the beginning of 1490, the Friar returned to Florence and San Marco; and, on Sunday, August 1st, expounding the Apocalypse in the Church of San Marco, he first set forth to the Florentines the three cardinal points of his doctrine; first, the Church was to be renovated; secondly, before this renovation, God would send a great scourge upon all Italy; thirdly, these things would come speedily. He preached the following Lent in the Duomo; and thenceforth his great work of reforming Florence, and announcing the impending judgments of God, went on its inspired way. "Go to Lorenzo dei Medici," he said to the five citizens who came to him, at the Magnifico's instigation, to urge him to let the future alone in his sermons, "and bid him do penance for his sins, for God intends to punish him and his"; and when elected Prior of San Marco in this same year, 1491, he would neither enter Lorenzo's palace to salute the patron of the convent, nor welcome him when he walked among the friars in the garden. Fra Girolamo was preaching the Lent in San Lorenzo, when the Magnifico died; and, a few days later, he saw a wondrous vision, as he himself tells us in the _Compendium Revelationum_. "In 1492," he says, "while I was preaching the Lent in San Lorenzo at Florence, I saw, on the night of Good Friday, two crosses. First, a black cross in the midst of Rome, whereof the head touched the heaven and the arms stretched forth over all the earth; and above it were written these words, _Crux irae Dei_. After I had beheld it, suddenly I saw the sky grow dark, and clouds fly through the air; winds, flashes of lightning and thunderbolts drove across, hail, fire and swords rained down, and slew a vast multitude of folk, so that few remained on the earth. And after this, there came a sky right calm and bright, and I saw another cross, of the same greatness as the first but of gold, rise up over Jerusalem; the which was so resplendent that it illumined all the world, and filled it all with flowers and joy; and above it was written, _Crux misericordiae Dei_. And I saw all generations of men and women come from all parts of the world, to adore it and embrace it." In the following August came the simoniacal election of Roderigo Borgia to the Papacy, as Alexander VI.; and in Advent another vision appeared to the prophet in his cell, which can only be told in Fra Girolamo's own words:-- "I saw then in the year 1492, the night before the last sermon which I gave that Advent in Santa Reparata, a hand in Heaven with a sword, upon the which was written: _The sword of the Lord upon the earth, soon and speedily_; and over the hand was written, _True and just are the judgments of the Lord._ And it seemed that the arm of that hand proceeded from three faces in one light, of which the first said: _The iniquity of my sanctuary crieth to me from the earth._ The second replied: _Therefore will I visit with a rod their iniquities, and with stripes their sins._ The third said: _My mercy will I not remove from it, nor will I harm it in my truth, and I will have mercy upon the poor and the needy._ In like manner the first answered: _My people have forgotten my commandments days without number._ The second replied: _Therefore will I grind and break in pieces and will not have mercy._ The third said: _I will be mindful of those who walk in my precepts._ And straightway there came a great voice from all the three faces, over all the world, and it said: _Hearken, all ye dwellers on the earth; thus saith the Lord: I, the Lord, am speaking in my holy zeal. Behold, the days shall come and I will unsheath my sword upon you. Be ye converted therefore unto me, before my fury be accomplished; for when the destruction cometh, ye shall seek peace and there shall be none._ After these words it seemed to me that I saw the whole world, and that the Angels descended from Heaven to earth, arrayed in white, with a multitude of spotless stoles on their shoulders and red crosses in their hands; and they went through the world, offering to each man a white robe and a cross. Some men accepted them and robed themselves with them. Some would not accept them, although they did not impede the others who accepted them. Others would neither accept them nor permit that the others should accept them; and these were the tepid and the sapient of this world, who made mock of them and strove to persuade the contrary. After this, the hand turned the sword down towards the earth; and suddenly it seemed that all the air grew dark with clouds, and that it rained down swords and hail with great thunder and lightning and fire; and there came upon the earth pestilence and famine and great tribulation. And I saw the Angels go through the midst of the people, and give to those who had the white robe and the cross in their hands a clear wine to drink; and they drank and said: _How sweet in our mouths are thy words, O Lord._ And the dregs at the bottom of the chalice they gave to drink to the others, and they would not drink; and it seemed that these would fain have been converted to penitence and could not, and they said: _Wherefore dost thou forget us, Lord?_ And they wished to lift up their eyes and look up to God, but they could not, so weighed down were they with tribulations; for they were as though drunk, and it seemed that their hearts had left their breasts, and they went seeking the lusts of this world and found them not. And they walked like senseless beings without heart. After this was done, I heard a very great voice from those three faces, which said: _Hear ye then the word of the Lord: for this have I waited for you, that I may have mercy upon you. Come ye therefore to me, for I am kind and merciful, extending mercy to all who call upon me. But if you will not, I will turn my eyes from you for ever._ And it turned then to the just, and said: _But rejoice, ye just, and exult, for when my short anger shall have passed, I will break the horns of sinners, and the horns of the just shall be exalted._ And suddenly everything disappeared, and it was said to me: _Son, if sinners had eyes, they would surely see how grievous and hard is this pestilence, and how sharp the sword._"[20] [20] This _Compendium of Revelations_ was, like the _Triumph of the Cross_, published both in Latin and in Italian simultaneously. I have rendered the above from the Italian version. The French army, terrible beyond any that the Italians had seen, and rendered even more terrible by the universal dread that filled all men's minds at this moment, entered Italy. On September 9th, 1494, Charles VIII. arrived at Asti, where he was received by Ludovico and his court, while the Swiss sacked and massacred at Rapallo. Here was the new Cyrus whom Savonarola had foretold, the leader chosen by God to chastise Italy and reform the Church. While the vague terror throughout the land was at its height, Savonarola, on September 21st, ascended the pulpit of the Duomo, and poured forth so terrible a flood of words on the text _Ecce ego adducam aquas diluvii super terram_, that the densely packed audience were overwhelmed in agonised panic. The bloodless mercenary conflicts of a century had reduced Italy to helplessness; the Aragonese resistance collapsed, and, sacking and slaughtering as they came, the French marched unopposed through Lunigiana upon Tuscany. Piero dei Medici, who had favoured the Aragonese in a half-hearted way, went to meet the French King, surrendered Sarzana and Pietrasanta, the fortresses which his father had won back for Florence, promised to cede Pisa and Leghorn, and made an absolute submission. "Behold," cried Savonarola, a few days later, "the sword has descended, the scourge has fallen, the prophecies are being fulfilled; behold, it is the Lord who is leading on these armies." And he bade the citizens fast and pray throughout the city: it was for the sins of Italy and of Florence that these things had happened; for the corruption of the Church, this tempest had arisen. It was the republican hero, Piero Capponi, who now gave utterance to the voice of the people. "Piero dei Medici," he said in the Council of the Seventy called by the Signoria on November 4th, "is no longer fit to rule the State: the Republic must provide for itself: the moment has come to shake off this baby government." They prepared for defence, but at the same time sent ambassadors to the "most Christian King," and amongst these ambassadors was Savonarola. In the meantime Piero dei Medici returned to Florence to find his government at an end; the Signoria refused him admittance into the palace; the people assailed him in the Piazza. He made a vain attempt to regain the State by arms, but the despairing shouts of _Palle, Palle,_ which his adherents and mercenaries raised, were drowned in the cries of _Popolo e Libertà_, as the citizens, as in the old days of the Republic, heard the great bell of the Palace tolling and saw the burghers once more in arms. On the 9th of November Piero and Giuliano fled through the Porta di San Gallo; the Cardinal Giovanni, who had shown more courage and resource, soon followed, disguised as a friar. There was some pillage done, but little bloodshed. The same day Pisa received the French troops, and shook off the Florentine yoke--an example shortly followed by other Tuscan cities. Florence had regained her liberty, but lost her empire. But the King had listened to the words of Savonarola--words preserved to us by the Friar himself in his _Compendium Revelationum_--who had hailed him as the Minister of Christ, but warned him sternly and fearlessly that, if he abused his power over Florence, the strength which God had given him would be shattered. On November 17th Charles, clad in black velvet with mantle of gold brocade and splendidly mounted, rode into Florence, as though into a conquered city, with lance levelled, through the Porta di San Frediano. With him was that priestly Mars, the terrible Cardinal della Rovere (afterwards Julius II.), now bent upon the deposition of Alexander VI. as a simoniacal usurper; and he was followed by all the gorgeous chivalry of France, with the fierce Swiss infantry, the light Gascon skirmishers, the gigantic Scottish bowmen--_uomini bestiali_ as the Florentines called them--in all about 12,000 men. The procession swept through the gaily decked streets over the Ponte Vecchio, wound round the Piazza della Signoria, and then round the Duomo, amidst deafening cries of _Viva Francia_ from the enthusiastic people. But when the King descended and entered the Cathedral, there was a sad disillusion--_parve al popolo un poco diminuta la fama_, as the good apothecary Luca Landucci tells us--for, when off his horse, he appeared a most insignificant little man, almost deformed, and with an idiotic expression of countenance, as his bust portrait in the Bargello still shows. This was not quite the sort of Cyrus that they had expected from Savonarola's discourses; but still, within and without Santa Maria del Fiore, the thunderous shouts of _Viva Francia_ continued, until he was solemnly escorted to the Medicean palace which had been prepared for his reception. That night, and each following night during the French occupation, Florence shone so with illuminations that it seemed mid-day; every day was full of feasting and pageantry; but French and Florentines alike were in arms. The royal "deliverer"--egged on by the ladies of Piero's family and especially by Alfonsina, his young wife--talked of restoring the Medici; the Swiss, rioting in the Borgo SS. Apostoli, were severely handled by the populace, in a way that showed the King that the Republic was not to be trifled with. On November 24th the treaty was signed in the Medicean (now the Riccardi) palace, after a scene never forgotten by the Florentines. Discontented with the amount of the indemnity, the King exclaimed in a threatening voice, "I will bid my trumpets sound" (_io farò dare nelle trombe_). Piero Capponi thereupon snatched the treaty from the royal secretary, tore it in half, and exclaiming, "And we will sound our bells" (_e noi faremo dare nelle campane_), turned with his colleagues to leave the room. Charles, who knew Capponi of old (he had been Florentine Ambassador in France), had the good sense to laugh it off, and the Republic was saved. There was to be an alliance between the Republic and the King, who was henceforth to be called "Restorer and Protector of the Liberty of Florence." He was to receive a substantial indemnity. Pisa and the fortresses were for the present to be retained, but ultimately restored; the decree against the Medici was to be revoked, but they were still banished from Tuscany. But the King would not go. The tension every day grew greater, until at last Savonarola sought the royal presence, solemnly warned him that God's anger would fall upon him if he lingered, and sent him on his way. On November 28th the French left Florence, everyone, from Charles himself downwards, shamelessly carrying off everything of value that they could lay hands on, including the greater part of the treasures and rarities that Cosimo and Lorenzo had collected. It was now that all Florence turned to the voice that rang out from the Convent of San Marco and the pulpit of the Duomo; and Savonarola became, in some measure, the pilot of the State. Mainly through his influence, the government was remodelled somewhat on the basis of the Venetian constitution with modifications. The supreme authority was vested in the _Greater Council_, which created the magistrates and approved the laws; and it elected the _Council of Eighty_, with which the Signoria was bound to consult, which, together with the Signoria and the Colleges, made appointments and discussed matters which could not be debated in the Greater Council. A law was also passed, known as the "law of the six beans," which gave citizens the right of appeal from the decisions of the Signoria or the sentences of the _Otto di guardia e balìa_ (who could condemn even to death by six votes or "beans")--not to a special council to be chosen from the Greater Council, as Savonarola wished, but to the Greater Council itself. There was further a general amnesty proclaimed (March 1495). Finally, since the time-honoured calling of parliaments had been a mere farce, an excuse for masking revolution under the pretence of legality, and was the only means left by which the Medici could constitutionally have overthrown the new regime, it was ordained (August) that no parliament should ever again be held under pain of death. "The only purpose of parliament," said Savonarola, "is to snatch the sovereign power from the hands of the people." So enthusiastic--to use no harsher term--did the Friar show himself, that he declared from the pulpit that, if ever the Signoria should sound the bell for a parliament, their houses should be sacked, and that they themselves might be hacked to pieces by the crowd without any sin being thereby incurred; and that the Consiglio Maggiore was the work of God and not of man, and that whoever should attempt to change this government should for ever be accursed of the Lord. It was now that the Sala del Maggior Consiglio was built by Cronaca in the Priors' Palace, to accommodate this new government of the people; and the Signoria set up in the middle of the court and at their gate the two bronze statues by Donatello, which they took from Piero's palace--the _David_, an emblem of the triumphant young republic that had overthrown the giant of tyranny, the _Judith_ as a warning of the punishment that the State would inflict upon whoso should attempt its restoration; _exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere_, 1495, ran the new inscription put by these stern theocratic republicans upon its base. But in the meantime Charles had pursued his triumphant march, had entered Rome, had conquered the kingdom of Naples almost without a blow. Then fortune turned against him; Ludovico Sforza with the Pope formed an Italian league, including Venice, with hope of Germany and Spain, to expel the French from Italy--a league in which all but Florence and Ferrara joined. Charles was now in full retreat to secure his return to France, and was said to be marching on Florence with Piero dei Medici in his company--no reformation of the Church accomplished, no restoration of Pisa to his ally. The Florentines flew to arms. But Savonarola imagined that he had had a special Vision of the Lilies vouchsafed to him by the Blessed Virgin, which pointed to an alliance with France and the reacquisition of Pisa.[21] He went forth to meet the King at Poggibonsi, June 1495, overawed the fickle monarch by his prophetic exhortation, and at least kept the French out of Florence. A month later, the battle of Fornovo secured Charles' retreat and occasioned (what was more important to posterity) Mantegna's Madonna of the Victory. And of the lost cities and fortresses, Leghorn alone was recovered. [21] When Savonarola entered upon the political arena, his spiritual sight was often terribly dimmed. The cause of Pisa against Florence was every bit as righteous as that of the Florentines themselves against the Medici. But all that Savonarola had done, or was to do, in the political field was but the means to an end--the reformation and purification of Florence. It was to be a united and consecrated State, with Christ alone for King, adorned with all triumphs of Christian art and sacred poetry, a fire of spiritual felicity to Italy and all the earth. In Lent and Advent especially, his voice sounded from the pulpit, denouncing vice, showing the beauty of righteousness, the efficacy of the sacraments, and interpreting the Prophets, with special reference to the needs of his times. And for a while Florence seemed verily a new city. For the wild licence of the Carnival, for the Pagan pageantry that the Medicean princes had loved, for the sensual songs that had once floated up from every street of the City of Flowers--there were now bonfires of the vanities in the public squares; holocausts of immoral books, indecent pictures, all that ministered to luxury and wantonness (and much, too, that was very precious!); there were processions in honour of Christ and His Mother, there were new mystical lauds and hymns of divine love. A kind of spiritual inebriation took possession of the people and their rulers alike. Tonsured friars and grave citizens, with heads garlanded, mingled with the children and danced like David before the Ark, shouting, "_Viva Cristo e la Vergine Maria nostra regina._" They had indeed, like the Apostle, become fools for Christ's sake. "It was a holy time," writes good Luca Landucci, "but it was short. The wicked have prevailed over the good. Praised be God that I saw that short holy time. Wherefore I pray God that He may give it back to us, that holy and pure living. It was indeed a blessed time." Above all, the children of Florence were the Friar's chosen emissaries and agents in the great work he had in hand; he organised them into bands, with standard-bearers and officers like the time-honoured city companies with their gonfaloniers, and sent them round the city to seize vanities, forcibly to stop gambling, to collect alms for the poor, and even to exercise a supervision over the ladies' dresses. _Ecco i fanciugli del Frate_, was an instant signal for gamblers to take to flight, and for the fair and frail ladies to be on their very best behaviour. They proceeded with olive branches, like the children of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday; they made the churches ring with their hymns to the Madonna, and even harangued the Signoria on the best method of reforming the morals of the citizens. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise," quotes Landucci: "I have written these things because they are true, and I have seen them and have felt their sweetness, and some of my own children were among these pure and blessed bands."[22] [22] This Luca Landucci, whose diary we shall have occasion to quote more than once, kept an apothecary's shop near the Strozzi Palace at the Canto de' Tornaquinci. He was an ardent Piagnone, though he wavered at times. He died in 1516, and was buried in Santa Maria Novella. But the holy time was short indeed. Factions were still only too much alive. The _Bigi_ or _Palleschi_ were secretly ready to welcome the Medici back; the _Arrabbiati_, the powerful section of the citizens who, to some extent, held the traditions of the so-called _Ottimati_ or _nobili popolani_, whom the Medici had overthrown, were even more bitter in their hatred to the _Frateschi_ or _Piagnoni_, as the adherents of the Friar were called, though prepared to make common cause with them on the least rumour of Piero dei Medici approaching the walls. The _Compagnacci_, or "bad companions," dissolute young men and evil livers, were banded together under Doffo Spini, and would gladly have taken the life of the man who had curtailed their opportunities for vice. And to these there were now added the open hostility of Pope Alexander VI., and the secret machinations of his worthy ally, the Duke of Milan. The Pope's hostility was at first mainly political; he had no objection whatever to Savonarola reforming faith and morals (so long as he did not ask Roderigo Borgia to reform himself), but could not abide the Friar declaring that he had a special mission from God and the Madonna to oppose the Italian league against France. At the same time the Pope would undoubtedly have been glad to see Piero dei Medici restored to power. But in the early part of 1496, it became a war to the death between these two--the Prophet of Righteousness and the Church's Caiaphas--a war which seemed at one moment about to convulse all Christendom, but which ended in the funeral pyre of the Piazza della Signoria. On Ash Wednesday, February 17th, Fra Girolamo, amidst the vastest audience that had yet flocked to hear his words, ascended once more the pulpit of Santa Maria del Fiore. He commenced by a profession of most absolute submission to the Church of Rome. "I have ever believed, and do believe," he said, "all that is believed by the Holy Roman Church, and have ever submitted, and do submit, myself to her.... I rely only on Christ and on the decisions of the Church of Rome." But this was a prelude to the famous series of sermons on Amos and Zechariah which he preached throughout this Lent, and which was in effect a superb and inspired denunciation of the wickedness of Alexander and his Court, of the shameless corruption of the Papal Curia and the Church generally, which had made Rome, for a while, the sink of Christendom. Nearly two hundred years before, St Peter had said the same thing to Dante in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars:-- "Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il loco mio, il loco mio, il loco mio, che vaca nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio, fatto ha del cimitero mio cloaca del sangue e della puzza, onde il perverso che cadde di quassù, laggiù si placa."[23] [23] "He who usurpeth upon earth my place, my place, my place, which in the presence of the Son of God is vacant, "hath made my burial-ground a conduit for that blood and filth, whereby the apostate one who fell from here above, is soothed down there below."--_Paradiso_ xxvii. Wicksteed's Translation. These were, perhaps, the most terrible of all Savonarola's sermons and prophecies. Chastisement was to come upon Rome; she was to be girdled with steel, put to the sword, consumed with fire. Italy was to be ravaged with pestilence and famine; from all sides the barbarian hordes would sweep down upon her. Let them fly from this corrupted Rome, this new Babylon of confusion, and come to repentance. And for himself, he asked and hoped for nothing but the lot of the martyrs, when his work was done. These sermons echoed through all Europe; and when the Friar, after a temporary absence at Prato, returned to the pulpit in May with a new course of sermons on Ruth and Micah, he was no less daring; as loudly as ever he rebuked the hideous corruption of the times, the wickedness of the Roman Court, and announced the scourge that was at hand:-- "I announce to thee, Italy and Rome, that the Lord will come forth out of His place. He has awaited thee so long that He can wait no more. I tell thee that God will draw forth the sword from the sheath; He will send the foreign nations; He will come forth out of His clemency and His mercy; and such bloodshed shall there be, so many deaths, such cruelty, that thou shalt say: O Lord, Thou hast come forth out of Thy place. Yea, the Lord shall come; He will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. I say to thee, Italy and Rome, that the Lord will tread upon thee. I have bidden thee do penance; thou art worse than ever. The feet of the Lord shall tread upon thee; His feet shall be the horses, the armies of the foreign nations that shall trample upon the great men of Italy; and soon shall priests, friars, bishops, cardinals and great masters be trampled down.... "Trust not, Rome, in saying: Here we have the relics, here we have St Peter and so many bodies of martyrs. God will not suffer such iniquities! I warn thee that their blood cries up to Christ to come and chastise thee."[24] [24] Sermon on May 29th, 1496. In Villari and Casanova, _Scelte di prediche e scritti di Fra Girolamo Savonarola_. But, in the meanwhile, the state of Florence was dark and dismal in the extreme. Pestilence and famine ravaged her streets; the war against Pisa seemed more hopeless every day; Piero Capponi had fallen in the field in September; and the forces of the League threatened her with destruction, unless she deserted the French alliance. King Charles showed no disposition to return; the Emperor Maximilian, with the Venetian fleet, was blockading her sole remaining port of Leghorn. A gleam of light came in October, when, at the very moment that the miraculous Madonna of the Impruneta was being borne through the streets in procession by the Piagnoni, a messenger brought the news that reinforcements and provisions had reached Leghorn from Marseilles; and it was followed in November by the dispersion of the imperial fleet by a tempest. At the opening of 1497 a Signory devoted to Savonarola, and headed by Francesco Valori as Gonfaloniere, was elected; and the following carnival witnessed an even more emphatic burning of the vanities in the great Piazza, while the sweet voices of the "children of the Friar" seemed to rise louder and louder in intercession and in praise. Savonarola was at this time living more in seclusion, broken in health, and entirely engaged upon his great theological treatise, the _Triumphus Crucis_; but in Lent he resumed his pulpit crusade against the corruption of the Church, the scandalous lives of her chief pastors, in a series of sermons on Ezekiel; above all in one most tremendous discourse on the text: "And in all thy abominations and thy fornications thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth." In April, relying upon the election of a new Signoria favourable to the Mediceans (and headed by Bernardo del Nero as Gonfaloniere), Piero dei Medici--who had been leading a most degraded life in Rome, and committing every turpitude imaginable--made an attempt to surprise Florence, which merely resulted in a contemptible fiasco. This threw the government into the hands of the Arrabbiati, who hated Savonarola even more than the Palleschi did, and who were intriguing with the Pope and the Duke of Milan. On Ascension Day the Compagnacci raised a disgraceful riot in the Duomo, interrupted Savonarola's sermon, and even attempted to take his life. Then at last there came from Rome the long-expected bull of excommunication, commencing, "We have heard from many persons worthy of belief that a certain Fra Girolamo Savonarola, at this present said to be vicar of San Marco in Florence, hath disseminated pernicious doctrines to the scandal and great grief of simple souls." It was published on June 18th in the Badia, the Annunziata, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and Santo Spirito, with the usual solemn ceremonies of ringing bells and dashing out of the lights--in the last-named church, especially, the monks "did the cursing in the most orgulist wise that might be done," as the compiler of the _Morte Darthur_ would put it. The Arrabbiati and Compagnacci were exultant, but the Signoria that entered office in July seemed disposed to make Savonarola's cause their own. A fresh plot was discovered to betray Florence to Piero dei Medici, and five of the noblest citizens in the State--the aged Bernardo del Nero, who had merely known of the plot and not divulged it, but who had been privy to Piero's coming in April while Gonfaloniere, among them--were beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello's palace, adjoining the Palazzo Vecchio. In this Savonarola took no share; he was absorbed in tending those who were dying on all sides from the plague and famine, and in making the final revision of his _Triumph of the Cross_, which was to show to the Pope and all the world how steadfastly he held to the faith of the Church of Rome.[25] The execution of these conspirators caused great indignation among many in the city. They had been refused the right of appeal to the Consiglio Maggiore, and it was held that Fra Girolamo might have saved them, had he so chosen, and that his ally, Francesco Valori, who had relentlessly hounded them to their deaths, had been actuated mainly by personal hatred of Bernardo del Nero. [25] Professor Villari justly remarks that "Savonarola's attacks were never directed in the slightest degree against the dogmas of the Roman Church, but solely against those who corrupted them." The _Triumph of the Cross_ was intended to do for the Renaissance what St Thomas Aquinas had accomplished for the Middle Ages in his _Summa contra Gentiles_. As this book is the fullest expression of Savonarola's creed, it is much to be regretted that more than one of its English translators have omitted some of its most characteristic and important passages bearing upon Catholic practice and doctrine, without the slightest indication that any such process of "expurgation" has been carried out. But Savonarola could not long keep silence, and in the following February, 1498, on Septuagesima Sunday, he again ascended the pulpit of the Duomo. Many of his adherents, Landucci tells us, kept away for fear of the excommunication: "I was one of those who did not go there." Not faith, but charity it is that justifies and perfects man--such was the burden of the Friar's sermons now: if the Pope gives commands which are contrary to charity, he is no instrument of the Lord, but a broken tool. The excommunication is invalid, the Lord will work a miracle through His servant when His time comes, and his only prayer is that he may die in defence of the truth. On the last day of the Carnival, after communicating his friars and a vast throng of the laity, Savonarola addressed the people in the Piazza of San Marco, and, holding on high the Host, prayed that Christ would send fire from heaven upon him that should swallow him up into hell, if he were deceiving himself, and if his words were not from God. There was a more gorgeous burning of the Vanities than ever; but all during Lent the unequal conflict went on, and the Friar began to talk of a future Council. This was the last straw. An interdict would ruin the commerce of Florence; and on the 17th of March the Signoria bowed before the storm, and forbade Savonarola to preach again. On the following morning, the third Sunday in Lent, he delivered his last sermon:-- "If I am deceived, Christ, Thou hast deceived me, Thou. Holy Trinity, if I am deceived, Thou hast deceived me. Angels, if I am deceived, ye have deceived me. Saints of Paradise, if I am deceived, ye have deceived me. But all that God has said, or His angels or His saints have said, is most true, and it is impossible that they should lie; and, therefore, it is impossible that, when I repeat what they have told me, I should lie. O Rome, do all that thou wilt, for I assure thee of this, that the Lord is with me. O Rome, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Thou shalt be purified yet.... Italy, Italy, the Lord is with me. Thou wilt not be able to do aught. Florence, Florence, that is, ye evil citizens of Florence, arm yourselves as ye will, ye shall be conquered this time, and ye shall not be able to kick against the pricks, for the Lord is with me, as a strong warrior." "Let us leave all to the Lord; He has been the Master of all the Prophets, and of all the holy men. He is the Master who wieldeth the hammer, and, when He hath used it for His purpose, putteth it not back into the chest, but casteth it aside. So did He unto Jeremiah, for when He had used him as much as He wished, He cast him aside and had him stoned. So will it be also with this hammer; when He shall have used it in His own way, He will cast it aside. Yea, we are content, let the Lord's will be done; and by the more suffering that shall be ours here below, so much the greater shall the crown be hereafter, there on high." "We will do with our prayers what we had to do with our preaching. O Lord, I commend to Thee the good and the pure of heart; and I pray Thee, look not at the negligence of the good, because human frailty is great, yea, their frailty is great. Bless, Lord, the good and pure of heart. Lord, I pray Thee that Thou delay no longer in fulfilling Thy promises." It was now, in the silence of his cell, that Savonarola prepared his last move. He would appeal to the princes of Christendom--the Emperor, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Henry VII. of England, the King of Hungary, and above all, that "most Christian King" Charles VIII. of France--to summon a general council, depose the simoniacal usurper who was polluting the chair of Peter, and reform the Church. He was prepared to promise miracles from God to confirm his words. These letters were written, but never sent; a preliminary message was forwarded from trustworthy friends in Florence to influential persons in each court to prepare them for what was coming; and the despatch to the Florentine ambassador in France was intercepted by the agents of the Duke of Milan. It was at once placed in the hands of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza in Rome, and the end was now a matter of days. The Signoria was hostile, and the famous ordeal by fire lit the conflagration that freed the martyr and patriot. On Sunday, March 25th, the Franciscan Francesco da Puglia, preaching in Santa Croce and denouncing Savonarola, challenged him to prove his doctrines by a miracle, to pass unscathed through the fire. He was himself prepared to enter the flames with him, or at least said that he was. Against Savonarola's will his lieutenant, Fra Domenico, who had taken his place in the pulpit, drew up a series of conclusions (epitomising Savonarola's teaching and declaring the nullity of the excommunication), and declared himself ready to enter the fire to prove their truth. Huge was the delight of the Compagnacci at the prospect of such sport, and the Signoria seized upon it as a chance of ending the matter once for all. Whether the Franciscans were sincere, or whether it was a mere plot to enable the Arrabbiati and Compagnacci to destroy Savonarola, is still a matter of dispute. The Piagnoni were confident in the coming triumph of their prophet; champions came forward from both sides, professedly eager to enter the flames--although it was muttered that the Compagnacci and their Doffo Spini had promised the Franciscans that no harm should befall them. Savonarola misliked it, but took every precaution that, if the ordeal really came off, there should be no possibility of fraud or evasion. Of the amazing scene in the Piazza on April 7th, I will speak in the following chapter; suffice it to say here that it ended in a complete fiasco, and that Savonarola and his friars would never have reached their convent alive, but for the protection of the armed soldiery of the Signoria. Hounded home under the showers of stones and filth from the infuriated crowd, whose howls of execration echoed through San Marco, Fra Girolamo had the _Te Deum_ sung, but knew in his heart that all was lost. That very same day his Cyrus, the champion of his prophetic dreams, Charles VIII. of France, was struck down by an apoplectic stroke at Amboise; and, as though in judgment for his abandonment of what the prophet had told him was the work of the Lord, breathed his last in the utmost misery and ignominy. The next morning, Palm Sunday, April 8th, Savonarola preached a very short sermon in the church of San Marco, in which he offered himself in sacrifice to God and was prepared to suffer death for his flock. _Tanto fu sempre questo uomo simile a sè stesso_, says Jacopo Nardi. Hell had broken loose by the evening, and the Arrabbiati and Compagnacci, stabbing and hewing as they came, surged round the church and convent. In spite of Savonarola and Fra Domenico, the friars had weapons and ammunition in their cells, and there was a small band of devout laymen with them, prepared to hold by the prophet to the end. From vespers till past midnight the attack and defence went on; in the Piazza, in the church, and through the cloisters raged the fight, while riot and murder wantoned through the streets of the city. Francesco Valori, who had escaped from the convent in the hope of bringing reinforcements, was brutally murdered before his own door. The great bell of the convent tolled and tolled, animating both besieged and besiegers to fresh efforts, but bringing no relief from without. Savonarola, who had been prevented from following the impulses of his heart and delivering himself up to the infernal crew that thirsted for his blood in the Piazza, at last gathered his friars round him before the Blessed Sacrament, in the great hall of the Greek library, solemnly confirmed his doctrine, exhorted them to embrace the Cross alone, and then, together with Fra Domenico, gave himself into the hands of the forces of the Signoria. The entire cloisters were already swarming with his exultant foes. "The work of the Lord shall go forward without cease," he said, as the mace-bearers bound him and Domenico, "my death will but hasten it on." Buffeted and insulted by the Compagnacci and the populace, amidst the deafening uproar, the two Dominicans were brought to the Palazzo Vecchio. It seemed to the excited imaginations of the Piagnoni that the scenes of the first Passiontide at Jerusalem were now being repeated in the streets of fifteenth century Florence. The Signoria had no intention of handing over their captives to Rome, but appointed a commission of seventeen--including Doffo Spini and several of Savonarola's bitterest foes--to conduct the examination of the three friars. The third, Fra Silvestro, a weak and foolish visionary, had hid himself on the fatal night, but had been given up on the following day. Again and again were they most cruelly tortured--but in all essentials, though ever and anon they wrung some sort of agonised denial from his lips, Savonarola's testimony as to his divine mission was unshaken. Fra Domenico, the lion-hearted soul whom the children of Florence had loved, and to whom poets like Poliziano had turned on their death-beds, was as heroic on the rack or under the torment of the boot as he had been throughout his career. Out of Fra Silvestro the examiners could naturally extort almost anything they pleased. And a number of laymen and others, supposed to have been in their counsels, were similarly "examined," and their shrieks rang through the Bargello; but with little profit to the Friar's foes. So they falsified the confessions, and read the falsification aloud in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, to the bewilderment of all Savonarola's quondam disciples who were there. "We had believed him to be a prophet," writes Landucci in his diary, "and he confessed that he was not a prophet, and that he had not received from God the things that he preached; and he confessed that many things in his sermons were the contrary to what he had given us to understand. And I was there when this process was read, whereat I was astounded, stupified, and amazed. Grief pierced my soul, when I saw so great an edifice fall to the ground, through being sadly based upon a single lie. I expected Florence to be a new Jerusalem, whence should proceed the laws and splendour and example of goodly living, and to see the renovation of the Church, the conversion of the infidels and the consolation of the good. And I heard the very contrary, and indeed took the medicine: _In voluntate tua, Domine, omnia sunt posita._" A packed election produced a new Signoria, crueller than the last. They still refused to send the friars to Rome, but invited the Pope's commissioners to Florence. These arrived on May 19th--the Dominican General, Torriani, a well-intentioned man, and the future Cardinal Romolino, a typical creature of the Borgias and a most infamous fellow. It was said that they meant to put Savonarola to death, even if he were a second St John the Baptist. The torture was renewed without result; the three friars were sentenced to be hanged and then burnt. Fra Domenico implored that he might be cast alive into the fire, in order that he might suffer more grievous torments for Christ, and desired only that the friars of Fiesole, of which convent he was prior, might bury him in some lowly spot, and be loyal to the teachings of Fra Girolamo. On the morning of May 23rd, Savonarola said his last Mass in the Chapel of the Priors, and communicated his companions. Then they were led out on to the Ringhiera overlooking the Piazza, from which a temporary _palchetto_ ran out towards the centre of the square to serve as scaffold. Here, the evening before, the gallows had been erected, beam across beam; but a cry had arisen among the crowd, _They are going to crucify him._ So it had been hacked about, in order that it might not seem even remotely to resemble a cross. But in spite of all their efforts, Jacopo Nardi tells us, that gallows still seemed to represent the figure of the Cross. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF SAVONAROLA (From an old, but quite contemporary, representation)] The guards of the Signoria kept back the crowds that pressed thicker and thicker round the scaffold, most of them bitterly hostile to the Friars and heaping every insult upon them. When Savonarola was stripped of the habit of Saint Dominic, he said, "Holy dress, how much did I long to wear thee; thou wast granted to me by the grace of God, and to this day I have kept thee spotless. I do not now leave thee, thou art taken from me." They were now degraded by the Bishop of Vasona, who had loved Fra Girolamo in better days; then in the same breath sentenced and absolved by Romolino, and finally condemned by the Eight--or the seven of them who were present--as representing the secular arm. The Bishop, in degrading Savonarola, stammered out: _Separo te ab Ecclesia militante atque triumphante_; to which the Friar calmly answered, in words which have become famous: _Militante, non triumphante; hoc enim tuum non est._ Silvestro suffered first, then Domenico. There was a pause before Savonarola followed; and in the sudden silence, as he looked his last upon the people, a voice cried: "Now, prophet, is the time for a miracle." And then another voice: "Now can I burn the man who would have burnt me"; and a ruffian, who had been waiting since dawn at the foot of the scaffold, fired the pile before the executioner could descend from his ladder. The bodies were burnt to ashes amidst the ferocious yells of the populace, and thrown into the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio. "Many fell from their faith," writes Landucci. A faithful few, including some noble Florentine ladies, gathered up relics, in spite of the crowd and the Signory, and collected what floated on the water. It was the vigil of Ascension Day. * * * * * Savonarola's martyrdom ends the story of mediæval Florence. The last man of the Middle Ages--born out of his due time--had perished. A portion of the prophecy was fulfilled at once. The people of Italy and their rulers alike were trampled into the dust beneath the feet of the foreigners--the Frenchmen, the Switzers, the Spaniards, the Germans. The new King of France, Louis XII., who claimed both the Duchy of Milan and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, entered Milan in 1499; and, after a brief restoration, Ludovico Sforza expiated his treasons by being sold by the Swiss to a lingering life-in-death in a French dungeon. The Spaniards followed; and in 1501 the troops of Ferdinand the Catholic occupied Naples. Like the dragon and the lion in Leonardo's drawing, Spain and France now fell upon each other for the possession of the spoils of conquered Italy; the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II. joined in the fray; fresh hordes of Swiss poured into Lombardy. The battle of Pavia in 1525 gave the final victory to Spain; and, in 1527, the judgment foretold by Savonarola fell upon Rome, when the Eternal City was devastated by the Spaniards and Germans, nominally the armies of the Emperor Charles V. The treaty of Câteau-Cambresis in 1559 finally forged the Austrian and Spanish fetters with which Italy was henceforth bound. The death of Savonarola did not materially alter the affairs of the Republic. The Greater Council kept its hold upon the people and city, and in 1502 Piero di Tommaso Soderini was elected Gonfaloniere for life. The new head of the State was a sincere Republican and a genuine whole-hearted patriot; a man of blameless life and noble character, but simple-minded almost to a fault, and of abilities hardly more than mediocre. Niccolò Machiavelli, who was born in 1469 and had entered political life in 1498, shortly after Savonarola's death, as Secretary to the Ten (the Dieci di Balìa), was much employed by the Gonfaloniere both in war and peace, especially on foreign legations; and, although he sneered at Soderini after his death for his simplicity, he co-operated faithfully and ably with him during his administration. It was under Soderini that Machiavelli organised the Florentine militia. Pisa was finally reconquered for Florence in 1509; and, although Machiavelli cruelly told the Pisan envoys that the Florentines required only their obedience, and cared nothing for their lives, their property, nor their honour, the conquerors showed unusual magnanimity and generosity in their triumph. These last years of the Republic are very glorious in the history of Florentine art. In 1498, just before the French entered Milan, Leonardo da Vinci had finished his Last Supper for Ludovico Sforza; in the same year, Michelangelo commenced his Pietà in Rome which is now in St Peter's; in 1499, Baccio della Porta began a fresco of the Last Judgment in Santa Maria Nuova, a fresco which, when he entered the Dominican order at San Marco and became henceforth known as Fra Bartolommeo, was finished by his friend, Mariotto Albertinelli. These three works, though in very different degrees, represent the opening of the Cinquecento in painting and sculpture. While Soderini ruled, both Leonardo and Michelangelo were working in Florence, for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, and Michelangelo's gigantic David--the Republic preparing to meet its foes--was finished in 1504. This was the epoch in which Leonardo was studying those strange women of the Renaissance, whose mysterious smiles and wonderful hair still live for us in his drawings; and it was now that he painted here in Florence his Monna Lisa, "the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea." At the close of 1504 the young Raphael came to Florence (as Perugino had done before him), and his art henceforth shows how profoundly he felt the Florentine influence. We know how he sketched the newly finished David, studied Masaccio's frescoes, copied bits of Leonardo's cartoon, was impressed by Bartolommeo's Last Judgment. Although it was especially Leonardo that he took for a model, Raphael found his most congenial friend and adviser in the artist friar of San Marco; and there is a pleasant tradition that he was himself influential in persuading Fra Bartolommeo to resume the brush. Leonardo soon went off to serve King Francis I. in France; Pope Julius summoned both Michelangelo and Raphael to Rome. These men were the masters of the world in painting and sculpture, and cannot really be confined to one school. Purely Florentine painting in the Cinquecento now culminated in the work of Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531), who had both been the pupils of Piero di Cosimo, although they felt other and greater influences later. After Angelico, Fra Bartolommeo is the most purely religious of all the Florentine masters; and, with the solitary exception of Andrea del Sarto, he is their only really great colourist. Two pictures of his at Lucca--one in the Cathedral, the other now in the Palazzo Pubblico--are among the greatest works of the Renaissance. In the latter especially, "Our Lady of Mercy," he shows himself the heir in painting of the traditions of Savonarola. Many of Bartolommeo's altar-pieces have grown very black, and have lost much of their effect by being removed from the churches for which they were painted; but enough is left in Florence to show his greatness. With him was associated that gay Bohemian and wild liver, Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), who deserted painting to become an innkeeper, and who frequently worked in partnership with the friar. Andrea del Sarto, the tailor's son who loved not wisely but too well, is the last of a noble line of heroic craftsmen. Although his work lacks all inspiration, he is one of the greatest of colourists. "Andrea del Sarto," writes Mr Berenson, "approached, perhaps, as closely to a Giorgione or a Titian as could a Florentine, ill at ease in the neighbourhood of Leonardo and Michelangelo." He entirely belongs to these closing days of the Republic; his earliest frescoes were painted during Soderini's gonfalonierate; his latest just before the great siege. In the Carnival of 1511 a wonderfully grim pageant was shown to the Florentines, and it was ominous of coming events. It was known as the _Carro della Morte_, and had been designed with much secrecy by Piero di Cosimo. Drawn by buffaloes, a gigantic black chariot, all painted over with dead men's bones and white crosses, slowly passed through the streets. Upon the top of it, there stood a large figure of Death with a scythe in her hand; all round her, on the chariot, were closed coffins. When at intervals the Triumph paused, harsh and hoarse trumpet-blasts sounded; the coffins opened, and horrible figures, attired like skeletons, half issued forth. "We are dead," they sang, "as you see. So shall we see you dead. Once we were even as you are, soon shall you be as we." Before and after the chariot, rode a great band of what seemed to be mounted deaths, on the sorriest steeds that could be found. Each bore a great black banner with skull and cross-bones upon it, and each ghastly cavalier was attended by four skeletons with black torches. Ten black standards followed the Triumph; and, as it slowly moved on, the whole procession chanted the _Miserere_. Vasari tells us that this spectacle, which filled the city with terror and wonder, was supposed to signify the return of the Medici to Florence, which was to be "as it were, a resurrection from death to life." And, sure enough, in the following year the Spaniards under Raimondo da Cardona fell upon Tuscany, and, after the horrible sack and massacre of Prato, reinstated the Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici and Giuliano in Florence--their elder brother, Piero, had been drowned in the Garigliano eight years before. Piero Soderini went into exile, the Greater Council was abolished, and, while the city was held by their foreign troops, the Medici renewed the old pretence of summoning a parliament to grant a balìa to reform the State. At the beginning of 1513 two young disciples of Savonarola, Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi, resolved to imitate Brutus and Cassius, and to liberate Florence by the death of the Cardinal and his brother. Their plot was discovered, and they died on the scaffold. "Get this Brutus out of my head for me," said Boscoli to Luca della Robbia, kinsman of the great sculptor, "that I may meet my last end like a Christian"; and, to the Dominican friar who confessed him, he said, "Father, the philosophers have taught me how to bear death manfully; do you help me to bear it out of love for Christ." In this same year the Cardinal Giovanni was elected Pope, and entered upon his splendid and scandalous pontificate as Leo X. "Let us enjoy the Papacy," was his maxim, "since God has given it to us." Although Machiavelli was ready to serve the Medici, he had been deprived of his posts at the restoration, imprisoned and tortured on suspicion of being concerned in Boscoli's conspiracy, and now, released in the amnesty granted by the newly elected Pope, was living in poverty and enforced retirement at his villa near San Casciano. It was now that he wrote his great books, the _Principe_ and the _Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio_. Florence was ruled by the Pope's nephew, the younger Lorenzo, son of Piero by Alfonsina Orsini. The government was practically what it had been under the Magnificent, save that this new Lorenzo, who had married a French princess, discarded the republican appearances which his grandfather had maintained, and surrounded himself with courtiers and soldiers. For him and for Giuliano, the Pope cherished designs of carving out large princedoms in Italy; and Machiavelli, in dedicating his _Principe_ first to Giuliano, who died in 1516, and then to Lorenzo, probably dreamed that some such prince as he described might drive out the foreigner and unify the nation. In his nobler moments Leo X., too, seems to have aspired to establish the independence of Italy. When Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving one daughter, who was afterwards to be the notorious Queen of France, there was no direct legitimate male descendant of Cosimo the elder left; and the Cardinal Giulio, son of the elder Giuliano, governed Florence with considerable mildness, and even seemed disposed to favour a genuine republican government, until a plot against his life hardened his heart. It was to him that Machiavelli, who was now to some extent received back into favour, afterwards dedicated his _Istorie Fiorentine_. In 1523 the Cardinal Giulio, in spite of his illegitimate birth, became Pope Clement VII., that most hapless of Pontiffs, whose reign was so surpassingly disastrous to Italy. In Florence the Medici were now represented by two young bastards, Ippolito and Alessandro, the reputed children of the younger Giuliano and the younger Lorenzo respectively; while the Cardinal Passerini misruled the State in the name of the Pope. But more of the true Medicean spirit had passed into the person of a woman, Clarice, the daughter of Piero (and therefore the sister of the Duke Lorenzo), who was married to the younger Filippo Strozzi, and could ill bear to see her house end in these two base-born lads. And elsewhere in Italy Giovanni delle Bande Nere (as he was afterwards called, from the mourning of his soldiers for his death) was winning renown as a captain; he was the son of that Giovanni dei Medici with whom Piero had quarrelled, by Caterina Sforza, the Lady of Forlì, and had married Maria Salviati, a grand-daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. But the Pope would rather have lost Florence than that it should fall into the hands of the younger line. But the Florentine Republic was to have a more glorious sunset. In 1527, while the imperial troops sacked Rome, the Florentines for the third time expelled the Medici and re-established the Republic, with first Niccolò Capponi and then Francesco Carducci as Gonfaloniere. In this sunset Machiavelli died; Andrea del Sarto painted the last great Florentine fresco; Michelangelo returned to serve the State in her hour of need. The voices of the Piagnoni were heard again from San Marco, and Niccolò Capponi in the Greater Council carried a resolution electing Jesus Christ king of Florence. But the plague fell upon the city; and her liberty was the price of the reconciliation of Pope and Emperor. From October 1529 until August 1530, their united forces--first under the Prince of Orange and then under Ferrante Gonzaga--beleaguered Florence. Francesco Ferrucci, the last hope of the Republic, was defeated and slain by the imperialists near San Marcello; and then, betrayed by her own infamous general Malatesta Baglioni, the city capitulated on the understanding that, although the form of the government was to be regulated and established by the Emperor, her liberty was preserved. The sun had indeed set of the most noble Republic in all history. Alessandro dei Medici, the reputed son of Lorenzo by a mulatto woman, was now made hereditary ruler of Florence by the Emperor, whose illegitimate daughter he married, and by the Pope. For a time, the Duke behaved with some decency; but after the death of Clement in 1534, he showed himself in his true light as a most abominable tyrant, and would even have murdered Michelangelo, who had been working upon the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo. "It was certainly by God's aid," writes Condivi, "that he happened to be away from Florence when Clement died." Alessandro appears to have poisoned his kinsman, the Cardinal Ippolito, the other illegitimate remnant of the elder Medicean line, in whom he dreaded a possible rival. Associated with him in his worst excesses was a legitimate scion of the younger branch of the house, Lorenzino--the _Lorenzaccio_ of Alfred de Musset's drama--who was the grandson of the Lorenzo di Pier Francesco mentioned in the previous chapter.[26] On January 5th, 1537, this young man--a reckless libertine, half scholar and half madman--stabbed the Duke Alessandro to death with the aid of a bravo, and fled, only to find a dishonourable grave some ten years later in Venice. [26] See the Genealogical Table of the Medici. [Illustration: THE DAWN BY MICHELANGELO] Florence now fell into the hands of the ablest and most ruthless of all her rulers, Cosimo I. (the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere), who united Medicean craft with the brutality of the Sforzas, conquered Siena, and became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. At the opening of his reign the Florentine exiles, headed by the Strozzi and by Baccio Valori, attempted to recover the State, but were defeated by Cosimo's mercenaries. Their leaders were relentlessly put to death; and Filippo Strozzi, after prolonged torture, was either murdered in prison or committed suicide. A word will be said presently, in chapter ix., on Cosimo's descendants, the Medicean Grand Dukes who reigned in Tuscany for two hundred years. The older generation of artists had passed away with the Republic. After the siege Michelangelo alone remained, compelled to labour upon the Medicean tombs in San Lorenzo, which have become a monument, less to the tyrants for whom he reared them, than to the _saeva indignatio_ of the great master himself at the downfall of his country. A madrigal of his, written either in the days of Alessandro or at the beginning of Cosimo's reign, expresses what was in his heart. Symonds renders it:-- "Lady, for joy of lovers numberless Thou wast created fair as angels are; Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar, When one man calls the bliss of many his." But the last days and last works of Michelangelo belong to the story of Rome rather than to that of Florence. Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo (1494-1557), who had been Andrea del Sarto's scholar, and whose earlier works had been painted before the downfall of the Republic, connects the earlier with the later Cinquecento; but of his work, as of that of his pupil Angelo Bronzino (1502-1572), the portraits alone have any significance for us now. Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574), although painter and architect--the Uffizi and part of the Palazzo Vecchio are his work--is chiefly famous for his delightful series of biographies of the artists themselves. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), that most piquant of personalities, and the Fleming Giambologna or Giovanni da Bologna (1524-1608), the master of the flying Mercury, are the last noteworthy sculptors of the Florentine school. When Michelangelo--_Michel, più che mortale, Angel divino_, as Ariosto calls him--passed away on February 18th, 1564, the Renaissance was over as far as Art was concerned. And not in Art only. The dome of St Peter's, that was slowly rising before Michelangelo's dying eyes, was a visible sign of the new spirit that was moving within the Church itself, the spirit that reformed the Church and purified the Papacy, and which brought about the renovation of which Savonarola had prophesied. CHAPTER V _The Palazzo Vecchio--The Piazza della Signoria--The Uffizi_ "Ecco il Palagio de' Signori si bello che chi cercasse tutto l'universo, non credo ch'é trovasse par di quello." --_Antonio Pucci._ [Illustration: THE PALAZZO VECCHIO] At the eastern corner of the Piazza della Signoria--that great square over which almost all the history of Florence may be said to have passed--rises the Palazzo Vecchio, with its great projecting parapets and its soaring tower: the old Palace of the Signoria, originally the Palace of the Priors, and therefore of the People. It is often stated that the square battlements of the Palace itself represent the Guelfs, while the forked battlements of the tower are in some mysterious way connected with the Ghibellines, who can hardly be said to have still existed as a real party in the city when they were built; there is, it appears, absolutely no historical foundation for this legend. The Palace was commenced by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1298, when, in consequence of the hostility between the magnates and the people, it was thought that the Priors were not sufficiently secure in the Palace of the Cerchi; and it may be taken to represent the whole course of Florentine history, from this government of the Secondo Popolo, through Savonarola's Republic and the Medicean despotism, down to the unification of Italy. Its design and essentials, however, are Arnolfo's and the people's, though many later architects, besides Vasari, have had their share in the completion of the present building. Arnolfo founded the great tower of the Priors upon an older tower of a family of magnates, the Foraboschi, and it was also known as the Torre della Vacca. When, in those fierce democratic days, its great bell rang to summon a Parliament in the Piazza, or to call the companies of the city to arms, it was popularly said that "the cow" was lowing. The upper part of the tower belongs to the fifteenth century. Stupendous though the Palazzo is, it would have been of vaster proportions but for the prohibition given to Arnolfo to raise the house of the Republic where the dwellings of the Uberti had once stood--_ribelli di Firenze e Ghibellini_. Not even the heroism of Farinata could make this stern people less "fierce against my kindred in all its laws," as that great Ghibelline puts it to Dante in the _Inferno_. The present steps and platform in front of the Palace are only the remnants of the famous Ringhiera constructed here in the fourteenth century, and removed in 1812. On it the Signoria used to meet to address the crowd in the Piazza, or to enter upon their term of office. Here, at one time, the Gonfaloniere received the Standard of the People, and here, at a somewhat later date, the batons of command were given to the condottieri who led the mercenaries in the pay of the Republic. Here the famous meeting took place at which the Duke of Athens was acclaimed _Signore a vita_ by the mob; and here, a few months later, his Burgundian followers thrust out the most unpopular of his agents to be torn to pieces by the besiegers. Here the Papal Commissioners and the Eight sat on the day of Savonarola's martyrdom, as told in the last chapter. The inscription over the door, with the monogram of Christ, was placed here by the Gonfaloniere Niccolò Capponi in February 1528, in the last temporary restoration of the Republic; it originally announced that Jesus Christ had been chosen King of the Florentine People, but was modified by Cosimo I. The huge marble group of Hercules and Cacus on the right, by Baccio Bandinelli, is an atrocity; in Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography there is a rare story of how he and Baccio wrangled about it in the Duke's presence, on which occasion Bandinelli was stung into making a foul--but probably true--accusation against Cellini, which might have had serious consequences. The Marzocco on the left, the emblematical lion of Florence, is a copy from Donatello. The court is the work of Michelozzo, commenced in 1434, on the return of the elder Cosimo from exile. The stucco ornamentations and grotesques were executed in 1565, on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco dei Medici, son of Cosimo I., with Giovanna of Austria; the faded frescoes are partly intended to symbolise the ducal exploits, partly views of Austrian cities in compliment to the bride. The bronze boy with a dolphin, on the fountain in the centre of the court, was made by Andrea Verrocchio for Lorenzo the Magnificent; it is an exquisite little work, full of life and motion--"the little boy who for ever half runs and half flits across the courtyard of the Palace, while the dolphin ceaselessly struggles in the arms, whose pressure sends the water spurting from the nostrils."[27] [27] Mr Armstrong in his _Lorenzo de' Medici_. On the first floor is the _Sala del Consiglio Grande_, frequently called the _Salone dei Cinquecento_. It was mainly constructed in 1495 by Simone del Pollaiuolo, called Cronaca from his capacity of telling endless stories about Fra Girolamo. Here the Greater Council met, which the Friar declared was the work of God and not of man. And here it was that, in a famous sermon preached before the Signoria and chief citizens on August 20th, 1496, he cried: "I want no hats, no mitres great or small; nought would I have save what Thou hast given to Thy saints--death; a red hat, a hat of blood--this do I desire." It was supposed that the Pope had offered to make him a cardinal. In this same hall on the evening of May 22nd, 1498, the evening before their death, Savonarola was allowed an hour's interview with his two companions; it was the first time that they had met since their arrest, and in the meanwhile Savonarola had been told that the others had recanted, and Domenico and Silvestro had been shown what purported to be their master's confession, seeming, in part at least, to abjure the cause for which Fra Domenico was yearning to shed his blood. A few years later, in 1503, the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini intrusted the decoration of these walls to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; and it was then that this hall, so consecrated to liberty, became _la scuola del mondo_, the school of all the world in art; and Raphael himself was among the most ardent of its scholars. Leonardo drew his famous scene of the Battle of the Standard, and appears to have actually commenced painting on the wall. Michelangelo sketched the cartoon of a group of soldiers bathing in the Arno, suddenly surprised by the sound of the trumpet calling them to arms; but he did not proceed any further. These cartoons played the same part in the art of the Cinquecento as Masaccio's Carmine frescoes in that of the preceding century; it is the universal testimony of contemporaries that they were the supremely perfect works of the Renaissance. Vasari gives a full description of each--but no traces of the original works now remain. One episode from Leonardo's cartoon is preserved in an engraving by Edelinck after a copy, which is hardly likely to have been a faithful one, by Rubens; and there is an earlier engraving as well. A few figures are to be seen in a drawing at Venice, doubtfully ascribed to Raphael. Drawings and engravings of Michelangelo's soldiers have made a portion of his composition familiar--enough at least to make the world realise something of the extent of its loss. On the restoration of the Medici in 1512, the hall was used as a barracks for their foreign soldiers; and Vasari accuses Baccio Bandinelli of having seized the opportunity to destroy Michelangelo's cartoon--which hardly seems probable. The frescoes which now cover the walls are by Vasari and his school, the statues of the Medici partly by Bandinelli, whilst that of Fra Girolamo is modern. It was in this hall that the first Parliament of United Italy met, during the short period when Florence was the capital. The adjoining rooms, called after various illustrious members of the Medicean family, are adorned with pompous uninspiring frescoes of their exploits by Vasari; in the Salotto di Papa Clemente there is a representation of the siege of Florence by the papal and imperial armies, which gives a fine idea of the magnitude of the third walls of the city, Arnolfo's walls, though even then the towers had been in part shortened. On the second floor, the hall prettily known as the Sala dei Gigli contains some frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, executed about 1482. They represent St Zenobius in his majesty, enthroned between Eugenius and Crescentius, with Roman heroes as it were in attendance upon this great patron of the Florentines. In a lunette, painted in imitation of bas-relief, there is a peculiarly beautiful Madonna and Child with Angels, also by Domenico Ghirlandaio. This room is sometimes called the Sala del Orologio, from a wonderful old clock that once stood here. The following room, into which a door with marble framework by Benedetto da Maiano leads, is the audience chamber of the Signoria; it was originally to have been decorated by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Perugino, and Filippino Lippi--but the present frescoes are by Salviati in the middle of the sixteenth century. Here, on the fateful day of the _Cimento_ or Ordeal, the two Franciscans, Francesco da Puglia and Giuliano Rondinelli, consulted with the Priors and then passed into the Chapel to await the event. Beyond is the Priors' Chapel, dedicated to St Bernard and decorated with frescoes in imitation of mosaic by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (Domenico's son). Here on the morning of his martyrdom Savonarola said Mass, and, before actually communicating, took the Host in his hands and uttered his famous prayer:-- "Lord, I know that Thou art that very God, the Creator of the world and of human nature. I know that Thou art that perfect, indivisible and inseparable Trinity, distinct in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I know that Thou art that Eternal Word, who didst descend from Heaven to earth in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Thou didst ascend the wood of the Cross to shed Thy precious Blood for us, miserable sinners. I pray Thee, my Lord; I pray Thee, my Salvation; I pray Thee, my Consoler; that such precious Blood be not shed for me in vain, but may be for the remission of all my sins. For these I crave Thy pardon, from the day that I received the water of Holy Baptism even to this moment; and I confess to Thee, Lord, my guilt. And so I crave pardon of Thee for what offence I have done to this city and all this people, in things spiritual and temporal, as well as for all those things wherein of myself I am not conscious of having erred. And humbly do I crave pardon of all those persons who are here standing round. May they pray to God for me, and may He make me strong up to the last end, so that the enemy may have no power over me. Amen." Beyond the Priors' chapel are the apartments of Duke Cosimo's Spanish wife, Eleonora of Toledo, with a little chapel decorated by Bronzino. It was in these rooms that the Duchess stormed at poor Benvenuto Cellini, when he passed through to speak with the Duke--as he tells us in his autobiography. Benvenuto had an awkward knack of suddenly appearing here whenever the Duke and Duchess were particularly busy; but their children were hugely delighted at seeing him, and little Don Garzia especially used to pull him by the cloak and "have the most pleasant sport with me that such a _bambino_ could have." A room in the tower, discovered in 1814, is supposed to be the Alberghettino, in which the elder Cosimo was imprisoned in 1433, and in which Savonarola passed his last days--save when he was brought down to the Bargello to be tortured. Here the Friar wrote his meditations upon the _In te, Domine, speravi_ and the _Miserere_--meditations which became famous throughout Christendom. The prayer, quoted above, is usually printed as a pendant to the _Miserere_. On the left of the palace, the great fountain with Neptune and his riotous gods and goddesses of the sea, by Bartolommeo Ammanati and his contemporaries, is a characteristic production of the later Cinquecento. No less characteristic, though in another way, is the equestrian statue in bronze of Cosimo I., as first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Giovanni da Bologna; the tyrant sits on his steed, gloomily guarding the Palace and Piazza where he has finally extinguished the last sparks of republican liberty. It was finished in 1594, in the days of his son Ferdinand I., the third Grand Duke. At the beginning of the Via Gondi, adjoining the custom-house and now incorporated in the Palazzo Vecchio, was the palace of the Captain, the residence of the Bargello and Executor of Justice. It was here that the Pazzi conspirators were hung out of the windows in 1478; here that Bernardo del Nero and his associates were beheaded in 1497; and here, in the following year, the examination of Savonarola and his adherents was carried on. Near here, too, stood in old times the Serraglio, or den of the lions, which was also incorporated by Vasari into the Palace; the Via del Leone, in which Vasari's rather fine rustica façade stands, is named from them still. The Piazza saw the Pisan captives forced ignominiously to kiss the Marzocco in 1364, and to build the so-called Tetto dei Pisani, which formerly stood on the west, opposite the Palace. In this Piazza, too, the people assembled in parliament at the sounding of the great bell. In the fifteenth century, this simply meant that whatever party in the State desired to alter the government, in their own favour, occupied the openings of the Piazza with troops; and the noisy rabble that appeared on these occasions, to roar out their assent to whatever was proposed, had but little connection with the real People of Florence. Among the wildest scenes that this Piazza has witnessed were those during the rising of the Ciompi in 1378, when again and again the populace surged round the Palace with their banners and wild cries, until the terrified Signoria granted their demands. Here, too, took place Savonarola's famous burnings of the Vanities in Carnival time; large piles of these "lustful things" were surmounted by allegorical figures of King Carnival, or of Lucifer and the seven deadly sins, and then solemnly fired; while the people sang the _Te Deum_, the bells rang, and the trumpets and drums of the Signoria pealed out their loudest. But sport of less serious kind went on here too--tournaments and shows of wild beasts and the like--things that the Florentines dearly loved, and in which their rulers found it politic to fool them to the top of their bent. For instance, on June 25th, 1514, there was a _caccia_ of a specially magnificent kind; a sort of glorified bull-fight, in which a fountain surrounded by green woods was constructed in the middle of the Piazza, and two lions, with bears and leopards, bulls, buffaloes, stags, horses, and the like were driven into the arena. Enormous prices were paid for seats; foreigners came from all countries, and four Roman cardinals were conspicuous, including Raphael's Bibbiena, disguised as Spanish gentlemen. Several people were killed by the beasts. It was always a sore point with the Florentines that their lions were such unsatisfactory brutes and never distinguished themselves on these occasions; they were no match for your Spanish bull, at a time when, in politics, the bull's master had yoked all Italy to his triumphal car. The _Loggia dei Priori_, now called the _Loggia dei Lanzi_ after the German lancers of Duke Cosimo who were stationed here, was originally built for the Priors and other magistrates to exercise public functions, with all the display that mediæval republics knew so well how to use. It is a kind of great open vaulted hall; a throne for a popular government, as M. Reymond calls it. Although frequently known as the Loggia of Orcagna, it was commenced in 1376 by Benci di Cione and Simone Talenti, and is intermediate in style between Gothic and Renaissance (in contrast to the pure Gothic of the Bigallo). The sculptures above, frequently ascribed to Agnolo Gaddi and representing the Virtues, are now assigned to Giovanni d'Ambrogio and Jacopo di Piero, and were executed between 1380 and 1390. Among the numerous statues that now stand beneath its roof (and which include Giambologna's Rape of the Sabines) are two of the finest bronzes in Florence: Donatello's _Judith and Holofernes_, cast for Cosimo the elder, and originally in the Medicean Palace, but, on the expulsion of the younger Piero, set up on the Ringhiera with the threatening inscription: _exemplum Salutis Publicae_; and Benvenuto Cellini's _Perseus with the head of Medusa_, cast in 1553 for the Grand Duke Cosimo (then only Duke), and possibly intended as a kind of despotic counter-blast to the Judith. The pedestal (with the exception of the bas-relief in front, of which the original is in the Bargello) is also Cellini's. Cellini gives us a rare account of the exhibiting of this Perseus to the people, while the Duke himself lurked behind a window over the door of the palace to hear what was said. He assures us that the crowd gazed upon him--that is, the artist, not the statue--as something altogether miraculous for having accomplished such a work, and that two noblemen from Sicily accosted him as he walked in the Piazza, with such ceremony as would have been too much even towards the Pope. He took a holiday in honour of the event, sang psalms and hymns the whole way out of Florence, and was absolutely convinced that the _ne plus ultra_ of art had been reached. But it is of Savonarola, and not of Benvenuto Cellini, that the Loggia reminds us; for here was the scene of the _Cimento di Fuoco_, the ordeal of fire, on April 7th, 1498. An immense crowd of men filled the Piazza; women and children were excluded, but packed every inch of windows, roofs, balconies. The streets and entrances were strongly held by troops, while more were drawn up round the Palace under Giovacchino della Vecchia. The platform bearing the intended pyre--a most formidable death-trap, which was to be fired behind the champions as soon as they were well within it--ran out from the Ringhiera towards the centre of the Piazza. In spite of the strict proclamation to armed men not to enter, Doffo Spini appeared with three hundred Compagnacci, "all armed like Paladins," says Simone Filipepi,[28] "in favour of the friars of St Francis." They entered the Piazza with a tremendous uproar, and formed up under the Tetto dei Pisani, opposite the Palace. Simone says that there was a pre-arranged plot, in virtue of which they only waited for a sign from the Palace to cut the Dominicans and their adherents to pieces. The Loggia was divided into two parts, the half nearer the Palace assigned to the Franciscans, the other, in which a temporary altar had been erected, to the Dominicans. In front of the Loggia the sun flashed back from the armour of a picked band of soldiers, under Marcuccio Salviati, apparently intended as a counter demonstration to Doffo Spini and his young aristocrats. The Franciscans were first on the field, and quietly took their station. Their two champions entered the Palace, and were seen no more during the proceedings. Then with exultant strains of the _Exsurgat Deus_, the Dominicans slowly made their way down the Corso degli Adimari and through the Piazza in procession, two and two. Their fierce psalm was caught up and re-echoed by their adherents as they passed. Preceded by a Crucifix, about two hundred of these black and white "hounds of the Lord" entered the field of battle, followed by Fra Domenico in a rich cope, and then Savonarola in full vestments with the Blessed Sacrament, attended by deacon and sub-deacon. A band of devout republican laymen, with candles and red crosses, brought up the rear. Savonarola entered the Loggia, set the Sacrament on the altar, and solemnly knelt in adoration. [28] Botticelli's brother and an ardent Piagnone, whose chronicle has been recently discovered and published by Villari and Casanova. The Franciscans were possibly sincere in the business, and mere tools in the hands of the Compagnacci; they are not likely to have been privy to the plot. Then, while Fra Girolamo stood firm as a column, delay after delay commenced. The Dominican's cope might be enchanted, or his robe too for the matter of that, so Domenico was hurried into the Palace and his garments changed. The two Franciscan stalwarts remained in the Priors' chapel. In the meanwhile a storm passed over the city. A rush of the Compagnacci and populace towards the Loggia was driven back by Salviati's guard. Domenico returned with changed garments, and stood among the Franciscans; stones hurtled about him; he would enter the fire with the Crucifix--this was objected to; then with the Sacrament--this was worse. Domenico was convinced that he would pass through the ordeal scathless, and that the Sacrament would not protect him if his cause were not just; but he was equally convinced that it was God's will that he should not enter the fire without it. Evening fell in the midst of the wrangling, and at last the Signoria ordered both parties to go home. Only the efforts of Salviati and his soldiery saved Savonarola and Domenico from being torn to pieces at the hands of the infuriated mob, who apparently concluded that they had been trifled with. "As the Father Fra Girolamo issued from the Loggia with the Most Holy Sacrament in his hands," says Simone Filipepi, who was present, "and Fra Domenico with his Crucifix, the signal was given from the Palace to Doffo Spini to carry out his design; but he, as it pleased God, would do nothing." The Franciscans of Santa Croce were promised an annual subsidy of sixty pieces of silver for their share in the day's work: "Here, take the price of the innocent blood you have betrayed," was their greeting when they came to demand it. In after years, Doffo Spini was fond of gossiping with Botticelli and his brother, Simone Filipepi, and made no secret of his intention of killing Savonarola on this occasion. Yet, of all the Friar's persecutors, he was the only one that showed any signs of penitence for what he had done. "On the ninth day of April, 1503," writes Simone in his Chronicle, "as I, Simone di Mariano Filipepi, was leaving my house to go to vespers in San Marco, Doffo Spini, who was in the company of Bartolommeo di Lorenzo Carducci, saluted me. Bartolommeo turned to me, and said that Fra Girolamo and the Piagnoni had spoilt and undone the city; whereupon many words passed between him and me, which I will not set down here. But Doffo interposed, and said that he had never had any dealings with Fra Girolamo, until the time when, as a member of the Eight, he had to examine him in prison; and that, if he had heard Fra Girolamo earlier and had been intimate with him, 'even as Simone here'--turning to me--'I would have been a more ardent partisan of his than even Simone, for nothing save good was ever seen in him even unto his death.'" THE UFFIZI Beyond the Palazzo Vecchio, between the Piazza and the Arno, stands the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which Giorgio Vasari reared in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, for Cosimo I. It contains the Archives, the Biblioteca Nazionale (which includes the Palatine and Magliabecchian Libraries, and, like all similar institutions in Italy, is generously thrown open to all comers without reserve), and, above all, the great picture gallery commenced by the Grand Dukes, usually simply known as the Uffizi and now officially the Galleria Reale degli Uffizi, which, together with its continuation in the Pitti Palace across the river, is undoubtedly the finest collection of pictures in the world. [Illustration: LOOKING THROUGH VASARI'S LOGGIA, UFFIZI] Leaving the double lines of illustrious Florentines, men great in the arts of war and peace, in their marble niches watching over the pigeons who throng the Portico, we ascend to the picture gallery by the second door to the left.[29] [29] The following notes make no pretence at furnishing a catalogue, but are simply intended to indicate the more important Italian pictures, especially the principal masterpieces of, or connected with the Florentine school. RITRATTI DEI PITTORI--PRIMO CORRIDORE. On the way up, four rooms on the right contain the Portraits of the Painters, many of them painted by themselves. In the further room, Filippino Lippi by himself, fragment of a fresco (286). Raphael (288) at the age of twenty-three, with his spiritual, almost feminine beauty, painted by himself at Urbino during his Florentine period, about 1506. This is Raphael before the worldly influence of Rome had fallen upon him, the youth who came from Urbino and Perugia to the City of the Lilies with the letter of recommendation from Urbino's Duchess to Piero Soderini, to sit at the feet of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and wander with Fra Bartolommeo through the cloisters of San Marco. Titian (384), "in which he appears, painted by himself, on the confines of old age, vigorous and ardent still, fully conscious, moreover, though without affectation, of pre-eminent genius and supreme artistic rank" (Mr C. Phillips). Tintoretto, by himself (378); Andrea del Sarto, by himself (1176); a genuine portrait of Michelangelo (290), but of course not by himself; Rubens, by himself (228). An imaginary portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (292), of a much later period, may possibly preserve some tradition of the "magician's" appearance; the Dosso Dossi is doubtful; those of Giorgione and Bellini are certainly apocryphal. In the second room are two portraits of Rembrandt by himself. In the third room Angelica Kauffmann and Vigée Le Brun are charming in their way. In the fourth room, English visitors cannot fail to welcome several of their own painters of the nineteenth century, including Mr Watts. Passing the Medicean busts at the head of the stairs, the famous Wild Boar and the two Molossian Hounds, we enter the first or eastern corridor, containing paintings of the earlier masters, mingled with ancient busts and sarcophagi. The best specimens of the Giotteschi are an Agony in the Garden (8), wrongly ascribed to Giotto himself; an Entombment (27), ascribed to a Giotto di Stefano, called Giottino, a painter of whom hardly anything but the nickname is known; an Annunciation (28), ascribed to Agnolo Gaddi; and an altar-piece by Giovanni da Milano (32). There are some excellent early Sienese paintings; a Madonna and Child with Angels, by Pietro Lorenzetti, 1340 (15); the Annunciation, by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi (23); and a very curious picture of the Hermits of the Thebaid (16), a kind of devout fairy-land painted possibly by one of the Lorenzetti, in the spirit of those delightfully naïve _Vite del Santi Padri_. Lorenzo Monaco, or Don Lorenzo, a master who occupies an intermediate position between the Giotteschi and the Quattrocento, is represented by the Mystery of the Passion (40), a symbolical picture painted in 1404, of a type that Angelico brought to perfection in a fresco in San Marco; the Adoration of the Magi (39, the scenes in the frame by a later hand), and Madonna and Saints (41). The portrait of Giovanni dei Medici (43) is by an unknown hand of the Quattrocento. Paolo Uccello's Battle (52) is mainly a study in perspective. The Annunciation (53), by Neri di Bicci di Lorenzo, is a fair example of one of the least progressive painters of the Quattrocento. The pictures by Alessio Baldovinetti (56 and 60) and Cosimo Rosselli (63 and 65) are tolerable examples of very uninteresting fifteenth century masters. The allegorical figures of the Virtues (69-73), ascribed to Piero Pollaiuolo, are second-rate; and the same may be said of an Annunciation (such is the real subject of 81) and the Perseus and Andromeda pictures (85, 86, 87) by Piero di Cosimo. But the real gem of this corridor is the Madonna and Child (74), which Luca Signorelli painted for Lorenzo dei Medici, a picture which profoundly influenced Michelangelo; the splendidly modelled nude figures of men in the background transport us into the golden age. TRIBUNA. The famous Tribuna is supposed to contain the masterpieces of the whole collection, though the lover of the Quattrocento will naturally seek his best-loved favourites elsewhere. Of the five ancient sculptures in the centre of the hall the best is that of the crouching barbarian slave, who is preparing his knife to flay Marsyas. It is a fine work of the Pergamene school. The celebrated Venus dei Medici is a typical Græco-Roman work, the inscription at its base being a comparatively modern forgery. It was formerly absurdly overpraised, and is in consequence perhaps too much depreciated at the present day. The remaining three--the Satyr, the Wrestlers, and the young Apollo--have each been largely and freely restored. Turning to the pictures, we have first the Madonna del Cardellino (1129), painted by Raphael during his Florentine period when under the influence of Fra Bartolommeo, in 1506 or thereabouts, and afterwards much damaged and restored: still one of the most beautiful of his early Madonnas. The St. John the Baptist (1127), ascribed to Raphael, is only a school piece, though from a design of the master's. The Madonna del Pozzo (1125), in spite of its hard and over-smooth colouring, was at one time attributed to Raphael; its ascription to Francia Bigio is somewhat conjectural. The portrait of a Lady wearing a wreath (1123), and popularly called the Fornarina, originally ascribed to Giorgione and later to Raphael, is believed to be by Sebastiano del Piombo. Then come a lady's portrait, ascribed to Raphael (1120); another by a Veronese master, erroneously ascribed to Mantegna, and erroneously said to represent the Duchess Elizabeth of Urbino (1121); Bernardino Luini's Daughter of Herodias (1135), a fine study of a female Italian criminal of the Renaissance; Perugino's portrait of Francesco delle Opere, holding a scroll inscribed _Timete Deum_, an admirable picture painted in oils about the year 1494, and formerly supposed to be a portrait of Perugino by himself (287); portrait of Evangelista Scappa, ascribed to Francia (1124); and a portrait of a man, by Sebastiano del Piombo (3458). Raphael's Pope Julius II. (1131) is a grand and terrible portrait of the tremendous warrior Pontiff, whom the Romans called a second Mars. Vasari says that in this picture he looks so exactly like himself that "one trembles before him as if he were still alive." Albert Dürer's Adoration of the Magi (1141) and Lucas van Leyden's Mystery of the Passion (1143) are powerful examples of the religious painting of the North, that loved beauty less for its own sake than did the Italians. The latter should be compared with similar pictures by Don Lorenzo and Fra Angelico. Titian's portrait of the Papal Nuncio Beccadelli (1116), painted in 1552, although a decidedly fine work, has been rather overpraised. Michelangelo's Holy Family (1139) is the only existing easel picture that the master completed. It was painted for the rich merchant, Angelo Doni (who haggled in a miserly fashion over the price and was in consequence forced to pay double the sum agreed upon), about 1504, in the days of the Gonfaloniere Soderini, when Michelangelo was engaged upon the famous cartoon for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Like Luca Signorelli, Michelangelo has introduced naked figures, apparently shepherds, into his background. "In the Doni Madonna of the Uffizi," writes Walter Pater, "Michelangelo actually brings the pagan religion, and with it the unveiled human form, the sleepy-looking fauns of a Dionysiac revel, into the presence of the Madonna, as simpler painters had introduced other products of the earth, birds or flowers; and he has given to that Madonna herself much of the uncouth energy of the older and more primitive 'Mighty Mother.'" The painters introduced into their pictures what they loved best, in earth or sky, as votive offerings to the Queen of Heaven; and what Signorelli and Michelangelo best loved was the human form. This is reflected in the latter's own lines:-- Nè Dio, sua grazia, mi si mostra altrove, più che'n alcun leggiadro e mortal velo, e quel sol amo, perchè'n quel si specchia. "Nor does God vouchsafe to reveal Himself to me anywhere more than in some lovely mortal veil, and that alone I love, because He is mirrored therein." In the strongest possible contrast to Michelangelo's picture are the two examples of the softest master of the Renaissance--Correggio's Repose on the Flight to Egypt (1118), and his Madonna adoring the Divine Child (1134). The former, with its rather out of place St. Francis of Assisi, is a work of what is known as Correggio's transition period, 1515-1518, after he had painted his earlier easel pictures and before commencing his great fresco work at Parma; the latter, a more characteristic picture, is slightly later and was given by the Duke of Mantua to Cosimo II. The figures of Prophets by Fra Bartolommeo (1130 and 1126), the side-wings of a picture now in the Pitti Gallery, are not remarkable in any way. The Madonna and Child with the Baptist and St. Sebastian (1122) is a work of Perugino's better period. There remain the two famous Venuses of Titian. The so-called Urbino Venus (1117)--a motive to some extent borrowed, and slightly coarsened in the borrowing, from Giorgione's picture at Dresden--is much the finer of the two. It was painted for Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, and, although not a portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga, who was then a middle-aged woman, it was certainly intended to conjure up the beauty of her youth. What Eleonora really looked like at this time, you can see in the first of the two Venetian rooms, where Titian's portrait of her, painted at about the same date, hangs. The Venus and Cupid (1108) is a later work; the goddess is the likeness of a model who very frequently appears in the works of Titian and Palma. SCUOLA TOSCANA. On the left we pass out of the Tribuna to three rooms devoted to the Tuscan school. The first contains the smaller pictures, including several priceless Angelicos and Botticellis. Fra Angelico's Naming of St. John (1162), Marriage of the Blessed Virgin to St. Joseph (1178), and her Death (1184), are excellent examples of his delicate execution and spiritual expression in his smaller, miniature-like works. Antonio Pollaiuolo's Labours of Hercules (1153) is one of the masterpieces of this most uncompromising realist of the Quattrocento. Either by Antonio or his brother Piero, is also the portrait of that monster of iniquity, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan (30). Sandro Botticelli's Calumny (1182) is supposed to have been painted as a thankoffering to a friend who had defended him from the assaults of slanderous tongues; it is a splendid example of his dramatic intensity, the very statues in their niches taking part in the action. The subject--taken from Lucian's description of a picture by Apelles of Ephesus--was frequently painted by artists of the Renaissance, and there is a most magnificent drawing of the same by Andrea Mantegna at the British Museum, which was copied by Rembrandt. On the judgment-seat sits a man with ears like those of Midas, into which Ignorance and Suspicion on either side ever whisper. Before him stands Envy,--a hideous, pale, and haggard man, seeming wasted by some slow disease. He is making the accusation and leading Calumny, a scornful Botticellian beauty, who holds in one hand a torch and with the other drags her victim by the hair to the judge's feet. Calumny is tended and adorned by two female figures, Artifice and Deceit. But Repentance slowly follows, in black mourning habit; while naked Truth--the Botticellian Venus in another form--raises her hand in appeal to the heavens. The rather striking portrait of a painter (1163) is usually supposed to be Andrea Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi, his pupil and successor; Mr Berenson, however, considers that it is Perugino and by Domenico Ghirlandaio. On the opposite wall are two very early Botticellis, Judith returning from the camp of the Assyrians (1156) and the finding of the body of Holofernes (1158), in a scale of colouring differing from that of his later works. The former is one of those pictures which have been illumined for us by Ruskin, who regards it as the only picture that is true to Judith; "The triumph of Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an immortal hour, the purity and severity of a guardian angel--all are here; and as her servant follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be carried--no more to be so much as thought of)--she looks only at her mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but hitherto in all her life, and afterwards for ever." Walter Pater has read the picture in a different sense, and sees in it Judith "returning home across the hill country, when the great deed is over, and the moment of revulsion come, and the olive branch in her hand is becoming a burden." The portrait of Andrea del Sarto by himself (280) represents him in the latter days of his life, and was painted on a tile in 1529, about a year before his death, with some colours that remained over after he had finished the portrait of one of the Vallombrosan monks; his wife kept it by her until her death. The very powerful likeness of an old man in white cap and gown (1167), a fresco ascribed to Masaccio, is more probably the work of Filippino Lippi. The famous Head of Medusa (1159) must be seen with grateful reverence by all lovers of English poetry, for it was admired by Shelley and inspired him with certain familiar and exceedingly beautiful stanzas; but as for its being a work of Leonardo da Vinci, it is now almost universally admitted to be a comparatively late forgery, to supply the place of the lost Medusa of which Vasari speaks. The portrait (1157), also ascribed to Leonardo, is better, but probably no more authentic. Here is a most dainty little example of Fra Bartolommeo's work on a small scale (1161), representing the Circumcision and the Nativity, with the Annunciation in grisaille on the back. Botticelli's St. Augustine (1179) is an early work, and, like the Judith, shows his artistic derivation from Fra Lippo Lippi, to whom indeed it was formerly ascribed. His portrait of Piero di Lorenzo dei Medici (1154), a splendid young man in red cap and flowing dark hair, has been already referred to in chapter iii.; it was formerly supposed to be a likeness of Pico della Mirandola. It was painted before Piero's expulsion from Florence, probably during the life-time of the Magnificent, and represents him before he degenerated into the low tyrannical blackguard of later years; he apparently wishes to appeal to the memory of his great-grandfather Cosimo, whose medallion he holds, to find favour with his unwilling subjects. The portraits of Duke Cosimo's son and grandchild, Don Garzia and Donna Maria (1155 and 1164), by Bronzino, should be noted. Finally we have the famous picture of Perseus freeing Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo (1312). It is about the best specimen of his fantastic conceptions to be seen in Florence, and the monster itself is certainly a triumph of a somewhat unhealthy imagination nourished in solitude on an odd diet. In the second room are larger works of the great Tuscans. The Adoration of the Magi (1252) is one of the very few authentic works of Leonardo; it was one of his earliest productions, commenced in 1478, and, like so many other things of his, never finished. The St. Sebastian (1279) is one of the masterpieces of that wayward Lombard or rather Piedmontese--although we now associate him with Siena--who approached nearest of all to the art of Leonardo, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known still as Sodoma. Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's Miracles of Zenobius (1277 and 1275) are excellent works by a usually second-rate master. The Visitation with its predella, by Mariotto Albertinelli (1259), painted in 1503, is incomparably the greatest picture that Fra Bartolommeo's wild friend and fellow student ever produced, and one in which he most nearly approaches the best works of Bartolommeo himself. "The figures, however," Morelli points out, "are less refined and noble than those of the Frate, and the foliage of the trees is executed with miniature-like precision, which is never the case in the landscapes of the latter." Andrea del Sarto's genial and kindly St. James with the orphans (1254), is one of his last works; it was painted to serve as a standard in processions, and has consequently suffered considerably. Bronzino's Descent of Christ into Hades (1271), that "heap of cumbrous nothingnesses and sickening offensivenesses," as Ruskin pleasantly called it, need only be seen to be loathed. The so-called Madonna delle Arpie, or our Lady of the Harpies, from the figures on the pedestal beneath her feet (1112), is perhaps the finest of all Andrea del Sarto's pictures; the Madonna is a highly idealised likeness of his own wife Lucrezia, and some have tried to recognise the features of the painter himself in the St. John:-- "You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-- Four great walls in the New Jerusalem Meted on each side by the Angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me To cover--the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So--still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose." The full-length portrait of Cosimo the Elder (1267), the Pater Patriae (so the flattery of the age hailed the man who said that a city destroyed was better than a city lost), was painted by Pontormo from some fifteenth century source, as a companion piece to his portrait here of Duke Cosimo I. (1270). The admirable portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari (1269) is similarly constructed from contemporary materials, and is probably the most valuable thing that Vasari has left to us in the way of painting. The unfinished picture by Fra Bartolommeo (1265), representing our Lady enthroned with St. Anne, the guardian of the Republic, watching over her and interceding for Florence, while the patrons of the city gather round for her defence, was intended for the altar in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Palazzo Vecchio; it is conceived in something of the same spirit that made the last inheritors of Savonarola's tradition and teaching fondly believe that Angels would man the walls of Florence, rather than that she should again fall into the hands of her former tyrants, the Medici. The great Madonna and Child with four Saints and two Angels scattering flowers, by Filippino Lippi (1268), was painted in 1485 for the room in the Palazzo Vecchio in which the Otto di Pratica held their meetings. The Adoration of the Magi (1257), also by Filippino Lippi, painted in 1496, apart from its great value as a work of art, has a curious historical significance; the Magi and their principal attendants, who are thus pushing forwards to display their devotion to Our Lady of Florence and the Child whom the Florentines were to elect their King, are the members of the younger branch of the Medici, who have returned to the city now that Piero has been expelled, and are waiting their chance. See how they have already replaced the family of the elder Cosimo, who occupy this same position in a similar picture painted some eighteen years before by Sandro Botticelli, Filippino's master. At this epoch they had ostentatiously altered their name of Medici and called themselves Popolani, but were certainly intriguing against Fra Girolamo. The old astronomer kneeling to our extreme left is the elder Piero Francesco, watching the adventurous game for a throne that his children are preparing; the most prominent figure in the picture, from whose head a page is lifting the crown, is Pier Francesco's son, Giovanni, who will soon woo Caterina Sforza, the lady of Forlì, and make her the mother of Giovanni delle Bande Nere; and the precious vessel which he is to offer to the divine Child is handed to him by the younger Pier Francesco, the father of Lorenzaccio, that "Tuscan Brutus" whose dagger was to make Giovanni's grandson, Cosimo, the sole lord of Florence and her empire.[30] [30] See the Genealogical Table in Appendix. The elder Pier Francesco was dead many years before this picture was painted. It was for his other son, Lorenzo, that Sandro Botticelli drew his illustrations of the _Divina Commedia_. Granacci's Madonna of the Girdle (1280), over the door, formerly in San Piero Maggiore, is a good example of a painter who imitated most of his contemporaries and had little individuality. On easels in the middle of the room are (3452) Venus, by Lorenzo di Credi, a conscientious attempt to follow the fashion of the age and handle a subject quite alien to his natural sympathies--for Lorenzo di Credi was one of those who sacrificed their studies of the nude on Savonarola's pyre of the Vanities; and (3436) an Adoration of the Magi, a cartoon of Sandro Botticelli's, coloured by a later hand, marvellously full of life in movement, intense and passionate, in which--as though the painter anticipated the Reformation--the followers of the Magi are fighting furiously with each other in their desire to find the right way to the Stable of Bethlehem! The third room of the Tuscan School contains some of the truest masterpieces of the whole collection. The Epiphany, by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1295), painted in 1487, is one of that prosaic master's best easel pictures. The wonderful Annunciation (1288), in which the Archangel has alighted upon the flowers in the silence of an Italian twilight, with a mystical landscape of mountains and rivers, and far-off cities in the background, may possibly be an early work of Leonardo da Vinci, to whom it is officially assigned, but is ascribed by contemporary critics to Leonardo's master, Andrea Verrocchio. The least satisfactory passage is the rather wooden face and inappropriate action of the Madonna; Leonardo would surely not have made her, on receiving the angelic salutation, put her finger into her book to keep the place. After Three Saints by one of the Pollaiuoli (1301) and two smaller pictures by Lorenzo di Credi (1311 and 1313), we come to Piero della Francesca's grand portraits of Federigo of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Battista Sforza (1300); on the reverse, the Duke and Duchess are seen in triumphal cars surrounded with allegorical pageantry. Federigo is always, as here, represented in profile, because he lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose broken in a tournament. The three predella scenes (1298) are characteristic examples of the minor works of Piero's great pupil, Luca Signorelli of Cortona. On the opposite wall are four Botticellian pictures. The Magnificat (1267 _bis_)--Sandro's most famous and familiar tondo--in which the Madonna rather sadly writes the Magnificat, while Angels cluster round to crown their Queen, to offer ink and book, or look into the thing that she has written, while the Dove hovers above her, is full of the haunting charm, the elusive mystery, the vague yearning, which makes the fascination of Botticelli to-day. She already seems to be anticipating the Passion of that Child--so unmistakably divine--who is guiding her hand. The Madonna of the Pomegranate (1289) is a somewhat similar, but less beautiful tondo; the Angel faces, who are said to be idealised portraits of the Medicean children, have partially lost their angelic look. The Fortitude (1299) is one of Sandro's earliest paintings, and its authenticity has been questioned; she seems to be dreading, almost shrinking from some great battle at hand, of which no man can foretell the end. The Annunciation (1316) is rather Botticellian in conception; but the colouring and execution generally do not suggest the master himself. Antonio Pollaiuolo's Prudence (1306) is a harsh companion to Sandro's Fortitude. The tondo (1291) of the Holy Family, by Luca Signorelli, is one of his best works in this kind; the colouring is less heavy than is usual with him, and the Child is more divine. Of the two carefully finished Annunciations by Lorenzo di Credi (1314, 1160), the latter is the earlier and finer. Fra Filippo's little Madonna of the Sea (1307), with her happy boy-like Angel attendants, is one of the monk's most attractive and characteristic works; perhaps the best of all his smaller pictures. And we have left to the last Fra Angelico's divinest dream of the Coronation of the Madonna in the Empyrean Heaven of Heavens (1290), amidst exultant throngs of Saints and Angels absorbed in the Beatific Vision of Paradise. It is the pictorial equivalent of Bernard's most ardent sermons on the Assumption of Mary and of the mystic musings of John of Damascus. Here are "the Angel choirs of Angelico, with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song, for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven."[31] [31] _Modern Painters_, vol. ii. SALA DI MAESTRI DIVERSI ITALIANI. In the small room which opens out of the Tribune, on the opposite side to these three Tuscan rooms, are two perfect little gems of more northern Italian painting. Mantegna's Madonna of the Quarries (1025), apart from its nobility of conception and grand austerity of sentiment, is a positive marvel of minute drawing with the point of the _pennello_. Every detail in the landscape, with the winding road up to the city on the hill, the field labourers in the meadow, the shepherds and travellers, on the left, and the stone-cutterss among the caverns on the right, preparing stone for the sculptors and architects of Florence and Rome, is elaborately rendered with exquisite delicacy and finish. It was painted at Rome in 1488, while Mantegna was working on his frescoes (now destroyed) for Pope Innocent VIII. in a chapel of the Vatican. The other is a little Madonna and Child with two Angels playing musical instruments, by Correggio (1002), a most exquisite little picture in an almost perfect state of preservation, formerly ascribed to Titian, but entirely characteristic of Correggio's earliest period when he was influenced by Mantegna and the Ferrarese. Beyond are the Dutch, Flemish, German, and French pictures which do not come into our present scope--though they include several excellent works as, notably, a little Madonna by Hans Memlinc and two Apostles by Albert Dürer. The cabinet of the gems contains some of the treasures left by the Medicean Grand Dukes, including work by Cellini and Giovanni da Bologna. SCUOLA VENETA. Crossing the short southern corridor, with some noteworthy ancient sculptury, we pass down the long western corridor. Out of this open first the two rooms devoted to the Venetian school. In the first, to seek the best only, are Titian's portraits of Francesco Maria della Rovere, third Duke of Urbino, and Eleonora Gonzaga, his duchess (605 and 599), painted in 1537. A triptych by Mantegna (1111)--the Adoration of the Kings, between the Circumcision and the Ascension--is one of the earlier works of the great Paduan master; the face of the Divine Child in the Circumcision is marvellously painted. The Madonna by the Lake by Giovanni Bellini (631), also called the Allegory of the Tree of Life, is an exceedingly beautiful picture, one of Bellini's later works. Titian's Flora (626), an early work of the master, charming in its way, has been damaged and rather overpraised. In the second room, are three works by Giorgione; the Judgment of Solomon and the Ordeal of Moses (630 and 621), with their fantastic costumes and poetically conceived landscapes, are very youthful works indeed; the portrait of a Knight of Malta (622) is more mature, and one of the noblest of Venetian portraits. Florence thus possesses more authentic works of this wonderful, almost mythical, Venetian than does Venice herself. Here, too, is usually--except when it is in request elsewhere for the copyist--Titian's Madonna and Child with the boy John Baptist, and the old Antony Abbot, leaning on his staff and watching the flower play (633)--the most beautiful of Titian's early Giorgionesque Madonnas. [Illustration: VENUS BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI] SALA DI LORENZO MONACO. The following passage leads to the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco, the room which bears the name of the austere monk of Camaldoli, and, hallowed by the presence of Fra Angelico's Madonna, seems at times almost to re-echo still with the music of the Angel choir; but to which the modern worshipper turns to adore the Venus of the Renaissance rising from the Sea. For here is Sandro Botticelli's famous Birth of Venus (39), the most typical picture of the Quattrocento, painted for Lorenzo dei Medici and in part inspired by certain lines of Angelo Poliziano. But let all description be left to the golden words of Walter Pater in his _Renaissance_:-- "At first, perhaps, you are attracted only by a quaintness of design, which seems to recall all at once whatever you have read of Florence in the fifteenth century; afterwards you may think that this quaintness must be incongruous with the subject, and that the colour is cadaverous or at least cold. And yet, the more you come to understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour is no mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit upon them by which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you will like this peculiar quality of colour; and you will find that quaint design of Botticelli's a more direct inlet into the Greek temper than the works of the Greeks themselves, even of the finest period. Of the Greeks as they really were, of their difference from ourselves, of the aspects of their outward life, we know far more than Botticelli, or his most learned contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has taken off the edge of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what we owe to the Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli's you have a record of the first impression made by it on minds turned back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a world in which it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the energy, the industry of realisation, with which Botticelli carries out his intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence over the human mind of the imaginative system of which this is the central myth. The light is indeed cold--mere sunless dawn; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you can see the better for that quietness in the morning air each long promontory, as it slopes down to the water's edge. Men go forth to their labours until the evening; but she is awake before them, and you might think that the sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long day of love yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blows hard across the grey water, moving forward the dainty-lipped shell on which she sails, the sea 'showing his teeth' as it moves in thin lines of foam, and sucking in, one by one, the falling roses, each severe in outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as Botticelli's flowers always are. Botticelli meant all that imagery to be altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness of resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued and chilled it; but his predilection for minor tones counts also; and what is unmistakable is the sadness with which he has conceived the goddess of pleasure, as the depositary of a great power over the lives of men." In this same room are five other masterpieces of early Tuscan painting. Don Lorenzo's Coronation of the Madonna (1309), though signed and dated 1413, may be regarded as the last great altar-piece of the school of Giotto and his followers. It has been terribly repainted. The presence in the most prominent position of St. Benedict and St. Romuald in their white robes shows that it was painted for a convent of Camaldolese monks. The predella, representing the Adoration of the Magi and scenes from the life of St. Benedict, includes a very sweet little picture of the last interview of the saint with his sister Scholastica, when, in answer to her prayers, God sent such a storm that her brother, although unwilling to break his monastic rule, was forced to spend the night with her. "I asked you a favour," she told him, "and you refused it me; I asked it of Almighty God, and He has granted it to me." In Browning's poem, Don Lorenzo is one of the models specially recommended to Lippo Lippi by his superiors:-- "You're not of the true painters, great and old; Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer; Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third." The Madonna and Child with St. Francis and St. John Baptist, St. Zenobius and St. Lucy (1305), is one of the very few authentic works by Domenico Veneziano, one of the great innovators in the painting of the fifteenth century. Sandro Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi (1286), painted for Santa Maria Novella, is enthusiastically praised by Vasari. It is not a very characteristic work of the painter's, but contains admirable portraits of the Medici and their court. The first king, kneeling up alone before the Divine Child, is Cosimo the Elder himself, according to Vasari, "the most faithful and animated likeness of all now known to exist of him"; the other two kings are his two sons, Piero il Gottoso in the centre, Giovanni di Cosimo on the right. The black-haired youth with folded hands, standing behind Giovanni, is Giuliano, who fell in the Pazzi conspiracy. On the extreme left, standing with his hands resting upon the hilt of his sword, is Lorenzo the Magnificent, who avenged Giuliano's death; behind Lorenzo, apparently clinging to him as though in anticipation or recollection of the conspiracy, is Angelo Poliziano. The rather sullen-looking personage, with a certain dash of sensuality about him, on our extreme right, gazing out of the picture, is Sandro himself. This picture, which was probably painted slightly before or shortly after the murder of Giuliano, has been called "the Apotheosis of the Medici"; it should be contrasted with the very different Nativity, now in the National Gallery, which Sandro painted many years later, in 1500, and which is full of the mystical aspirations of the disciples of Savonarola. The Madonna and Child with Angels, two Archangels standing guard and two Bishops kneeling in adoration (1297), is a rich and attractive work by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Fra Angelico's Tabernacle (17), Madonna and Child with the Baptist and St. Mark, and the famous series of much-copied Angels, was painted for the Guild of Flax-merchants, whose patron was St. Mark. The admirable Predella (1294) represents St. Mark reporting St. Peter's sermons, and St. Mark's martyrdom, together with the Adoration of the Magi. * * * * * Passing down the corridor, we come to the entrance to the passage which leads across the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. There are some fine Italian engravings on the way down. The halls of the Inscriptions and Cameos contain ancient statues as well, including the so-called dying Alexander, and some of those so over-praised by Shelley. Among the pictures in the Sala del Baroccio, is a very genial lady with a volume of Petrarch's sonnets, by Andrea del Sarto (188). Here, too, are some excellent portraits by Bronzino; a lady with a missal (198); a rather pathetic picture of Eleonora of Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I., with Don Garzia--the boy with whom Cellini used to romp (172); Bartolommeo Panciatichi (159); Lucrezia Panciatichi (154), a peculiarly sympathetic rendering of an attractive personality. Sustermans' Galileo (163) is also worth notice. The Duchess Eleonora died almost simultaneously with her sons, Giovanni and Garzia, in 1562, and there arose in consequence a legend that Garzia had murdered Giovanni, and had, in his turn, been killed by his own father, and that Eleonora had either also been murdered by the Duke or died of grief. Like many similar stories of the Medicean princes, this appears to be entirely fictitious. The Hall of Niobe contains the famous series of statues representing the destruction of Niobe and her children at the hands of Apollo and Artemis. They are Roman or Græco-Roman copies of a group assigned by tradition to the fourth century B.C., and which was brought from Asia Minor to Rome in the year 35 B.C. The finest of these statues is that of Niobe's son, the young man who is raising his cloak upon his arm as a shield; he was originally protecting a sister, who, already pierced by the fatal arrow, leaned against his knee as she died. In a room further on there is an interesting series of miniature portraits of the Medici, from Giovanni di Averardo to the family of Duke Cosimo. Six of the later ones are by Bronzino. At the end of the corridor, by Baccio Bandinelli's copy of the Laocoön, are three rooms containing the drawings and sketches of the Old Masters. It would take a book as long as the present to deal adequately with them. Many of the Florentine painters, who were always better draughtsmen than they were colourists, are seen to much greater advantage in their drawings than in their finished pictures. Besides a most rich collection of the early men and their successors, from Angelico to Bartolommeo, there are here several of Raphael's cartoons for Madonnas and two for his St. George and the Dragon; many of the most famous and characteristic drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (and it is from his drawings alone that we can now get any real notion of this "Magician of the Renaissance"); and some important specimens of Michelangelo. Here, too, is Andrea Mantegna's terrible Judith, conceived in the spirit of some Roman heroine, which once belonged to Vasari and was highly valued by him. It is dated 1491, and should be compared with Botticelli's rendering of the same theme. CHAPTER VI _Or San Michele and the Sesto di San Piero_ "Una figura della Donna mia s'adora, Guido, a San Michele in Orto, che di bella sembianza, onesta e pia, de' peccatori è gran rifugio e porto." (_Guido Cavalcanti_ to _Guido Orlandi_.) At the end of the bustling noisy Via Calzaioli, the Street of the Stocking-makers, rises the Oratory of Our Lady, known as San Michele in Orto, "St. Michael in the Garden." Around its outer walls, enshrined in little temples of their own, stand great statues of saints in marble and bronze by the hands of the greatest sculptors of Florence--the canonised patrons of the Arts or Guilds, keeping guard over the thronging crowds that pass below. This is the grand monument of the wealth and taste, devotion and charity, of the commercial democracy of the Middle Ages. [Illustration: ORCAGNA'S TABERNACLE, OR SAN MICHELE] The ancient church of San Michele in Orto was demolished by order of the Commune in the thirteenth century, to make way for a piazza for the grain and corn market, in the centre of which Arnolfo di Cambio built a loggia in 1280. Upon one of the pilasters of this loggia there was painted a picture of the Madonna, held in highest reverence by the frequenters of the market; a special company or sodality of laymen was formed, the _Laudesi_ of Our Lady of Or San Michele, who met here every evening to sing _laudi_ in her honour, and who were distinguished even in mediæval Florence, where charity was always on a heroic scale, by their munificence towards the poor. "On July 3rd, 1292," so Giovanni Villani writes, "great and manifest miracles began to be shown forth in the city of Florence by a figure of Holy Mary which was painted on a pilaster of the loggia of San Michele in Orto, where the grain was sold; the sick were healed, the deformed made straight, and the possessed visibly delivered in great numbers. But the preaching friars, and the friars minor likewise, through envy or some other cause, would put no faith in it, whereby they fell into much infamy with the Florentines. And so greatly grew the fame of these miracles and merits of Our Lady that folk flocked hither in pilgrimage from all parts of Tuscany at her feasts, bringing divers waxen images for the wonders worked, wherewith a great part of the loggia in front of and around the said figure was filled." In spite of ecclesiastical scepticism, this popular devotion ever increased; the company of the Laudesi, amongst whom, says Villani, was a good part of the best folk in Florence, had their hands always full of offerings and legacies, which they faithfully distributed to the poor. The wonderful tidings roused even Guido Cavalcanti from his melancholy musings among the tombs. As a sceptical philosopher, he had little faith in miracles, but an _esprit fort_ of the period could not allow himself to be on the same side as the friars. A delightful _via media_ presented itself; the features of the Madonna in the picture bore a certain resemblance to his lady, and everything was at once made clear. So he took up his pen, and wrote a very beautiful sonnet to his friend, Guido Orlandi. It begins: "A figure of my Lady is adored, Guido, in San Michele in Orto, which, with her fair semblance, pure and tender, is the great refuge and harbour of sinners." And after describing (with evident devotional feeling, in spite of the obvious suggestion that it is the likeness of his lady that gives the picture its miraculous powers) the devotion of the people and the wonders worked on souls and bodies alike, he concludes: "Her fame goeth through far off lands: but the friars minor say it is idolatry, for envy that she is not their neighbour." But Orlandi professed himself much shocked at his friend's levity. "If thou hadst said, my friend, of Mary," so runs the double sonnet of his answer, "Loving and full of grace, thou art a red rose planted in the garden; thou wouldst have written fittingly. For she is the Truth and the Way, she was the mansion of our Lord, and is the port of our salvation." And he bids the greater Guido imitate the publican; cast the beam out of his own eye and let the mote alone in those of the friars: "The friars minor know the divine Latin scripture, and the good preachers are the defenders of the faith; their preaching is our medicine." One of the most terrible faction fights in Florentine history raged round the loggia and oratory on June 10th, 1304. The Cavalcanti and their allies were heroically holding their own, here and in Mercato Vecchio, against the overwhelming forces of the Neri headed by the Della Tosa, Sinibaldo Donati and Boccaccio Adimari, when Neri Abati fired the houses round Or San Michele; the wax images in Our Lady's oratory flared up, the loggia was burned to the ground, and all the houses along Calimara and Mercato Nuovo and beyond down to the Ponte Vecchio were utterly destroyed. The young nobles of the Neri faction galloped about with flaming torches to assail the houses of their foes; the Podestà with his troops came into Mercato Nuovo, stared at the blaze, but did nothing but block the way. In this part of the town was all the richest merchandise of Florence, and the loss was enormous. The Cavalcanti, against whom the iniquitous plot was specially aimed, were absolutely ruined, and left the city without further resistance. The pilaster with Madonna's picture had survived the fire, and the _Laudesi_ still met round it to sing her praises. But in 1336 the Signoria proposed to erect a grand new building on the site of the old loggia, which should serve at once for corn exchange and provide a fitting oratory for this new and growing cult of the Madonna di Orsanmichele. The present edifice, half palace and half church, was commenced in 1337, and finished at the opening of the fifteenth century. The actual building was in the hands of the Commune, who delegated their powers to the Arte di Por Sta. Maria or Arte della Seta. The Parte Guelfa and the Greater Guilds were to see to the external decoration of the pilasters, upon each of which tabernacles were made to receive the images of the Saints before which each of the Arts should come in state, to make offerings on the feasts of their proper patrons; while the shrine itself, and the internal decorations of the loggia (as it was still called), were left in the charge and care of the _Laudesi_ themselves, the Compagnia of Orsanmichele, which was thoroughly organised under its special captains. It is uncertain whom the Arte della Seta employed as architect; Vasari says that Taddeo Gaddi gave the design, others say Orcagna (who worked for the Laudesi inside), and more recently Francesco Talenti has been suggested. Benci di Cione and Simone di Francesco Talenti, who also worked at the same epoch upon the Duomo, were among the architects employed later. The closing in of the arcades, for the better protection of the tabernacle, took away the last remnants of its original appearance as an open loggia; and, shortly before, the corn market itself was removed to the present Piazza del Grano, and thus the "Palatium" became the present church. The extremely beautifully sculptured windows are the work of Simone di Francesco Talenti. There are fourteen of these little temples or niches, partly belonging to the Greater and partly to the Lesser Arts. It will be seen that, while the seven Greater Arts have each their niche, only six out of the fourteen Minor Arts are represented. Over the niches are _tondi_ with the insignia of each Art. The statues were set up at different epochs, and are not always those that originally stood here--altered in one case from significant political motives, in others from the desire of the guilds to have something more thoroughly up to date--the rejected images being made over to the authorities of the Duomo for their unfinished façade, or sent into exile among the friars of Santa Croce. In 1404 the Signoria decreed that, within ten years from that date, the Arts who had secured their pilasters should have their statues in position, on pain of losing the right. But this does not seem to have been rigidly enforced. [Illustration: WINDOW OF OR SAN MICHELE] Beginning at the corner of the northern side, facing towards the Duomo, we have the minor Art of the Butchers represented by Donatello's St. Peter in marble, an early and not very excellent work of the master, about 1412 (in a tabernacle of the previous century); the _tondo_ above containing their arms, a black goat on a gold field, is modern. Next comes the marble St. Philip, the patron saint of the minor Art of the Shoemakers, by Nanni di Banco, of 1408, a beautiful and characteristic work of this too often neglected sculptor. Then, also by Nanni di Banco, the _Quattro incoronati_, the "four crowned martyrs," who, being carvers by profession, were put to death under Diocletian for refusing to make idols, and are the patrons of the masters in stone and wood, a minor Art which included sculptors, architects, bricklayers, carpenters, and masons; the bas-relief under the shrine, also by Nanni, is a priceless masterpiece of realistic Florentine democratic art, and shows us the mediæval craftsmen at their work, the every-day life of the men who made Florence the dream of beauty which she became; above it are the arms of the Guild, in an ornate and beautiful medallion, by Luca della Robbia. The following shrine, that of the Art of makers of swords and armour, had originally Donatello's famous St. George in marble, of 1415, which is now in the Bargello; the present bronze (inappropriate for a minor Art, according to the precedent of the others) is a modern copy; the bas-relief below, of St. George slaying the dragon, is still Donato's. On the western wall, opposite the old tower of the Guild of Wool, comes first a bronze St. Matthew, made together with its tabernacle by Ghiberti and Michelozzo for the greater Guild of Money-changers and Bankers (Arte del Cambio), and finished in 1422. The Annunciation above is by Niccolò of Arezzo, at the close of the Trecento. The very beautiful bronze statue of St. Stephen, by Ghiberti, represents the great Guild of Wool, Arte della Lana; originally they had a marble St. Stephen, but, seeing what excellent statues had been made for the Cambio and the Calimala Guilds, they declared that since the Arte della Lana claimed to be always mistress of the other Arts, she must excel in this also; so sent their St. Stephen away to the Cathedral, and assigned the new work to Ghiberti (1425). Then comes the marble St. Eligius, by Nanni di Banco (1415), for the minor Art of the Maniscalchi, which included farriers, iron-smiths, knife-makers, and the like; the bas-relief below, also by Nanni, represents the Saint (San Lò he is more familiarly called, or St. Eloy in French) engaged in shoeing a demoniacal horse. On the southern façade, we have St. Mark in marble for the minor Art of Linaioli and Rigattieri, flax merchants and hucksters, by Donatello, (about 1412).[32] The Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, furriers, although a greater Guild, seems to have been contented with the rather insignificant marble St. James, which follows, of uncertain authorship, and dating from the end of the Trecento; the bas-relief seems later. The next shrine, that of the Doctors and Apothecaries, the great Guild to which Dante belonged and which included painters and booksellers, is empty; the Madonna herself is their patroness, but their statue is now inside the church; the Madonna and Child in the medallion above are by Luca della Robbia. The next niche is that of the great Arte della Seta or Arte di Por Santa Maria, the Guild of the Silk-merchants, to which embroiderers, goldsmiths and silversmiths were attached; the bronze statue of their patron, St. John the Evangelist, is by Baccio da Montelupo (1515), and replaces an earlier marble now in the Bargello; the medallion above with their arms, a gate on a shield supported by two cherubs, is by Luca della Robbia. [32] The eight Arti Minori not represented are the vintners (St. Martin), the inn-keepers (St. Julian), the cheesemongers (St. Bartholomew), the leather-dressers (St. Augustine), the saddlemakers (the Blessed Trinity), the joiners (the Annunciation), tin and coppersmiths (St. Zenobius), and the bakers (St. Lawrence). Finally, on the façade in the Via Calzaioli, the first shrine is that of the Arte di Calimala or Arte dei Mercatanti, who carried on the great commerce in foreign cloth, the chief democratic guild of the latter half of the thirteenth century, but which, together with the Arte della Lana, began somewhat to decline towards the middle of the Quattrocento; their bronze St. John Baptist is Ghiberti's, but hardly one of his better works (1415). The large central tabernacle was originally assigned to the Parte Guelfa, the only organisation outside of the Guilds that was allowed to share in this work; for them, Donatello made a bronze statue of their patron, St. Louis of Toulouse, and either Donatello himself or Michelozzo prepared, in 1423, the beautiful niche for him which is still here. But, owing to the great unpopularity of the Parte Guelfa and their complete loss of authority under the new Medicean regime, this tabernacle was taken from them in 1459 and made over to the Università dei Mercanti or Magistrato della Mercanzia, a board of magistrates who presided over all the Guilds; the arms of this magistracy were set up in the present medallion by Luca della Robbia in 1462; Donatello's St. Louis was sent to the friars minor; and, some years later, Verrocchio cast the present masterly group of Christ and St. Thomas. Landucci, in his diary for 1483, tells us how it was set up, and that the bronze figure of the Saviour seemed to him the most beautiful that had ever been made. Last of all, the bronze statue of St. Luke was set up by Giovanni da Bologna in 1601, for the Judges and Notaries, who, like the silk-merchants, discarded an earlier marble. It must be observed that the substitution of the Commercial Tribunal for the tyrannical Parte Guelfa completes the purely democratic character of the whole monument. Entering the interior, we pass from the domains of the great commercial guilds and their patrons to those of the _Laudesi_ of Santa Maria. It is rich and subdued in colour, the vaults and pilasters covered with faded frescoes. It is divided into two parts, the one ending in the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin, the other in the chapel and altar of St. Anne, her mother and the deliveress of the Republic. These two record the two great events of fourteenth century Florentine history--the expulsion of the Duke of Athens and the Black Death. It was after this great plague that, in consequence of the Compagnia having had great riches left to them, "to the honour of the Holy Virgin Mary and for the benefit of the poor," the Captains of Orsanmichele, as the heads of these Laudesi were called, summoned Orcagna, in 1349, to the "work of the pilaster," as it was officially styled, to enclose what remained of the miraculous picture in a glorious tabernacle. He took ten years over it, finishing it in 1359, while the railing by Pietro di Migliore was completed in 1366. It was approximately at this epoch that it was decided to find another place for the market, and to close the arcades of the loggia, _per adornamento e salvezza del tabernacolo di Nostra Donna_. It is goldsmith's work on a gigantic scale, this marble reliquary of the archangelic painter. "A miracle of loveliness," wrote Lord Lindsay, "and though clustered all over with pillars and pinnacles, inlaid with the richest marbles, lapis-lazuli, and mosaic work, it is chaste in its luxuriance as an Arctic iceberg--worthy of her who was spotless among women." The whole is crowned with a statue of St. Michael, and the miraculous picture is enclosed in an infinite wealth and profusion of statues and arabesques, angels and prophets, precious stones and lions' heads. Scenes in bas-relief from Our Lady's life alternate with prophets and allegorical representations of the virtues, some of these latter being single figures of great beauty and some psychological insight in the rendering--for instance, Docilitas, Solertia, Justitia, Fortitudo--while marble Angels cluster round their Queen's tabernacle in eager service and loving worship. At the back is the great scene beneath which, to right and left, the series begins and ends--the death of Madonna and her Assumption, or rather, Our Lady of the Girdle, the giving of that celestial gift to the Thomas who had doubted, the mystical treasure which Tuscan Prato still fondly believes that her Duomo holds. This is perhaps the first representation of this mystery in Italian sculpture, and is signed and dated: _Andreas Cionis pictor Florentinus oratorii archimagister extitit hujus, 1359._ The figure with a small divided beard, talking with a man in a big hat and long beard, is Orcagna's own portrait. The miraculous painting itself is within the tabernacle. The picture in front, the Madonna and Child with goldfinch, adored by eight Angels, is believed to be either by Orcagna himself or Bernardo Daddi[33]; it is decidedly more primitive than their authenticated works, probably because it is a comparatively close rendering of the original composition. [33] There are three extant documents concerning pictures of the Madonna for the Captains of Saint Michael; two refer to a painting ordered from Bernardo Daddi, in 1346 and 1347; the third to one by Orcagna, 1352. _See_ Signor P. Franceschini's monograph on Or San Michele, to which I am much indebted in this chapter. On the side altar on the right is the venerated Crucifix before which St. Antoninus used to pray. At one time the Dominicans were wont to come hither in procession on the anniversary of his death. In his Chronicle of Florence, Antoninus defends the friars from the accusations of Villani with respect to their scepticism about the miraculous picture. On the opposite side altar is the marble statue of Mother and Child from the tabernacle of the Medici e Speziali. It was executed about the year 1399; Vasari ascribes it to a Simone di Firenze, who may possibly be Simone di Francesco Talenti. The altar of St. Anne at the east end of the left half of the nave is one of the Republic's thank-offerings for their deliverance from the tyranny of Walter de Brienne. Public thanksgiving had been held here, before Our Lady's picture, as early as 1343, while the "Palatium" was still in building; but in the following year, 1344, at the instance of the captains of Or San Michele and others, the Signoria decreed that "for the perpetual memory of the grace conceded by God to the Commune and People of Florence, on the day of blessed Anne, Mother of the glorious Virgin, by the liberation of the city and the citizens, and by the destruction of the pernicious and tyrannical yoke," solemn offerings should be made on St. Anne's feast day by the Signoria and the consuls of the Arts, before her statue in Or San Michele, and that on that day all offices and shops should be closed, and no one be subject to arrest for debt. The present statue on this votive altar, representing the Madonna (here perhaps symbolising her faithful city of Florence) seated on the lap of St. Anne, who is thus protecting her and her Divine Child, was executed by Francesco da Sangallo in 1526, and replaces an older group in wood; although highly praised by Vasari, it will strike most people as not quite worthy of the place or the occasion. The powerful and expressive head of St. Anne is the best part of the group. The beneficent energies of these Laudesi and their captains spread far beyond the limits of this church and shrine. The great and still existing company of the Misericordia was originally connected with them; and the Bigallo for the foundling children was raised by them at the same time as their Tabernacle here. They contributed generously to the construction of the Duomo, and decorated chapels in Santa Croce and the Carmine. Sacchetti and Giovanni Boccaccio were among their officers; and it was while Boccaccio was serving as one of their captains in 1350 that they sent a sum of money by his hands to Dante's daughter Beatrice, in her distant convent at Ravenna. They appear to have spent all they had in the defence of Florentine liberty during the great siege of 1529. The imposing old tower that rises opposite San Michele in the Calimala is the Torrione of the Arte della Lana, copiously adorned with their arms--the Lamb bearing the Baptist's cross. It was erected at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, and in it the consuls of the Guild had their meetings. It was stormed and sacked by the Ciompi in 1378. The heavy arch that connects the tower with the upper storey of Or San Michele, and rather disfigures the building, is the work of Buontalenti in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The large vaulted hall into which it leads, intended originally for the storage of grain and the like, is now known as the Sala di Dante, and witnesses the brilliant gatherings of Florentines and foreigners to listen to the readings of the _Divina Commedia_ given under the auspices of the _Società Dantesca Italiana_. This is the part of the city where the Arts had their wealth and strength; the very names of the streets show it; Calimala and Pellicceria, for instance, which run from the Mercato Vecchio to the Via Porta Rossa. The Mercato Vecchio, the centre of the city both in Roman and mediæval times, around which the houses and towers of the oldest families clustered--Elisei, Caponsacchi, Nerli, Vecchietti, and the rest of whom Dante's _Paradiso_ tells--is now a painfully unsightly modern square, with what appears to be a triumphal arch bearing the inscription: _L'antico centro della città da secolare squallore a vita nuova restituita_(!). Passing down the Calimala to the Via Porta Rossa and the Mercato Nuovo, near where the former enters the Via Calzaioli, the site is still indicated of the Calimala Bottega where the government of the Arts was first organised, as told in chapter i. Near here and in the Mercato Nuovo, the Cavalcanti had their palaces. In the Via Porta Rossa the Arte della Seta had their warehouses; the gate from which they took their second name, and which is represented on their shield, is of course the Por Santa Maria, Our Lady's Gate of the old walls or Cerchia Antica, which was somewhere about the middle of the present Via Por Santa Maria. The Church of Santa Maria sopra la Porta, between the Mercato Nuovo and the Via delle Terme, is the present San Biagio (now used by the firemen); adjoining it is the fine old palace of the dreaded captains of the Parte Guelfa. The Via Porta Rossa contains some mediæval houses and the lower portions of a few grand old towers still standing; as already said, in the first circle of walls there was a postern gate, at the end of the present street, opposite Santa Trinità. In the Mercato Nuovo, where a copy of the ancient boar--which figures in Hans Andersen's familiar story--seems to watch the flower market, the arcades were built by Battista del Tasso for Cosimo I. Here, too, modernisation has destroyed much. Hardly can we conjure up now that day of the great fire in 1304, when the nobles of the "black" faction galloped through the crowd of plunderers, with their blazing torches throwing a lurid glow on the steel-clad Podestà with his soldiers drawn up here idly to gaze upon the flames! A house that once belonged to the Cavalcanti is still standing in Mercato Nuovo, marked by the Cross of the People; the branch of the family who lived here left the magnates and joined the people, as the Cross indicates, changing their name from Cavalcanti to Cavallereschi. [Illustration: TOWER OF THE ARTE DELLA LANA] The little fourteenth century church of St. Michael, now called San Carlo, which stands opposite San Michele in Orto on the other side of the Via Calzaioli, was originally a votive chapel to Saint Anne, built at the expense of the captains of the Laudesi on a site purchased by the Commune. It was begun in 1349 by Fioraventi and Benci di Cione, simultaneously with Orcagna's tabernacle, continued by Simone di Francesco Talenti, and completed at the opening of the fifteenth century. The captains intended to have the ceremonial offerings made here instead of in the Loggia; but the thing fell through owing to a disagreement with the Arte di Por Santa Maria, and the votive altar remained in the Loggia. Between San Carlo and the Duomo the street has been completely modernised. Of old it was the Corso degli Adimari, surrounded by the houses and towers of this fierce Guelf clan, who were at deadly feud with the Donati. Cacciaguida in the _Paradiso_ (canto xvi.) describes them as "the outrageous tribe that playeth dragon after whoso fleeth, and to whoso showeth tooth--or purse--is quiet as a lamb." One of their towers still stands on the left. On the right the place is marked where the famous loggia, called the Neghittosa, once stood, which belonged to the branch of the Adimari called the Cavicciuli, who, in spite of their hatred to the Donati, joined the Black Guelfs. One of them, Boccaccio or Boccaccino Adimari, seized upon Dante's goods when he was exiled, and exerted his influence to prevent his being recalled. In this loggia, too, Filippo Argenti used to sit, the _Fiorentino spirito bizzarro_ whom Dante saw rise before him covered with mire out of the marshy lake of Styx. He is supposed to have ridden a horse shod with silver, and there is a rare story in the _Decameron_ of a mad outburst of bestial fury on his part in this very loggia, on account of a mild practical joke on the part of Ciacco, a bon vivant of the period whom Dante has sternly flung into the hell of gluttons. On this occasion Filippo, who was an enormously big, strong, and sinewy man, beat a poor little dandy called Biondello within an inch of his life. In this same loggia, on August 4th, 1397, a party of young Florentine exiles, who had come secretly from Bologna with the intention of killing Maso degli Albizzi, took refuge, after a vain attempt to call the people to arms. From the highest part of the loggia, seeing a great crowd assembling round them, they harangued the mob, imploring them not stupidly to wait to see their would-be deliverers killed and themselves thrust back into still more grievous servitude. When not a soul moved, "finding out too late how dangerous it is to wish to set free a people that desires, happen what may, to be enslaved," as Machiavelli cynically puts it, they escaped into the Duomo, where, after a vain attempt at defending themselves, they were captured by the Captain, put to the question and executed. There were about ten of them in all, including three of the Cavicciuli and Antonio dei Medici. On November 9th, 1494, when the Florentines rose against Piero dei Medici and his brothers, the young Cardinal Giovanni rode down this street with retainers and a few citizens shouting, _Popolo e libertà_, pretending that he was going to join the insurgents. But when he got to San Michele in Orto, the people turned upon him from the piazza with their pikes and lances, with loud shouts of "Traitor!" upon which he fled back in great dread. Landucci saw him at the windows of his palace, on his knees with clasped hand, commending himself to God. "When I saw him," he says, "I grew very sorry for him (_m'inteneri assai_); and I judged that he was a good and sensible youth." To the east of the Via Calzaioli lies the Sesto di San Piero Maggiore, which, at the end of the thirteenth century, received the pleasant name of the Sesto di Scandali. It lies on either side of the Via del Corso, which with its continuations ran from east to west through the old city. In the Via della Condotta, at the corner of the Vicolo dei Cerchi, still stands the palace which belonged to a section of this family (the section known as the White Cerchi to distinguish them from Messer Vieri's branch, the Black Cerchi, who were even more "white" in politics, in spite of their name); in this palace the Priors sat before Arnolfo built the Palazzo Vecchio, which became the seat of government in 1299. It was there, not here, that Dante and his colleagues, on June 15th, 1300, entered upon office, and the same day confirmed the sentences which had been passed under their predecessors against the three traitors who had conspired to betray Florence to Pope Boniface; and then, a few days later, passed the decree by which Corso Donati and Guido Cavalcanti were sent into exile. Later the vicars of Robert of Anjou for a time resided here, and the administrators appointed to assess the confiscated goods of "rebels." At the corner of the Via dei Cerchi, where it joins the Via dei Cimatori, are traces of the loggia of the Cerchi; the same corner affords a picturesque glimpse of the belfrey of the Badia and the tower of the Podesta's palace. There was another great palace of the Cerchi, referred to in the _Paradiso_, which had formerly belonged to the Ravignani and the Conti Guidi, the acquisition of which by Messer Vieri had excited the envy of the Donati. This palace is described by Dante (_Parad._ xvi.) as being _sopra la porta_, that is, over the inner gate of St. Peter, the gate of the first circuit in Cacciaguida's day. No trace of it remains, but it was apparently on the north side of the Corso where it now joins the Via del Proconsolo. "Over the gate," says Cacciaguida, "which is now laden with new felony of such weight that there will soon be a wrecking of the ship, were the Ravignani, whence is descended the Count Guido, and whoever has since taken the name of the noble Bellincione." Here the daughter of Bellincione Berti, the _alto Bellincion_, lived,--the beautiful and good Gualdrada, whom we can dimly discern as a sweet and gracious presence in that far-off early Florence of which the _Paradiso_ sings; she was the ancestress of the great lords of the Casentino, the Conti Guidi. The principal houses of the Donati appear to have been on the Duomo side of the Corso, just before the Via dello Studio now joins it; but they had possessions on the other side as well. Giano della Bella had his house almost opposite to them, on the southern side. A little further on, at the corner where the Corso joins the Via del Proconsolo, Folco Portinari lived, the father, according to tradition, of Dante's Beatrice: "he who had been the father of so great a marvel, as this most noble Beatrice was manifestly seen to be." Folco's sons joined the Bianchi; one of them, Pigello, was poisoned during Dante's priorate; an elder son, Manetto Portinari (the friend of Dante and Cavalcanti), afterwards ratted and made his peace with the Neri. All the family are included, together with the Giuochi who lived opposite to them, in a sentence passed against Dante and his sons in 1315, from which Manetto Portinari is excepted by name. The building which now occupies the site of the Casa Portinari was once the Salviati Palace. [Illustration: HOUSE OF DANTE] In the little Piazza di San Martino is shown the Casa di Dante, which undoubtedly belonged to the Alighieri, and in which Dante is said to have been born. It has been completely modernised. The Alighieri had also a house in the Via Santa Margherita, which runs from the Piazza San Martino to the Corso, opposite the little church of Santa Margherita. Hard by, in the Piazza dei Donati a section of that family had a house and garden; and here Dante saw and wooed Gemma, the daughter of Manetto Donati. The old tower which seems to watch over Dante's house from the other side of the Piazza San Martino, the Torre della Castagna, belonged in Dante's days to the monks of the Badia; in it, in 1282, the Priors of the Arts held their first meeting, when the government of the Republic was placed in their hands. At the corner of the Piazza, opposite Dante's house, lived the Sacchetti, the family from which the novelist, Franco, sprang. They were in deadly feud with Geri del Bello, the cousin of Dante's father, who lived in the house next to Dante's; and, shortly before the year of Dante's vision, the Sacchetti murdered Geri. He seems to have deserved his fate, and Dante places him among the sowers of discord in Hell, where he points at Dante and threatens him vehemently. "His violent death," says the poet in _Inferno_ xxix, "which is not yet avenged for him, by any that is a partner of his shame, made him indignant; therefore, as I suppose, he went away without speaking to me; and in that he has made me pity him the more." Thirty years after the murder, Geri's nephews broke into the house of the Sacchetti and stabbed one of the family to death; and the two families were finally reconciled in 1342, on which occasion Dante's half-brother, Francesco Alighieri, was the representative of the Alighieri. Many years later, Dante's great-grandson, Leonardo Alighieri, came from Verona to Florence. "He paid me a visit," writes Leonardo Bruni, "as a friend of the memory of his great-grandfather, Dante. And I showed him Dante's house, and that of his forebears, and I pointed out to him many particulars with which he was not acquainted, because he and his family had been estranged from their fatherland. And so does Fortune roll this world around, and change its inhabitants up and down as she turns her wheel." Beyond the Via del Proconsolo the Borgo, now called of the Albizzi, was originally the Borgo di San Piero--a suburb of the old city, but included in the second walls of the twelfth century. The present name records the brief, but not inglorious period of the rule of the oligarchy or Ottimati, before Cosimo dei Medici obtained complete possession of the State. It was formerly called the Corso di Por San Piero. The first palace on the right (De Rast or Quaratesi) was built for the Pazzi by Brunelleschi, and still shows their armorial bearings by Donatello. They had another palace further on, on the left, opposite the Via dell'Acqua. Still further on (past the Altoviti palace, with its caricatures) is the palace of the Albizzi family, on the left, as you approach the Piazza. Here Maso degli Albizzi, and then Rinaldo, lived and practically ruled the state. Giuliano dei Medici alighted here in 1512. At the end of the Borgo degli Albizzi is now the busy, rather picturesque little Piazza di San Piero Maggiore, usually full of stalls and trucks. St. Peter's Gate in Dante's time lay just beyond the church, to the left. In this Piazza also the Donati had houses; and it was through this gate that Corso Donati burst into Florence with his followers on the morning of November 5th, 1301; "and he entered into the city like a daring and bold cavalier," as Dino Compagni--who loves a strong personality even on the opposite side to his own--puts it. The Bianchi in the Sesto largely outnumbered his forces, but did not venture to attack him, while the populace bawled _Viva il Barone_ to their hearts' content. He incontinently seized that tall tower of the Corbizzi that still rises opposite to the façade of the church, at the southern corner of the Piazza in the Via del Mercatino, and hung out his banner from it. Seven years later he made his last stand in this square and round this tower, as we have told in chapter ii. Of the church of San Piero Maggiore, only the seventeenth century façade remains; but of old it ranked as the third of the Florentine temples. According to the legend, it was on his way to this church that San Zenobio raised the French child to life in the Borgo degli Albizzi, opposite the spot where the Palazzo Altoviti now stands. It is said to have been the only church in Florence free from the taint of simony in the days of St. Giovanni Gualberto, and of old had the privilege of first receiving the new Archbishops when they entered Florence. The Archbishop went through a curious and beautiful ceremony of mystic marriage with the Abbess of the Benedictine convent attached to the church, who apparently personified the diocese of Florence. Every year on Easter Monday the canons of the Duomo came here in procession; and on St. Peter's day the captains of the Parte Guelfa entered the Piazza in state to make a solemn offering, and had a race run in the Piazza Santa Croce after the ceremony. The artists, Lorenzo di Credi, Mariotto Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo and Luca della Robbia were buried here. Two of the best pictures that the church contained--a Coronation of the Madonna ascribed to Orcagna and the famous Assumption said by Vasari to have been painted by Botticelli for Matteo Palmieri (which was supposed to inculcate heretical neoplatonic doctrines concerning the human soul and the Angels in the spheres), are now in the National Gallery of London. It was in this Piazza that the conspirators resolved to assassinate Maso degli Albizzi. Their spies watched him leave his palace, walk leisurely towards the church and then enter an apothecary's shop, close to San Piero. They hurried off to tell their associates, but when the would-be assassins arrived on the scene, they found that Maso had given them the slip and left the shop. Turning down the Via del Mercatino and back to the Badia along the Via Pandolfini, we pass the palace which once belonged to Francesco Valori, Savonarola's formidable adherent. Here it was on that terrible Palm Sunday, 1498, when Hell broke loose, as Landucci puts it, that Valori's wife was shot dead at a window, while her husband in the street below, on his way to answer the summons of the Signoria, was murdered near San Procolo by the kinsmen of the men whom he had sent to the scaffold. The Badia shares with the Baptistery and San Miniato the distinction of being the only Florentine churches mentioned by Dante. In Cacciaguida's days it was close to the old Roman wall; from its campanile even in Dante's time, Florence still "took tierce and nones "; and, at the sound of its bells, the craftsmen of the Arts went to and from their work. Originally founded by the Countess Willa in the tenth century, the Badia di San Stefano (as it was called) that Dante and Boccaccio knew was the work of Arnolfo di Cambio; but it was entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, with consequent destruction of priceless frescoes by Giotto and Masaccio. The present graceful campanile is of the fourteenth century. The relief in the lunette over the chief door, rather in the manner of Andrea della Robbia, is by Benedetto Buglione. In the left transept is the monument by Mino da Fiesole of Willa's son Hugo, Margrave of Tuscany, who died on St. Thomas' day, 1006. Dante calls him the great baron; his anniversary was solemnly celebrated here, and he was supposed to have conferred knighthood and nobility upon the Della Bella and other Florentine families. "Each one," says Cacciaguida, "who beareth aught of the fair arms of the great baron, whose name and worth the festival of Thomas keepeth living, from him derived knighthood and privilege" (_Paradiso_ xvi.). In a chapel to the left of this monument is Filippino Lippi's picture of the Madonna appearing to St. Bernard, painted in 1480, one of the most beautiful renderings of an exceedingly poetical subject. For Dante, Bernard is _colui ch'abbelliva di Maria, come del sole stella mattutina_, "he who drew light from Mary, as the morning star from the sun." Filippino has introduced the portrait of the donor, on the right, Francesco di Pugliese. The church contains two other works by Mino da Fiesole, a Madonna and (in the right transept) the sepulchral monument of Bernardo Giugni, who served the State as ambassador to Milan and Venice in the days of Cosimo and Piero dei Medici. At the entrance to the cloisters Francesco Valori is buried. It was in the Badia (and not in the Church of San Stefano, near the Via Por Santa Maria, as usually stated) that Boccaccio lectured upon the _Divina Commedia_ in 1373. Benvenuto da Imola came over from Bologna to attend his beloved master's readings, and was much edified. But the audience were not equally pleased, and Boccaccio had to defend himself in verse. One of the sonnets he wrote on this occasion, _Se Dante piange, dove ch'el si sia_, has been admirably translated by Dante Rossetti:-- If Dante mourns, there wheresoe'er he be, That such high fancies of a soul so proud Should be laid open to the vulgar crowd, (As, touching my Discourse, I'm told by thee), This were my grievous pain; and certainly My proper blame should not be disavow'd; Though hereof somewhat, I declare aloud Were due to others, not alone to me. False hopes, true poverty, and therewithal The blinded judgment of a host of friends, And their entreaties, made that I did thus. But of all this there is no gain at all Unto the thankless souls with whose base ends Nothing agrees that's great or generous. [Illustration: ARMS OF THE SESTO DI SAN PIERO] CHAPTER VII _From the Bargello past Santa Croce_ "Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto, ch'un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva la man che ubbidisce all'intelletto." --_Michelangelo Buonarroti._ Even as the Palazzo Vecchio or Palace of the Priors is essentially the monument of the _Secondo Popolo_, so the Palazzo del Podestà or Palace of the Commune belongs to the _Primo Popolo_; it was commenced in 1255, in that first great triumph of the democracy, although mainly finished towards the middle of the following century. Here sat the Podestà, with his assessors and retainers, whom he brought with him to Florence--himself always an alien noble. Originally he was the chief officer of the Republic, for the six months during which he held office, led the burgher forces in war, and acted as chief justice in peace; but he gradually sunk in popular estimation before the more democratic Captain of the People (who was himself, it will be remembered, normally an alien Guelf noble). A little later, both Podestà and Captain were eclipsed by the Gonfaloniere of Justice. In the fifteenth century the Podestà was still the president of the chief civil and criminal court of the city, and his office was only finally abolished during the Gonfalonierate of Piero Soderini at the beginning of the Cinquecento. Under the Medicean grand dukes the Bargello, or chief of police, resided here--hence the present name of the palace; and it is well to repeat, once for all, that when the Bargello, or Court of the Bargello, is mentioned in Florentine history--in grim tales of torture and executions and the like--it is not this building, but the residence of the Executore of Justice, now incorporated into the Palazzo Vecchio, that is usually meant. It was in this Palace of the Podestà, however, that Guido Novello resided and ruled the city in the name of King Manfred, during the short period of Ghibelline tyranny that followed Montaperti, 1260-1266, and which the Via Ghibellina, first opened by him, recalls. The Palace was broken into by the populace in 1295, just before the fall of Giano della Bella, because a Lombard Podestà had unjustly acquitted Corso Donati for the death of a burgher at the hands of his riotous retainers. Here, too, was Cante dei Gabbrielli of Gubbio installed by Charles of Valois, in November 1301, and from its gates issued the Crier of the Republic that summoned Dante Alighieri and his companions in misfortune to appear before the Podestà's court. In one of those dark vaulted rooms on the ground floor, now full of a choice collection of mediæval arms and armour, Cante's successor, Fulcieri da Calvoli, tortured those of the Bianchi who fell into his cruel hands. "He sells their flesh while it is still alive," says Dante in the _Purgatorio_, "then slayeth them like a worn out brute: many doth he deprive of life, and himself of honour." Some died under the torments, others were beheaded. "Messer Donato Alberti," writes Dino Compagni, "mounted vilely upon an ass, in a peasant's smock, was brought before the Podestà. And when he saw him, he asked him: 'Are you Messer Donato Alberti?' He replied: 'I am Donato. Would that Andrea da Cerreto were here before us, and Niccola Acciaioli, and Baldo d'Aguglione, and Jacopo da Certaldo, who have destroyed Florence.'[34] Then he was fastened to the rope and the cord adjusted to the pulley, and so they let him stay; and the windows and doors of the Palace were opened, and many citizens called in under other pretexts, that they might see him tortured and derided." [34] These were the burghers and lawyers of the black faction, the Podestà's allies and friends. This was in the spring of 1303. In the rising of the Ciompi, July 1378, the palace was forced to surrender to the insurgents after an assault of two hours. They let the Podestà escape, but burnt all books and papers, especially those of the hated Arte della Lana. At night as many as the palace could hold quartered themselves here. [Illustration: BARGELLO COURTYARD AND STAIRCASE] The beautiful court and stairway, surrounded by statues and armorial bearings, the ascent guarded by the symbolical lion of Florence and leading to an open loggia, is the work of Benci di Cione and Neri di Fioraventi, 1333-1345. The palace is now the National Museum of Sculpture and kindred arts and crafts. Keeping to the left, round the court itself, we see a marble St. Luke by Niccolò di Piero Lamberti, of the end of the fourteenth century, from the niche of the Judges and Notaries at Or San Michele; a magnificent sixteenth century portalantern in beaten iron; the old marble St. John Evangelist, contemporaneous with the St. Luke, and probably by Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, from the niche of the Arte della Seta at Or San Michele; some allegorical statues by Giovanni da Bologna and Vincenzo Danti, in rather unsuccessful imitation of Michelangelo; a dying Adonis, questionably ascribed to Michelangelo. And, finally (numbered 18), there stands Michelangelo's so-called "Victory," the triumph of the ideal over outworn tyranny and superstition; a radiant youth, but worn and exhausted by the struggle, rising triumphantly over a shape of gigantic eld, so roughly hewn as to seem lost in the mist from which the young hero has gloriously freed himself.[35] [35] Such, at least, seems the more obvious interpretation; but there is a certain sensuality and cruelty about the victor's expression, which, together with the fact that the vanquished undoubtedly has something of Michelangelo's own features, lead us to suspect that the master's sympathies were with the lost cause. Also on the ground floor, to the left, are two rooms full of statuary. The first contains nothing important, save perhaps the Madonna and Child with St. Peter and St. Paul, formerly above the Porta Romana. In the second room, a series of bas-reliefs by Benedetto da Rovezzano, begun in 1511 and terribly mutilated by the imperial soldiery during the siege, represent scenes connected with the life and miracles of St. Giovanni Gualberto, including the famous trial of Peter Igneus, who, in order to convict the Bishop of Florence of simony, passed unharmed through the ordeal of fire. Here is the unfinished bust of Brutus (111) by Michelangelo, one of his latest works, and a significant expression of the state of the man's heart, when he was forced to rear sumptuous monuments for the new tyrants who had overthrown his beloved Republic. Then a chimney-piece by Benedetto da Rovezzano from the Casa Borgherini, one of the most sumptuous pieces of domestic furniture of the Renaissance; a very beautiful tondo of the Madonna and Child with the little St. John (123) by Michelangelo, made for Bartolommeo Pitti early in the Cinquecento; the mask of a grinning faun with gap-teeth, traditionally shown as the head struck out by the boy Michelangelo in his first visit to the Medici Gardens, when he attracted the attention of Lorenzo the Magnificent--but probably a comparatively modern work suggested by Vasari's story; a sketch in marble for the martyrdom of St. Andrew, supposed to be a juvenile work of Michelangelo's, but also doubtful. Here too is Michelangelo's drunken Bacchus (128), an exquisitely-modelled intoxicated vine-crowned youth, behind whom a sly little satyr lurks, nibbling grapes. It is one of the master's earliest works, very carefully and delicately finished, executed during his first visit to Rome, for Messer Jacopo Galli, probably about 1497. Of this statue Ruskin wrote, while it was still in the Uffizi: "The white lassitude of joyous limbs, panther-like, yet passive, fainting with their own delight, that gleam among the Pagan formalisms of the Uffizi, far away, separating themselves in their lustrous lightness as the waves of an Alpine torrent do by their dancing from the dead stones, though the stones be as white as they." Shelley, on the contrary, found it "most revolting," "the idea of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic." Near it is a tondo of the Virgin and Child with the Baptist, by Andrea Ferrucci. At the top of the picturesque and richly ornamented staircase, to the right of the loggia on the first floor, opens a great vaulted hall, where the works of Donatello, casts and originals, surround a cast of his great equestrian monument to Gattamelata at Padua--a hall of such noble proportions that even Gattamelata looks insignificant, where he sits his war-horse between the Cross of the People and the Lily of the Commune. Here the general council of the Commune met--the only council (besides the special council of the Podestà) in which the magnates could sit and vote, and it was here, on July 6th, 1295, that Dante Alighieri first entered public life; he spoke in support of the modifications of the Ordinances of Justice--which may have very probably been a few months before he definitely associated himself with the People by matriculating in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali. Among the casts and copies that fill this room, there are several original and splendid works of Donatello; the Marzocco, or symbolical lion of Florence protecting the shield of the Commune, which was formerly in front of the Palace of the Priors; the bronze David, full of Donatello's delight in the exuberance of youthful manhood just budding; the San Giovannino or little St. John; the marble David, inferior to the bronze, but heralding Michelangelo; the bronze bust of a youth, called the son of Gattamelata; Love trampling upon a snake (bronze); St. George in marble from Or San Michele, an idealised condottiere of the Quattrocento; St. John the Baptist from the Baptistery; and a bronze relief of the Crucifixion. The coloured bust is now believed by many critics to be neither the portrait of Niccolò da Uzzano nor by Donatello; it is possibly a Roman hero by some sculptor of the Seicento. The next room is the audience chamber of the Podestà. Besides the Cross and the Lilies on the windows, its walls and roof are covered with the gold lion on azure ground, the arms of the Duke of Athens. They were cancelled by decree of the Republic in 1343, and renewed in 1861; as a patriotically worded tablet on the left, under the window, explains. Opening out of this is the famous Chapel of the Podestà--famous for the frescoes on its walls--once a prison. From out of these terribly ruined frescoes stands the figure of Dante (stands out, alas, because completely repainted--a mere _rifacimento_ with hardly a trace of the original work left) in what was once a _Paradiso_; the dim figures on either side are said to represent Brunette Latini and either Corso Donati or Guido Cavalcanti. In spite of a very pleasant fable, it is absolutely certain that this is not a contemporaneous portrait of Dante (although it may be regarded as an authentic likeness, to some extent) and was not painted by Giotto; the frescoes were executed by some later follower of Giotto (possibly by Taddeo Gaddi, who painted the lost portraits of Dante and Guido in Santa Croce) after 1345. The two paintings below on either side, Madonna and Child and St. Jerome, are votive pictures commissioned by pious Podestàs in 1490 and 1491, the former by Sebastiano Mainardi, the brother-in-law of Domenico Ghirlandaio. The third room contains small bronze works by Tuscan masters of the Quattrocento. In the centre, Verrocchio's David (22), cast for Lorenzo dei Medici, one of the masterpieces of the fifteenth century. Here are the famous trial plates for the great competition for the second bronze gates of the Baptistery, announced in 1401, the Sacrifice of Abraham, by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti respectively; the grace and harmony of Ghiberti's composition (12) contrast strongly with the force, almost violence, the dramatic action and movement of Brunelleschi's (13). Ghiberti's, unlike his rival's, is in one single piece; but, until lately, there has been a tendency to underrate the excellence of Brunelleschi's relief. Here, too, are Ghiberti's reliquary of St. Hyacinth, executed in 1428, with two beautiful floating Angels (21); several bas-reliefs by Bertoldo, Donatello's pupil and successor; the effigy of Marino Soccino, a lawyer of Siena, by the Sienese sculptor Il Vecchietta (16); and, in a glass case, Orpheus by Bertoldo, Hercules and Antæus by Antonio Pollaiuolo, and Love on a Scallop Shell by Donatello. The following room contains mostly bronzes by later masters, especially Cellini, Giovanni da Bologna, Vincenzo Danti. The most noteworthy of its contents are Daniele Ricciarelli's striking bust of Michelangelo (37); Cellini's bronze sketch for Perseus (38), his bronze bust of Duke Cosimo I. (39), his wax model for Perseus (40), the liberation of Andromeda, from the pedestal of the statue in the Loggia dei Lanzi (42); and above all, Giovanni da Bologna's flying Mercury (82), showing what exceedingly beautiful mythological work could still be produced when the golden days of the Renaissance were over. It was cast in 1565, and, like many of the best bronzes of this epoch, was originally placed on a fountain in one of the Medicean villas. On the second floor, first a long room with seals, etc., guarded by Rosso's frescoed Justice. Here, and in the room on the left, is a most wonderful array of the works in enamelled terra cotta of the Della Robbias--Luca and Andrea, followed by Giovanni and their imitators. In the best work of Luca and Andrea--and there is much of their very best and most perfect work in these two rooms--religious devotion received its highest and most perfect expression in sculpture. Their Madonnas, Annunciations, Nativities and the like, are the sculptural counterpart to Angelico's divinest paintings, though never quite attaining to his spiritual insight and supra-sensible gaze upon life. Andrea's work is more pictorial in treatment than Luca's, has less vigour and even at times a perceptible trace of sentimentality; but in sheer beauty his very best creations do not yield to those of his great master and uncle. Both Luca and Andrea kept to the simple blue and white--in the best part of their work--and surrounded their Madonnas with exquisite festoons of fruit and leaves: "wrought them," in Pater's words, "into all sorts of marvellous frames and garlands, giving them their natural colours, only subdued a little, a little paler than nature." To the right of the first Della Robbia room, are two more rooms full of statuary, and one with a collection of medals, including that commemorating Savonarola's Vision of the Sword of the Lord. In the first room--taking merely the more important--we may see Music, wrongly ascribed to Orcagna, probably earlier (139); bust of Charles VIII. of France (164), author uncertain; bust in terra cotta of a young warrior, by Antonio Pollaiuolo (161), as grandly insolent and confident as any of Signorelli's savage youths in the Orvieto frescoes. Also, bust of Matteo Palmieri, the humanist and suspected heretic, by Antonio Rossellino (160); bust of Pietro Mellini by Benedetto da Maiano (153); portrait of a young lady, by Matteo Civitali of Lucca (142); a long relief (146) ascribed to Verrocchio and representing the death of a lady of the Tornabuoni family in child-birth, which Shelley greatly admired and described at length, under the impression that he was studying a genuine antique: "It is altogether an admirable piece," he says, "quite in the spirit of Terence." The uncompromising realism of the male portraiture of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is fully illustrated in this room, and there is at the same time a peculiar tenderness and winsomeness in representing young girls, which is exceedingly attractive. In the next room there are many excellent portraits of this kind, named and unnamed. Of more important works, we should notice the San Giovannino by Antonio Rossellino, and a tondo by the same master representing the Adoration of the Shepherds; Andrea Verrocchio's Madonna and Child; Verrocchio's Lady with the Bouquet (181), with those exquisite hands of which Gabriele D'Annunzio has almost wearied the readers of his _Gioconda_; by Matteo Civitali of Lucca, Faith gazing ecstatically upon the Sacrament. By Mino da Fiesole are a Madonna and Child, and several portrait busts--of the elder Piero dei Medici (234) and his brother Giovanni di Cosimo (236), and of Rinaldo della Luna. We should also notice the statues of Christ and three Apostles, of the school of Andrea Pisano; portrait of a girl by Desiderio da Settignano; two bas-reliefs by Luca della Robbia, representing the Liberation and Crucifixion of St. Peter, early works executed for a chapel in the Duomo; two sixteenth century busts, representing the younger Giuliano dei Medici and Giovanni delle Bande Nere; and, also, a curious fourteenth century group (222) apparently representing the coronation of an emperor by the Pope's legate. In the centre of the room are St. John Baptist by Benedetto da Maiano; Bacchus, by Jacopo Sansovino; and Michelangelo's second David (224), frequently miscalled Apollo, made for Baccio Valori after the siege of Florence, and pathetically different from the gigantic David of his youth, which had been chiselled more than a quarter of a century before, in all the passing glory of the Republican restoration. * * * * * When the Duke of Athens made himself tyrant of Florence, King Robert urged him to take up his abode in this palace, as Charles of Calabria had done, and leave the Palace of the People to the Priors. The advice was not taken, and, when the rising broke out, the palace was easily captured, before the Duke and his adherents in the Palazzo Vecchio were forced to surrender. Passing along the Via Ghibellina, we presently come on the right to what was originally the _Stinche_, a prison for nobles, _in qua carcerentur et custodiantur magnates_, so called from a castle of the Cavalcanti captured by the Neri in 1304, from which the prisoners were imprisoned here: it is now a part of the Teatro Pagliano. Later it became the place of captivity of the lowest criminals, and a first point of attack in risings of the populace. It contains, in a lunette on the stairs, a contemporary fresco representing the expulsion of the Duke of Athens on St. Anne's Day, 1343. St. Anne is giving the banners of the People and of the Commune to a group of stern Republican warriors, while with one hand she indicates the Palace of the Priors, fortified with the tyrant's towers and battlements. By its side rises a great throne, from which the Duke is shrinking in terror from the Angel of the wrath of God; a broken sword lies at his feet; the banner of Brienne lies dishonoured in the dust, with the scales of justice that he profaned and the book of the law that he outraged. In so solemn and chastened a spirit could the artists of the Trecento conceive of their Republic's deliverance. The fresco was probably painted by either Giottino or Maso di Banco; it was once wrongly ascribed to Cennino Cennini, who wrote the _Treatise on Painting_, which was the approved text-book in the studios and workshops of the earlier masters. Further down the Via Ghibellina is the Casa Buonarroti, which once belonged to Michelangelo, and was bequeathed by his family to the city. It is entirely got up as a museum now, and not in the least suggestive of the great artist's life, though a tiny little study and a few letters and other relics are shown. There are, however, a certain number of his drawings here, including a design for the façade of San Lorenzo, which is of very questionable authenticity, and a Madonna. Two of his earliest works in marble are preserved here, executed at that epoch of his youth when he frequented the house and garden of Lorenzo the Magnificent. One is a bas-relief of the Madonna and Child--somewhat in the manner of Donatello--with two Angels at the top of a ladder. The other is a struggle of the Centaurs and Lapithae, a subject suggested to the boy by Angelo Poliziano, full of motion and vigour and wonderfully modelled. Vasari says, "To whoso considers this work, it does not seem from the hand of a youth, but from that of an accomplished and past master in these studies, and experienced in the art." The former is in the fifth room, the latter in the antechamber. There are also two models for the great David; a bust of the master in bronze by Ricciarelli, and his portrait by his pupil, Marcello Venusti. A predella representing the legend of St. Nicholas is by Francesco Pesellino, whose works are rare. In the third room (among the later allegories and scenes from the master's life) is a large picture supposed to have been painted by Jacopo da Empoli from a cartoon by Michelangelo, representing the Holy Family with the four Evangelists; it is a peculiarly unattractive work. The cartoon, ascribed to Michelangelo, is in the British Museum; and I would suggest that it was originally not a religious picture at all, but an allegory of Charity. The cross in the little Baptist's hand does not occur in the cartoon. Almost at the end of the Via Ghibellina are the Prisons which occupy the site of the famous convent of _Le Murate_. In this convent Caterina Sforza, the dethroned Lady of Forlì and mother of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, ended her days in 1509. Here the Duchessina, or "Little Duchess," as Caterina dei Medici was called, was placed by the Signoria after the expulsion of the Medici in 1527, in order to prevent Pope Clement VII. from using her for the purpose of a political marriage which might endanger the city. They seem to have feared especially the Prince of Orange. The result was that the convent became a centre of Medicean intrigue; and the Signoria, when the siege commenced, sent Salvestro Aldobrandini to take her away. When Salvestro arrived, after he had been kept waiting for some time, the little Duchess came to the grill of the parlour, dressed as a nun, and said that she intended to take the habit and stay for ever "with these my reverend mothers." According to Varchi, the poor little girl--she was barely eleven years old, had lost both parents in the year of her birth, and was practically alone in the city where the cruellest threats had been uttered against her--was terribly frightened and cried bitterly, "not knowing to what glory and felicity her life had been reserved by God and the Heavens." But Messer Salvestro and Messer Antonio de' Nerli did all they could to comfort and reassure her, and took her to the convent of Santa Lucia in the Via di San Gallo; "in which monastery," says Nardi, "she was received and treated with the same maternal love by those nuns, until the end of the war." In the centre of the oblong Piazza di Santa Croce rises the statue and monument of Dante Alighieri, erected on the occasion of the sixth centenary of his birth, in those glowing early days of the first completion of Italian unity; at its back stand the great Gothic church and convent, which Arnolfo di Cambio commenced for the Franciscans in 1294, while Dante was still in Florence--the year before he entered political life. The great Piazza was a centre of festivities and stirring Florentine life, and has witnessed many historical scenes, in old times and in new, from the tournaments and jousts of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance to the penitential processions of the victims of the Inquisition in the days of the Medicean Grand Dukes, from the preaching of San Bernardino of Siena to the missionary labours of the Jesuit Segneri. On Christmas Day, 1301, Niccolò dei Cerchi was passing through this Piazza with a few friends on horseback on his way to his farm and mill--for that was hardly a happy Christmas for Guelfs of the white faction in Florence--while a friar was preaching in the open air, announcing the birth of Christ to the crowd; when Simone Donati with a band of mounted retainers gave chase, and, when he overtook him, killed him. In the scuffle Simone himself received a mortal wound, of which he died the same night. "Although it was a just judgment," writes Villani, "yet was it held a great loss, for the said Simone was the most accomplished and virtuous squire in Florence, and of the greatest promise, and he was all the hope of his father, Messer Corso." It was in the convent of Santa Croce that the Duke of Athens took up his abode in 1342, with much parade of religious simplicity, when about to seize upon the lordship of Florence; here, on that fateful September 8th, he assembled his followers and adherents in the Piazza, whence they marched to the Parliament at the Palazzo Vecchio, where he was proclaimed Signor of Florence for life. But in the following year, when he attempted to celebrate Easter with great pomp and luxury, and held grand jousts in this same Piazza for many days, the people sullenly held aloof and very few citizens entered the lists. Most gorgeous and altogether successful was the tournament given here by Lorenzo dei Medici in 1467, to celebrate his approaching marriage with Clarice Orsini, when he jousted against all comers in honour of the lady of his sonnets and odes, Lucrezia Donati. There was not much serious tilting about it, but a magnificent display of rich costumes and precious jewelled caps and helmets, and a glorious procession which must have been a positive feast of colour. "To follow the custom," writes Lorenzo himself, "and do like others, I gave a tournament on the Piazza Santa Croce at great cost and with much magnificence; I find that about 10,000 ducats were spent on it. Although I was not a very vigorous warrior, nor a hard hitter, the first prize was adjudged to me, a helmet inlaid with silver and a figure of Mars as the crest."[36] He sent a long account of the proceedings to his future bride, who answered: "I am glad that you are successful in what gives you pleasure, and that my prayer is heard, for I have no other wish than to see you happy." Luca Pulci, the luckless brother of Luigi, wrote a dull poem on the not very inspiring theme. A few years later, at the end of January 1478, a less sumptuous entertainment of the same sort was given by Giuliano dei Medici; and it was apparently on this occasion that Poliziano commenced his famous stanzas in honour of Giuliano and his lady love, Simonetta,--stanzas which were interrupted by the daggers of the Pazzi and their accomplices. It was no longer time for soft song or courtly sport when prelates and nobles were hanging from the palace windows, and the thunders of the Papal interdict were about to burst over the city and her rulers. [36] Quoted in Mr Armstrong's _Lorenzo de' Medici_. Entering the Church through the unpleasing modern façade (which is, however, said to have followed the design of Cronaca himself, the architect of the exceedingly graceful convent of San Salvadore al Monte on the other side of the river), we catch a glow of colour from the east end, from the stained glass and frescoes in the choir. The vast and spacious nave of Arnolfo--like his Palazzo Vecchio, partly spoiled by Vasari--ends rather abruptly in the line of ten chapels with, in the midst of them, one very high recess which represents the apse and choir, thus giving the whole the T shape which we find in the Italian Gothic churches which were reared for the friars preachers and friars minor. The somewhat unsightly appearance, which many churches of this kind present in Italy, is due to the fact that Arnolfo and his school intended every inch of wall to be covered with significant fresco paintings, and this coloured decoration was seldom completely carried out, or has perished in the course of time. Fergusson remarks that "an Italian Church without its coloured decoration is only a framed canvas without harmony or meaning." Santa Croce is, in the words of the late Dean of Westminster, "the recognised shrine of Italian genius." On the pavement beneath our feet, outstretched on their tombstones, lie effigies of grave Florentine citizens, friars of note, prelates, scholars, warriors; in their robes of state or of daily life, in the Franciscan garb or in armour, with arms folded across their breasts, or still clasping the books they loved and wrote (in this way the humanists, such as Leonardo Bruni, were laid out in state after death); the knights have their swords by their sides, which they had wielded in defence of the Republic, and their hands clasped in prayer. Here they lie, waiting the resurrection. Has any echo of the Risorgimento reached them? In their long sleep, have they dreamed aught of the movement that has led Florence to raise tablets to the names of Cavour and Mazzini upon these walls? The tombs on the floor of the nave are mostly of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the second from the central door is that of Galileo dei Galilei, like the other scholars lying with his hands folded across the book on his breast, the ancestor of the immortal astronomer: "This Galileo of the Galilei was, in his time, the head of philosophy and medicine; who also in the highest magistracy loved the Republic marvellously." About the middle of the nave is the tomb of John Catrick, Bishop of Exeter, who had come to Florence on an embassy from Henry V. of England to Pope Martin V., in 1419. But those on the floor at the end of the right aisle and in the short right transept are the earliest and most interesting to the lover of early Florentine history; notice, for instance, the knightly tomb of a warrior of the great Ghibelline house of the Ubaldini, dated 1358, at the foot of the steps to the chapel at the end of the right transept; and there is a similar one, only less fine, on the opposite side. Larger and more pretentious tombs and monuments of more recent date, to the heroes of Italian life and thought, pass in series along the side walls of the whole church, between the altars of the south and north (right and left) aisles. [Illustration: SANTA CROCE] Over the central door, below the window whose stained glass is said to have been designed by Ghiberti, is Donatello's bronze statue of King Robert's canonised brother, the Franciscan Bishop St. Louis of Toulouse. This St. Louis, the patron saint of the Parte Guelfa, had been ordered by the captains of the Party for their niche at San Michele in Orto, from which he was irreverently banished shortly after the restoration of Cosimo dei Medici, when the Parte Guelfa was forced to surrender its niche. On the left of the entrance should be noticed with gratitude the tomb of the historian of the Florentine Republic, the Italian patriot, Gino Capponi. In the right aisle are the tomb and monument of Michelangelo, designed by Giorgio Vasari; on the pillar opposite to it, over the holy water stoop, a beautiful Madonna and Child in marble by Bernardo Rossellino, beneath which lies Francesco Nori, who was murdered whilst defending Lorenzo dei Medici in the Pazzi conspiracy; the comparatively modern monument to Dante, whose bones rest at Ravenna and for whom Michelangelo had offered in vain to raise a worthy sepulchre. Two sonnets by the great sculptor supply to some extent in verse what he was not suffered to do in marble: I quote the finer of the two, from Addington Symonds' excellent translation:-- From Heaven his spirit came, and, robed in clay, The realms of justice and of mercy trod: Then rose a living man to gaze on God, That he might make the truth as clear as day. For that pure star, that brightened with its ray The undeserving nest where I was born, The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn: None but his Maker can due guerdon pay. I speak of Dante, whose high work remains Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood Who only to just men deny their wage. Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, Against his exile coupled with his good I'd gladly change the world's best heritage. Then comes Canova's monument to Vittorio Alfieri, the great tragic dramatist of Italy (died 1803); followed by an eighteenth century monument to Machiavelli (died 1527), and the tomb of Padre Lanzi, the Jesuit historian of Italian art. The pulpit by a pillar in the nave is considered the most beautiful pulpit in Italy, and is, perhaps, Benedetto da Maiano's finest work; the bas-reliefs in marble represent scenes from the life of St. Francis and the martyrdom of some of his friars, with figures of the virtues below. Beyond Padre Lanzi's grave, over the tomb of the learned Franciscan Fra Benedetto Cavalcanti, are two exceedingly powerful figures of saints in fresco, the Baptist and St. Francis; they have been ascribed to various painters, but are almost certainly the work of Domenico Veneziano, and closely resemble the figures of the same saints in his undoubtedly genuine picture in the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco in the Uffizi. The adjacent Annunciation by Donatello, in _pietra serena_, was also made for the Cavalcanti; its fine Renaissance architectural setting is likewise Donatello's work. Above it are four lovely wooden Putti, who seem embracing each other for fear of tumbling off from their height; originally there were six, and the other two are preserved in the convent. M. Reymond has shown that this Annunciation is not an early work of the master's, as Vasari and others state, but is of the same style and period as the Cantoria of the Duomo, about 1435. Lastly, at the end of the right aisle is the splendid tomb of Leonardo Bruni (died 1444), secretary of the Republic, translator of Plato, historian of Florence, biographer of Dante,--the outstretched recumbent figure of the grand old humanist, watched over by Mary and her Babe with the Angels, by Bernardo Rossellino. A worthy monument to a noble soul, whose memory is dear to every lover of Dante. Yet we may, not without advantage, contrast it with the simpler Gothic sepulchres on the floor of the transepts,--the marble slabs that cover the bones of the old Florentines who, in war and peace, did the deeds of which Leonardo and his kind wrote. The tombs and monuments in the left aisle are less interesting. Opposite Leonardo Bruni's tomb is that of his successor, Carlo Marsuppini, called Carlo Aretino (died 1453), by Desiderio da Settignano; he was a good Greek scholar, a fluent orator and a professed Pagan, but accomplished no literary work of any value; utterly inferior as a man and as an author to Leonardo, he has an even more gorgeous tomb. In this aisle there are modern monuments to Vespasiano Bisticci and Donatello; and, opposite to Michelangelo's tomb, that of Galileo himself (died 1642), with traces of old fourteenth century frescoes round it, which may, perhaps, symbolise for us the fleeting phantoms of mediæval thought fading away before the advance of science. In the central chapel of the left or northern transept is the famous wooden Crucifix by Donatello, which gave rise to the fraternal contest between him and Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi told his friend that he had put upon his cross a contadino and not a figure like that of Christ. "Take some wood then," answered the nettled sculptor, "and try to make one thyself." Filippo did so; and when it was finished Donatello was so stupefied with admiration, that he let drop all the eggs and other things that he was carrying for their dinner. "I have had all I want for to-day," he exclaimed; "if you want your share, take it: to thee is it given to carve Christs and to me to make contadini." The rival piece may still be seen in Santa Maria Novella, and there is not much to choose between them. Donatello's is, perhaps, somewhat more realistic and less refined. The first two chapels of the left transept (fifth and fourth from the choir, respectively,) contain fourteenth century frescoes; a warrior of the Bardi family rising to judgment, the healing of Constantine's leprosy and other miracles of St. Sylvester, ascribed to Maso di Banco; the martyrdom of St. Lawrence and the martyrdom of St. Stephen, by Bernardo Daddi (the painter to whom it is attempted to ascribe the famous Last Judgment and Triumph of Death in the Pisan Campo Santo). All these imply a certain Dantesque selection; these subjects are among the examples quoted for purposes of meditation or admonition in the _Divina Commedia_. The coloured terracotta relief is by Giovanni della Robbia. The frescoes of the choir, by Agnolo Gaddi, are among the finest works of Giotto's school. They set forth the history of the wood of the True Cross, which, according to the legend, was a shoot of the tree of Eden planted by Seth on Adam's grave; the Queen of Sheba prophetically adored it, when she came to visit Solomon during the building of the Temple; cast into the pool of Bethsaida, the Jews dragged it out to make the Cross for Christ; then, after it had been buried on Mount Calvary for three centuries, St. Helen discovered it by its power of raising the dead to life. These subjects are set forth on the right wall; on the left, we have the taking of the relic of the Cross by the Persians under Chosroes, and its recovery by the Emperor Heraclius. In the scene where the Emperor barefooted carries the Cross into Jerusalem, the painter has introduced his own portrait, near one of the gates of the city, with a small beard and a red hood. Vasari thinks poorly of these frescoes; but the legend of the True Cross is of some importance to the student of Dante, whose profound allegory of the Church and Empire in the Earthly Paradise, at the close of the _Purgatorio_, is to some extent based upon it. The two Gothic chapels to the right of the choir contain Giotto's frescoes--both chapels were originally entirely painted by him--rescued from the whitewash under which they were discovered, and, in part at least, most terribly "restored." The frescoes in the first, the Bardi Chapel, illustrating the life of St. Francis, have suffered most; all the peculiar Giottesque charm of face has disappeared, and, instead, the restorer has given us monotonous countenances, almost deadly in their uniformity and utter lack of expression. Like all mediæval frescoes dealing with St. Francis, they should be read with the _Fioretti_ or with Dante's _Paradiso_, or with one of the old lives of the Seraphic Father in our hands. On the left (beginning at the top) we have his renunciation of the world in the presence of his father and the Bishop of Assisi--_innanzi alla sua spirital corte, et coram patre_, as Dante puts it; on the right, the confirmation of the order by Pope Honorius; on the left, the apparition of St. Francis to St. Antony of Padua; on the right, St. Francis and his followers before the Soldan--_nella presenza del Soldan superba_--in the ordeal of fire; and, below it, St. Francis on his death-bed, with the apparition to the sleeping bishop to assure him of the truth of the Stigmata. Opposite, left, the body is surrounded by weeping friars, the incredulous judge touching the wound in the side, while the simplest of the friars, at the saint's head, sees his soul carried up to heaven in a little cloud. This conception of saintly death was, perhaps, originally derived from Dante's dream of Beatrice in the _Vita Nuova_: "I seemed to look towards heaven, and to behold a multitude of Angels who were returning upwards, having before them an exceedingly white cloud; and these Angels were singing together gloriously." It became traditional in early Italian painting. On the window wall are four great Franciscans. St. Louis the King (one whom Dante does not seem to have held in honour), a splendid figure, calm and noble, in one hand the sceptre and in the other the Franciscan cord, his royal robe besprinkled with the golden lily of France over the armour of the warrior of the Cross; his face absorbed in celestial contemplation. He is the Christian realisation of the Platonic philosopher king; "St. Louis," says Walter Pater, "precisely because his whole being was full of heavenly vision, in self banishment from it for a while, led and ruled the French people so magnanimously alike in peace and war." Opposite him is St. Louis of Toulouse, with the royal crown at his feet; below are St. Elizabeth of Hungary, with her lap full of flowers; and, opposite to her, St. Clare, of whom Dante's Piccarda tells so sweetly in the _Paradiso_--that lady on high whom "perfected life and lofty merit doth enheaven." On the vaulted roof of the chapel are the glory of St. Francis and symbolical representations of the three vows--Poverty, Chastity, Obedience; not rendered as in Giotto's great allegories at Assisi, of which these are, as it were, his own later simplifications, but merely as the three mystical Angels that met Francis and his friars on the road to Siena, crying "Welcome, Lady Poverty." The picture of St. Francis on the altar, ascribed by Vasari to Cimabue, is probably by some unknown painter at the close of the thirteenth century. The frescoes in the following, the Chapel of the Peruzzi, are very much better preserved, especially in the scene of Herod's feast. Like all Giotto's genuine work, they are eloquent in their pictorial simplicity of diction; there are no useless crowds of spectators, as in the later work of Ghirlandaio and his contemporaries. On the left is the life of St. John the Baptist--the Angel appearing to Zacharias, the birth and naming of the Precursor, the dance of the daughter of Herodias at Herod's feast. This last has suffered less from restoration than any other work of Giotto's in Florence; both the rhythmically moving figure of the girl herself and that of the musician are very beautiful, and the expression on Herod's face is worthy of the psychological insight of the author of the Vices and Virtues in the Madonna's chapel at Padua. Ruskin talks of "the striped curtain behind the table being wrought with a variety and fantasy of playing colour which Paul Veronese could not better at his best." On the right wall is the life of the Evangelist, John the Divine, or rather its closing scenes; the mystical vision at Patmos, the seer _dormendo con la faccia arguta_, like the solitary elder who brought up the rear of the triumphal pageant in Dante's Earthly Paradise; the raising of Drusiana from the dead; the assumption of St. John. The curious legend represented in this last fresco--that St. John was taken up body and soul, _con le due stole_, into Heaven after death, and that his disciples found his tomb full of manna--was, of course, based upon the saying that went abroad among the brethren, "that that disciple should not die"; it is mentioned as a pious belief by St. Thomas, but is very forcibly repudiated by Giotto's great friend, Dante; in the _Paradiso_ St. John admonishes him to tell the world that only Christ and the Blessed Virgin rose from the dead. "In the earth my body is earth, and shall be there with the others, until our number be equalled with the eternal design." In the last chapel of the south transept, there are two curious frescoes apparently of the beginning of the fourteenth century, in honour of St. Michael; they represent his leading the Angelic hosts against the forces of Lucifer, and the legend of his apparition at Monte Gargano. The frescoes in the chapel at the end of the transept, the Baroncelli chapel, representing scenes in the life of the Blessed Virgin, are by Giotto's pupil, Taddeo Gaddi; they are similar to his work at Assisi. The Assumption opposite was painted by Sebastiano Mainardi from a cartoon by Domenico Ghirlandaio. In the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament there are more frescoed lives of saints by Taddeo's son, Agnolo Gaddi, less admirable than his work in the choir; and statues of two Franciscans, of the Della Robbia school. The monument of the Countess of Albany may interest English admirers of the Stuarts, but hardly concerns the story of Florence. From the right transept a corridor leads off to the chapel of the Noviciate and the Sacristy. The former, built by Michelozzo for Cosimo, contains some beautiful terracotta work of the school of the Della Robbia, a tabernacle by Mino da Fiesole, and a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin ascribed to Giotto. This Coronation was originally the altar piece of the Baroncelli chapel, and is an excellent picture, although its authenticity is not above suspicion; the signature is almost certainly a forgery; this title of _Magister_ was Giotto's pet aversion, as we know from Boccaccio, and he never used it. Opening out of the Sacristy is a chapel, decorated with beautiful frescoes of the life of the Blessed Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene, now held to be the work of Taddeo Gaddi's Lombard pupil, Giovanni da Milano. There is, as has already been said, very little individuality in the work of Giotto's followers, but these frescoes are among the best of their kind. The first Gothic cloisters belong to the epoch of the foundation of the church, and were probably designed by Arnolfo himself; the second, early Renaissance, are Brunelleschi's. The Refectory, which is entered from the first cloisters, contains a fresco of the Last Supper--one of the earliest renderings of this theme for monastic dining-rooms--which used to be assigned to Giotto, and is probably by one of his scholars. This room had the invidious honour of being the seat of the Inquisition, which in Florence had always--save for a very brief period in the thirteenth century--been in the hands of the Franciscans, and not the Dominicans. It never had any real power in Florence--the _bel viver fiorentino_, which, even in the days of tyranny, was always characteristic of the city, was opposed to its influence. The beautiful chapel of the Pazzi was built by Brunelleschi; its frieze of Angels' heads is by Donatello and Desiderio; within are Luca della Robbia's Apostles and Evangelists. Jacopo Pazzi had headed the conspiracy against the Medici in 1478, and, after attempting to raise the people, had been captured in his escape, tortured and hanged. It was said that he had cried in dying that he gave his soul to the devil; he was certainly a notorious gambler and blasphemer. When buried here, the peasants believed that he brought a curse upon their crops; so the rabble dug him up, dragged the body through the streets, and finally with every conceivable indignity threw it into the Arno. Behind Santa Croce two streets of very opposite names and traditions meet, the _Via Borgo Allegri_ (which also intersects the Via Ghibellina) and the _Via dei Malcontenti_; the former records the legendary birthday of Italian painting, the latter the mournful processions of poor wretches condemned to death. According to the tradition, Giovanni Cimabue had his studio in the former street, and it was here that, in Dante's words, he thought to hold the field in painting: _Credette Cimabue nella pittura tener lo campo._ Here, according to Vasari, he was visited by Charles the Elder of Anjou, and his great Madonna carried hence in procession with music and lighted candles, ringing of bells and waving of banners, to Santa Maria Novella; while the street that had witnessed such a miracle was ever after called _Borgo Allegri_, "the happy suburb:" "named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face," as Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts it. Unfortunately there are several little things that show that this story needs revision of some kind. When Charles of Anjou came to Florence, the first stone of Santa Maria Novella had not yet been laid, and the picture now shown there as Cimabue's appears to be a Sienese work. The legend, however, is very precious, and should be devoutly held. The king in question was probably another Angevin Charles--Carlo Martello, grandson of the elder Charles and titular King of Hungary, Dante's friend, who was certainly in Florence for nearly a month in the spring of 1295, and made himself exceedingly pleasant. Vasari has made a similar confusion in the case of two emperors of the name of Frederick. The picture has doubtless perished, but the Joyous Borgo has not changed its name. The Via dei Malcontenti leads out into the broad Viale Carlo Alberto, which marks the site of Arnolfo's wall. It formerly ended in a postern gate, known as the Porta della Giustizia, beyond which was a little chapel--of which no trace is left--and the place where the gallows stood. The condemned were first brought to a chapel which stood in the Via dei Malcontenti, near the present San Giuseppe, and then taken out to the chapel beyond the gate, where the prayers for the dying were said over them by the friars, after which they were delivered to the executioner.[37] In May 1503, as Simone Filipepi tells us, a man was beheaded here, whom the people apparently regarded as innocent; when he was dead, they rose up and stoned the executioner to death. And this was the same executioner who, five years before, had hanged Savonarola and his companions in the Piazza, and had insulted their dead bodies to please the dregs of the populace. The tower, of which the mutilated remains still stand here, the _Torre della Zecca Vecchia_, formerly called the _Torre Reale_, was originally a part of the defences of a bridge which it was intended to build here in honour of King Robert of Naples in 1317, and guarded the Arno at this point. After the siege, during which the Porta della Giustizia was walled up, Duke Alessandro incorporated the then lofty Torre Reale into a strong fortress which he constructed here, the Fortezza Vecchia. In later days, offices connected with the Arte del Cambio and the Mint were established in its place, whence the present name of the Torre della Zecca Vecchia. [37] See Guido Carocci, _Firenze Scomparsa_, here and generally. [Illustration: OLD HOUSES ON THE ARNO] CHAPTER VIII _The Baptistery, the Campanile, and the Duomo_ "There the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the descendants of the workmen taught by Dædalus: and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto."--_Ruskin._ "Il non mai abbastanza lodato tempio di Santa Maria del Fiore."--_Vasari._ To the west of the Piazza del Duomo stands the octagonal building of black and white marble--"_l'antico vostro Batisteo_" as Cacciaguida calls it to Dante--which, in one shape or another, may be said to have watched over the history of Florence from the beginning. "It is," says Ruskin, "the central building of Etrurian Christianity--of European Christianity." Here, in old pagan times, stood the Temple of Mars, with the shrine and sanctuary of the God of War. This was the Cathedral of Florence during a portion at least of the early history of the Republic, before the great Gothic building rose that now overshadows it to the east. Villani and other early writers all suppose that this present building really was the original Temple of Mars, converted into a church for St. John the Baptist. Villani tells us that, after the founding of Florence by Julius Cæsar and other noble Romans, the citizens of this new Rome decided to erect a marvellous temple to the honour of Mars, in thanksgiving for the victory which the Romans had won over the city of Fiesole; and for this purpose the Senate sent them the best and most subtle masters that there were in Rome. Black and white marble was brought by sea and then up the Arno, with columns of various sizes; stone and other columns were taken from Fiesole, and the temple was erected in the place where the Etruscans of Fiesole had once held their market:-- "Right noble and beauteous did they make it with eight faces, and when they had done it with great diligence, they consecrated it to their god Mars, who was the god of the Romans; and they had him carved in marble, in the shape of a knight armed on horseback. They set him upon a marble column in the midst of that temple, and him did they hold in great reverence and adored as their god, what time Paganism lasted in Florence. And we find that the said temple was commenced at the time that Octavian Augustus reigned, and that it was erected under the ascendency of such a constellation that it will last well nigh to eternity." There is much difference of opinion as to the real date of construction of the present building. While some authorities have assigned it to the eleventh or even to the twelfth century, others have supposed that it is either a Christian temple constructed in the sixth century on the site of the old Temple of Mars, or the original Temple converted into Christian use. It has indeed been recently urged that it is essentially a genuine Roman work of the fourth century, very analogous in structure to the Pantheon at Rome, on the model of which it was probably built. The little apse to the south-west--the part which contains the choir and altar--is certainly of the twelfth century. There was originally a round opening at the centre of the dome--like the Pantheon--and under this opening, according to Villani, the statue of Mars stood. It was closed in the twelfth century. The dome served Brunelleschi as a model for the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore. The lantern was added in the sixteenth century. Although this building, so sacrosanct to the Florentines, had been spared by the Goths and Lombards, it narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of the Tuscan Ghibellines. In 1249, when the Ghibellines, with the aid of the Emperor Frederick II., had expelled the Guelfs, the conquerors endeavoured to destroy the Baptistery by means of the tower called the Guardamorto, which stood in the Piazza towards the entrance of the Corso degli Adimari, and watched over the tombs of the dead citizens who were buried round San Giovanni. This device of making the tower fall upon the church failed. "As it pleased God," writes Villani, "through the reverence and miraculous power of the blessed John, the tower, when it fell, manifestly avoided the holy Church, and turned back and fell across the Piazza; whereat all the Florentines wondered, and the People greatly rejoiced." At the close of the thirteenth century, in those golden days of Dante's youth and early manhood, there were steps leading up to the church, and it was surrounded by these tombs. Many of the latter seem to have been old pagan sarcophagi adopted for use by the Florentine aristocracy. Here Guido Cavalcanti used to wander in his solitary musings and speculations--trying to find out that there was no God, as his friends charitably suggested--and Boccaccio tells a most delightful story of a friendly encounter between him and some young Florentine nobles, who objected to his unsociable habits. In 1293, Arnolfo di Cambio levelled the Piazza, removed the tombs, and plastered the pilasters in the angles of the octagonal with slabs of black and white marble of Prato, as now we see. The similar decoration of the eight faces of the church is much earlier. The interior is very dark indeed--so dark that the mosaics, which Dante must in part have looked upon, would need a very bright day to be visible. At present they are almost completely concealed by the scaffolding of the restorers.[38] Over the whole church preside the two Saints whom an earlier Florentine worshipper of Mars could least have comprehended--the Baptist and the Magdalene. And the spirit of Dante haunts it as he does no other Florentine building--_il mio bel San Giovanni_, he lovingly calls it. "In your ancient Baptistery," his ancestor tells him in the fifteenth Canto of the _Paradiso_, "I became at once a Christian and Cacciaguida." And, indeed, the same holds true of countless generations of Florentines--among them the keenest intellects and most subtle hands that the world has known--all baptised here. But it has memories of another kind. The shameful penance of oblation to St. John--if Boccaccio's tale be true, and if the letter ascribed to Dante is authentic--was rejected by him; but many another Florentine, with bare feet and lighted candle, has entered here as a prisoner in penitential garb. The present font--although of early date--was placed here in the seventeenth century, to replace the very famous one which played so large a part in Dante's thoughts. Here had he been baptised--here, in one of the most pathetic passages of the _Paradiso_, did he yearn, before death came, to take the laurel crown:-- [38] The earliest of these mosaics are those in the tribune, executed originally by a certain Fra Jacopo in the year 1225; those in the dome are in part ascribed to Dante's contemporary, Andrea Tafi. Se mai continga che il poema sacro, al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra, sì che m'ha fatto per più anni macro, vinca la crudeltà, che fuor mi serra del bello ovil, dov'io dormii agnello, nimico ai lupi che gli danno guerra; con altra voce omai, con altro vello ritornerò poeta, ed in sul fonte del mio battesmo prenderò il cappello; però che nella Fede, che fa conte l'anime a Dio, quivi entra' io.[39] [39] Should it e'er come to pass that the sacred poem to which both heaven and earth so have set hand, that it hath made me lean through many a year, should overcome the cruelty which doth bar me forth from the fair sheepfold wherein I used to sleep, a lamb, foe to the wolves which war upon it; with changed voice now, and with changed fleece shall I return, a poet, and at the font of my baptism shall I assume the chaplet; because into the Faith which maketh souls known of God, 'twas there I entered. --Par. xxv. 1-11, _Wicksteed's translation_. This ancient font, which stood in the centre of the church, appears to have had round holes or _pozzetti_ in its outer wall, in which the priests stood to baptise; and Dante tells us in the _Inferno_ that he broke one of these _pozzetti_, to save a boy from being drowned or suffocated. The boy saved was apparently not being baptised, but was playing about with others, and had either tumbled into the font itself or climbed head foremost into one of the _pozzetti_. When the divine poet was exiled, charitable people said that he had done this from heretical motives--just as they had looked with suspicion upon his friend Guido's spiritual wanderings in the same locality. [Illustration: THE BAPTISTERY] Though the old font has gone, St. John, to the left of the high altar, still keeps watch over all the Florentine children brought to be baptised--to be made _conti_, known to God, and to himself in God. Opposite to him is the great type of repentance after baptism, St. Mary Magdalene, a wooden statue by Donatello. What a contrast is here with those pagan Magdalenes of the Renaissance--such as Titian and Correggio painted! Fearfully wasted and haggard, this terrible figure of asceticism--when once the first shock of repulsion is got over--is unmistakably a masterpiece of the sculptor; it is as though one of the Penitential Psalms had taken bodily shape. On the other side of the church stands the tomb of the dethroned Pope, John XXIII., Baldassarre Cossa, one of the earliest works in the Renaissance style, reared by Michelozzo and Donatello, 1424-1427, for Cosimo dei Medici. The fallen Pontiff rests at last in peace in the city which had witnessed his submission to his successful rival, Martin V., and which had given a home to his closing days; here he lies, forgetful of councils and cardinals:-- "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." The recumbent figure in bronze is the work of Donatello, as also the Madonna and Child that guard his last slumber. Below, are Faith, Hope, and Charity--the former by Michelozzo (to whom also the architectural part of the monument is due), the two latter by Donatello. It is said that Pope Martin V. objected to the inscription, "quondam papa," and was answered in the words of Pilate: _quod scripsi, scripsi_. * * * * * But the glory of the Baptistery is in its three bronze gates, the finest triumph of bronze casting. On November 6th, 1329, the consuls of the Arte di Calimala, who had charge of the works of San Giovanni, ordained that their doors should be of metal and as beautiful as possible. The first of the three, now the southern gate opposite the Bigallo (but originally the _porta di mezzo_ opposite the Duomo), was assigned by them to Andrea Pisano on January 9th, 1330; he made the models in the same year, as the inscription on the gate itself shows; the casting was finished in 1336. Vasari's statement that Giotto furnished the designs for Andrea is now entirely discredited. These gates set before us, in twenty-eight reliefs, twenty scenes from the life of the Baptist with eight symbolical virtues below--all set round with lions' heads. Those who know the work of the earlier Pisan masters, Niccolò and Giovanni, will at once perceive how completely Andrea has freed himself from the traditions of the school of Pisa; instead of filling the whole available space with figures on different planes and telling several stories at once, Andrea composes his relief of a few figures on the same plane, and leaves the background free. There are never any unnecessary figures or mere spectators; the bare essentials of the episode are set before us as simply as possible, whether it be Zacharias writing the name of John or the dance of the daughter of Herodias, which may well be compared with Giotto's frescoes in Santa Croce. Most perfect of all are the eight figures of the Virtues in the eight lower panels, and they should be compared with Giotto's allegories at Padua. We have Hope winged and straining upwards towards a crown, Faith with cross and sacramental cup, Charity and Prudence, above; Fortitude, Temperance and Justice below; and then, to complete the eight, Dante's favourite virtue, the maiden Humility. The Temperance, with Giotto and Andrea Pisano, is not the mere opposite of Gluttony, with pitcher of water and cup (as we may see her presently in Santa Maria Novella); but it is the cardinal virtue which, St. Thomas says, includes "any virtue whatsoever that puts in practice moderation in any matter, and restrains appetite in its tendency in any direction." Andrea Pisano's Temperance sits next to his Justice, with the sword and scales; she too has a sword, even as Justice has, but she is either sheathing it or drawing it with reluctance. The lovely and luxuriant decorative frieze that runs round this portal was executed by Ghiberti's pupils in the middle of the fifteenth century. Over the gate is the beheading of St. John the Baptist--two second-rate figures by Vincenzo Danti. The second or northern gate is more than three-quarters of a century later, and it is the result of that famous competition which opened the Quattrocento. It was assigned to Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1403, and he had with him his stepfather Bartolo di Michele, and other assistants (including possibly Donatello). It was finished and set up gilded in April 1424, at the main entry between the two porphyry columns, opposite the Duomo, whence Andrea's gate was removed. It will be observed that each new gate was first put in this place of honour, and then translated to make room for its better. The plan of Ghiberti's is similar to that of Andrea's gate--in fact it is his style of work brought to its ultimate perfection. Twenty-eight reliefs represent scenes from the New Testament, from the Annunciation to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, while in eight lower compartments are the four Evangelists and the four great Latin Doctors. The scene of the Temptation of the Saviour is particularly striking, and the figure of the Evangelist John, the Eagle of Christ, has the utmost grandeur. Over the door are three finely modelled figures representing St. John the Baptist disputing with a Levite and a Pharisee--or, perhaps, the Baptist between two Prophets--by Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1506-1511), a pupil of Verrocchio's, who appears to have been influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. But in the third or eastern gate, opposite the Duomo, Ghiberti was to crown the whole achievement of his life. Mr Perkins remarks: "Had he never lived to make the second gates, which to the world in general are far superior to the first, he would have been known in history as a continuator of the school of Andrea Pisano, enriched with all those added graces which belonged to his own style, and those refinements of technique which the progress made in bronze casting had rendered perfect."[40] In the meantime the laws of perspective had been understood, and their science set forth by Brunelleschi; and when Ghiberti, on the completion of his first gates, was in January 1425 invited by the consuls of the Guild (amongst whom was the great anti-Medicean politician, Niccolò da Uzzano) to model the third doors, he was full of this new knowledge. "I strove," he says in his commentaries, "to imitate nature to the uttermost." The subjects were selected for him by Leonardo Bruni--ten stories from the Old Testament which, says Leonardo in his letter to Niccolò da Uzzano and his colleagues, "should have two things: first and chiefly, they must be illustrious; and secondly, they must be significant. Illustrious, I call those which can satisfy the eye with variety of design; significant, those which have importance worthy of memory." For the rest, their main instructions to him were that he should make the whole the richest, most perfect and most beauteous work imaginable, regardless of time and cost. [40] By these "second gates" are of course meant Ghiberti's second gates: in reality the "third gates" of the Baptistery. The work took more than twenty-five years. The stories were all modelled in wax by 1440, when the casting of the bronze commenced; the whole was finished in 1447, gilded in 1452--the gilding has happily worn off from all the gates--and finally set up in June 1452, in the place where Ghiberti's other gate had been. Among his numerous assistants were again his stepfather Bartolo, his son Vittorio, and, among the less important, the painters Paolo Uccello and Benozzo Gozzoli. The result is a series of most magnificent pictures in bronze. Ghiberti worked upon his reliefs like a painter, and lavished all the newly-discovered scientific resources of the painter's art upon them. Whether legitimate sculpture or not, it is, beyond a doubt, one of the most beautiful things in the world. "I sought to understand," he says in his second commentary, that book which excited Vasari's scorn, "how forms strike upon the eye, and how the theoretic part of graphic and pictorial art should be managed. Working with the utmost diligence and care, I introduced into some of my compositions as many as a hundred figures, which I modelled upon different planes, so that those nearest the eye might appear larger, and those more remote smaller in proportion." It is a triumph of science wedded to the most exquisite sense of beauty. Each of the ten bas-reliefs contains several motives and an enormous number of these figures on different planes; which is, in a sense, going back from the simplicity of Andrea Pisano to glorify the old manner of Niccolò and Giovanni. In the first, the creation of man, the creation of woman, and the expulsion from Eden are seen; in the second, the sacrifice of Abel, in which the ploughing of Cain's oxen especially pleased Vasari; in the third, the story of Noah; in the fourth, the story of Abraham, a return to the theme in which Ghiberti had won his first laurels,--the three Angels appearing to Abraham have incomparable grace and loveliness, and the landscape in bronze is a marvel of skill. In the fifth and sixth, we have the stories of Jacob and Joseph, respectively; in the seventh and eighth, of Moses and Joshua; in the ninth and tenth, of David and Solomon. The latter is supposed to have been imitated by Raphael, in his famous fresco of the School of Athens in the Vatican. The architectural backgrounds--dream palaces endowed with permanent life in bronze--are as marvellous as the figures and landscapes. Hardly less beautiful are the minor ornaments that surround these masterpieces,--the wonderful decorative frieze of fruits and birds and beasts that frames the whole, the statuettes alternating with busts in the double border round the bas-reliefs. It is the ultimate perfection of decorative art. Among the statuettes a figure of Miriam, recalling an Angel of Angelico, is of peculiar loveliness. In the middle of the whole, in the centre at the lower corners of the Jacob and Joseph respectively, are portrait busts of Lorenzo Ghiberti himself and Bartolo di Michele. Vasari has said the last word:-- "And in very truth can it be said that this work hath its perfection in all things, and that it is the most beautiful work of the world, or that ever was seen amongst ancients or moderns. And verily ought Lorenzo to be truly praised, seeing that one day Michelangelo Buonarroti, when he stopped to look at this work, being asked what he thought of it and if these gates were beautiful, replied: 'They are so beautiful that they would do well for the Gates of Paradise.' Praise verily proper, and spoken by one who could judge them." The Baptism of Christ over the portal is an unattractive work by Andrea Sansovino (circa 1505), finished by Vincenzo Danti. The Angel is a seventeenth century addition. More interesting far, are the scorched porphyry columns on either side of the gate; these were part of the booty carried off by the Pisan galleys from Majorca in 1117, and presented to the Florentines in gratitude for their having guarded Pisa during the absence of the troops. Villani says that the Pisans offered their allies the choice between these porphyry columns and some metal gates, and that, on their choosing the columns, they sent them to Florence covered with scarlet, but that some said that they scorched them first for envy. It was between these columns that Cavalcanti was lingering and musing when the gay cavalcade of Betto Brunelleschi and his friends, in Boccaccio's novel, swooped down upon him through the Piazza di Santa Reparata: "Thou, Guido, wilt none of our fellowship; but lo now! when thou shalt have found that there is no God, what wilt thou have done?" From the gate which might have stood at the doors of Paradise, or at least have guarded that sacred threshold by which Virgil and Dante entered Purgatory, we cross to the tower which might fittingly have sounded tierce and nones to the valley of the Princes. This "Shepherd's Tower," according to Ruskin, is "the model and mirror of perfect architecture." The characteristics of Power and Beauty, he writes in the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, "occur more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another. But all together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile of Giotto." Like Ghiberti's bronze gates, this exquisitely lovely tower of marble has beauty beyond words: "That bright, smooth, sunny surface of glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the eastern sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea-shell." It was commenced by Giotto himself in 1334, when the first stone was solemnly laid. When Giotto died in 1336, the work had probably not risen above the stage of the lower series of reliefs. Andrea Pisano was chosen to succeed him, and he carried it on from 1337 to 1342, finishing the first story and bringing it up to the first of the three stories of windows; it will be observed that Andrea, who was primarily a sculptor, unlike Giotto, made provision for the presence of large monumental statues as well as reliefs in his decorative scheme. Through some misunderstanding, Andrea was then deprived of the work, which was intrusted to Francesco Talenti. Francesco Talenti carried it on until 1387, making a general modification in the architecture and decoration; the three most beautiful windows, increasing in size as we ascend, with their beautiful Gothic tracery, are his work. According to Giotto's original plan, the whole was to have been crowned with a pyramidical steeple or spire; Vasari says that it was abandoned "because it was a German thing, and of antiquated fashion." All around the base of the tower runs a wonderful series of bas-reliefs on a very small scale, setting forth the whole history of human skill under divine guidance, from the creation of man to the reign of art, science, and letters, in twenty-seven exquisitely "inlaid jewels of Giotto's." At each corner of the tower are three shields, the red Cross of the People between the red lilies of the Commune. "This smallness of scale," says Ruskin of these reliefs "enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of the most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it--as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle." These twenty-seven subjects, with the possible exception of the last five on the northern side, were designed by Giotto himself; and are, together with the first bronze door, the greatest Florentine work in sculpture of the first half of the fourteenth century. The execution is, in the main, Andrea Pisano's; but there is a constant tradition that some of the reliefs are from Giotto's own hand. Antonio Pucci, in the eighty-fifth canto of his _Centiloquio_, distinctly states that Giotto carved the earlier ones, _i primi intagli fe con bello stile_, and Pucci was almost Giotto's contemporary. "Pastoral life," "Jubal," "Tubal Cain," "Sculpture," "Painting," are the special subjects which it is most plausible, or perhaps most attractive, to ascribe to him. On the western side we have the creation of Man, the creation of Woman; and then, thirdly, Adam and Eve toiling, or you may call it the dignity of labour, if you will--Giotto's rendering of the thought which John Ball was to give deadly meaning to, or ever the fourteenth century closed-- When Adam delved and Evë span, Who was then the gentleman? Then come pastoral life, Jabal with his tent, his flock and dog; Jubal, the maker of stringed and wind instruments; Tubal Cain, the first worker in metal; the first vintage, represented by the story of Noah. On the southern side comes first Astronomy, represented by either Zoroaster or Ptolemy. Then follow Building, Pottery, Riding, Weaving, and (according to Ruskin) the Giving of Law. Lastly Daedalus, symbolising, according to Ruskin, "the conquest of the element of air"; or, more probably, here as in Dante (_Paradiso_ viii.), the typical mechanician. Next, on the eastern side, comes Rowing, symbolising, according to Ruskin, "the conquest of the sea"--very possibly intended for Jason and the Argo, a type adopted in several places by Dante. The next relief, "the conquest of the earth," probably represents the slaying of Antæus by Hercules, and symbolises the "beneficent strength of civilisation, crushing the savageness of inhumanity." Giotto uses his mythology much as Dante does--as something only a little less sacred, and of barely less authority than theology--and the conquest of Antæus by Hercules was a solemn subject with Dante too; besides a reference in the _Inferno_, he mentions it twice in the _De Monarchia_ as a special revelation of God's judgment by way of ordeal, and touches upon it again in the _Convivio, secondo le testimonianze delle scritture_. Here Hercules immediately follows the "conquest of the sea," as having, by his columns, set sacred limits to warn men that they must pass no further (_Inferno_ xxvi.). Brutality being thus overthrown, we are shown agriculture and trade,--represented by a splendid team of ploughing bulls and a horse-chariot, respectively. Then, over the door of the tower, the Lamb with the symbol of Resurrection, perhaps, as Ruskin thinks, to "express the law of Sacrifice and door of ascent to Heaven"; or, perhaps, merely as being the emblem of the great Guild of wool merchants, the Arte della Lana, who had charge of the cathedral works. Then follow the representations of the arts, commencing with the relief at the corner: Geometry, regarded as the foundation of the others to follow, as being _senza macula d'errore e certissima_. Turning the corner, the first and second, on the northern side, represent Sculpture and Painting, and were possibly carved by Giotto himself. The remaining five are all later, and from the hand of Luca della Robbia, who perhaps worked from designs left by Giotto--Grammar, which may be taken to represent Literature in general, Arithmetic, the science of numbers (in its great mediæval sense), Dialectics; closing with Music, in some respects the most beautiful of the series, symbolised in Orpheus charming beasts and birds by his strains, and Harmony. "Harmony of song," writes Ruskin, "in the full power of it, meaning perfect education in all art of the Muses and of civilised life; the mystery of its concord is taken for the symbol of that of a perfect state; one day, doubtless, of the perfect world." Above this fundamental series of bas-reliefs, there runs a second series of four groups of seven. They were probably executed by pupils of Andrea Pisano, and are altogether inferior to those below--the seven Sacraments on the northern side being the best. Above are a series of heroic statues in marble. Of these the oldest are those less easily visible, on the north opposite the Duomo, representing David and Solomon, with two Sibyls; M. Reymond ascribes them to Andrea Pisano. Those opposite the Misericordia are also of the fourteenth century. On the east are Habakkuk and Abraham, by Donatello (the latter in part by a pupil), between two Patriarchs probably by Niccolò d'Arezzo, the chief sculptor of the Florentine school at the end of the Trecento. Three of the four statues opposite the Baptistery are by Donatello; figures of marvellous strength and vigour. It is quite uncertain whom they are intended to represent (the "Solomon" and "David," below the two in the centre, refer to the older statues which once stood here), but the two younger are said to be the Baptist and Jeremiah. The old bald-headed prophet, irreverently called the _Zuccone_ or "Bald-head," is one of Donatello's masterpieces, and is said to have been the sculptor's own favourite creation. Vasari tells us that, while working upon it, Donatello used to bid it talk to him, and, when he wanted to be particularly believed, he used to swear by it: "By the faith that I bear to my Zuccone." * * * * * [Illustration: THE BIGALLO] At the end of the Via Calzaioli, opposite the Baptistery, is that little Gothic gem, the Loggia called the _Bigallo_, erected between 1352 and 1358, for the "Captains of Our Lady of Mercy," while Orcagna was rearing his more gorgeous tabernacle for the "Captains of Our Lady of Or San Michele." Its architect is unknown; his manner resembles Orcagna's, to whom the work has been erroneously ascribed. The Madonna is by Alberto Arnoldi (1361). The Bigallo was intended for the public functions of charity of the foundling hospital, which was founded under the auspices of the Confraternity of the Misericordia, whose oratory is on the other side of the way. These Brothers of Mercy, in their mysterious black robes hiding their faces, are familiar enough even to the most casual visitor to Florence; and their work of succour to the sick and injured has gone on uninterruptedly throughout the whole of Florentine history. * * * * * In the last decade of the thirteenth century, when the People and Commune of Florence were in an unusually peaceful state, after the tumults caused by the reforms and expulsion of Giano della Bella had subsided, the new Cathedral was commenced on the site of the older church of Santa Reparata. The first stones and foundations were blessed with great solemnity in 1296; and, in this golden age of the democracy, the work proceeded apace, until in a document of April 1299, concerning the exemption of Arnolfo di Cambio from all taxation, it is stated that "by reason of his industry, experience and genius, the Commune and People of Florence from the magnificent and visible beginning of the said work of the said church, commenced by the same Master Arnolphus, hope to have a more beautiful and more honourable temple than any other which there is in the regions of Tuscany." But although the original design and beginning were undoubtedly Arnolfo's, the troublous times that fell upon Florence appear to have interrupted the work; and it was almost abandoned for lack of funds until 1334, when Giotto was appointed capo-maestro of the Commune and of the work of Santa Reparata, as it was still called. The Cathedral was now in charge of the Arte della Lana, as the Baptistery was in that of the Arte di Calimala. It is not precisely known what Giotto did with it; but the work languished again after his death, until Francesco Talenti was appointed capo-maestro, and, in July 1357, the foundations were laid of the present church of Santa Maria del Fiore, on a larger and more magnificent scale. Arnolfo's work appears to have been partly destroyed, partly enlarged and extended. Other capo-maestri carried on what Francesco Talenti had commenced, until, in 1378, just at the end of mediæval Florence, the fourth and last great vault was closed, and the main work finished. The completion of the Cathedral belongs to that intermediate epoch which saw the decline of the great democracy and the dawn of the Renaissance, and ran from 1378 to 1421, in which latter year the third tribune was finished. Filippo Brunelleschi's dome or cupola, raised upon a frieze or drum high above the three great semi-domes, with a large window in each of the eight sides, was commenced in 1420 and finished in 1434, the year which witnessed the establishment of the Medicean regime in Florence. Vasari waxes most enthusiastic over this work. "Heaven willed," he writes, "after the earth had been for so many years without an excellent soul or a divine spirit, that Filippo should leave to the world from himself the greatest, the most lofty and the most beauteous construction of all others made in the time of the moderns and even in that of the ancients." And Michelangelo imitated it in St Peter's at Rome, turning back, as he rode away from Florence, to gaze upon Filippo's work, and declaring that he could not do anything more beautiful. Some modern writers have passed a very different judgment. Fergusson says:--"The plain, heavy, simple outlined dome of Brunelleschi acts like an extinguisher, crushing all the lower part of the composition, and both internally and externally destroying all harmony between the parts." Brunelleschi also designed the Lantern, which was commenced shortly before his death (1446) and finished in 1461. The palla or ball, which crowns the whole, was added by Andrea Verrocchio. In the fresco in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, you shall see the Catholic Church symbolised by the earlier church of Santa Reparata; and, as the fresco was executed before the middle of the fourteenth century, it apparently represents the designs of Arnolfo and Giotto. Vasari, indeed, states that it was taken from Arnolfo's model in wood. "From this painting," he says, "it is obvious that Arnolfo had proposed to raise the dome immediately over the piers and above the first cornice, at that point namely where Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, desiring to render the building less heavy, interposed the whole space wherein we now see the windows, before adding the dome."[41] [41] "There is only one point from which the size of the Cathedral of Florence is felt; and that is from the corner of the Via de' Balestrieri, opposite the south-east angle, where it happens that the dome is seen rising instantly above the apse and transepts" (_Seven Lamps_). [Illustration: PORTA DELLA MANDORLA, DUOMO] The Duomo has had three façades. Of the first façade, the façade of Arnolfo's church before 1357, only two statues remain which probably formed part of it; one of Boniface VIII. within the Cathedral, of which more presently, and a statue of a Bishop in the sacristy. The second façade, commenced in 1357, and still in progress in 1420, was left unfinished, and barbarously destroyed towards the end of the sixteenth century. A fresco by Poccetti in the first cloister of San Marco, the fifth to the right of the entrance, representing the entrance of St. Antoninus into Florence to take possession of his see, shows this second façade. Some of the statues that once decorated it still exist. The Boniface reappeared upon it from the first façade, between St. Peter and St. Paul; over the principal gate was Our Lady of the Flower herself, presenting her Child to give His blessing to the Florentines--and this is still preserved in the Opera del Duomo--by an unknown artist of the latter half of the fourteenth century; she was formerly attended by Zenobius and Reparata, while Angels held a canopy over her--these are lost. Four Doctors of the Church, now mutilated and transformed into poets, are still to be seen on the way to Poggio Imperiale--by Niccolò d'Arezzo and Piero di Giovanni Tedesco (1396); some Apostles, probably by the latter, and very fine works, are in the court of the Riccardi Palace. The last statues made for the façade, the four Evangelists, of the first fifteen years of the Quattrocento, are now within the present church, in the chapels of the Tribune of St. Zenobius. There is a curious tradition that Donatello placed Farinata degli Uberti on the façade; and few men would have deserved the honour better. After the sixteenth century the façade remained a desolate waste down to our own times. The present façade, gorgeous but admirable in its way, was designed by De Fabris, and finished between 1875 and 1887; the first stone was laid by Victor Emmanuel in 1860. Thus has the United Italy of to-day completed the work of the great Republic of the Middle Ages. [Illustration: STATUE OF BONIFACE VIII.] The four side gates of the Duomo are among the chief artistic monuments of Florentine sculpture in the epoch that intervened between the setting of Andrea Pisano and Orcagna, and the rising of Donatello and Ghiberti. Nearer the façade, south and north, the two plainer and earlier portals are always closed; the two more ornate and later, the gate of the canons on the south and the gate of the Mandorla on the north, are the ordinary entrances into the aisles of the cathedral. Earliest of the four is the minor southern portal near the Campanile, over which the pigeons cluster and coo. Our Lady of the Pigeons, in the tympanum, is an excellent work of the school of Nino Pisano (Andrea's son), rather later than the middle of the Trecento. The northern minor portal is similar in style, with sculpture subordinated to polychromatic decoration, but with beautiful twisted columns, of which the two outermost rest upon grand mediæval lions, who are helped to bear them by delicious little winged _putti_. Third in order of construction comes the chief southern portal, the Porta dei Canonici, belonging to the last decade of the fourteenth century. The pilasters are richly decorated with sculptured foliage and figures of animals in the intervals between the leaves. In the tympanum above, the Madonna and Child with two adoring Angels--statues of great grace and beauty--are by Lorenzo di Giovanni d'Ambrogio, 1402. Above are Angels bearing a tondo of the Pietà. The Porta della Mandorla is one of the most perfect examples of Florentine decorative sculpture that exists. M. Reymond calls it "le produit le plus pur du génie florentin dans toute l'indépendance de sa pensée." It was commenced by Giovanni di Ambrogio, the chief master of the canons' gate; and finished by Niccolò da Arezzo, in the early years of the fifteenth century. The decorations of its pilasters, with nude figures amidst the conventional foliage between the angels with their wings and scrolls, are already almost in the spirit of the Renaissance. The mosaic over the door, representing the Annunciation, was executed by Domenico Ghirlandaio in 1490. "Amongst modern masters of mosaic," says Vasari, "nothing has yet been seen better than this. Domenico was wont to say that painting is mere design, and that the true painting for eternity is mosaic." The two small statues of Prophets are the earliest works of Donatello, 1405-1406. Above is the famous relief which crowns the whole, and from which the door takes its name--the glorified Madonna of the Mandorla. Formerly ascribed to Jacopo della Quercia, it is now recognised as the work of Nanni di Banco, whose father Antonio collaborated with Niccolò da Arezzo on the door. It represents the Madonna borne up in the Mandorla surrounded by Angels, three of whom above are hymning her triumph. With a singularly sweet yet majestic maternal gesture, she consigns her girdle to the kneeling Thomas on the left; on the right among the rocks, a bear is either shaking or climbing a tree. This work, executed slightly before 1420, is the best example of the noble manner of the fourteenth century united to the technical mastery of the fifteenth. Though matured late, it is the most perfect fruit of the school of Orcagna. Nanni died before it was quite completed. The precise symbolism of the bear is not easy to determine; it occurs also in Andrea Pisano's relief of Adam and Eve labouring, on the Campanile. According to St. Buonaventura, the bear is an emblem of Lust; according to the Bestiaries, of Violence. The probability is that here it merely represents the evil one, symbolising the Fall in the Adam and Eve relief, and now implying that Mary healed the wound that Eve had dealt the human race--_la piaga che Maria richiuse ed unse_. The interior is somewhat bare, and the aisles and vaults are so proportioned and constructed as to destroy much of the effect of the vast size both of the whole and of the parts. The nave and aisles lead to a great octagonal space beneath the dome, where the choir is placed, extending into three polygonal apses, those to right and left representing the transepts. Over the central door is a fine but restored mosaic of the Coronation of Madonna, by Giotto's friend and contemporary, Gaddo Gaddi, which is highly praised by Vasari. On either side stand two great equestrian portraits in fresco of condottieri, who served the Republic in critical times; by Andrea del Castagno is Niccolò da Tolentino, who fought in the Florentine pay with average success and more than average fidelity, and died in 1435, a prisoner in the hands of Filippo Maria Visconti; by Paolo Uccello is Giovanni Aguto, or John Hawkwood, a greater captain, but of more dubious character, who died in 1394. Let it stand to Hawkwood's credit that St Catherine of Siena once wrote to him, _O carissimo e dolcissimo fratello in Cristo Gesù_. By the side of the entrance is the famous statue, mutilated but extraordinarily impressive, of Boniface VIII., ascribed by Vasari to Andrea Pisano, but which is certainly earlier, and may possibly, according to M. Reymond, be assigned to Arnolfo di Cambio himself. It represents the terrible Pontiff in the flower of his age; hardly a portrait, but an idealised rendering of a Papal politician, a _papa re_ of the Middle Ages. Even so might he have looked when he received Dante and his fellow-ambassadors alone, and addressed to them the words recorded by Dino Compagni: "Why are ye so obstinate? Humble yourselves before me. I tell you in very truth that I have no other intention, save for your peace. Let two of you go back, and they shall have my benediction if they bring it about that my will be obeyed." As though in contrast with this worldly Pope, on the first pillars in the aisles are pictures of two ideal pastors; on the left, St Zenobius enthroned with Eugenius and Crescentius, by an unknown painter of the school of Orcagna; on the right, a similar but comparatively modern picture of St Antoninus giving his blessing. In the middle of the nave, is the original resting-place of the body of Zenobius; here the picturesque blessing of the roses takes place on his feast-day. The right and left aisles contain some striking statues and interesting monuments. First on the right is a statue of a Prophet (sometimes called Joshua), an early Donatello, said to be the portrait of Giannozzo Manetti, between the monuments of Brunelleschi and Giotto; the bust of the latter is by Benedetto da Maiano, and the inscription by Poliziano. Opposite these, in the left aisle, is a most life-like and realistic statue of a Prophet by Donatello, said to be the portrait of Poggio Bracciolini, between modern medallions of De Fabris and Arnolfo. Further on, on the right, are Hezekiah by Nanni di Banco, and a fine portrait bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci (1520)--the mystic dreamer caught in a rare moment of inspiration, as on that wonderful day when he closed his finished Plato, and saw young Pico della Mirandola before him. Opposite them, on the left, are David by Ciuffagni, and a bust of the musician Squarcialupi by Benedetto da Maiano. On the last pillars of the nave, right and left, stand later statues of the Apostles--St Matthew by Vincenzo de' Rossi, and St James by Jacopo Sansovino. Under Brunelleschi's vast dome--the effect of which is terribly marred by miserable frescoes by Vasari and Zuccheri--are the choir and the high altar. The stained glass in the windows in the drum is from designs of Ghiberti, Donatello (the Coronation), and Paolo Uccello. Behind the high altar is one of the most solemn and pathetic works of art in existence--Michelangelo's last effort in sculpture, the unfinished Deposition from the Cross; "the strange spectral wreath of the Florence Pietà, casting its pyramidal, distorted shadow, full of pain and death, among the faint purple lights that cross and perish under the obscure dome of Santa Maria del Fiore."[42] It is a group of four figures more than life-size; the body of Christ is received in the arms of His mother, who sustains Him with the aid of St Mary Magdalene and the standing Nicodemus, who bends over the group at the back with a countenance full of unutterable love and sorrow. Although, in a fit of impatience, Michelangelo damaged the work and allowed it to be patched up by others, he had intended it for his own sepulchre, and there is no doubt that the Nicodemus--whose features to some extent are modelled from his own--represents his own attitude as death approached. His sonnet to Giorgio Vasari is an expression of the same temper, and the most precious commentary upon his work:-- [42] _Modern Painters_, vol. ii. "Of Imagination Penetrative." Now hath my life across a stormy sea, Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall Of good and evil for eternity. Now know I well how that fond phantasy, Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal Is that which all men seek unwillingly. Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, What are they when the double death is nigh? The one I know for sure, the other dread. Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul that turns to His great Love on high, Whose arms, to clasp us, on the Cross were spread. (_Addington Symonds' translation._) The apse at the east end, or tribuna di San Zenobio, ends in the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, which is also the shrine of Saint Zenobius. The reliquary which contains his remains is the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and was finished in 1446; the bronze reliefs set forth his principal miracles, and there is a most exquisite group of those flying Angels which Ghiberti realises so wonderfully. Some of the glass in the windows is also from his design. The seated statues in the four chapels, representing the four Evangelists, were originally on the façade; the St. Luke, by Nanni di Banco, in the first chapel on the right, is the best of the four; then follow St. John, a very early Donatello, and, on the other side, St. Matthew by Ciuffagni and St. Mark by Niccolò da Arezzo (slightly earlier than the others). The two Apostles standing on guard at the entrance of the tribune, St. John and St. Peter, are by Benedetto da Rovezzano. To right and left are the southern and northern sacristies. Over the door of the southern sacristy is a very beautiful bas-relief by Luca della Robbia, representing the Ascension (1446), like a Fra Angelico in enamelled terracotta; within the sacristy are two kneeling Angels also by Luca (1448), practically his only isolated statues, of the greatest beauty and harmony; and also a rather indifferent St. Michael, a late work of Lorenzo di Credi. Over the door of the northern sacristy is the Resurrection by Luca della Robbia (1443), perhaps his earliest extant work in this enamelled terracotta. The bronze doors of this northern sacristy are by Michelozzo and Luca della Robbia, assisted by Maso and Giovanni di Bartolommeo, and were executed between 1446 and 1467. They are composed of ten reliefs with decorative heads at the corners of each, as in Lorenzo Ghiberti's work. Above are Madonna and Child with two Angels; the Baptist with two Angels; in the centre the four Evangelists, each with two Angels; and below, the four Doctors, each with two Angels. M. Reymond has shown that the four latter are the work of Michelozzo. Of Luca's work, the four Evangelists are later than the two topmost reliefs, and are most beautiful; the Angels are especially lovely, and there are admirable decorative heads between. Within, are some characteristic _putti_ by Donatello. The side apses, which represent the right and left transepts, guarded by sixteenth century Apostles, and with frescoed Saints and Prophets in the chapels by Bicci di Lorenzo, are quite uninteresting. By the door that leads out of the northern aisle into the street, is a wonderful picture, painted in honour of Dante by order of the State in 1465, by Domenico di Michelino, a pupil of Fra Angelico, whose works, with this exception, are hardly identified. At the time that this was painted, the authentic portrait of Dante still existed in the (now lost) fresco at Santa Croce, so we may take this as a fairly probable likeness; it is, at the same time, one of the earliest efforts to give pictorial treatment to the _Purgatorio_. Outside the gates of Florence stands Dante in spirit, clothed in the simple red robe of a Florentine citizen, and wearing the laurel wreath which was denied to him in life; in his left hand he holds the open volume of the _Divina Commedia_, from which rays of burning light proceed and illumine all the city. But it is not the mediæval Florence that the divine singer had known, which his ghost now revisits, but the Florence of the Quattrocento--with the completed Cathedral and the cupola of Brunelleschi rising over it, with the Campanile and the great tower of the Palazzo della Signoria completed--the Florence which has just lost Cosimo dei Medici, Pater Patriae, and may need fresh guidance, now that great mutations are at hand in Italy. With his right hand he indicates the gate of Hell and its antechamber; but it is not the torments of its true inmates that he would bid the Florentines mark, but the shameful and degrading lot of the cowards and neutrals, the trimmers, who would follow no standard upon earth, and are now rejected by Heaven and Hell alike; "the crew of caitiffs hateful to God and to his enemies," who now are compelled, goaded on by hornets and wasps, to rush for ever after a devil-carried ensign, "which whirling ran so quickly that it seemed to scorn all pause." Behind, among the rocks and precipices of Hell, the monstrous fiends of schism, treason and anarchy glare through the gate, preparing to sweep down upon the City of the Lily, if she heeds not the lesson. In the centre of the picture, in the distance, the Mountain of Purgation rises over the shore of the lonely ocean, on the little island where rushes alone grow above the soft mud. The Angel at the gate, seated upon the rock of diamond, above the three steps of contrition, confession, and satisfaction, marks the brows of the penitent souls with his dazzling sword, and admits them into the terraces of the mountain, where Pride, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust (the latter, in the purifying fire of the seventh terrace, merely indicated by the flames on the right) are purged away. On the top of the mountain Adam and Eve stand in the Earthly Paradise, which symbolises blessedness of this life, the end to which an ideal ruler is to lead the human race, and the state of innocence to which the purgatorial pains restore man. Above and around sweep the spheres of the planets, the lower moving heavens, from which the angelic influences are poured down upon the Universe beneath their sway. Thirteen years after this picture was painted, the Duomo saw Giuliano dei Medici fall beneath the daggers of the Pazzi and their confederates on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. The bell that rang for the Elevation of the Host was the signal. Giuliano had been moving round about the choir, and was standing not far from the picture of Dante, when Bernardo Baroncelli and Francesco Pazzi struck the first blows. Lorenzo, who was on the opposite side of the choir, beat off his assailants with his sword and then fled across into the northern sacristy, through the bronze gates of Michelozzo and Luca della Robbia, which Poliziano and the Cavalcanti now closed against the conspirators. The boy cardinal, Raffaello Sansoni, whose visit to the Medicean brothers had furnished the Pazzi with their chance, fled in abject terror into the other sacristy. Francesco Nori, a faithful friend of the Medici, was murdered by Baroncelli in defending his masters' lives; he is very probably the bare-headed figure kneeling behind Giuliano in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi.[43] [43] The Duomo has fairer memories of the Pazzi, than this deed of blood and treachery. Their ancestor at the Crusades had carried the sacred fire from Jerusalem to Florence, and still, on Easter Eve, an artificial dove sent from the high altar lights the car of fireworks in the Piazza--the Carro dei Pazzi--in front of the church, in honour of their name. But of all the scenes that have passed beneath Brunelleschi's cupola, the most in accordance with the spirit of Dante's picture are those connected with Savonarola. It was here that his most famous and most terrible sermons were delivered; here, on that fateful September morning when the French host was sweeping down through Italy, he gazed in silence upon the expectant multitude that thronged the building, and then, stretching forth his hands, cried aloud in a terrible voice the ominous text of Genesis: "Behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth;" and here, too, the fatal riot commenced which ended with the storming of the convent. And here, in a gentler vein, the children of Florence were wont to await the coming of their father and prophet. "The children," writes Simone Filipepi, "were placed all together upon certain steps made on purpose for them, and there were about three thousand of them; they came an hour or two before the sermon; and, in the meanwhile, some read psalms and others said the rosary, and often choir by choir they sang lauds and psalms most devoutly; and when the Father appeared, to mount up into the pulpit, the said children sang the _Ave Maris Stella_, and likewise the people answered back, in such wise that all that time, from early morning even to the end of the sermon, one seemed to be verily in Paradise." The Opera del Duomo or Cathedral Museum contains, besides several works of minor importance (including the Madonna from the second façade), three of the great achievements of Florentine sculpture during the fifteenth century; the two _cantorie_, or organ galleries, of Donatello and Luca della Robbia; the silver altar for the Baptistery, with the statue of the Baptist by Michelozzo, and reliefs in silver by Antonio Pollaiuolo and Andrea Verrocchio, representing the Nativity of the Baptist by the former, the dance of the daughter of Herodias and the Decollation of the Saint by the latter. The two organ galleries, facing each other and finished almost simultaneously (about 1440), are an utter contrast both in spirit and in execution. There is nothing specially angelic or devotional about Donatello's wonderful frieze of dancing genii, winged boys that might well have danced round Venus at Psyche's wedding-feast, but would have been out of place among the Angels who, as the old mystic puts it, "rejoiced exceedingly when the most Blessed Virgin entered the Heavenly City." The beauty of rhythmic movement, the joy of living and of being young, exultancy, _baldanza_--these are what they express for us. Luca della Robbia's boys and girls, singing together and playing musical instruments, have less exuberance and motion, but more grace and repose; they illustrate in ten high reliefs the verses of the psalm, _Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus_, which is inscribed upon the Cantoria; and those that dance are more chastened in their joy, more in the spirit of David before the Ark. But all are as wrapt and absorbed in their music, as are Donatello's in their wild yet harmonious romp. In detail and considered separately, Luca's more perfectly finished groups, with their exquisite purity of line, are decidedly more lovely than Donatello's more roughly sketched, lower and flatter bas-reliefs; but, seen from a distance and raised from the ground, as they were originally intended, Donatello's are decidedly more effective as a whole. It is only of late years that the reliefs have been remounted and set up in the way we now see; and it is not quite certain whether their present arrangement, in all respects, exactly corresponds to what was originally intended by the masters. It was in this building, the Opera del Duomo, that Donatello at one time had his school and studio; and it was here, in the early years of the Cinquecento, that Michelangelo worked upon the shapeless mass of marble which became the gigantic David. [Illustration: CROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLE (FROM OLD HOUSE ON NORTH SIDE OF DUOMO)] [Illustration: ARMS OF THE MEDICI FROM THE BADIA AT FIESOLE.] CHAPTER IX. _The Palazzo Riccardi--San Lorenzo--San Marco._ Per molti, donna, anzi per mille amanti, creata fusti, e d'angelica forma. Or par che'n ciel si dorma, s'un sol s'appropria quel ch'è dato a tanti. (_Michelangelo Buonarroti_). The Via dei Martelli leads from the Baptistery into the Via Cavour, formerly the historical Via Larga. Here stands the great Palace of the Medici, now called the Palazzo Riccardi from the name of the family to whom the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. sold it in the seventeenth century. The palace was begun by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder shortly before his exile, and completed after his return, when it became in reality the seat of government of the city, although the Signoria still kept up the pretence of a republic in the Palazzo Vecchio. Here Lorenzo the Magnificent was born on January 1st, 1449, and here the most brilliant and cultured society of artists and scholars that the world had seen gathered round him and his family.[44] Here, too, after the expulsion of Lorenzo's mad son, Piero, in 1494, Charles VIII. of France was splendidly lodged; here Piero Capponi tore the dishonourable treaty and saved the Republic, and here Fra Girolamo a few days later admonished the fickle king. On the return of the Medici, the Cardinal Giovanni, the younger Lorenzo, and the Cardinal Giulio successively governed the city here; until in 1527 the people drove out the young pretenders, Alessandro and Ippolito, with their guardian, the Cardinal Passerini. It was on this latter occasion that Piero's daughter, Madonna Clarice, the wife of the younger Filippo Strozzi, was carried hither in her litter, and literally slanged these boys and the Cardinal out of Florence. She is reported, with more vehemence than delicacy, to have told her young kinsmen that the house of Lorenzo dei Medici was not a stable for mules. During the siege, the people wished to entirely destroy the palace and rename the place the Piazza dei Muli. [44] It should be observed that Lorenzo was not specially called the "Magnificent" by his contemporaries. All the more prominent members of the Medicean family were styled _Magnifico_ in the same way. After the restoration Alessandro carried on his abominable career here, until, on January 5th, 1537, the dagger of another Lorenzo freed the world from an infamous monster. Some months before, Benvenuto Cellini came to the palace, as he tells us in his autobiography, to show the Duke the wax models for his medals which he was making. Alessandro was lying on his bed, indisposed, and with him was only this Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio, _quel pazzo malinconico filosafo di Lorenzino_, as Benvenuto calls him elsewhere. "The Duke," writes Benvenuto, "several times signed to him that he too should urge me to stop; upon which Lorenzino never said anything else, but: 'Benvenuto, you would do best for yourself to stay.' To which I said that I wanted by all means to return to Rome. He said nothing more, and kept continually staring at the Duke with a most evil eye. Having finished the medal and shut it up in its case, I said to the Duke: 'My Lord, be content, for I will make you a much more beautiful medal than I made for Pope Clement; for reason wills that I should do better, since that was the first that ever I made; and Messer Lorenzo here will give me some splendid subject for a reverse, like the learned person and magnificent genius that he is.' To these words the said Lorenzo promptly answered: 'I was thinking of nothing else, save how to give thee a reverse that should be worthy of his Excellency.' The Duke grinned, and, looking at Lorenzo, said: 'Lorenzo, you shall give him the reverse, and he shall make it here, and shall not go away.' Lorenzo replied hastily, saying: 'I will do it as quickly as I possibly can, and I hope to do a thing that will astonish the world.' The Duke, who sometimes thought him a madman and sometimes a coward, turned over in his bed, and laughed at the words which he had said to him. I went away without other ceremonies of leave-taking, and left them alone together." On the fatal night Lorenzino lured the Duke into his own rooms, in what was afterwards called the Strada del Traditore, which was incorporated into the palace by the Riccardi. Alessandro, tired out with the excesses of the day, threw himself upon a bed; Lorenzino went out of the room, ostensibly to fetch his kinswoman, Caterina Ginori, whose beauty had been the bait; and he returned with the bravo Scoroncocolo, with whose assistance he assassinated him. Those who saw Sarah Bernhardt in the part of "Lorenzaccio," will not easily forget her rendering of this scene. Lorenzino published an Apologia, in which he enumerates Alessandro's crimes, declares that he was no true offspring of the Medici, and that his own single motive was the liberation of Florence from tyranny. He fled first to Constantinople, and then to Venice, where he was murdered in 1547 by the agents of Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I., who transferred the ducal residence from the present palace first to the Palazzo Vecchio, and then across the river to the Pitti Palace. With the exception of the chapel, the interior of the Palazzo Riccardi is not very suggestive of the old Medicean glories of the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent. There is a fine court, surrounded with sarcophagi and statues, including some of the old tombs which stood round the Baptistery and among which Guido Cavalcanti used to linger, and some statues of Apostles from the second façade of the Duomo. Above the arcades are eight fine classical medallions by Donatello, copied and enlarged from antique gems. The rooms above have been entirely altered since the days when Capponi defied King Charles, and Madonna Clarice taunted Alessandro and Ippolito; the large gallery, which witnessed these scenes, is covered with frescoes by Luca Giordano, executed in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Chapel--still entirely reminiscent of the better Medici--was painted by Benozzo Gozzoli shortly before the death of Cosimo the Elder, with frescoes representing the Procession of the Magi, in a delightfully impossible landscape. The two older kings are the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, and John Paleologus, Emperor of the East, who had visited Florence twenty years before on the occasion of the Council (Benozzo, it must be observed, was painting them in 1459, after the fall of Constantinople); the third is Lorenzo dei Medici himself, as a boy. Behind follow the rest of the Medicean court, Cosimo himself and his son, Piero, content apparently to be led forward by this mere lad; and in their train is Benozzo Gozzoli himself, marked by the signature on his hat. The picture of the Nativity itself, round which Benozzo's lovely Angels--though very earthly compared with Angelico's--seem still to linger in attendance, is believed to have been one by Lippo Lippi, now at Berlin. In the chapter _Of the Superhuman Ideal_, in the second volume of _Modern Painters_, Ruskin refers to these frescoes as the most beautiful instance of the supernatural landscapes of the early religious painters:-- "Behind the adoring angel groups, the landscape is governed by the most absolute symmetry; roses, and pomegranates, their leaves drawn to the last rib and vein, twine themselves in fair and perfect order about delicate trellises; broad stone pines and tall cypresses overshadow them, bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky, and groups of angels, hand joined with hand, and wing with wing, glide and float through the glades of the unentangled forest. But behind the human figures, behind the pomp and turbulence of the kingly procession descending from the distant hills, the spirit of the landscape is changed. Severer mountains rise in the distance, ruder prominences and less flowery vary the nearer ground, and gloomy shadows remain unbroken beneath the forest branches." Among the manuscripts in the _Biblioteca Riccardiana_, which is entered from the Via Ginori at the back of the palace, is the most striking and plausible of all existing portraits of Dante. It is at the beginning of a codex of the Canzoni (numbered 1040), and appears to have been painted about 1436. From the palace where the elder Medici lived, we turn to the church where they, and their successors of the younger line, lie in death. In the Piazza San Lorenzo there is an inane statue of the father of Cosimo I., Giovanni delle Bande Nere, by Baccio Bandinelli. Here, in June 1865, Robert Browning picked up at a stall the "square old yellow Book" with "the crumpled vellum covers," which gave him the story of _The Ring and the Book_:-- "I found this book, Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just, (Mark the predestination!) when a Hand, Always above my shoulder, pushed me once, One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm, Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths, Buzzing and blaze, noon-tide and market-time, Toward Baccio's marble--ay, the basement ledge O' the pedestal where sits and menaces John of the Black Bands with the upright spear, 'Twixt palace and church--Riccardi where they lived, His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie. "That memorable day, (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square) I leaned a little and overlooked my prize By the low railing round the fountain-source Close to the statue, where a step descends: While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place For market men glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet, And whisk their faded fresh." [Illustration: THE TOMB OF GIOVANNI AND PIERO DEI MEDICI BY ANDREA VERROCCHIO (In San Lorenzo)] The unsightly bare front of San Lorenzo represents several fruitless and miserable years of Michelangelo's life. Pope Leo X. and the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici commissioned him to make a new façade, in 1516, and for some years he consumed his time labouring among the quarries of Carrara and Pietrasanta, getting the marble for it and for the statues with which it was to be adorned. In one of his letters he says: "I am perfectly disposed (_a me basta l'animo_) to make this work of the façade of San Lorenzo so that, both in architecture and in sculpture, it shall be the mirror of all Italy; but the Pope and the Cardinal must decide quickly, if they want me to do it or not"; and again, some time later: "What I have promised to do, I shall do by all means, and I shall make the most beautiful work that was ever made in Italy, if God helps me." But nothing came of it all; and in after years Michelangelo bitterly declared that Leo had only pretended that he wanted the façade finished, in order to prevent him working upon the tomb of Pope Julius. "The ancient Ambrosian Basilica of St. Lawrence," founded according to tradition by a Florentine widow named Giuliana, and consecrated by St. Ambrose in the days of Zenobius, was entirely destroyed by fire early in the fifteenth century, during a solemn service ordered by the Signoria to invoke the protection of St. Ambrose for the Florentines in their war against Filippo Maria Visconti. Practically the only relic of this Basilica is the miraculous image of the Madonna in the right transept. The present church was erected from the designs of Filippo Brunelleschi, at the cost of the Medici (especially Giovanni di Averardo, who may be regarded as its chief founder) and seven other Florentine families. It is simple and harmonious in structure; the cupola, which is so visible in distant views of Florence, looking like a smaller edition of the Duomo, unlike the latter, rests directly upon the cross. This appears to be one of the modifications from what Brunelleschi had intended. The two pulpits with their bronze reliefs, right and left, are the last works of Donatello; they were executed in part and finished by his pupil, Bertoldo. The marble singing gallery in the left aisle (near a fresco of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Bronzino) is also the joint work of Donatello and Bertoldo. In the right transept is a marble tabernacle by Donatello's great pupil, Desiderio da Settignano. Beneath a porphyry slab in front of the choir, Cosimo the Elder, the Pater Patriae, lies; Donatello is buried in the same vault as his great patron and friend. In the Martelli Chapel, on the left, is an exceedingly beautiful Annunciation by Fra Filippo Lippi, a fine example of his colouring (in which he is decidedly the best of all the early Florentines); Gabriel is attended by two minor Angels, squires waiting upon this great Prince of the Archangelic order, who are full of that peculiar mixture of boyish high spirits and religious sentiment which gives a special charm of its own to all that Lippo does. The _Sagrestia Vecchia_, founded by Giovanni di Averardo, was erected by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello for Cosimo the Elder. In the centre is the marble sarcophagus, adorned with _putti_ and festoons, containing the remains of Giovanni and his wife Piccarda, Cosimo's father and mother, by Donatello. The bronze doors (hardly among his best works), the marble balustrade before the altar, the stucco medallions of the Evangelists, the reliefs of patron saints of the Medici and the frieze of Angels' heads are all Donatello's; also an exceedingly beautiful terracotta bust of St. Lawrence, which is one of his most attractive creations. In the niche on the left of the entrance is the simple but very beautiful tomb of the two sons of Cosimo, Piero and Giovanni--who are united also in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi as the two kings--and it serves also as a monument to Cosimo himself; it was made by Andrea Verrocchio for Lorenzo and Giuliano, Piero's sons. The remains of Lorenzo and Giuliano rested together in this sacristy until they were translated in the sixteenth century. In spite of a misleading modern inscription, they were apparently not buried in their father's grave, and the actual site of their former tomb is unknown. They now lie together in the _Sagrestia Nuova_. The simplicity of these funereal monuments and the _pietàs_ which united the members of the family so closely, in death and in life alike, are very characteristic of these earlier Medicean rulers of Florence. The cloisters of San Lorenzo, haunted by needy and destitute cats, were also designed by Brunelleschi. To the right, after passing Francesco da San Gallo's statue of Paolo Giovio, the historian, who died in 1559, is the entrance to the famous Biblioteca Laurenziana. The nucleus of this library was the collection of codices formed by Niccolò Niccoli, which were afterwards purchased by Cosimo the Elder, and still more largely increased by Lorenzo the Magnificent; after the expulsion of Piero the younger, they were bought by the Friars of San Marco, and then from them by the Cardinal Giovanni, who transferred them to the Medicean villa at Rome. In accordance with Pope Leo's wish, Clement VII. (then the Cardinal Giulio) brought them back to Florence, and, when Pope, commissioned Michelangelo to design the building that was to house them. The portico, vestibule and staircase were designed by him, and, in judging of their effect, it must be remembered that Michelangelo professed that architecture was not his business, and also that the vestibule and staircase were intended to have been adorned with bronzes and statues. It was commenced in 1524, before the siege. Of the numberless precious manuscripts which this collection contains, we will mention only two classical and one mediæval; the famous Pandects of Justinian which the Pisans took from Amalfi, and the Medicean Virgil of the fourth or fifth century; and Boccaccio's autograph manuscript of Dante's Eclogues and Epistles. This latter codex, shown under the glass at the entrance to the Rotunda, is the only manuscript in existence which contains Dante's Epistles to the Italian Cardinals and to a Florentine Friend. In the first, he defines his attitude towards the Church, and declares that he is not touching the Ark, but merely turning to the kicking oxen who are dragging it out of the right path; in the second, he proudly proclaims his innocence, rejects the amnesty, and refuses to return to Florence under dishonourable conditions. Although undoubtedly in Boccaccio's handwriting, it has been much disputed of late years as to whether these two letters are really by Dante. There is not a single autograph manuscript, nor a single scrap of Dante's handwriting extant at the present day. * * * * * From the Piazza Madonna, at the back of San Lorenzo, we enter a chilly vestibule, the burial vault of less important members of the families of the Medicean Grand Dukes, and ascend to the _Sagrestia Nuova_, where the last male descendants of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent lie. Although the idea of adding some such mausoleum to San Lorenzo appears to have originated with Leo X., this New Sacristy was built by Michelangelo for Clement VII., commenced while he was still the Cardinal Giulio and finished in 1524, before the Library was constructed. Its form was intended to correspond with that of Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy, and it was to contain four sepulchral monuments. Two of these, the only two that were actually constructed, were for the younger Lorenzo, titular Duke of Urbino (who died in 1519, the son of Piero and nephew of Pope Leo), and the younger Giuliano, Duke of Nemours (who died in 1516, the third son of the Magnificent and younger brother of Leo). It is not quite certain for whom the other two monuments were to have been, but it is most probable that they were for the fathers of the two Medicean Popes, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother the elder Giuliano, whose remains were translated hither by Duke Cosimo I. and rediscovered a few years ago. Michelangelo commenced the statues before the third expulsion of the Medici, worked on them in secret while he was fortifying Florence against Pope Clement before the siege, and returned to them, after the downfall of the Republic, as the condition of obtaining the Pope's pardon. He resumed work, full of bitterness at the treacherous overthrow of the Republic, tormented by the heirs of Pope Julius II., whose tomb he had been forced to abandon, suffering from insomnia and shattered health, threatened with death by the tyrant Alessandro. When he left Florence finally in 1534, just before the death of Clement, the statues had not even been put into their places. Neither of the ducal statues is a portrait, but they appear to represent the active and contemplative lives, like the Leah and Rachel on the tomb of Pope Julius II. at Rome. On the right sits Giuliano, holding the baton of command as Gonfaloniere of the Church. His handsome sensual features to some extent recall those of the victorious youth in the allegory in the Bargello. He holds his baton somewhat loosely, as though he half realised the baseness of the historical part he was doomed to play, and had not got his heart in it. Opposite is Lorenzo, immersed in profound thought, "ghastly as a tyrant's dream." What visions are haunting him of the sack of Prato, of the atrocities of the barbarian hordes in the Eternal City, of the doom his house has brought upon Florence? Does he already smell the blood that his daughter will shed, fifty years later, on St. Bartholomew's day? Here he sits, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts it:-- "With everlasting shadow on his face, While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove The ashes of his long extinguished race, Which never more shall clog the feet of men." "It fascinates and is intolerable," as Rogers wrote of this statue. It is, probably, not due to Michelangelo that the niches in which the dukes sit are too narrow for them; but the result is to make the tyrants seem as helpless as their victims, in the fetters of destiny. Beneath them are four tremendous and terrible allegorical figures: "those four ineffable types," writes Ruskin, "not of darkness nor of day--not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls of men." Beneath Lorenzo are Dawn and Twilight; Dawn awakes in agony, but her most horrible dreams are better than the reality which she must face; Twilight has worked all day in vain, and, like a helpless Titan, is sinking now into a slumber where is no repose. Beneath Giuliano are Day and Night: Day is captive and unable to rise, his mighty powers are uselessly wasted and he glares defiance; Night is buried in torturing dreams, but Michelangelo has forbidden us to wake her:-- "Grato mi è il sonno, e più l'esser di sasso; mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura, non veder, non sentir, m'è gran ventura; però non mi destar; deh, parla basso!"[45] [45] "Grateful to me is sleep, and more the being stone; while ruin and shame last, not to see, not to feel, is great good fortune to me. Therefore wake me not; ah, speak low!" It will be remembered that it was for these two young men, to whom Michelangelo has thus reared the noblest sepulchral monuments of the modern world, that Leo X. desired to build kingdoms and that Machiavelli wrote one of the masterpieces of Italian prose--the _Principe_. Giuliano was the most respectable of the elder Medicean line; in Castiglione's _Cortigiano_ he is an attractive figure, the chivalrous champion of women. It is not easy to get a definite idea of the character of Lorenzo, who, as we saw in chapter iv., was virtually tyrant of Florence during his uncle's pontificate. The Venetian ambassador once wrote of him that he was fitted for great deeds, and only a little inferior to Cæsar Borgia--which was intended for very high praise; but there was nothing in him to deserve either Michelangelo's monument or Machiavelli's dedication. He usurped the Duchy of Urbino, and spent his last days in fooling with a jester. His reputed son, the foul Duke Alessandro, lies buried with him here in the same coffin. Opposite the altar is the Madonna and Child, by Michelangelo. The Madonna is one of the noblest and most beautiful of all the master's works, but the Child, whom Florence had once chosen for her King, has turned His face away from the city. A few years later, and Cosimo I. will alter the inscription which Niccolò Capponi had set up on the Palazzo Vecchio. The patron saints of the Medici on either side, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, are by Michelangelo's pupils and assistants, Fra Giovanni Angiolo da Montorsoli and Raffaello da Montelupo. Beneath these statues lie Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother, the elder Giuliano. Their bodies were removed hither from the Old Sacristy in 1559, and the question as to their place of burial was finally set at rest, in October 1895, by the discovery of their bodies. It is probable that Michelangelo had originally intended the Madonna for the tomb of his first patron, Lorenzo. In judging of the general effect of this _Sagrestia Nuova_, which is certainly somewhat cold, it must be remembered that Michelangelo intended it to be full of statues and that the walls were to have been covered with paintings. "Its justification," says Addington Symonds, "lies in the fact that it demanded statuary and colour for its completion." The vault was frescoed by Giovanni da Udine, but is now whitewashed. In 1562, Vasari wrote to Michelangelo at Rome on behalf of Duke Cosimo, telling him that "the place is being now used for religious services by day and night, according to the intentions of Pope Clement," and that the Duke was anxious that all the best sculptors and painters of the newly instituted Academy should work upon the Sacristy and finish it from Michelangelo's designs. "He intends," writes Vasari, "that the new Academicians shall complete the whole imperfect scheme, in order that the world may see that, while so many men of genius still exist among us, the noblest work which was ever yet conceived on earth has not been left unfinished." And the Duke wants to know what Michelangelo's own idea is about the statues and paintings; "He is particularly anxious that you should be assured of his determination to alter nothing you have already done or planned, but, on the contrary, to carry out the whole work according to your conception. The Academicians, too, are unanimous in their hearty desire to abide by this decision."[46] [46] Given in Addington Symonds' _Life of Michelangelo_. In the _Cappella dei Principi_, gorgeous with its marbles and mosaics, lie the sovereigns of the younger line, the Medicean Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the descendants of the great captain Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Here are the sepulchral monuments of Cosimo I. (1537-1574); of his sons, Francesco (1574-1587) and Ferdinand I. (1587-1609); and of Ferdinand's son, grandson and great-grandson, Cosimo II. (1609-1621), Ferdinand II. (1627-1670), Cosimo III. (1670-1723). The statues are those of Ferdinand I. and Cosimo II. Cosimo I. finally transformed the republic into a monarchy, created a new aristocracy and established a small standing army, though he mainly relied upon Spanish and German mercenaries. He conquered Siena in 1553, and in 1570 was invested with the grand ducal crown by Pius V.--a title which the Emperor confirmed to his successor. Although the tragedy which tradition has hung round the end of the Duchess Eleonora and her two sons has not stood the test of historical criticism, there are plenty of bloody deeds to be laid to Duke Cosimo's account during his able and ruthless reign. Towards the close of his life he married his mistress, Cammilla Martelli, and made over the government to his son. This son, Francesco, the founder of the Uffizi Gallery and of the modern city of Leghorn, had more than his father's vices and hardly any of his ability; his intrigue with the beautiful Venetian, Bianca Cappello, whom he afterwards married, and who died with him, has excited more interest than it deserves. The Cardinal Ferdinand, who succeeded him and renounced the cardinalate, was incomparably the best of the house--a man of magnanimous character and an enlightened ruler. He shook off the influence of Spain, and built an excellent navy to make war upon the Turks and Barbary corsairs. Cosimo II. and Ferdinand II. reigned quietly and benevolently, with no ability but with plenty of good intentions. Chiabrera sings their praises with rather unnecessary fervour. But the wealth and prosperity of Tuscany was waning, and Cosimo III., a luxurious and selfish bigot, could do nothing to arrest the decay. On the death of his miserable and contemptible successor, Gian Gastone dei Medici in 1737, the Medicean dynasty was at an end. Stretching along a portion of the Via Larga, and near the Piazza di San Marco, were the famous gardens of the Medici, which the people sacked in 1494 on the expulsion of Piero. The Casino Mediceo, built by Buontalenti in 1576, marks the site. Here were placed some of Lorenzo's antique statues and curios; and here Bertoldo had his great art school, where the most famous painters and sculptors came to bask in the sun of Medicean patronage, and to copy the antique. Here the boy Michelangelo came with his friend Granacci, and here Andrea Verrocchio first trained the young Leonardo. In this garden, too, Angelo Poliziano walked with his pupils, and initiated Michelangelo into the newly revived Hellenic culture. There is nothing now to recall these past glories. [Illustration: THE WELL OF S. MARCO] The church of San Marco has been frequently altered and modernised, and there is little now to remind us that it was here on August 1, 1489, that Savonarola began to expound the Apocalypse. Over the entrance is a Crucifix ascribed by Vasari to Giotto. On the second altar to the right is a much-damaged but authentic Madonna and Saints by Fra Bartolommeo; that on the opposite altar, on the left, is a copy of the original now in the Pitti Palace. There are some picturesque bits of old fourteenth century frescoes on the left wall, and beneath them, between the second and third altars, lie Pico della Mirandola and his friend Girolamo Benivieni, and Angelo Poliziano. The left transept contains the tomb and shrine of St Antoninus, the good Dominican Archbishop of Florence, with statues by Giovanni da Bologna and his followers, and later frescoes. In the sacristy, which was designed by Brunelleschi, there is a fine bronze recumbent statue of him. Antoninus was Prior of San Marco in the days of Angelico, and Vasari tells us that when Angelico went to Rome, to paint for Pope Eugenius, the Pope wished to make the painter Archbishop of Florence: "When the said friar heard this, he besought his Holiness to find somebody else, because he did not feel himself apt to govern people; but that since his Order had a friar who loved the poor, who was most learned and fit for rule, and who feared God, this dignity would be much better conferred upon him than on himself. The Pope, hearing this, and bethinking him that what he said was true, granted his request freely; and so Fra Antonino was made Archbishop of Florence, of the Order of Preachers, a man truly most illustrious for sanctity and learning." It was in the church of San Marco that Savonarola celebrated Mass on the day of the Ordeal; here the women waited and prayed, while the procession set forth; and hither the Dominicans returned at evening, amidst the howls and derision of the crowd. Here, on the next evening, the fiercest of the fighting took place. The attempt of the enemy to break into the church by the sacristy door was repulsed. One of the Panciatichi, a mere boy, mortally wounded, joyfully received the last sacraments from Fra Domenico on the steps of the altar, and died in such bliss, that the rest envied him. Finally the great door of the church was broken down; Fra Enrico, a German, mounted the pulpit and fired again and again into the midst of the Compagnacci, shouting with each shot, _Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine_. Driven from the pulpit, he and other friars planted their arquebusses beneath the Crucifix on the high altar, and continued to fire. The church was now so full of smoke that the friars could hardly continue the defence, until Fra Giovacchino della Robbia broke one of the windows with a lance. At last, when the Signoria threatened to destroy the whole convent with artillery, Savonarola ordered the friars to go in procession from the church to the dormitory, and himself, taking the Blessed Sacrament from the altar, slowly followed them. The convent itself, now officially the _Museo di San Marco_, originally a house of Silvestrine monks, was made over to the Dominicans by Pope Eugenius IV., at the instance of Cosimo dei Medici and his brother Lorenzo. They solemnly took possession in 1436, and Michelozzo entirely rebuilt the whole convent for them, mainly at the cost of Cosimo, between 1437 and 1452. "It is believed," says Vasari, "to be the best conceived and the most beautiful and commodious convent of any in Italy, thanks to the virtue and industry of Michelozzo." Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, as the Beato Angelico was called, came from his Fiesolan convent, and worked simultaneously with Michelozzo for about eight or nine years (until the Pope summoned him to Rome in 1445 to paint in the Vatican), covering with his mystical dreams the walls that his friend designed. That other artistic glory of the Dominicans, Fra Bartolommeo, took the habit here in 1500, though there are now only a few unimportant works of his remaining in the convent. Never was there such a visible outpouring of the praying heart in painting, as in the work of these two friars. And Antoninus and Savonarola strove to make the spirit world that they painted a living reality, for Florence and for the Church. The first cloister is surrounded by later frescoes, scenes from the life of St. Antoninus, partly by Bernardino Poccetti and Matteo Rosselli, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They are not of great artistic value, but one, the fifth on the right of the entrance, representing the entry of St. Antoninus into Florence, shows the old façade of the Duomo. Like gems in this rather indifferent setting, are five exquisite frescoes by Angelico in lunettes over the doors; St. Thomas Aquinas, Christ as a pilgrim received by two Dominican friars, Christ in the tomb, St. Dominic (spoilt), St. Peter Martyr; also a larger fresco of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross. The second of these, symbolising the hospitality of the convent rule, is one of Angelico's masterpieces; beneath it is the entrance to the Foresteria, the guest-chambers. Under the third lunette we pass into the great Refectory, with its customary pulpit for the novice reader: here, instead of the usual Last Supper, is a striking fresco of St. Dominic and his friars miraculously fed by Angels, painted in 1536 by Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (a pupil of Lorenzo di Credi); the Crucifixion above, with St. Catherine of Siena and St. Antoninus, is said to be by Fra Bartolommeo. Here, too, on the right is the original framework by Jacopo di Bartolommeo da Sete and Simone da Fiesole, executed in 1433, for Angelico's great tabernacle now in the Uffizi. Angelico's St. Dominic appropriately watches over the Chapter House, which contains the largest of Fra Giovanni's frescoes and one of the greatest masterpieces of religious art: the Crucifixion with the patron saints of Florence, of the convent, and of the Medici, the founders of the religious orders, the representatives of the zeal and learning of the Dominicans, all gathered and united in contemplation around the Cross of Christ. It was ordered by Cosimo dei Medici, and painted about 1441. On our left are the Madonna, supported by the Magdalene, the other Mary, and the beloved Disciple; the Baptist and St. Mark, representing the city and the convent; St. Lawrence and St. Cosmas (said by Vasari to be a portrait of Nanni di Banco, who died twenty years before), and St. Damian. On our right, kneeling at the foot of the Cross, is St. Dominic, a masterpiece of expression and sentiment; behind him St. Augustine and St. Albert of Jerusalem represent Augustinians and Carmelites; St. Jerome, St. Francis, St. Bernard, St. John Gualbert kneel; St. Benedict and St. Romuald stand behind them, while at the end are St. Peter Martyr and St. Thomas Aquinas. All the male heads are admirably characterised and discriminated, unlike Angelico's women, who are usually either merely conventionally done or idealised into Angels. Round the picture is a frieze of prophets, culminating in the mystical Pelican; below is the great tree of the Dominican order, spreading out from St. Dominic himself in the centre, with Popes Innocent V. and Benedict XI. on either hand. The St. Antoninus was added later. Vasari tells us that, in this tree, the brothers of the order assisted Angelico by obtaining portraits of the various personages represented from different places; and they may therefore be regarded as the real, or traditional, likenesses of the great Dominicans. The same probably applies to the wonderful figure of Aquinas in the picture itself. Beyond is a second and larger cloister, surrounded by very inferior frescoes of the life of St. Dominic, full of old armorial bearings and architectural fragments arranged rather incongruously. Some of the lunettes over the cells contain frescoes of the school of Fra Bartolommeo. The Academy of the Crusca is established here, in what was once the dormitory of the Novices. Connected with this cloister was the convent garden. "In the summer time," writes Simone Filipepi, "in the evening after supper, the Father Fra Girolamo used to walk with his friars in the garden, and he would make them all sit round him with the Bible in his hand, and here he expounded to them some fair passage of the Scriptures, sometimes questioning some novice or other, as occasion arose. At these meetings there gathered also some fifty or sixty learned laymen, for their edification. When, by reason of rain or other cause, it was not possible in the garden, they went into the _hospitium_ to do the same; and for an hour or two one seemed verily to be in Paradise, such charity and devotion and simplicity appeared in all. Blessed was he who could be there." Shortly before the Ordeal of Fire, Fra Girolamo was walking in the garden with Fra Placido Cinozzi, when an exceedingly beautiful boy of noble family came to him with a ticket upon which was written his name, offering himself to pass through the flames. And thinking that this might not be sufficient, he fell upon his knees, begging the Friar that he might be allowed to undergo the ordeal for him. "Rise up, my son," said Savonarola, "for this thy good will is wondrously pleasing unto God"; and, when the boy had gone, he turned to Fra Placido and said: "From many persons have I had these applications, but from none have I received so much joy as from this child, for which may God be praised." To the left of the staircase to the upper floor, is the smaller refectory with a fresco of the Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio, not by any means one of the painter's best works. On the top of the stairs we are initiated into the spirit of the place by Angelico's most beautiful Annunciation, with its inscription, _Virginis intacte cum veneris ante figuram, pretereundo cave ne sileatur Ave_, "When thou shalt have come before the image of the spotless Virgin, beware lest by negligence the Ave be silent." On the left of the stairway a double series of cells on either side of the corridor leads us to Savonarola's room. At the head of the corridor is one of those representations that Angelico repeated so often, usually with modifications, of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross. Each of the cells has a painted lyric of the life of Christ and His mother, from Angelico's hand; almost each scene with Dominican witnesses and auditors introduced,--Dominic, Aquinas, Peter Martyr, as the case may be. In these frescoes Angelico was undoubtedly assisted by pupils, from whom a few of the less excellent scenes may come; there is an interesting, but altogether untrustworthy tradition that some were executed by his brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello, who took the Dominican habit simultaneously with him and was Prior of the convent at Fiesole. Taking the cells on the left first, we see the _Noli me tangere_ (1), the Entombment (2), the Annunciation (3), the Crucifixion (4), the Nativity (5), the Transfiguration (6), a most wonderful picture. Opposite the Transfiguration, on the right wall of the corridor, is a Madonna and Saints, painted by the Friar somewhat later than the frescoes in the cells (which, it should be observed, appear to have been painted on the walls before the cells were actually partitioned off)--St. John Evangelist and St. Mark, the three great Dominicans and the patrons of the Medici. Then, on the left, the following cells contain the Mocking of Christ (7), the Resurrection with the Maries at the tomb (8), the Coronation of the Madonna (9), one of the grandest of the whole series, with St. Dominic and St. Francis kneeling below, and behind them St. Benedict and St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Peter Martyr and St. Paul the Hermit. The Presentation in the Temple (10), and the Madonna and Child with Aquinas and Augustine (11), are inferior to the rest. The shorter passage now turns to the cells occupied by Fra Girolamo Savonarola; one large cell leading into two smaller ones (12-14). In the larger are placed three frescoes by Fra Bartolommeo; Christ and the two disciples at Emmaus, formerly over the doorway of the refectory, and two Madonnas--one from the Dominican convent in the Mugnone being especially beautiful. Here are also modern busts of Savonarola by Dupré and Benivieni by Bastianini. In the first inner cell are Savonarola's portrait, apparently copied from a medal and wrongly ascribed to Bartolommeo, his Crucifix and his relics, his manuscripts and books of devotion, and, in another case, his hair shirt and rosary, his beloved Dominican garb which he gave up on the day of his martyrdom. In the inmost cell are the Cross which he is said to have carried, and a copy of the old (but not contemporary) picture of his death, of which the original is in the Corsini Palace. The seven small cells on the right (15-21) were assigned to the Juniors, the younger friars who had just passed through the Noviciate. Each contains a fresco by Angelico of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross, now scourging himself, now absorbed in contemplation, now covering his face with his hands, but in no two cases identical. Into one of these cells a divine apparition was said to have come to one of these youths, after hearing Savonarola's "most fervent and most wondrous discourse" upon the mystery of the Incarnation. The story is told by Simone Filipepi:-- "On the night of the most Holy Nativity, to a young friar in the convent, who had not yet sung Mass, had appeared visibly in his cell on the little altar, whilst he was engaged in prayer, Our Lord in the form of a little infant even as when He was born in the stable. And when the hour came to go into the choir for matins, the said friar commenced to debate in his mind whether he ought to go and leave here the Holy Child, and deprive himself of such sweetness, or not. At last he resolved to go and to bear It with him; so, having wrapped It up in his arms and under his cowl as best he could, all trembling with joy and with fear, he went down into the choir without telling anyone. But, when it came to his turn to sing a lesson, whilst he approached the reading-desk, the Infant vanished from his arms; and when the friar was aware of this, he remained so overwhelmed and almost beside himself that he commenced to wander through the choir, like one who seeks a thing lost, so that it was necessary that another should read that lesson." Passing back again down the corridor, we see in the cells two more Crucifixions (22 and 23); the Baptism of Christ with Madonna as witness (24), the Crucifixion (25); then, passing the great Madonna fresco, the Mystery of the Passion (26), in one of those symbolical representations which seem to have originated with the Camaldolese painter, Don Lorenzo; Christ bound to the pillar, with St. Dominic scourging himself and the Madonna appealing to us (27, perhaps by a pupil); Christ bearing the Cross (28); two more Crucifixions (29 and 30), apparently not executed by Angelico himself. At the side of Angelico's Annunciation opposite the stairs, we enter the cell of St. Antoninus (31). Here is one of Angelico's most beautiful and characteristic frescoes, Christ's descent into Hades: "the intense, fixed, statue-like silence of ineffable adoration upon the spirits in prison at the feet of Christ, side by side, the hands lifted and the knees bowed, and the lips trembling together," as Ruskin describes it. Here, too, is the death mask of Antoninus, his portrait perhaps drawn from the death mask by Bartolommeo, his manuscripts and relics; also a tree of saintly Dominicans, Savonarola being on the main trunk, the third from the root. The next cell on the right (32) has the Sermon on the Mount and the Temptation in the Wilderness. In the following (33), also double, besides the frescoed Kiss of Judas, are two minute pictures by Fra Angelico, belonging to an earlier stage of his art than the frescoes, intended for reliquaries and formerly in Santa Maria Novella. One of them, the _Madonna della Stella_, is a very perfect and typical example of the Friar's smaller works, in their "purity of colour almost shadowless." The other, the Coronation of the Madonna, is less excellent and has suffered from retouching. The Agony in the Garden (in cell 34) contains a curious piece of mediæval symbolism in the presence of Mary and Martha, contemplation and action, the Mary being here the Blessed Virgin. In the same cell is another of the reliquaries from Santa Maria Novella, the Annunciation over the Adoration of the Magi, with Madonna and Child, the Virgin Martyrs, the Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena below; the drawing is rather faulty. In the following cells are the Last Supper (35), conceived mystically as the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, with the Madonna alone as witness; the Deposition from the Cross (36); and the Crucifixion (37), in which Dominic stands with out-stretched arms. Opposite on the right (38-39) is the great cell where Pope Eugenius stayed on the occasion of the consecration of San Marco in 1442; here Cosimo the Elder, Pater Patriae, spent long hours of his closing days, in spiritual intercourse with St. Antoninus and after the latter's death. In the outer compartment the Medicean saint, Cosmas, joins Madonna and Peter Martyr at the foot of the Cross. Within are the Adoration of the Magi and a Pietà, both from Angelico's hand, and the former, one of his latest masterpieces, probably painted with reference to the fact that the convent had been consecrated on the Feast of the Epiphany. Here, too, is an old terracotta bust of Antoninus, and a splendid but damaged picture of Cosimo himself by Jacopo da Pontormo, incomparably finer than that artist's similarly constructed work in the Uffizi. Between two smaller cells containing Crucifixions, both apparently by Angelico himself (42-43--the former with the Mary and Martha motive at the foot of the Cross), is the great Greek Library, built by Michelozzo for Cosimo. Here Cosimo deposited a portion of the manuscripts which had been collected by Niccolò Niccoli, with additions of his own, and it became the first public library in Italy. Its shelves are now empty and bare, but it contains a fine collection of illuminated ritual books from suppressed convents, several of which are, rather doubtfully, ascribed to Angelico's brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello. It was in this library that Savonarola exercised for the last time his functions of Prior of San Marco, and surrendered to the commissioners of the Signoria, on the night of Palm Sunday, 1498. What happened had best be told in the words of the Padre Pacifico Burlamacchi of the same convent, Savonarola's contemporary and follower. After several fictitious summonses had come:-- "They returned at last with the decree of the Signoria in writing, but with the open promise that Fra Girolamo should be restored safe and sound, together with his companions. When he heard this, he told them that he would obey. But first he retired with his friars into the Greek Library, where he made them in Latin a most beautiful sermon, exhorting them to follow onwards in the way of God with faith, prayer, and patience; telling them that it was necessary to go to heaven by the way of tribulations, and that therefore they ought not in any way to be terrified; alleging many old examples of the ingratitude of the city of Florence in return for the benefits received from their Order. As that of St. Peter Martyr who, after doing so many marvellous things in Florence, was slain, the Florentines paying the price of his blood. And of St. Catherine of Siena, whom many had sought to kill, after she had borne so many labours for them, going personally to Avignon to plead their cause before the Pope. Nor had less happened to St. Antoninus, their Archbishop and excellent Pastor, whom they had once wished to throw from the windows. And that it was no marvel, if he also, after such sorrows and labourings, was paid at the end in the same coin. But that he was ready to receive everything with desire and happiness for the love of his Lord, knowing that in nought else consisted the Christian life, save in doing good and suffering evil. And thus, while all the bye-standers wept, he finished his sermon. Then, issuing forth from the library, he said to those laymen who awaited him: 'I will say to you what Jeremiah said: This thing I expected, but not so soon nor so suddenly.' He exhorted them further to live well and to be fervent in prayer. And having confessed to the Father Fra Domenico da Pescia, he took the Communion in the first library. And the same did Fra Domenico. After eating a little, he was somewhat refreshed; and he spoke the last words to his friars, exhorting them to persevere in religion, and kissing them all, he took his last departure from them. In the parting one of his children said to him: 'Father, why dost thou abandon us and leave us so desolate?' To which he replied: 'Son, have patience, God will help you'; and he added that he would either see them again alive, or that after death he would appear to them without fail. Also, as he departed, he gave up the common keys to the brethren, with so great humility and charity, that the friars could not keep themselves from tears; and many of them wished by all means to go with him. At last, recommending himself to their prayers, he made his way towards the door of the library, where the first Commissioners all armed were awaiting him; to whom, giving himself into their hands like a most meek lamb, he said: 'I recommend to you this my flock and all these other citizens.' And when he was in the corridor of the library, he said: 'My friars, doubt not, for God will not fail to perfect His work; and although I be put to death, I shall help you more than I have done in life, and I will return without fail to console you, either dead or alive.' Arrived at the holy water, which is at the exit of the choir, Fra Domenico said to him: 'Fain would I too come to these nuptials.' Certain of the laymen, his friends, were arrested at the command of the Signoria. When the Father Fra Girolamo was in the first cloister, Fra Benedetto, the miniaturist, strove ardently to go with him; and, when the officers thrust him back, he still insisted that he would go. But the Father Fra Girolamo turned to him, and said: 'Fra Benedetto, on your obedience come not, for I and Fra Domenico have to die for the love of Christ.' And thus he was torn away from the eyes of his children." CHAPTER X _The Accademia delle Belle Arti--The Santissima Annunziata--And other Buildings_ "In Firenze, più che altrove, venivano gli uomini perfetti in tutte l'arti, e specialmente nella pittura."--_Vasari._ Turning southwards from the Piazza di San Marco into the Via Ricasoli, we come to the _Accademia delle Belle Arti_, with its collection of Tuscan and Umbrian pictures, mostly gathered from suppressed churches and convents. In the central hall, the Tribune of the David, Michelangelo's gigantic marble youth stands under the cupola, surrounded by casts of the master's other works. The young hero has just caught sight of the approaching enemy, and is all braced up for the immortal moment. Commenced in 1501 and finished at the beginning of 1504, out of a block of marble over which an earlier sculptor had bungled, it was originally set up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio on the Ringhiera, as though to defend the great Palace of the People. It is supposed to have taken five days to move the statue from the Opera del Duomo, where Michelangelo had chiselled it out, to the Palace. When the simple-minded Gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini, saw it, he told the artist that the nose appeared to him to be too large; whereupon Michelangelo mounted a ladder, pretended to work upon it for a few moments, dropping a little marble dust all the time, which he had taken up with him, and then turned round for approval to the Gonfaloniere, who assured him that he had now given the statue life. This _gigante di Fiorenza_, as it was called, was considerably damaged during the third expulsion of the Medici in 1527, but retained its proud position before the Palace until 1873. On the right, as we approach the giant, is the _Sala del Beato Angelico_, containing a lovely array of Fra Angelico's smaller paintings. Were we to attempt to sum up Angelico's chief characteristics in one word, that word would be _onestà_, in its early mediaeval sense as Dante uses it in the _Vita Nuova_, signifying not merely purity or chastity, as it came later to mean, but the outward manifestation of spiritual beauty,--the _honestas_ of which Aquinas speaks. A supreme expression of this may be found in the Paradise of his Last Judgment (266), the mystical dance of saints and Angels in the celestial garden that blossoms under the rays of the Sun of Divine Love, and on all the faces of the blessed beneath the Queen of Mercy on the Judge's right. The Hell is, naturally, almost a failure. In many of the small scenes from the lives of Christ and His Mother, of which there are several complete series here, some of the heads are absolute miracles of expression; notice, for instance, the Judas receiving the thirty pieces of silver, and all the faces in the Betrayal (237), and, above all perhaps, the Peter in the Entry into Jerusalem (252), on every line of whose face seems written: "Lord, why can I not follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." The Deposition from the Cross (246), contemplated by St. Dominic, the Beata Villana and St. Catherine of Alexandria, appears to be an earlier work of Angelico's. Here, also, are three great Madonnas painted by the Friar as altar pieces for convent churches; the Madonna and Child surrounded by Angels and saints, while Cosmas and Damian, the patrons of the Medici, kneel at her feet (281), was executed in 1438 for the high altar of San Marco, and, though now terribly injured, was originally one of his best pictures; the Madonna and Child, with two Angels and six saints, Peter Martyr, Cosmas and Damian, Francis, Antony of Padua, and Louis of Toulouse (265), was painted for the convent of the Osservanza near Mugello,--hence the group of Franciscans on the left; the third (227), in which Cosmas and Damian stand with St. Dominic on the right of the Madonna, and St. Francis with Lawrence and John the Divine on her left, is an inferior work from his hand. Also in this room are four delicious little panels by Lippo Lippi (264 and 263), representing the Annunciation divided into two compartments, St. Antony Abbot and the Baptist; two Monks of the Vallombrosa, by Perugino (241, 242), almost worthy of Raphael; and two charming scenes of mediaeval university life, the School of Albertus Magnus (231) and the School of St. Thomas Aquinas (247). These two latter appear to be by some pupil of Fra Angelico, and may possibly be very early works of Benozzo Gozzoli. In the first, Albert is lecturing to an audience, partly lay and partly clerical, amongst whom is St. Thomas, then a youthful novice but already distinguished by the halo and the sun upon his breast; in the second, Thomas himself is now holding the professorial chair, surrounded by pupils listening or taking notes, while Dominicans throng the cloisters behind. On his right sits the King of France; below his seat the discomforted Averrhoes humbly places himself on the lowest step, between the heretics--William of St. Amour and Sabellius. From the left of the David's tribune, we turn into three rooms containing masterpieces of the Quattrocento (with a few later works), and appropriately named after Botticelli and Perugino. In the _Sala prima del Botticelli_ is Sandro's famous _Primavera_, the Allegory of Spring or the Kingdom of Venus (80). Inspired in part by Poliziano's _stanze_ in honour of Giuliano dei Medici and his Bella Simonetta, Botticelli nevertheless has given to his strange--not altogether decipherable--allegory, a vague mysterious poetry far beyond anything that Messer Angelo could have suggested to him. Through this weirdly coloured garden of the Queen of Love, in "the light that never was on sea or land," blind Cupid darts upon his little wings, shooting, apparently at random, a flame-tipped arrow which will surely pierce the heart of the central maiden of those three, who, in their thin clinging white raiment, personify the Graces. The eyes of Simonetta--for it is clearly she--rest for a moment in the dance upon the stalwart Hermes, an idealised Giuliano, who has turned away carelessly from the scene. Flora, "pranked and pied for birth," advances from our right, scattering flowers rapidly as she approaches; while behind her a wanton Zephyr, borne on his strong wings, breaks through the wood to clasp Fertility, from whose mouth the flowers are starting. Venus herself, the mistress of nature, for whom and by whom all these things are done, stands somewhat sadly apart in the centre of the picture; this is only one more of the numberless springs that have passed over her since she first rose from the sea, and she is somewhat weary of it all:-- "Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli Adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus Summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum."[47] [47] "Before thee, goddess, flee the winds, the clouds of heaven; before thee and thy advent; for thee earth manifold in works puts forth sweet-smelling flowers; for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven propitiated shines with outspread light" (Munro's _Lucretius_). This was one of the pictures painted for Lorenzo the Magnificent. Botticelli's other picture in this room, the large Coronation of the Madonna (73) with its predella (74), was commissioned by the Arte di Por Sta. Maria, the Guild of Silk-merchants, for an altar in San Marco; the ring of festive Angels, encircling their King and Queen, is in one of the master's most characteristic moods. On either side of the Primavera are two early works by Lippo Lippi; Madonna adoring the Divine Child in a rocky landscape, with the little St. John and an old hermit (79), and the Nativity (82), with Angels and shepherds, Jerome, Magdalene and Hilarion. Other important pictures in this room are Andrea del Sarto's Four Saints (76), one of his latest works painted for the monks of Vallombrosa in 1528; Andrea Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ (71), in which the two Angels were possibly painted by Verrocchio's great pupil, Leonardo, in his youth; Masaccio's Madonna and Child watched over by St. Anne (70), an early and damaged work, the only authentic easel picture of his in Florence. The three small predella pictures (72), the Nativity, the martyrdom of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Anthony of Padua finding a stone in the place of the dead miser's heart, by Francesco Pesellino, 1422-1457, the pupil of Lippo Lippi, are fine examples of a painter who normally only worked on this small scale and whose works are very rare indeed. Francesco Granacci, who painted the Assumption (68), is chiefly interesting as having been Michelangelo's friend and fellow pupil under Ghirlandaio. The _Sala del Perugino_ takes its name from three works of that master which it contains; the great Vallombrosa Assumption (57), signed and dated 1500, one of the painter's finest altar pieces, with a very characteristic St. Michael--the Archangel who was by tradition the genius of the Assumption, as Gabriel had been of the Annunciation; the Deposition from the Cross (56); and the Agony in the Garden (53). But the gem of the whole room is Lippo Lippi's Coronation of the Madonna (62), one of the masterpieces of the early Florentine school, which he commenced for the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio in 1441. The throngs of boys and girls, bearing lilies and playing at being Angels, are altogether delightful, and the two little orphans, that are being petted by the pretty Florentine lady on our right, are characteristic of Fra Filippo's never failing sympathy with child life. On the left two admirably characterised monks are patronised by St. Ambrose, and in the right corner the jolly Carmelite himself, under the wing of the Baptist, is welcomed by a little Angel with the scroll, _Is perfecit opus_. It will be observed that "poor brother Lippo" has dressed himself with greater care for his celestial visit, than he announced his intention of doing in Robert Browning's poem:-- "Well, all these Secured at their devotion, up shall come Out of a corner when you least expect, As one by a dark stair into a great light, Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!-- Mazed, motionless and moon-struck--I'm the man! Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear? I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake, My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, I, in this presence, this pure company! Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing Forward, puts out a soft palm--'Not so fast!' Addresses the celestial presence, 'Nay-- 'He made you and devised you, after all, 'Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw-- 'His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? 'We come to brother Lippo for all that, '_Iste perfecit opus!_'" Fra Filippo's Madonna and Child, with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Francis and Antony, painted for the Medicean chapel in Santa Croce (55), is an earlier and less characteristic work. Over the door is St. Vincent preaching, by Fra Bartolommeo (58), originally painted to go over the entrance to the sacristy in San Marco--a striking representation of a Dominican preacher of repentance and renovation, conceived in the spirit of Savonarola, but terribly "restored." The Trinità (63) is one of Mariotto Albertinelli's best works, but sadly damaged. The two child Angels (61) by Andrea del Sarto, originally belonged to his picture of the Four Saints, in the last room; the Crucifixion, with the wonderful figure of the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross (65), ascribed to Luca Signorelli, does not appear to be from the master's own hand; Ghirlandaio's predella (67), with scenes from the lives of Sts. Dionysius, Clement, Dominic, and Thomas Aquinas, belongs to a great picture which we shall see presently. The _Sala seconda del Botticelli_ contains three pictures ascribed to the master, but only one is authentic--the Madonna and Child enthroned with six Saints, while Angels raise the curtain over her throne or hold up emblems of the Passion (85); it is inscribed with Dante's line-- "Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio." The familiar Three Archangels (84), though attributed to Sandro, is not even a work of his school. There is a charming little predella picture by Fra Filippo (86), representing a miracle of San Frediano, St. Michael announcing her death to the Blessed Virgin, and a friar contemplating the mystery of the Blessed Trinity--pierced by the "three arrows of the three stringed bow," to adopt Dante's phrase. The Deposition from the Cross (98), was commenced by Filippino Lippi for the Annunziata, and finished after his death in 1504 by Perugino, who added the group of Maries with the Magdalene and the figure on our right. The Vision of St. Bernard (97), by Fra Bartolommeo, is the first picture that the Friar undertook on resuming his brush, after Raphael's visit to Florence had stirred him up to new efforts; commenced in 1506, it was left unfinished, and has been injured by renovations. Here are two excellent paintings by Lorenzo di Credi (92 and 94), the former, the Adoration of the Shepherds, being his very best and most perfectly finished work. High up are two figures in niches by Filippino Lippi, the Baptist and the Magdalene (93 and 89), hardly pleasing. The Resurrection (90), by Raffaellino del Garbo, is the only authentic work in Florence of a pupil of Filippino's, who gave great promise which was never fulfilled. At the end of the hall are three Sale _dei Maestri Toscani_, from the earliest Primitives down to the eighteenth century. Only a few need concern us much. The first room contains the works of the earlier masters, from a pseudo-Cimabue (102), to Luca Signorelli, whose Madonna and Child with Archangels and Doctors (164), painted for a church in Cortona, has suffered from restoration. There are four genuine, very tiny pictures by Botticelli (157, 158, 161, 162). The Adoration of the Kings (165), by Gentile da Fabriano, is one of the most delightful old pictures in Florence; Gentile da Fabriano, an Umbrian master who, through Jacopo Bellini, had a considerable influence upon the early Venetian school, settled in Florence in 1422, and finished this picture in the following year for Santa Trinità, near which he kept a much frequented bottega. Michelangelo said that Gentile had a hand similar to his name; and this picture, with its rich and varied poetry, is his masterpiece. The man wearing a turban, seen full face behind the third king, is the painter himself. Kugler remarks: "Fra Angelico and Gentile are like two brothers, both highly gifted by nature, both full of the most refined and amiable feelings; but the one became a monk, the other a knight." The smaller pictures surrounding it are almost equally charming in their way--especially, perhaps, the Flight into Egypt in the predella. The Deposition from the Cross (166), by Fra Angelico, also comes from Santa Trinità, for which it was finished in 1445; originally one of Angelico's masterpieces, it has been badly repainted; the saints in the frame are extremely beautiful, especially a most wonderful St. Michael at the top, on our left; the man standing on the ladder, wearing a black hood, is the architect, Michelozzo, who was the Friar's friend, and may be recognised in several of his paintings. The lunettes in the three Gothic arches above Angelico's picture, and which, perhaps, did not originally belong to it, are by the Camaldolese Don Lorenzo, by whom are also the Annunciation with four Saints (143), and the three predella scenes (144, 145, 146). Of the earlier pictures, the Madonna and Child adored by Angels (103) is now believed to be the only authentic easel picture of Giotto's that remains to us--though this is, possibly, an excess of scepticism. Besides several works ascribed to Taddeo Gaddi and his son Agnolo, by the former of whom are probably the small panels from Santa Croce, formerly attributed to Giotto, we should notice the Pietà by Giovanni da Milano (131); the Presentation in the Temple by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (134), signed and dated 1342; and a large altarpiece ascribed to Pietro Cavallini (157). The so-called Marriage of Boccaccio Adimari with Lisa Ricasoli (147) is an odd picture of the social customs of old Florence. In the second room are chiefly works by Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli. By the Frate, are the series of heads of Christ and Saints (168), excepting the Baptist on the right; they are frescoes taken from San Marco, excepting the Christ on the left, inscribed "Orate pro pictore 1514," which is in oil on canvas. Also by him are the two frescoes of Madonna and Child (171, 173), and the splendid portrait of Savonarola in the character of St. Peter Martyr (172), the great religious persecutor of the Middle Ages, to whom Fra Girolamo had a special devotion. By Albertinelli, are the Madonna and Saints (167), and the Annunciation (169), signed and dated 1510. This room also contains several pictures by Fra Paolino da Pistoia and the Dominican nun, Plautilla Nelli, two pious but insipid artists, who inherited Fra Bartolommeo's drawings and tried to carry on his traditions. On a stand in the middle of the room, is Domenico Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Shepherds (195), from Santa Trinità, a splendid work with--as Vasari puts it--"certain heads of shepherds which are held a divine thing." On the walls of the third room are later pictures of no importance or significance. But in the middle of the room is another masterpiece by Ghirlandaio (66); the Madonna and Child with two Angels, Thomas Aquinas and Dionysius standing on either side of the throne, Dominic and Clement kneeling. It is seldom, indeed, that this prosaic painter succeeded in creating such a thinker as this Thomas, such a mystic as this Dionysius; in the head of the latter we see indeed the image of the man who, according to the pleasant mediæval fable eternalised by Dante, "in the flesh below, saw deepest into the Angelic nature and its ministry." * * * * * In the Via Cavour, beyond San Marco, is the _Chiostro dello Scalzo_, a cloister belonging to a brotherhood dedicated to St. John, which was suppressed in the eighteenth century. Here are a series of frescoes painted in grisaille by Andrea del Sarto and his partner, Francia Bigio, representing scenes from the life of the Precursor, with allegorical figures of the Virtues. The Baptism of Christ is the earliest, and was painted by the two artists in collaboration, in 1509 or 1510. After some work for the Servites, which we shall see presently, Andrea returned to this cloister; and painted, from 1515 to 1517, the Justice, St. John preaching, St. John baptising the people, and his imprisonment. Some of the figures in these frescoes show the influence of Albert Dürer's engravings. Towards the end of 1518, Andrea went off to France to work for King Francis I.; and, while he was away, Francia Bigio painted St. John leaving his parents, and St. John's first meeting with Christ. On Andrea's return, he set to work here again and painted, at intervals from 1520 to 1526, Charity, Faith and Hope, the dance of the daughter of Herodias, the decollation of St. John, and the presentation of his head, the Angel appearing to Zacharias, the Visitation, and, last of all, the Birth of the Baptist. The Charity is Andrea's own wife, Lucrezia, who at this very time, if Vasari's story is true, was persuading him to break his promise to the French King and to squander the money which had been intrusted to him for the purchase of works of art. The Via della Sapienza leads from San Marco into the _Piazza della Santissima Annunziata_. In one of the houses on the left, now incorporated into the Reale Istituto di Studi Superiori, Andrea del Sarto and Francia Bigio lodged with other painters, before Andrea's marriage; and here, usually under the presidency of the sculptor Rustici, the "Compagnia del Paiuolo," an artists' club of twelve members, met for feasting and disport.[48] [48] See _Andrea del Sarto_, by H. Guinness in the _Great Masters_ series, and _G. F. Rustici_ in Vasari. This Piazza was a great place for processions in old Florence. Here stand the church of the _Santissima Annunziata_ and the convent of the Servites, while the Piazza itself is flanked to right and left by arcades originally designed by Brunelleschi. The equestrian statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. was cast by Giovanni da Bologna out of metal from captured Turkish guns. The arcade on the right, as we face the church, with its charming medallions of babies in swaddling clothes by Andrea della Robbia, is a part of the Spedale degli Innocenti or Hospital for Foundlings, which was commenced from Brunelleschi's designs in 1421, during the Gonfalonierate of Giovanni dei Medici; the work, which was eloquently supported in the Council of the People by Leonardo Bruni, was raised by the Silk-merchants Guild, the Arte di Por Santa Maria. On its steps the Compagnacci murdered their first victim in the attack on San Marco. There is a picturesque court, designed by Brunelleschi, with an Annunciation by Andrea della Robbia over the door of the chapel, and a small picture gallery, which contains nothing of much importance, save a Holy Family with Saints by Piero di Cosimo. In the chapel, or church of Santa Maria degli Innocenti, there is a masterpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted in 1488, an Adoration of the Magi (the fourth head on the left is the painter himself), in which the Massacre of the Innocents is seen in the background, and two of these glorified infant martyrs, under the protection of the two St. Johns, are kneeling most sweetly in front of the Madonna and her Child, for whom they have died, joining in the adoration of the kings and the _gloria_ of the angelic choir. The church of the Santissima Annunziata was founded in the thirteenth century, but has been completely altered and modernised since at different epochs. In summer mornings lilies and other flowers lie in heaps in its portico and beneath Ghirlandaio's mosaic of the Annunciation, to be offered at Madonna's shrine within. The entrance court was built in the fifteenth century, at the expense of the elder Piero dei Medici. The fresco to the left of the entrance, the Nativity of Christ, is by Alessio Baldovinetti. Within the glass, to the left, are six frescoes representing the life and miracles of the great Servite, Filippo Benizzi; that of his receiving the habit of the order is by Cosimo Rosselli (1476); the remaining five are early works by Andrea del Sarto, painted in 1509 and 1510, for which he received a mere trifle; in the midst of them is an indifferent seventeenth century bust of their painter. The frescoes on the right, representing the life of the Madonna, of whom this order claims to be the special servants, are slightly later. The approach of the Magi and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the latter dated 1514, are among the finest works of Andrea del Sarto; in the former he has introduced himself and the sculptor Sansovino, and among the ladies in the latter is his wife. Fifty years afterwards the painter Jacopo da Empoli was copying this picture, when a very old lady, who was going into the church to hear mass, stopped to look at his work, and then, pointing to the portrait of Lucrezia, told him that it was herself. The Sposalizio, by Francia Bigio, painted in 1513, was damaged by the painter himself in a fit of passion at the meddling of the monks. The Visitation, by Jacopo da Pontormo, painted in 1516, shows what admirable work this artist could do in his youth, before he fell into his mannered imitations of Michelangelo; the Assumption, painted slightly later by another of Andrea's pupils, Rosso Fiorentino, is less excellent. Inside the church itself, on the left, is the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Annunciation, one of the most highly revered shrines in Tuscany; it was constructed from the designs of Michelozzo at the cost of the elder Piero dei Medici to enclose the miraculous picture of the Annunciation, and lavishly decorated and adorned by the Medicean Grand Dukes. After the Pazzi conspiracy, Piero's son Lorenzo had a waxen image of himself suspended here in thanksgiving for his escape. Over the altar there is usually a beautiful little head of the Saviour, by Andrea del Sarto. The little oratory beyond, with the Madonna's mystical emblems on its walls, was constructed in the seventeenth century. In the second chapel from the shrine is a fresco by Andrea del Castagno, which was discovered in the summer of 1899 under a copy of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. It represents St. Jerome and two women saints adoring the Blessed Trinity, and is characteristic of the _modo terribile_ in which this painter conceived his subjects; the heads of the Jerome and the older saint to our right are particularly powerful. For the rest, the interior of this church is more gorgeous than tasteful; and the other works which it contains, including the two Peruginos, and some tolerable monuments, are third rate. The rotunda of the choir was designed by Leo Battista Alberti and erected at the cost of the Marquis of Mantua, whose descendant, San Luigi Gonzaga, had a special devotion to the miraculous picture. From the north transept, the cloisters are entered. Here, over the door, is the Madonna del Sacco, an exceedingly beautiful fresco by Andrea del Sarto, painted in 1525. St. Joseph, leaning upon the sack which gives the picture its name, is reading aloud the Prophecies to the Mother and Child whom they concern. In this cloister--which was built by Cronaca--is the monument of the French knight slain at Campaldino in 1289 (_see_ chapter ii.), which should be contrasted with the later monuments of condottieri in the Duomo. Here also is the chapel of St. Luke, where the Academy of Artists, founded under Cosimo I., used to meet. A good view of the exterior of the rotunda can be obtained from the Via Gino Capponi. At the corner of this street and the Via del Mandorlo is the house which Andrea del Sarto bought for himself and his Lucrezia, after his return from France, and here he died in 1531, "full of glory and of domestic sorrows." Lucrezia survived him for nearly forty years, and died in 1570. Perhaps, if she had not made herself so unpleasant to her husband's pupils and assistants, good Giorgio Vasari--the youngest of them--might not have left us so dark a picture of this beautiful Florentine. The rather picturesque bit of ruin in the Via degli Alfani, at the corner of the Via del Castellaccio, is merely a part of an oratory in connection with Santa Maria degli Angioli, which Brunelleschi commenced for Filippo Scolari, but which was abandoned. _Santa Maria degli Angioli_ itself, a suppressed Camaldolese house, was of old one of the most important convents in Florence. The famous poet, Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, of whom Dante speaks disparagingly in the _Commedia_ and in the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, was instrumental in its foundation in 1293. It was sacked in 1378 during the rising of the Ciompi. This convent in the earlier portion of the fifteenth century was a centre of Hellenic studies and humanistic culture, under Father Ambrogio Traversari, who died at the close of the Council of Florence. In the cloister there is still a powerful fresco by Andrea del Castagno representing Christ on the Cross, with Madonna and the Magdalene, the Baptist, St. Benedict and St. Romuald. The Romuald especially, the founder of the order, is a fine life-like figure. The _Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova_ was originally founded by Messer Folco Portinari, the father of the girl who may have been Dante's "Giver of Blessing," in 1287. Folco died in 1289, and is buried within the church, which contains one of Andrea della Robbia's Madonnas. Over the portal is a terracotta Coronation of the Madonna by Bicci di Lorenzo, erected in 1424. The two frescoes, representing scenes in the history of the hospital, are of the early part of the fifteenth century; the one on the right was painted in 1424 by Bicci di Lorenzo. In the Via Bufalini, Ghiberti had his workshop; in what was once his house is now the picture gallery of the hospital. Here is the fresco of the Last Judgment, commenced by Fra Bartolommeo in 1499, before he abandoned the world, and finished by Mariotto Albertinelli. Among its contents are an Annunciation by Albertinelli, Madonnas by Cosimo Rosselli and Rosso Fiorentino, and a terracotta Madonna by Verrocchio. The two pictures ascribed to Angelico and Botticelli are not authentic. But in some respects more interesting than these Florentine works is the triptych by the Fleming, Hugo Van der Goes, painted between 1470 and 1475 for Tommaso Portinari, Messer Folco's descendant; in the centre is the "Adoration of the Shepherds," with deliciously quaint little Angels; in the side wings, Tommaso Portinari with his two boys, his wife and their little girl, are guarded by their patron saints. Tommaso Portinari was agent for the Medici in Bruges; and, on the occasion of the wedding of Charles the Bold of Burgundy with Margaret of York in 1468, he made a fine show riding in the procession at the head of the Florentines. [Illustration: THE CLOISTER OF THE INNOCENTI] A little more to the east are the church and suppressed convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi. In the church, which has a fine court designed by Giuliano da San Gallo, is a Coronation of the Madonna by Cosimo Rosselli; in the chapter-house of the convent is a Crucifixion by Perugino, painted in the closing years of the Quattrocento, perhaps the grandest of all his frescoes. In Ruskin's chapter on the _Superhuman Ideal_, in the second volume of _Modern Painters_, he cites the background of this fresco (together with Benozzo Gozzoli's in the Palazzo Riccardi) as one of the most perfect examples of those ideal landscapes of the religious painters, in which Perugino is supreme: "In the landscape of the fresco in Sta. Maria Maddalena at Florence there is more variety than is usual with him: a gentle river winds round the bases of rocky hills, a river like our own Wye or Tees in their loveliest reaches; level meadows stretch away on its opposite side; mounds set with slender-stemmed foliage occupy the nearer ground, and a small village with its simple spire peeps from the forest at the bend of the valley." Beyond is the church of Sant' Ambrogio, once belonging to the convent of Benedictine nuns for whom Fra Lippo Lippi painted his great Coronation of Madonna. The church is hardly interesting at present, but contains an Assumption by Cosimo Rosselli, and, in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, a marble tabernacle by Mino da Fiesole and a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli painted in 1486, representing the legend of a miraculous chalice with some fine Florentine portrait heads, altogether above the usual level of Cosimo's work. The Borgo la Croce leads hence to the Porta alla Croce, in the very prosaic and modern Piazza Beccaria. This Porta alla Croce, the eastern gate of Florence in the third walls, was commenced by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1284; the frescoed Madonna in the lunette is by one of the later followers of Ghirlandaio. Through this gate, on October 6th 1308, Corso Donati fled from Florence, after his desperate attempt to hold the Piazza di San Piero Maggiore against the forces of the Signoria. Following the Via Aretina towards Rovezzano, we soon reach the remains of the Badia di San Salvi, where he was slain by his captors--as Dante makes his brother Forese darkly prophesy in the twenty-fourth canto of the _Purgatorio_. Four year later, in October 1312, the Emperor Henry VII. lay sick in the Abbey, while his army ineffectually besieged Florence. Nothing remains to remind us of that epoch, although the district is still called the Campo di Marte or Campo di Arrigo. We know from Leonardo Bruni that Dante, although he had urged the Emperor on to attack the city, did not join the imperial army like many of his fellow exiles had done: "so much reverence did he yet retain for his fatherland." In the old refectory of the Abbey is Andrea del Sarto's Last Supper, one of his most admirable frescoes, painted between 1525 and 1527, equally excellent in colour and design. "I know not," writes Vasari, "what to say of this _Cenacolo_ that would not be too little, seeing it to be such that all who behold it are struck with astonishment." When the siege was expected in 1529, and the defenders of the city were destroying everything in the suburbs which could give aid or cover to the enemy, a party of them broke down a wall in the convent and found themselves face to face with this picture. Lost in admiration, they built up a portion of what they had destroyed, in order that this last triumph of Florentine painting might be secure from the hand of war. * * * * * On this side of the river, those walls of Florence which Lapo Gianni would fain have seen _inargentate_--the third circle reared by Arnolfo and his successors--have been almost entirely destroyed, and their site marked by the broad utterly prosaic Viali. Besides the Porta alla Croce, the Porta San Gallo and the Porta al Prato still stand, on the north and west respectively. The Porta San Gallo was begun from Arnolfo's design in 1284, but not finished until 1327; the fresco in the lunette is by Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo's adopted son. On July 21, 1304, the exiled Bianchi and Ghibellines made a desperate attempt to surprise Florence through this gate, led by the heroic young Baschiera della Tosa. In 1494, Piero dei Medici and his brother Giuliano fled from the people through it; and in 1738 the first Austrian Grand Duke, Francis II., entered by it. The triumphant arch beyond, at which the lions of the Republic, to right and left of the gate, appear to gaze with little favour, marked this latter event. These Austrian Grand Dukes were decidedly better rulers than the Medici, to whom, by an imperial usurpation, they succeeded on the death of Gian Gastone. Leopold I., Ferdinand III., Leopold II., were tolerant and liberal-minded sovereigns, and under them Tuscany became the most prosperous state in Italy: "a Garden of Paradise without the tree of knowledge and without the tree of life." But, when the Risorgimento came, their sway was found incompatible with the aspirations of the Italians towards national unification; the last Grand Duke, after wavering between Austria and young Italy, threw in his lot with the former, and after having brought the Austrians into Tuscany, was forced to abdicate. Thus Florence became the first capital of Victor Emmanuel's kingdom. In the Via di San Gallo is the very graceful Palazzo Pandolfini, commenced in 1520 from Raphael's designs, on the left as we move inwards from the gate. From the Via 27 Aprile, which joins the Via di San Gallo, we enter the former convent of Sta. Appollonia. In what was once its refectory is a fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno, with the Crucifixion, Entombment, and Resurrection. Andrea del Castagno impressed his contemporaries by his furious passions and savage intractability of temper, his quality of _terribilità_; although we now know that Vasari's story that Andrea obtained the secret of using oil as a vehicle in painting from his friend, Domenico Veneziano, and then murdered him, must be a mere fable, since Domenico survived Andrea by nearly five years. Rugged unadorned strength, with considerable power of characterisation and great technical dexterity, mark his extant works, which are very few in number. This _Cenacolo_ in the finest of them all; the figures are full of life and character, although the Saviour is unpleasing and the Judas inclines to caricature. The nine figures from the Villa Pandolfini, frescoes transferred to canvas, are also his; Filippo Scolari, known as Pippo Spano (a Florentine connected with the Buondelmonti, but Ghibelline, who became Count of Temesvar and a great Hungarian captain), Farinata degli Uberti, Niccolò Acciaiuoli (a Florentine who became Grand Seneschal of the kingdom of Naples and founded the Certosa), the Cumæan Sibyl, Esther, Queen Tomyris, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The two poets and Boccaccio are the least successful, since they were altogether out of Andrea's line, but there must have been something noble in the man to enable him so to realise Farinata degli Uberti, as he stood alone at Empoli when all others agreed to destroy Florence, to defend her to the last: _Colui che la difese a viso aperto._ A _Cenacolo_ of a very different character may be seen in the refectory of the suppressed convent of Sant' Onofrio in the Via di Faenza. Though showing Florentine influence in its composition, this fresco is mainly Umbrian in character; from a half deciphered inscription on the robe of one of the Apostles (which appears to have been altered), it was once attempted to ascribe it to Raphael. It is now believed to be partly the work of Perugino, partly that of some pupil or pupils of his--perhaps Gerino da Pistoia or Giannicola Manni. It has also been ascribed to Giovanni Lo Spagna and to Raffaellino del Garbo. Morelli supposed it to be the work of a pupil of Perugino who was inspired by a Florentine engraving of the fifteenth century, and suggested Giannicola Manni. In the same street is the picturesque little Gothic church of San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini. [Illustration: A FLORENTINE SUBURB] At the end of the Via Faenza--where once stood one of Arnolfo's gates--we are out again upon the Viale, here named after Filippo Strozzi. Opposite rises what was the great Medicean citadel, the Fortezza da Basso, built by Alessandro dei Medici to overawe the city. Michelangelo steadfastly refused, at the risk of his life, to have anything to do with it. Filippo Strozzi is said to have aided Alessandro in carrying out this design, and even to have urged it upon him, although he was warned that he was digging his own grave. After the unsuccessful attempt of the exiles to overthrow the newly-established government of Duke Cosimo, while Baccio Valori and the other prisoners were sent to be beheaded or hanged in the Bargello, Filippo Strozzi was imprisoned here and cruelly tortured, in spite of the devoted attempts of his children to obtain his release. Here at length, in 1538, he was found dead in his cell. He was said to have left a paper declaring that, lest he should be more terribly tortured and forced to say things to prejudice his own honour and inculpate innocent persons, he had resolved to take his own life, and that he commended his soul to God, humbly praying Him, if He would grant it no other good, at least to give it a place with that of Cato of Utica. It is not improbable that the paper was a fabrication, and that Filippo had been murdered by orders of the Duke. CHAPTER XI _The Bridges--The Quarter of Santa Maria Novella_ "Sopra il bel fiume d'Arno alla gran villa." --_Dante._ Outside the portico of the Uffizi four Florentine heroes--Farinata degli Uberti, Piero Capponi, Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Francesco Ferrucci--from their marble niches keep watch and ward over the river. This Arno, which Lapo Gianni dreamed of as _balsamo fino_, is spanned by four ancient and famous bridges, and bordered on both banks by the Lungarno. To the east is the Ponte Rubaconte--so called after the Milanese Podestà, during whose term of office it was made--or Ponte alle Grazie, built in 1237; it is mentioned by Dante in Canto xii. of the _Purgatorio_, and is the only existing Florentine bridge which could have actually felt the footsteps of the man who was afterwards to tread scathless through the ways of Hell, "unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume." It has, however, been completely altered at various periods. On this bridge a solemn reconciliation was effected between Guelfs and Ghibellines on July 2, 1273, by Pope Gregory X. The Pope in state, between Charles of Anjou and the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople, blessed his "reconciled" people from the bridge, and afterwards laid the first stone of a church called San Gregorio della Pace in the Piazza dei Mozzi, now destroyed. As soon as the Pope's back was turned, Charles contrived that his work should be undone, and the Ghibellines hounded again out of the city.[49] [49] Opposite the bridge, at the beginning of the Via dei Benci, is the palace of the old Alberti family; the remains of their loggia stand further up the street, at the corner of the Borgo Santa Croce. In all these streets, between the Lungarno della Borsa and the Borgo dei Greci, there are many old houses and palaces; in the Piazza dei Peruzzi the houses, formerly of that family and partly built in the fourteenth century, follow the lines of the Roman amphitheatre--the _Parlascio_ of the early Middle Ages. The Palazzo dei Giudici--in the piazza of that name--was originally built in the thirteenth century, though reconstructed at a later epoch. Below the Ponte alle Grazie comes the Ponte Vecchio, the Bridge _par excellence_; _il ponte_, or _il passo d'Arno_, as Dante calls it. More than a mere bridge over a river, this Ponte Vecchio is a link in the chain binding Florence to the Eternal City. A Roman bridge stood here of old, and a Roman road may be said to have run across it; it heard the tramp of Roman legionaries, and shook beneath the horses of Totila's Gothic chivalry. This Roman bridge possibly lasted down to the great inundation of 1333. The present structure, erected by Taddeo Gaddi after 1360, with its exquisite framed pictures of the river and city in the centre, is one of the most characteristic bits of old Florence still remaining. The shops of goldsmiths and jewellers were originally established here in the days of Cosimo I., for whom Giorgio Vasari built the gallery that runs above to connect the two Grand Ducal Palaces. Connecting the Porta Romana with the heart of the city, the bridge has witnessed most of the great pageants and processions in Florentine history. Popes and Emperors have crossed it in state; Florentine generals, or hireling condottieri, at the head of their victorious troops; the Piagnoni, bearing the miraculous Madonna of the Impruneta to save the city from famine and pestilence; and Savonarola's new Cyrus, Charles VIII., as conqueror, with lance levelled. Across it, in 1515, was Pope Leo X. borne in his litter, blessing the people to right and left, amidst the exultant cries of _Palle, Palle!_ from the crowd, who had forgotten for the time all the crimes of his house in their delight at seeing their countryman, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, raised to the papal throne. In Dante's day, what remained of the famous statue supposed of Mars, _quella pietra scema che guarda il ponte_, "that mutilated stone which guardeth the bridge," still stood here at the corner, probably at the beginning of the present Lungarno Acciaiuoli. "I was of that city that changed its first patron for the Baptist," says an unknown suicide in the seventh circle of Hell, probably one of the Mozzi: "on which account he with his art will ever make it sorrowful. And were it not that at the passage of the Arno there yet remains some semblance of him, those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it on the ashes left by Attila, would have laboured in vain." Here, as we saw in chapter i., young Buondelmonte was murdered in 1215, a sacrifice to Mars in the city's "last time of peace," _nella sua pace postrema_. [Illustration: THE PONTE VECCHIO] Lower down comes the Ponte Santa Trinità, originally built in 1252; and still lower the Ponte alla Carraia, built between 1218 and 1220 in the days of Frederick II., for the sake of the growing commerce of the Borgo Ognissanti. This latter bridge was originally called the Ponte Nuovo, as at that time the only other bridge over the Arno was the Ponte Vecchio. It was here that a terrible disaster took place on May 1st, 1304--a strange piece of grim mediæval jesting by the irony of fate turned to still grimmer earnest. After a cruel period of disasters and faction fights, there had come a momentary gleam of peace, and it was determined to renew the pageants and festivities that had been held in better days on May-day, "in the good time passed, of the tranquil and good state of Florence," each contrada trying to rival the other. What followed had best be told in the words of Giovanni Villani, an eye-witness:-- "Amongst the others, the folk of the Borgo San Frediano, who had been wont of yore to devise the newest and most diverse pastimes, sent out a proclamation, that those who wished to know news of the other world should be upon the Ponte alla Carraia and around the Arno on the day of the calends of May. And they arranged scaffolds on the Arno upon boats and ships, and made thereon the likeness and figure of Hell with fires and other pains and torments, with men arrayed like demons, horrible to behold, and others who bore the semblance of naked souls, that seemed real persons; and they hurled them into those divers torments with loud cries and shrieks and uproar, the which seemed hateful and appalling to hear and to behold. Many were the citizens that gathered here to witness this new sport; and the Ponte alla Carraia, the which was then of wood from pile to pile, was so laden with folk that it broke down in several places, and fell with the people who were upon it, whereby many persons died there and were drowned, and many were grieviously injured; so that the game was changed from jest to earnest, and, as the proclamation had run, so indeed did many depart in death to hear news of the other world, with great mourning and lamentation to all the city, for each one thought that he had lost son or brother." The famous inundation of November 1333 swept away all the bridges, excepting the Ponte Rubaconte. The present Ponte Santa Trinità and Ponte alla Carraia were erected for Duke Cosimo I. by Bartolommeo Ammanati, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. Turning from the river at the Ponte Vecchio by the Via Por Sta. Maria, we see on the right the old church of San Stefano, with a completely modernised interior. Here in 1426 Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Niccolò da Uzzano held a meeting of some seventy citizens, and Rinaldo proposed to check the growing power of the populace by admitting the magnates into the government and reducing the number of Arti Minori. Their plan failed through the opposition of Giovanni dei Medici, who acquired much popularity thereby. It should be remembered that it was not here, as usually stated, but in the Badia, which was also dedicated to St. Stephen, that Boccaccio lectured on Dante. Right and left two very old streets diverge, the Via Lambertesca and the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, with splendid mediæval towers. In the former, at the angle of the Via di Por Santa Maria, are the towers of the Girolami and Gherardini, round which there was fierce fighting in the expulsion of the Ghibellines in 1266. Opposite, at the opening of the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, are the towers of the Baldovinetti (the tower of San Zenobio) and of the Amidei--_la casa di che nacque il vostro fleto_, as Cacciaguida puts it to Dante: "the house from which your wailing sprang," whose feud with the Buondelmonti was supposed to have originated the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence. And further down the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, at the opening of the Chiasso delle Misure, is the tall and stately tower of these Buondelmonti themselves, who also had a palace on the opposite side of the street. The old church of the Santissimi Apostoli, in the Piazza del Limbo, has an inscription on its façade stating that it was founded by Charlemagne, and consecrated by Archbishop Turpin, with Roland and Oliver as witnesses. It appears to have been built in the eleventh century, and is the oldest church on this side of the Arno, with the exception of the Baptistery. Its interior, which is well preserved, is said to have been taken by Filippo Brunelleschi as the model for San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito. In it is a beautiful Ciborium by Andrea della Robbia, with monuments of some of the Altoviti family. [Illustration: THE TOWER OF S. ZANOBI] The Piazza Santa Trinità was a great place for social and other gatherings in mediæval and renaissance Florence. Here on the first of May 1300, a dance of girls was being held to greet the calends of May in the old Florentine fashion, when a band of mounted youths of the Donati, Pazzi and Spini came to blows with a rival company of the Cerchi and their allies; and thus the first blood was shed in the disastrous struggle between the Bianchi and Neri. A few days later a similar faction fight took place on the other side of the bridge, in the Piazza Frescobaldi, on the occasion of a lady's funeral. The great Palazzo Spini, opposite the church, was built at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century by Geri Spini, the rich papal banker and one of the leaders of the "black" faction. Here he received the Pope's ambassadors and made a great display of his wealth and magnificence, as we gather from Boccaccio's _Decameron_, which gives us an amusing story of his friendship with Cisti the baker, and another of the witty repartees of Madonna Oretta, Geri's wife, a lady of the Malaspina. When Charles of Valois entered Florence in November 1301, Messer Geri entertained a portion of the French barons here, while the Prince himself took up his quarters with the Frescobaldi over the river; during that tumultuous period of Florentine history that followed the expulsion of the Bianchi, Geri was one of the most prominent politicians in the State. Savonarola's processions of friars and children used to pass through this piazza and over the bridge, returning by way of the Ponte Vecchio. On the Feast of Corpus Christi, 1497, as the Blessed Sacrament was being borne along, with many children carrying red crosses, they were set upon by some of the Compagnacci. The story is quaintly told by Landucci: "As the said procession was passing over the Bridge of Santa Trinità, certain youths were standing to see it pass, by the side of a little church which is on the bridge on the right hand going towards Santo Spirito. Seeing those children with the crosses, they said: 'Here are the children of Fra Girolamo.' And one of them coming up to them, took one of these crosses and, snatching it out of the hand of that child, broke it and threw it into the Arno, as though he had been an infidel; and all this he did for hatred of the Friar." The column in the Piazza--taken from the Baths of Caracalla at Rome--was set here by Duke Cosimo I., to celebrate his victory over the heroic Piero Strozzi, _il maravigliosissimo bravo Piero Strozzi_ as Benvenuto Cellini calls him, in 1563. The porphyry statue of Justice was set high up on this pedestal by the most unjust of all rulers of Florence, the Grand Duke Francesco I., Cosimo's son. This same piazza witnessed a not over friendly meeting of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Leonardo, at the time that he was engaged upon his cartoon for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, was walking in the square, dressed in his usual sumptuous fashion, with a rose coloured tunic reaching down to his knees; when a group of citizens, who were discussing Dante, called him and asked him the meaning of a passage in question. At that moment Michelangelo passed by, and Leonardo courteously referred them to him. "Explain it yourself," said the great sculptor, "you, who made the model of a horse to cast in bronze, and could not cast it, and to your shame left it in the lurch."[50] And he abruptly turned his back on the group, leaving Leonardo red with either shame or anger. [50] See Addington Symonds' _Michelangelo_. The horse in question was the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. The church of Santa Trinità was originally built in the Gothic style by Niccolò Pisano, shortly after 1250, in the days of the Primo Popolo and contemporaneously with the Palazzo del Podestà. It was largely altered by Buontalenti in the last part of the sixteenth century, and has been recently completely restored. It is a fine example of Italian Gothic. In the interior, are a Mary Magdalene by Desiderio da Settignano and a marble altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano; and also, in one of the chapels of the right aisle, an Annunciation by Don Lorenzo, one of his best works, with some frescoes, partly obliterated and much "restored," by the same good Camaldolese monk. But the great attraction of this church is the Sassetti Chapel next to the sacristy, which contains a splendid series of frescoes painted in 1485 by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The altar piece is only a copy of the original, now in the Accademia. The frescoes represent scenes from the life of St. Francis, and should be compared with Giotto's simpler handling of the same theme in the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce. We have the Saint renouncing the world, the confirmation of his rule by Honorius, his preaching to the Soldan, his reception of the Stigmata, his death and funeral (in which the life-like spectacled bishop aroused Vasari's enthusiastic admiration), and the raising to life of a child of the Sassetti family by an apparition of St. Francis in the Piazza outside the church. The last is especially interesting as giving us a picture of the Piazza in its former state, such as it might have been in the Mayday faction fight, with the Spini Palace, the older bridge, and the houses of the Frescobaldi beyond the river. Each fresco is full of interesting portraits; among the spectators in the consistory is Lorenzo the Magnificent; Ghirlandaio himself appears in the death scene; and, perhaps, most interesting of all, if Vasari's identification can be trusted, are the three who stand on the right near the church in the scene of the resuscitation of the child. These three are said to be Maso degli Albizzi, the founder of the party of the Ottimati, those _nobili popolani_ who held the State before they were eclipsed by the Medici; Agnolo Acciaiuoli, who was ruined by adhering to Luca Pitti against Piero dei Medici; and that noblest of all the Medicean victims, Palla Strozzi (_see_ chapter iii.). It should, however, be remembered that Maso degli Albizzi had died nearly seventy years before, and that not even Palla Strozzi can be regarded as a contemporary portrait. The sacristy of this church was founded by the Strozzi, and one of the house, Onofrio, lies buried within it. Extremely fine, too, are the portraits of Francesco Sassetti himself and his wife, kneeling below near the altar, also by Ghirlandaio, who likewise painted the sibyls on the ceiling and the fresco representing the sibyl prophesying of the Incarnation to Augustus, over the entrance to the chapel. The sepulchral monuments of Francesco and his wife are by Giuliano da San Gallo. The famous Crucifix of San Miniato, which bowed its head to San Giovanni Gualberto when he spared the murderer of his brother, was transferred to Santa Trinità in 1671 with great pomp and ceremony, and is still preserved here. In June 1301 a council was held in the church by the leaders of the Neri, nominally to bring about a concord with the rival faction, in reality to entrap the Cerchi and pave the way for their expulsion by foreign aid. Among the Bianchi present was the chronicler, Dino Compagni; "desirous of unity and peace among citizens," and, before the council broke up, he made a strong appeal to the more factious members. "Signors," he said, "why would you confound and undo so good a city? Against whom would you fight? Against your own brothers? What victory shall ye have? Nought else but lamentation." The Neri answered that the object of their council was merely to stop scandal and establish peace; but it soon became known that there was a conspiracy between them and the Conte Simone da Battifolle of the Casentino, who was sending his son with a strong force towards Florence. Simone dei Bardi (who had been the husband of Beatrice Portinari) appears to have been the connecting link of the conspiracy, which the prompt action of the Signoria checked for the present. The evil day, however, was postponed, not averted. Following the Via di Parione we reach the back of the Palazzo Corsini--a large seventeenth century palace whose front is on the Lungarno. Here is a large picture gallery, in which a good many of the pictures are erroneously ascribed, but which contains a few more important works. The two gems of the collection are Botticelli's portrait of a Goldsmith (210), formerly ascribed to one of the Pollaiuoli; and Luca Signorelli's tondo (157), of Madonna and Child with St. Jerome and St. Bernard. A Madonna and Child with Angels and the Baptist (162) by Filippino Lippi, or ascribed to him, is a charming and poetical picture; but is not admitted by Mr Berenson into his list of genuine works by this painter. The supposed cartoon for Raphael's Julius II. is of very doubtful authenticity. The picture of the martyrdom of Savonarola (292) is interesting and valuable as affording a view of the Piazza at that epoch, but cannot be regarded as an accurate historical representation of the event. That seventeenth century reincarnation of Lorenzo di Credi, Carlo Dolci, is represented here by several pictures which are above his usual level; for instance, Poetry (179) is a really beautiful thing of its kind. Among the other pictures is a little Apollo and Daphne (241), probably an early work of Andrea del Sarto. The Raffaellino di Carlo who painted the Madonna and Saints (200), is not to be confused with Filippino's pupil, Raffaellino del Garbo. In the Via Tornabuoni, the continuation of the Piazza Santa Trinità, stands the finest of all Florentine palaces of the Renaissance, the Palazzo Strozzi. It was begun in 1489 for the elder Filippo Strozzi, with the advice and encouragement of Lorenzo the Magnificent, by Benedetto da Maiano, and continued by Simone del Pollaiuolo (called "Cronaca" from his yarning propensities), to whom the cornice and court are due. It was finished for the younger Filippo Strozzi, the husband of Clarice dei Medici, shortly before his fall, in the days of Duke Alessandro. The works in iron on the exterior--lanterns, torch-holders and the like, especially a wonderful _fanale_ at the corner--are by Niccolò Grosso (called "Caparra" from his habit of demanding payment in advance), and the finest things of their kind imaginable. Filippo Strozzi played a curiously inconstant part in the history of the closing days of the Republic. After having been the most intimate associate of his brother-in-law, the younger Lorenzo, he was instrumental first in the expulsion of Ippolito and Alessandro, then in the establishment of Alessandro's tyranny; and finally, finding himself cast by the irony of fate for the part of the last Republican hero, he took the field against Duke Cosimo, only to find a miserable end in a dungeon. One of his daughters, Luisa Capponi, was believed to have been poisoned by order of Alessandro; his son, Piero, became the bravest Italian captain of the sixteenth century and carried on a heroic contest with Cosimo's mercenary troops. [Illustration: ARMS OF THE STROZZI] Down the Via della Vigna Nuova is another of these Renaissance palaces, built for a similar noble family associated with the Medici,--the Palazzo Rucellai. Bernardo Rucellai--who was not originally of noble origin, but whose family had acquired what in Florence was the real title to nobility, vast wealth in commerce--married Nannina, the younger sister of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and had this palace begun for him in 1460 by Bernardo Rossellino from the design of Leo Battista Alberti,--to whom also the Rucellai loggia opposite is due. More of Alberti's work for the Rucellai may be seen at the back of the palace, in the Via della Spada, where in the former church of San Pancrazio (which gave its name to a _sesto_ in old Florence) is the chapel which he built for Bernardo Rucellai in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. The Via delle Belle Donne--most poetically named of Florentine streets--leads hence into the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. On the way, where five roads meet, is the Croce al Trebbio, with symbols of the four Evangelists below the Crucifix. It marks the site of one of St Peter Martyr's fiercest triumphs over the Paterini, one of those "marvellous works" for which Savonarola, in his last address to his friars, complains that the Florentines had been so ungrateful towards his Order. But the story of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella is not one of persecution, but of peace-making. They played at times as noble a part in mediæval Florence as their brethren of San Marco were to do in the early Renaissance; and later, during the great siege, they took up the work of Fra Girolamo, and inspired the people to their last heroic defence of the Republic. Opposite Santa Maria Novella is the Loggia di San Paolo, designed by Brunelleschi, and erected in 1451, shortly after his death. The coloured terracotta reliefs, by Andrea della Robbia, include two fine portraits of governors of the hospital (not of the Della Robbia themselves, as frequently stated). The relief in a lunette over the door on the right, representing the meeting of St Francis and St Dominic, is one of Andrea's best works:-- "L'un fu tutto serafico in ardore, l'altro per sapienza in terra fue di cherubica luce uno splendore. Dell'un dirò, però che d'ambedue si dice l'un pregiando, qual ch'uom prende, perchè ad un fine fur l'opere sue."[51] [51] "The one was all seraphic in his ardour, the other by his wisdom was on earth a splendour of cherubic light. "Of one will I discourse, because of both the two he speaketh who doth either praise, which so he will; for to one end their works." --Wicksteed's translation, _Paradiso_ xi. In 1212, three years before the murder of Buondelmonte, the first band of Franciscans had come to Florence, sent thither by St Francis himself from Assisi. A few years later, at the invitation of a Florentine merchant Diodato, who had built a chapel and house as an act of restitution, St Dominic, from Bologna, sent the Blessed John of Salerno with twelve friars to occupy this mission at Ripoli, about three miles beyond where now stands the Gate of S. Niccolò. Thence they extended their apostolic labours into the city, and when St Dominic came, at the end of 1219, they had already made progress. Finally they moved into the city--first to San Pancrazio, and at length settled at Santa Maria tra le Vigne, a little church then outside the walls, where B. Giovanni was installed by the Pope's legate and the bishop in 1221. Before the church, in the present piazza, St Peter Martyr, the "hammer of the heretics," fought the Paterini with both spiritual and material arms. At last, the growth of the order requiring larger room, on St Luke's day, 1278, Cardinal Latino de' Frangipani laid here the first stone of Santa Maria Novella. Where once the little church of Our Lady among the Vines stood outside the second circuit of the city's walls, rises now the finest Italian Gothic church in Florence. Less than a year after it had been commenced, the same Dominican cardinal who had laid the first stone summoned a mass meeting in the Piazza, and succeeded in patching up a temporary peace between Guelfs and Ghibellines, and among the Guelf magnates themselves, 1279. This Cardinal Latino left a memory revered in Florence, and Fra Angelico, in the picture now in our National Gallery, placed him among the glorified saints attending upon the resurrection of Our Lord. Some twenty years later, in November 1301, a parliament was held within the still unfinished church, at which another Papal peacemaker, the infamous Charles of Valois, in the presence of the Priors of the Republic, the Podestà and the Captain, the bishop and chief citizens, received the _balìa_ to guard Florence and pacify the Guelfs, and swore on the faith of the son of a king to preserve the city in peace and prosperity. We have seen how he kept his word. Santa Maria Novella, in 1304, was the centre of the sincere and devoted attempts made by Boniface's successor, the sainted Benedict XI., to heal the wounds of Florence; attempts in which, throughout Italy, the Dominicans were his "angels of peace," as he called his missioners. When the Republic finally fell into the hands of Cosimo dei Medici in 1434, the exiled Pope Eugenius IV. was staying in the adjoining monastery; it was here that he made his unsuccessful attempt to mediate, and heard the bitter farewell words of Rinaldo degli Albizzi: "I blame myself most of all, because I believed that you, who had been hunted out of your own country, could keep me in mine." [Illustration: IN THE GREEN CLOISTERS, S. MARIA NOVELLA] The church itself, striped tiger-like in black and white marble, was constructed from the designs of three Dominican friars, Fra Ristoro da Campi, Fra Sisto, and Fra Giovanni da Campi. Fra Giovanni was a scholar or imitator of Arnolfo di Cambio, and the two former were the architects who restored the Ponte alla Carraia and the Ponte Santa Trinità after their destruction in 1269. The façade (with the exception of the lower part, which belongs to the fourteenth century) was designed by Leo Battista Alberti, whose friends the Rucellai were the chief benefactors of this church; the lovely but completely restored pointed arcades on the right, with niches for tombs and armorial bearings, were designed by Brunelleschi. On the left, though in part reduced to vile usage, there is a bit comparatively less altered. The interior was completed soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, when Fra Jacopo Passavanti--the author of that model of pure Tuscan prose, _Lo Specchio della vera Penitenza_--was Prior of the convent. The campanile is said to have been designed by another Dominican, Fra Jacopo Talenti, the probable architect of the so-called Spanish Chapel in the cloisters on the left of the church, of which more presently. During the great siege of Florence the mantle of Savonarola seemed to have fallen upon the heroic Prior of Santa Maria Novella, Fra Benedetto da Foiano. When the news of the alliance between Pope and Emperor came to Florence, while all Bologna was in festa for the coronation of the Emperor, Varchi tells us that Fra Benedetto delivered a great sermon in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, which was thrown open to all who would come to hear; in which sermon he proved from passages in the Old and New Testaments that Florence would be delivered from all dangers, and then enjoy perpetual perfect felicity in the liberty she so desired. With such grace and eloquence did he speak, that the vast audience was moved to tears and to joy by turns. At the end, "with ineffable gestures and words," he gave to the Gonfaloniere, Raffaello Girolami, a standard upon one side of which was a Christ victorious over the hostile soldiery, and upon the other the red Cross of the Florentine Commune, saying: _Cum hoc et in hoc vinces._ After the capitulation Malatesta Baglioni seized the friar and sent him to Rome, where he was slowly starved to death in the dungeon of Sant' Angelo. The interior was thus not quite finished, when Boccaccio's seven maidens met here on a Wednesday morning in early spring in that terrible year of pestilence, 1348; yet we may readily picture to ourselves the scene described in the introduction to the _Decameron_; the empty church; the girls in their dark mourning garb, after hearing Mass, seated together in a side chapel and gradually passing from telling their beads to discussing more mundane matters; and then, no sooner do three members of the other sex appear upon the scenes than a sudden gleam of gladness lights up their faces, and even the plague itself is forgotten. One of them, indeed, blushed; "she became all crimson in the face through modesty," says Boccaccio, "because there was one of their number who was beloved by one of these youths;" but afterwards found no difficulty in rivalling the others in the impropriety of her talk. Entering the western portal, we find ourselves in a nave of rather large proportions, somewhat dark but not without a glow from the stained glass windows--adapted above all for preaching. As in Santa Croce, it is cut across by a line of chapels, thus giving the whole a T shape, and what represents the apse is merely a deeper and taller recess behind the high altar. There is nothing much to interest us here in the nave or aisles, save, by the side of the central door, one of the very few extant works of Masaccio, a fresco representing the Blessed Trinity adored by the Madonna and St. John, with two kneeling donors--portraits of which no amount of restoration can altogether destroy the truth and grandeur. The Annunciation, on the opposite side of the door, is a mediocre fresco of the fourteenth century. The Crucifix above is one of several works of the kind ascribed to Giotto. It will be best to take the chapels at the end of the nave and in the transepts in the order into which they fall, as illustrating the development of Florentine art. On the right a flight of steps leads up into the Rucellai chapel where, half concealed in darkness, hangs the famous picture once supposed to mark the very birthday of Florentine painting. That Cimabue really painted a glorious Madonna for this church, which was worshipped by a king and hailed with acclamation by a rejoicing people, is to be most firmly and devoutly held. Unfortunately, it seems highly probable that this picture is not Cimabue's Madonna. It is decidedly Sienese in character, and, as there is documentary evidence that Duccio of Siena painted a Madonna for Santa Maria Novella, and as the attendant Angels are in all respects similar to those in Duccio's authenticated works, the picture is probably his. It deserves all veneration, nevertheless, for it is a noble picture in the truest sense of the word. In the same chapel is the monument of the Dominican nun, the Beata Villana, by Bernardo Rossellino. Crossing the church to the chapel in the left transept, the Strozzi Chapel, we mount into the true atmosphere of the Middle Ages--into one of those pictured theatres which set before us in part what Dante gave in full in his _Commedia_. The whole chapel is dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas, the glory of the philosophy of the mediæval world and, above all, of the Dominican order, whose cardinal virtues are extolled in allegorical fashion on the ceiling; but the frescoes are drawn from the work of his greatest Florentine disciple, Dante Alighieri, in whose poem Thomas mainly lives for the non-Catholic world. It contains all Orcagna's extant work in painting. The altar piece, executed by Andrea Orcagna in 1357, is the grandest of its kind belonging to the Giottesque period. Its central motive, of the Saviour delivering the keys to St. Peter and the Summa to St. Thomas, the spiritual and philosophical regimens of the mediæval world, is very finely rendered; while the angelic choir is a foretaste of Angelico. Madonna presents St. Thomas; the Baptist, St. Peter; Michael and Catherine are in attendance upon the Queen of Heaven, Lawrence and Paul upon the Precursor. The predella represents St. Peter walking upon the waves, with on either side an episode in the life of St. Thomas and a miracle of St. Lawrence. The frescoes are best seen on a very bright morning, shortly before noon. The Last Judgment, by Andrea, shows the traditional representation of the Angels with trumpets and with the emblems of the Passion, wheeling round the Judge; and the dead rising to judgment, impelled irresistibly to right or left even before the sentence is pronounced. Above the one band, kneels the white-robed Madonna in intercession--type of the Divine Mercy as in Dante; over the others, at the head of the Apostles, is the Baptist who seems appealing for judgment--type of the Divine Justice. This placing Mary and St John opposite to each other, as in Dante's Rose of Paradise, is typical of Florentine art; Santa Maria del Fiore and San Giovanni are, as it were, inseparable. Among the blessed is Dante, gazing up in fixed adoration at the Madonna, as when following St Bernard's prayer at the close of his Vision; on the other side some of the faces of the lost are a miracle of expression. The Hell on the right wall, by Andrea's brother Leonardo, is more immediately taken from the _Commedia_. The Paradise on the left, or, rather, the Empyrean Heaven--with the faces _suadi di carità_, Angels and Saints absorbed in vision and love of God--is by Andrea himself, and is more directly pictorial than Dante's _Paradiso_ could admit. Christ and the Madonna are enthroned side by side, whereas we do not actually see Him in human form in the _Commedia_,--perhaps in accordance with that reverence which impels the divine poet to make the name _Cristo_ rhyme with nothing but itself. For sheer loveliness in detail, no other fourteenth century master produced anything to compare with this fresco; it may be said to mark the advent of a new element in Italian art. Thence we pass into the early Renaissance with Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, with Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi. In the chapel to the left of the choir hangs Filippo Brunelleschi's famous wooden Crucifix, carved in friendly rivalry with Donatello. The rival piece, Donatello's share in this sculptured _tenzone_, has been seen in Santa Croce. In the choir are frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, and a fine brass by Lorenzo Ghiberti. These frescoes were begun in 1486, immediately after the completion of the Santa Trinità series, and finished in 1490; and, though devoid of the highest artistic qualities, are eminently characteristic of their epoch. Though representing scenes from the life of the Madonna and the Baptist, this is entirely subordinated to the portrait groups of noble Florentines and their ladies, introduced as usually utterly uninterested spectators of the sacred events. As religious pictures they are naught; but as representations of contemporary Florentine life, most valuable. Hardly elsewhere shall you see so fine a series of portraits of the men and women of the early Renaissance; but they have other things to think of than the Gospel history. Look at the scene of the Angel appearing to Zacharias. The actual event is hardly noticed; hidden in the throng of citizens, too busily living the life of the Renaissance to attend to such trifles; besides, it would not improve their style to read St. Luke. In the Visitation, the Nativity of the Baptist, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a fashionable beauty of the period sweeps in with her attendants--and it is hardly uncharitable to suppose that, if not herself, at least her painter thought more of her fine clothes than of her devotional aspect. The portraits of the donors, Giovanni Tornabuoni and his wife, are on the window wall. In the scene of the expulsion of Joachim from the Temple, a group of painters stands together (towards the window); the old cleanly-shaven man in a red hat is Alessio Baldovinetti, Ghirlandaio's master; next to him, with a lot of dark hair, dressed in a red mantle and blue vest, is Domenico Ghirlandaio himself; his pupil and brother-in-law, Sebastiano Mainardi, and his brother, David Ghirlandaio, are with him--the latter being the figure with shoulder turned and hat on head. In the apparition to Zacharias, among the numerous portraits, a group of four half figures discussing at the foot of the history is of special interest; three of them are said to represent Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landini, and Angelo Poliziano (in the middle, slightly raising his hand); the fourth, turned to speak to Landini, is said by Vasari to be a famous teacher of Greek, Demetrius, but now supposed to be Gentile Becchi, a learned bishop of Arezzo. The stained glass was designed by Filippino Lippi. Under the high altar rests the body of the Blessed John of Salerno, the "Apostle of Florence," who brought the first band of Dominicans to the city. Less admired, but in some respects more admirable, are the frescoes by Filippino Lippi in the chapel on the right of the choir, almost his last works, painted about 1502, and very much injured by restoration. The window is also from his design. The frescoes represent scenes from the lives of St. John and St. Philip, and are remarkable for their lavish display of Roman antiquities, in which they challenge comparison with Andrea Mantegna. The scene of St. Philip exorcising the dragon is especially fine. Observe how the characteristic intensity of the school of Botticelli is shown in the way in which the very statues take part in the action. Mars flourishes his broken spear, his wolves and kites cower to him for protection from the emissaries of the new faith, whose triumph is further symbolised in the two figures above of ancient deities conquered by Angels. An analogous instance will be found in Botticelli's famous Calumny in the Uffizi. In this statue of Mars is seen the last rendering of the old Florentine tradition of their _primo padrone_. Thus, perhaps, did the new pagans of the Renaissance lovingly idealise "that mutilated stone which guards the bridge." The monument of the elder Filippo Strozzi, in the same chapel, is a fine piece of work by Benedetto da Maiano, with a lovely tondo of the Madonna and Child attended by Angels. And we should also notice Giovanni della Robbia's fountain in the sacristy, before passing into the cloisters. Here in the cloisters we pass back again into more purely mediæval thought. Passing some early frescoes of the life of the Madonna--the dream of Joachim, his meeting St. Anne, the Birth and Presentation of the Blessed Virgin--which Ruskin believed to be by Giotto himself--we enter to the left the delicious Green Cloisters; a pleasant lounging place in summer. In the lunettes along the walls are frescoed scenes from Genesis in _terra verde_, of which the most notable are by Paolo Uccello--the Flood and the Sacrifice of Noah. Uccello's interests were scientific rather than artistic. These frescoes are amazingly clever exercises in the new art of perspective, the _dolce cosa_ as he called it when his wife complained of his absorption; but are more curious than beautiful, and hardly inspire us with more than mild admiration at the painter's cleverness in poising the figure--which, we regret to say, he intends for the Almighty--so ingeniously in mid air. But out of these cloisters, on the right, opens the so-called Spanish Chapel--the Cappella degli Spagnuoli--one of the rarest buildings in Italy for the student of mediæval doctrine. Here, as in the Strozzi Chapel, we are in the grasp of the same mighty spirit that inspired the _Divina Commedia_ and the _De Monarchia_, although the actual execution falls far below the design. The chapel--designed by Fra Jacopo Talenti in 1320--was formerly the chapter-house of the convent; it seems to have acquired the title of Spanish Chapel in the days of Duke Cosimo I., when Spaniards swarmed in Florence and were wont to hold solemn festival here on St. James' day. The frescoes that cover its ceiling and walls were executed about the middle of the fourteenth century--according to Vasari by Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, though this seems highly doubtful. Their general design is possibly due to Fra Jacopo Passavanti. They set forth the Dominican ideal, the Church and the world as the Friars Preachers conceived of them, even as Giotto's famous allegories at Assisi show us the same through Franciscan glasses. While Orcagna painted the world beyond the grave in honour of the Angelical Doctor, these artists set forth the present world as it should be under his direction and that of his brothers, the "hounds of the Lord," _domini canes_, who defended the _orto cattolico_. The vaulted roof is divided into four segments; and the picture in each segment corresponds to a great fresco on the wall below. On the wall opposite, as we enter, is represented the supreme event of the world's history, from which all the rest starts and upon which the whole hinges, the Passion of Christ, leading up to the Resurrection on the roof above it. On the segment of the roof over the door is the Ascension, and on the wall below was shown (now much damaged) how the Dominicans received and carried out Christ's last injunction to His disciples. In the left segment of the roof is the Descent of the Holy Spirit; and beneath it, on the wall, the result of this outpouring upon the world of intellect is shown in the triumph of Philosophy in the person of Aquinas, its supreme mediæval exponent. In the right segment is the Ship of Peter; and, on the wall below, is seen how Peter becomes a fisher of men, the triumph of his Church under the guidance of the Dominicans. These two great allegorical frescoes--the triumph of St. Thomas and the _civil briga_ of the Church--are thus a more complete working out of the scheme set forth more simply by Orcagna in his altar piece in the Strozzi Chapel above--the functions delegated by Christ to Peter and St. Thomas--the power of the Keys and the doctrine of the _Summa Theologica_. In the centre of the philosophical allegory, St. Thomas Aquinas is seated on a Gothic throne, with an open book in his hands bearing the text from the Book of Wisdom with which the Church begins her lesson in his honour: _Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. Invocavi, et venit in me spiritus sapientiae; et praeposui illam regnis et sedibus._[52] Over his head hover seven Angels, invested with the emblems of the three theological and four cardinal virtues; around him are seated the Apostles and Prophets, in support of his doctrine; beneath his feet heresiarchs are humbled--Sabellius and Arius, to wit--and even Averrhoes, who "made the great comment," seems subdued. Below, in fourteen little shrines, are allegorical figures of the fourteen sciences which meet and are given ultimate form in his work, and at the feet of each maiden sits some great exponent of the science. From right to left, the seven liberal arts of the Trivium and Quadrivium lead up to the Science of Numbers, represented on earth by Pythagoras; from left to right, the earthly and celestial sciences lead up to Dogmatic Theology, represented by Augustine.[53] [52] "I desired, and understanding was given me. I prayed, and the spirit of Wisdom came upon me; and I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones." [53] The identification of each science and its representative is rather doubtful, especially in the celestial series. From altar to centre, Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic are represented by Aelius Donatus, Cicero and Aristotle (or Zeno); Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Arithmetic by Tubal Cain, Zoroaster (or Ptolemy), Euclid and Pythagoras. From window to centre, Civil Law is represented by Justinian, Canon Law by Innocent III., Philosophy apparently by Boethius; the next four seem to be Contemplative, Moral, Mystical and Dogmatic Theology, and their representatives Jerome, John of Damascus, Basil and Augustine--but, with the exception of St. Augustine, the identification is quite arbitrary. Possibly if the Logician is Zeno, the Philosopher is not Boethius but Aristotle; the figure above, representing Philosophy, holds a mirror which seems to symbolise the divine creation of the cosmic Universe. On the opposite wall is the Church militant and triumphant. Before Santa Maria del Fiore, here symbolising the Church militant, sit the two ideal guides of man, according to the dual scheme of Dante's _De Monarchia_--the Pope and the Emperor. On either side are seated in a descending line the great dignitaries of the Church and the Empire; Cardinal and Abbot, King and Baron; while all around are gathered the clergy and the laity, religious of every order, judges and nobles, merchants and scholars, with a few ladies kneeling on the right, one of whom is said to be Petrarch's Laura. Many of these figures are apparently portraits, but the attempts at identification--such as that of the Pope with Benedict XI., the Emperor with Henry VII.--are entirely untrustworthy. The Bishop, however, standing at the head of the clergy, is apparently Agnolo Acciaiuoli, Bishop of Florence; and the French cavalier, in short tunic and hood, standing opposite to him at the head of the laity (formerly called Cimabue), is said--very questionably--to be the Duke of Athens. At the feet of the successors of Peter and Cæsar are gathered the sheep and lambs of Christ's fold, watched over by the black and white hounds that symbolise the Dominicans. On the right, Dominic urges on his watchdogs against the heretical wolves who are carrying off the lambs of the flock; Peter Martyr hammers the unbelievers with the weapon of argument alone; Aquinas convinces them with the light of his philosophic doctrine. But beyond is Acrasia's Bower of Bliss, a mediaeval rendering of what Spenser hereafter so divinely sung in the second book of the _Faerie Queene_. Figures of vice sit enthroned; while seven damsels, Acrasia's handmaidens, dance before them; and youth sports in the shade of the forbidden myrtles. Then come repentance and the confessional; a Dominican friar (not one of the great Saints, but any humble priest of the order) absolves the penitents; St Dominic appears again, and shows them the way to Paradise; and then, becoming as little children, they are crowned by the Angels, and St. Peter lets them through the gate to join the Church Triumphant. Above in the Empyrean is the Throne of the Lord, with the Lamb and the four mystical Beasts, and the Madonna herself standing up at the head of the Angelic Hierarchies. In the great cloisters beyond, the Ciompi made their headquarters in 1378, under their Eight of Santa Maria Novella; and, at the request of their leaders, the prior of the convent sent some of his preachers to furnish them with spiritual consolation and advice. Passing through the Piazza--where marble obelisks resting on tortoises mark the goals of the chariot races held here under Cosimo I. and his successors, on the Eve of St. John--and down the Via della Scala, we come to the former Spezeria of the convent, still a flourishing manufactory of perfumes, liqueurs and the like, though no longer in the hands of the friars. In what was once its chapel, are frescoes by Spinello Aretino and his pupils, painted at the end of the Trecento, and representing the Passion of Christ. They are inferior to Spinello's work at Siena and on San Miniato, but the Christ bearing the Cross has much majesty, and, in the scene of the washing of the feet, the nervous action of Judas as he starts up is finely conceived. The famous Orti Oricellari, the gardens of the Rucellai, lie further down the Via della Scala. Here in the early days of the Cinquecento the most brilliant literary circles of Florentine society met; and there was a sort of revival of the old Platonic Academy, which had died out with Marsilio Ficino. Machiavelli wrote for these gatherings his discourses on Livy and his Art of War. Although their meetings were mainly frequented by Mediceans, some of the younger members were ardent Republicans; and it was here that a conspiracy was hatched against the life of the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici, for which Jacopo da Diacceto and one of the Alamanni died upon the scaffold. In later days these Orti belonged to Bianca Cappello. At the corner of the adjoining palace is a little Madonna by Luca della Robbia; and further on, in a lunette on the right of the former church of San Jacopo in Ripoli, there is a group of Madonna and Child with St. James and St. Dominic, probably by Andrea della Robbia. In the Via di Palazzuolo, the little church of San Francesco dei Vanchetoni contains two small marble busts of children, exceedingly delicately modelled, supposed to represent the Gesù Bambino and the boy Baptist; they are ascribed to Donatello, but recent writers attribute them to Desiderio or Rossellino. In the Borgo Ognissanti, where the Swiss of Charles VIII. in 1494, forcing their way into the city from the Porta al Prato, were driven back by the inhabitants, are the church of Ognissanti and the Franciscan convent of San Salvadore. The church and convent originally belonged to the Frati Umiliati, who settled here in 1251, were largely influential in promoting the Florentine wool trade, and exceedingly democratic in their sympathies. Their convent was a great place for political meetings in the days of Giano della Bella, who used to walk in their garden taking counsel with his friends. After the siege they were expelled from Florence, and the church and convent made over to the Franciscans of the Osservanza, who are said to have brought hither the habit which St. Francis wore when he received the Stigmata. The present church was built in the second half of the sixteenth century, but contains some excellent pictures and frescoes belonging to the older edifice. Over the second altar to the right is a frescoed Pietà, one of the earliest works of Domenico Ghirlandaio, with above it the Madonna taking the Vespucci family under her protection--among them Amerigo, who was to give his name to the new continent of America. Further on, over a confessional, is Sandro Botticelli's St. Augustine, the only fresco of his still remaining in Florence; opposite to it, over a confessional on the left, is St. Jerome by Domenico Ghirlandaio; both apparently painted in 1480. In the left transept is a Crucifix ascribed to Giotto; Vasari tells us that it was the original of the numerous works of this kind which Puccio Capanna and others of his pupils multiplied through Italy. In the sacristy is a much restored fresco of the Crucifixion, belonging to the Trecento. Sandro Botticelli was buried in this church in 1510, and, two years later, Amerigo Vespucci in 1512. In the former Refectory of the convent is a fresco of the Last Supper, painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in 1480, and very much finer than his similar work in San Marco. In the lunette over the portal of the church is represented the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, by Giovanni della Robbia. The Borgo Ognissanti leads hence westward into the Via del Prato, and through the Porta al Prato, one of the four gates of the third wall of the city, begun by Arnolfo in 1284; now merely a mutilated torso of Arnolfo's stately structure, left stranded in the prosaic wilderness of the modern Viale. The fresco in the lunette is by Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Down towards the Arno a single tower remains from the old walls, mutilated, solitary and degraded so as to look a mere modern bit of masonry. Beyond are the Cascine Gardens, stretching for some two miles between the Arno and the Mugnone, delicious to linger in, and a sacred place to all lovers of English poetry. For here, towards the close of 1819, "in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains," Shelley wrote the divinest of all English lyrics: the _Ode to the West Wind_. "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" [Illustration: IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS] CHAPTER XII _Across the Arno_ "Come a man destra, per salire al monte, dove siede la Chiesa che soggioga la ben guidata sopra Rubaconte, si rompe del montar l'ardita foga. per le scalee che si fero ad etade ch'era sicuro il quaderno e la doga." --_Dante._ Across the river, partly lying along its bank and partly climbing up St. George's hill to the south, lies what was the Sesto d'Oltrarno in the days when old Florence was divided into sextaries, and became the Quartiere di Santo Spirito when the city was reorganised in quarters after the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. It was not originally a part of the city itself. At the time of building the second walls in the twelfth century (_see_ chapter i.), there were merely three _borghi_ or suburbs beyond the Arno, inhabited by the poorest classes, each of the three beginning at the head of the Ponte Vecchio; the Borgo Pidiglioso to the east, towards the present Via dei Bardi and Santa Lucia, where the road went on to Rome by way of Figline and Arezzo; the Borgo di Santa Felicità, to the south, ending in a gate at the present Piazza San Felice, where the road to Siena commenced; and the Borgo San Jacopo to the west, with a gate in the present Piazza Frescobaldi, on the way to Pisa. A few rich and noble families began to settle here towards the beginning of the thirteenth century. When the dissensions between Guelfs and Ghibellines came to a head in 1215, the Nerli and Rossi were Guelfs, the Gangalandi, Ubbriachi and Mannelli, Ghibellines; and these were then the only nobles of the Oltrarno, although Villani tells us that "the Frescobaldi and the Bardi and the Mozzi were already beginning to become powerful." The _Primo Popolo_ commenced to wall it in, in 1250, with the stones from dismantled feudal towers; and it was finally included in the third circle of the walls at the beginning of the fourteenth century--a point to which we shall return. As we saw in chapter iii., it was in the Oltrarno that the nobles made their last stand against the People in 1343, when the Nerli held the Ponte alla Carraia, the Frescobaldi and Mannelli the Ponte di Santa Trinità, and the Rossi and Bardi defended the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Rubaconte, with the narrow streets between. In the following century it was the headquarters of the faction opposed to the Medici, the Party of the Mountain, as it was called, from the lofty position of Luca Pitti's great palace. A century more, and it became the seat of government under the Medicean Grand Dukes, and the whole was crowned by the fortress of the Belvedere which Buontalenti built in 1590 for Ferdinand I. At the head of the Ponte Vecchio, to right and left, the Borgo San Jacopo and the Via dei Bardi still retain something of their old characteristics and mediæval appearance. In the former especially are some fine towers remaining of the Rossi, Nerli, Barbadori, and other families; particularly one which belonged to the Marsili, opposite the church of San Jacopo. A side street, the Via dei Giudei, once inhabited by Jews, is still very picturesque. The little church of San Jacopo, originally built in the eleventh century, but entirely reconstructed in more recent times, still possesses an old Romanesque portico. In this church some of the more bitter spirits among the nobles held a council in 1294, and unanimously decided to murder Giano della Bella. "The dogs of the people," said Messer Berto Frescobaldi, who was the spokesman, "have robbed us of honour and office, and we cannot enter the Palace. If we beat one of our own servants, we are undone. Wherefore, my lords, it is my rede that we should come forth from this servitude. Let us take up arms and assemble in the piazza; let us slay the plebeians, friends and foes alike, so that never again shall we or our children be subjected to them." His plan, however, seemed too dangerous to the other nobles. "If our design failed," said Messer Baldo della Tosa, "we should all be killed"; and it was decided to proceed by more prudent means, and to disorganise the People and undermine Giano's credit with them, before taking further action. At the end of the Borgo San Jacopo, the Frescobaldi had their palaces in the piazza which still bears their name, at the head of the Ponte Santa Trinità. Here Charles of Valois took up his headquarters in November 1301, with the intention of keeping this portion of the city in case he lost his hold of the rest. Opposite the bridge the Capponi had their palace; the heroic Piero Capponi lived here; and then the Gonfaloniere Niccolò, who, accused of favouring the Medici, was deprived of his office, and died broken-hearted just before the siege. On the left of the Ponte Vecchio the Via dei Bardi, where the nobles and retainers of that fierce old house made their last stand against the People after the Frescobaldi had been forced to surrender, has been much spoilt of recent years, though a few fine palaces remain, and some towers, especially two, of the Mannelli and Ridolfi, at the beginning of the street. In the Via dei Bardi, the fine Capponi Palace was built for Niccolò da Uzzano at the beginning of the Quattrocento. The church of Santa Lucia has a Della Robbia relief over the entrance, and a picture of the school of Fra Filippo in the interior. The street ends in the Piazza dei Mozzi, opposite the Ponte alle Grazie or Ponte Rubaconte, where stands the Torrigiani Palace, built by Baccio d'Agnolo in the sixteenth century. From the Ponte Vecchio the Via Guicciardini leads to the Pitti Palace, and onwards to the Via Romana and great Porta Romana. In the Piazza Santa Felicità a column marks the site of one of St. Peter Martyr's triumphs over the Paterini; the loggia is by Vasari; the historian Guicciardini is buried in the church, which contains some second-rate pictures. Further on, on the right, is the house where Machiavelli died, a disappointed and misunderstood patriot, in 1527; on the left is Guicciardini's palace. The magnificent Palazzo Pitti was commenced shortly after 1440 by Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, for Luca Pitti, that vain and incompetent old noble who hoped to eclipse the Medici during the closing days of the elder Cosimo. Messer Luca grew so confident, Machiavelli tells us, that "he began two buildings, one in Florence and the other at Ruciano, a place about a mile from the city; both were in right royal style, but that in the city was altogether greater than any other that had ever been built by a private citizen until that day. And to complete them he shrank from no measures, however extraordinary; for not only did citizens and private persons contribute and aid him with things necessary for the building, but communes and corporations lent him help. Besides this, all who were under ban, and whosoever had committed murder or theft or anything else for which he feared public punishment, provided that he were a person useful for the work, found secure refuge within these buildings." After the triumph of Piero dei Medici in 1466, Luca Pitti was pardoned, but ruined. "Straightway," writes Machiavelli, "he learned what difference there is between success and failure, between dishonour and honour. A great solitude reigned in his houses, which before had been frequented by vast throngs of citizens. In the street his friends and relations feared not merely to accompany him, but even to salute him, since from some of them the honours had been taken, from others their property, and all alike were menaced. The superb edifices which he had commenced were abandoned by the builders; the benefits which had been heaped upon him in the past were changed into injuries, honours into insults. Many of those who had freely given him something of great value, now demanded it back from him as having been merely lent, and those others, who had been wont to praise him to the skies, now blamed him for an ungrateful and violent man. Wherefore too late did he repent that he had not trusted Niccolò Soderini, and sought rather to die with honour with arms in hand, than live on in dishonour among his victorious enemies." In 1549 the unfinished palace was sold by Luca Pitti's descendants to Eleonora of Toledo, Duke Cosimo's wife, and it was finished by Ammanati during the latter half of the sixteenth century; the wings are a later addition. The whole building, with its huge dimensions and boldly rusticated masonry, is one of the most monumental and grandiose of European palaces. It was first the residence of the Medicean Grand Dukes, then of their Austrian successors, and is now one of the royal palaces of the King of Italy. In one of the royal apartments there is a famous picture of Botticelli's, Pallas taming a Centaur, which probably refers to the return of Lorenzo the Magnificent to Florence after his diplomatic victory over the King of Naples and the League, in 1480. The beautiful and stately Medicean Pallas is wreathed all over with olive branches; her mantle is green, like that of Dante's Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise; her white dress is copiously besprinkled with Lorenzo's crest, the three rings. The Centaur himself is splendidly conceived and realised--a characteristic Botticellian modification of those terrible beings who hunt the damned souls of tyrants and robbers through the river of blood in Dante's Hell. Opposite the Pallas there is a small tondo, in which the Madonna and four Angels are adoring the divine Child in a garden of roses and wild strawberries. The latter was discovered in 1899 and ascribed to Botticelli, but appears to be only a school piece. The great glory of the Pitti Palace is its picture gallery, a magnificent array of masterpieces, hung in sumptuously decorated rooms with allegorical ceiling-paintings in the overblown and superficial style of the artists of the decadence--Pietro da Cortona and others of his kind:-- "Both in Florence and in Rome The elder race so make themselves at home That scarce we give a glance to ceilingfuls Of such like as Francesco." So Robert Browning writes of one of Pietro's pupils. The Quattrocento is, with a few noteworthy exceptions, scarcely represented; but no collection is richer in the works of the great Italians of the Cinquecento at the culmination of the Renaissance. We can here, as in the Uffizi, merely indicate the more important pictures in each room. At the top of the staircase is a marble fountain ascribed to Donatello. The names of the rooms are usually derived from the subjects painted on the ceilings; we take the six principal saloons first. In the _Sala dell' Iliade_. First, the three masterpieces of this room. Fra Bartolommeo's great altar-piece painted in 1512 for San Marco (208), representing Madonna and Child surrounded by Saints, with a group of Dominicans attending upon the mystic marriage of St. Catherine of Siena, is a splendid picture, but darkened and injured; the two _putti_, making melody at the foot of Madonna's throne, are quite Venetian in character. Titian's Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici (201) is one of the master's grandest portraits; the Cardinal is represented in Hungarian military costume. Ippolito, like his reputed father the younger Giuliano, was one of the more respectable members of the elder branch of the Medici; he was brought up with Alessandro, but the two youths hated each other mortally from their boyhood. Young and handsome, cultured and lavishly generous, Ippolito was exceedingly popular and ambitious, and felt bitterly the injustice of Pope Clement in making Alessandro lord of Florence instead of him. Clement conferred an archbishopric and other things upon him, but could by no means keep him quiet. "Aspiring to temporal greatness," writes Varchi, "and having set his heart upon things of war rather than affairs of the Church, he hardly knew himself what he wanted, and was never content." The Pope, towards whom Ippolito openly showed his contempt, complained that he could not exert any control over so eccentric and headstrong a character, _un cervello eteroclito e così balzano_. After the Pope's death, the Cardinal intrigued with the Florentine exiles in order to supplant Alessandro, upon which the Duke had him poisoned in 1535, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Titian painted him in 1533. The famous Concert (185), representing a passionate-faced monk of the Augustinian order at the harpsichord, while an older and more prosaic ecclesiastic stands behind him with a viol, and a youthful worldling half carelessly listens, was formerly taken as the standard of Giorgione's work; it is now usually regarded as an early Titian. Although much damaged and repainted, it remains one of the most beautiful of Venetian painted lyrics. Andrea del Sarto's two Assumptions, one (225) painted before 1526 for a church at Cortona, the other (191) left unfinished in 1531, show the artist ineffectually striving after the sublime, and helplessly pulled down to earth by the draperies of the Apostles round the tomb. Of smaller works should be noticed: an early Titian, the Saviour (228); two portraits by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (224, 207), of which the latter, a goldsmith, has been ascribed to Leonardo; a lady known as _La Gravida_ (229), probably by Raphael early in his Florentine period; Daniele Barbaro by Paolo Veronese (216); Titian's Philip II. of Spain (200); a male portrait by Andrea del Sarto (184), said, with little plausibility, to represent himself; a Holy Family (235) by Rubens. In the _Sala di Saturno_. Here are some of the choicest pictures in the collection, including a whole series of Raphael's. Raphael's Madonna del Gran Duca (178)--so called from its modern purchaser, Ferdinand III.--was painted in 1504 or 1505, either before leaving Urbino or shortly after his arrival in Florence; it is the sweetest and most purely devotional of all his Madonnas. Morelli points out that it is strongly reminiscent of Raphael's first master, Timoteo Viti. The portraits of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Doni (61 and 59) also belong to the beginning of Raphael's Florentine epoch, about 1505 or 1506, and show how much he felt the influence of Leonardo; Angelo Doni, it will be remembered, was the parsimonious merchant for whom Michelangelo painted the Madonna of the Tribuna. The Madonna del Baldacchino (165) was commenced by Raphael in 1508, the last picture of his Florentine period, ordered by the Dei for Santo Spirito; it shows the influence of Fra Bartolommeo in its composition, and was left unfinished when Pope Julius summoned the painter to Rome; in its present state, there is hardly anything of Raphael's about it. The beautiful Madonna della Seggiola (151) is a work of Raphael's Roman period, painted in 1513 or 1514. The Vision of Ezekiel (174) is slightly later, painted in 1517 or thereabout, and shows that Raphael had felt the influence of Michelangelo; one of the smallest and most sublime of all his pictures; the landscape is less conventional than we often see in his later works. Neither of the two portraits ascribed to Raphael in this room (171, 158) can any longer be accepted as a genuine work of the master. Andrea del Sarto and Fra Bartolommeo are likewise represented by masterpieces. The Friar's Risen Christ with Four Evangelists (159), beneath whom two beautiful _putti_ hold the orb of the world, was painted in 1516, the year before the painter's death; it is one of the noblest and most divine representations of the Saviour in the whole history of art. Andrea's so-called _Disputa_ (172), in which a group of Saints is discussing the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, painted in 1518, is as superbly coloured as any of the greatest Venetian triumphs; the Magdalene is again the painter's own wife. Perugino's Deposition from the Cross (164), painted in 1495, shows the great Umbrian also at his best. Among the minor pictures in this room may be noted a pretty little trifle of the school of Raphael, so often copied, Apollo and the Muses (167), questionably ascribed to Giulio Romano; and a Nymph pursued by a Satyr (147), supposed by Morelli to be by Giorgione, now assigned to Dosso Dossi of Ferrara. In the _Sala di Giove_. The treasure of this room is the _Velata_ (245), Raphael's own portrait of the woman that he loved, to whom he wrote his sonnets, and whom he afterwards idealised as the Madonna di San Sisto; her personality remains a mystery. Titian's _Bella_ (18), a rather stolid rejuvenation of Eleonora Gonzaga, is chiefly valuable for its magnificent representation of a wonderful Venetian costume. Here are three works of Andrea del Sarto--the Annunciation (124), the Madonna in Glory, with four Saints (123), and St John the Baptist (272); the first is one of his most beautiful paintings. The picture supposed to represent Andrea and his wife (118) is not by the master himself. Bartolommeo's St Mark (125) was painted by him in 1514, to show that he could do large figures, whereas he had been told that he had a _maniera minuta_; it is not altogether successful. His Deposition from the Cross (64) is one of his latest and most earnest religious works. The Three Fates (113) by Rosso Fiorentino is an undeniably powerful and impressive picture; it was formerly ascribed to Michelangelo. The Three Ages (110), ascribed to Lorenzo Lotto here, was by Morelli attributed to Giorgione, and is now assigned by highly competent critics to a certain Morto da Feltre, of whom little is known save that he is said to have been Giorgione's successful rival for the favours of a ripe Venetian beauty; the picture itself, though injured by restoration, belongs to the same category as the Concert. "In such favourite incidents of Giorgione's school," writes Walter Pater, "music or music-like intervals in our existence, life itself is conceived as a sort of listening--listening to music, to the reading of Bandello's novels, to the sound of water, to time as it flies." In the _Sala di Marte_. The most important pictures of this room are: Titian's portrait of a young man with a glove (92); the Holy Family, called of the _Impannata_ or "covered window" (94), a work of Raphael's Roman period, painted by his scholars, perhaps by Giulio Romano; Cristofano Allori's Judith (96), a splendid and justly celebrated picture, showing what exceedingly fine works could be produced by Florentines even in the decadence (Allori died in 1621); Andrea del Sarto's scenes from the history of Joseph (87, 88), panels for cassoni or bridal chests, painted for the marriage of Francesco Borgherini and Margherita Acciaiuoli; a Rubens, the so-called Four Philosophers (85), representing himself with his brother, and the scholars Lipsius and Grotius; Andrea del Sarto's Holy Family (81), one of his last works, painted in 1529 for Ottaviano dei Medici and said to have been finished during the siege; Van Dyck's Cardinal Giulio Bentivoglio (82). It is uncertain whether this Julius II. (79) or that in the Tribuna of the Uffizi is Raphael's original, but the present picture appears to be the favourite; both are magnificent portraits of this terrible old warrior pontiff, who, for all his fierceness, was the noblest and most enlightened patron that Raphael and Michelangelo had. It was probably at his bidding that Raphael painted Savonarola among the Church's doctors and theologians in the Vatican. In the _Sala di Apollo_ and _Sala di Venere_. Here, first of all, is Raphael's celebrated portrait of Pope Julius' unworthy successor, Leo X. (40), the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent; on the left--that is, the Pope's right hand--is the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII.; behind the chair is the Cardinal Luigi dei Rossi, the descendant of a daughter of Piero il Gottoso. One of Raphael's most consummate works. Andrea del Sarto's Pietà (58) was painted in 1523 or 1524 for a convent of nuns in the Mugello, whither Andrea had taken his wife and household while the plague raged in Florence; it is one of his finest works. Titian's Magdalene (67) has been called by Ruskin a "disgusting" picture; as a pseudo-religious work, it would be hard to find anything more offensive; but it has undeniably great technical qualities. His Pietro Aretino (54), on the other hand, is a noble portrait of an infamous blackguard. Noteworthy are also Andrea del Sarto's portrait (66), apparently one of his many representations of himself, and Murillo's Mother and Child (63). In the _Sala di Venere_, are a superb landscape by Rubens (14), sometimes called the Hay Harvest and sometimes the Return of the Contadini; also a fine female portrait, wrongly ascribed to Leonardo (140); the Triumph of David by Matteo Rosselli (13). It should be observed that the gems of the collection are frequently shifted from room to room for the benefit of the copyist. The _Sala dell' Educazione di Giove_ and following rooms. A series of smaller rooms, no less gorgeously decorated, adjoins the Sala dell' Iliade. In the _Sala dell' Educazione di Giove_ are: Fra Bartolommeo's Holy Family with St. Elizabeth (256), over the door; the Zingarella or Gipsy Girl (246), a charming little idyllic picture by Boccaccino of Cremona, formerly ascribed to Garofalo; Philip IV. of Spain (243) by Velasquez. Carlo Dolci's St Andrew (266) is above his usual level; but it is rather hard to understand how Guido Reni's Cleopatra (270) could ever be admired. In the _Sala di Prometeo_ are some earlier paintings; but those ascribed to Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Ghirlandaio are merely school-pieces. Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child with the Pomegranate (343) is a genuine and excellent work; in the background are seen the meeting of Joachim and Anne, with the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. Crowe and Cavalcasella observe that "this group of the Virgin and Child reminds one forcibly of those by Donatello or Desiderio da Settignano," and it shows how much the painters of the Quattrocento were influenced by the sculptors; the Madonna's face, for no obvious reason, is said to be that of Lucrezia Buti, the girl whom Lippo carried off from a convent at Prato. A curious little allegory (336) is ascribed by Morelli to Filippino Lippi. We should also notice the beautiful Madonna with Angels adoring the Divine Child in a rose garden (347), a characteristic Florentine work of the latter part of the Quattrocento, once erroneously ascribed to Filippino Lippi; an Ecce Homo in fresco by Fra Bartolommeo (377); a Holy Family by Mariotto Albertinelli (365); and a tondo by Luca Signorelli (355), in which St. Catherine is apparently writing at the dictation of the Divine Child. But the two gems of this room are the head of a Saint (370) and the portrait of a man in red dress and hat (375) by one of the earlier painters of the Quattrocento, probably Domenico Veneziano; "perhaps," writes Mr Berenson, "the first great achievements in this kind of the Renaissance." Here, too, is a fine portrait by Lorenzo Costa (376) of Giovanni Bentivoglio. In the _Sala del Poccetti_, _Sala della Giustizia_, _Sala di Flora_, _Sala dei Putti_, the pictures are, for the most part, unimportant. The so-called portrait of the _bella Simonetta_, the innamorata of Giuliano dei Medici (353), is not authentic and should not be ascribed to Sandro Botticelli. There are some fairly good portraits; a Titian (495), a Sebastiano del Piombo (409), Duke Cosimo I. by Bronzino (403), Oliver Cromwell by Lely (408). Calumny by Francia Bigio (427) is curious as a later rendering of a theme that attracted the greatest masters of the Quattrocento (Botticelli, Mantegna, Luca Signorelli all tried it). Lovers of Browning will be glad to have their attention called to the Judith of Artemisia Gentileschi (444): "a wonder of a woman painting too." A passage leads down two flights of steps, with occasional glimpses of the Boboli Gardens, through corridors of Medicean portraits, Florentine celebrities, old pictures of processions in piazza, and the like. Then over the Ponte Vecchio, with views of the Arno on either hand as we cross, to the Uffizi. * * * * * Behind the Pitti Palace are the delicious Boboli Gardens, commenced for Duke Cosimo I., with shady walks and exquisitely framed views of Florence. In a grotto near the entrance are four unfinished statues by Michelangelo; they are usually supposed to have been intended for the tomb of Julius II., but may possibly have been connected with the projected façade of San Lorenzo. Nearly opposite the Palazzo Pitti is the Casa Guidi, where the Brownings lived and wrote. Here Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in June 1861, she who "made of her verse a golden ring linking England to Italy"; these were the famous "Casa Guidi windows" from which she watched the liberation and unification of Italy:-- "I heard last night a little child go singing 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, _O bella libertà, O bella!_--stringing The same words still on notes he went in search So high for, you concluded the upspringing Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green, And that the heart of Italy must beat, While such a voice had leave to rise serene 'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street." The church in question, San Felice, contains a good picture of St. Anthony, St. Rock and St. Catherine by some follower of Botticelli and Filippino Lippi; also a Crucifixion of the school of Giotto. Thence the Via Mazzetta leads into the Piazza Santo Spirito, at the corner of which is the Palazzo Guadagni, built by Cronaca at the end of the Quattrocento; with fine iron work, lantern holders and the like, on the exterior. The present church of Santo Spirito--the finest Early Renaissance church in Florence--was built between 1471 and 1487, after Brunelleschi's designs, to replace his earlier building which had been burned down in 1471 on the occasion of the visit of Galeazzo Maria Sforza to Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother. It is a fine example of Brunelleschi's adaptation of the early basilican type, is borne upon graceful Corinthian columns and nobly proportioned. The octagonal sacristy is by Giuliano da San Gallo and Cronaca, finished in 1497, and the campanile by Baccio d'Agnolo at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The stained glass window over the entrance was designed by Perugino. In the right transept is an excellent picture by Filippino Lippi; Madonna and Child with the little St. John, St. Catherine and St. Nicholas, with the donor, Tanai de' Nerli, and his wife. Also in the right transept is the tomb of the Capponi; Gino, the conqueror of Pisa and historian of the Ciompi; Neri, the conqueror of the Casentino; and that great republican soldier and hero, Piero Capponi, who had saved Florence from Charles of France and fell in the Pisan war. The vision of St. Bernard is an old copy from Perugino. None of the other pictures in the church are more than school pieces; there are two in the left transept ascribed to Filippino's disappointing pupil, Raffaellino del Garbo--the Trinità with St. Mary of Egypt and St. Catherine, and the Madonna with Sts. Lawrence, Stephen, John and Bernard. The latter picture is by Raffaellino di Carlo. During the last quarter of the fourteenth century the convent of Santo Spirito--which is an Augustinian house--was the centre of a circle of scholars, who represent an epoch intermediate between the great writers of the Trecento and the humanists of the early Quattrocento. Prominent among them was Coluccio Salutati, who for many years served the Republic as Chancellor and died in 1406. He was influential in founding the first chair of Greek, and his letters on behalf of Florence were so eloquent and powerful that the "great viper," Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, declared that he dreaded one of them more than many swords. Also Filippo Villani, the nephew of the great chroniclers, Giovanni and Matteo, who had succeeded Boccaccio as lecturer on Dante. They met here with other kindred spirits in the cell of Fra Luigi Marsili, a learned monk and impassioned worshipper of Petrarch, upon whose great crusading canzone--_O aspettata in ciel, beata e bella_--he wrote a commentary which is still extant. Fra Luigi died in 1394. A century later, the monks of this convent took a violent part in opposition to Savonarola; and it was here, in the pulpit of the choir of the church, that Landucci tells us that he heard the bull of excommunication read "by a Fra Leonardo, their preacher, and an adversary of the said Fra Girolamo,"--"between two lighted torches and many friars," as he rather quaintly puts it. "The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up," says Browning's Lippo Lippi to his captors; and the Via Mazzetta and the Via Santa Monaca will take us to it. This church of the Carmelites, Santa Maria del Carmine, was consecrated in 1422; and, almost immediately after, the mighty series of frescoes was begun in the Brancacci Chapel at the end of the right transept--frescoes which were to become the school for all future painting. In the eighteenth century the greater part of the church was destroyed by fire, but this chapel was spared by the flames, and the frescoes, though terribly damaged and grievously restored, still remain on its walls. This Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine plays the same part in the history of painting as the bronze gates of the Baptistery in that of sculpture. It was in that same eventful year, 1401, of the famous competition between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, that the new Giotto was born--Tommaso, the son of a notary in Castello San Giovanni di Valdarno. With him, as we saw in chapter iii., the second great epoch of Italian painting, the Quattrocento, or Epoch of Character, opens. His was a rare and piquant personality; _persona astrattissima e molto a caso_, says Vasari, "an absent-minded fellow and very casual." Intent upon his art, he took no care of himself and thought nothing of the ordinary needs and affairs of the world, though always ready to do others a good turn. From his general negligence and untidiness, he was nicknamed _Masaccio_--"hulking Tom"--which has become one of the most honourable names in the history of art. The little chapel in which we now stand and survey his handiwork, or what remains of it, is nothing less than the birthplace of modern painting. Sculpture had indeed preceded painting in its return to nature and in its direct study of the human form, and the influence of Donatello lies as strongly over all the painters of the Quattrocento. Vasari even states that Masolino da Panicale (Masolino = "dear little Tom"), Masaccio's master, had been one of Ghiberti's assistants in the casting of the bronze gates, but this is questionable; it is possible that he had been Ghiberti's pupil, though he learned the principles of painting from Gherardo Starnina, one of the last artists of the Trecento. It was shortly after 1422 that Masolino commenced this great series of frescoes setting forth the life of St. Peter; within the next few years Masaccio continued his work; and, more than half a century later, in 1484, Filippino Lippi took it up where Masaccio had left off, and completed the series. Masolino's contribution to the whole appears to be confined to three pictures: St. Peter preaching, with Carmelites in the background to carry his doctrines into fifteenth century Florence, on the left of the window; the upper row of scenes on the right wall, representing St. Peter and St. John raising the cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and the healing of Tabitha (according to others, the resuscitation of Petronilla); and the narrow fresco of the Fall of Adam and Eve, on the right of the entrance. Some have also ascribed to him the striking figure of St. Peter enthroned, attended by Carmelites, while the faithful approach to kiss his feet--the picture in the corner on the left which, in a way, sets the keynote to the whole--but it is more probably the work of Masaccio (others ascribe it to Filippino). Admirable though these paintings are, they exhibit a certain immaturity as contrasted with those by Masaccio: in the Raising of Tabitha, for instance, those two youths with their odd headgear might almost have stepped out of some Giottesque fresco; and the rendering of the nude in the Adam and Eve, though wonderful at that epoch, is much inferior to Masaccio's opposite. Nevertheless, Masolino's grave and dignified figures introduced the type that Masaccio was soon to render perfect. From the hand of Masaccio are the Expulsion from Paradise; the Tribute Money; the Raising of the Dead Youth (in part); and (probably) the St. Peter enthroned, on the left wall; St. Peter and St. John healing the sick with their shadow, under Masolino's Peter preaching (and the figure behind with a red cap, leaning on a stick, is Masaccio's pious portrait of his master Masolino himself); St. Peter baptising, St. Peter and St. John giving alms, on the opposite side of the window. Each figure is admirably rendered, its character perfectly realised; Masaccio may indeed be said to have completed what Giotto had begun, and freed Italian art from the mannerism of the later followers of Giotto, even as Giotto himself had delivered her from Byzantine formalism. "After Giotto," writes Leonardo da Vinci, "the art of painting declined again, because every one imitated the pictures that were already done; thus it went on from century to century until Tommaso of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by his perfect works how those who take for their standard any one but Nature--the mistress of all masters--weary themselves in vain."[54] This return to nature is seen even in the landscape, notably in the noble background to the Tribute Money; but above all, in his study of man and the human form. "For the first time," says Kugler, "his aim is the study of form for itself, the study of the external conformation of man. With such an aim is identified a feeling which, in beauty, sees and preserves the expression of proportion; and in repose or motion, the expression of an harmonious development of the powers of the human frame." For sheer dignity and grandeur there is nothing to compare with it, till we come to the work of Raphael and Michelangelo in the Vatican; the composition of the Tribute Money and the Healing of the Sick initiated the method of religious illustration that reached its ultimate perfection in Raphael--what has been called giving Greek form to Hebrew thought. The treatment of the nude especially seemed a novel thing in its day; the wonderful modelling of the naked youth shivering with the cold, in the scene of St. Peter baptising, was hailed as a marvel of art, and is cited by Vasari as one of the _cose rarissime_ of painting. In the scene of the Tribute Money, the last Apostle on our right (in the central picture where our Lord and His disciples are confronted by the eager collector) whose proud bearing is hardly evangelical, is Masaccio himself, with scanty beard and untidy hair. Although less excellent than the Baptism as a study of the nude, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden is a masterpiece of which it is impossible to speak too highly. Our _primi parenti_, weighed down with the consciousness of ineffable tragedy, are impelled irresistibly onward by divine destiny; they need not see the Angel in his flaming robe on his cloud of fire, with his flashing sword and out-stretched hand; terrible in his beauty as he is to the spectator, he is as nothing to them, compared with the face of an offended God and the knowledge of the _tanto esilio_. Surely this is how Dante himself would have conceived the scene. [54] In Richter's _Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci_. Leonardo rather too sweepingly ignores the fact that there were a few excellent masters between the two. Masaccio died at Rome in 1428, aged twenty-seven years. In his short life he had set modern painting on her triumphant progress, and his frescoes became the school for all subsequent painters, "All in short," says Vasari, "who have sought to acquire their art in its perfection, have constantly repaired to study it in this chapel, there imbibing the precepts and rules necessary to be followed for the command of success, and learning to labour effectually from the figures of Masaccio." If he is to rank among "the inheritors of unfulfilled renown," Masaccio may be said to stand towards Raphael as Keats towards Tennyson. Masolino outlived his great pupil for several years, and died about 1435. The fresco of the Raising up of the dead Youth, left unfinished by Masaccio when he left Florence for Rome, was completed by Filippino Lippi (the son of that run-a-way Carmelite in whom the spirit of Masaccio was said to have lived again), in 1484. The five figures on the left appear to be from Filippino's hand (the second from the end is said to be Luigi Pulci, the poet), as also the resuscitated boy (said to be Francesco Granacci the painter, who was then about fifteen years old) and the group of eight on the right. Under Masaccio's Adam and Eve, he painted St. Paul visiting St. Peter in prison; under Masolino's Fall, the Liberation of Peter by the Angel, two exceedingly beautiful and simple compositions. And, on the right wall of the chapel, St. Peter and St. Paul before the Proconsul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter are also by Filippino. In the Crucifixion scene, which is inferior to the rest, the last of the three spectators on our right, wearing a black cap, is Filippino's master, Sandro Botticelli. In the presence of the Proconsul, the elderly man with a keen face, in a red cap to the right of the judge, is Antonio Pollaiuolo; and, on our right, the youth whose head appears in the corner is certainly Filippino himself--a kind of signature to the whole. Apart from the Brancacci chapel, the interest of the Carmine is mainly confined to the tomb of the noble and simple-hearted ex-Gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini (who died in 1513), in the choir; it was originally by Benedetto da Rovezzano, but has been restored. There are frescoes in the sacristy, representing the life of St. Cecilia, by one of Giotto's later followers, possibly Spinello Aretino, and, in the cloisters, a noteworthy Madonna of the same school, ascribed to Giovanni da Milano. Beyond the Carmine, westwards, is the Borgo San Frediano, now, as in olden time, the poorest part of Florence. It was the ringing of the bell of the Carmine that gave the signal for the rising of the Ciompi in 1378. Unlike their neighbours, the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, the good fathers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were for the most part ardent followers of Savonarola, and, on the first of October 1497, one of them preached an open-air sermon near the Porta San Frediano, in which he declared that he himself had had a special revelation from God on the subject of Fra Girolamo's sanctity, and that all who resisted the Friar would be horribly punished; even Landucci admits that he talked arrant nonsense, _pazzie_. The parish church of this district, San Frediano in Cestello, is quite uninteresting. At the end of the Via San Frediano is the great Porta San Frediano, of which more presently. The gates and walls of Oltrarno were built between 1324 and 1327, in the days of the Republic's great struggle with Castruccio Interminelli. Unlike those on the northern bank, they are still in part standing. There are five gates on this side of the river--the Porta San Niccolò, the Porta San Miniato, the Porta San Giorgio, the Porta Romana or Por San Piero Gattolino, and the Porta San Frediano. It was all round this part of the city that the imperial army lay during the siege of 1529 and 1530. On the east of the city, on the banks of the Arno, rises first the Porta San Niccolò--mutilated and isolated, but the only one of the gates that has retained a remnant of its ancient height and dignity. In a lunette on the inner side is a fresco of 1357--Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Prophets. Around are carved the lilies of the Commune. On the side facing the hill are the arms of the Parte Guelfa and of the People, with the lily of the Commune between them. Within the gate the Borgo San Niccolò leads to the church of San Niccolò, which contains a picture by Neri di Bicci and one of the Pollaiuoli, and four saints ascribed to Gentile da Fabriano. It is one of the oldest Florentine churches, though not interesting in its present state. There is an altogether untrustworthy tradition that Michelangelo was sheltered in the tower of this church after the capitulation of the city, but he seems to have been more probably in the house of a trusted friend. Pope Clement ordered that he should be sought for, but left at liberty and treated with all courtesy if he agreed to go on working at the Medicean monuments in San Lorenzo; and, hearing this, the sculptor came out from his hiding place. It may be observed that San Niccolò was a most improbable place for him to have sought refuge in, as Malatesta Baglioni had his headquarters close by. Beyond the Porta San Niccolò is the Piano di Ripoli, where the Prince of Orange had his headquarters. Before his exile Dante possessed some land here. It was here that the first Dominican house was established in Tuscany under St Dominic's companion, Blessed John of Salerno. Up beyond the terminus of the tramway a splendid view of Florence can be obtained. Near the Porta San Niccolò the long flight of stairs mounts up the hill of _San Francesco e San Miniato_, which commands the city from the south-east, to the Piazzale Michelangelo just below the church. A long and exceedingly beautiful drive leads also to this Piazzale from the Porta Romana--the Viale dei Colli--and passes down again to the Barriera San Niccolò by the Viale Michelangelo. This Viale dei Colli, at least, is one of those few works which even those folk who make a point of sneering at everything done in Florence since the unification of Italy are constrained to admire. It would seem that even in the thirteenth century there were steps of some kind constructed up the hill-side to the church. In that passage from the _Purgatorio_ (canto xii.) which I have put at the head of this chapter, Dante compares the ascent from the first to the second circle of Purgatory to this climb: "As on the right hand, to mount the hill where stands the church which overhangs the well-guided city, above Rubaconte, the bold abruptness of the ascent is broken by the steps that were made in the age when the ledger and the stave were safe."[55] [55] The ledger and the stave (_il quaderno e la doga_): "In 1299 Messer Niccola Acciaiuoli and Messer Baldo d' Aguglione abstracted from the public records a leaf containing the evidence of a disreputable transaction, in which they, together with the Podestà, had been engaged. At about the same time Messer Durante de' Chiaramontesi, being officer of the customs for salt, took away a stave (_doga_) from the standard measure, thus making it smaller."--_A. J. Butler._ The Piazzale, adorned with bronze copies of Michelangelo's great statues, commands one of the grandest views of Florence, with the valley of the Arno and the mountains round, that "in silence listen for the word said next," as Mrs Browning has it. Up beyond is the exceedingly graceful Franciscan church of San Salvadore al Monte--"the purest vessel of Franciscan simplicity," a modern Italian poet has called it--built by Cronaca in the last years of the fifteenth century. It contains a few works by Giovanni della Robbia. It was as he descended this hill with a few armed followers that Giovanni Gualberto met and pardoned the murderer of his brother; a small chapel or tabernacle, on the way up from the convent to San Miniato, still marks the spot, but the Crucifix which is said to have bowed down its head towards him is now preserved in Santa Trinità. [Illustration: THE FORTIFICATIONS OF MICHELANGELO] This Monte di San Francesco e di San Miniato overlooks the whole city, and Florence lay at the mercy of whoever got possession of it. Varchi in his history apologises for those architects who built the walls of the city by reminding us that, in their days, artillery was not even dreamed of, much less invented. Michelangelo armed the campanile of San Miniato, against which the fiercest fire of the imperialists was directed, and erected bastions covering the hill, enclosing it, as it were, within the walls up from the Porta San Miniato and down again to the Porta San Niccolò. It was intrusted to the guard of Stefano Colonna, who finally joined Malatesta Baglioni in betraying the city. Some bits of Michelangelo's work remain near the Basilica, which itself is one of the most venerable edifices of the kind in Tuscany; the earliest Florentine Christians are said to have met here in the woods, during the reign of Nero, and here Saint Miniatus, according to tradition the son of an Armenian king, lived in his hermitage until martyred by Decius outside the present Porta alla Croce. In the days of Gregory the Great, San Frediano of Lucca came every year with his clergy to worship the relics of Miniatus; a basilica already stood here in the time of Charlemagne; and the present edifice is said to have been begun in 1013 by the Bishop Alibrando, with the aid of the Emperor St Henry and his wife Cunegunda. It was held by the Benedictines, first the black monks and then the Olivetans who took it over from Gregory XI. in 1373. The new Bishops of Florence, the first time they set foot out of the city, came here to sing Mass. In 1553 the monastery was suppressed by Duke Cosimo I., and turned into a fortress. San Miniato al Monte is one of the earliest and one of the finest examples of the Tuscan Romanesque style of architecture. Both interior and exterior are adorned with inlaid coloured marble, of simple design, and the fine "nearly classical" pillars within are probably taken from some ancient Roman building. Fergusson remarks that, but for the rather faulty construction of the façade, "it would be difficult to find a church in Italy containing more of classical elegance, with perfect appropriateness for the purposes of Christian worship." In the crypt beneath the altar is the tomb of San Miniato and others of the Decian martyrs. The great mosaic on the upper part of the apse was originally executed at the end of the thirteenth century. The Early Renaissance chapel in the nave was constructed by Michelozzo in 1448 for Piero dei Medici, to contain Giovanni Gualberto's miraculous Crucifix. In the left aisle is the Cappella di San Jacopo with the monument of the Cardinal James of Portugal, who "lived in the flesh as if he were freed from it, like an Angel rather than a man, and died in the odour of sanctity at the early age of twenty-six," in 1459. This tomb by Antonio Rossellino is the third of the "three finest Renaissance tombs in Tuscany," the other two being those of Leonardo Bruni (1444) by Antonio's brother Bernardo, and Carlo Marsuppini by Desiderio (1453), both of which we have seen in Santa Croce. Mr Perkins observes that the present tomb preserves the golden mean in point of ornament between the other two. The Madonna and Child with the Angels, watching over the young Cardinal's repose, are especially beautiful. The Virtues on the ceiling are by Luca della Robbia, and the Annunciation opposite the tomb by Alessio Baldovinetti. The Gothic sacristy was built for one of the great Alberti family, Benedetto di Nerozzo, in 1387, and decorated shortly after with a splendid series of frescoes by Spinello Aretino, setting forth the life of St. Benedict. These are Spinello's noblest works and the last great creation of the genuine school of Giotto. Especially fine are the scenes with the Gothic king Totila, and the death and apotheosis of the Saint, which latter may be compared with Giotto's St. Francis in Santa Croce. The whole is like a painted chapter of St. Gregory's Dialogues. [Illustration: PORTA SAN GIORGIO] The Porta San Miniato, below the hill, almost at the foot of the Basilica, is little more than a gap in the wall. On both sides are the arms of the Commune and the People, the Cross of the latter outside the lily of the former. Upwards from the Porta San Miniato to the Porta San Giorgio a glorious bit of the old wall remains, clad inside and out with olives, running up the hillside of San Giorgio; even some remnants of the old towers are standing, two indeed having been only partially demolished. Beneath the former Medicean fortress and upper citadel of Belvedere stands the Porta San Giorgio. This, although small, is the most picturesque of all the gates of Florence. On its outer side is a spirited bas-relief of St. George and the Dragon in stone--of the end of the fourteenth century--over the lily of the Commune; in the lunette, on the inner side, is a fresco painted in 1330--probably by Bernardo Daddi--of Santa Maria del Fiore enthroned with the Divine Babe between St. George and St. Leonard. This was the only gate held by the nobles in the great struggle of 1343, when the banners of the people were carried across the bridge in triumph, and the Bardi and Frescobaldi fought from street to street; through it the magnates had secretly brought in banditti and retainers from the country, and through it some of the Bardi fled when the people swept down upon their palaces. Inside the gate the steep Via della Costa San Giorgio winds down past Galileo's house to Santa Felicità. Outside the gate the Via San Leonardo leads, between olive groves and vineyards, into the Viale dei Colli. In the curious little church of San Leonardo in Arcetri, on the left, is an old _ambone_ or pulpit from the demolished church of San Piero Scheraggio, with ancient bas-reliefs. This pulpit is traditionally supposed to have been a part of the spoils in the destruction of Fiesole; it appears to belong to the latter part of the twelfth century. The great Porta Romana, or Porta San Piero Gattolino, was originally erected in 1328; it is still of imposing dimensions, though its immediate surroundings are somewhat prosaic. Many a Pope and Emperor has passed through here, to or from the eternal city; the marble tablets on either side record the entrance of Leo X. in 1515, on his way from Rome to Bologna to meet Francis I. of France, and of Charles V. in 1536 to confirm the infamous Duke Alessandro on the throne--a confirmation which the dagger of Lorenzino happily annulled in the following year. It was here that Pope Leo's brother, Piero dei Medici, had made his unsuccessful attempt to surprise the city on April 28th 1497, with some thousand men or more, horse and foot. A countryman at daybreak had seen them resting and breakfasting on the way, some few miles from the city; by taking short cuts over the country, he evaded their scouts who were intercepting all persons passing northwards, and reached Florence with the news just at the morning opening of the gate. The result was that the Magnifico Piero and his braves found it closed in their faces and the forces of the Signoria guarding the walls, so, after ignominiously skulking for a few hours out of range of the artillery, they fled back towards Siena. Near the Porta Romana the Viale dei Colli commences to the left, as the Viale Machiavelli; and, straight on, the beautifully shady Stradone del Poggio Imperiale runs up to the villa of that name, built for Maria Maddalena of Austria in 1622. The statues at the beginning of the road were once saints on the second façade of the Duomo. It was on the rising ground that divides the Strada Romana from the present Stradone that the famous convent of Monticelli stood, recorded in Dante's _Paradiso_ and Petrarca's _Trionfo della Pudicizia_, in which Piccarda Donati took the habit of St. Clare, and from which she was dragged by her brother Corso to marry Rossellino della Tosa:-- "Perfetta vita ed alto merto inciela donna più su, mi disse, alla cui norma nel vostro mondo giù si veste e vela, perchè in fino al morir si vegghi e dorma con quello sposo ch'ogni voto accetta, che caritate a suo piacer conforma. Dal mondo, per seguirla, giovinetta fuggi'mi, e nel suo abito mi chiusi, e promisi la via della sua setta. Uomini poi, a mal più ch'al bene usi, fuor mi rapiron della dolce chiostra; e Dio si sa qual poi mia vita fusi."[56] [56] "Perfected life and high desert enheaveneth a lady more aloft," she said, "by whose rule down in your world there are who clothe and veil themselves, That they, even till death, may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepteth every vow that love hath made conform with his good pleasure. From the world, to follow her, I fled while yet a girl, and in her habit I enclosed myself, and promised the way of her company. Thereafter men more used to ill than good tore me away from the sweet cloister; and God doth know what my life then became."--_Paradiso_ iii. Wicksteed's translation. It was at Poggio Imperiale, then called the Poggio dei Baroncelli, that a famous combat took place during the early days of the siege, in which Ludovico Martelli and Dante da Castiglione fought two Florentines who were serving in the imperial army, Giovanni Bandini and Bertino Aldobrandini. Both Martelli, the original challenger, and Aldobrandini were mortally wounded. Martelli's real motive in sending the challenge is said to have been that he and Bandini were rivals for the favours of a Florentine lady, Marietta de' Ricci. Among the many beautiful villas and gardens which stud the country beyond Poggio Imperiale, are Galileo's Tower, from which he made his astronomical observations, and the villa in which he was visited by Milton. Near Santa Margherita a Montici, to the east, is the villa in which the articles of capitulation were arranged by the Florentine ambassadors with Ferrante Gonzaga, commander of the Imperial troops, and Baccio Valori, commissary of the Pope. But already Malatesta had opened the Porta Romana and turned his artillery against the city which he had solemnly sworn to defend. Beyond the Porta Romana the road to the right of Poggio Imperiale leads to the valley of the Ema, above which the great Certosa rises on the hill of Montaguto. Shortly before reaching the monastery the Ema is crossed--an insignificant stream in which Cacciaguida (in _Paradiso_ xvi.) rather paradoxically regrets that Buondelmonte was not drowned on his way to Florence: "Joyous had many been who now are sad, had God committed thee unto the Ema the first time that thou camest to the city." The Certosa itself, that "huge battlemented convent-block over the little forky flashing Greve," as Browning calls it, was founded by Niccolò Acciaiuoli, the Florentine Grand Seneschal of Naples, in 1341; it is one of the finest of the later mediæval monasteries. Orcagna is said to have built one of the side chapels of the church, which contains a fine early Giottesque altarpiece; and in a kind of crypt there are noble tombs of the Acciaiuoli--one, the monument of the founder, being possibly by Orcagna, and one of the later ones ascribed (doubtfully) to Donatello. In the chapter-house are a Crucifixion by Mariotto Albertinelli, and the monument of Leonardo Buonafede by Francesco da San Gallo. From the convent and further up the valley, there are beautiful views. About three miles further on is the sanctuary and shrine of the Madonna dell' Impruneta, built for the miraculous image of the Madonna, which was carried down in procession to Florence in times of pestilence and danger. Savonarola especially had placed great faith in the miraculous powers of this image and these processions; and during the siege it remained in Florence ceremoniously guarded in the Duomo, a kind of mystic Palladium. Between the Porta Romana and Porta San Frediano some tracts of the city wall remain, but the whole is painfully prosaic. The Porta San Frediano itself is a massive structure, erected between 1324 and 1327, possibly by Andrea Pisano; it need hardly be repeated that we cannot judge of the original mediæval appearance of the gates of Florence, with their towers and ante-portals, even from the least mutilated of their present remnants. It was through this gate that the Florentine army passed in triumph in 1363 with their long trains of captured Pisans; and here, after Pisa had shaken off for a while the yoke, Charles of France rode in as a conqueror on November 17, 1494, Savonarola's new Cyrus, and was solemnly received at the gate by the Signoria. Within the gate a strip of wall runs down to the river, with two later towers built by Medicean grand dukes. At the end is a chapel built in 1856, and containing a Pietà from the walls of a demolished convent--ascribed without warrant to Domenico Ghirlandaio. It was somewhere near here that S. Frediano, coming from Lucca to pay his annual visit to the shrine of San Miniato, miraculously crossed the Arno in flood. Outside the gate, a little off the Leghorn road to the left, is the suppressed abbey of Monte Oliveto, and beyond it, to the south, the hill of Bellosguardo--both points from which splendid views of Florence and its surroundings are obtained. These dream-like glimpses of the City of Flowers, which every coign of vantage seems to give us round Florence--might we not, sometimes, imagine that we had stumbled unawares upon the Platonic City of the Perfect? There are two lines from one of Dante's canzoni in praise of his mystical lady that rise to our mind at every turn:-- "Io non la vidi tante volte ancora, ch'io non trovassi in lei nuova bellezza," CHAPTER XIII _Conclusion_ The setting of Florence is in every way worthy of the gem which it encloses. On each side of the city and throughout its province beautiful walks and drives lead to churches, villas and villages full of historical interest or enriched with artistic treasures. I can here merely indicate a very few such places. To the north of the city rises Fiesole on its hill, of which the historical connection with Florence has been briefly discussed in chapter i. At its foot stands the Dominican convent, in which Fra Giovanni, whom we know better as the Beato Angelico, took the habit of the order, and in which both his brother, Fra Benedetto, and himself were in turn priors. Savonarola's fellow martyr, Fra Domenico da Pescia, was likewise prior of this house. The church contains a Madonna by Angelico, with the background painted in by Lorenzo di Credi (its exquisitely beautiful predella is now one of the chief ornaments of the National Gallery of London), a Baptism of Christ by Lorenzo di Credi, and an Adoration of the Magi designed by Andrea del Sarto and executed by Sogliani. A little to the left is the famous Badia di Fiesole, originally of the eleventh century, but rebuilt for Cosimo the Elder by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was one of Cosimo's favourite foundations; Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Academy frequently met in the loggia with its beautiful view towards the city. In the church, Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni, was invested with the Cardinalate in 1492; and here, in 1516, his third son, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the best of the Medici, died. On the way up to Fiesole itself is the handsome villa Mozzi, built for Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici by Michelozzo. It was in this villa that the Pazzi had originally intended to murder Lorenzo and the elder Giuliano, but their plan was frustrated by the illness of Giuliano, which prevented his being present. In Fiesole itself, the remains of the Etruscan wall and the old theatre tell of the classical Faesulae; its Tuscan Romanesque Duomo (of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) recalls the days when the city seemed a rival to Florence itself and was the resort of the robber barons, who preyed upon her ever growing commerce. It contains sculptures by Mino da Fiesole and that later Fiesolan, Andrea Ferrucci (to whom we owe the bust of Marsilio Ficino), and a fine terracotta by one of the Della Robbias. From the Franciscan convent, which occupies the site of the old Roman citadel, a superb view of Florence and its valley is obtained. From Fiesole, towards the south-east, we reach Ponte a Mensola (also reached from the Porta alla Croce), the Mensola of Boccaccio's _Ninfale fiesolano_, above which is Settignano, where Desiderio was born and Michelangelo nurtured, and where Boccaccio had a podere. The Villa Poggio Gherardo, below Settignano, shares with the Villa Palmieri below Fiesole the distinction of being traditionally one of those introduced into the _Decameron_. Northwestwards of the Badia of Fiesole runs the road from Florence to Bologna, past the village of Trespiano, some three or four miles from the Porta San Gallo. In the twelfth century Trespiano was the northern boundary of Florentine territory, as Galluzzo--on the way towards the Certosa and about two miles from the Porta Romana--was its southern limit. Cacciaguida, in _Paradiso_ xvi., refers to this as an ideal golden time when the citizenship "saw itself pure even in the lowest artizan." A little way north of Trespiano, on the old Bolognese road, is the Uccellatoio--referred to in canto xv.--the first point from which Florence is visible. Below Trespiano, at La Lastra, rather more than two miles from the city, the exiled Bianchi and Ghibellines, with auxiliaries from Bologna and Arezzo, assembled in that fatal July of 1304. The leaders of the Neri were absent at Perugia, and, at the first sight of the white standards waving from the hill, terror and consternation filled their partisans throughout the city. Had their enterprise been better organised, the exiles would undoubtedly have captured Florence. Seeing that they were discovered, and urged on by their friends within the city, without waiting for the Uberti, whose cavalry was advancing from Pistoia to their support and whose appointed day of coming they had anticipated, Baschiera della Tosa, in spite of the terrible heat, ordered an immediate advance upon the Porta San Gallo. The walls of the third circle were only in part built at that epoch, and those of the second circle still stood with their gates. The exiles, for the most part mounted, drew up round San Marco and the Annunziata, "with white standards spread, with garlands of olive and drawn swords, crying _peace_," writes Dino Compagni, who was in Florence at the time, "without doing violence or plundering anyone. A right goodly sight was it to see them, with the sign of peace thus arrayed. The heat was so great, that it seemed that the very air burned." But their friends within did not stir. They forced the Porta degli Spadai which stood at the head of the present Via dei Martelli, but were repulsed at the Piazza San Giovanni and the Duomo, and the sudden blazing up of a palace in the rear completed their rout. Many fell on the way, simply from the heat, while the Neri, becoming fierce-hearted like lions, as Compagni says, hotly pursued them, hunting out those who had hidden themselves among the vineyards and houses, hanging all they caught. In their flight, a little way from Florence, the exiles met Tolosato degli Uberti hastening up with his Ghibellines to meet them on the appointed day. Tolosato, a fierce captain and experienced in civil war, tried in vain to rally them, and, when all his efforts proved unavailing, returned to Pistoia declaring that the youthful rashness of Baschiera had lost him the city. Dante had taken no part in the affair; he had broken with his fellow exiles in the previous year, and made a party for himself as he tells us in the _Paradiso_. To the west and north-west of Florence are several interesting villas of the Medici. The Villa Medicea in Careggi, the most famous of all, is not always accessible. It is situated in the loveliest country, within a short walk of the tramway station of Ponte a Rifredi. Built originally by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder, it was almost burned down by a band of republican youths shortly before the siege. Here Cosimo died, consoling his last hours with Marsilio Ficino's Platonics; here the elder Piero lived in retirement, too shattered in health to do more than nominally succeed his father at the head of the State. On August 23rd 1466, there was an attempt made to murder Piero as he was carried into Florence from Careggi in his litter. A band of armed men, in the pay of Luca Pitti and Dietisalvi Neroni, lay in wait for the litter on the way to the Porta Faenza; but young Lorenzo, who was riding on in advance of his father's cortège, came across them first, and, without appearing to take any alarm at the meeting, secretly sent back a messenger to bid his father take another way. Under Lorenzo himself, this villa became the centre of the Neo-Platonic movement; and here on November 7th, the day supposed to be the anniversary of Plato's birth and death, the famous banquet was held at which Marsilio Ficino and the chosen spirits of the Academy discussed and expounded the _Symposium_. Here on April 8th 1492, the Magnifico died (see chap. iii.). In the same neighbourhood, a little further on in the direction of Pistoia, are the villas of Petraia and Castello (for both of which _permessi_ are given at the Pitti Palace, together with that for Poggio a Caiano), both reminiscent of the Medicean grand ducal family; in the latter Cosimo I. lived with his mother, Maria Salviati, before his accession to the throne, and here he died in 1574. Also beyond the Porta al Prato (about an hour and a half by the tramway from behind Santa Maria Novella), is the Villa Reale of Poggio a Caiano, superbly situated where the Pistoian Apennines begin to rise up from the plain. The villa was built by Giuliano da San Gallo for Lorenzo, and the Magnifico loved it best of all his country houses. It was here that he wrote his _Ambra_ and his _Caccia col Falcone_; in both of these poems the beautiful scenery round plays its part. When Pope Clement VII. sent the two boys, Ippolito and Alessandro, to represent the Medici in Florence, Alessandro generally stayed here, while Ippolito resided within the city in the palace in the Via Larga. When Charles V. came to Florence in 1536 to confirm Alessandro upon the throne, he declared that this villa "was not the building for a private citizen." Here, too, the Grand Duke Francesco and Bianca Cappello died, on October 19th and 20th, 1587, after entertaining the Cardinal Ferdinando, who thus became Grand Duke; it was said that Bianca had attempted to poison the Cardinal, and that she and her husband had themselves eaten of the pasty that she had prepared for him. It appears, however, that there is no reason for supposing that their deaths were other than natural. At present the villa is a royal country house, in which reminiscences of the Re Galantuomo clash rather oddly with those of the Medicean Princes. All round runs a loggia with fine views, and there are an uninteresting park and garden. The classical portico is noteworthy, all the rest being of the utmost simplicity. Within the palace a large room, with a remarkably fine ceiling by Giuliano da San Gallo, is decorated with a series of frescoes from Roman history intended to be typical of events in the lives of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent. Vasari says that, for a villa, this is _la più bella sala del mondo_. The frescoes, ordered by Pope Leo X. and the Cardinal Giulio, under the direction of Ottaviano dei Medici, were begun by Andrea dei Sarto, Francia Bigio and Jacopo da Pontormo, left unfinished for more than fifty years, and then completed by Alessandro Allori for the Grand Duke Francesco. The Triumph of Cicero, by Francia Bigio, is supposed to typify the return of Cosimo from exile in 1434; Caesar receiving tribute from Egypt, by Andrea del Sarto, refers to the coming of an embassy from the Soldan to Lorenzo in 1487, with magnificent gifts and treasures. Andrea's fresco is full of curious beasts and birds, including the long-eared sheep which Lorenzo naturalised in the grounds of the villa, and the famous giraffe which the Soldan sent on this occasion and which, as Mr Armstrong writes, "became the most popular character in Florence," until its death at the beginning of 1489. The Regent of France, Anne of Beaujeu, made ineffectual overtures to Lorenzo to get him to make her a present of the strange beast. This fresco was left unfinished on the death of Pope Leo in 1521, and finished by Alessandro Allori in 1582. The charming mythological decorations between the windows are by Jacopo da Pontormo. The two later frescoes by Alessandro Allori, painted about 1580, represent Scipio in the house of Syphax and Flamininus in Greece, which typify Lorenzo's visit to Ferrante of Naples, in 1480, and his presence at the Diet of Cremona in 1483, on which latter occasion, as Mr Armstrong puts it, "his good sense and powers of expression and persuasion gave him an importance which the military weakness of Florence denied to him in the field"--but the result was little more than a not very honourable league of the Italian powers against Venice. The Apples of the Hesperides, and the rest of the mythological decorations in continuation of Pontormo's lunette, are also Allori's. The whole has an air of regal triumph without needless parade. The road should be followed beyond the villa, in order to ascend to the left to the little church among the hills. A superb view is obtained over the plain to Florence beyond the Villa Reale lying below us. Behind, we are already among the Apennines. A beautiful glimpse of Prato can be seen to the left, four miles away. Prato itself is about twelve miles from Florence. It was a gay little town in the fifteenth century, when it witnessed "brother Lippo's doings, up and down," and heard Messer Angelo Poliziano's musical sighings for the love of Madonna Ippolita Leoncina. A few years later it listened to the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and at last its bright day of prosperity ended in the horrible sack and carnage from the Spanish soldiery under Raimondo da Cardona in 1512. Its Duomo--dedicated to St. Stephen and the Baptist--a Tuscan Romanesque church completed in the Gothic style by Giovanni Pisano, with a fine campanile built at the beginning of the fourteenth century, claims to possess a strange and wondrous relic: nothing less than the Cintola or Girdle of the Blessed Virgin, delivered by her--according to a pious and poetical legend--to St. Thomas at her Assumption, and then won back for Christendom by a native of Prato, Michele Dagonari, in the Crusades. Be that as it may, what purports to be this relic is exhibited on occasions in the Pulpito della Cintola on the exterior of the Duomo, a magnificent work by Donatello and Michelozzo, in which the former master has carved a wonderful series of dancing genii hardly, if at all, inferior to those more famous bas-reliefs executed a little later for the cantoria of Santa Maria del Fiore. Within, over the entrance wall, is a picture by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio of the Madonna giving the girdle to the Thomas who had doubted. And in the chapel on the left (with a most beautifully worked bronze screen, with a lovely frieze of cupids, birds and beasts--the work of Bruno Lapi and Pasquino di Matteo, 1444-1461), the Cintola is preserved amid frescoes by Agnolo Gaddi setting forth the life of Madonna, her granting of Prato's treasure to St Thomas at the Assumption, and its discovery by Michele Dagonari. The church is rich in works of Florentine art--a pulpit by Mino da Fiesole and Antonio Rossellino; the Madonna dell' Ulivo by Giuliano da Maiano; frescoes said to be in part by Masolino's reputed master Starnina in the chapel to the right of the choir. But Prato's great artistic glory must be sought in Fra Lippo Lippi's frescoes in the choir, painted between 1452 and 1464. These are the great achievements of the Friar's life. On the left is the life of St. Stephen, on the right that of the Baptist. They show very strongly the influence of Masaccio, and make us understand why the Florentines said that the spirit of Masaccio had entered into the body of Fra Filippo. Inferior to Masaccio in most respects, Filippo had a feeling for facial beauty and spiritual expression, and for a certain type of feminine grace which we hardly find in his prototype. The wonderful figure of the dancing girl in Herod's banquet, and again her naïve bearing when she kneels before her mother with the martyr's head, oblivious of the horror of the spectators and merely bent upon showing us her own sweet face, are characteristic of Lippo, as also, in another way, his feeling for boyhood shown in the little St. John's farewell to his parents. The Burial of St. Stephen is full of fine Florentine portraits in the manner of the Carmine frescoes. The dignified ecclesiastic at the head of the clergy is Carlo dei Medici, the illegitimate son of Cosimo. On the extreme right is Lippo himself. Carlo looks rather like a younger, more refined edition of Leo X. It was while engaged upon these frescoes that Lippo Lippi was commissioned by the nuns of Santa Margherita to paint a Madonna for them, and took the opportunity of carrying off Lucrezia Buti, a beautiful girl staying in the convent who had sat to him as the Madonna, during one of the Cintola festivities. Lippo appears to have been practically unfrocked at this time, but he refused the dispensation of the Pope who wished him to marry her legally, as he preferred to live a loose life. Between the station and the Duomo you can see the house where they lived and where Filippino Lippi was born. Opposite the convent of Santa Margherita is a tabernacle containing a wonderfully beautiful fresco by Filippino, a Madonna and Child with Angels, adored by St. Margaret and St. Catherine, St. Antony and St. Stephen. All the faces are of the utmost loveliness, and the Catherine especially is like a foretaste of Luini's famous fresco at Milan. In the town picture gallery there are four pictures ascribed to Lippo Lippi--all four of rather questionable authenticity--and one by Filippino, a Madonna and Child with St. Stephen and the Baptist, which, although utterly ruined, appears to be genuine. The Protomartyr and the Precursor seem always inseparable throughout the faithful little city of the Cintola. Prato can likewise boast some excellent terracotta works by Andrea della Robbia, both outside the Duomo and in the churches of Our Lady of Good Counsel and Our Lady of the Prisons. This latter church, the Madonna delle Carceri, reared by Giuliano da San Gallo between 1485 and 1491, is perhaps the most beautiful and most truly classical of all Early Renaissance buildings in Tuscany. Ten miles beyond Prato lies Pistoia, at the very foot of the Apennines, the city of Dante's friend and correspondent, Messer Cino, the poet of the golden haired Selvaggia, he who sang the dirge of Caesar Henry; the centre of the fiercest faction struggles of Italian history. It was the Florentine traditional policy to keep Pisa by fortresses and Pistoia by factions. It lies, however, beyond the scope of the present book, with the other Tuscan cities that owned the sway of the great Republic. San Gemignano, that most wonderful of all the smaller towns of Tuscany, the city of "the fair towers," of Santa Fina and of the gayest of mediæval poets, Messer Folgore, comes into another volume of this series. But it is impossible to conclude even the briefest study of Florence without a word upon that Tuscan Earthly Paradise, the Casentino and upper valley of the Arno, although it lies for the most part not in the province of Florence but in that of Arezzo. It is best reached by the diligence which runs from Pontassieve over the Consuma Pass--where Arnaldo of Brescia, who lies in the last horrible round of Dante's Malebolge, was burned alive for counterfeiting the golden florins of Florence--to Stia.[57] A whole chapter of Florentine history may be read among the mountains of the Casentino, writ large upon its castles and monasteries. If the towers of San Gemignano give us still the clearest extant picture of the life led by the nobles and magnates when forced to enter the cities, we can see best in the Casentino how they exercised their feudal sway and maintained for a while their independence of the burgher Commune. The Casentino was ruled by the Conti Guidi, that great clan whose four branches--the Counts of Romena, the Counts of Porciano, the Counts of Battifolle and Poppi, the Counts of Dovadola (to whom Bagno in Romagna and Pratovecchio here appear to have belonged)--sprang from the four sons of Gualdrada, Bellincion Berti's daughter. Poppi remains a superb monument of the power and taste of these "Counts Palatine of Tuscany"; its palace on a small scale resembles the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Romena and Porciano, higher up stream, overhanging Pratovecchio and Stia, have been immortalised by the verse and hallowed by the footsteps of Dante Alighieri. Beneath the hill upon which Poppi stands, an old bridge still spans the Arno, upon which the last of the Conti Guidi, the Count Francesco, surrendered in 1440 to the Florentine commissary, Neri Capponi. After the second expulsion of the Medici from Florence, Piero and Giuliano for some time lurked in the Casentino, with Bernardo Dovizi at Bibbiena. [57] The lover of Florentine history cannot readily tear himself away from the Casentino. The Albergo Amorosi at Bibbiena, almost at the foot of La Verna, makes delightful headquarters. There is an excellent _Guida illustrata del Casentino_ by C. Beni. For the Conti Guidi, Witte's essay should be consulted; it is translated in _Witte's Essays on Dante_ by C. M. Lawrence and P. H. Wicksteed. La Verna will be fully dealt with in the Assisi volume of this series, so I do not describe it here. Throughout the Casentino Dante himself should be our guide. There is hardly another district in Italy so intimately connected with the divine poet; save only Florence and Ravenna, there is, perhaps, none where we more frequently need to have recourse to the pages of the _Divina Commedia_. With the _Inferno_ in our hands, we seek out Count Alessandro's castle of Romena and what purports to be the Fonte Branda, below the castle to the left, for whose waters--even to cool the thirst of Hell--Maestro Adamo would not have given the sight of his seducer sharing his agony. With the _Purgatorio_ we trace the course of the Arno from where, a mere _fiumicello_, it takes its rise in Falterona, and runs down past Porciano and Poppi to sweep away from the Aretines, "turning aside its muzzle in disdain." There is a tradition that Dante was imprisoned in the castle of Porciano. We know that he was the guest of various members of the Conti Guidi at different times during his exile; it was from one of their castles, probably Poppi, that on March 31st and April 16th, 1311, he directed his two terrible letters to the Florentine government and to the Emperor Henry. It was in the Casentino, too, that he composed the Canzone _Amor, dacchè convien pur ch'io mi doglia_, "Love, since I needs must make complaint," one of the latest and most perplexing of his lyrics. The battlefield of Campaldino lies beyond Poppi, on the eastern side of the river, near the old convent and church of Certomondo, founded some twenty or thirty years before by two of the Conti Guidi to commemorate the great Ghibelline victory of Montaperti, but now to witness the triumph of the Guelfs. The Aretines, under their Bishop and Buonconte da Montefeltro, had marched up the valley along the direction of the present railway to Bibbiena, to check the ravages of the Florentines who, with their French allies, had made their way through the mountains above Pratovecchio and were laying waste the country of the Conti Guidi. It was on the Feast of St. Barnabas, 1289, that the two armies stood face to face, and Dante riding in the Florentine light cavalry, if the fragment of a letter preserved to us by Leonardo Bruni be authentic, "had much dread and at the end the greatest gladness, by reason of the varying chances of that battle." There are no relics of the struggle to be found in Certomondo; only a very small portion of the cloisters remains, and the church itself contains nothing of note save an Annunciation by Neri di Bicci. But about an hour's walk from the battlefield, perhaps a mile from the foot of the hill on which Bibbiena stands, is a spot most sacred to all lovers of Dante. Here the stream of the Archiano, banked with poplars and willows, flows into the Arno; and here, at the close of that same terrible and glorious day, Buonconte da Montefeltro died of his wounds, gasping out the name of Mary. At evening the nightingales are loud around the spot, but their song is less sweet then the ineffable stanzas in the fifth canto of the _Purgatorio_ in which Dante has raised an imperishable monument to the young Ghibelline warrior. But, more famous than its castles or even its Dantesque memories, the Casentino is hallowed by its noble sanctuaries of Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, La Verna. Less noted but still very interesting is the Dominican church and convent of the Madonna del Sasso, just below Bibbiena on the way towards La Verna, hallowed with memories of Savonarola and the Piagnoni, and still a place of devout pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Rock. There is a fine Assumption in its church, painted by Fra Paolino from Bartolommeo's cartoon. Vallombrosa and Camaldoli, founded respectively by Giovanni Gualberto and Romualdus, have shared the fate of all such institutions in modern Italy. La Verna remains undisturbed, that "harsh rock between Tiber and Arno," as Dante calls it, where Francis "received from Christ the final seal;" the sacred mountain from which, on that September morning before the dawn, so bright a light of Divine Love shone forth to rekindle the mediæval world, that all the country seemed aflame, as the crucified Seraph uttered the words of mystery--_Tu sei il mio Gonfaloniere_: "Thou art my standard-bearer." To enter the precincts of this sacred place, under the arch hewn out from between the rocks, is like a first introduction to the spirit of the _Divina Commedia_. "Non est in toto sanctior orbe mons." For here, at least, is one spot left in the world, where, although Renaissance and Reformation, Revolution and Risorgimento, have swept round it, the Middle Ages still reign a living reality, in their noblest aspect, with the _poverelli_ of the Seraphic Father; and the mystical light, that shone out on the day of the Stigmata, still burns: "while the eternal ages watch and wait." [Illustration: FLORENCE] TABLE OF THE MEDICI GIOVANNI DI AVERARDO (GIOVANNI BICCI) 1360-1429, m. Piccarda Bueri. ____________|______________________(continued below) COSIMO (Pater Patriae), 1389-1464, m. Contessina dei Bardi. _____________________________|________________ | | | PIERO (il Gottoso) GIOVANNI, CARLO, 1416-1469, 1424-1463, (illegitimate), m. Lucrezia Tornabuoni. m. Ginevra degli d. 1492. Alessandri. ___|______________________________________________ | | | | LORENZO, GIULIANO, BIANCA, NANNINA, (the Magnificent), 1453-1478. m. Guglielmo m. Bernardo 1449-1492, | dei Pazzi. Rucellai. m. Clarice Orsini. | | GIULIO (illegitimate), | d. 1534, | (Pope Clement VII.) __|_____________________________________________________________ | | | | | PIERO, GIOVANNI, GIULIANO, LUCREZIA, MADDALENA, 1471-1503, 1475-1521, (Duke of Nemours), m. Giacomo m. Franceschetto m. Alfonsina (Pope Leo X.) 1479-1516, Salviati. Cibo. Orsini. m. Filiberta of | | Savoy. | ___|________________ | __|_____________ | | | | | LORENZO, CLARICE, IPPOLITO,[58] MARIA, FRANCESCA, (titular Duke m. Filippo (Illegitimate), m. Giovanni m. Ottaviano of Urbino), Strozzi 1511-1535, delle Bande dei Medici. 1492-1519, (Cardinal). Nere. | m. Madeleine de Alessandro, la Tour d'Auvergne. d. 1605, _|______________ (Pope Leo XI.) | | ALESSANDRO,[59] CATERINA, (Illegitimate), 1519-1589, d. 1537, m. Henri II. m. Margherita of France. of Austria. [58][59] _The parentage of Ippolito and Alessandro is somewhat uncertain. The former was probably Giuliano's son by a lady of Pesaro, the latter probably the son of Lorenzo by a mulatto woman._ -----------continued from above ___________________ | LORENZO, 1395-1440, m. Ginevra Cavalcanti. | PIERO FRANCESCO, d. 1467 (or 1476), m. Laudomia Acciaiuoli. _______________|_______ | | LORENZO, d. 1503, GIOVANNI, d. 1498, m. Semiramide Appini. m. Caterina Sforza. | | PIER FRANCESCO, GIOVANNI, ("delle Bande d. 1525, Nere"), 1498-1526, m. Maria Soderini. m. Maria Salviati. __|__________________________ |____________ | | | | LORENZO, LAUDOMIA, MADDALENA, COSIMO I. ("Lorenzino" m. Piero m. Roberto (Grand Duke), or Strozzi. Strozzi. 1519-1574, "Lorenzaccio"), m. Eleonora of Toledo 1514-1547. (and Cammilla Martelli) _____________________________________|_____ | | | | FRANCESCO I., GIOVANNI, GARZIA, FERDINAND I., 1541-1587, d. 1562. d. 1562. 1549-1609, m. Joanna of m. Christina of Austria (and Lorraine. Bianca Cappello). ______| | | MARIA COSIMO II., m. Henri IV. 1590-1621, of France m. Maria Maddalena of Austria. | FERDINAND II., 1610-1670. | COSIMO III., 1642-1723. | GIOVANNI GASTONE, 1671-1737. CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF ARCHITECTS, SCULPTORS & PAINTERS (_Names of non-Italians in italics_) ARCHITECTS AND SCULPTORS Niccolò Pisano (circa 1206-1278), 32, 254, 349. Fra Sisto (died 1289), 359. Fra Ristoro da Campi (died 1283), 359. Arnolfo di Cambio (1232?-1300 or 1310), 41, 65, 66, 146-149, 184, 205, 211, 228, 231, 242, 248, 265, 269, 274, 333, 334, 372. Giovanni Pisano (circa 1250-after 1328), 32, 254, 416. Giotto da Bondone. See under Painters. Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), 65, 67, 225, 254, 255, 260-263, 408. Fra Giovanni da Campi (died 1339), 359. Taddeo Gaddi. See under Painters. Fra Jacopo Talenti da Nipozzano (died 1362), 359, 366. Nino Pisano (died 1368), 271. Andrea Orcagna. See under Painters. Francesco Talenti (died after 1387), 65, 67, 189, 260, 265, 266. Pietro di Migliore (middle of fourteenth century), 196. Alberto Arnoldi (died circa 1378), 264. Simone di Francesco Talenti (end of fourteenth century), 156, 189, 190, 198, 203. Benci di Cione (latter half of fourteenth century), 156, 189, 203, 216. Neri di Fioraventi (latter half of fourteenth century) 203, 216. Giovanni di Ambrogio (last quarter of fourteenth century), 157. Jacopo di Piero (last quarter of fourteenth century), 157. Piero di Giovanni Tedesco (end of Trecento), 216, 270. Niccolò di Piero Lamberti da Arezzo (1360?-1444?), 193, 216, 263, 270, 272, 276. Nanni di Antonio di Banco (died in 1421), 97, 190, 193, 194, 272-274, 276, 304. Jacopo della Quercia (1371-1438), 272. Bicci di Lorenzo. See under Painters. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), 80, 97, 222, 237, 242, 243, 266, 269, 274, 289, 290, 291, 301, 325, 328, 347, 354, 363, 377, 389, 409. Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), 11, 95, 97, 193, 195, 222, 232, 255-258, 275-277, 329, 363. Bernardo Ciuffagni (1381-1457), 275, 276. Donatello, Donate di Betto Bardi (1386-1466), 76, 80, 97, 150, 157, 190, 193-195, 209, 220, 221, 223, 232, 236, 237, 243, 253, 263, 264, 270, 272, 274, 275, 277, 280-282, 286, 363, 371, 380. Michelozzo Michelozzi (1396-1472), 77, 80, 98, 150, 193, 242, 253, 277, 284, 302, 310, 322, 327, 377, 402, 410, 412, 416. Luca della Robbia (1399-1482), 98, 193, 194, 195, 210, 223, 225, 243, 263, 276, 277, 281, 288, 371, 402. Leo (Leone) Battista Alberti (1405-1472), 98, 328, 354, 359. Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), 98, 235, 236, 354, 361. Vecchietta (1410-1480), 222. Antonio Rossellino (1427-1478), 98, 224, 371, 402, 416. Desiderio da Settignano (1428-1464), 98, 225, 237, 243, 290, 349, 371, 410. Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498), 87, 98, 99, 167, 168, 175, 222, 224, 280, 281, 395. Mino da Fiesole (1431-1484), 82, 98, 212, 225, 242, 410, 416. Giuliano da Maiano (1432-1490), 98, 416. Andrea Verrocchio (1435-1488), 11, 86, 98, 99, 150, 168, 174, 195, 222, 224, 225, 280, 281, 292, 298, 318, 329. Matteo Civitali (1435-1501), 224, 225. Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), 98, 223, 325, 329, 347, 354, 355, 371, 418. Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497), 98, 153, 224, 225, 235, 274, 353, 365. Bertoldo (died 1491), 101, 222, 290, 298. Giuliano da San Gallo (1445-1516), 98, 330, 351, 389, 413, 414, 418. Cronaca, Simone del Pollaiuolo (1457-1508), 98, 150, 230, 353, 389, 398. Benedetto Buglione (1461-1521), 211. Caparra, Niccolò Grosso (worker in metal, latter half of fifteenth century), 353. Andrea Ferrucci da Fiesole (1465-1526), 220, 274, 410. Baccio d'Agnolo (1462-1543), 377, 389. Giovanni della Robbia (1469-1527), 98, 223, 238, 365, 371, 398. Andrea Sansovino (circa 1460-1529), 258. Baccio da Montelupo (1469-1535), 194. Benedetto da Rovezzano (1474-1552), 13, 219, 276, 349, 395. Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1474-1554), 255, 256, 325. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), 2, 101, 102, 137, 138, 142-145, 151, 152, 162, 164-166, 183, 216, 219, 220, 223, 225-227, 235, 258, 266, 275, 276, 282, 289, 291-296, 298, 314, 315, 322, 339, 349, 385, 388, 397, 398, 401, 410. Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), 225, 275, 326. Baccio Bandinelli (1487-1559), 150, 152, 288. Francesco da San Gallo (1494-1576), 198, 291, 407. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), 145, 150, 154, 157, 223, 284, 285, 349. Raffaello di Baccio da Montelupo (1505-1566), 296. Fra Giovanni Agnolo da Montorsoli (1506-1563), 296. Battista del Tasso (died 1555), 200. Bartolommeo Ammanati (1511-1592), 154, 346, 379. Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574), 67, 87, 140, 145, 149, 151, 152, 155, 160, 172, 231, 235, 275, et passim. Giovanni da Bologna (1524-1608), 145, 154, 157, 195, 216, 223, 301, 325. Vincenzo Danti, (1530-1576), 216, 233, 255, 258. Bernardo Buontalenti (1536-1608), 199, 298, 375. PAINTERS Fra Jacopo, worker in mosaic (working in 1225), 249. Giovanni Cimabue (1240-1302), 66, 243, 244, 321, 361. Andrea Tafi, worker in mosaic (1250?-1320?), 249. Gaddo Gaddi (circa 1259-1333), 273. Duccio di Buoninsegna (circa 1260-1339), 361. Giotto da Bondone (1276?-1336), 32, 56, 65, 66, 67, 69, 163, 222, 238-241, 242, 259-263, 265, 274, 298, 322, 323, 361, 366, 372, 403. Simone Martini (1283-1344), 67, 163, 366 Lippo Memmi (died 1356), 163. Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti (died circa 1348), 67, 163, 323. Taddeo Gaddi (circa 1300-1366), 67, 189, 222, 241, 322, 341, 366. Bernardo Daddi (died in 1350), 67, 197, 238, 404. Giottino, Giotto di Stefano (died after 1369), 163, 226. Puccio Capanna (flourished circa 1350), 372. Maso di Banco (working in middle of Trecento), 226, 237. Pietro Cavallini (died circa 1360), 323. Giovanni da Milano (died after 1360), 67, 163, 323, 395. Leonardo Orcagna (born before 1308), 362. Andrea Orcagna (1308-1368), 11, 65, 68, 69, 156, 185, 189, 196, 197, 210, 224, 264, 362, 363, 366, 367, 407. Agnolo Gaddi (died 1396), 67, 157, 163, 238, 242, 322, 416. Cennino Cennini (end of Trecento), 226. Spinello Aretino (1333-1410), 68, 370, 395, 402, 403. Gherardo Starnina (1354-1408), 391, 416. Don Lorenzo, il Monaco (1370-1425), 163, 178, 180, 308, 322, 350. Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1450), 321, 322, 396. Bicci di Lorenzo (1373-1452), 277, 329. Masolino (born circa 1384, died after 1435), 99, 391-395, 416. Masaccio (1401-1428), 74, 76, 95, 99, 102, 169, 318, 391-395, 417. Fra Giovanni Angelico (1387-1455), 99, 167, 175, 176, 178, 181, 183, 301-304, 306-310, 315, 316, 322, 328, 356, 409. Andrea del Castagno (1396?-1457), 99, 273, 327, 329, 335, 336. Domenico Veneziano (died 1461), 99, 180, 236, 335, 387. Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), 99, 163, 257, 273, 275, 366. Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), 80, 99, 170, 175, 287, 290, 316, 318-321, 333, 386, 390, 415-418. Piero della Francesca (1415-1492), 174. Neri di Bicci (1419-1491), 163, 396, 421. Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1498), 79, 87, 257, 287, 288, 316, 330. Domenico di Michelino (working in 1461), 277. Francesco Pesellino (1422-1457), 227, 318. Alessio Baldovinetti (1427-1499), 163, 326, 364, 402. Antonio Pollaiuolo. See under Sculptors. Giovanni Bellini (circa 1428-1516), 162, 177. Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), 165, 168, 176, 177, 183, 365. Andrea Verrocchio. See under Sculptors. _Hans Memlinc_ (circa 1435-1495), 177. Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), 100, 164, 326, 329, 330, 333. Piero Pollaiuolo (1443-1496), 164, 174. Luca Signorelli (1441-1523), 100, 164, 166, 174, 175, 320, 321, 352, 387. _Hugo Van der Goes_ (died 1482), 330. Pietro Vannucci, Perugino (1446-1523), 165, 167, 168, 316, 319, 321, 328, 389, 330, 336, 383. Alessandro Filipepi, Sandro Botticelli (1447-1510), 87, 89, 94, 97, 100, 160, 168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 175, 178-181, 210, 279, 291, 317, 318, 320, 321, 352, 365, 372, 379, 395. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), 11, 74, 100, 101, 168, 174, 181, 242, 272, 320, 323, 324, 326, 350, 351, 363, 364, 371, 372. Francesco Raibolini, Francia (1450-1517), 165. David Ghirlandaio (1452-1525), 101, 364. Sebastiano Mainardi (died 1513), 222, 242, 364. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), 66, 99, 100, 101, 137, 138, 151, 162, 169, 170, 174, 183, 256, 298, 318, 349, 386, 393. Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), 7, 14, 94, 100, 162, 169, 172, 173, 212, 321, 352, 365, 387, 389, 392, 395, 417, 418. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537), 11, 100, 101, 168, 173, 174, 175, 210, 277, 321, 409. Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521), 100, 101, 139, 164, 170, 210, 325. Lorenzo Costa (circa 1460-1535), 387. Raffaellino del Garbo (1466-1524), 321, 351, 389. Raffaellino di Carlo (1470-1516), 352, 389. Boccaccino da Cremona (died 1518), 386. Timoteo Viti (1469-1523), 382. Francesco Granacci (1469-1543), 101, 173, 298, 318, 395. _Albert Dürer_ (1471-1528), 165, 177, 324. Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), 137-139, 171, 210, 320, 323, 329, 387, 407. Michelangelo Buonarroti. See under Architects and Sculptors. Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517), 137-139, 164, 167, 170-172, 183, 301-303, 307, 309, 320, 321, 323, 329, 380, 383, 384, 387. Bernardino Luini (1475-1533), 165, 418. Morto da Feltre (1475?-1522?), 384. Giorgio Barbarelli, Giorgione (1477-1511), 162, 164, 167, 177, 381, 384. Tiziano Vecelli, Titian (1477-1576), 162, 165, 167, 177, 178, 253, 380, 381, 383, 384-386, 387. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, Sodoma (1477-1549), 170. Dosso Dossi (1479-1542), 162, 383. Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1555), 384. Francia Bigio (1482-1525), 164, 324-327, 414. Raffaello Sanzio, Raphael (1483-1520), 138, 151, 152, 162, 164, 165, 183, 258, 321, 335, 336, 352, 381-385, 393, 394. Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483-1561), 12, 153, 171, 381, 416. Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547), 164, 387. Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531), 138, 139, 142, 162, 169, 171, 182, 318, 320, 324-328, 334, 352, 381-386, 414. Giovanni da Udine (1487-1564), 296. Fra Paolino da Pistoia (1490-1547), 323, 412. Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544), 303, 409. Giulio Romano (1492-1546), 383, 384. Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1494-1534), 166, 167, 176, 253. Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1541), 223, 327, 329, 384. Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557), 144, 145, 172, 310, 327, 414, 415. _Lucas Van Leyden_ (1494-1533), 165. Angelo Bronzino (1502-1572), 82, 145, 154, 170, 171, 182, 290. Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1503-1577), 334, 372. Daniele Ricciarelli, da Volterra (1509-1566), 223, 227. Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), 153. Giorgio Vasari. See under Architects and Sculptors. Jacopo Robusti, Tintoretto (1518-1594), 162. Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), 241, 381. Taddeo Zuccheri (1529-1566), 275. Marcello Venusti (died circa 1580), 227. Alessandro Allori (1535-1607), 414, 415. Bernardo Poccetti (1542-1612), 303. Jacopo da Empoli (1554-1640), 227, 327. Guido Reni (1575-1642), 386. Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), 384. _Peter Paul Rubens_ (1577-1640), 152, 162, 382, 385, 386. Matteo Rosselli (1578-1650), 303, 386. Artemisia Gentileschi (died 1642), 387. Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), 379, 380. _Justus Sustermans_ (1597-1681), 182. _Antony Van Dyck_ (1599-1641), 385. _Diego Velasquez_ (1599-1660), 386. _Rembrandt Van Rÿn_ (1606-1669), 162. Carlo Dolci (1616-1686), 352, 386. _Peter Lely_ (1618-1680), 387. Luca Giordano (1632-1705), 286. GENERAL INDEX (_Names of Artists not included_) A. _Accademia delle Belle Arti_, 314-324. Acciaiuoli, Agnolo (bishop), 369; Agnolo (anti-Medicean), 85, 350; Niccolò (grand seneschal), 336, 407; Niccola (swindler), 398. Adimari, family, 58, 203, 204. Adimari, Boccaccio, 188, 203. Alamanni, Luigi, 371. Alberti, palace of the, 341; Benedetto degli, 402; Donato, 215, 216. _Albizzi, Borgo degli_, 208-210. Albizzi, Maso degli, 74, 76, 209-211, 350, 351. Albizzi, Rinaldo degli, 74-77, 209, 346, 356. Alighieri, family, 36, 37, 207, 208. ALIGHIERI, DANTE, 2, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 24; his birth, 25, 32-37; his love, 38; at Campaldino, 39, 40; political life, 41, 43; priorate, 44, 45; exile, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54; death, 55; on the Florentine Constitution, 59, 60, 65, 66, 69, 70, 91, 103, 112, 124, 199, 200, 203-206; his house and family, 207, 208; 215; in the Council of the Commune, 221; portrait in the Bargello, 221, 222; monument, 228, 235, 238-241, 243, 246, 248-250, 262, 274; picture of him in the Duomo, 277-279; portrait in the Biblioteca Riccardiana, 288; his letters, 292, 329, 333, 340, 342, 346, 355, 361-363, 368, 379, 394, 397, 398, 405, 408, 412; with him in the Casentino, 419-422. Aldobrandini, Bertino, 406; Salvestro, 228. Alexander VI., Pope, 95, 113, 117, 123, 124. Altoviti, palace of the, 209. _Ambrogio, S._, 333. Amidei, family, 19-21, 346; tower, 346. Ambrogini, Angelo. _See_ Poliziano. _Annunziata, SS._, Piazza, 325; church and convent, 40, 127, 326-328. Antoninus, S., 10, 82, 197, 274, 301, 303, 304, 309. _Apostoli, SS._, 13, 347. _Appollonia, S._, 99, 335, 336. Argenti, Filippo, 204. Arts or Guilds, 17, 25-28, 38, 39, 42, 43, 61, 72, 73, 74, 78, 184, 189-196. Athens, Duke of, 57, 58, 72, 149, 198, 221, 225, 226, 229, 369. B. _Badia_, 127, 211-213. Baglioni, Malatesta, 143, 360, 401, 406, 407. Baldovinetti, tower of the, 346. Bandini, Giovanni, 406. _Baptistery_, 7, 11, 246-259. Baroncelli, Bernardo, 279. _Bardi, cappella dei_, 239; _via dei_, 38, 376, 377. Bardi, family, 59, 375; Simone dei, 351. Bargello, office of, 42 (note), 215; former quarters of, 128, 134, 155, 215. _Bargello, Museo Nazionale_, (Palazzo del Podestà), 214-225. Battifolle, Counts of, 351, 419. _Belle Donne, Via delle_, 354. Benedict XI., Pope, 50, 304, 356, 369. Benevento, Battle of, 25, 32, 69. Beatrice, 36, 37, 206, 329. Benedetto da Foiano, Fra, 359, 360. Bellincion Berti, 16, 206. Bella, Giano della, 42, 43, 206, 215, 371, 376. Bello, Geri del, 208. _Belvedere, Fortezza_, 375, 403. _Biagio, S._ (S. Maria sopra la Porta), 28, 29, 200. "Bianchi e Neri," Whites and Blacks, 35, 43-50, 70, 215, 216, 347, 348, 350, 351. Bibbiena, 419-422. _Biblioteca Laurenziana_, 102, 291, 292. _Biblioteca Nazionale_, 160. _Biblioteca Riccardiana_, 288. _Bigallo_, the, 65, 264. Bisticci, Vespasiano, 75, 81, 103, 237. _Boboli Gardens_, 388. Boiardo, 109. Boniface VIII., Pope, 41, 43-46, 269, 270, 273, 274, 356. Borgia. _See_ Alexander VI. _Borgo degli Albizzi_ (San Piero), 208-210. _Borgo SS. Apostoli_, 26, 37, 346, 347. _Borgo San Frediano_, 345, 395, 396. _Borgo San Jacopo_, 38, 375, 376. _Borgo Ognissanti_, 342, 371, 372. _Borgo Allegri, Via_, 66, 243, 244. Boccaccio, 31, 32, 55, 60, 61, 69, 70, 198, 204, 213, 248, 259, 346, 347, 360, 410. Boscoli, P. P., 140, 141. Bracciolini, Poggio, 104, 274. _Brancacci Chapel_, 391-395. Browning, E. B., 244, 294, 388. Browning, Robert, 171, 288, 319, 380, 388, 407. Bruni, Leonardo, 103, 104, 208, 231, 236, 256, 325, 333, 421. _Buonarroti, Casa_, 226, 227. Buondelmonti, the, 346, 347. Buondelmonti, Buondelmonte degli, 19-21, 342, 407. Brunelleschi, Betto, 259. Burlamacchi, Padre, 311. C. Cacciaguida, 14, 16, 21, 49, 407, 411. Calimala, Arte di, 26, 28, 38, 195, 200, 253, 256. _Calimara_ (_Calimala_), 200. Calvoli, Fulcieri da, 215. _Calzaioli, Via_ (Corso degli Adimari), 183, 203-205. Camaldoli, 421. _Campanile_, 56, 67, 259-264. Campaldino, Battle of, 39-41, 420, 421. Cappello, Bianca, 297, 371, 413-414. _Cappella dei Principi_, 297, 298. _Cappella degli Spagnuoli_, 366-370. Capponi, Agostino, 140; Gino, 389; Gino (Marchese), 235; Luisa, 353; Neri, 79, 389, 420; Niccolò, 142, 143, 150, 377; Piero, 116, 119, 126, 286, 340, 377, 389. Captain of the People, 23, 27, 28, 42 (note), 155. Carducci, Francesco, 142. Careggi, 412, 413. _San Carlo_ (S. Michele), 203. _Carmine_. See _S. Maria del Carmine_. Casentino, the, 418-422. _Cascine_, 372, 373. _Castagna, Torre della_, 38, 207, 208. Castello, 413. Catherine of Siena, S., 32, 62, 273. Cavalcanti, family, 37, 50, 59, 203. Cavalcanti, Guido, 36, 37, 44, 45, 187, 188, 248, 259. Cerchi, the, 37, 43, 44, 205, 206; palace, etc., 205; Vieri dei, 40, 43. Certosa di Val d'Ema, 407. Certomondo, 421. Charlemagne, 12, 13, 347; Charles of Anjou, 25, 27, 28; Charles V., Emperor, 137, 143, 404, 413; Charles VIII. of France, 116-119, 121, 132, 224, 284, 342, 408. Charles of Valois, 45, 46, 348, 356. Cino da Pistoia, 418. Compagni, Dino, 32, 53, 70, 209, 351. "Colleges," the, 71. _Consuma_, 419. Conti Guidi, 206, 419, 420. _Corbizzi Tower_ ("Corso Donati's Tower"), 40, 53, 209. _Corsini Palace and Picture Gallery_, 352. _Santa Croce, Piazza_, 228-230; _Church and cloisters_, 230-243. D. Diacceto, Jacopo da, 371. Donati, the, 37, 43, 203, 206, 207; Corso, 37, 40, 43, 44-46, 49, 50, 53, 209, 333; Forese, 37, 333; Gemma, 37, 207; Gualdrada, 19; Lucrezia, 107, 230; Piccarda, 405, 406; Simone, 229; Sinibaldo, 188. _Duomo_, (see _Santa Maria del Fiore_); _Opera del_, 280-282. Domenico da Pescia, F., 131-135, 151, 159, 409. E. Eugenius IV., Pope, 77, 79, 310, 356. Executore, the, 42, 62, 155. F. Florence, _passim_. Faggiuola, Uguccione della, 50, 53, 55, 56. _Felice, S._, 388. _Felicità, S._, 377. Ferrante, King of Naples, 89, 93, 95. Ferdinand III., Grand Duke, 335, 382. Francis II., Grand Duke, 334. Ferrucci, F., 143, 340. Ficino, Marsilio, 81, 82, 104, 105, 108, 274, 275, 364, 409. Fiesole, 2, 5, 6, 12, 16, 17, 409, 410. Filipepi, Simone, 158-160, 280, 305, 308. Foiano. See _Fra Benedetto_. _Fortezza da Basso_, 339. _Francesco dei Vanchetoni, S._, 371. Frescobaldi, the, 59, 348, 375, 376; Piazza, 347, 376. G. Galileo, 182, 237, 404, 406. _Ghibellina, Via_, 24, 225-228. Gianni, Lapo, 1, 36, 65, 340. Giovanni Gualberto, S., 13, 398, 422. _Giovanni Battista, S._ See _Baptistery_. Girolamo, Fra. _See_ Savonarola. Girolami and Gherardini, Towers of, 346. Gonfaloniere, the office of, 41, 42. Gregory X., 340; Gregory XI., 62, 65, 401. Gonzaga, Eleonora, 167, 177, 383; Ferrante, 143, 406. _Guadagni, Palazzo_, 389. Guelfs and Ghibellines, 16-18, 21-27, _et passim_. Guido Novello, 24-27, 215. H. Hawkwood, John (Giovanni Aguto), 73, 273. Henry IV., 16; Henry VI., 19; Henry VII., 54, 55, 333, 369, Emperors. Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., 13. Hugh, or Hugo, Margrave of Tuscany, 14, 211. I. _Impruneta_, 407. _Innocenti, Santa Maria degli_, 326. _Innocenti, Spedale degli_, 325. Interminelli, Castruccio (Castracani) degli, 55, 56, 396. J. Julius II., Pope, 117, 136, 138, 165, 385. John XXIII., Pope, 75, 253. _Jacopo in Ripoli, S._, 371. _Jacopo Oltrarno, S._, 376. L. Ladislaus, King of Naples, 75. _Lambertesca, Via_, 37, 346. Lamberti, family, 23. Lamberti, Mosca degli, 20, 22. Landini, Cristoforo, 105, 364. Landucci, Luca, 118, 122, 123, 128, 134, 205, 348, 390, 396. Lane, Arte della, 28, 38, 72, 193, 195, 199, 262, 265. La Lastra, affair of, 411, 412. _Leonardo in Arcetri, S._, 404. _Lorenzo, San, Piazza_, 288; _Basilica_, 289, 290; _Sagrestia Vecchia_, 290, 291; _cloisters and Biblioteca_, 291, 292; _Sagrestia Nuova_, 292-296; _Cappella dei Principi_, 297. St Louis IX. of France, 239, 240. _Lungarno_, 340-345. Latini, Brunetto, 6, 36. Latino, Cardinal, 355, 356. Leo X., Pope. See _Dei Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo_. Leopold I. and II., Grand Dukes, 335. _Loggia dei Lanzi_, 65, 156-160. _Loggia di San Paolo_, 354. M. Machiavelli, Niccolò, 35, 59, 89, 91, 109, 137, 141, 142, 204, 235, 377, 378. _Malcontenti, Via dei_, 243, 244. Manetti, Giannozzo, 104, 274. Manfredi, 24, 25. Mannelli, the, 375. _Marco, S._, 81, 82, 93; the church of 298-302; the convent, 302-313. See also Savonarola. _Margherita, S., a Montici_, 406. _Margherita, S._ (at Prato), 417. _Maria, S., degli Angioli_, 328, 329. _Maria S., delle Carceri_ (in Prato), 418. _Maria, S., del Carmine_, 390-396. _Maria, S., del Fiore_ (S. Reparata, the Duomo), 10-12, 65, 118, 265-282. _Maria, S., Novella_, 50, 65, 354-370; _Spezeria di_, 370. _Maria, S., Nuova_, 329, 330. _Maria Maddalena, S., de' Pazzi_, 330. _Maria, S., del Sasso_ (at Bibbiena), 422. Marignolli, Rustico, 23. Mars, temple and statue of, 7-9, 20, 21, 246-248, 342, 365. Marsili, Fra Luigi, 390. Marsuppini, Carlo, 104, 237. Martelli, Cammilla, 297; Ludovico, 406. Martin, V., Pope, 75, 253. Matilda, Countess, 14-16. MEDICI, family: head the people, 59; their first expulsion, 77; their second expulsion, 117; their return, 140; third expulsion, 142; apotheosis, 181; their Austrian successors, 335. ---- gardens (_Casino Mediceo_), 298. ---- palaces. See _Pitti_, _Riccardi_, _Palazzo Vecchio_. ---- villas, 410, 412-415. MEDICI (DEI), Alessandro, 142-144, 245, 284-286, 293, 295, 339, 353, 380, 381, 404, 413. ---- Antonio, 204. ---- Bianca, 92. ---- Carlo, 417. ---- Caterina, 141, 227, 228, 294. ---- Clarice, 142, 284, 286, 353. ---- COSIMO THE ELDER (Pater Patriae): leads opposition to the Ottimati, 74, 76; banished and recalled, 77; home policy, 78, 79; foreign policy, 79, 80; private life, patronage of art and letters, 80, 81; death, 82; portraits, 171, 172, 180; 232, 242, 253, 284; in Gozzoli's fresco, 287; tomb and monument in San Lorenzo, 290, 291; founder of San Marco, 302, 304; his cell and portrait there, 310; founds library of San Marco and Badia of Fiesole, 310, 409; dies at Careggi, 412; fresco in his honour at Poggio a Caiano, 414. ---- Cosimo I., first Grand Duke, 144, 150, 154, 157, 160, 172, 173, 182, 286, 293, 295-297, 328, 339, 349, 353. ---- Cosimo II., fourth Grand Duke, 297, 298. ---- Cosimo III., sixth Grand Duke, 297, 298. ---- Ferdinand I., Cardinal, and third Grand Duke, 155, 297, 298, 375, 413. ---- Ferdinand II., fifth Grand Duke, 283, 277, 298. ---- Francesco, second Grand Duke, 150, 297, 349, 413, 415. ---- Garzia, 170, 154, 182. ---- Giovanni (son of Cosimo I.), 182. ---- Giovanni di Averardo (Giovanni Bicci), 74, 76, 163, 182, 289, 290. ---- Giovanni di Cosimo, 82, 86, 181, 225, 291, 410. ---- Giovanni di Lorenzo (Cardinal, afterwards Pope Leo X.), 92, 94, 117, 140, 141, 204, 205, 289, 291, 292, 293, 342, 385, 404, 405, 410, 414, 415, 417. ---- Giovanni di Piero Francesco, 94, 142, 173. ---- Giovanni delle Bande Nere 142, 144, 173, 225, 288, 297, 340. ---- Giovanni Gastone, seventh Grand Duke, 298, 335. Giuliano di Piero (the Elder), 86-88, 93, 94, 106, 181, 230, 279, 291, 296, 387, 410. Giuliano di Lorenzo (Duke of Nemours), 94, 117, 140, 141, 143, 209, 225, 293-295, 334, 380, 410, 420. Giulio (Cardinal, afterwards Clement VII.), 94, 141-143, 152, 228, 284, 285, 289, 291-293, 359, 371, 381, 382, 397, 413-414. Ippolito (Cardinal), 142, 143, 284, 286, 353, 380, 381, 413. Lorenzo di Giovanni, 76, 77, 302. LORENZO (THE MAGNIFICENT): his youth, 82, 85, 86; succeeds his father, 86; his portraits, 87; wounded in the Pazzi conspiracy, 88; his struggle with Naples and Rome, 89; his government, 89, 90; character, 91; last days and death, 92, 93; his sons, 94; his circle, 104, 105; his poetry, 107, 108; love for Pico, 109; 112, 150, 164, 172, 181; his tournaments, 229, 230; 235, 279; his palace, 284, 287; his tomb and remains, 291, 293, 296, 318, 327, 350, 353, 379, 389; saved his father's life, 412; death at Careggi, 413; his villa of Poggio a Caiano, 413-415. Lorenzo di Piero, the younger (titular Duke of Urbino), 141-143, 284, 293-295, 353. Lorenzo di Piero Francesco, the elder, 94, 143, 173 (note). Lorenzo, called Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio, 143, 144, 173, 284-286, 405. Maria, 170 Nannina, 354. Ottaviano, 385, 414. Piero Francesco, the elder, 94, 173. Piero Francesco, the younger, 173. Piero di Cosimo ("il Gottoso"), 82, 85, 86, 181, 225, 287, 291, 326, 327, 378, 402. Piero di Lorenzo, 93-95, 106, 116, 117, 121, 123, 124, 127, 128, 140, 141, 170, 284, 334, 405, 420. Salvestro, 71-73. Vieri, 74. Medici e Speziali, Guild of, 28, 38, 194, 198, 221. _Mercato Nuovo_, 200, 203. _Mercato Vecchio_, 7, 199, 200. _Michele, S., in Orto_. See _Or San Michele_. Michele di Lando, 72, 73. _Miniato, S., hill_ of, 1, 2, 398-401. _Miniato al Monte, S._, 13, 398, 401, 403. Misericordia, Confraternity of, 264. Montaperti, Battle of, 23, 24. Montefeltro, Buonconte da, 40, 421. Montefeltro, Federigo da (Duke of Urbino), 174. _Monticelli, convent_, 405. Mozzi, the, 342, 375; Piazza dei, 377; villa, 410. _Murate, le_, 227, 228. N. Nerli, the, 375, 376. Neri. _See_ Bianchi. Nero, Bernardo del, 128, 155. Neroni, Dietisalvi, 85, 412. Niccoli, Niccolò, 102, 103, 291. _Niccolò, S._, 396, 397. Nori, Francesco, 235, 279. Nardi, Jacopo, 72, 135, 228. O. _Ognissanti_, 371-372. _Oltrarno_ (Sesto di, afterwards Quartiere di Santo Spirito), 18-19, 374, 396. _Onofrio, S._, 336. Orange, Prince of, 143, 228, 397. Ordinances of Justice, 41-43, 71, 221. _Or San Michele_, 65, 66, 184-199. Orlandi, Guido, 187, 188. Orsini, Alfonsina, 118, 141; Clarice, 86; Napoleone, 50. _Orti Oricellari_, 370, 371. Otto della Guerra, 62. P. _Palazzo Vecchio (della Signoria)_, 41, 65, 72, 78, 79, 146-154. Palmieri, Matteo, 210, 224. _Pandolfini, Palazzo_, 335. Parte Guelfa, 28, 44, 62, 71, 74, 195, 232; Palace of, 28-31, 200. Passavanti, Fra Jacopo, 70, 359, 366. Passerini, Cardinal, 142. Pater, Walter, 71, 166, 169, 178, 179, 224, 240. Pazzi, conspiracy, 88, 89, 93 (note), 103, 155, 181, 279, 410; carro dei, 279; cappella dei, 243; family, 59, 347; palaces, 209. Pazzi (dei), Francesco, 279; Jacopo, 89, 243; Guglielmo, 85; Pazzino, 53; Piero, 103. Pecora, 43. _Peruzzi, Piazza dei_, 7, 341 (note); _Cappella dei_, 240, 241. Peter Igneus, 13. Petracco, 50. Petrarca, Francesco, 32, 50, 55, 61, 69, 81, 405. _Piazzale Michelangelo_, 398. Pico della Mirandola, 92, 108, 109, 170, 301. _Piero Maggiore, S., Piazza di_, 53, 59, 209, 210. Pistoia, 418. Pitti, Luca, 85, 375, 377, 378, 412. _Pitti, Palazzo and R. Galleria_, 377-388. Podestà, office of, 19, 23, 27, 28, 214. _Podestà, Palazzo del_. See _Bargello_. _Poggio a Caiano_, 413-415. _Poggio Imperiale_, 405, 406. Poliziano, Angelo, 87, 92, 93, 106-108, 178, 181, 227, 298, 301, 364, 415. Pulci, Luigi, 106. _Ponte alla Carraia_, 342, 345, 346: _Ponte alle Grazie (Rubaconte)_, 340, 341, 375, 377, 398; _Ponte S. Trinità_, 342, 346, 348, 350; _Ponte Vecchio_, 20, 341, 342, 375. Poppi, 419, 420. _Popolo, Primo_, 23, 24, 214; _Secondo_, 27, 28, 31, 35, 41, 42, 146. Porciano, 419, 420. Ponte a Mensola, 410. _Porta alla Croce_, 53, 333, 334; _Porta San Frediano_, 67, 408; _Porta San Gallo_, 334; _Porta San Giorgio_, 403, 404; _Porta San Miniato_, 403; _Porta San Niccolò_, 25, 396, 397; _Porta al Prato_, 334, 371, 372; _Porta Romana_, 377, 404, 405, 407. Por S. Maria, Via, 346. Portinari, the, 206, 207; Beatrice, 37, 206; Folco, 206, 329; Manetto, 206, 207; Tommaso, 330. Prato, 415-418. Pratovecchio, 419. Q. _Quaratesi, Palazzo_ (De Rast), 209. R. _Reparata, S._ See _S. Maria del Fiore_. Ricci, the, 62; Marietta dei, 406. _Riccardi, Palazzo_, 78, 79, 87, 98, 118, 283-288. _Riccardiana, Biblioteca_, 288. Ripoli, Piano di, 397. Rossi, the, 59, 376, 376. Robert, King of Naples, 54, 55, 225, 245. Romena, 419, 420. Rovere, Cardinal della. _See_ Julius II. Rovere, Francesco Maria, 167, 177. Rucellai, Bernardo, 85, 353, 354. _Rucellai, Palazzo, Loggia, Cappella_, 353, 354; chapel in _S. Maria Novella_, 361; _gardens_, 370, 371. Ruskin, _passim_. S. Sacchetti, Franco, 32, 65, 70, 71, 199; family of, 208. _S. Salvi_, 54, 333, 334. Salviati, house of, 207; Abp, 88; Marcuccio, 158, 159; Maria, 142, 413. _S. Salvadore al Monte_, 398. SAVONAROLA, FRA GIROLAMO. At the death-bed of Lorenzo, 92, 93, 108; friendship with Pico, 109; earlier life, 111; commences his mission, 112; his visions of the Two Crosses and the Sword, 113-115; during the French invasion, 116, 117, 119; guides the Republic, 119, 120; his vision of the Lilies, 121; his reformation of Florence, 121-123; struggle with the Pope begins, 123, 124; denounces corruption, 124-126; is excommunicated, 127; his orthodoxy, 128; returns to the pulpit, 128; promises miracles, 129; his last sermon, 129, 130; appeals to Christendom against the Pope, 130; the Ordeal by Fire, 131, 132, 157-160; his capture, 132-133; is tortured, 133-134; his martyrdom, 134-136; prophecies fulfilled, 136, 145; his discourse to the Signoria, 151; his prayer and meditations, 153, 154; medal and picture of, 224, 352; sermons in the Duomo, 280; in San Marco, 298, 301-303, 305, 307-309; on the night of Palm Sunday, 310-313; his portrait, 323. Salutati, Coluccio, 390. _Scalzo, Chiostro dello_, 324. Scolari, Filippo (Pippo Spano), 329, 336. Seta, Arte della (Arte di Por S. Maria), 28, 38, 189, 194, 318, 325. Settignano, 410. Sforza, Caterina, 142, 173, 227; Francesco, 78, 79, 82; Galeazzo Maria, 82, 86-88, 168; Ludovico, 90, 95, 121, 124, 136, 137. Shelley, 2, 105, 169, 220, 373. _Signoria, Palazzo della_. See _Palazzo Vecchio_. _Signoria, Piazza della_, 118, 135, 136, 146, 154-160. Silvestro, Fra, 92, 133, 135, 151. Sixtus IV., Pope, 88-90, 93. Soldanieri, Gianni dei, 26. _Spini, Palazzo_, 348. Spini, Doffo, 123, 131, 133, 158-160; Geri, 348. _Spirito, S._, 70, 87, 127, 389-390. _Stefano, S._ (in the Via Por S. Maria), 20, 346. See also _Badia_. Stia, 419. _Stinche, Le_ (Teatro Pagliano), 226. _Strozzi, Palazzo_, 15, 85, 97, 98, 352, 353. _Strozzi, Cappella_, 68, 361-363. Strozzi, Filippo, the elder, 85, 352, 365; Filippo, the younger, 142, 144, 284, 339, 353; Palla, 76, 81, 95, 104, 350, 351; Piero, 349, 353; Tommaso, 74. T. _Torrigiani, Palazzo_, 377. Tornabuoni, Lucrezia, 85. Tosa (della), Baldo, 376; Baschiera, 334, 411; Rossellino, 405; Rosso, 49, 50, 53. Traversari, Ambrogio, 329. Trespiano, 410, 411. _Trebbio, Croce al_, 22, 354. _Trinità, S._, church, 100, 349-351; piazza, 26, 44, 347-349. Towers, Societies of, 19. U. Ubaldini, 49, 232. Uberti, the, 17, 19-21, 23, 40, 62, 149, 411; Farinata degli, 24, 25, 36, 72, 149, 270, 336, 340; Schiatta degli, 20; Tolosato degli, 412. Uccellatoio, 411. _Uffizi, R. Galleria degli_, 160-183. Umiliati, Frati, 371. Urbino, Dukes of. _See_ Medici (Lorenzo), Montefeltro, Della Rovere. Uzzano, Niccolò da, 74, 76, 221, 256, 346, 377. V. Vallombrosa, 13, 421, 422. Valori, Baccio, 144, 225, 339, 406. Valori, Francesco, 126, 128, 132, 211, 212. Varchi, 228, 359, 381, 401. _La Verna_, 421, 422. Vespucci, Amerigo, 372. Villani, Filippo, 70, 390. Villani, Giovanni, 5-8, 32, 36, 69, _et passim_. Villani, Matteo, 70. Visconti, Filippo, 76, 80, 273, 289; Giovanni, 61; Giovanni Galeazzo, 75, 390. Z. Zagonara, Battle of, 76. _Zecca Vecchia, Torre della_, 245. Zenobius, S., 10, 11, 12, 152, 171, 210, 274, 276. TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
4520	----	AARON'S ROD by D. H. Lawrence CONTENTS I. THE BLUE BALL II. ROYAL OAK III. “THE LIGHTED TREE” IV. “THE PILLAR OF SALT” V. AT THE OPERA VI. TALK VII. THE DARK SQUARE GARDEN VIII. A PUNCH IN THE WIND IX. LOW-WATER MARK X. THE WAR AGAIN XI. MORE PILLAR OF SALT XII. NOVARA XIII. WIE ES IHNEN GEFAELLT XIV. XX SETTEMBRE XV. A RAILWAY JOURNEY XVI. FLORENCE XVII. HIGH UP OVER THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE XVIII. THE MARCHESA XIX. CLEOPATRA, BUT NOT ANTHONY XX. THE BROKEN ROD XXI. WORDS CHAPTER I. THE BLUE BALL There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen. It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air. Also there had been another wrangle among the men on the pit-bank that evening. Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black railway-line climbing the hill home from work. He was late because he had attended a meeting of the men on the bank. He was secretary to the Miners Union for his colliery, and had heard a good deal of silly wrangling that left him nettled. He strode over a stile, crossed two fields, strode another stile, and was in the long road of colliers' dwellings. Just across was his own house: he had built it himself. He went through the little gate, up past the side of the house to the back. There he hung a moment, glancing down the dark, wintry garden. “My father--my father's come!” cried a child's excited voice, and two little girls in white pinafores ran out in front of his legs. “Father, shall you set the Christmas Tree?” they cried. “We've got one!” “Afore I have my dinner?” he answered amiably. “Set it now. Set it now.--We got it through Fred Alton.” “Where is it?” The little girls were dragging a rough, dark object out of a corner of the passage into the light of the kitchen door. “It's a beauty!” exclaimed Millicent. “Yes, it is,” said Marjory. “I should think so,” he replied, striding over the dark bough. He went to the back kitchen to take off his coat. “Set it now, Father. Set it now,” clamoured the girls. “You might as well. You've left your dinner so long, you might as well do it now before you have it,” came a woman's plangent voice, out of the brilliant light of the middle room. Aaron Sisson had taken off his coat and waistcoat and his cap. He stood bare-headed in his shirt and braces, contemplating the tree. “What am I to put it in?” he queried. He picked up the tree, and held it erect by the topmost twig. He felt the cold as he stood in the yard coatless, and he twitched his shoulders. “Isn't it a beauty!” repeated Millicent. “Ay!--lop-sided though.” “Put something on, you two!” came the woman's high imperative voice, from the kitchen. “We aren't cold,” protested the girls from the yard. “Come and put something on,” insisted the voice. The man started off down the path, the little girls ran grumbling indoors. The sky was clear, there was still a crystalline, non-luminous light in the under air. Aaron rummaged in his shed at the bottom of the garden, and found a spade and a box that was suitable. Then he came out to his neat, bare, wintry garden. The girls flew towards him, putting the elastic of their hats under their chins as they ran. The tree and the box lay on the frozen earth. The air breathed dark, frosty, electric. “Hold it up straight,” he said to Millicent, as he arranged the tree in the box. She stood silent and held the top bough, he filled in round the roots. When it was done, and pressed in, he went for the wheelbarrow. The girls were hovering excited round the tree. He dropped the barrow and stooped to the box. The girls watched him hold back his face--the boughs pricked him. “Is it very heavy?” asked Millicent. “Ay!” he replied, with a little grunt. Then the procession set off--the trundling wheel-barrow, the swinging hissing tree, the two excited little girls. They arrived at the door. Down went the legs of the wheel-barrow on the yard. The man looked at the box. “Where are you going to have it?” he called. “Put it in the back kitchen,” cried his wife. “You'd better have it where it's going to stop. I don't want to hawk it about.” “Put it on the floor against the dresser, Father. Put it there,” urged Millicent. “You come and put some paper down, then,” called the mother hastily. The two children ran indoors, the man stood contemplative in the cold, shrugging his uncovered shoulders slightly. The open inner door showed a bright linoleum on the floor, and the end of a brown side-board on which stood an aspidistra. Again with a wrench Aaron Sisson lifted the box. The tree pricked and stung. His wife watched him as he entered staggering, with his face averted. “Mind where you make a lot of dirt,” she said. He lowered the box with a little jerk on to the spread-out newspaper on the floor. Soil scattered. “Sweep it up,” he said to Millicent. His ear was lingering over the sudden, clutching hiss of the tree-boughs. A stark white incandescent light filled the room and made everything sharp and hard. In the open fire-place a hot fire burned red. All was scrupulously clean and perfect. A baby was cooing in a rocker-less wicker cradle by the hearth. The mother, a slim, neat woman with dark hair, was sewing a child's frock. She put this aside, rose, and began to take her husband's dinner from the oven. “You stopped confabbing long enough tonight,” she said. “Yes,” he answered, going to the back kitchen to wash his hands. In a few minutes he came and sat down to his dinner. The doors were shut close, but there was a draught, because the settling of the mines under the house made the doors not fit. Aaron moved his chair, to get out of the draught. But he still sat in his shirt and trousers. He was a good-looking man, fair, and pleasant, about thirty-two years old. He did not talk much, but seemed to think about something. His wife resumed her sewing. She was acutely aware of her husband, but he seemed not very much aware of her. “What were they on about today, then?” she said. “About the throw-in.” “And did they settle anything?” “They're going to try it--and they'll come out if it isn't satisfactory.” “The butties won't have it, I know,” she said. He gave a short laugh, and went on with his meal. The two children were squatted on the floor by the tree. They had a wooden box, from which they had taken many little newspaper packets, which they were spreading out like wares. “Don't open any. We won't open any of them till we've taken them all out--and then we'll undo one in our turns. Then we s'll both undo equal,” Millicent was saying. “Yes, we'll take them ALL out first,” re-echoed Marjory. “And what are they going to do about Job Arthur Freer? Do they want him?” A faint smile came on her husband's face. “Nay, I don't know what they want.--Some of 'em want him--whether they're a majority, I don't know.” She watched him closely. “Majority! I'd give 'em majority. They want to get rid of you, and make a fool of you, and you want to break your heart over it. Strikes me you need something to break your heart over.” He laughed silently. “Nay,” he said. “I s'll never break my heart.” “You'll go nearer to it over that, than over anything else: just because a lot of ignorant monkeys want a monkey of their own sort to do the Union work, and jabber to them, they want to get rid of you, and you eat your heart out about it. More fool you, that's all I say--more fool you. If you cared for your wife and children half what you care about your Union, you'd be a lot better pleased in the end. But you care about nothing but a lot of ignorant colliers, who don't know what they want except it's more money just for themselves. Self, self, self--that's all it is with them--and ignorance.” “You'd rather have self without ignorance?” he said, smiling finely. “I would, if I've got to have it. But what I should like to see is a man that has thought for others, and isn't all self and politics.” Her color had risen, her hand trembled with anger as she sewed. A blank look had come over the man's face, as if he did not hear or heed any more. He drank his tea in a long draught, wiped his moustache with two fingers, and sat looking abstractedly at the children. They had laid all the little packets on the floor, and Millicent was saying: “Now I'll undo the first, and you can have the second. I'll take this--” She unwrapped the bit of newspaper and disclosed a silvery ornament for a Christmas tree: a frail thing like a silver plum, with deep rosy indentations on each side. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Isn't it LOVELY!” Her fingers cautiously held the long bubble of silver and glowing rose, cleaving to it with a curious, irritating possession. The man's eyes moved away from her. The lesser child was fumbling with one of the little packets. “Oh!”--a wail went up from Millicent. “You've taken one!--You didn't wait.” Then her voice changed to a motherly admonition, and she began to interfere. “This is the way to do it, look! Let me help you.” But Marjory drew back with resentment. “Don't, Millicent!--Don't!” came the childish cry. But Millicent's fingers itched. At length Marjory had got out her treasure--a little silvery bell with a glass top hanging inside. The bell was made of frail glassy substance, light as air. “Oh, the bell!” rang out Millicent's clanging voice. “The bell! It's my bell. My bell! It's mine! Don't break it, Marjory. Don't break it, will you?” Marjory was shaking the bell against her ear. But it was dumb, it made no sound. “You'll break it, I know you will.--You'll break it. Give it ME--” cried Millicent, and she began to take away the bell. Marjory set up an expostulation. “LET HER ALONE,” said the father. Millicent let go as if she had been stung, but still her brassy, impudent voice persisted: “She'll break it. She'll break it. It's mine--” “You undo another,” said the mother, politic. Millicent began with hasty, itching fingers to unclose another package. “Aw--aw Mother, my peacock--aw, my peacock, my green peacock!” Lavishly she hovered over a sinuous greenish bird, with wings and tail of spun glass, pearly, and body of deep electric green. “It's mine--my green peacock! It's mine, because Marjory's had one wing off, and mine hadn't. My green peacock that I love! I love it!” She swung it softly from the little ring on its back. Then she went to her mother. “Look, Mother, isn't it a beauty?” “Mind the ring doesn't come out,” said her mother. “Yes, it's lovely!” The girl passed on to her father. “Look, Father, don't you love it!” “Love it?” he re-echoed, ironical over the word love. She stood for some moments, trying to force his attention. Then she went back to her place. Marjory had brought forth a golden apple, red on one cheek, rather garish. “Oh!” exclaimed Millicent feverishly, instantly seized with desire for what she had not got, indifferent to what she had. Her eye ran quickly over the packages. She took one. “Now!” she exclaimed loudly, to attract attention. “Now! What's this?--What's this? What will this beauty be?” With finicky fingers she removed the newspaper. Marjory watched her wide-eyed. Millicent was self-important. “The blue ball!” she cried in a climax of rapture. “I've got THE BLUE BALL.” She held it gloating in the cup of her hands. It was a little globe of hardened glass, of a magnificent full dark blue color. She rose and went to her father. “It was your blue ball, wasn't it, father?” “Yes.” “And you had it when you were a little boy, and now I have it when I'm a little girl.” “Ay,” he replied drily. “And it's never been broken all those years.” “No, not yet.” “And perhaps it never will be broken.” To this she received no answer. “Won't it break?” she persisted. “Can't you break it?” “Yes, if you hit it with a hammer,” he said. “Aw!” she cried. “I don't mean that. I mean if you just drop it. It won't break if you drop it, will it?” “I dare say it won't.” “But WILL it?” “I sh'd think not.” “Should I try?” She proceeded gingerly to let the blue ball drop, it bounced dully on the floor-covering. “Oh-h-h!” she cried, catching it up. “I love it.” “Let ME drop it,” cried Marjory, and there was a performance of admonition and demonstration from the elder sister. But Millicent must go further. She became excited. “It won't break,” she said, “even if you toss it up in the air.” She flung it up, it fell safely. But her father's brow knitted slightly. She tossed it wildly: it fell with a little splashing explosion: it had smashed. It had fallen on the sharp edge of the tiles that protruded under the fender. “NOW what have you done!” cried the mother. The child stood with her lip between her teeth, a look, half, of pure misery and dismay, half of satisfaction, on her pretty sharp face. “She wanted to break it,” said the father. “No, she didn't! What do you say that for!” said the mother. And Millicent burst into a flood of tears. He rose to look at the fragments that lay splashed on the floor. “You must mind the bits,” he said, “and pick 'em all up.” He took one of the pieces to examine it. It was fine and thin and hard, lined with pure silver, brilliant. He looked at it closely. So--this was what it was. And this was the end of it. He felt the curious soft explosion of its breaking still in his ears. He threw his piece in the fire. “Pick all the bits up,” he said. “Give over! give over! Don't cry any more.” The good-natured tone of his voice quieted the child, as he intended it should. He went away into the back kitchen to wash himself. As he was bending his head over the sink before the little mirror, lathering to shave, there came from outside the dissonant voices of boys, pouring out the dregs of carol-singing. “While Shep-ep-ep-ep-herds watched--” He held his soapy brush suspended for a minute. They called this singing! His mind flitted back to early carol music. Then again he heard the vocal violence outside. “Aren't you off there!” he called out, in masculine menace. The noise stopped, there was a scuffle. But the feet returned and the voices resumed. Almost immediately the door opened, boys were heard muttering among themselves. Millicent had given them a penny. Feet scraped on the yard, then went thudding along the side of the house, to the street. To Aaron Sisson, this was home, this was Christmas: the unspeakably familiar. The war over, nothing was changed. Yet everything changed. The scullery in which he stood was painted green, quite fresh, very clean, the floor was red tiles. The wash-copper of red bricks was very red, the mangle with its put-up board was white-scrubbed, the American oil-cloth on the table had a gay pattern, there was a warm fire, the water in the boiler hissed faintly. And in front of him, beneath him as he leaned forward shaving, a drop of water fell with strange, incalculable rhythm from the bright brass tap into the white enamelled bowl, which was now half full of pure, quivering water. The war was over, and everything just the same. The acute familiarity of this house, which he had built for his marriage twelve years ago, the changeless pleasantness of it all seemed unthinkable. It prevented his thinking. When he went into the middle room to comb his hair he found the Christmas tree sparkling, his wife was making pastry at the table, the baby was sitting up propped in cushions. “Father,” said Millicent, approaching him with a flat blue-and-white angel of cotton-wool, and two ends of cotton--“tie the angel at the top.” “Tie it at the top?” he said, looking down. “Yes. At the very top--because it's just come down from the sky.” “Ay my word!” he laughed. And he tied the angel. Coming downstairs after changing he went into the icy cold parlour, and took his music and a small handbag. With this he retreated again to the back kitchen. He was still in trousers and shirt and slippers: but now it was a clean white shirt, and his best black trousers, and new pink and white braces. He sat under the gas-jet of the back kitchen, looking through his music. Then he opened the bag, in which were sections of a flute and a piccolo. He took out the flute, and adjusted it. As he sat he was physically aware of the sounds of the night: the bubbling of water in the boiler, the faint sound of the gas, the sudden crying of the baby in the next room, then noises outside, distant boys shouting, distant rags of carols, fragments of voices of men. The whole country was roused and excited. The little room was hot. Aaron rose and opened a square ventilator over the copper, letting in a stream of cold air, which was grateful to him. Then he cocked his eye over the sheet of music spread out on the table before him. He tried his flute. And then at last, with the odd gesture of a diver taking a plunge, he swung his head and began to play. A stream of music, soft and rich and fluid, came out of the flute. He played beautifully. He moved his head and his raised bare arms with slight, intense movements, as the delicate music poured out. It was sixteenth-century Christmas melody, very limpid and delicate. The pure, mindless, exquisite motion and fluidity of the music delighted him with a strange exasperation. There was something tense, exasperated to the point of intolerable anger, in his good-humored breast, as he played the finely-spun peace-music. The more exquisite the music, the more perfectly he produced it, in sheer bliss; and at the same time, the more intense was the maddened exasperation within him. Millicent appeared in the room. She fidgetted at the sink. The music was a bugbear to her, because it prevented her from saying what was on her own mind. At length it ended, her father was turning over the various books and sheets. She looked at him quickly, seizing her opportunity. “Are you going out, Father?” she said. “Eh?” “Are you going out?” She twisted nervously. “What do you want to know for?” He made no other answer, and turned again to the music. His eye went down a sheet--then over it again--then more closely over it again. “Are you?” persisted the child, balancing on one foot. He looked at her, and his eyes were angry under knitted brows. “What are you bothering about?” he said. “I'm not bothering--I only wanted to know if you were going out,” she pouted, quivering to cry. “I expect I am,” he said quietly. She recovered at once, but still with timidity asked: “We haven't got any candles for the Christmas tree--shall you buy some, because mother isn't going out?” “Candles!” he repeated, settling his music and taking up the piccolo. “Yes--shall you buy us some, Father? Shall you?” “Candles!” he repeated, putting the piccolo to his mouth and blowing a few piercing, preparatory notes. “Yes, little Christmas-tree candles--blue ones and red ones, in boxes--Shall you, Father?” “We'll see--if I see any--” “But SHALL you?” she insisted desperately. She wisely mistrusted his vagueness. But he was looking unheeding at the music. Then suddenly the piccolo broke forth, wild, shrill, brilliant. He was playing Mozart. The child's face went pale with anger at the sound. She turned, and went out, closing both doors behind her to shut out the noise. The shrill, rapid movement of the piccolo music seemed to possess the air, it was useless to try to shut it out. The man went on playing to himself, measured and insistent. In the frosty evening the sound carried. People passing down the street hesitated, listening. The neighbours knew it was Aaron practising his piccolo. He was esteemed a good player: was in request at concerts and dances, also at swell balls. So the vivid piping sound tickled the darkness. He played on till about seven o'clock; he did not want to go out too soon, in spite of the early closing of the public houses. He never went with the stream, but made a side current of his own. His wife said he was contrary. When he went into the middle room to put on his collar and tie, the two little girls were having their hair brushed, the baby was in bed, there was a hot smell of mince-pies baking in the oven. “You won't forget our candles, will you, Father?” asked Millicent, with assurance now. “I'll see,” he answered. His wife watched him as he put on his overcoat and hat. He was well-dressed, handsome-looking. She felt there was a curious glamour about him. It made her feel bitter. He had an unfair advantage--he was free to go off, while she must stay at home with the children. “There's no knowing what time you'll be home,” she said. “I shan't be late,” he answered. “It's easy to say so,” she retorted, with some contempt. He took his stick, and turned towards the door. “Bring the children some candles for their tree, and don't be so selfish,” she said. “All right,” he said, going out. “Don't say ALL RIGHT if you never mean to do it,” she cried, with sudden anger, following him to the door. His figure stood large and shadowy in the darkness. “How many do you want?” he said. “A dozen,” she said. “And holders too, if you can get them,” she added, with barren bitterness. “Yes--all right,” he turned and melted into the darkness. She went indoors, worn with a strange and bitter flame. He crossed the fields towards the little town, which once more fumed its lights under the night. The country ran away, rising on his right hand. It was no longer a great bank of darkness. Lights twinkled freely here and there, though forlornly, now that the war-time restrictions were removed. It was no glitter of pre-war nights, pit-heads glittering far-off with electricity. Neither was it the black gulf of the war darkness: instead, this forlorn sporadic twinkling. Everybody seemed to be out of doors. The hollow dark countryside re-echoed like a shell with shouts and calls and excited voices. Restlessness and nervous excitement, nervous hilarity were in the air. There was a sense of electric surcharge everywhere, frictional, a neurasthenic haste for excitement. Every moment Aaron Sisson was greeted with Good-night--Good-night, Aaron--Good-night, Mr. Sisson. People carrying parcels, children, women, thronged home on the dark paths. They were all talking loudly, declaiming loudly about what they could and could not get, and what this or the other had lost. When he got into the main street, the only street of shops, it was crowded. There seemed to have been some violent but quiet contest, a subdued fight, going on all the afternoon and evening: people struggling to buy things, to get things. Money was spent like water, there was a frenzy of money-spending. Though the necessities of life were in abundance, still the people struggled in frenzy for cheese, sweets, raisins, pork-stuff, even for flowers and holly, all of which were scarce, and for toys and knick-knacks, which were sold out. There was a wild grumbling, but a deep satisfaction in the fight, the struggle. The same fight and the same satisfaction in the fight was witnessed whenever a tram-car stopped, or when it heaved its way into sight. Then the struggle to mount on board became desperate and savage, but stimulating. Souls surcharged with hostility found now some outlet for their feelings. As he came near the little market-place he bethought himself of the Christmas-tree candles. He did not intend to trouble himself. And yet, when he glanced in passing into the sweet-shop window, and saw it bare as a board, the very fact that he probably _could not_ buy the things made him hesitate, and try. “Have you got any Christmas-tree candles?” he asked as he entered the shop. “How many do you want?” “A dozen.” “Can't let you have a dozen. You can have two boxes--four in a box--eight. Six-pence a box.” “Got any holders?” “Holders? Don't ask. Haven't seen one this year.” “Got any toffee--?” “Cough-drops--two-pence an ounce--nothing else left.” “Give me four ounces.” He watched her weighing them in the little brass scales. “You've not got much of a Christmas show,” he said. “Don't talk about Christmas, as far as sweets is concerned. They ought to have allowed us six times the quantity--there's plenty of sugar, why didn't they? We s'll have to enjoy ourselves with what we've got. We mean to, anyhow.” “Ay,” he said. “Time we had a bit of enjoyment, THIS Christmas. They ought to have made things more plentiful.” “Yes,” he said, stuffing his package in his pocket. CHAPTER II. ROYAL OAK The war had killed the little market of the town. As he passed the market place on the brow, Aaron noticed that there were only two miserable stalls. But people crowded just the same. There was a loud sound of voices, men's voices. Men pressed round the doorways of the public-houses. But he was going to a pub out of town. He descended the dark hill. A street-lamp here and there shed parsimonious light. In the bottoms, under the trees, it was very dark. But a lamp glimmered in front of the “Royal Oak.” This was a low white house sunk three steps below the highway. It was darkened, but sounded crowded. Opening the door, Sisson found himself in the stone passage. Old Bob, carrying three cans, stopped to see who had entered--then went on into the public bar on the left. The bar itself was a sort of little window-sill on the right: the pub was a small one. In this window-opening stood the landlady, drawing and serving to her husband. Behind the bar was a tiny parlour or den, the landlady's preserve. “Oh, it's you,” she said, bobbing down to look at the newcomer. None entered her bar-parlour unless invited. “Come in,” said the landlady. There was a peculiar intonation in her complacent voice, which showed she had been expecting him, a little irritably. He went across into her bar-parlour. It would not hold more than eight or ten people, all told--just the benches along the walls, the fire between--and two little round tables. “I began to think you weren't coming,” said the landlady, bringing him a whiskey. She was a large, stout, high-coloured woman, with a fine profile, probably Jewish. She had chestnut-coloured eyes, quick, intelligent. Her movements were large and slow, her voice laconic. “I'm not so late, am I?” asked Aaron. “Yes, you are late, I should think.” She Looked up at the little clock. “Close on nine.” “I did some shopping,” said Aaron, with a quick smile. “Did you indeed? That's news, I'm sure. May we ask what you bought?” This he did not like. But he had to answer. “Christmas-tree candles, and toffee.” “For the little children? Well you've done well for once! I must say I recommend you. I didn't think you had so much in you.” She sat herself down in her seat at the end of the bench, and took up her knitting. Aaron sat next to her. He poured water into his glass, and drank. “It's warm in here,” he said, when he had swallowed the liquor. “Yes, it is. You won't want to keep that thick good overcoat on,” replied the landlady. “No,” he said, “I think I'll take it off.” She watched him as he hung up his overcoat. He wore black clothes, as usual. As he reached up to the pegs, she could see the muscles of his shoulders, and the form of his legs. Her reddish-brown eyes seemed to burn, and her nose, that had a subtle, beautiful Hebraic curve, seemed to arch itself. She made a little place for him by herself, as he returned. She carried her head thrown back, with dauntless self-sufficiency. There were several colliers in the room, talking quietly. They were the superior type all, favoured by the landlady, who loved intellectual discussion. Opposite, by the fire, sat a little, greenish man--evidently an oriental. “You're very quiet all at once, Doctor,” said the landlady in her slow, laconic voice. “Yes.--May I have another whiskey, please?” She rose at once, powerfully energetic. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said. And she went to the bar. “Well,” said the little Hindu doctor, “and how are things going now, with the men?” “The same as ever,” said Aaron. “Yes,” said the stately voice of the landlady. “And I'm afraid they will always be the same as ever. When will they learn wisdom?” “But what do you call wisdom?” asked Sherardy, the Hindu. He spoke with a little, childish lisp. “What do I call wisdom?” repeated the landlady. “Why all acting together for the common good. That is wisdom in my idea.” “Yes, very well, that is so. But what do you call the common good?” replied the little doctor, with childish pertinence. “Ay,” said Aaron, with a laugh, “that's it.” The miners were all stirring now, to take part in the discussion. “What do I call the common good?” repeated the landlady. “That all people should study the welfare of other people, and not only their own.” “They are not to study their own welfare?” said the doctor. “Ah, that I did not say,” replied the landlady. “Let them study their own welfare, and that of others also.” “Well then,” said the doctor, “what is the welfare of a collier?” “The welfare of a collier,” said the landlady, “is that he shall earn sufficient wages to keep himself and his family comfortable, to educate his children, and to educate himself; for that is what he wants, education.” “Ay, happen so,” put in Brewitt, a big, fine, good-humoured collier. “Happen so, Mrs. Houseley. But what if you haven't got much education, to speak of?” “You can always get it,” she said patronizing. “Nay--I'm blest if you can. It's no use tryin' to educate a man over forty--not by book-learning. That isn't saying he's a fool, neither.” “And what better is them that's got education?” put in another man. “What better is the manager, or th' under-manager, than we are?--Pender's yaller enough i' th' face.” “He is that,” assented the men in chorus. “But because he's yellow in the face, as you say, Mr. Kirk,” said the landlady largely, “that doesn't mean he has no advantages higher than what you have got.” “Ay,” said Kirk. “He can ma'e more money than I can--that's about a' as it comes to.” “He can make more money,” said the landlady. “And when he's made it, he knows better how to use it.” “'Appen so, an' a'!--What does he do, more than eat and drink and work?--an' take it out of hisself a sight harder than I do, by th' looks of him.--What's it matter, if he eats a bit more or drinks a bit more--” “No,” reiterated the landlady. “He not only eats and drinks. He can read, and he can converse.” “Me an' a',” said Tom Kirk, and the men burst into a laugh. “I can read--an' I've had many a talk an' conversation with you in this house, Mrs. Houseley--am havin' one at this minute, seemingly.” “SEEMINGLY, you are,” said the landlady ironically. “But do you think there would be no difference between your conversation, and Mr. Pender's, if he were here so that I could enjoy his conversation?” “An' what difference would there be?” asked Tom Kirk. “He'd go home to his bed just the same.” “There, you are mistaken. He would be the better, and so should I, a great deal better, for a little genuine conversation.” “If it's conversation as ma'es his behind drop--” said Tom Kirk. “An' puts th' bile in his face--” said Brewitt. There was a general laugh. “I can see it's no use talking about it any further,” said the landlady, lifting her head dangerously. “But look here, Mrs. Houseley, do you really think it makes much difference to a man, whether he can hold a serious conversation or not?” asked the doctor. “I do indeed, all the difference in the world--To me, there is no greater difference, than between an educated man and an uneducated man.” “And where does it come in?” asked Kirk. “But wait a bit, now,” said Aaron Sisson. “You take an educated man--take Pender. What's his education for? What does he scheme for?--What does he contrive for? What does he talk for?--” “For all the purposes of his life,” replied the landlady. “Ay, an' what's the purpose of his life?” insisted Aaron Sisson. “The purpose of his life,” repeated the landlady, at a loss. “I should think he knows that best himself.” “No better than I know it--and you know it,” said Aaron. “Well,” said the landlady, “if you know, then speak out. What is it?” “To make more money for the firm--and so make his own chance of a rise better.” The landlady was baffled for some moments. Then she said: “Yes, and suppose that he does. Is there any harm in it? Isn't it his duty to do what he can for himself? Don't you try to earn all you can?” “Ay,” said Aaron. “But there's soon a limit to what I can earn.--It's like this. When you work it out, everything comes to money. Reckon it as you like, it's money on both sides. It's money we live for, and money is what our lives is worth--nothing else. Money we live for, and money we are when we're dead: that or nothing. An' it's money as is between the masters and us. There's a few educated ones got hold of one end of the rope, and all the lot of us hanging on to th' other end, an' we s'll go on pulling our guts out, time in, time out--” “But they've got th' long end o' th' rope, th' masters has,” said Brewitt. “For as long as one holds, the other will pull,” concluded Aaron Sisson philosophically. “An' I'm almighty sure o' that,” said Kirk. There was a little pause. “Yes, that's all there is in the minds of you men,” said the landlady. “But what can be done with the money, that you never think of--the education of the children, the improvement of conditions--” “Educate the children, so that they can lay hold of the long end of the rope, instead of the short end,” said the doctor, with a little giggle. “Ay, that's it,” said Brewitt. “I've pulled at th' short end, an' my lads may do th' same.” “A selfish policy,” put in the landlady. “Selfish or not, they may do it.” “Till the crack o' doom,” said Aaron, with a glistening smile. “Or the crack o' th' rope,” said Brewitt. “Yes, and THEN WHAT?” cried the landlady. “Then we all drop on our backsides,” said Kirk. There was a general laugh, and an uneasy silence. “All I can say of you men,” said the landlady, “is that you have a narrow, selfish policy.--Instead of thinking of the children, instead of thinking of improving the world you live in--” “We hang on, British bulldog breed,” said Brewitt. There was a general laugh. “Yes, and little wiser than dogs, wrangling for a bone,” said the landlady. “Are we to let t' other side run off wi' th' bone, then, while we sit on our stunts an' yowl for it?” asked Brewitt. “No indeed. There can be wisdom in everything.--It's what you DO with the money, when you've got it,” said the landlady, “that's where the importance lies.” “It's Missis as gets it,” said Kirk. “It doesn't stop wi' us.” “Ay, it's the wife as gets it, ninety per cent,” they all concurred. “And who SHOULD have the money, indeed, if not your wives? They have everything to do with the money. What idea have you, but to waste it!” “Women waste nothing--they couldn't if they tried,” said Aaron Sisson. There was a lull for some minutes. The men were all stimulated by drink. The landlady kept them going. She herself sipped a glass of brandy--but slowly. She sat near to Sisson--and the great fierce warmth of her presence enveloped him particularly. He loved so to luxuriate, like a cat, in the presence of a violent woman. He knew that tonight she was feeling very nice to him--a female glow that came out of her to him. Sometimes when she put down her knitting, or took it up again from the bench beside him, her fingers just touched his thigh, and the fine electricity ran over his body, as if he were a cat tingling at a caress. And yet he was not happy--nor comfortable. There was a hard, opposing core in him, that neither the whiskey nor the woman could dissolve or soothe, tonight. It remained hard, nay, became harder and more deeply antagonistic to his surroundings, every moment. He recognised it as a secret malady he suffered from: this strained, unacknowledged opposition to his surroundings, a hard core of irrational, exhausting withholding of himself. Irritating, because he still WANTED to give himself. A woman and whiskey, these were usually a remedy--and music. But lately these had begun to fail him. No, there was something in him that would not give in--neither to the whiskey, nor the woman, nor even the music. Even in the midst of his best music, it sat in the middle of him, this invisible black dog, and growled and waited, never to be cajoled. He knew of its presence--and was a little uneasy. For of course he _wanted_ to let himself go, to feel rosy and loving and all that. But at the very thought, the black dog showed its teeth. Still he kept the beast at bay--with all his will he kept himself as it were genial. He wanted to melt and be rosy, happy. He sipped his whiskey with gratification, he luxuriated in the presence of the landlady, very confident of the strength of her liking for him. He glanced at her profile--that fine throw-back of her hostile head, wicked in the midst of her benevolence; that subtle, really very beautiful delicate curve of her nose, that moved him exactly like a piece of pure sound. But tonight it did not overcome him. There was a devilish little cold eye in his brain that was not taken in by what he saw. A terrible obstinacy located itself in him. He saw the fine, rich-coloured, secretive face of the Hebrew woman, so loudly self-righteous, and so dangerous, so destructive, so lustful--and he waited for his blood to melt with passion for her. But not tonight. Tonight his innermost heart was hard and cold as ice. The very danger and lustfulness of her, which had so pricked his senses, now made him colder. He disliked her at her tricks. He saw her once too often. Her and all women. Bah, the love game! And the whiskey that was to help in the game! He had drowned himself once too often in whiskey and in love. Now he floated like a corpse in both, with a cold, hostile eye. And at least half of his inward fume was anger because he could no longer drown. Nothing would have pleased him better than to feel his senses melting and swimming into oneness with the dark. But impossible! Cold, with a white fury inside him, he floated wide eyed and apart as a corpse. He thought of the gentle love of his first married years, and became only whiter and colder, set in more intense obstinacy. A wave of revulsion lifted him. He became aware that he was deadly antagonistic to the landlady, that he disliked his whole circumstances. A cold, diabolical consciousness detached itself from his state of semi-intoxication. “Is it pretty much the same out there in India?” he asked of the doctor, suddenly. The doctor started, and attended to him on his own level. “Probably,” he answered. “It is worse.” “Worse!” exclaimed Aaron Sisson. “How's that?” “Why, because, in a way the people of India have an easier time even than the people of England. Because they have no responsibility. The British Government takes the responsibility. And the people have nothing to do, except their bit of work--and talk perhaps about national rule, just for a pastime.” “They have to earn their living?” said Sisson. “Yes,” said the little doctor, who had lived for some years among the colliers, and become quite familiar with them. “Yes, they have to earn their living--and then no more. That's why the British Government is the worst thing possible for them. It is the worst thing possible. And not because it is a bad government. Really, it is not a bad government. It is a good one--and they know it--much better than they would make for themselves, probably. But for that reason it is so very bad.” The little oriental laughed a queer, sniggering laugh. His eyes were very bright, dilated, completely black. He was looking into the ice-blue, pointed eyes of Aaron Sisson. They were both intoxicated--but grimly so. They looked at each other in elemental difference. The whole room was now attending to this new conversation: which they all accepted as serious. For Aaron was considered a special man, a man of peculiar understanding, even though as a rule he said little. “If it is a good government, doctor, how can it be so bad for the people?” said the landlady. The doctor's eyes quivered for the fraction of a second, as he watched the other man. He did not look at the landlady. “It would not matter what kind of mess they made--and they would make a mess, if they governed themselves, the people of India. They would probably make the greatest muddle possible--and start killing one another. But it wouldn't matter if they exterminated half the population, so long as they did it themselves, and were responsible for it.” Again his eyes dilated, utterly black, to the eyes of the other man, and an arch little smile flickered on his face. “I think it would matter very much indeed,” said the landlady. “They had far better NOT govern themselves.” She was, for some reason, becoming angry. The little greenish doctor emptied his glass, and smiled again. “But what difference does it make,” said Aaron Sisson, “whether they govern themselves or not? They only live till they die, either way.” And he smiled faintly. He had not really listened to the doctor. The terms “British Government,” and “bad for the people--good for the people,” made him malevolently angry. The doctor was nonplussed for a moment. Then he gathered himself together. “It matters,” he said; “it matters.--People should always be responsible for themselves. How can any people be responsible for another race of people, and for a race much older than they are, and not at all children.” Aaron Sisson watched the other's dark face, with its utterly exposed eyes. He was in a state of semi-intoxicated anger and clairvoyance. He saw in the black, void, glistening eyes of the oriental only the same danger, the same menace that he saw in the landlady. Fair, wise, even benevolent words: always the human good speaking, and always underneath, something hateful, something detestable and murderous. Wise speech and good intentions--they were invariably maggoty with these secret inclinations to destroy the man in the man. Whenever he heard anyone holding forth: the landlady, this doctor, the spokesman on the pit bank: or when he read the all-righteous newspaper; his soul curdled with revulsion as from something foul. Even the infernal love and good-will of his wife. To hell with good-will! It was more hateful than ill-will. Self-righteous bullying, like poison gas! The landlady looked at the clock. “Ten minutes to, gentlemen,” she said coldly. For she too knew that Aaron was spoiled for her for that night. The men began to take their leave, shakily. The little doctor seemed to evaporate. The landlady helped Aaron on with his coat. She saw the curious whiteness round his nostrils and his eyes, the fixed hellish look on his face. “You'll eat a mince-pie in the kitchen with us, for luck?” she said to him, detaining him till last. But he turned laughing to her. “Nay,” he said, “I must be getting home.” He turned and went straight out of the house. Watching him, the landlady's face became yellow with passion and rage. “That little poisonous Indian viper,” she said aloud, attributing Aaron's mood to the doctor. Her husband was noisily bolting the door. Outside it was dark and frosty. A gang of men lingered in the road near the closed door. Aaron found himself among them, his heart bitterer than steel. The men were dispersing. He should take the road home. But the devil was in it, if he could take a stride in the homeward direction. There seemed a wall in front of him. He veered. But neither could he take a stride in the opposite direction. So he was destined to veer round, like some sort of weather-cock, there in the middle of the dark road outside the “Royal Oak.” But as he turned, he caught sight of a third exit. Almost opposite was the mouth of Shottle Lane, which led off under trees, at right angles to the highroad, up to New Brunswick Colliery. He veered towards the off-chance of this opening, in a delirium of icy fury, and plunged away into the dark lane, walking slowly, on firm legs. CHAPTER III. “THE LIGHTED TREE” It is remarkable how many odd or extraordinary people there are in England. We hear continual complaints of the stodgy dullness of the English. It would be quite as just to complain of their freakish, unusual characters. Only _en masse_ the metal is all Britannia. In an ugly little mining town we find the odd ones just as distinct as anywhere else. Only it happens that dull people invariably meet dull people, and odd individuals always come across odd individuals, no matter where they may be. So that to each kind society seems all of a piece. At one end of the dark tree-covered Shottle Lane stood the “Royal Oak” public house; and Mrs. Houseley was certainly an odd woman. At the other end of the lane was Shottle House, where the Bricknells lived; the Bricknells were odd, also. Alfred Bricknell, the old man, was one of the partners in the Colliery firm. His English was incorrect, his accent, broad Derbyshire, and he was not a gentleman in the snobbish sense of the word. Yet he was well-to-do, and very stuck-up. His wife was dead. Shottle House stood two hundred yards beyond New Brunswick Colliery. The colliery was imbedded in a plantation, whence its burning pit-hill glowed, fumed, and stank sulphur in the nostrils of the Bricknells. Even war-time efforts had not put out this refuse fire. Apart from this, Shottle House was a pleasant square house, rather old, with shrubberies and lawns. It ended the lane in a dead end. Only a field-path trekked away to the left. On this particular Christmas Eve Alfred Bricknell had only two of his children at home. Of the others, one daughter was unhappily married, and away in India weeping herself thinner; another was nursing her babies in Streatham. Jim, the hope of the house, and Julia, now married to Robert Cunningham, had come home for Christmas. The party was seated in the drawing-room, that the grown-up daughters had made very fine during their periods of courtship. Its walls were hung with fine grey canvas, it had a large, silvery grey, silky carpet, and the furniture was covered with dark green silky material. Into this reticence pieces of futurism, Omega cushions and Van-Gogh-like pictures exploded their colours. Such _chic_ would certainly not have been looked for up Shottle Lane. The old man sat in his high grey arm-chair very near an enormous coal fire. In this house there was no coal-rationing. The finest coal was arranged to obtain a gigantic glow such as a coal-owner may well enjoy, a great, intense mass of pure red fire. At this fire Alfred Bricknell toasted his tan, lambs-wool-lined slippers. He was a large man, wearing a loose grey suit, and sprawling in the large grey arm-chair. The soft lamp-light fell on his clean, bald, Michael-Angelo head, across which a few pure hairs glittered. His chin was sunk on his breast, so that his sparse but strong-haired white beard, in which every strand stood distinct, like spun glass lithe and elastic, curved now upwards and inwards, in a curious curve returning upon him. He seemed to be sunk in stern, prophet-like meditation. As a matter of fact, he was asleep after a heavy meal. Across, seated on a pouffe on the other side of the fire, was a cameo-like girl with neat black hair done tight and bright in the French mode. She had strangely-drawn eyebrows, and her colour was brilliant. She was hot, leaning back behind the shaft of old marble of the mantel-piece, to escape the fire. She wore a simple dress of apple-green satin, with full sleeves and ample skirt and a tiny bodice of green cloth. This was Josephine Ford, the girl Jim was engaged to. Jim Bricknell himself was a tall big fellow of thirty-eight. He sat in a chair in front of the fire, some distance back, and stretched his long legs far in front of him. His chin too was sunk on his breast, his young forehead was bald, and raised in odd wrinkles, he had a silent half-grin on his face, a little tipsy, a little satyr-like. His small moustache was reddish. Behind him a round table was covered with cigarettes, sweets, and bottles. It was evident Jim Bricknell drank beer for choice. He wanted to get fat--that was his idea. But he couldn't bring it off: he was thin, though not too thin, except to his own thinking. His sister Julia was bunched up in a low chair between him and his father. She too was a tall stag of a thing, but she sat bunched up like a witch. She wore a wine-purple dress, her arms seemed to poke out of the sleeves, and she had dragged her brown hair into straight, untidy strands. Yet she had real beauty. She was talking to the young man who was not her husband: a fair, pale, fattish young fellow in pince-nez and dark clothes. This was Cyril Scott, a friend. The only other person stood at the round table pouring out red wine. He was a fresh, stoutish young Englishman in khaki, Julia's husband, Robert Cunningham, a lieutenant about to be demobilised, when he would become a sculptor once more. He drank red wine in large throatfuls, and his eyes grew a little moist. The room was hot and subdued, everyone was silent. “I say,” said Robert suddenly, from the rear--“anybody have a drink? Don't you find it rather hot?” “Is there another bottle of beer there?” said Jim, without moving, too settled even to stir an eye-lid. “Yes--I think there is,” said Robert. “Thanks--don't open it yet,” murmured Jim. “Have a drink, Josephine?” said Robert. “No thank you,” said Josephine, bowing slightly. Finding the drinks did not go, Robert went round with the cigarettes. Josephine Ford looked at the white rolls. “Thank you,” she said, and taking one, suddenly licked her rather full, dry red lips with the rapid tip of her tongue. It was an odd movement, suggesting a snake's flicker. She put her cigarette between her lips, and waited. Her movements were very quiet and well bred; but perhaps too quiet, they had the dangerous impassivity of the Bohemian, Parisian or American rather than English. “Cigarette, Julia?” said Robert to his wife. She seemed to start or twitch, as if dazed. Then she looked up at her husband with a queer smile, puckering the corners of her eyes. He looked at the cigarettes, not at her. His face had the blunt voluptuous gravity of a young lion, a great cat. She kept him standing for some moments impassively. Then suddenly she hung her long, delicate fingers over the box, in doubt, and spasmodically jabbed at the cigarettes, clumsily raking one out at last. “Thank you, dear--thank you,” she cried, rather high, looking up and smiling once more. He turned calmly aside, offering the cigarettes to Scott, who refused. “Oh!” said Julia, sucking the end of her cigarette. “Robert is so happy with all the good things--aren't you dear?” she sang, breaking into a hurried laugh. “We aren't used to such luxurious living, we aren't--ARE WE DEAR--No, we're not such swells as this, we're not. Oh, ROBBIE, isn't it all right, isn't it just all right?” She tailed off into her hurried, wild, repeated laugh. “We're so happy in a land of plenty, AREN'T WE DEAR?” “Do you mean I'm greedy, Julia?” said Robert. “Greedy!--Oh, greedy!--he asks if he's greedy?--no you're not greedy, Robbie, you're not greedy. I want you to be happy.” “I'm quite happy,” he returned. “Oh, he's happy!--Really!--he's happy! Oh, what an accomplishment! Oh, my word!” Julia puckered her eyes and laughed herself into a nervous twitching silence. Robert went round with the matches. Julia sucked her cigarette. “Give us a light, Robbie, if you ARE happy!” she cried. “It's coming,” he answered. Josephine smoked with short, sharp puffs. Julia sucked wildly at her light. Robert returned to his red wine. Jim Bricknell suddenly roused up, looked round on the company, smiling a little vacuously and showing his odd, pointed teeth. “Where's the beer?” he asked, in deep tones, smiling full into Josephine's face, as if she were going to produce it by some sleight of hand. Then he wheeled round to the table, and was soon pouring beer down his throat as down a pipe. Then he dropped supine again. Cyril Scott was silently absorbing gin and water. “I say,” said Jim, from the remote depths of his sprawling. “Isn't there something we could do to while the time away?” Everybody suddenly laughed--it sounded so remote and absurd. “What, play bridge or poker or something conventional of that sort?” said Josephine in her distinct voice, speaking to him as if he were a child. “Oh, damn bridge,” said Jim in his sleep-voice. Then he began pulling his powerful length together. He sat on the edge of his chair-seat, leaning forward, peering into all the faces and grinning. “Don't look at me like that--so long--” said Josephine, in her self-contained voice. “You make me uncomfortable.” She gave an odd little grunt of a laugh, and the tip of her tongue went over her lips as she glanced sharply, half furtively round the room. “I like looking at you,” said Jim, his smile becoming more malicious. “But you shouldn't, when I tell you not,” she returned. Jim twisted round to look at the state of the bottles. The father also came awake. He sat up. “Isn't it time,” he said, “that you all put away your glasses and cigarettes and thought of bed?” Jim rolled slowly round towards his father, sprawling in the long chair. “Ah, Dad,” he said, “tonight's the night! Tonight's some night, Dad.--You can sleep any time--” his grin widened--“but there aren't many nights to sit here--like this--Eh?” He was looking up all the time into the face of his father, full and nakedly lifting his face to the face of his father, and smiling fixedly. The father, who was perfectly sober, except for the contagion from the young people, felt a wild tremor go through his heart as he gazed on the face of his boy. He rose stiffly. “You want to stay?” he said. “You want to stay!--Well then--well then, I'll leave you. But don't be long.” The old man rose to his full height, rather majestic. The four younger people also rose respectfully--only Jim lay still prostrate in his chair, twisting up his face towards his father. “You won't stay long,” said the old man, looking round a little bewildered. He was seeking a responsible eye. Josephine was the only one who had any feeling for him. “No, we won't stay long, Mr. Bricknell,” she said gravely. “Good night, Dad,” said Jim, as his father left the room. Josephine went to the window. She had rather a stiff, _poupee_ walk. “How is the night?” she said, as if to change the whole feeling in the room. She pushed back the thick grey-silk curtains. “Why?” she exclaimed. “What is that light burning? A red light?” “Oh, that's only the pit-bank on fire,” said Robert, who had followed her. “How strange!--Why is it burning now?” “It always burns, unfortunately--it is most consistent at it. It is the refuse from the mines. It has been burning for years, in spite of all efforts to the contrary.” “How very curious! May we look at it?” Josephine now turned the handle of the French windows, and stepped out. “Beautiful!” they heard her voice exclaim from outside. In the room, Julia laid her hand gently, protectively over the hand of Cyril Scott. “Josephine and Robert are admiring the night together!” she said, smiling with subtle tenderness to him. “Naturally! Young people always do these romantic things,” replied Cyril Scott. He was twenty-two years old, so he could afford to be cynical. “Do they?--Don't you think it's nice of them?” she said, gently removing her hand from his. His eyes were shining with pleasure. “I do. I envy them enormously. One only needs to be sufficiently naive,” he said. “One does, doesn't one!” cooed Julia. “I say, do you hear the bells?” said Robert, poking his head into the room. “No, dear! Do you?” replied Julia. “Bells! Hear the bells! Bells!” exclaimed the half-tipsy and self-conscious Jim. And he rolled in his chair in an explosion of sudden, silent laughter, showing his mouthful of pointed teeth, like a dog. Then he gradually gathered himself together, found his feet, smiling fixedly. “Pretty cool night!” he said aloud, when he felt the air on his almost bald head. The darkness smelt of sulphur. Josephine and Robert had moved out of sight. Julia was abstracted, following them with her eyes. With almost supernatural keenness she seemed to catch their voices from the distance. “Yes, Josephine, WOULDN'T that be AWFULLY ROMANTIC!”--she suddenly called shrilly. The pair in the distance started. “What--!” they heard Josephine's sharp exclamation. “What's that?--What would be romantic?” said Jim as he lurched up and caught hold of Cyril Scott's arm. “Josephine wants to make a great illumination of the grounds of the estate,” said Julia, magniloquent. “No--no--I didn't say it,” remonstrated Josephine. “What Josephine said,” explained Robert, “was simply that it would be pretty to put candles on one of the growing trees, instead of having a Christmas-tree indoors.” “Oh, Josephine, how sweet of you!” cried Julia. Cyril Scott giggled. “Good egg! Champion idea, Josey, my lass. Eh? What--!” cried Jim. “Why not carry it out--eh? Why not? Most attractive.” He leaned forward over Josephine, and grinned. “Oh, no!” expostulated Josephine. “It all sounds so silly now. No. Let us go indoors and go to bed.” “NO, Josephine dear--No! It's a LOVELY IDEA!” cried Julia. “Let's get candles and lanterns and things--” “Let's!” grinned Jim. “Let's, everybody--let's.” “Shall we really?” asked Robert. “Shall we illuminate one of the fir-trees by the lawn?” “Yes! How lovely!” cried Julia. “I'll fetch the candles.” “The women must put on warm cloaks,” said Robert. They trooped indoors for coats and wraps and candles and lanterns. Then, lighted by a bicycle lamp, they trooped off to the shed to twist wire round the candles for holders. They clustered round the bench. “I say,” said Julia, “doesn't Cyril look like a pilot on a stormy night! Oh, I say--!” and she went into one of her hurried laughs. They all looked at Cyril Scott, who was standing sheepishly in the background, in a very large overcoat, smoking a large pipe. The young man was uncomfortable, but assumed a stoic air of philosophic indifference. Soon they were busy round a prickly fir-tree at the end of the lawn. Jim stood in the background vaguely staring. The bicycle lamp sent a beam of strong white light deep into the uncanny foliage, heads clustered and hands worked. The night above was silent, dim. There was no wind. In the near distance they could hear the panting of some engine at the colliery. “Shall we light them as we fix them,” asked Robert, “or save them for one grand rocket at the end?” “Oh, as we do them,” said Cyril Scott, who had lacerated his fingers and wanted to see some reward. A match spluttered. One naked little flame sprang alight among the dark foliage. The candle burned tremulously, naked. They all were silent. “We ought to do a ritual dance! We ought to worship the tree,” sang Julia, in her high voice. “Hold on a minute. We'll have a little more illumination,” said Robert. “Why yes. We want more than one candle,” said Josephine. But Julia had dropped the cloak in which she was huddled, and with arms slung asunder was sliding, waving, crouching in a _pas seul_ before the tree, looking like an animated bough herself. Jim, who was hugging his pipe in the background, broke into a short, harsh, cackling laugh. “Aren't we fools!” he cried. “What? Oh, God's love, aren't we fools!” “No--why?” cried Josephine, amused but resentful. But Jim vouchsafed nothing further, only stood like a Red Indian gripping his pipe. The beam of the bicycle-lamp moved and fell upon the hands and faces of the young people, and penetrated the recesses of the secret trees. Several little tongues of flame clipped sensitive and ruddy on the naked air, sending a faint glow over the needle foliage. They gave a strange, perpendicular aspiration in the night. Julia waved slowly in her tree dance. Jim stood apart, with his legs straddled, a motionless figure. The party round the tree became absorbed and excited as more ruddy tongues of flame pricked upward from the dark tree. Pale candles became evident, the air was luminous. The illumination was becoming complete, harmonious. Josephine suddenly looked round. “Why-y-y!” came her long note of alarm. A man in a bowler hat and a black overcoat stood on the edge of the twilight. “What is it?” cried Julia. “_Homo sapiens_!” said Robert, the lieutenant. “Hand the light, Cyril.” He played the beam of light full on the intruder; a man in a bowler hat, with a black overcoat buttoned to his throat, a pale, dazed, blinking face. The hat was tilted at a slightly jaunty angle over the left eye, the man was well-featured. He did not speak. “Did you want anything?” asked Robert, from behind the light. Aaron Sisson blinked, trying to see who addressed him. To him, they were all illusory. He did not answer. “Anything you wanted?” repeated Robert, military, rather peremptory. Jim suddenly doubled himself up and burst into a loud harsh cackle of laughter. Whoop! he went, and doubled himself up with laughter. Whoop! Whoop! he went, and fell on the ground and writhed with laughter. He was in that state of intoxication when he could find no release from maddening self-consciousness. He knew what he was doing, he did it deliberately. And yet he was also beside himself, in a sort of hysterics. He could not help himself in exasperated self-consciousness. The others all began to laugh, unavoidably. It was a contagion. They laughed helplessly and foolishly. Only Robert was anxious. “I'm afraid he'll wake the house,” he said, looking at the doubled up figure of Jim writhing on the grass and whooping loudly. “Or not enough,” put in Cyril Scott. He twigged Jim's condition. “No--no!” cried Josephine, weak with laughing in spite of herself. “No--it's too long--I'm like to die laughing--” Jim embraced the earth in his convulsions. Even Robert shook quite weakly with laughter. His face was red, his eyes full of dancing water. Yet he managed to articulate. “I say, you know, you'll bring the old man down.” Then he went off again into spasms. “Hu! Hu!” whooped Jim, subsiding. “Hu!” He rolled over on to his back, and lay silent. The others also became weakly silent. “What's amiss?” said Aaron Sisson, breaking this spell. They all began to laugh again, except Jim, who lay on his back looking up at the strange sky. “What're you laughing at?” repeated Aaron. “We're laughing at the man on the ground,” replied Josephine. “I think he's drunk a little too much.” “Ay,” said Aaron, standing mute and obstinate. “Did you want anything?” Robert enquired once more. “Eh?” Aaron looked up. “Me? No, not me.” A sort of inertia kept him rooted. The young people looked at one another and began to laugh, rather embarrassed. “Another!” said Cyril Scott cynically. They wished he would go away. There was a pause. “What do you reckon stars are?” asked the sepulchral voice of Jim. He still lay flat on his back on the grass. Josephine went to him and pulled at his coat. “Get up,” she said. “You'll take cold. Get up now, we're going indoors.” “What do you reckon stars are?” he persisted. Aaron Sisson stood on the edge of the light, smilingly staring at the scene, like a boy out of his place, but stubbornly keeping his ground. “Get up now,” said Josephine. “We've had enough.” But Jim would not move. Robert went with the bicycle lamp and stood at Aaron's side. “Shall I show you a light to the road--you're off your track,” he said. “You're in the grounds of Shottle House.” “I can find my road,” said Aaron. “Thank you.” Jim suddenly got up and went to peer at the stranger, poking his face close to Aaron's face. “Right-o,” he replied. “You're not half a bad sort of chap--Cheery-o! What's your drink?” “Mine--whiskey,” said Aaron. “Come in and have one. We're the only sober couple in the bunch--what?” cried Jim. Aaron stood unmoving, static in everything. Jim took him by the arm affectionately. The stranger looked at the flickering tree, with its tiers of lights. “A Christmas tree,” he said, jerking his head and smiling. “That's right, old man,” said Jim, seeming thoroughly sober now. “Come indoors and have a drink.” Aaron Sisson negatively allowed himself to be led off. The others followed in silence, leaving the tree to flicker the night through. The stranger stumbled at the open window-door. “Mind the step,” said Jim affectionately. They crowded to the fire, which was still hot. The newcomer looked round vaguely. Jim took his bowler hat and gave him a chair. He sat without looking round, a remote, abstract look on his face. He was very pale, and seemed-inwardly absorbed. The party threw off their wraps and sat around. Josephine turned to Aaron Sisson, who sat with a glass of whiskey in his hand, rather slack in his chair, in his thickish overcoat. He did not want to drink. His hair was blond, quite tidy, his mouth and chin handsome but a little obstinate, his eyes inscrutable. His pallor was not natural to him. Though he kept the appearance of a smile, underneath he was hard and opposed. He did not wish to be with these people, and yet, mechanically, he stayed. “Do you feel quite well?” Josephine asked him. He looked at her quickly. “Me?” he said. He smiled faintly. “Yes, I'm all right.” Then he dropped his head again and seemed oblivious. “Tell us your name,” said Jim affectionately. The stranger looked up. “My name's Aaron Sisson, if it's anything to you,” he said. Jim began to grin. “It's a name I don't know,” he said. Then he named all the party present. But the stranger hardly heeded, though his eyes looked curiously from one to the other, slow, shrewd, clairvoyant. “Were you on your way home?” asked Robert, huffy. The stranger lifted his head and looked at him. “Home!” he repeated. “No. The other road--” He indicated the direction with his head, and smiled faintly. “Beldover?” inquired Robert. “Yes.” He had dropped his head again, as if he did not want to look at them. To Josephine, the pale, impassive, blank-seeming face, the blue eyes with the smile which wasn't a smile, and the continual dropping of the well-shaped head was curiously affecting. She wanted to cry. “Are you a miner?” Robert asked, _de haute en bas_. “No,” cried Josephine. She had looked at his hands. “Men's checkweighman,” replied Aaron. He had emptied his glass. He put it on the table. “Have another?” said Jim, who was attending fixedly, with curious absorption, to the stranger. “No,” cried Josephine, “no more.” Aaron looked at Jim, then at her, and smiled slowly, with remote bitterness. Then he lowered his head again. His hands were loosely clasped between his knees. “What about the wife?” said Robert--the young lieutenant. “What about the wife and kiddies? You're a married man, aren't you?” The sardonic look of the stranger rested on the subaltern. “Yes,” he said. “Won't they be expecting you?” said Robert, trying to keep his temper and his tone of authority. “I expect they will--” “Then you'd better be getting along, hadn't you?” The eyes of the intruder rested all the time on the flushed subaltern. The look on Aaron's face became slowly satirical. “Oh, dry up the army touch,” said Jim contemptuously, to Robert. “We're all civvies here. We're all right, aren't we?” he said loudly, turning to the stranger with a grin that showed his pointed teeth. Aaron gave a brief laugh of acknowledgement. “How many children have you?” sang Julia from her distance. “Three.” “Girls or boys?” “Girls.” “All girls? Dear little things! How old?” “Oldest eight--youngest nine months--” “So small!” sang Julia, with real tenderness now--Aaron dropped his head. “But you're going home to them, aren't you?” said Josephine, in whose eyes the tears had already risen. He looked up at her, at her tears. His face had the same pale perverse smile. “Not tonight,” he said. “But why? You're wrong!” cried Josephine. He dropped his head and became oblivious. “Well!” said Cyril Scott, rising at last with a bored exclamation. “I think I'll retire.” “Will you?” said Julia, also rising. “You'll find your candle outside.” She went out. Scott bade good night, and followed her. The four people remained in the room, quite silent. Then Robert rose and began to walk about, agitated. “Don't you go back to 'em. Have a night out. You stop here tonight,” Jim said suddenly, in a quiet intimate tone. The stranger turned his head and looked at him, considering. “Yes?” he said. He seemed to be smiling coldly. “Oh, but!” cried Josephine. “Your wife and your children! Won't they be awfully bothered? Isn't it awfully unkind to them?” She rose in her eagerness. He sat turning up his face to her. She could not understand his expression. “Won't you go home to them?” she said, hysterical. “Not tonight,” he replied quietly, again smiling. “You're wrong!” she cried. “You're wrong!” And so she hurried out of the room in tears. “Er--what bed do you propose to put him in?” asked Robert rather officer-like. “Don't propose at all, my lad,” replied Jim, ironically--he did not like Robert. Then to the stranger he said: “You'll be all right on the couch in my room?--it's a good couch, big enough, plenty of rugs--” His voice was easy and intimate. Aaron looked at him, and nodded. They had another drink each, and at last the two set off, rather stumbling, upstairs. Aaron carried his bowler hat with him. Robert remained pacing in the drawing-room for some time. Then he went out, to return in a little while. He extinguished the lamps and saw that the fire was safe. Then he went to fasten the window-doors securely. Outside he saw the uncanny glimmer of candles across the lawn. He had half a mind to go out and extinguish them--but he did not. So he went upstairs and the house was quiet. Faint crumbs of snow were falling outside. When Jim woke in the morning Aaron had gone. Only on the floor were two packets of Christmas-tree candles, fallen from the stranger's pockets. He had gone through the drawing-room door, as he had come. The housemaid said that while she was cleaning the grate in the dining-room she heard someone go into the drawing-room: a parlour-maid had even seen someone come out of Jim's bedroom. But they had both thought it was Jim himself, for he was an unsettled house mate. There was a thin film of snow, a lovely Christmas morning. CHAPTER IV. “THE PILLAR OF SALT” Our story will not yet see daylight. A few days after Christmas, Aaron sat in the open shed at the bottom of his own garden, looking out on the rainy darkness. No one knew he was there. It was some time after six in the evening. From where he sat, he looked straight up the garden to the house. The blind was not drawn in the middle kitchen, he could see the figures of his wife and one child. There was a light also in the upstairs window. His wife was gone upstairs again. He wondered if she had the baby ill. He could see her figure vaguely behind the lace curtains of the bedroom. It was like looking at his home through the wrong end of a telescope. Now the little girls had gone from the middle room: only to return in a moment. His attention strayed. He watched the light falling from the window of the next-door house. Uneasily, he looked along the whole range of houses. The street sloped down-hill, and the backs were open to the fields. So he saw a curious succession of lighted windows, between which jutted the intermediary back premises, scullery and outhouse, in dark little blocks. It was something like the keyboard of a piano: more still, like a succession of musical notes. For the rectangular planes of light were of different intensities, some bright and keen, some soft, warm, like candle-light, and there was one surface of pure red light, one or two were almost invisible, dark green. So the long scale of lights seemed to trill across the darkness, now bright, now dim, swelling and sinking. The effect was strange. And thus the whole private life of the street was threaded in lights. There was a sense of indecent exposure, from so many backs. He felt himself almost in physical contact with this contiguous stretch of back premises. He heard the familiar sound of water gushing from the sink in to the grate, the dropping of a pail outside the door, the clink of a coal shovel, the banging of a door, the sound of voices. So many houses cheek by jowl, so many squirming lives, so many back yards, back doors giving on to the night. It was revolting. Away in the street itself, a boy was calling the newspaper: “--'NING POST! --'NING PO-O-ST!” It was a long, melancholy howl, and seemed to epitomise the whole of the dark, wet, secretive, thickly-inhabited night. A figure passed the window of Aaron's own house, entered, and stood inside the room talking to Mrs. Sisson. It was a young woman in a brown mackintosh and a black hat. She stood under the incandescent light, and her hat nearly knocked the globe. Next door a man had run out in his shirt sleeves: this time a young, dark-headed collier running to the gate for a newspaper, running bare-headed, coatless, slippered in the rain. He had got his news-sheet, and was returning. And just at that moment the young man's wife came out, shading her candle with a lading tin. She was going to the coal-house for some coal. Her husband passed her on the threshold. She could be heard breaking the bits of coal and placing them on the dustpan. The light from her candle fell faintly behind her. Then she went back, blown by a swirl of wind. But again she was at the door, hastily standing her iron shovel against the wall. Then she shut the back door with a bang. These noises seemed to scrape and strike the night. In Aaron's own house, the young person was still talking to Mrs. Sisson. Millicent came out, sheltering a candle with her hand. The candle blew out. She ran indoors, and emerged again, her white pinafore fluttering. This time she performed her little journey safely. He could see the faint glimmer of her candle emerging secretly from the closet. The young person was taking her leave. He could hear her sympathetic--“Well--good night! I hope she'll be no worse. Good night Mrs. Sisson!” She was gone--he heard the windy bang of the street-gate. Presently Millicent emerged again, flitting indoors. So he rose to his feet, balancing, swaying a little before he started into motion, as so many colliers do. Then he moved along the path towards the house, in the rain and darkness, very slowly edging forwards. Suddenly the door opened. His wife emerged with a pail. He stepped quietly aside, on to his side garden, among the sweet herbs. He could smell rosemary and sage and hyssop. A low wall divided his garden from his neighbour's. He put his hand on it, on its wetness, ready to drop over should his wife come forward. But she only threw the contents of her pail on the garden and retired again. She might have seen him had she looked. He remained standing where he was, listening to the trickle of rain in the water-butt. The hollow countryside lay beyond him. Sometimes in the windy darkness he could see the red burn of New Brunswick bank, or the brilliant jewels of light clustered at Bestwood Colliery. Away in the dark hollow, nearer, the glare of the electric power-station disturbed the night. So again the wind swirled the rain across all these hieroglyphs of the countryside, familiar to him as his own breast. A motor-car was labouring up the hill. His trained ear attended to it unconsciously. It stopped with a jar. There was a bang of the yard-gate. A shortish dark figure in a bowler hat passed the window. Millicent was drawing down the blind. It was the doctor. The blind was drawn, he could see no more. Stealthily he began to approach the house. He stood by the climbing rose of the porch, listening. He heard voices upstairs. Perhaps the children would be downstairs. He listened intently. Voices were upstairs only. He quietly opened the door. The room was empty, save for the baby, who was cooing in her cradle. He crossed to the hall. At the foot of the stairs he could hear the voice of the Indian doctor: “Now little girl, you must just keep still and warm in bed, and not cry for the moon.” He said “_de_ moon,” just as ever.--Marjory must be ill. So Aaron quietly entered the parlour. It was a cold, clammy room, dark. He could hear footsteps passing outside on the asphalt pavement below the window, and the wind howling with familiar cadence. He began feeling for something in the darkness of the music-rack beside the piano. He touched and felt--he could not find what he wanted. Perplexed, he turned and looked out of the window. Through the iron railing of the front wall he could see the little motorcar sending its straight beams of light in front of it, up the street. He sat down on the sofa by the window. The energy had suddenly left all his limbs. He sat with his head sunk, listening. The familiar room, the familiar voice of his wife and his children--he felt weak as if he were dying. He felt weak like a drowning man who acquiesces in the waters. His strength was gone, he was sinking back. He would sink back to it all, float henceforth like a drowned man. So he heard voices coming nearer from upstairs, feet moving. They were coming down. “No, Mrs. Sisson, you needn't worry,” he heard the voice of the doctor on the stairs. “If she goes on as she is, she'll be all right. Only she must be kept warm and quiet--warm and quiet--that's the chief thing.” “Oh, when she has those bouts I can't bear it,” Aaron heard his wife's voice. They were downstairs. Their feet click-clicked on the tiled passage. They had gone into the middle room. Aaron sat and listened. “She won't have any more bouts. If she does, give her a few drops from the little bottle, and raise her up. But she won't have any more,” the doctor said. “If she does, I s'll go off my head, I know I shall.” “No, you won't. No, you won't do anything of the sort. You won't go off your head. You'll keep your head on your shoulders, where it ought to be,” protested the doctor. “But it nearly drives me mad.” “Then don't let it. The child won't die, I tell you. She will be all right, with care. Who have you got sitting up with her? You're not to sit up with her tonight, I tell you. Do you hear me?” “Miss Smitham's coming in. But it's no good--I shall have to sit up. I shall HAVE to.” “I tell you you won't. You obey ME. I know what's good for you as well as for her. I am thinking of you as much as of her.” “But I can't bear it--all alone.” This was the beginning of tears. There was a dead silence--then a sound of Millicent weeping with her mother. As a matter of fact, the doctor was weeping too, for he was an emotional sympathetic soul, over forty. “Never mind--never mind--you aren't alone,” came the doctor's matter-of-fact voice, after a loud nose-blowing. “I am here to help you. I will do whatever I can--whatever I can.” “I can't bear it. I can't bear it,” wept the woman. Another silence, another nose-blowing, and again the doctor: “You'll HAVE to bear it--I tell you there's nothing else for it. You'll have to bear it--but we'll do our best for you. I will do my best for you--always--ALWAYS--in sickness or out of sickness--There!” He pronounced _there_ oddly, not quite _dhere_. “You haven't heard from your husband?” he added. “I had a letter--“--sobs--“from the bank this morning.” “FROM DE BANK?” “Telling me they were sending me so much per month, from him, as an allowance, and that he was quite well, but he was travelling.” “Well then, why not let him travel? You can live.” “But to leave me alone,” there was burning indignation in her voice. “To go off and leave me with every responsibility, to leave me with all the burden.” “Well I wouldn't trouble about him. Aren't you better off without him?” “I am. I am,” she cried fiercely. “When I got that letter this morning, I said MAY EVIL BEFALL YOU, YOU SELFISH DEMON. And I hope it may.” “Well-well, well-well, don't fret. Don't be angry, it won't make it any better, I tell you.” “Angry! I AM angry. I'm worse than angry. A week ago I hadn't a grey hair in my head. Now look here--” There was a pause. “Well-well, well-well, never mind. You will be all right, don't you bother. Your hair is beautiful anyhow.” “What makes me so mad is that he should go off like that--never a word--coolly takes his hook. I could kill him for it.” “Were you ever happy together?” “We were all right at first. I know I was fond of him. But he'd kill anything.--He kept himself back, always kept himself back, couldn't give himself--” There was a pause. “Ah well,” sighed the doctor. “Marriage is a mystery. I'm glad I'm not entangled in it.” “Yes, to make some woman's life a misery.--I'm sure it was death to live with him, he seemed to kill everything off inside you. He was a man you couldn't quarrel with, and get it over. Quiet--quiet in his tempers, and selfish through and through. I've lived with him twelve years--I know what it is. Killing! You don't know what he was--” “I think I knew him. A fair man? Yes?” said the doctor. “Fair to look at.--There's a photograph of him in the parlour--taken when he was married--and one of me.--Yes, he's fairhaired.” Aaron guessed that she was getting a candle to come into the parlour. He was tempted to wait and meet them--and accept it all again. Devilishly tempted, he was. Then he thought of her voice, and his heart went cold. Quick as thought, he obeyed his first impulse. He felt behind the couch, on the floor where the curtains fell. Yes--the bag was there. He took it at once. In the next breath he stepped out of the room and tip-toed into the passage. He retreated to the far end, near the street door, and stood behind the coats that hung on the hall-stand. At that moment his wife came into the passage, holding a candle. She was red-eyed with weeping, and looked frail. “Did YOU leave the parlour door open?” she asked of Millicent, suspiciously. “No,” said Millicent from the kitchen. The doctor, with his soft, Oriental tread followed Mrs. Sisson into the parlour. Aaron saw his wife hold up the candle before his portrait and begin to weep. But he knew her. The doctor laid his hand softly on her arm, and left it there, sympathetically. Nor did he remove it when Millicent stole into the room, looking very woe-begone and important. The wife wept silently, and the child joined in. “Yes, I know him,” said the doctor. “If he thinks he will be happier when he's gone away, you must be happier too, Mrs. Sisson. That's all. Don't let him triumph over you by making you miserable. You enjoy yourself as well. You're only a girl---” But a tear came from his eye, and he blew his nose vigorously on a large white silk handkerchief, and began to polish his _pince nez_. Then he turned, and they all bundled out of the room. The doctor took his departure. Mrs. Sisson went almost immediately upstairs, and Millicent shortly crept after her. Then Aaron, who had stood motionless as if turned to a pillar of salt, went quietly down the passage and into the living room. His face was very pale, ghastly-looking. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantel, as he passed, and felt weak, as if he were really a criminal. But his heart did not relax, nevertheless. So he hurried into the night, down the garden, climbed the fence into the field, and went away across the field in the rain, towards the highroad. He felt sick in every fibre. He almost hated the little handbag he carried, which held his flute and piccolo. It seemed a burden just then--a millstone round his neck. He hated the scene he had left--and he hated the hard, inviolable heart that stuck unchanging in his own breast. Coming to the high-road, he saw a tall, luminous tram-car roving along through the rain. The trams ran across country from town to town. He dared not board, because people knew him. So he took a side road, and walked in a detour for two miles. Then he came out on the high-road again and waited for a tram-car. The rain blew on his face. He waited a long time for the last car. CHAPTER V. AT THE OPERA A friend had given Josephine Ford a box at the opera for one evening; our story continues by night. The box was large and important, near the stage. Josephine and Julia were there, with Robert and Jim--also two more men. The women sat in the front of the box, conspicuously. They were both poor, they were rather excited. But they belonged to a set which looked on social triumphs as a downfall that one allows oneself. The two men, Lilly and Struthers, were artists, the former literary, the latter a painter. Lilly sat by Josephine in the front of the box: he was her little lion of the evening. Few women can sit in the front of a big box, on a crowded and full-swing opera night, without thrilling and dilating. There is an intoxication in being thus thrust forward, conspicuous and enhanced, right in the eye of the vast crowd that lines the hollow shell of the auditorium. Thus even Josephine and Julia leaned their elbows and poised their heads regally, looking condescendingly down upon the watchful world. They were two poor women, having nothing to do with society. Half bohemians. Josephine was an artist. In Paris she was a friend of a very fashionable dressmaker and decorator, master of modern elegance. Sometimes she designed dresses for him, and sometimes she accepted from him a commission to decorate a room. Usually at her last sou, it gave her pleasure to dispose of costly and exquisite things for other people, and then be rid of them. This evening her dress was a simple, but a marvellously poised thing of black and silver: in the words of the correct journal. With her tight, black, bright hair, her arched brows, her dusky-ruddy face and her bare shoulders; her strange equanimity, her long, slow, slanting looks; she looked foreign and frightening, clear as a cameo, but dark, far off. Julia was the English beauty, in a lovely blue dress. Her hair was becomingly untidy on her low brow, her dark blue eyes wandered and got excited, her nervous mouth twitched. Her high-pitched, sing-song voice and her hurried laugh could be heard in the theatre. She twisted a beautiful little fan that a dead artist had given her. Not being fashionable, they were in the box when the overture began. The opera was Verdi--_Aida_. If it is impossible to be in an important box at the opera without experiencing the strange intoxication of social pre-eminence, it is just as impossible to be there without some feeling of horror at the sight the stage presents. Josephine leaned her elbow and looked down: she knew how arresting that proud, rather stiff bend of her head was. She had some aboriginal American in her blood. But as she looked, she pursed her mouth. The artist in her forgot everything, she was filled with disgust. The sham Egypt of _Aida_ hid from her nothing of its shame. The singers were all colour-washed, deliberately colour-washed to a bright orange tint. The men had oblong dabs of black wool under their lower lip; the beard of the mighty Pharaohs. This oblong dab shook and wagged to the singing. The vulgar bodies of the fleshy women were unendurable. They all looked such good meat. Why were their haunches so prominent? It was a question Josephine could not solve. She scanned their really expensive, brilliant clothing. It was _nearly_ right--nearly splendid. It only lacked that last subtlety which the world always lacks, the last final clinching which puts calm into a sea of fabric, and yet is the opposite pole to machine fixity. But the leading tenor was the chief pain. He was large, stout, swathed in a cummerbund, and looked like a eunuch. This fattish, emasculated look seems common in stage heroes--even the extremely popular. The tenor sang bravely, his mouth made a large, coffin-shaped, yawning gap in his orange face, his little beard fluttered oddly, like a tail. He turned up his eyes to Josephine's box as he sang--that being the regulation direction. Meanwhile his abdomen shook as he caught his breath, the flesh of his fat, naked arms swayed. Josephine looked down with the fixed gravity of a Red Indian, immovable, inscrutable. It was not till the scene was ended that she lifted her head as if breaking a spell, sent the point of her tongue rapidly over her dried lips, and looked round into the box. Her brown eyes expressed shame, fear, and disgust. A curious grimace went over her face--a grimace only to be expressed by the exclamation _Merde!_ But she was mortally afraid of society, and its fixed institutions. Rapidly she scanned the eyes of her friends in the box. She rested on the eyes of Lilly, a dark, ugly man. “Isn't it nasty?” she said. “You shouldn't look so closely,” he said. But he took it calmly, easily, whilst she felt floods of burning disgust, a longing to destroy it all. “Oh-ho-ho!” laughed Julia. “It's so fu-nny--so funny!” “Of course we are too near,” said Robert. “Say you admire that pink fondant over there,” said Struthers, indicating with his eyebrows a blond large woman in white satin with pink edging, who sat in a box opposite, on the upper tier. “Oh, the fondant--exactly--the fondant! Yes, I admire her immensely! Isn't she exactly IT!” sang Julia. Josephine was scanning the auditorium. So many myriads of faces--like beads on a bead-work pattern--all bead-work, in different layers. She bowed to various acquaintances--mostly Americans in uniform, whom she had known in Paris. She smiled to Lady Cochrane, two boxes off--Lady Cochrane had given her the box. But she felt rather coldly towards her. The curtain rose, the opera wound its slow length along. The audience loved it. They cheered with mad enthusiasm. Josephine looked down on the choppy sea of applause, white gloves clapping, heads shaking. The noise was strange and rattling. What a curious multiple object a theatre-audience was! It seemed to have a million heads, a million hands, and one monstrous, unnatural consciousness. The singers appeared before the curtain--the applause rose up like clouds of dust. “Oh, isn't it too wonderful!” cried Julia. “I am wild with excitement. Are you all of you?” “Absolutely wild,” said Lilly laconically. “Where is Scott to-night?” asked Struthers. Julia turned to him and gave him a long, queer look from her dark blue eyes. “He's in the country,” she said, rather enigmatic. “Don't you know, he's got a house down in Dorset,” said Robert, verbally rushing in. “He wants Julia to go down and stay.” “Is she going?” said Lilly. “She hasn't decided,” replied Robert. “Oh! What's the objection?” asked Struthers. “Well, none whatsoever, as far as can be seen, except that she can't make up her mind,” replied Robert. “Julia's got no mind,” said Jim rudely. “Oh! Hear the brotherly verdict!” laughed Julia hurriedly. “You mean to go down to Dorset alone!” said Struthers. “Why not?” replied Robert, answering for her. “And stay how long?” “Oh--as long as it lasts,” said Robert again. “Starting with eternity,” said Lilly, “and working back to a fortnight.” “And what's the matter?--looks bad in the eyes of the world?” “Yes--about that. Afraid of compromising herself--” Lilly looked at them. “Depends what you take the world to mean. Do you mean us in this box, or the crew outside there?” he jerked his head towards the auditorium. “Do you think, Lilly, that we're the world?” said Robert ironically. “Oh, yes, I guess we're shipwrecked in this box, like Robinson Crusoes. And what we do on our own little island matters to us alone. As for the infinite crowds of howling savages outside there in the unspeakable, all you've got to do is mind they don't scrap you.” “But WON'T they?” said Struthers. “Not unless you put your head in their hands,” said Lilly. “I don't know--” said Jim. But the curtain had risen, they hushed him into silence. All through the next scene, Julia puzzled herself, as to whether she should go down to the country and live with Scott. She had carried on a nervous kind of _amour_ with him, based on soul sympathy and emotional excitement. But whether to go and live with him? She didn't know if she wanted to or not: and she couldn't for her life find out. She was in that nervous state when desire seems to evaporate the moment fulfilment is offered. When the curtain dropped she turned. “You see,” she said, screwing up her eyes, “I have to think of Robert.” She cut the word in two, with an odd little hitch in her voice--“ROB-ert.” “My dear Julia, can't you believe that I'm tired of being thought of,” cried Robert, flushing. Julia screwed up her eyes in a slow smile, oddly cogitating. “Well, who AM I to think of?” she asked. “Yourself,” said Lilly. “Oh, yes! Why, yes! I never thought of that!” She gave a hurried little laugh. “But then it's no FUN to think about oneself,” she cried flatly. “I think about ROB-ert, and SCOTT.” She screwed up her eyes and peered oddly at the company. “Which of them will find you the greatest treat,” said Lilly sarcastically. “Anyhow,” interjected Robert nervously, “it will be something new for Scott.” “Stale buns for you, old boy,” said Jim drily. “I don't say so. But--” exclaimed the flushed, full-blooded Robert, who was nothing if not courteous to women. “How long ha' you been married? Eh?” asked Jim. “Six years!” sang Julia sweetly. “Good God!” “You see,” said Robert, “Julia can't decide anything for herself. She waits for someone else to decide, then she puts her spoke in.” “Put it plainly--” began Struthers. “But don't you know, it's no USE putting it plainly,” cried Julia. “But DO you want to be with Scott, out and out, or DON'T you?” said Lilly. “Exactly!” chimed Robert. “That's the question for you to answer Julia.” “I WON'T answer it,” she cried. “Why should I?” And she looked away into the restless hive of the theatre. She spoke so wildly that she attracted attention. But it half pleased her. She stared abstractedly down at the pit. The men looked at one another in some comic consternation. “Oh, damn it all!” said the long Jim, rising and stretching himself. “She's dead nuts on Scott. She's all over him. She'd have eloped with him weeks ago if it hadn't been so easy. She can't stand it that Robert offers to hand her into the taxi.” He gave his malevolent grin round the company, then went out. He did not reappear for the next scene. “Of course, if she loves Scott--” began Struthers. Julia suddenly turned with wild desperation, and cried: “I like him tremendously--tre-men-dous-ly! He DOES understand.” “Which we don't,” said Robert. Julia smiled her long, odd smile in their faces: one might almost say she smiled in their teeth. “What do YOU think, Josephine?” asked Lilly. Josephine was leaning froward. She started. Her tongue went rapidly over her lips. “Who--? I--?” she exclaimed. “Yes.” “I think Julia should go with Scott,” said Josephine. “She'll bother with the idea till she's done it. She loves him, really.” “Of course she does,” cried Robert. Julia, with her chin resting on her arms, in a position which irritated the neighbouring Lady Cochrane sincerely, was gazing with unseeing eyes down upon the stalls. “Well then--” began Struthers. But the music struck up softly. They were all rather bored. Struthers kept on making small, half audible remarks--which was bad form, and displeased Josephine, the hostess of the evening. When the curtain came down for the end of the act, the men got up. Lilly's wife, Tanny, suddenly appeared. She had come on after a dinner engagement. “Would you like tea or anything?” Lilly asked. The women refused. The men filtered out on to the crimson and white, curving corridor. Julia, Josephine and Tanny remained in the box. Tanny was soon hitched on to the conversation in hand. “Of course,” she replied, “one can't decide such a thing like drinking a cup of tea.” “Of course, one can't, dear Tanny,” said Julia. “After all, one doesn't leave one's husband every day, to go and live with another man. Even if one looks on it as an experiment--.” “It's difficult!” cried Julia. “It's difficult! I feel they all want to FORCE me to decide. It's cruel.” “Oh, men with their beastly logic, their either-this-or-that stunt, they are an awful bore.--But of course, Robert can't love you REALLY, or he'd want to keep you. I can see Lilly discussing such a thing for ME. But then you don't love Robert either,” said Tanny. “I do! Oh, I do, Tanny! I DO love him, I love him dearly. I think he's beautiful. Robert's beautiful. And he NEEDS me. And I need him too. I need his support. Yes, I do love him.” “But you like Scott better,” said Tanny. “Only because he--he's different,” sang Julia, in long tones. “You see Scott has his art. His art matters. And ROB-ert--Robert is a dilettante, don't you think--he's dilettante--” She screwed up her eyes at Tanny. Tanny cogitated. “Of course I don't think that matters,” she replied. “But it does, it matters tremendously, dear Tanny, tremendously.” “Of course,” Tanny sheered off. “I can see Scott has great attractions--a great warmth somewhere--” “Exactly!” cried Julia. “He UNDERSTANDS!” “And I believe he's a real artist. You might even work together. You might write his librettos.” “Yes!--Yes!--” Julia spoke with a long, pondering hiss. “It might be AWFULLY nice,” said Tanny rapturously. “Yes!--It might!--It might--!” pondered Julia. Suddenly she gave herself a shake. Then she laughed hurriedly, as if breaking from her line of thought. “And wouldn't Robert be an AWFULLY nice lover for Josephine! Oh, wouldn't that be splendid!” she cried, with her high laugh. Josephine, who had been gazing down into the orchestra, turned now, flushing darkly. “But I don't want a lover, Julia,” she said, hurt. “Josephine dear! Dear old Josephine! Don't you really! Oh, yes, you do.--I want one so BADLY,” cried Julia, with her shaking laugh. “Robert's awfully good to me. But we've been married six years. And it does make a difference, doesn't it, Tanny dear?” “A great difference,” said Tanny. “Yes, it makes a difference, it makes a difference,” mused Julia. “Dear old Rob-ert--I wouldn't hurt him for worlds. I wouldn't. Do you think it would hurt Robert?” She screwed up her eyes, looking at Tanny. “Perhaps it would do Robert good to be hurt a little,” said Tanny. “He's so well-nourished.” “Yes!--Yes!--I see what you mean, Tanny!--Poor old ROB-ert! Oh, poor old Rob-ert, he's so young!” “He DOES seem young,” said Tanny. “One doesn't forgive it.” “He is young,” said Julia. “I'm five years older than he. He's only twenty-seven. Poor Old Robert.” “Robert is young, and inexperienced,” said Josephine, suddenly turning with anger. “But I don't know why you talk about him.” “Is he inexperienced, Josephine dear? IS he?” sang Julia. Josephine flushed darkly, and turned away. “Ah, he's not so innocent as all that,” said Tanny roughly. “Those young young men, who seem so fresh, they're deep enough, really. They're far less innocent really than men who are experienced.” “They are, aren't they, Tanny,” repeated Julia softly. “They're old--older than the Old Man of the Seas, sometimes, aren't they? Incredibly old, like little boys who know too much--aren't they? Yes!” She spoke quietly, seriously, as if it had struck her. Below, the orchestra was coming in. Josephine was watching closely. Julia became aware of this. “Do you see anybody we know, Josephine?” she asked. Josephine started. “No,” she said, looking at her friends quickly and furtively. “Dear old Josephine, she knows all sorts of people,” sang Julia. At that moment the men returned. “Have you actually come back!” exclaimed Tanny to them. They sat down without answering. Jim spread himself as far as he could, in the narrow space. He stared upwards, wrinkling his ugly, queer face. It was evident he was in one of his moods. “If only somebody loved me!” he complained. “If only somebody loved me I should be all right. I'm going to pieces.” He sat up and peered into the faces of the women. “But we ALL love you,” said Josephine, laughing uneasily. “Why aren't you satisfied?” “I'm not satisfied. I'm not satisfied,” murmured Jim. “Would you like to be wrapped in swaddling bands and laid at the breast?” asked Lilly, disagreeably. Jim opened his mouth in a grin, and gazed long and malevolently at his questioner. “Yes,” he said. Then he sprawled his long six foot of limb and body across the box again. “You should try loving somebody, for a change,” said Tanny. “You've been loved too often. Why not try and love somebody?” Jim eyed her narrowly. “I couldn't love YOU,” he said, in vicious tones. “_A la bonne heure_!” said Tanny. But Jim sank his chin on his chest, and repeated obstinately: “I want to be loved.” “How many times have you been loved?” Robert asked him. “It would be rather interesting to know.” Jim looked at Robert long and slow, but did not answer. “Did you ever keep count?” Tanny persisted. Jim looked up at her, malevolent. “I believe I did,” he replied. “Forty is the age when a man should begin to reckon up,” said Lilly. Jim suddenly sprang to his feet, and brandished his fists. “I'll pitch the lot of you over the bloody rail,” he said. He glared at them, from under his bald, wrinkled forehead. Josephine glanced round. She had become a dusky white colour. She was afraid of him, and she disliked him intensely nowadays. “Do you recognise anyone in the orchestra?” she asked. The party in the box had become dead silent. They looked down. The conductor was at his stand. The music began. They all remained silent and motionless during the next scene, each thinking his own thoughts. Jim was uncomfortable. He wanted to make good. He sat with his elbows on his knees, grinning slightly, looking down. At the next interval he stood up suddenly. “It IS the chap--What?” he exclaimed excitedly, looking round at his friends. “Who?” said Tanny. “It IS he?” said Josephine quietly, meeting Jim's eye. “Sure!” he barked. He was leaning forward over the ledge, rattling a programme in his hand, as if trying to attract attention. Then he made signals. “There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “That's the chap.” “Who? Who?” they cried. But neither Jim nor Josephine would vouchsafe an answer. The next was the long interval. Jim and Josephine gazed down at the orchestra. The musicians were laying aside their instruments and rising. The ugly fire-curtain began slowly to descend. Jim suddenly bolted out. “Is it that man Aaron Sisson?” asked Robert. “Where? Where?” cried Julia. “It can't be.” But Josephine's face was closed and silent. She did not answer. The whole party moved out on to the crimson-carpeted gangway. Groups of people stood about chatting, men and women were passing along, to pay visits or to find drinks. Josephine's party stared around, talking desultorily. And at length they perceived Jim stalking along, leading Aaron Sisson by the arm. Jim was grinning, the flautist looked unwilling. He had a comely appearance, in his white shirt--a certain comely blondness and repose. And as much a gentleman as anybody. “Well!” cried Josephine to him. “How do you come here?” “I play the flute,” he answered, as he shook hands. The little crowd stood in the gangway and talked. “How wonderful of you to be here!” cried Julia. He laughed. “Do you think so?” he answered. “Yes, I do.--It seems so FAR from Shottle House and Christmas Eve.--Oh, wasn't it exciting!” cried Julia. Aaron looked at her, but did not answer. “We've heard all about you,” said Tanny playfully. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “Come!” said Josephine, rather irritated. “We crowd up the gangway.” And she led the way inside the box. Aaron stood and looked down at the dishevelled theatre. “You get all the view,” he said. “We do, don't we!” cried Julia. “More than's good for us,” said Lilly. “Tell us what you are doing. You've got a permanent job?” asked Josephine. “Yes--at present.” “Ah! It's more interesting for you than at Beldover.” She had taken her seat. He looked down at her dusky young face. Her voice was always clear and measured. “It's a change,” he said, smiling. “Oh, it must be more than that,” she said. “Why, you must feel a whole difference. It's a whole new life.” He smiled, as if he were laughing at her silently. She flushed. “But isn't it?” she persisted. “Yes. It can be,” he replied. He looked as if he were quietly amused, but dissociated. None of the people in the box were quite real to him. He was not really amused. Julia found him dull, stupid. Tanny also was offended that he could not _perceive her_. The men remained practically silent. “You're a chap I always hoped would turn up again,” said Jim. “Oh, yes!” replied Aaron, smiling as if amused. “But perhaps he doesn't like us! Perhaps he's not glad that we turned up,” said Julia, leaving her sting. The flautist turned and looked at her. “You can't REMEMBER us, can you?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “I can remember you.” “Oh,” she laughed. “You are unflattering.” He was annoyed. He did not know what she was getting at. “How are your wife and children?” she asked spitefully. “All right, I think.” “But you've been back to them?” cried Josephine in dismay. He looked at her, a slow, half smiling look, but did not speak. “Come and have a drink. Damn the women,” said Jim uncouthly, seizing Aaron by the arm and dragging him off. CHAPTER VI. TALK The party stayed to the end of the interminable opera. They had agreed to wait for Aaron. He was to come around to the vestibule for them, after the show. They trooped slowly down-stairs into the crush of the entrance hall. Chattering, swirling people, red carpet, palms green against cream-and-gilt walls, small whirlpools of life at the open, dark doorways, men in opera hats steering decisively about-it was the old scene. But there were no taxis--absolutely no taxis. And it was raining. Fortunately the women had brought shoes. They slipped these on. Jim rocked through the crowd, in his tall hat, looking for the flautist. At last Aaron was found--wearing a bowler hat. Julia groaned in spirit. Josephine's brow knitted. Not that anybody cared, really. But as one must frown at something, why not at the bowler hat? Acquaintances and elegant young men in uniforms insisted on rushing up and bowing and exchanging a few words, either with Josephine, or Jim, or Julia, or Lilly. They were coldly received. The party veered out into the night. The women hugged their wraps about them, and set off sharply, feeling some repugnance for the wet pavements and the crowd. They had not far to go--only to Jim's rooms in Adelphi. Jim was leading Aaron, holding him by the arm and slightly pinching his muscles. It gave him great satisfaction to have between his fingers the arm-muscles of a working-man, one of the common people, the _fons et origo_ of modern life. Jim was talking rather vaguely about Labour and Robert Smillie, and Bolshevism. He was all for revolution and the triumph of labour. So they arrived, mounted a dark stair, and entered a large, handsome room, one of the Adams rooms. Jim had furnished it from Heale's with striped hangings, green and white and yellow and dark purple, and with a green-and-black checked carpet, and great stripe-covered chairs and Chesterfield. A big gas-fire was soon glowing in the handsome old fire-place, the panelled room seemed cosy. While Jim was handing round drinks and sandwiches, and Josephine was making tea, Robert played Bach on the piano--the pianola, rather. The chairs and lounge were in a half-circle round the fire. The party threw off their wraps and sank deep into this expensive comfort of modern bohemia. They needed the Bach to take away the bad taste that _Aida_ had left in their mouths. They needed the whiskey and curacao to rouse their spirits. They needed the profound comfort in which to sink away from the world. All the men, except Aaron, had been through the war in some way or other. But here they were, in the old setting exactly, the old bohemian routine. The bell rang, Jim went downstairs. He returned shortly with a frail, elegant woman--fashionable rather than bohemian. She was cream and auburn, Irish, with a slightly-lifted upper lip that gave her a pathetic look. She dropped her wrap and sat down by Julia, taking her hand delicately. “How are you, darling?” she asked. “Yes--I'm happy,” said Julia, giving her odd, screwed-up smile. The pianola stopped, they all chatted indiscriminately. Jim was watching the new-comer--Mrs. Browning--with a concentrated wolfish grin. “I like her,” he said at last. “I've seen her before, haven't I?--I like her awfully.” “Yes,” said Josephine, with a slight grunt of a laugh. “He wants to be loved.” “Oh,” cried Clariss. “So do I!” “Then there you are!” cried Tanny. “Alas, no, there we aren't,” cried Clariss. She was beautiful too, with her lifted upper-lip. “We both want to be loved, and so we miss each other entirely. We run on in two parallel lines, that can never meet.” She laughed low and half sad. “Doesn't SHE love you?” said Aaron to Jim amused, indicating Josephine. “I thought you were engaged.” “HER!” leered Jim vindictively, glancing at Josephine. “She doesn't love me.” “Is that true?” asked Robert hastily, of Josephine. “Why,” she said, “yes. Why should he make me say out here that I don't love him!” “Got you my girl,” said Jim. “Then it's no engagement?” said Robert. “Listen to the row fools make, rushing in,” said Jim maliciously. “No, the engagement is broken,” said Josephine. “World coming to pieces bit by bit,” said Lilly. Jim was twisting in his chair, and looking like a Chinese dragon, diabolical. The room was uneasy. “What gives you such a belly-ache for love, Jim?” said Lilly, “or for being loved? Why do you want so badly to be loved?” “Because I like it, damn you,” barked Jim. “Because I'm in need of it.” None of them quite knew whether they ought to take it as a joke. It was just a bit too real to be quite pleasant. “Why are you such a baby?” said Lilly. “There you are, six foot in length, have been a cavalry officer and fought in two wars, and you spend your time crying for somebody to love you. You're a comic.” “Am I though?” said Jim. “I'm losing life. I'm getting thin.” “You don't look as if you were losing life,” said Lilly. “Don't I? I am, though. I'm dying.” “What of? Lack of life?” “That's about it, my young cock. Life's leaving me.” “Better sing Tosti's Farewell to it.” Jim who had been sprawling full length in his arm-chair, the centre of interest of all the company, suddenly sprang forward and pushed his face, grinning, in the face of Lilly. “You're a funny customer, you are,” he said. Then he turned round in his chair, and saw Clariss sitting at the feet of Julia, with one white arm over her friend's knee. Jim immediately stuck forward his muzzle and gazed at her. Clariss had loosened her masses of thick, auburn hair, so that it hung half free. Her face was creamy pale, her upper lip lifted with odd pathos! She had rose-rubies in her ears. “I like HER,” said Jim. “What's her name?” “Mrs. Browning. Don't be so rude,” said Josephine. “Browning for gravies. Any relation of Robert?” “Oh, yes! You ask my husband,” came the slow, plangent voice of Clariss. “You've got a husband, have you?” “Rather! Haven't I, Juley?” “Yes,” said Julia, vaguely and wispily. “Yes, dear, you have.” “And two fine children,” put in Robert. “No! You don't mean it!” said Jim. “Who's your husband? Anybody?” “Rather!” came the deep voice of Clariss. “He sees to that.” Jim stared, grinning, showing his pointed teeth, reaching nearer and nearer to Clariss who, in her frail scrap of an evening dress, amethyst and silver, was sitting still in the deep black hearth-rug, her arm over Julia's knee, taking very little notice of Jim, although he amused her. “I like you awfully, I say,” he repeated. “Thanks, I'm sure,” she said. The others were laughing, sprawling in their chairs, and sipping curacao and taking a sandwich or a cigarette. Aaron Sisson alone sat upright, smiling flickeringly. Josephine watched him, and her pointed tongue went from time to time over her lips. “But I'm sure,” she broke in, “this isn't very interesting for the others. Awfully boring! Don't be silly all the time, Jim, or we must go home.” Jim looked at her with narrowed eyes. He hated her voice. She let her eye rest on his for a moment. Then she put her cigarette to her lips. Robert was watching them both. Josephine took her cigarette from her lips again. “Tell us about yourself, Mr. Sisson,” she said. “How do you like being in London?” “I like London,” said Aaron. Where did he live? Bloomsbury. Did he know many people? No--nobody except a man in the orchestra. How had he got his job? Through an agent. Etc. Etc. “What do you make of the miners?” said Jim, suddenly taking a new line. “Me?” said Sisson. “I don't make anything of them.” “Do you think they'll make a stand against the government?” “What for?” “Nationalisation.” “They might, one day.” “Think they'd fight?” “Fight?” “Yes.” Aaron sat laughing. “What have they to fight for?” “Why, everything! What haven't they to fight for?” cried Josephine fiercely. “Freedom, liberty, and escape from this vile system. Won't they fight for that?” Aaron sat smiling, slowly shaking his head. “Nay,” he said, “you mustn't ask me what they'll do--I've only just left them, for good. They'll do a lot of cavilling.” “But won't they ACT?” cried Josephine. “Act?” said Aaron. “How, act?” “Why, defy the government, and take things in their own hands,” said Josephine. “They might, some time,” said Aaron, rather indifferent. “I wish they would!” cried Josephine. “My, wouldn't I love it if they'd make a bloody revolution!” They were all looking now at her. Her black brows were twitching, in her black and silver dress she looked like a symbol of young disaster. “Must it be bloody, Josephine?” said Robert. “Why, yes. I don't believe in revolutions that aren't bloody,” said Josephine. “Wouldn't I love it! I'd go in front with a red flag.” “It would be rather fun,” said Tanny. “Wouldn't it!” cried Josephine. “Oh, Josey, dear!” cried Julia hysterically. “Isn't she a red-hot Bolsher! _I_ should be frightened.” “No!” cried Josephine. “I should love it.” “So should I,” said Jim, in a luscious sort of voice. “What price machine-guns at the end of the Strand! That's a day to live for, what?” “Ha! Ha!” laughed Clariss, with her deep laugh. “We'd all Bolsh together. I'd give the cheers.” “I wouldn't mind getting killed. I'd love it, in a real fight,” said Josephine. “But, Josephine,” said Robert, “don't you think we've had enough of that sort of thing in the war? Don't you think it all works out rather stupid and unsatisfying?” “Ah, but a civil war would be different. I've no interest in fighting Germans. But a civil war would be different.” “That's a fact, it would,” said Jim. “Only rather worse,” said Robert. “No, I don't agree,” cried Josephine. “You'd feel you were doing something, in a civil war.” “Pulling the house down,” said Lilly. “Yes,” she cried. “Don't you hate it, the house we live in--London--England--America! Don't you hate them?” “I don't like them. But I can't get much fire in my hatred. They pall on me rather,” said Lilly. “Ay!” said Aaron, suddenly stirring in his chair. Lilly and he glanced at one another with a look of recognition. “Still,” said Tanny, “there's got to be a clearance some day or other.” “Oh,” drawled Clariss. “I'm all for a clearance. I'm all for pulling the house down. Only while it stands I do want central heating and a good cook.” “May I come to dinner?” said Jim. “Oh, yes. You'd find it rather domestic.” “Where do you live?” “Rather far out now--Amersham.” “Amersham? Where's that--?” “Oh, it's on the map.” There was a little lull. Jim gulped down a drink, standing at the sideboard. He was a tall, fine, soldierly figure, and his face, with its little sandy moustache and bald forehead, was odd. Aaron Sisson sat watching him, unconsciously. “Hello you!” said Jim. “Have one?” Aaron shook his head, and Jim did not press him. It saved the drinks. “You believe in love, don't you?” said Jim, sitting down near Aaron, and grinning at him. “Love!” said Aaron. “LOVE! he says,” mocked Jim, grinning at the company. “What about it, then?” asked Aaron. “It's life! Love is life,” said Jim fiercely. “It's a vice, like drink,” said Lilly. “Eh? A vice!” said Jim. “May be for you, old bird.” “More so still for you,” said Lilly. “It's life. It's life!” reiterated Jim. “Don't you agree?” He turned wolfishly to Clariss. “Oh, yes--every time--” she drawled, nonchalant. “Here, let's write it down,” said Lilly. He found a blue pencil and printed in large letters on the old creamy marble of the mantel-piece panel:--LOVE IS LIFE. Julia suddenly rose and flung her arms asunder wildly. “Oh, I hate love. I hate it,” she protested. Jim watched her sardonically. “Look at her!” he said. “Look at Lesbia who hates love.” “No, but perhaps it is a disease. Perhaps we are all wrong, and we can't love properly,” put in Josephine. “Have another try,” said Jim,--“I know what love is. I've thought about it. Love is the soul's respiration.” “Let's have that down,” said Lilly. LOVE IS THE SOUL'S RESPIRATION. He printed it on the old mantel-piece. Jim eyed the letters. “It's right,” he said. “Quite right. When you love, your soul breathes in. If you don't breathe in, you suffocate.” “What about breathing out?” said Robert. “If you don't breathe out, you asphyxiate.” “Right you are, Mock Turtle--” said Jim maliciously. “Breathing out is a bloody revolution,” said Lilly. “You've hit the nail on the head,” said Jim solemnly. “Let's record it then,” said Lilly. And with the blue pencil he printed: WHEN YOU LOVE, YOUR SOUL BREATHES IN-- WHEN YOUR SOUL BREATHES OUT, IT'S A BLOODY REVOLUTION. “I say Jim,” he said. “You must be busting yourself, trying to breathe in.” “Don't you be too clever. I've thought about it,” said Jim. “When I'm in love, I get a great inrush of energy. I actually feel it rush in--here!” He poked his finger on the pit of his stomach. “It's the soul's expansion. And if I can't get these rushes of energy, I'M DYING, AND I KNOW I AM.” He spoke the last words with sudden ferocity and desperation. “All _I_ know is,” said Tanny, “you don't look it.” “I AM. I am.” Jim protested. “I'm dying. Life's leaving me.” “Maybe you're choking with love,” said Robert. “Perhaps you have breathed in so much, you don't know how to let it go again. Perhaps your soul's got a crick in it, with expanding so much.” “You're a bloody young sucking pig, you are,” said Jim. “Even at that age, I've learned my manners,” replied Robert. Jim looked round the party. Then he turned to Aaron Sisson. “What do you make of 'em, eh?” he said. Aaron shook his head, and laughed. “Me?” he said. But Jim did not wait for an answer. “I've had enough,” said Tanny suddenly rising. “I think you're all silly. Besides, it's getting late.” “She!” said Jim, rising and pointing luridly to Clariss. “She's Love. And HE's the Working People. The hope is these two--” He jerked a thumb at Aaron Sisson, after having indicated Mrs. Browning. “Oh, how awfully interesting. It's quite a long time since I've been a personification.--I suppose you've never been one before?” said Clariss, turning to Aaron in conclusion. “No, I don't think I have,” he answered. “I hope personification is right.--Ought to be _allegory_ or something else?” This from Clariss to Robert. “Or a parable, Clariss,” laughed the young lieutenant. “Goodbye,” said Tanny. “I've been awfully bored.” “Have you?” grinned Jim. “Goodbye! Better luck next time.” “We'd better look sharp,” said Robert, “if we want to get the tube.” The party hurried through the rainy narrow streets down to the Embankment station. Robert and Julia and Clariss were going west, Lilly and his wife were going to Hampstead, Josephine and Aaron Sisson were going both to Bloomsbury. “I suppose,” said Robert, on the stairs--“Mr. Sisson will see you to your door, Josephine. He lives your way.” “There's no need at all,” said Josephine. The four who were going north went down to the low tube level. It was nearly the last train. The station was half deserted, half rowdy, several fellows were drunk, shouting and crowing. Down there in the bowels of London, after midnight, everything seemed horrible and unnatural. “How I hate this London,” said Tanny. She was half Norwegian, and had spent a large part of her life in Norway, before she married Lilly. “Yes, so do I,” said Josephine. “But if one must earn one's living one must stay here. I wish I could get back to Paris. But there's nothing doing for me in France.--When do you go back into the country, both of you?” “Friday,” said Lilly. “How lovely for you!--And when will you go to Norway, Tanny?” “In about a month,” said Tanny. “You must be awfully pleased.” “Oh--thankful--THANKFUL to get out of England--” “I know. That's how I feel. Everything is so awful--so dismal and dreary, I find it--” They crowded into the train. Men were still yelling like wild beasts--others were asleep--soldiers were singing. “Have you really broken your engagement with Jim?” shrilled Tanny in a high voice, as the train roared. “Yes, he's impossible,” said Josephine. “Perfectly hysterical and impossible.” “And SELFISH--” cried Tanny. “Oh terribly--” cried Josephine. “Come up to Hampstead to lunch with us,” said Lilly to Aaron. “Ay--thank you,” said Aaron. Lilly scribbled directions on a card. The hot, jaded midnight underground rattled on. Aaron and Josephine got down to change trains. CHAPTER VII. THE DARK SQUARE GARDEN Josephine had invited Aaron Sisson to dinner at a restaurant in Soho, one Sunday evening. They had a corner to themselves, and with a bottle of Burgundy she was getting his history from him. His father had been a shaft-sinker, earning good money, but had been killed by a fall down the shaft when Aaron was only four years old. The widow had opened a shop: Aaron was her only child. She had done well in her shop. She had wanted Aaron to be a schoolteacher. He had served three years apprenticeship, then suddenly thrown it up and gone to the pit. “But why?” said Josephine. “I couldn't tell you. I felt more like it.” He had a curious quality of an intelligent, almost sophisticated mind, which had repudiated education. On purpose he kept the midland accent in his speech. He understood perfectly what a personification was--and an allegory. But he preferred to be illiterate. Josephine found out what a miner's checkweighman was. She tried to find out what sort of wife Aaron had--but, except that she was the daughter of a publican and was delicate in health, she could learn nothing. “And do you send her money?” she asked. “Ay,” said Aaron. “The house is mine. And I allow her so much a week out of the money in the bank. My mother left me a bit over a thousand when she died.” “You don't mind what I say, do you?” said Josephine. “No I don't mind,” he laughed. He had this pleasant-seeming courteous manner. But he really kept her at a distance. In some things he reminded her of Robert: blond, erect, nicely built, fresh and English-seeming. But there was a curious cold distance to him, which she could not get across. An inward indifference to her--perhaps to everything. Yet his laugh was so handsome. “Will you tell me why you left your wife and children?--Didn't you love them?” Aaron looked at the odd, round, dark muzzle of the girl. She had had her hair bobbed, and it hung in odd dark folds, very black, over her ears. “Why I left her?” he said. “For no particular reason. They're all right without me.” Josephine watched his face. She saw a pallor of suffering under its freshness, and a strange tension in his eyes. “But you couldn't leave your little girls for no reason at all--” “Yes, I did. For no reason--except I wanted to have some free room round me--to loose myself--” “You mean you wanted love?” flashed Josephine, thinking he said _lose_. “No, I wanted fresh air. I don't know what I wanted. Why should I know?” “But we must know: especially when other people will be hurt,” said she. “Ah, well! A breath of fresh air, by myself. I felt forced to feel--I feel if I go back home now, I shall be FORCED--forced to love--or care--or something.” “Perhaps you wanted more than your wife could give you,” she said. “Perhaps less. She's made up her mind she loves me, and she's not going to let me off.” “Did you never love her?” said Josephine. “Oh, yes. I shall never love anybody else. But I'm damned if I want to be a lover any more. To her or to anybody. That's the top and bottom of it. I don't want to CARE, when care isn't in me. And I'm not going to be forced to it.” The fat, aproned French waiter was hovering near. Josephine let him remove the plates and the empty bottle. “Have more wine,” she said to Aaron. But he refused. She liked him because of his dead-level indifference to his surroundings. French waiters and foreign food--he noticed them in his quick, amiable-looking fashion--but he was indifferent. Josephine was piqued. She wanted to pierce this amiable aloofness of his. She ordered coffee and brandies. “But you don't want to get away from EVERYTHING, do you? I myself feel so LOST sometimes--so dreadfully alone: not in a silly sentimental fashion, because men keep telling me they love me, don't you know. But my LIFE seems alone, for some reason--” “Haven't you got relations?” he said. “No one, now mother is dead. Nothing nearer than aunts and cousins in America. I suppose I shall see them all again one day. But they hardly count over here.” “Why don't you get married?” he said. “How old are you?” “I'm twenty-five. How old are you?” “Thirty-three.” “You might almost be any age.--I don't know why I don't get married. In a way, I hate earning my own living--yet I go on--and I like my work--” “What are you doing now?” “I'm painting scenery for a new play--rather fun--I enjoy it. But I often wonder what will become of me.” “In what way?” She was almost affronted. “What becomes of me? Oh, I don't know. And it doesn't matter, not to anybody but myself.” “What becomes of anybody, anyhow? We live till we die. What do you want?” “Why, I keep saying I want to get married and feel sure of something. But I don't know--I feel dreadful sometimes--as if every minute would be the last. I keep going on and on--I don't know what for--and IT keeps going on and on--goodness knows what it's all for.” “You shouldn't bother yourself,” he said. “You should just let it go on and on--” “But I MUST bother,” she said. “I must think and feel--” “You've no occasion,” he said. “How--?” she said, with a sudden grunting, unhappy laugh. Then she lit a cigarette. “No,” she said. “What I should really like more than anything would be an end of the world. I wish the world would come to an end.” He laughed, and poured his drops of brandy down his throat. “It won't, for wishing,” he said. “No, that's the awful part of it. It'll just go on and on-- Doesn't it make you feel you'd go mad?” He looked at her and shook his head. “You see it doesn't concern me,” he said. “So long as I can float by myself.” “But ARE you SATISFIED!” she cried. “I like being by myself--I hate feeling and caring, and being forced into it. I want to be left alone--” “You aren't very polite to your hostess of the evening,” she said, laughing a bit miserably. “Oh, we're all right,” he said. “You know what I mean--” “You like your own company? Do you?--Sometimes I think I'm nothing when I'm alone. Sometimes I think I surely must be nothing--nothingness.” He shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. I only want to be left alone.” “Not to have anything to do with anybody?” she queried ironically. “Not to any extent.” She watched him--and then she bubbled with a laugh. “I think you're funny,” she said. “You don't mind?” “No--why--It's just as you see it.--Jim Bricknell's a rare comic, to my eye.” “Oh, him!--no, not actually. He's self-conscious and selfish and hysterical. It isn't a bit funny after a while.” “I only know what I've seen,” said Aaron. “You'd both of you like a bloody revolution, though.” “Yes. Only when it came he wouldn't be there.” “Would you?” “Yes, indeed I would. I would give everything to be in it. I'd give heaven and earth for a great big upheaval--and then darkness.” “Perhaps you'll get it, when you die,” said Aaron. “Oh, but I don't want to die and leave all this standing. I hate it so.” “Why do you?” “But don't you?” “No, it doesn't really bother me.” “It makes me feel I can't live.” “I can't see that.” “But you always disagree with one!” said Josephine. “How do you like Lilly? What do you think of him?” “He seems sharp,” said Aaron. “But he's more than sharp.” “Oh, yes! He's got his finger in most pies.” “And doesn't like the plums in any of them,” said Josephine tartly. “What does he do?” “Writes--stories and plays.” “And makes it pay?” “Hardly at all.--They want us to go. Shall we?” She rose from the table. The waiter handed her her cloak, and they went out into the blowy dark night. She folded her wrap round her, and hurried forward with short, sharp steps. There was a certain Parisian _chic_ and mincingness about her, even in her walk: but underneath, a striding, savage suggestion as if she could leg it in great strides, like some savage squaw. Aaron pressed his bowler hat down on his brow. “Would you rather take a bus?” she said in a high voice, because of the wind. “I'd rather walk.” “So would I.” They hurried across the Charing Cross Road, where great buses rolled and rocked, crammed with people. Her heels clicked sharply on the pavement, as they walked east. They crossed Holborn, and passed the Museum. And neither of them said anything. When they came to the corner, she held out her hand. “Look!” she said. “Don't come any further: don't trouble.” “I'll walk round with you: unless you'd rather not.” “No--But do you want to bother?” “It's no bother.” So they pursued their way through the high wind, and turned at last into the old, beautiful square. It seemed dark and deserted, dark like a savage wilderness in the heart of London. The wind was roaring in the great bare trees of the centre, as if it were some wild dark grove deep in a forgotten land. Josephine opened the gate of the square garden with her key, and let it slam to behind him. “How wonderful the wind is!” she shrilled. “Shall we listen to it for a minute?” She led him across the grass past the shrubs to the big tree in the centre. There she climbed up to a seat. He sat beside her. They sat in silence, looking at the darkness. Rain was blowing in the wind. They huddled against the big tree-trunk, for shelter, and watched the scene. Beyond the tall shrubs and the high, heavy railings the wet street gleamed silently. The houses of the Square rose like a cliff on this inner dark sea, dimly lighted at occasional windows. Boughs swayed and sang. A taxi-cab swirled round a corner like a cat, and purred to a standstill. There was a light of an open hall door. But all far away, it seemed, unthinkably far away. Aaron sat still and watched. He was frightened, it all seemed so sinister, this dark, bristling heart of London. Wind boomed and tore like waves ripping a shingle beach. The two white lights of the taxi stared round and departed, leaving the coast at the foot of the cliffs deserted, faintly spilled with light from the high lamp. Beyond there, on the outer rim, a policeman passed solidly. Josephine was weeping steadily all the time, but inaudibly. Occasionally she blew her nose and wiped her face. But he had not realized. She hardly realized herself. She sat near the strange man. He seemed so still and remote--so fascinating. “Give me your hand,” she said to him, subduedly. He took her cold hand in his warm, living grasp. She wept more bitterly. He noticed at last. “Why are you crying?” he said. “I don't know,” she replied, rather matter-of-fact, through her tears. So he let her cry, and said no more, but sat with her cold hand in his warm, easy clasp. “You'll think me a fool,” she said. “I don't know why I cry.” “You can cry for nothing, can't you?” he said. “Why, yes, but it's not very sensible.” He laughed shortly. “Sensible!” he said. “You are a strange man,” she said. But he took no notice. “Did you ever intend to marry Jim Bricknell?” he asked. “Yes, of course.” “I can't imagine it,” he said. “Why not?” Both were watching blankly the roaring night of mid-London, the phantasmagoric old Bloomsbury Square. They were still hand in hand. “Such as you shouldn't marry,” he said. “But why not? I want to.” “You think you do.” “Yes indeed I do.” He did not say any more. “Why shouldn't I?” she persisted. “I don't know--” And again he was silent. “You've known some life, haven't you?” he asked. “Me? Why?” “You seem to.” “Do I? I'm sorry. Do I seem vicious?--No, I'm not vicious.--I've seen some life, perhaps--in Paris mostly. But not much. Why do you ask?” “I wasn't thinking.” “But what do you mean? What are you thinking?” “Nothing. Nothing.” “Don't be so irritating,” said she. But he did not answer, and she became silent also. They sat hand in hand. “Won't you kiss me?” came her voice out of the darkness. He waited some moments, then his voice sounded gently, half mocking, half reproachful. “Nay!” he said. “Why not?” “I don't want to.” “Why not?” she asked. He laughed, but did not reply. She sat perfectly still for some time. She had ceased to cry. In the darkness her face was set and sullen. Sometimes a spray of rain blew across it. She drew her hand from his, and rose to her feet. “Ill go in now,” she said. “You're not offended, are you?” he asked. “No. Why?” They stepped down in the darkness from their perch. “I wondered.” She strode off for some little way. Then she turned and said: “Yes, I think it is rather insulting.” “Nay,” he said. “Not it! Not it!” And he followed her to the gate. She opened with her key, and they crossed the road to her door. “Good-night,” she said, turning and giving him her hand. “You'll come and have dinner with me--or lunch--will you? When shall we make it?” he asked. “Well, I can't say for certain--I'm very busy just now. I'll let you know.” A policeman shed his light on the pair of them as they stood on the step. “All right,” said Aaron, dropping back, and she hastily opened the big door, and entered. CHAPTER VIII. A PUNCH IN THE WIND The Lillys had a labourer's cottage in Hampshire--pleasant enough. They were poor. Lilly was a little, dark, thin, quick fellow, his wife was strong and fair. They had known Robert and Julia for some years, but Josephine and Jim were new acquaintances,--fairly new. One day in early spring Lilly had a telegram, “Coming to see you arrive 4:30--Bricknell.” He was surprised, but he and his wife got the spare room ready. And at four o'clock Lilly went off to the station. He was a few minutes late, and saw Jim's tall, rather elegant figure stalking down the station path. Jim had been an officer in the regular army, and still spent hours with his tailor. But instead of being a soldier he was a sort of socialist, and a red-hot revolutionary of a very ineffectual sort. “Good lad!” he exclaimed, as Lilly came up. “Thought you wouldn't mind.” “Not at all. Let me carry your bag.” Jim had a bag and a knapsack. “I had an inspiration this morning,” said Jim. “I suddenly saw that if there was a man in England who could save me, it was you.” “Save you from what?” asked Lilly, rather abashed. “Eh--?” and Jim stooped, grinning at the smaller man. Lilly was somewhat puzzled, but he had a certain belief in himself as a saviour. The two men tramped rather incongruously through the lanes to the cottage. Tanny was in the doorway as they came up the garden path. “So nice to see you! Are you all right?” she said. “A-one!” said Jim, grinning. “Nice of you to have me.” “Oh, we're awfully pleased.” Jim dropped his knapsack on the broad sofa. “I've brought some food,” he said. “Have you! That's sensible of you. We can't get a great deal here, except just at week-ends,” said Tanny. Jim fished out a pound of sausages and a pot of fish paste. “How lovely the sausages,” said Tanny. “We'll have them for dinner tonight--and we'll have the other for tea now. You'd like a wash?” But Jim had already opened his bag, taken off his coat, and put on an old one. “Thanks,” he said. Lilly made the tea, and at length all sat down. “Well how unexpected this is--and how nice,” said Tanny. “Jolly--eh?” said Jim. He ate rapidly, stuffing his mouth too full. “How is everybody?” asked Tanny. “All right. Julia's gone with Cyril Scott. Can't stand that fellow, can you? What?” “Yes, I think he's rather nice,” said Tanny. “What will Robert do?” “Have a shot at Josephine, apparently.” “Really? Is he in love with her? I thought so. And she likes him too, doesn't she?” said Tanny. “Very likely,” said Jim. “I suppose you're jealous,” laughed Tanny. “Me!” Jim shook his head. “Not a bit. Like to see the ball kept rolling.” “What have you been doing lately?” “Been staying a few days with my wife.” “No, really! I can't believe it.” Jim had a French wife, who had divorced him, and two children. Now he was paying visits to this wife again: purely friendly. Tanny did most of the talking. Jim excited her, with his way of looking in her face and grinning wolfishly, and at the same time asking to be saved. After tea, he wanted to send telegrams, so Lilly took him round to the village post-office. Telegrams were a necessary part of his life. He had to be suddenly starting off to keep sudden appointments, or he felt he was a void in the atmosphere. He talked to Lilly about social reform, and so on. Jim's work in town was merely nominal. He spent his time wavering about and going to various meetings, philandering and weeping. Lilly kept in the back of his mind the Saving which James had come to look for. He intended to do his best. After dinner the three sat cosily round the kitchen fire. “But what do you really think will happen to the world?” Lilly asked Jim, amid much talk. “What? There's something big coming,” said Jim. “Where from?” “Watch Ireland, and watch Japan--they're the two poles of the world,” said Jim. “I thought Russia and America,” said Lilly. “Eh? What? Russia and America! They'll depend on Ireland and Japan. I know it. I've had a vision of it. Ireland on this side and Japan on the other--they'll settle it.” “I don't see how,” said Lilly. “I don't see HOW--But I had a vision of it.” “What sort of vision?” “Couldn't describe it.” “But you don't think much of the Japanese, do you?” asked Lilly. “Don't I! Don't I!” said Jim. “What, don't you think they're wonderful?” “No. I think they're rather unpleasant.” “I think the salvation of the world lies with them.” “Funny salvation,” said Lilly. “I think they're anything but angels.” “Do you though? Now that's funny. Why?” “Looking at them even. I knew a Russian doctor who'd been through the Russo-Japanese war, and who had gone a bit cracked. He said he saw the Japs rush a trench. They threw everything away and flung themselves through the Russian fire and simply dropped in masses. But those that reached the trenches jumped in with bare hands on the Russians and tore their faces apart and bit their throats out--fairly ripped the faces off the bone.--It had sent the doctor a bit cracked. He said the wounded were awful,--their faces torn off and their throats mangled--and dead Japs with flesh between the teeth--God knows if it's true. But that's the impression the Japanese had made on this man. It had affected his mind really.” Jim watched Lilly, and smiled as if he were pleased. “No--really--!” he said. “Anyhow they're more demon than angel, I believe,” said Lilly. “Oh, no, Rawdon, but you always exaggerate,” said Tanny. “Maybe,” said Lilly. “I think Japanese are fascinating--fascinating--so quick, and such FORCE in them--” “Rather!--eh?” said Jim, looking with a quick smile at Tanny. “I think a Japanese lover would be marvellous,” she laughed riskily. “I s'd think he would,” said Jim, screwing up his eyes. “Do you hate the normal British as much as I do?” she asked him. “Hate them! Hate them!” he said, with an intimate grin. “Their beastly virtue,” said she. “And I believe there's nobody more vicious underneath.” “Nobody!” said Jim. “But you're British yourself,” said Lilly to Jim. “No, I'm Irish. Family's Irish--my mother was a Fitz-patrick.” “Anyhow you live in England.” “Because they won't let me go to Ireland.” The talk drifted. Jim finished up all the beer, and they prepared to go to bed. Jim was a bit tipsy, grinning. He asked for bread and cheese to take upstairs. “Will you have supper?” said Lilly. He was surprised, because Jim had eaten strangely much at dinner. “No--where's the loaf?” And he cut himself about half of it. There was no cheese. “Bread'll do,” said Jim. “Sit down and eat it. Have cocoa with it,” said Tanny. “No, I like to have it in my bedroom.” “You don't eat bread in the night?” said Lilly. “I do.” “What a funny thing to do.” The cottage was in darkness. The Lillys slept soundly. Jim woke up and chewed bread and slept again. In the morning at dawn he rose and went downstairs. Lilly heard him roaming about--heard the woman come in to clean--heard them talking. So he got up to look after his visitor, though it was not seven o'clock, and the woman was busy.--But before he went down, he heard Jim come upstairs again. Mrs. Short was busy in the kitchen when Lilly went down. “The other gentleman have been down, Sir,” said Mrs. Short. “He asked me where the bread and butter were, so I said should I cut him a piece. But he wouldn't let me do it. I gave him a knife and he took it for himself, in the pantry.” “I say, Bricknell,” said Lilly at breakfast time, “why do you eat so much bread?” “I've got to feed up. I've been starved during this damned war.” “But hunks of bread won't feed you up.” “Gives the stomach something to work at, and prevents it grinding on the nerves,” said Jim. “But surely you don't want to keep your stomach always full and heavy.” “I do, my boy. I do. It needs keeping solid. I'm losing life, if I don't. I tell you I'm losing life. Let me put something inside me.” “I don't believe bread's any use.” During breakfast Jim talked about the future of the world. “I reckon Christ's the finest thing time has ever produced,” said he; “and will remain it.” “But you don't want crucifixions _ad infinitum_,” said Lilly. “What? Why not?” “Once is enough--and have done.” “Don't you think love and sacrifice are the finest things in life?” said Jim, over his bacon. “Depends WHAT love, and what sacrifice,” said Lilly. “If I really believe in an Almighty God, I am willing to sacrifice for Him. That is, I'm willing to yield my own personal interest to the bigger creative interest.--But it's obvious Almighty God isn't mere Love.” “I think it is. Love and only love,” said Jim. “I think the greatest joy is sacrificing oneself to love.” “To SOMEONE you love, you mean,” said Tanny. “No I don't. I don't mean someone at all. I mean love--love--love. I sacrifice myself to love. I reckon that's the highest man is capable of.” “But you can't sacrifice yourself to an abstract principle,” said Tanny. “That's just what you can do. And that's the beauty of it. Who represents the principle doesn't matter. Christ is the principle of love,” said Jim. “But no!” said Tanny. “It MUST be more individual. It must be SOMEBODY you love, not abstract love in itself. How can you sacrifice yourself to an abstraction.” “Ha, I think Love and your Christ detestable,” said Lilly--“a sheer ignominy.” “Finest thing the world has produced,” said Jim. “No. A thing which sets itself up to be betrayed! No, it's foul. Don't you see it's the Judas principle you really worship. Judas is the real hero. But for Judas the whole show would have been _manque_.” “Oh yes,” said Jim. “Judas was inevitable. I'm not sure that Judas wasn't the greatest of the disciples--and Jesus knew it. I'm not sure Judas wasn't the disciple Jesus loved.” “Jesus certainly encouraged him in his Judas tricks,” said Tanny. Jim grinned knowingly at Lilly. “Then it was a nasty combination. And anything which turns on a Judas climax is a dirty show, to my thinking. I think your Judas is a rotten, dirty worm, just a dirty little self-conscious sentimental twister. And out of all Christianity he is the hero today. When people say Christ they mean Judas. They find him luscious on the palate. And Jesus fostered him--” said Lilly. “He's a profound figure, is Judas. It's taken two thousand years to begin to understand him,” said Jim, pushing the bread and marmalade into his mouth. “A traitor is a traitor--no need to understand any further. And a system which rests all its weight on a piece of treachery makes that treachery not only inevitable but sacred. That's why I'm sick of Christianity.--At any rate this modern Christ-mongery.” “The finest thing the world has produced, or ever will produce--Christ and Judas--” said Jim. “Not to me,” said Lilly. “Foul combination.” It was a lovely morning in early March. Violets were out, and the first wild anemones. The sun was quite warm. The three were about to take out a picnic lunch. Lilly however was suffering from Jim's presence. “Jolly nice here,” said Jim. “Mind if I stay till Saturday?” There was a pause. Lilly felt he was being bullied, almost obscenely bullied. Was he going to agree? Suddenly he looked up at Jim. “I'd rather you went tomorrow,” he said. Tanny, who was sitting opposite Jim, dropped her head in confusion. “What's tomorrow?” said Jim. “Thursday,” said Lilly. “Thursday,” repeated Jim. And he looked up and got Lilly's eye. He wanted to say “Friday then?” “Yes, I'd rather you went Thursday,” repeated Lilly. “But Rawdon--!” broke in Tanny, who was suffering. She stopped, however. “We can walk across country with you some way if you like,” said Lilly to Jim. It was a sort of compromise. “Fine!” said Jim. “We'll do that, then.” It was lovely sunshine, and they wandered through the woods. Between Jim and Tanny was a sort of growing _rapprochement_, which got on Lilly's nerves. “What the hell do you take that beastly personal tone for?” cried Lilly at Tanny, as the three sat under a leafless great beech-tree. “But I'm not personal at all, am I, Mr. Bricknell?” said Tanny. Jim watched Lilly, and grinned pleasedly. “Why shouldn't you be, anyhow?” he said. “Yes!” she retorted. “Why not!” “Not while I'm here. I loathe the slimy creepy personal intimacy.--'Don't you think, Mr. Bricknell, that it's lovely to be able to talk quite simply to somebody? Oh, it's such a relief, after most people---'” Lilly mimicked his wife's last speech savagely. “But I MEAN it,” cried Tanny. “It is lovely.” “Dirty messing,” said Lilly angrily. Jim watched the dark, irascible little man with amusement. They rose, and went to look for an inn, and beer. Tanny still clung rather stickily to Jim's side. But it was a lovely day, the first of all the days of spring, with crocuses and wall-flowers in the cottage gardens, and white cocks crowing in the quiet hamlet. When they got back in the afternoon to the cottage, they found a telegram for Jim. He let the Lillys see it--“Meet you for a walk on your return journey Lois.” At once Tanny wanted to know all about Lois. Lois was a nice girl, well-to-do middle-class, but also an actress, and she would do anything Jim wanted. “I must get a wire to her to meet me tomorrow,” he said. “Where shall I say?” Lilly produced the map, and they decided on time and station at which Lois coming out of London, should meet Jim. Then the happy pair could walk along the Thames valley, spending a night perhaps at Marlowe, or some such place. Off went Jim and Lilly once more to the postoffice. They were quite good friends. Having so inhospitably fixed the hour of departure, Lilly wanted to be nice. Arrived at the postoffice, they found it shut: half-day closing for the little shop. “Well,” said Lilly. “We'll go to the station.” They proceeded to the station--found the station-master--were conducted down to the signal-box. Lilly naturally hung back from people, but Jim was hob-nob with the station-master and the signal man, quite officer-and-my-men kind of thing. Lilly sat out on the steps of the signal-box, rather ashamed, while the long telegram was shouted over the telephone to the junction town--first the young lady and her address, then the message “Meet me X. station 3:40 tomorrow walk back great pleasure Jim.” Anyhow that was done. They went home to tea. After tea, as the evening fell, Lilly suggested a little stroll in the woods, while Tanny prepared the dinner. Jim agreed, and they set out. The two men wandered through the trees in the dusk, till they came to a bank on the farther edge of the wood. There they sat down. And there Lilly said what he had to say. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “it's nothing but love and self-sacrifice which makes you feel yourself losing life.” “You're wrong. Only love brings it back--and wine. If I drink a bottle of Burgundy I feel myself restored at the middle--right here! I feel the energy back again. And if I can fall in love--But it's becoming so damned hard--” “What, to fall in love?” asked Lilly. “Yes.” “Then why not leave off trying! What do you want to poke yourself and prod yourself into love, for?” “Because I'm DEAD without it. I'm dead. I'm dying.” “Only because you force yourself. If you drop working yourself up--” “I shall die. I only live when I can fall in love. Otherwise I'm dying by inches. Why, man, you don't know what it was like. I used to get the most grand feelings--like a great rush of force, or light--a great rush--right here, as I've said, at the solar plexus. And it would come any time--anywhere--no matter where I was. And then I was all right. “All right for what?--for making love?” “Yes, man, I was.” “And now you aren't?--Oh, well, leave love alone, as any twopenny doctor would tell you.” “No, you're off it there. It's nothing technical. Technically I can make love as much as you like. It's nothing a doctor has any say in. It's what I feel inside me. I feel the life going. I know it's going. I never get those inrushes now, unless I drink a jolly lot, or if I possibly could fall in love. Technically, I'm potent all right--oh, yes!” “You should leave yourself and your inrushes alone.” “But you can't. It's a sort of ache.” “Then you should stiffen your backbone. It's your backbone that matters. You shouldn't want to abandon yourself. You shouldn't want to fling yourself all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves--there, at the bottom of the spine--the devil's own power they've got there.” Jim mused a bit. “Think they have?” he laughed. It seemed comic to him. “Sure! Look at them. Why can't you gather yourself there?” “At the tail?” “Yes. Hold yourself firm there.” Jim broke into a cackle of a laugh, and rose. The two went through the dark woods back to the cottage. Jim staggered and stumbled like a drunken man: or worse, like a man with locomotor ataxia: as if he had no power in his lower limbs. “Walk there--!” said Lilly, finding him the smoothest bit of the dark path. But Jim stumbled and shambled, in a state of nauseous weak relaxation. However, they reached the cottage: and food and beer--and Tanny, piqued with curiosity to know what the men had been saying privately to each other. After dinner they sat once more talking round the fire. Lilly sat in a small chair facing the fire, the other two in the armchairs on either side the hearth. “How nice it will be for you, walking with Lois towards London tomorrow,” gushed Tanny sentimentally. “Good God!” said Lilly. “Why the dickens doesn't he walk by himself, without wanting a woman always there, to hold his hand.” “Don't be so spiteful,” said Tanny. “YOU see that you have a woman always there, to hold YOUR hand.” “My hand doesn't need holding,” snapped Lilly. “Doesn't it! More than most men's! But you're so beastly ungrateful and mannish. Because I hold you safe enough all the time you like to pretend you're doing it all yourself.” “All right. Don't drag yourself in,” said Lilly, detesting his wife at that moment. “Anyhow,” and he turned to Jim, “it's time you'd done slobbering yourself over a lot of little women, one after the other.” “Why shouldn't I, if I like it?” said Jim. “Yes, why not?” said Tanny. “Because it makes a fool of you. Look at you, stumbling and staggering with no use in your legs. I'd be ashamed if I were you.” “Would you?” said Jim. “I would. And it's nothing but your wanting to be loved which does it. A maudlin crying to be loved, which makes your knees all go rickety.” “Think that's it?” said Jim. “What else is it. You haven't been here a day, but you must telegraph for some female to be ready to hold your hand the moment you go away. And before she lets go, you'll be wiring for another. YOU WANT TO BE LOVED, you want to be loved--a man of your years. It's disgusting--” “I don't see it. I believe in love--” said Jim, watching and grinning oddly. “Bah, love! Messing, that's what it is. It wouldn't matter if it did you no harm. But when you stagger and stumble down a road, out of sheer sloppy relaxation of your will---” At this point Jim suddenly sprang from his chair at Lilly, and gave him two or three hard blows with his fists, upon the front of the body. Then he sat down in his own chair again, saying sheepishly: “I knew I should have to do it, if he said any more.” Lilly sat motionless as a statue, his face like paper. One of the blows had caught him rather low, so that he was almost winded and could not breathe. He sat rigid, paralysed as a winded man is. But he wouldn't let it be seen. With all his will he prevented himself from gasping. Only through his parted lips he drew tiny gasps, controlled, nothing revealed to the other two. He hated them both far too much. For some minutes there was dead silence, whilst Lilly silently and viciously fought for his breath. Tanny opened her eyes wide in a sort of pleased bewilderment, and Jim turned his face aside, and hung his clasped hands between his knees. “There's a great silence, suddenly!” said Tanny. “What is there to say?” ejaculated Lilly rapidly, with a spoonful of breath which he managed to compress and control into speech. Then he sat motionless again, concerned with the business of getting back his wind, and not letting the other two see. Jim jerked in his chair, and looked round. “It isn't that I don't like the man,” he said, in a rather small voice. “But I knew if he went on I should have to do it.” To Lilly, rigid and physically preoccupied, there sounded a sort of self-consciousness in Jim's voice, as if the whole thing had been semi-deliberate. He detected the sort of maudlin deliberateness which goes with hysterics, and he was colder, more icy than ever. Tanny looked at Lilly, puzzled, bewildered, but still rather pleased, as if she demanded an answer. None being forthcoming, she said: “Of course, you mustn't expect to say all those things without rousing a man.” Still Lilly did not answer. Jim glanced at him, then looked at Tanny. “It isn't that I don't like him,” he said, slowly. “I like him better than any man I've ever known, I believe.” He clasped his hands and turned aside his face. “Judas!” flashed through Lilly's mind. Again Tanny looked for her husband's answer. “Yes, Rawdon,” she said. “You can't say the things you do without their having an effect. You really ask for it, you know.” “It's no matter.” Lilly squeezed the words out coldly. “He wanted to do it, and he did it.” A dead silence ensued now. Tanny looked from man to man. “I could feel it coming on me,” said Jim. “Of course!” said Tanny. “Rawdon doesn't know the things he says.” She was pleased that he had had to pay for them, for once. It takes a man a long time to get his breath back, after a sharp blow in the wind. Lilly was managing by degrees. The others no doubt attributed his silence to deep or fierce thoughts. It was nothing of the kind, merely a cold struggle to get his wind back, without letting them know he was struggling: and a sheer, stock-stiff hatred of the pair of them. “I like the man,” said Jim. “Never liked a man more than I like him.” He spoke as if with difficulty. “The man” stuck safely in Lilly's ears. “Oh, well,” he managed to say. “It's nothing. I've done my talking and had an answer, for once.” “Yes, Rawdy, you've had an answer, for once. Usually you don't get an answer, you know--and that's why you go so far--in the things you say. Now you'll know how you make people feel.” “Quite!” said Lilly. “_I_ don't feel anything. I don't mind what he says,” said Jim. “Yes, but he ought to know the things he DOES say,” said Tanny. “He goes on, without considering the person he's talking to. This time it's come back on him. He mustn't say such personal things, if he's not going to risk an answer.” “I don't mind what he says. I don't mind a bit,” said Jim. “Nor do I mind,” said Lilly indifferently. “I say what I feel--You do as you feel--There's an end of it.” A sheepish sort of silence followed this speech. It was broken by a sudden laugh from Tanny. “The things that happen to us!” she said, laughing rather shrilly. “Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, we're all struck into silence!” “Rum game, eh!” said Jim, grinning. “Isn't it funny! Isn't life too funny!” She looked again at her husband. “But, Rawdy, you must admit it was your own fault.” Lilly's stiff face did not change. “Why FAULT!” he said, looking at her coldly. “What is there to talk about?” “Usually there's so much,” she said sarcastically. A few phrases dribbled out of the silence. In vain Jim, tried to get Lilly to thaw, and in vain Tanny gave her digs at her husband. Lilly's stiff, inscrutable face did not change, he was polite and aloof. So they all went to bed. In the morning, the walk was to take place, as arranged, Lilly and Tanny accompanying Jim to the third station across country. The morning was lovely, the country beautiful. Lilly liked the countryside and enjoyed the walk. But a hardness inside himself never relaxed. Jim talked a little again about the future of the world, and a higher state of Christlikeness in man. But Lilly only laughed. Then Tanny managed to get ahead with Jim, sticking to his side and talking sympathetic personalities. But Lilly, feeling it from afar, ran after them and caught them up. They were silent. “What was the interesting topic?” he said cuttingly. “Nothing at all!” said Tanny, nettled. “Why must you interfere?” “Because I intend to,” said Lilly. And the two others fell apart, as if severed with a knife. Jim walked rather sheepishly, as if cut out. So they came at last past the canals to the wayside station: and at last Jim's train came. They all said goodbye. Jim and Tanny were both waiting for Lilly to show some sign of real reconciliation. But none came. He was cheerful and aloof. “Goodbye,” he said to Jim. “Hope Lois will be there all right. Third station on. Goodbye! Goodbye!” “You'll come to Rackham?” said Jim, leaning out of the train. “We should love to,” called Tanny, after the receding train. “All right,” said Lilly, non-committal. But he and his wife never saw Jim again. Lilly never intended to see him: a devil sat in the little man's breast. “You shouldn't play at little Jesus, coming so near to people, wanting to help them,” was Tanny's last word. CHAPTER IX. LOW-WATER MARK Tanny went away to Norway to visit her people, for the first time for three years. Lilly did not go: he did not want to. He came to London and settled in a room over Covent Garden market. The room was high up, a fair size, and stood at the corner of one of the streets and the market itself, looking down on the stalls and the carts and the arcade. Lilly would climb out of the window and sit for hours watching the behaviour of the great draught-horses which brought the mountains of boxes and vegetables. Funny half-human creatures they seemed, so massive and fleshy, yet so Cockney. There was one which could not bear donkeys, and which used to stretch out its great teeth like some massive serpent after every poor diminutive ass that came with a coster's barrow. Another great horse could not endure standing. It would shake itself and give little starts, and back into the heaps of carrots and broccoli, whilst the driver went into a frenzy of rage. There was always something to watch. One minute it was two great loads of empty crates, which in passing had got entangled, and reeled, leaning to fall disastrously. Then the drivers cursed and swore and dismounted and stared at their jeopardised loads: till a thin fellow was persuaded to scramble up the airy mountains of cages, like a monkey. And he actually managed to put them to rights. Great sigh of relief when the vans rocked out of the market. Again there was a particular page-boy in buttons, with a round and perky behind, who nimbly carried a tea-tray from somewhere to somewhere, under the arches beside the market. The great brawny porters would tease him, and he would stop to give them cheek. One afternoon a giant lunged after him: the boy darted gracefully among the heaps of vegetables, still bearing aloft his tea-tray, like some young blue-buttoned acolyte fleeing before a false god. The giant rolled after him--when alas, the acolyte of the tea-tray slipped among the vegetables, and down came the tray. Then tears, and a roar of unfeeling mirth from the giants. Lilly felt they were going to make it up to him. Another afternoon a young swell sauntered persistently among the vegetables, and Lilly, seated in his high little balcony, wondered why. But at last, a taxi, and a very expensive female, in a sort of silver brocade gown and a great fur shawl and ospreys in her bonnet. Evidently an assignation. Yet what could be more conspicuous than this elegant pair, picking their way through the cabbage-leaves? And then, one cold grey afternoon in early April, a man in a black overcoat and a bowler hat, walking uncertainly. Lilly had risen and was just retiring out of the chill, damp air. For some reason he lingered to watch the figure. The man was walking east. He stepped rather insecurely off the pavement, and wavered across the setts between the wheels of the standing vans. And suddenly he went down. Lilly could not see him on the ground, but he saw some van-men go forward, and he saw one of them pick up the man's hat. “I'd better go down,” said Lilly to himself. So he began running down the four long flights of stone stairs, past the many doors of the multifarious business premises, and out into the market. A little crowd had gathered, and a large policeman was just rowing into the centre of the interest. Lilly, always a hoverer on the edge of public commotions, hung now hesitating on the outskirts of the crowd. “What is it?” he said, to a rather sniffy messenger boy. “Drunk,” said the messenger boy: except that, in unblushing cockney, he pronounced it “Drank.” Lilly hung further back on the edge of the little crowd. “Come on here. Where d' you want to go?” he heard the hearty tones of the policeman. “I'm all right. I'm all right,” came the testy drunken answer. “All right, are yer! All right, and then some,--come on, get on your pins.” “I'm all right! I'm all right.” The voice made Lilly peer between the people. And sitting on the granite setts, being hauled up by a burly policeman, he saw our acquaintance Aaron, very pale in the face and a little dishevelled. “Like me to tuck the sheets round you, shouldn't you? Fancy yourself snug in bed, don't you? You won't believe you're right in the way of traffic, will you now, in Covent Garden Market? Come on, we'll see to you.” And the policeman hoisted the bitter and unwilling Aaron. Lilly was quickly at the centre of the affair, unobtrusive like a shadow, different from the other people. “Help him up to my room, will you?” he said to the constable. “Friend of mine.” The large constable looked down on the bare-headed wispy, unobtrusive Lilly with good-humoured suspicion and incredulity. Lilly could not have borne it if the policeman had uttered any of this cockney suspicion, so he watched him. There was a great gulf between the public official and the odd, quiet little individual--yet Lilly had his way. “Which room?” said the policeman, dubious. Lilly pointed quickly round. Then he said to Aaron: “Were you coming to see me, Sisson? You'll come in, won't you?” Aaron nodded rather stupidly and testily. His eyes looked angry. Somebody stuck his hat on his head for him, and made him look a fool. Lilly took it off again, and carried it for him. He turned and the crowd eased. He watched Aaron sharply, and saw that it was with difficulty he could walk. So he caught him by the arm on the other side from the policeman, and they crossed the road to the pavement. “Not so much of this sort of thing these days,” said the policeman. “Not so much opportunity,” said Lilly. “More than there was, though. Coming back to the old days, like. Working round, bit by bit.” They had arrived at the stairs. Aaron stumbled up. “Steady now! Steady does it!” said the policeman, steering his charge. There was a curious breach of distance between Lilly and the constable. At last Lilly opened his own door. The room was pleasant. The fire burned warm, the piano stood open, the sofa was untidy with cushions and papers. Books and papers covered the big writing desk. Beyond the screen made by the bookshelves and the piano were two beds, with washstand by one of the large windows, the one through which Lilly had climbed. The policeman looked round curiously. “More cosy here than in the lock-up, sir!” he said. Lilly laughed. He was hastily clearing the sofa. “Sit on the sofa, Sisson,” he said. The policeman lowered his charge, with a-- “Right we are, then!” Lilly felt in his pocket, and gave the policeman half a crown. But he was watching Aaron, who sat stupidly on the sofa, very pale and semi-conscious. “Do you feel ill, Sisson?” he said sharply. Aaron looked back at him with heavy eyes, and shook his head slightly. “I believe you are,” said Lilly, taking his hand. “Might be a bit o' this flu, you know,” said the policeman. “Yes,” said Lilly. “Where is there a doctor?” he added, on reflection. “The nearest?” said the policeman. And he told him. “Leave a message for you, Sir?” Lilly wrote his address on a card, then changed his mind. “No, I'll run round myself if necessary,” he said. And the policeman departed. “You'll go to bed, won't you?” said Lilly to Aaron, when the door was shut. Aaron shook his head sulkily. “I would if I were you. You can stay here till you're all right. I'm alone, so it doesn't matter.” But Aaron had relapsed into semi-consciousness. Lilly put the big kettle on the gas stove, the little kettle on the fire. Then he hovered in front of the stupefied man. He felt uneasy. Again he took Aaron's hand and felt the pulse. “I'm sure you aren't well. You must go to bed,” he said. And he kneeled and unfastened his visitor's boots. Meanwhile the kettle began to boil, he put a hot-water bottle into the bed. “Let us get your overcoat off,” he said to the stupefied man. “Come along.” And with coaxing and pulling and pushing he got off the overcoat and coat and waistcoat. At last Aaron was undressed and in bed. Lilly brought him tea. With a dim kind of obedience he took the cup and would drink. He looked at Lilly with heavy eyes. “I gave in, I gave in to her, else I should ha' been all right,” he said. “To whom?” said Lilly. “I gave in to her--and afterwards I cried, thinking of Lottie and the children. I felt my heart break, you know. And that's what did it. I should have been all right if I hadn't given in to her--” “To whom?” said Lilly. “Josephine. I felt, the minute I was loving her, I'd done myself. And I had. Everything came back on me. If I hadn't given in to her, I should ha' kept all right.” “Don't bother now. Get warm and still--” “I felt it--I felt it go, inside me, the minute I gave in to her. It's perhaps killed me.” “No, not it. Never mind, be still. Be still, and you'll be all right in the morning.” “It's my own fault, for giving in to her. If I'd kept myself back, my liver wouldn't have broken inside me, and I shouldn't have been sick. And I knew--” “Never mind now. Have you drunk your tea? Lie down. Lie down, and go to sleep.” Lilly pushed Aaron down in the bed, and covered him over. Then he thrust his hands under the bedclothes and felt his feet--still cold. He arranged the water bottle. Then he put another cover on the bed. Aaron lay still, rather grey and peaked-looking, in a stillness that was not healthy. For some time Lilly went about stealthily, glancing at his patient from time to time. Then he sat down to read. He was roused after a time by a moaning of troubled breathing and a fretful stirring in the bed. He went across. Aaron's eyes were open, and dark looking. “Have a little hot milk,” said Lilly. Aaron shook his head faintly, not noticing. “A little Bovril?” The same faint shake. Then Lilly wrote a note for the doctor, went into the office on the same landing, and got a clerk, who would be leaving in a few minutes, to call with the note. When he came back he found Aaron still watching. “Are you here by yourself?” asked the sick man. “Yes. My wife's gone to Norway.” “For good?” “No,” laughed Lilly. “For a couple of months or so. She'll come back here: unless she joins me in Switzerland or somewhere.” Aaron was still for a while. “You've not gone with her,” he said at length. “To see her people? No, I don't think they want me very badly--and I didn't want very badly to go. Why should I? It's better for married people to be separated sometimes.” “Ay!” said Aaron, watching the other man with fever-darkened eyes. “I hate married people who are two in one--stuck together like two jujube lozenges,” said Lilly. “Me an' all. I hate 'em myself,” said Aaron. “Everybody ought to stand by themselves, in the first place--men and women as well. They can come together, in the second place, if they like. But nothing is any good unless each one stands alone, intrinsically.” “I'm with you there,” said Aaron. “If I'd kep' myself to myself I shouldn't be bad now--though I'm not very bad. I s'll be all right in the morning. But I did myself in when I went with another woman. I felt myself go--as if the bile broke inside me, and I was sick.” “Josephine seduced you?” laughed Lilly. “Ay, right enough,” replied Aaron grimly. “She won't be coming here, will she?” “Not unless I ask her.” “You won't ask her, though?” “No, not if you don't want her.” “I don't.” The fever made Aaron naive and communicative, unlike himself. And he knew he was being unlike himself, he knew that he was not in proper control of himself, so he was unhappy, uneasy. “I'll stop here the night then, if you don't mind,” he said. “You'll have to,” said Lilly. “I've sent for the doctor. I believe you've got the flu.” “Think I have?” said Aaron frightened. “Don't be scared,” laughed Lilly. There was a long pause. Lilly stood at the window looking at the darkening market, beneath the street-lamps. “I s'll have to go to the hospital, if I have,” came Aaron's voice. “No, if it's only going to be a week or a fortnight's business, you can stop here. I've nothing to do,” said Lilly. “There's no occasion for you to saddle yourself with me,” said Aaron dejectedly. “You can go to your hospital if you like--or back to your lodging--if you wish to,” said Lilly. “You can make up your mind when you see how you are in the morning.” “No use going back to my lodgings,” said Aaron. “I'll send a telegram to your wife if you like,” said Lilly. Aaron was silent, dead silent, for some time. “Nay,” he said at length, in a decided voice. “Not if I die for it.” Lilly remained still, and the other man lapsed into a sort of semi-sleep, motionless and abandoned. The darkness had fallen over London, and away below the lamps were white. Lilly lit the green-shaded reading lamp over the desk. Then he stood and looked at Aaron, who lay still, looking sick. Rather beautiful the bones of the countenance: but the skull too small for such a heavy jaw and rather coarse mouth. Aaron half-opened his eyes, and writhed feverishly, as if his limbs could not be in the right place. Lilly mended the fire, and sat down to write. Then he got up and went downstairs to unfasten the street door, so that the doctor could walk up. The business people had gone from their various holes, all the lower part of the tall house was in darkness. Lilly waited and waited. He boiled an egg and made himself toast. Aaron said he might eat the same. Lilly cooked another egg and took it to the sick man. Aaron looked at it and pushed it away with nausea. He would have some tea. So Lilly gave him tea. “Not much fun for you, doing this for somebody who is nothing to you,” said Aaron. “I shouldn't if you were unsympathetic to me,” said Lilly. “As it is, it's happened so, and so we'll let be.” “What time is it?” “Nearly eight o'clock.” “Oh, my Lord, the opera.” And Aaron got half out of bed. But as he sat on the bedside he knew he could not safely get to his feet. He remained a picture of dejection. “Perhaps we ought to let them know,” said Lilly. But Aaron, blank with stupid misery, sat huddled there on the bedside without answering. “Ill run round with a note,” said Lilly. “I suppose others have had flu, besides you. Lie down!” But Aaron stupidly and dejectedly sat huddled on the side of the bed, wearing old flannel pyjamas of Lilly's, rather small for him. He felt too sick to move. “Lie down! Lie down!” said Lilly. “And keep still while I'm gone. I shan't be more than ten minutes.” “I don't care if I die,” said Aaron. Lilly laughed. “You're a long way from dying,” said he, “or you wouldn't say it.” But Aaron only looked up at him with queer, far-off, haggard eyes, something like a criminal who is just being executed. “Lie down!” said Lilly, pushing him gently into the bed. “You won't improve yourself sitting there, anyhow.” Aaron lay down, turned away, and was quite still. Lilly quietly left the room on his errand. The doctor did not come until ten o'clock: and worn out with work when he did come. “Isn't there a lift in this establishment?” he said, as he groped his way up the stone stairs. Lilly had heard him, and run down to meet him. The doctor poked the thermometer under Aaron's tongue and felt the pulse. Then he asked a few questions: listened to the heart and breathing. “Yes, it's the flu,” he said curtly. “Nothing to do but to keep warm in bed and not move, and take plenty of milk and liquid nourishment. I'll come round in the morning and give you an injection. Lungs are all right so far.” “How long shall I have to be in bed?” said Aaron. “Oh--depends. A week at least.” Aaron watched him sullenly--and hated him. Lilly laughed to himself. The sick man was like a dog that is ill but which growls from a deep corner, and will bite if you put your hand in. He was in a state of black depression. Lilly settled him down for the night, and himself went to bed. Aaron squirmed with heavy, pained limbs, the night through, and slept and had bad dreams. Lilly got up to give him drinks. The din in the market was terrific before dawn, and Aaron suffered bitterly. In the morning he was worse. The doctor gave him injections against pneumonia. “You wouldn't like me to wire to your wife?” said Lilly. “No,” said Aaron abruptly. “You can send me to the hospital. I'm nothing but a piece of carrion.” “Carrion!” said Lilly. “Why?” “I know it. I feel like it.” “Oh, that's only the sort of nauseated feeling you get with flu.” “I'm only fit to be thrown underground, and made an end of. I can't stand myself--” He had a ghastly, grey look of self-repulsion. “It's the germ that makes you feel like that,” said Lilly. “It poisons the system for a time. But you'll work it off.” At evening he was no better, the fever was still high. Yet there were no complications--except that the heart was irregular. “The one thing I wonder,” said Lilly, “is whether you hadn't better be moved out of the noise of the market. It's fearful for you in the early morning.” “It makes no difference to me,” said Aaron. The next day he was a little worse, if anything. The doctor knew there was nothing to be done. At evening he gave the patient a calomel pill. It was rather strong, and Aaron had a bad time. His burning, parched, poisoned inside was twisted and torn. Meanwhile carts banged, porters shouted, all the hell of the market went on outside, away down on the cobble setts. But this time the two men did not hear. “You'll feel better now,” said Lilly, “after the operation.” “It's done me harm,” cried Aaron fretfully. “Send me to the hospital, or you'll repent it. Get rid of me in time.” “Nay,” said Lilly. “You get better. Damn it, you're only one among a million.” Again over Aaron's face went the ghastly grimace of self-repulsion. “My soul's gone rotten,” he said. “No,” said Lilly. “Only toxin in the blood.” Next day the patient seemed worse, and the heart more irregular. He rested badly. So far, Lilly had got a fair night's rest. Now Aaron was not sleeping, and he seemed to struggle in the bed. “Keep your courage up, man,” said the doctor sharply. “You give way.” Aaron looked at him blackly, and did not answer. In the night Lilly was up time after time. Aaron would slip down on his back, and go semi-conscious. And then he would awake, as if drowning, struggling to move, mentally shouting aloud, yet making no sound for some moments, mentally shouting in frenzy, but unable to stir or make a sound. When at last he got some sort of physical control he cried: “Lift me up! Lift me up!” Lilly hurried and lifted him up, and he sat panting with a sobbing motion, his eyes gloomy and terrified, more than ever like a criminal who is just being executed. He drank brandy, and was laid down on his side. “Don't let me lie on my back,” he said, terrified. “No, I won't,” said Lilly. Aaron frowned curiously on his nurse. “Mind you don't let me,” he said, exacting and really terrified. “No, I won't let you.” And now Lilly was continually crossing over and pulling Aaron on to his side, whenever he found him slipped down on his back. In the morning the doctor was puzzled. Probably it was the toxin in the blood which poisoned the heart. There was no pneumonia. And yet Aaron was clearly growing worse. The doctor agreed to send in a nurse for the coming night. “What's the matter with you, man!” he said sharply to his patient. “You give way! You give way! Can't you pull yourself together?” But Aaron only became more gloomily withheld, retracting from life. And Lilly began to be really troubled. He got a friend to sit with the patient in the afternoon, whilst he himself went out and arranged to sleep in Aaron's room, at his lodging. The next morning, when he came in, he found the patient lying as ever, in a sort of heap in the bed. Nurse had had to lift him up and hold him up again. And now Aaron lay in a sort of semi-stupor of fear, frustrated anger, misery and self-repulsion: a sort of interlocked depression. The doctor frowned when he came. He talked with the nurse, and wrote another prescription. Then he drew Lilly away to the door. “What's the matter with the fellow?” he said. “Can't you rouse his spirit? He seems to be sulking himself out of life. He'll drop out quite suddenly, you know, if he goes on like this. Can't you rouse him up?” “I think it depresses him partly that his bowels won't work. It frightens him. He's never been ill in his life before,” said Lilly. “His bowels won't work if he lets all his spirit go, like an animal dying of the sulks,” said the doctor impatiently. “He might go off quite suddenly--dead before you can turn round--” Lilly was properly troubled. Yet he did not quite know what to do. It was early afternoon, and the sun was shining into the room. There were daffodils and anemones in a jar, and freezias and violets. Down below in the market were two stalls of golden and blue flowers, gay. “The flowers are lovely in the spring sunshine,” said Lilly. “I wish I were in the country, don't you? As soon as you are better we'll go. It's been a terrible cold, wet spring. But now it's going to be nice. Do you like being in the country?” “Yes,” said Aaron. He was thinking of his garden. He loved it. Never in his life had he been away from a garden before. “Make haste and get better, and we'll go.” “Where?” said Aaron. “Hampshire. Or Berkshire. Or perhaps you'd like to go home? Would you?” Aaron lay still, and did not answer. “Perhaps you want to, and you don't want to,” said Lilly. “You can please yourself, anyhow.” There was no getting anything definite out of the sick man--his soul seemed stuck, as if it would not move. Suddenly Lilly rose and went to the dressing-table. “I'm going to rub you with oil,” he said. “I'm going to rub you as mothers do their babies whose bowels don't work.” Aaron frowned slightly as he glanced at the dark, self-possessed face of the little man. “What's the good of that?” he said irritably. “I'd rather be left alone.” “Then you won't be.” Quickly he uncovered the blond lower body of his patient, and began to rub the abdomen with oil, using a slow, rhythmic, circulating motion, a sort of massage. For a long time he rubbed finely and steadily, then went over the whole of the lower body, mindless, as if in a sort of incantation. He rubbed every speck of the man's lower body--the abdomen, the buttocks, the thighs and knees, down to the feet, rubbed it all warm and glowing with camphorated oil, every bit of it, chafing the toes swiftly, till he was almost exhausted. Then Aaron was covered up again, and Lilly sat down in fatigue to look at his patient. He saw a change. The spark had come back into the sick eyes, and the faint trace of a smile, faintly luminous, into the face. Aaron was regaining himself. But Lilly said nothing. He watched his patient fall into a proper sleep. And he sat and watched him sleep. And he thought to himself: “I wonder why I do it. I wonder why I bother with him.... Jim ought to have taught me my lesson. As soon as this man's really better he'll punch me in the wind, metaphorically if not actually, for having interfered with him. And Tanny would say, he was quite right to do it. She says I want power over them. What if I do? They don't care how much power the mob has over them, the nation, Lloyd George and Northcliffe and the police and money. They'll yield themselves up to that sort of power quickly enough, and immolate themselves _pro bono publico_ by the million. And what's the bonum publicum but a mob power? Why can't they submit to a bit of healthy individual authority? The fool would die, without me: just as that fool Jim will die in hysterics one day. Why does he last so long! “Tanny's the same. She does nothing really but resist me: my authority, or my influence, or just ME. At the bottom of her heart she just blindly and persistently opposes me. God knows what it is she opposes: just me myself. She thinks I want her to submit to me. So I do, in a measure natural to our two selves. Somewhere, she ought to submit to me. But they all prefer to kick against the pricks. Not that THEY get many pricks. I get them. Damn them all, why don't I leave them alone? They only grin and feel triumphant when they've insulted one and punched one in the wind. “This Aaron will do just the same. I like him, and he ought to like me. And he'll be another Jim: he WILL like me, if he can knock the wind out of me. A lot of little Stavrogins coming up to whisper affectionately, and biting one's ear. “But anyhow I can soon see the last of this chap: and him the last of all the rest. I'll be damned for ever if I see their Jims and Roberts and Julias and Scotts any more. Let them dance round their insipid hell-broth. Thin tack it is. “There's a whole world besides this little gang of Europeans. Except, dear God, that they've exterminated all the peoples worth knowing. I can't do with folk who teem by the billion, like the Chinese and Japs and orientals altogether. Only vermin teem by the billion. Higher types breed slower. I would have loved the Aztecs and the Red Indians. I KNOW they hold the element in life which I am looking for--they had living pride. Not like the flea-bitten Asiatics--even niggers are better than Asiatics, though they are wallowers--the American races--and the South Sea Islanders--the Marquesans, the Maori blood. That was the true blood. It wasn't frightened. All the rest are craven--Europeans, Asiatics, Africans--everyone at his own individual quick craven and cringing: only conceited in the mass, the mob. How I hate them: the mass-bullies, the individual Judases. “Well, if one will be a Jesus he must expect his Judas. That's why Abraham Lincoln gets shot. A Jesus makes a Judas inevitable. A man should remain himself, not try to spread himself over humanity. He should pivot himself on his own pride. “I suppose really I ought to have packed this Aaron off to the hospital. Instead of which here am I rubbing him with oil to rub the life into him. And I KNOW he'll bite me, like a warmed snake, the moment he recovers. And Tanny will say 'Quite right, too,' I shouldn't have been so intimate. No, I should have left it to mechanical doctors and nurses. “So I should. Everything to its own. And Aaron belongs to this little system, and Jim is waiting to be psychoanalysed, and Tanny is waiting for her own glorification. “All right, Aaron. Last time I break my bread for anybody, this is. So get better, my flautist, so that I can go away. “It was easy for the Red Indians and the Others to take their hook into death. They might have stayed a bit longer to help one to defy the white masses. “I'll make some tea--” Lilly rose softly and went across to the fire. He had to cross a landing to a sort of little lavatory, with a sink and a tap, for water. The clerks peeped out at him from an adjoining office and nodded. He nodded, and disappeared from their sight as quickly as possible, with his kettle. His dark eyes were quick, his dark hair was untidy, there was something silent and withheld about him. People could never approach him quite ordinarily. He put on the kettle, and quietly set cups and plates on a tray. The room was clean and cosy and pleasant. He did the cleaning himself, and was as efficient and inobtrusive a housewife as any woman. While the kettle boiled, he sat darning the socks which he had taken off Aaron's feet when the flautist arrived, and which he had washed. He preferred that no outsider should see him doing these things. Yet he preferred also to do them himself, so that he should be independent of outside aid. His face was dark and hollow, he seemed frail, sitting there in the London afternoon darning the black woollen socks. His full brow was knitted slightly, there was a tension. At the same time, there was an indomitable stillness about him, as it were in the atmosphere about him. His hands, though small, were not very thin. He bit off the wool as he finished his darn. As he was making the tea he saw Aaron rouse up in bed. “I've been to sleep. I feel better,” said the patient, turning round to look what the other man was doing. And the sight of the water steaming in a jet from the teapot seemed attractive. “Yes,” said Lilly. “You've slept for a good two hours.” “I believe I have,” said Aaron. “Would you like a little tea?” “Ay--and a bit of toast.” “You're not supposed to have solid food. Let me take your temperature.” The temperature was down to a hundred, and Lilly, in spite of the doctor, gave Aaron a piece of toast with his tea, enjoining him not to mention it to the nurse. In the evening the two men talked. “You do everything for yourself, then?” said Aaron. “Yes, I prefer it.” “You like living all alone?” “I don't know about that. I never have lived alone. Tanny and I have been very much alone in various countries: but that's two, not one.” “You miss her then?” “Yes, of course. I missed her horribly in the cottage, when she'd first gone. I felt my heart was broken. But here, where we've never been together, I don't notice it so much.” “She'll come back,” said Aaron. “Yes, she'll come back. But I'd rather meet her abroad than here--and get on a different footing.” “Why?” “Oh, I don't know. There's something with marriage altogether, I think. _Egoisme a deux_--” “What's that mean?” “_Egoisme a deux_? Two people, one egoism. Marriage is a self-conscious egoistic state, it seems to me.” “You've got no children?” said Aaron. “No. Tanny wants children badly. I don't. I'm thankful we have none.” “Why?” “I can't quite say. I think of them as a burden. Besides, there ARE such millions and billions of children in the world. And we know well enough what sort of millions and billions of people they'll grow up into. I don't want to add my quota to the mass--it's against my instinct--” “Ay!” laughed Aaron, with a curt acquiescence. “Tanny's furious. But then, when a woman has got children, she thinks the world wags only for them and her. Nothing else. The whole world wags for the sake of the children--and their sacred mother.” “Ay, that's DAMNED true,” said Aaron. “And myself, I'm sick of the children stunt. Children are all right, so long as you just take them for what they are: young immature things like kittens and half-grown dogs, nuisances, sometimes very charming. But I'll be hanged if I can see anything high and holy about children. I should be sorry, too, it would be so bad for the children. Young brats, tiresome and amusing in turns.” “When they don't give themselves airs,” said Aaron. “Yes, indeed. Which they do half the time. Sacred children, and sacred motherhood, I'm absolutely fed stiff by it. That's why I'm thankful I have no children. Tanny can't come it over me there.” “It's a fact. When a woman's got her children, by God, she's a bitch in the manger. You can starve while she sits on the hay. It's useful to keep her pups warm.” “Yes.” “Why, you know,” Aaron turned excitedly in the bed, “they look on a man as if he was nothing but an instrument to get and rear children. If you have anything to do with a woman, she thinks it's because you want to get children by her. And I'm damned if it is. I want my own pleasure, or nothing: and children be damned.” “Ah, women--THEY must be loved, at any price!” said Lilly. “And if you just don't want to love them--and tell them so--what a crime.” “A crime!” said Aaron. “They make a criminal of you. Them and their children be cursed. Is my life given me for nothing but to get children, and work to bring them up? See them all in hell first. They'd better die while they're children, if childhood's all that important.” “I quite agree,” said Lilly. “If childhood is more important than manhood, then why live to be a man at all? Why not remain an infant?” “Be damned and blasted to women and all their importances,” cried Aaron. “They want to get you under, and children is their chief weapon.” “Men have got to stand up to the fact that manhood is more than childhood--and then force women to admit it,” said Lilly. “But the rotten whiners, they're all grovelling before a baby's napkin and a woman's petticoat.” “It's a fact,” said Aaron. But he glanced at Lilly oddly, as if suspiciously. And Lilly caught the look. But he continued: “And if they think you try to stand on your legs and walk with the feet of manhood, why, there isn't a blooming father and lover among them but will do his best to get you down and suffocate you--either with a baby's napkin or a woman's petticoat.” Lilly's lips were curling; he was dark and bitter. “Ay, it is like that,” said Aaron, rather subduedly. “The man's spirit has gone out of the world. Men can't move an inch unless they can grovel humbly at the end of the journey.” “No,” said Aaron, watching with keen, half-amused eyes. “That's why marriage wants readjusting--or extending--to get men on to their own legs once more, and to give them the adventure again. But men won't stick together and fight for it. Because once a woman has climbed up with her children, she'll find plenty of grovellers ready to support her and suffocate any defiant spirit. And women will sacrifice eleven men, fathers, husbands, brothers and lovers, for one baby--or for her own female self-conceit--” “She will that,” said Aaron. “And can you find two men to stick together, without feeling criminal, and without cringing, and without betraying one another? You can't. One is sure to go fawning round some female, then they both enjoy giving each other away, and doing a new grovel before a woman again.” “Ay,” said Aaron. After which Lilly was silent. CHAPTER X. THE WAR AGAIN “One is a fool,” said Lilly, “to be lachrymose. The thing to do is to get a move on.” Aaron looked up with a glimpse of a smile. The two men were sitting before the fire at the end of a cold, wet April day: Aaron convalescent, somewhat chastened in appearance. “Ay,” he said rather sourly. “A move back to Guilford Street.” “Oh, I meant to tell you,” said Lilly. “I was reading an old Baden history. They made a law in 1528--not a law, but a regulation--that: if a man forsakes his wife and children, as now so often happens, the said wife and children are at once to be dispatched after him. I thought that would please you. Does it?” “Yes,” said Aaron briefly. “They would have arrived the next day, like a forwarded letter.” “I should have had to get a considerable move on, at that rate,” grinned Aaron. “Oh, no. You might quite like them here.” But Lilly saw the white frown of determined revulsion on the convalescent's face. “Wouldn't you?” he asked. Aaron shook his head. “No,” he said. And it was obvious he objected to the topic. “What are you going to do about your move on?” “Me!” said Lilly. “I'm going to sail away next week--or steam dirtily away on a tramp called the _Maud Allen Wing_.” “Where to?” “Malta.” “Where from?” “London Dock. I fixed up my passage this morning for ten pounds. I am cook's assistant, signed on.” Aaron looked at him with a little admiration. “You can take a sudden jump, can't you?” he said. “The difficulty is to refrain from jumping: overboard or anywhere.” Aaron smoked his pipe slowly. “And what good will Malta do you?” he asked, envious. “Heaven knows. I shall cross to Syracuse, and move up Italy.” “Sounds as if you were a millionaire.” “I've got thirty-five pounds in all the world. But something will come along.” “I've got more than that,” said Aaron. “Good for you,” replied Lilly. He rose and went to the cupboard, taking out a bowl and a basket of potatoes. He sat down again, paring the potatoes. His busy activity annoyed Aaron. “But what's the good of going to Malta? Shall YOU be any different in yourself, in another place? You'll be the same there as you are here.” “How am I here?” “Why, you're all the time grinding yourself against something inside you. You're never free. You're never content. You never stop chafing.” Lilly dipped his potato into the water, and cut out the eyes carefully. Then he cut it in two, and dropped it in the clean water of the second bowl. He had not expected this criticism. “Perhaps I don't,” said he. “Then what's the use of going somewhere else? You won't change yourself.” “I may in the end,” said Lilly. “You'll be yourself, whether it's Malta or London,” said Aaron. “There's a doom for me,” laughed Lilly. The water on the fire was boiling. He rose and threw in salt, then dropped in the potatoes with little plops. “There there are lots of mes. I'm not only just one proposition. A new place brings out a new thing in a man. Otherwise you'd have stayed in your old place with your family.” “The man in the middle of you doesn't change,” said Aaron. “Do you find it so?” said Lilly. “Ay. Every time.” “Then what's to be done?” “Nothing, as far as I can see. You get as much amusement out of life as possible, and there's the end of it.” “All right then, I'll get the amusement.” “Ay, all right then,” said Aaron. “But there isn't anything wonderful about it. You talk as if you were doing something special. You aren't. You're no more than a man who drops into a pub for a drink, to liven himself up a bit. Only you give it a lot of names, and make out as if you were looking for the philosopher's stone, or something like that. When you're only killing time like the rest of folks, before time kills you.” Lilly did not answer. It was not yet seven o'clock, but the sky was dark. Aaron sat in the firelight. Even the saucepan on the fire was silent. Darkness, silence, the firelight in the upper room, and the two men together. “It isn't quite true,” said Lilly, leaning on the mantelpiece and staring down into the fire. “Where isn't it? You talk, and you make a man believe you've got something he hasn't got? But where is it, when it comes to? What have you got, more than me or Jim Bricknell! Only a bigger choice of words, it seems to me.” Lilly was motionless and inscrutable like a shadow. “Does it, Aaron!” he said, in a colorless voice. “Yes. What else is there to it?” Aaron sounded testy. “Why,” said Lilly at last, “there's something. I agree, it's true what you say about me. But there's a bit of something else. There's just a bit of something in me, I think, which ISN'T a man running into a pub for a drink--” “And what--?” The question fell into the twilight like a drop of water falling down a deep shaft into a well. “I think a man may come into possession of his own soul at last--as the Buddhists teach--but without ceasing to love, or even to hate. One loves, one hates--but somewhere beyond it all, one understands, and possesses one's soul in patience and in peace--” “Yes,” said Aaron slowly, “while you only stand and talk about it. But when you've got no chance to talk about it--and when you've got to live--you don't possess your soul, neither in patience nor in peace, but any devil that likes possesses you and does what it likes with you, while you fridge yourself and fray yourself out like a worn rag.” “I don't care,” said Lilly, “I'm learning to possess my soul in patience and in peace, and I know it. And it isn't a negative Nirvana either. And if Tanny possesses her own soul in patience and peace as well--and if in this we understand each other at last--then there we are, together and apart at the same time, and free of each other, and eternally inseparable. I have my Nirvana--and I have it all to myself. But more than that. It coincides with her Nirvana.” “Ah, yes,” said Aaron. “But I don't understand all that word-splitting.” “I do, though. You learn to be quite alone, and possess your own soul in isolation--and at the same time, to be perfectly WITH someone else--that's all I ask.” “Sort of sit on a mountain top, back to back with somebody else, like a couple of idols.” “No--because it isn't a case of sitting--or a case of back to back. It's what you get to after a lot of fighting and a lot of sensual fulfilment. And it never does away with the fighting and with the sensual passion. It flowers on top of them, and it would never flower save on top of them.” “What wouldn't?” “The possessing one's own soul--and the being together with someone else in silence, beyond speech.” “And you've got them?” “I've got a BIT of the real quietness inside me.” “So has a dog on a mat.” “So I believe, too.” “Or a man in a pub.” “Which I don't believe.” “You prefer the dog?” “Maybe.” There was silence for a few moments. “And I'm the man in the pub,” said Aaron. “You aren't the dog on the mat, anyhow.” “And you're the idol on the mountain top, worshipping yourself.” “You talk to me like a woman, Aaron.” “How do you talk to ME, do you think?” “How do I?” “Are the potatoes done?” Lilly turned quickly aside, and switched on the electric light. Everything changed. Aaron sat still before the fire, irritated. Lilly went about preparing the supper. The room was pleasant at night. Two tall, dark screens hid the two beds. In front, the piano was littered with music, the desk littered with papers. Lilly went out on to the landing, and set the chops to grill on the gas stove. Hastily he put a small table on the hearth-rug, spread it with a blue-and-white cloth, set plates and glasses. Aaron did not move. It was not his nature to concern himself with domestic matters--and Lilly did it best alone. The two men had an almost uncanny understanding of one another--like brothers. They came from the same district, from the same class. Each might have been born into the other's circumstance. Like brothers, there was a profound hostility between them. But hostility is not antipathy. Lilly's skilful housewifery always irritated Aaron: it was so self-sufficient. But most irritating of all was the little man's unconscious assumption of priority. Lilly was actually unaware that he assumed this quiet predominance over others. He mashed the potatoes, he heated the plates, he warmed the red wine, he whisked eggs into the milk pudding, and served his visitor like a housemaid. But none of this detracted from the silent assurance with which he bore himself, and with which he seemed to domineer over his acquaintance. At last the meal was ready. Lilly drew the curtains, switched off the central light, put the green-shaded electric lamp on the table, and the two men drew up to the meal. It was good food, well cooked and hot. Certainly Lilly's hands were no longer clean: but it was clean dirt, as he said. Aaron sat in the low arm-chair at table. So his face was below, in the full light. Lilly sat high on a small chair, so that his face was in the green shadow. Aaron was handsome, and always had that peculiar well-dressed look of his type. Lilly was indifferent to his own appearance, and his collar was a rag. So the two men ate in silence. They had been together alone for a fortnight only: but it was like a small eternity. Aaron was well now--only he suffered from the depression and the sort of fear that follows influenza. “When are you going?” he asked irritably, looking up at Lilly, whose face hovered in that green shadow above, and worried him. “One day next week. They'll send me a telegram. Not later than Thursday.” “You're looking forward to going?” The question was half bitter. “Yes. I want to get a new tune out of myself.” “Had enough of this?” “Yes.” A flush of anger came on Aaron's face. “You're easily on, and easily off,” he said, rather insulting. “Am I?” said Lilly. “What makes you think so?” “Circumstances,” replied Aaron sourly. To which there was no answer. The host cleared away the plates, and put the pudding on the table. He pushed the bowl to Aaron. “I suppose I shall never see you again, once you've gone,” said Aaron. “It's your choice. I will leave you an address.” After this, the pudding was eaten in silence. “Besides, Aaron,” said Lilly, drinking his last sip of wine, “what do you care whether you see me again or not? What do you care whether you see anybody again or not? You want to be amused. And now you're irritated because you think I am not going to amuse you any more: and you don't know who is going to amuse you. I admit it's a dilemma. But it's a hedonistic dilemma of the commonest sort.” “I don't know hedonistic. And supposing I am as you say--are you any different?” “No, I'm not very different. But I always persuade myself there's a bit of difference. Do you know what Josephine Ford confessed to me? She's had her lovers enough. 'There isn't any such thing as love, Lilly,' she said. 'Men are simply afraid to be alone. That is absolutely all there is in it: fear of being alone.'” “What by that?” said Aaron. “You agree?” “Yes, on the whole.” “So do I--on the whole. And then I asked her what about woman. And then she said with a woman it wasn't fear, it was just boredom. A woman is like a violinist: any fiddle, any instrument rather than empty hands and no tune going.” “Yes--what I said before: getting as much amusement out of life as possible,” said Aaron. “You amuse me--and I'll amuse you.” “Yes--just about that.” “All right, Aaron,” said Lilly. “I'm not going to amuse you, or try to amuse you any more.” “Going to try somebody else; and Malta.” “Malta, anyhow.” “Oh, and somebody else--in the next five minutes.” “Yes--that also.” “Goodbye and good luck to you.” “Goodbye and good luck to you, Aaron.” With which Lilly went aside to wash the dishes. Aaron sat alone under the zone of light, turning over a score of _Pelleas_. Though the noise of London was around them, it was far below, and in the room was a deep silence. Each of the men seemed invested in his own silence. Aaron suddenly took his flute, and began trying little passages from the opera on his knee. He had not played since his illness. The noise came out a little tremulous, but low and sweet. Lilly came forward with a plate and a cloth in his hand. “Aaron's rod is putting forth again,” he said, smiling. “What?” said Aaron, looking up. “I said Aaron's rod is putting forth again.” “What rod?” “Your flute, for the moment.” “It's got to put forth my bread and butter.” “Is that all the buds it's going to have?” “What else!” “Nay--that's for you to show. What flowers do you imagine came out of the rod of Moses's brother?” “Scarlet runners, I should think if he'd got to live on them.” “Scarlet enough, I'll bet.” Aaron turned unnoticing back to his music. Lilly finished the wiping of the dishes, then took a book and sat on the other side of the table. “It's all one to you, then,” said Aaron suddenly, “whether we ever see one another again?” “Not a bit,” said Lilly, looking up over his spectacles. “I very much wish there might be something that held us together.” “Then if you wish it, why isn't there?” “You might wish your flute to put out scarlet-runner flowers at the joints.” “Ay--I might. And it would be all the same.” The moment of silence that followed was extraordinary in its hostility. “Oh, we shall run across one another again some time,” said Aaron. “Sure,” said Lilly. “More than that: I'll write you an address that will always find me. And when you write I will answer you.” He took a bit of paper and scribbled an address. Aaron folded it and put it into his waistcoat pocket. It was an Italian address. “But how can I live in Italy?” he said. “You can shift about. I'm tied to a job.” “You--with your budding rod, your flute--and your charm--you can always do as you like.” “My what?” “Your flute and your charm.” “What charm?” “Just your own. Don't pretend you don't know you've got it. I don't really like charm myself; too much of a trick about it. But whether or not, you've got it.” “It's news to me.” “Not it.” “Fact, it is.” “Ha! Somebody will always take a fancy to you. And you can live on that, as well as on anything else.” “Why do you always speak so despisingly?” “Why shouldn't I?” “Have you any right to despise another man?” “When did it go by rights?” “No, not with you.” “You answer me like a woman, Aaron.” Again there was a space of silence. And again it was Aaron who at last broke it. “We're in different positions, you and me,” he said. “How?” “You can live by your writing--but I've got to have a job.” “Is that all?” said Lilly. “Ay. And plenty. You've got the advantage of me.” “Quite,” said Lilly. “But why? I was a dirty-nosed little boy when you were a clean-nosed little boy. And I always had more patches on my breeches than you: neat patches, too, my poor mother! So what's the good of talking about advantages? You had the start. And at this very moment you could buy me up, lock, stock, and barrel. So don't feel hard done by. It's a lie.” “You've got your freedom.” “I make it and I take it.” “Circumstances make it for you.” “As you like.” “You don't do a man justice,” said Aaron. “Does a man care?” “He might.” “Then he's no man.” “Thanks again, old fellow.” “Welcome,” said Lilly, grimacing. Again Aaron looked at him, baffled, almost with hatred. Lilly grimaced at the blank wall opposite, and seemed to ruminate. Then he went back to his book. And no sooner had he forgotten Aaron, reading the fantasies of a certain Leo Frobenius, than Aaron must stride in again. “You can't say there isn't a difference between your position and mine,” he said pertinently. Lilly looked darkly over his spectacles. “No, by God,” he said. “I should be in a poor way otherwise.” “You can't say you haven't the advantage--your JOB gives you the advantage.” “All right. Then leave it out with my job, and leave me alone.” “That's your way of dodging it.” “My dear Aaron, I agree with you perfectly. There is no difference between us, save the fictitious advantage given to me by my job. Save for my job--which is to write lies--Aaron and I are two identical little men in one and the same little boat. Shall we leave it at that, now?” “Yes,” said Aaron. “That's about it.” “Let us shake hands on it--and go to bed, my dear chap. You are just recovering from influenza, and look paler than I like.” “You mean you want to be rid of me,” said Aaron. “Yes, I do mean that,” said Lilly. “Ay,” said Aaron. And after a few minutes more staring at the score of _Pelleas_, he rose, put the score away on the piano, laid his flute beside it, and retired behind the screen. In silence, the strange dim noise of London sounding from below, Lilly read on about the Kabyles. His soul had the faculty of divesting itself of the moment, and seeking further, deeper interests. These old Africans! And Atlantis! Strange, strange wisdom of the Kabyles! Old, old dark Africa, and the world before the flood! How jealous Aaron seemed! The child of a jealous God. A jealous God! Could any race be anything but despicable, with such an antecedent? But no, persistent as a jealous God himself, Aaron reappeared in his pyjamas, and seated himself in his chair. “What is the difference then between you and me, Lilly?” he said. “Haven't we shaken hands on it--a difference of jobs.” “You don't believe that, though, do you?” “Nay, now I reckon you're trespassing.” “Why am I? I know you don't believe it.” “What do I believe then?” said Lilly. “You believe you know something better than me--and that you are something better than me. Don't you?” “Do YOU believe it?” “What?” “That I AM something better than you, and that I KNOW something better?” “No, because I don't see it,” said Aaron. “Then if you don't see it, it isn't there. So go to bed and sleep the sleep of the just and the convalescent. I am not to be badgered any more.” “Am I badgering you?” said Aaron. “Indeed you are.” “So I'm in the wrong again?” “Once more, my dear.” “You're a God-Almighty in your way, you know.” “So long as I'm not in anybody else's way--Anyhow, you'd be much better sleeping the sleep of the just. And I'm going out for a minute or two. Don't catch cold there with nothing on-- “I want to catch the post,” he added, rising. Aaron looked up at him quickly. But almost before there was time to speak, Lilly had slipped into his hat and coat, seized his letters, and gone. It was a rainy night. Lilly turned down King Street to walk to Charing Cross. He liked being out of doors. He liked to post his letters at Charing Cross post office. He did not want to talk to Aaron any more. He was glad to be alone. He walked quickly down Villiers Street to the river, to see it flowing blackly towards the sea. It had an endless fascination for him: never failed to soothe him and give him a sense of liberty. He liked the night, the dark rain, the river, and even the traffic. He enjoyed the sense of friction he got from the streaming of people who meant nothing to him. It was like a fox slipping alert among unsuspecting cattle. When he got back, he saw in the distance the lights of a taxi standing outside the building where he lived, and heard a thumping and hallooing. He hurried forward. It was a man called Herbertson. “Oh, why, there you are!” exclaimed Herbertson, as Lilly drew near. “Can I come up and have a chat?” “I've got that man who's had flu. I should think he is gone to bed.” “Oh!” The disappointment was plain. “Well, look here I'll just come up for a couple of minutes.” He laid his hand on Lilly's arm. “I heard you were going away. Where are you going?” “Malta.” “Malta! Oh, I know Malta very well. Well now, it'll be all right if I come up for a minute? I'm not going to see much more of you, apparently.” He turned quickly to the taxi. “What is it on the clock?” The taxi was paid, the two men went upstairs. Aaron was in bed, but he called as Lilly entered the room. “Hullo!” said Lilly. “Not asleep? Captain Herbertson has come in for a minute.” “Hope I shan't disturb you,” said Captain Herbertson, laying down his stick and gloves, and his cap. He was in uniform. He was one of the few surviving officers of the Guards, a man of about forty-five, good-looking, getting rather stout. He settled himself in the chair where Aaron had sat, hitching up his trousers. The gold identity plate, with its gold chain, fell conspicuously over his wrist. “Been to 'Rosemary,'” he said. “Rotten play, you know--but passes the time awfully well. Oh, I quite enjoyed it.” Lilly offered him Sauterne--the only thing in the house. “Oh, yes! How awfully nice! Yes, thanks, I shall love it. Can I have it with soda? Thanks! Do you know, I think that's the very best drink in the tropics: sweet white wine, with soda? Yes--well!-- Well--now, why are you going away?” “For a change,” said Lilly. “You're quite right, one needs a change now the damned thing is all over. As soon as I get out of khaki I shall be off. Malta! Yes! I've been in Malta several times. I think Valletta is quite enjoyable, particularly in winter, with the opera. Oh--er--how's your wife? All right? Yes!--glad to see her people again. Bound to be-- Oh, by the way, I met Jim Bricknell. Sends you a message hoping you'll go down and stay--down at Captain Bingham's place in Surrey, you know. Awfully queer lot down there. Not my sort, no. You won't go down? No, I shouldn't. Not the right sort of people.” Herbertson rattled away, rather spasmodic. He had been through the very front hell of the war--and like every man who had, he had the war at the back of his mind, like an obsession. But in the meantime, he skirmished. “Yes. I was on guard one day when the Queen gave one of her tea-parties to the blind. Awful affair. But the children are awfully nice children. Prince of Wales awfully nice, almost too nice. Prince Henry smart boy, too--oh, a smart boy. Queen Mary poured the tea, and I handed round bread and butter. She told me I made a very good waiter. I said, Thank you, Madam. But I like the children. Very different from the Battenbergs. Oh!--” he wrinkled his nose. “I can't stand the Battenbergs.” “Mount Battens,” said Lilly. “Yes! Awful mistake, changing the royal name. They were Guelfs, why not remain it? Why, I'll tell you what Battenberg did. He was in the Guards, too--” The talk flowed on: about royalty and the Guards, Buckingham Palace and St. James. “Rather a nice story about Queen Victoria. Man named Joyce, something or other, often used to dine at the Palace. And he was an awfully good imitator--really clever, you know. Used to imitate the Queen. 'Mr. Joyce,' she said, 'I hear your imitation is very amusing. Will you do it for us now, and let us see what it is like?' 'Oh, no, Madam! I'm afraid I couldn't do it now. I'm afraid I'm not in the humour.' But she would have him do it. And it was really awfully funny. He had to do it. You know what he did. He used to take a table-napkin, and put it on with one corner over his forehead, and the rest hanging down behind, like her veil thing. And then he sent for the kettle-lid. He always had the kettle-lid, for that little crown of hers. And then he impersonated her. But he was awfully good--so clever. 'Mr. Joyce,' she said. 'We are not amused. Please leave the room.' Yes, that is exactly what she said: 'WE are not amused--please leave the room.' I like the WE, don't you? And he a man of sixty or so. However, he left the room and for a fortnight or so he wasn't invited--Wasn't she wonderful--Queen Victoria?” And so, by light transitions, to the Prince of Wales at the front, and thus into the trenches. And then Herbertson was on the subject he was obsessed by. He had come, unconsciously, for this and this only, to talk war to Lilly: or at Lilly. For the latter listened and watched, and said nothing. As a man at night helplessly takes a taxi to find some woman, some prostitute, Herbertson had almost unthinkingly got into a taxi and come battering at the door in Covent Garden, only to talk war to Lilly, whom he knew very little. But it was a driving instinct--to come and get it off his chest. And on and on he talked, over his wine and soda. He was not conceited--he was not showing off--far from it. It was the same thing here in this officer as it was with the privates, and the same with this Englishman as with a Frenchman or a German or an Italian. Lilly had sat in a cowshed listening to a youth in the north country: he had sat on the corn-straw that the oxen had been treading out, in Calabria, under the moon: he had sat in a farm-kitchen with a German prisoner: and every time it was the same thing, the same hot, blind, anguished voice of a man who has seen too much, experienced too much, and doesn't know where to turn. None of the glamour of returned heroes, none of the romance of war: only a hot, blind, mesmerised voice, going on and on, mesmerised by a vision that the soul cannot bear. In this officer, of course, there was a lightness and an appearance of bright diffidence and humour. But underneath it all was the same as in the common men of all the combatant nations: the hot, seared burn of unbearable experience, which did not heal nor cool, and whose irritation was not to be relieved. The experience gradually cooled on top: but only with a surface crust. The soul did not heal, did not recover. “I used to be awfully frightened,” laughed Herbertson. “Now you say, Lilly, you'd never have stood it. But you would. You're nervous--and it was just the nervous ones that did stand it. When nearly all our officers were gone, we had a man come out--a man called Margeritson, from India--big merchant people out there. They all said he was no good--not a bit of good--nervous chap. No good at all. But when you had to get out of the trench and go for the Germans he was perfect--perfect--It all came to him then, at the crisis, and he was perfect. “Some things frighten one man, and some another. Now shells would never frighten me. But I couldn't stand bombs. You could tell the difference between our machines and the Germans. Ours was a steady noise--drrrrrrrr!--but their's was heavy, drrrrRURUrrrrRURU!-- My word, that got on my nerves.... “No I was never hit. The nearest thing was when I was knocked down by an exploding shell--several times that--you know. When you shout like mad for the men to come and dig you out, under all the earth. And my word, you do feel frightened then.” Herbertson laughed with a twinkling motion to Lilly. But between his brows there was a tension like madness. “And a funny thing you know--how you don't notice things. In--let me see--1916, the German guns were a lot better than ours. Ours were old, and when they're old you can't tell where they'll hit: whether they'll go beyond the mark, or whether they'll fall short. Well, this day our guns were firing short, and killing our own men. We'd had the order to charge, and were running forward, and I suddenly felt hot water spurting on my neck--” He put his hand to the back of his neck and glanced round apprehensively. “It was a chap called Innes--Oh, an awfully decent sort--people were in the Argentine. He'd been calling out to me as we were running, and I was just answering. When I felt this hot water on my neck and saw him running past me with no head--he'd got no head, and he went running past me. I don't know how far, but a long way.... Blood, you know--Yes--well-- “Oh, I hated Chelsea--I loathed Chelsea--Chelsea was purgatory to me. I had a corporal called Wallace--he was a fine chap--oh, he was a fine chap--six foot two--and about twenty-four years old. He was my stand-back. Oh, I hated Chelsea, and parades, and drills. You know, when it's drill, and you're giving orders, you forget what order you've just given--in front of the Palace there the crowd don't notice--but it's AWFUL for you. And you know you daren't look round to see what the men are doing. But Wallace was splendid. He was just behind me, and I'd hear him, quite quiet you know, 'It's right wheel, sir.' Always perfect, always perfect--yes--well.... “You know you don't get killed if you don't think you will. Now I never thought I should get killed. And I never knew a man get killed if he hadn't been thinking he would. I said to Wallace I'd rather be out here, at the front, than at Chelsea. I hated Chelsea--I can't tell you how much. 'Oh no, sir!' he said. 'I'd rather be at Chelsea than here. I'd rather be at Chelsea. There isn't hell like this at Chelsea.' We'd had orders that we were to go back to the real camp the next day. 'Never mind, Wallace,' I said. 'We shall be out of this hell-on-earth tomorrow.' And he took my hand. We weren't much for showing feeling or anything in the guards. But he took my hand. And we climbed out to charge--Poor fellow, he was killed--” Herbertson dropped his head, and for some moments seemed to go unconscious, as if struck. Then he lifted his face, and went on in the same animated chatty fashion: “You see, he had a presentiment. I'm sure he had a presentiment. None of the men got killed unless they had a presentiment--like that, you know....” Herbertson nodded keenly at Lilly, with his sharp, twinkling, yet obsessed eyes. Lilly wondered why he made the presentiment responsible for the death--which he obviously did--and not vice versa. Herbertson implied every time, that you'd never get killed if you could keep yourself from having a presentiment. Perhaps there was something in it. Perhaps the soul issues its own ticket of death, when it can stand no more. Surely life controls life: and not accident. “It's a funny thing what shock will do. We had a sergeant and he shouted to me. Both his feet were off--both his feet, clean at the ankle. I gave him morphia. You know officers aren't allowed to use the needle--might give the man blood poisoning. You give those tabloids. They say they act in a few minutes, but they DON'T. It's a quarter of an hour. And nothing is more demoralising than when you have a man, wounded, you know, and crying out. Well, this man I gave him the morphia before he got over the stunning, you know. So he didn't feel the pain. Well, they carried him in. I always used to like to look after my men. So I went next morning and I found he hadn't been removed to the Clearing Station. I got hold of the doctor and I said, 'Look here! Why hasn't this man been taken to the Clearing Station?' I used to get excited. But after some years they'd got used to me. 'Don't get excited, Herbertson, the man's dying.' 'But,' I said, 'he's just been talking to me as strong as you are.' And he had--he'd talk as strong and well as you or me, then go quiet for a bit. I said I gave him the morphia before he came round from the stunning. So he'd felt nothing. But in two hours he was dead. The doctor says that the shock does it like that sometimes. You can do nothing for them. Nothing vital is injured--and yet the life is broken in them. Nothing can be done--funny thing--Must be something in the brain--” “It's obviously not the brain,” said Lilly. “It's deeper than the brain.” “Deeper,” said Herbertson, nodding. “Funny thing where life is. We had a lieutenant. You know we all buried our own dead. Well, he looked as if he was asleep. Most of the chaps looked like that.” Herbertson closed his eyes and laid his face aside, like a man asleep and dead peacefully. “You very rarely see a man dead with any other look on his face--you know the other look.--” And he clenched his teeth with a sudden, momentaneous, ghastly distortion.--“Well, you'd never have known this chap was dead. He had a wound here--in the back of the head--and a bit of blood on his hand--and nothing else, nothing. Well, I said we'd give him a decent burial. He lay there waiting--and they'd wrapped him in a filthy blanket--you know. Well, I said he should have a proper blanket. He'd been dead lying there a day and a half you know. So I went and got a blanket, a beautiful blanket, out of his private kit--his people were Scotch, well-known family--and I got the pins, you know, ready to pin him up properly, for the Scots Guards to bury him. And I thought he'd be stiff, you see. But when I took him by the arms, to lift him on, he sat up. It gave me an awful shock. 'Why he's alive!' I said. But they said he was dead. I couldn't believe it. It gave me an awful shock. He was as flexible as you or me, and looked as if he was asleep. You couldn't believe he was dead. But we pinned him up in his blanket. It was an awful shock to me. I couldn't believe a man could be like that after he'd been dead two days.... “The Germans were wonderful with the machine guns--it's a wicked thing, a machine gun. But they couldn't touch us with the bayonet. Every time the men came back they had bayonet practice, and they got awfully good. You know when you thrust at the Germans--so--if you miss him, you bring your rifle back sharp, with a round swing, so that the butt comes up and hits up under the jaw. It's one movement, following on with the stab, you see, if you miss him. It was too quick for them--But bayonet charge was worst, you know. Because your man cries out when you catch him, when you get him, you know. That's what does you.... “No, oh no, this was no war like other wars. All the machinery of it. No, you couldn't stand it, but for the men. The men are wonderful, you know. They'll be wiped out.... No, it's your men who keep you going, if you're an officer.... But there'll never be another war like this. Because the Germans are the only people who could make a war like this--and I don't think they'll ever do it again, do you? “Oh, they were wonderful, the Germans. They were amazing. It was incredible, what they invented and did. We had to learn from them, in the first two years. But they were too methodical. That's why they lost the war. They were too methodical. They'd fire their guns every ten minutes--regular. Think of it. Of course we knew when to run, and when to lie down. You got so that you knew almost exactly what they'd do--if you'd been out long enough. And then you could time what you wanted to do yourselves. “They were a lot more nervous than we were, at the last. They sent up enough light at night from their trenches--you know, those things that burst in the air like electric light--we had none of that to do--they did it all for us--lit up everything. They were more nervous than we were....” It was nearly two o'clock when Herbertson left. Lilly, depressed, remained before the fire. Aaron got out of bed and came uneasily to the fire. “It gives me the bellyache, that damned war,” he said. “So it does me,” said Lilly. “All unreal.” “Real enough for those that had to go through it.” “No, least of all for them,” said Lilly sullenly. “Not as real as a bad dream. Why the hell don't they wake up and realise it!” “That's a fact,” said Aaron. “They're hypnotised by it.” “And they want to hypnotise me. And I won't be hypnotised. The war was a lie and is a lie and will go on being a lie till somebody busts it.” “It was a fact--you can't bust that. You can't bust the fact that it happened.” “Yes you can. It never happened. It never happened to me. No more than my dreams happen. My dreams don't happen: they only seem.” “But the war did happen, right enough,” smiled Aaron palely. “No, it didn't. Not to me or to any man, in his own self. It took place in the automatic sphere, like dreams do. But the ACTUAL MAN in every man was just absent--asleep--or drugged--inert--dream-logged. That's it.” “You tell 'em so,” said Aaron. “I do. But it's no good. Because they won't wake up now even--perhaps never. They'll all kill themselves in their sleep.” “They wouldn't be any better if they did wake up and be themselves--that is, supposing they are asleep, which I can't see. They are what they are--and they're all alike--and never very different from what they are now.” Lilly stared at Aaron with black eyes. “Do you believe in them less than I do, Aaron?” he asked slowly. “I don't even want to believe in them.” “But in yourself?” Lilly was almost wistful--and Aaron uneasy. “I don't know that I've any more right to believe in myself than in them,” he replied. Lilly watched and pondered. “No,” he said. “That's not true--I KNEW the war was false: humanly quite false. I always knew it was false. The Germans were false, we were false, everybody was false.” “And not you?” asked Aaron shrewishly. “There was a wakeful, self-possessed bit of me which knew that the war and all that horrible movement was false for me. And so I wasn't going to be dragged in. The Germans could have shot my mother or me or what they liked: I wouldn't have joined the WAR. I would like to kill my enemy. But become a bit of that huge obscene machine they called the war, that I never would, no, not if I died ten deaths and had eleven mothers violated. But I would like to kill my enemy: Oh, yes, more than one enemy. But not as a unit in a vast obscene mechanism. That never: no, never.” Poor Lilly was too earnest and vehement. Aaron made a fine nose. It seemed to him like a lot of words and a bit of wriggling out of a hole. “Well,” he said, “you've got men and nations, and you've got the machines of war--so how are you going to get out of it? League of Nations?” “Damn all leagues. Damn all masses and groups, anyhow. All I want is to get MYSELF out of their horrible heap: to get out of the swarm. The swarm to me is nightmare and nullity--horrible helpless writhing in a dream. I want to get myself awake, out of it all--all that mass-consciousness, all that mass-activity--it's the most horrible nightmare to me. No man is awake and himself. No man who was awake and in possession of himself would use poison gases: no man. His own awake self would scorn such a thing. It's only when the ghastly mob-sleep, the dream helplessness of the mass-psyche overcomes him, that he becomes completely base and obscene.” “Ha--well,” said Aaron. “It's the wide-awake ones that invent the poison gas, and use it. Where should we be without it?” Lilly started, went stiff and hostile. “Do you mean that, Aaron?” he said, looking into Aaron's face with a hard, inflexible look. Aaron turned aside half sheepishly. “That's how it looks on the face of it, isn't it?” he said. “Look here, my friend, it's too late for you to be talking to me about the face of things. If that's how you feel, put your things on and follow Herbertson. Yes--go out of my room. I don't put up with the face of things here.” Aaron looked at him in cold amazement. “It'll do tomorrow morning, won't it?” he asked rather mocking. “Yes,” said Lilly coldly. “But please go tomorrow morning.” “Oh, I'll go all right,” said Aaron. “Everybody's got to agree with you--that's your price.” But Lilly did not answer. Aaron turned into bed, his satirical smile under his nose. Somewhat surprised, however, at this sudden turn of affairs. As he was just going to sleep, dismissing the matter, Lilly came once more to his bedside, and said, in a hard voice: “I'm NOT going to pretend to have friends on the face of things. No, and I don't have friends who don't fundamentally agree with me. A friend means one who is at one with me in matters of life and death. And if you're at one with all the rest, then you're THEIR friend, not mine. So be their friend. And please leave me in the morning. You owe me nothing, you have nothing more to do with me. I have had enough of these friendships where I pay the piper and the mob calls the tune. “Let me tell you, moreover, your heroic Herbertsons lost us more than ever they won. A brave ant is a damned cowardly individual. Your heroic officers are a sad sight AFTERWARDS, when they come home. Bah, your Herbertson! The only justification for war is what we learn from it. And what have they learnt?--Why did so many of them have presentiments, as he called it? Because they could feel inside them, there was nothing to come after. There was no life-courage: only death-courage. Nothing beyond this hell--only death or love--languishing--” “What could they have seen, anyhow?” said Aaron. “It's not what you see, actually. It's the kind of spirit you keep inside you: the life spirit. When Wallace had presentiments, Herbertson, being officer, should have said: 'None of that, Wallace. You and I, we've got to live and make life smoke.'--Instead of which he let Wallace be killed and his own heart be broken. Always the death-choice-- And we won't, we simply will not face the world as we've made it, and our own souls as we find them, and take the responsibility. We'll never get anywhere till we stand up man to man and face EVERYTHING out, and break the old forms, but never let our own pride and courage of life be broken.” Lilly broke off, and went silently to bed. Aaron turned over to sleep, rather resenting the sound of so many words. What difference did it make, anyhow? In the morning, however, when he saw the other man's pale, closed, rather haughty face, he realised that something _had_ happened. Lilly was courteous and even affable: but with a curious cold space between him and Aaron. Breakfast passed, and Aaron knew that he must leave. There was something in Lilly's bearing which just showed him the door. In some surprise and confusion, and in some anger, not unmingled with humorous irony, he put his things in his bag. He put on his hat and coat. Lilly was seated rather stiffly writing. “Well,” said Aaron. “I suppose we shall meet again.” “Oh, sure to,” said Lilly, rising from his chair. “We are sure to run across one another.” “When are you going?” asked Aaron. “In a few days' time.” “Oh, well, I'll run in and see you before you go, shall I?” “Yes, do.” Lilly escorted his guest to the top of the stairs, shook hands, and then returned into his own room, closing the door on himself. Aaron did not find his friend at home when he called. He took it rather as a slap in the face. But then he knew quite well that Lilly had made a certain call on his, Aaron's soul: a call which he, Aaron, did not at all intend to obey. If in return the soul-caller chose to shut his street-door in the face of the world-friend--well, let it be quits. He was not sure whether he felt superior to his unworldly enemy or not. He rather thought he did. CHAPTER XI. MORE PILLAR OF SALT The opera season ended, Aaron was invited by Cyril Scott to join a group of musical people in a village by the sea. He accepted, and spent a pleasant month. It pleased the young men musically-inclined and bohemian by profession to patronise the flautist, whom they declared marvellous. Bohemians with well-to-do parents, they could already afford to squander a little spasmodic and self-gratifying patronage. And Aaron did not mind being patronised. He had nothing else to do. But the party broke up early in September. The flautist was detained a few days at a country house, for the amusement of the guests. Then he left for London. In London he found himself at a loose end. A certain fretful dislike of the patronage of indifferent young men, younger than himself, and a certain distaste for regular work in the orchestra made him look round. He wanted something else. He wanted to disappear again. Qualms and emotions concerning his abandoned family overcame him. The early, delicate autumn affected him. He took a train to the Midlands. And again, just after dark, he strolled with his little bag across the field which lay at the end of his garden. It had been mown, and the grass was already growing long. He stood and looked at the line of back windows, lighted once more. He smelled the scents of autumn, phlox and moist old vegetation and corn in sheaf. A nostalgia which was half at least revulsion affected him. The place, the home, at once fascinated and revolted him. Sitting in his shed, he scrutinised his garden carefully, in the starlight. There were two rows of beans, rather disshevelled. Near at hand the marrow plants sprawled from their old bed. He could detect the perfume of a few carnations. He wondered who it was had planted the garden, during his long absence. Anyhow, there it was, planted and fruited and waning into autumn. The blind was not drawn. It was eight o'clock. The children were going to bed. Aaron waited in his shed, his bowels stirred with violent but only half-admitted emotions. There was his wife, slim and graceful, holding a little mug to the baby's mouth. And the baby was drinking. She looked lonely. Wild emotions attacked his heart. There was going to be a wild and emotional reconciliation. Was there? It seemed like something fearful and imminent. A passion arose in him, a craving for the violent emotional reconciliation. He waited impatiently for the children to be gone to bed, gnawed with restless desire. He heard the clock strike nine, then half-past, from the village behind. The children would be asleep. His wife was sitting sewing some little frock. He went lingering down the garden path, stooping to lift the fallen carnations, to see how they were. There were many flowers, but small. He broke one off, then threw it away. The golden rod was out. Even in the little lawn there were asters, as of old. His wife started to listen, hearing his step. He was filled with a violent conflict of tenderness, like a sickness. He hesitated, tapping at the door, and entered. His wife started to her feet, at bay. “What have you come for!” was her involuntary ejaculation. But he, with the familiar odd jerk of his head towards the garden, asked with a faint smile: “Who planted the garden?” And he felt himself dropping into the twang of the vernacular, which he had discarded. Lottie only stood and stared at him, objectively. She did not think to answer. He took his hat off, and put it on the dresser. Again the familiar act maddened her. “What have you come for?” she cried again, with a voice full of hate. Or perhaps it was fear and doubt and even hope as well. He heard only hate. This time he turned to look at her. The old dagger was drawn in her. “I wonder,” he said, “myself.” Then she recovered herself, and with trembling hand picked up her sewing again. But she still stood at bay, beyond the table. She said nothing. He, feeling tired, sat down on the chair nearest the door. But he reached for his hat, and kept it on his knee. She, as she stood there unnaturally, went on with her sewing. There was silence for some time. Curious sensations and emotions went through the man's frame seeming to destroy him. They were like electric shocks, which he felt she emitted against him. And an old sickness came in him again. He had forgotten it. It was the sickness of the unrecognised and incomprehensible strain between him and her. After a time she put down her sewing, and sat again in her chair. “Do you know how vilely you've treated me?” she said, staring across the space at him. He averted his face. Yet he answered, not without irony. “I suppose so.” “And why?” she cried. “I should like to know why.” He did not answer. The way she rushed in made him go vague. “Justify yourself. Say why you've been so vile to me. Say what you had against me,” she demanded. “What I HAD against her,” he mused to himself: and he wondered that she used the past tense. He made no answer. “Accuse me,” she insisted. “Say what I've done to make you treat me like this. Say it. You must THINK it hard enough.” “Nay,” he said. “I don't think it.” This speech, by which he merely meant that he did not trouble to formulate any injuries he had against her, puzzled her. “Don't come pretending you love me, NOW. It's too late,” she said with contempt. Yet perhaps also hope. “You might wait till I start pretending,” he said. This enraged her. “You vile creature!” she exclaimed. “Go! What have you come for?” “To look at YOU,” he said sarcastically. After a few minutes she began to cry, sobbing violently into her apron. And again his bowels stirred and boiled. “What have I done! What have I done! I don't know what I've done that he should be like this to me,” she sobbed, into her apron. It was childish, and perhaps true. At least it was true from the childish part of her nature. He sat gloomy and uneasy. She took the apron from her tear-stained face, and looked at him. It was true, in her moments of roused exposure she was a beautiful woman--a beautiful woman. At this moment, with her flushed, tear-stained, wilful distress, she was beautiful. “Tell me,” she challenged. “Tell me! Tell me what I've done. Tell me what you have against me. Tell me.” Watching like a lynx, she saw the puzzled, hurt look in his face. Telling isn't so easy--especially when the trouble goes too deep for conscious comprehension. He couldn't _tell_ what he had against her. And he had not the slightest intention of doing what she would have liked him to do, starting to pile up detailed grievances. He knew the detailed grievances were nothing in themselves. “You CAN'T,” she cried vindictively. “You CAN'T. You CAN'T find anything real to bring against me, though you'd like to. You'd like to be able to accuse me of something, but you CAN'T, because you know there isn't anything.” She watched him, watched. And he sat in the chair near the door, without moving. “You're unnatural, that's what you are,” she cried. “You're unnatural. You're not a man. You haven't got a man's feelings. You're nasty, and cold, and unnatural. And you're a coward. You're a coward. You run away from me, without telling me what you've got against me.” “When you've had enough, you go away and you don't care what you do,” he said, epigrammatic. She paused a moment. “Enough of what?” she said. “What have you had enough of? Of me and your children? It's a nice manly thing to say. Haven't I loved you? Haven't I loved you for twelve years, and worked and slaved for you and tried to keep you right? Heaven knows where you'd have been but for me, evil as you are at the bottom. You're evil, that's what it is--and weak. You're too weak to love a woman and give her what she wants: too weak. Unmanly and cowardly, he runs away.” “No wonder,” he said. “No,” she cried. “It IS no wonder, with a nature like yours: weak and unnatural and evil. It IS no wonder.” She became quiet--and then started to cry again, into her apron. Aaron waited. He felt physically weak. “And who knows what you've been doing all these months?” she wept. “Who knows all the vile things you've been doing? And you're the father of my children--the father of my little girls--and who knows what vile things he's guilty of, all these months?” “I shouldn't let my imagination run away with me,” he answered. “I've been playing the flute in the orchestra of one of the theatres in London.” “Ha!” she cried. “It's more than that. Don't think I'm going to believe you. I know you, with your smooth-sounding lies. You're a liar, as you know. And I know you've been doing other things besides play a flute in an orchestra. You!--as if I don't know you. And then coming crawling back to me with your lies and your pretense. Don't think I'm taken in.” “I should be sorry,” he said. “Coming crawling back to me, and expecting to be forgiven,” she went on. “But no--I don't forgive--and I can't forgive--never--not as long as I live shall I forgive what you've done to me.” “You can wait till you're asked, anyhow,” he said. “And you can wait,” she said. “And you shall wait.” She took up her sewing, and stitched steadily, as if calmly. Anyone glancing in would have imagined a quiet domestic hearth at that moment. He, too, feeling physically weak, remained silent, feeling his soul absent from the scene. Again she suddenly burst into tears, weeping bitterly. “And the children,” she sobbed, rocking herself with grief and chagrin. “What have I been able to say to the children--what have I been able to tell them?” “What HAVE you told them?” he asked coldly. “I told them you'd gone away to work,” she sobbed, laying her head on her arms on the table. “What else could I tell them? I couldn't tell them the vile truth about their father. I couldn't tell THEM how evil you are.” She sobbed and moaned. He wondered what exactly the vile truth would have been, had she _started_ to tell it. And he began to feel, coldly and cynically, that among all her distress there was a luxuriating in the violent emotions of the scene in hand, and the situation altogether. Then again she became quiet, and picked up her sewing. She stitched quietly, wistfully, for some time. Then she looked up at him--a long look of reproach, and sombre accusation, and wifely tenderness. He turned his face aside. “You know you've been wrong to me, don't you?” she said, half wistfully, half menacing. He felt her wistfulness and her menace tearing him in his bowels and loins. “You do know, don't you?” she insisted, still with the wistful appeal, and the veiled threat. “You do, or you would answer,” she said. “You've still got enough that's right in you, for you to know.” She waited. He sat still, as if drawn by hot wires. Then she slipped across to him, put her arms round him, sank on her knees at his side, and sank her face against his thigh. “Say you know how wrong you are. Say you know how cruel you've been to me,” she pleaded. But under her female pleading and appeal he felt the iron of her threat. “You DO know it,” she murmured, looking up into his face as she crouched by his knee. “You DO know it. I can see in your eyes that you know it. And why have you come back to me, if you don't know it! Why have you come back to me? Tell me!” Her arms gave him a sharp, compulsory little clutch round the waist. “Tell me! Tell me!” she murmured, with all her appeal liquid in her throat. But him, it half overcame, and at the same time, horrified. He had a certain horror of her. The strange liquid sound of her appeal seemed to him like the swaying of a serpent which mesmerises the fated, fluttering, helpless bird. She clasped her arms round him, she drew him to her, she half roused his passion. At the same time she coldly horrified and repelled him. He had not the faintest feeling, at the moment, of his own wrong. But she wanted to win his own self-betrayal out of him. He could see himself as the fascinated victim, falling to this cajoling, awful woman, the wife of his bosom. But as well, he had a soul outside himself, which looked on the whole scene with cold revulsion, and which was as unchangeable as time. “No,” he said. “I don't feel wrong.” “You DO!” she said, giving him a sharp, admonitory clutch. “You DO. Only you're silly, and obstinate, babyish and silly and obstinate. An obstinate little boy--you DO feel wrong. And you ARE wrong. And you've got to say it.” But quietly he disengaged himself and got to his feet, his face pale and set, obstinate as she said. He put his hat on, and took his little bag. She watched him curiously, still crouching by his chair. “I'll go,” he said, putting his hand on the latch. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and clutched him by the shirt-neck, her hand inside his soft collar, half strangling him. “You villain,” she said, and her face was transfigured with passion as he had never seen it before, horrible. “You villain!” she said thickly. “What have you come here for?” His soul went black as he looked at her. He broke her hand away from his shirt collar, bursting the stud-holes. She recoiled in silence. And in one black, unconscious movement he was gone, down the garden and over the fence and across the country, swallowed in a black unconsciousness. She, realising, sank upon the hearth-rug and lay there curled upon herself. She was defeated. But she, too, would never yield. She lay quite motionless for some time. Then she got up, feeling the draught on the floor. She closed the door, and drew down the blind. Then she looked at her wrist, which he had gripped, and which pained her. Then she went to the mirror and looked for a long time at her white, strained, determined face. Come life, come death, she, too would never yield. And she realised now that he would never yield. She was faint with weariness, and would be glad to get to bed and sleep. Aaron meanwhile had walked across the country and was looking for a place to rest. He found a cornfield with a half-built stack, and sheaves in stook. Ten to one some tramp would have found the stack. He threw a dozen sheaves together and lay down, looking at the stars in the September sky. He, too, would never yield. The illusion of love was gone for ever. Love was a battle in which each party strove for the mastery of the other's soul. So far, man had yielded the mastery to woman. Now he was fighting for it back again. And too late, for the woman would never yield. But whether woman yielded or not, he would keep the mastery of his own soul and conscience and actions. He would never yield himself up to her judgment again. He would hold himself forever beyond her jurisdiction. Henceforth, life single, not life double. He looked at the sky, and thanked the universe for the blessedness of being alone in the universe. To be alone, to be oneself, not to be driven or violated into something which is not oneself, surely it is better than anything. He thought of Lottie, and knew how much more truly herself she was when she was alone, with no man to distort her. And he was thankful for the division between them. Such scenes as the last were too horrible and unreal. As for future unions, too soon to think about it. Let there be clean and pure division first, perfected singleness. That is the only way to final, living unison: through sheer, finished singleness. CHAPTER XII. NOVARA Having no job for the autumn, Aaron fidgetted in London. He played at some concerts and some private shows. He was one of an odd quartette, for example, which went to play to Lady Artemis Hooper, when she lay in bed after her famous escapade of falling through the window of her taxi-cab. Aaron had that curious knack, which belongs to some people, of getting into the swim without knowing he was doing it. Lady Artemis thought his flute lovely, and had him again to play for her. Aaron looked at her and she at him. She, as she reclined there in bed in a sort of half-light, well made-up, smoking her cigarettes and talking in a rather raucous voice, making her slightly rasping witty comments to the other men in the room--of course there were other men, the audience--was a shock to the flautist. This was the bride of the moment! Curious how raucous her voice sounded out of the cigarette smoke. Yet he liked her--the reckless note of the modern, social freebooter. In himself was a touch of the same quality. “Do you love playing?” she asked him. “Yes,” he said, with that shadow of irony which seemed like a smile on his face. “Live for it, so to speak,” she said. “I make my living by it,” he said. “But that's not really how you take it?” she said. He eyed her. She watched him over her cigarette. It was a personal moment. “I don't think about it,” he said. “I'm sure you don't. You wouldn't be so good if you did. You're awfully lucky, you know, to be able to pour yourself down your flute.” “You think I go down easy?” he laughed. “Ah!” she replied, flicking her cigarette broadcast. “That's the point. What should you say, Jimmy?” she turned to one of the men. He screwed his eyeglass nervously and stiffened himself to look at her. “I--I shouldn't like to say, off-hand,” came the small-voiced, self-conscious answer. And Jimmy bridled himself and glanced at Aaron. “Do you find it a tight squeeze, then?” she said, turning to Aaron once more. “No, I can't say that,” he answered. “What of me goes down goes down easy enough. It's what doesn't go down.” “And how much is that?” she asked, eying him. “A good bit, maybe,” he said. “Slops over, so to speak,” she retorted sarcastically. “And which do you enjoy more, trickling down your flute or slopping over on to the lap of Mother Earth--of Miss, more probably!” “Depends,” he said. Having got him a few steps too far upon the personal ground, she left him to get off by himself. So he found London got on his nerves. He felt it rubbed him the wrong way. He was flattered, of course, by his own success--and felt at the same time irritated by it. This state of mind was by no means acceptable. Wherever he was he liked to be given, tacitly, the first place--or a place among the first. Among the musical people he frequented, he found himself on a callow kind of equality with everybody, even the stars and aristocrats, at one moment, and a backstairs outsider the next. It was all just as the moment demanded. There was a certain excitement in slithering up and down the social scale, one minute chatting in a personal tete-a-tete with the most famous, or notorious, of the society beauties: and the next walking in the rain, with his flute in a bag, to his grubby lodging in Bloomsbury. Only the excitement roused all the savage sarcasm that lay at the bottom of his soul, and which burned there like an unhealthy bile. Therefore he determined to clear out--to disappear. He had a letter from Lilly, from Novara. Lilly was drifting about. Aaron wrote to Novara, and asked if he should come to Italy, having no money to speak of. “Come if you want to. Bring your flute. And if you've no money, put on a good suit of clothes and a big black hat, and play outside the best cafe in any Italian town, and you'll collect enough to get on with.” It was a sporting chance. Aaron packed his bag and got a passport, and wrote to Lilly to say he would join him, as invited, at Sir William Franks'. He hoped Lilly's answer would arrive before he left London. But it didn't. Therefore behold our hero alighting at Novara, two hours late, on a wet, dark evening. He hoped Lilly would be there: but nobody. With some slight dismay he faced the big, crowded station. The stream of people carried him automatically through the barrier, a porter having seized his bag, and volleyed various unintelligible questions at him. Aaron understood not one word. So he just wandered after the blue blouse of the porter. The porter deposited the bag on the steps of the station front, fired off more questions and gesticulated into the half-illuminated space of darkness outside the station. Aaron decided it meant a cab, so he nodded and said “Yes.” But there were no cabs. So once more the blue-bloused porter slung the big bag and the little bag on the strap over his shoulder, and they plunged into the night, towards some lights and a sort of theatre place. One carriage stood there in the rain--yes, and it was free. “Keb? Yes--orright--sir. Whe'to? Where you go? Sir William Franks? Yes, I know. Long way go--go long way. Sir William Franks.” The cabman spattered his few words of English. Aaron gave the porter an English shilling. The porter let the coin lie in the middle of his palm, as if it were a live beetle, and darted to the light of the carriage to examine the beast, exclaiming volubly. The cabman, wild with interest, peered down from the box into the palm of the porter, and carried on an impassioned dialogue. Aaron stood with one foot on the step. “What you give--he? One franc?” asked the driver. “A shilling,” said Aaron. “One sheeling. Yes. I know that. One sheeling English”--and the driver went off into impassioned exclamations in Torinese. The porter, still muttering and holding his hand as if the coin might sting him, filtered away. “Orright. He know--sheeling--orright. English moneys, eh? Yes, he know. You get up, sir.” And away went Aaron, under the hood of the carriage, clattering down the wide darkness of Novara, over a bridge apparently, past huge rain-wet statues, and through more rainy, half-lit streets. They stopped at last outside a sort of park wall with trees above. The big gates were just beyond. “Sir William Franks--there.” In a mixture of Italian and English the driver told Aaron to get down and ring the bell on the right. Aaron got down and in the darkness was able to read the name on the plate. “How much?” said Aaron to the driver. “Ten franc,” said the fat driver. But it was his turn now to screw down and scrutinise the pink ten-shilling note. He waved it in his hand. “Not good, eh? Not good moneys?” “Yes,” said Aaron, rather indignantly. “Good English money. Ten shillings. Better than ten francs, a good deal. Better--better--” “Good--you say? Ten sheeling--” The driver muttered and muttered, as if dissatisfied. But as a matter of fact he stowed the note in his waistcoat pocket with considerable satisfaction, looked at Aaron curiously, and drove away. Aaron stood there in the dark outside the big gates, and wished himself somewhere else. However, he rang the bell. There was a huge barking of dogs on the other side. Presently a light switched on, and a woman, followed by a man, appeared cautiously, in the half-opened doorway. “Sir William Franks?” said Aaron. “Si, signore.” And Aaron stepped with his two bags inside the gate. Huge dogs jumped round. He stood in the darkness under the trees at the foot of the park. The woman fastened the gate--Aaron saw a door--and through an uncurtained window a man writing at a desk--rather like the clerk in an hotel office. He was going with his two bags to the open door, when the woman stopped him, and began talking to him in Italian. It was evident he must not go on. So he put down the bags. The man stood a few yards away, watchfully. Aaron looked down at the woman and tried to make out something of what she was saying, but could not. The dogs still barked spasmodically, drops fell from the tall, dark trees that rose overhead. “Is Mr. Lilly here? Mr. Lilly?” he asked. “Signor Lillee. No, Signore--” And off the woman went in Italian. But it was evident Lilly was not at the house. Aaron wished more than ever he had not come, but had gone to an hotel. He made out that the woman was asking him for his name--“Meester--? Meester--?” she kept saying, with a note of interrogation. “Sisson. Mr. Sisson,” said Aaron, who was becoming impatient. And he found a visiting card to give her. She seemed appeased--said something about telephone--and left him standing. The rain had ceased, but big drops were shaken from the dark, high trees. Through the uncurtained window he saw the man at the desk reach the telephone. There was a long pause. At length the woman came back and motioned to him to go up--up the drive which curved and disappeared under the dark trees. “Go up there?” said Aaron, pointing. That was evidently the intention. So he picked up his bags and strode forward, from out of the circle of electric light, up the curved drive in the darkness. It was a steep incline. He saw trees and the grass slopes. There was a tang of snow in the air. Suddenly, up ahead, a brilliant light switched on. He continued uphill through the trees along the path, towards it, and at length, emerged at the foot of a great flight of steps, above which was a wide glass entrance, and an Italian manservant in white gloves hovering as if on the brink. Aaron emerged from the drive and climbed the steps. The manservant came down two steps and took the little bag. Then he ushered Aaron and the big bag into a large, pillared hall, with thick Turkish carpet on the floor, and handsome appointments. It was spacious, comfortable and warm; but somewhat pretentious; rather like the imposing hall into which the heroine suddenly enters on the film. Aaron dropped his heavy bag, with relief, and stood there, hat in hand, in his damp overcoat in the circle of light, looking vaguely at the yellow marble pillars, the gilded arches above, the shadowy distances and the great stairs. The butler disappeared--reappeared in another moment--and through an open doorway came the host. Sir William was a small, clean old man with a thin, white beard and a courtly deportment, wearing a black velvet dinner jacket faced with purple silk. “How do you do, Mr. Sisson. You come straight from England?” Sir William held out his hand courteously and benevolently, smiling an old man's smile of hospitality. “Mr. Lilly has gone away?” said Aaron. “Yes. He left us several days ago.” Aaron hesitated. “You didn't expect me, then?” “Yes, oh, yes. Yes, oh, yes. Very glad to see you--well, now, come in and have some dinner--” At this moment Lady Franks appeared--short, rather plump, but erect and definite, in a black silk dress and pearls round her throat. “How do you do? We are just at dinner,” she said. “You haven't eaten? No--well, then--would you like a bath now, or--?” It was evident the Franks had dispensed much hospitality: much of it charitable. Aaron felt it. “No,” he said. “I'll wash my hands and come straight in, shall I?” “Yes, perhaps that would be better--” “I'm afraid I am a nuisance.” “Not at all--Beppe--” and she gave instructions in Italian. Another footman appeared, and took the big bag. Aaron took the little one this time. They climbed the broad, turning stairs, crossed another handsome lounge, gilt and ormolu and yellow silk chairs and scattered copies of _The Graphic_ or of _Country Life_, then they disappeared through a doorway into a much narrower flight of stairs. Man can so rarely keep it up all the way, the grandeur. Two black and white chamber-maids appeared. Aaron found himself in a blue silk bedroom, and a footman unstrapping his bag, which he did not want unstrapped. Next minute he was beckoned and allured by the Italian servants down the corridor, and presented to the handsome, spacious bathroom, which was warm and creamy-coloured and glittering with massive silver and mysterious with up-to-date conveniences. There he was left to his own devices, and felt like a small boy finding out how it works. For even the mere turning on of the taps was a problem in silver mechanics. In spite of all the splendours and the elaborated convenience, he washed himself in good hot water, and wished he were having a bath, chiefly because of the wardrobe of marvellous Turkish towels. Then he clicked his way back to his bedroom, changed his shirt and combed his hair in the blue silk bedroom with the Greuze picture, and felt a little dim and superficial surprise. He had fallen into country house parties before, but never into quite such a plushy sense of riches. He felt he ought to have his breath taken away. But alas, the cinema has taken our breath away so often, investing us in all the splendours of the splendidest American millionaire, or all the heroics and marvels of the Somme or the North Pole, that life has now no magnate richer than we, no hero nobler than we have been, on the film. _Connu_! _Connu_! Everything life has to offer is known to us, couldn't be known better, from the film. So Aaron tied his tie in front of a big Venice mirror, and nothing was a surprise to him. He found a footman hovering to escort him to the dining-room--a real Italian footman, uneasy because milady's dinner was unsettled. He entered the rather small dining-room, and saw the people at table. He was told various names: bowed to a young, slim woman with big blue eyes and dark hair like a photograph, then to a smaller rather colourless young woman with a large nose: then to a stout, rubicund, bald colonel, and to a tall, thin, Oxford-looking major with a black patch over his eye--both these men in khaki: finally to a good-looking, well-nourished young man in a dinner-jacket, and he sat down to his soup, on his hostess' left hand. The colonel sat on her right, and was confidential. Little Sir William, with his hair and his beard white like spun glass, his manner very courteous and animated, the purple facings of his velvet jacket very impressive, sat at the far end of the table jesting with the ladies and showing his teeth in an old man's smile, a little bit affected, but pleasant, wishing everybody to be happy. Aaron ate his soup, trying to catch up. Milady's own confidential Italian butler, fidelity itself, hovered quivering near, spiritually helping the newcomer to catch up. Two nice little entree dishes, specially prepared for Aaron to take the place of the bygone fish and vol au-vents of the proper dinner, testified to the courtesy and charity of his hostess. Well, eating rapidly, he had more or less caught up by the time the sweets came. So he swallowed a glass of wine and looked round. His hostess with her pearls, and her diamond star in her grey hair, was speaking of Lilly and then of music to him. “I hear you are a musician. That's what I should have been if I had had my way.” “What instrument?” asked Aaron. “Oh, the piano. Yours is the flute, Mr. Lilly says. I think the flute can be so attractive. But I feel, of course you have more range with the piano. I love the piano--and orchestra.” At that moment, the colonel and hostess-duties distracted her. But she came back in snatches. She was a woman who reminded him a little of Queen Victoria; so assured in her own room, a large part of her attention always given to the successful issue of her duties, the remainder at the disposal of her guests. It was an old-fashioned, not unpleasant feeling: like retrospect. But she had beautiful, big, smooth emeralds and sapphires on her fingers. Money! What a curious thing it is! Aaron noticed the deference of all the guests at table: a touch of obsequiousness: before the money! And the host and hostess accepted the deference, nay, expected it, as their due. Yet both Sir William and Lady Franks knew that it was only money and success. They had both a certain afterthought, knowing dimly that the game was but a game, and that they were the helpless leaders in the game. They had a certain basic ordinariness which prevented their making any great hits, and which kept them disillusioned all the while. They remembered their poor and insignificant days. “And I hear you were playing in the orchestra at Covent Garden. We came back from London last week. I enjoyed Beecham's operas so much.” “Which do you like best?” said Aaron. “Oh, the Russian. I think _Ivan_. It is such fine music.” “I find _Ivan_ artificial.” “Do you? Oh, I don't think so. No, I don't think you can say that.” Aaron wondered at her assurance. She seemed to put him just a tiny bit in his place, even in an opinion on music. Money gave her that right, too. Curious--the only authority left. And he deferred to her opinion: that is, to her money. He did it almost deliberately. Yes--what did he believe in, besides money? What does any man? He looked at the black patch over the major's eye. What had he given his eye for?--the nation's money. Well, and very necessary, too; otherwise we might be where the wretched Austrians are. Instead of which--how smooth his hostess' sapphires! “Of course I myself prefer Moussorgsky,” said Aaron. “I think he is a greater artist. But perhaps it is just personal preference.” “Yes. _Boris_ is wonderful. Oh, some of the scenes in _Boris_!” “And even more _Kovantchina_,” said Aaron. “I wish we could go back to melody pure and simple. Yet I find _Kovantchina_, which is all mass music practically, gives me more satisfaction than any other opera.” “Do you really? I shouldn't say so: oh, no--but you can't mean that you would like all music to go back to melody pure and simple! Just a flute--just a pipe! Oh, Mr. Sisson, you are bigoted for your instrument. I just LIVE in harmony--chords, chords!” She struck imaginary chords on the white damask, and her sapphires swam blue. But at the same time she was watching to see if Sir William had still got beside his plate the white medicine _cachet_ which he must swallow at every meal. Because if so, she must remind him to swallow it. However, at that very moment, he put it on his tongue. So that she could turn her attention again to Aaron and the imaginary chord on the white damask; the thing she just lived in. But the rubicund bald colonel, more rubicund after wine, most rubicund now the Marsala was going, snatched her attention with a burly homage to her femininity, and shared his fear with her with a boyish gallantry. When the women had gone up, Sir William came near and put his hand on Aaron's shoulder. It was evident the charm was beginning to work. Sir William was a self-made man, and not in the least a snob. He liked the fundamental ordinariness in Aaron, the commonness of the common man. “Well now, Mr. Sisson, we are very glad to see you! Very glad, indeed. I count Mr. Lilly one of the most interesting men it has ever been my good fortune to know. And so for your own sake, and for Mr. Lilly's sake, we are very glad to see you. Arthur, my boy, give Mr. Sisson some Marsala--and take some yourself.” “Thank you, Sir,” said the well-nourished young man in nice evening clothes. “You'll take another glass yourself, Sir?” “Yes, I will, I will. I will drink a glass with Mr. Sisson. Major, where are you wandering off to? Come and take a glass with us, my boy.” “Thanks, Sir William,” drawled the young major with the black patch. “Now, Colonel--I hope you are in good health and spirits.” “Never better, Sir William, never better.” “I'm very glad to hear it; very glad indeed. Try my Marsala--I think it is quite good. Port is beyond us for the moment--for the moment--” And the old man sipped his brown wine, and smiled again. He made quite a handsome picture: but he was frail. “And where are you bound, Mr. Sisson? Towards Rome?” “I came to meet Lilly,” said Aaron. “Ah! But Lilly has fled over the borders by this time. Never was such a man for crossing frontiers. Wonderful person, to be able to do it.” “Where has he gone?” said Aaron. “I think to Geneva for the moment. But he certainly talked of Venice. You yourself have no definite goal?” “No.” “Ah! You have not come to Italy to practice your art?” “I shall HAVE to practice it: or else--no, I haven't come for that.” “Ah, you will HAVE to practice it. Ah, yes! We are all under the necessity to eat. And you have a family in England? Am I not right?” “Quite. I've got a family depending on me.” “Yes, then you must practice your art: you must practice your art. Well--shall we join the ladies? Coffee will no doubt be served.” “Will you take my arm, Sir?” said the well-nourished Arthur. “Thank you, thank you,” the old man motioned him away. So they went upstairs to where the three women were sitting in the library round the fire, chattering not very interested. The entry of Sir William at once made a stir. The girl in white, with the biggish nose, fluttered round him. She was Arthur's wife. The girl in soft blue spread herself on the couch: she was the young Major's wife, and she had a blue band round her hair. The Colonel hovered stout and fidgetty round Lady Franks and the liqueur stand. He and the Major were both in khaki--belonging to the service on duty in Italy still. Coffee appeared--and Sir William doled out _creme de menthe_. There was no conversation--only tedious words. The little party was just commonplace and dull--boring. Yet Sir William, the self-made man, was a study. And the young, Oxford-like Major, with his English diffidence and his one dark, pensive, baffled eye was only waiting to be earnest, poor devil. The girl in white had been a sort of companion to Lady Franks, so that Arthur was more or less a son-in-law. In this capacity, he acted. Aaron strayed round uneasily looking at the books, bought but not read, and at the big pictures above. It was Arthur who fetched out the little boxes containing the orders conferred on Sir William for his war-work: and perhaps more, for the many thousands of pounds he had spent on his war-work. There were three orders: one British, and quite important, a large silver star for the breast: one Italian, smaller, and silver and gold; and one from the State of Ruritania, in silver and red-and-green enamel, smaller than the others. “Come now, William,” said Lady Franks, “you must try them all on. You must try them all on together, and let us see how you look.” The little, frail old man, with his strange old man's blue eyes and his old man's perpetual laugh, swelled out his chest and said: “What, am I to appear in all my vanities?” And he laughed shortly. “Of course you are. We want to see you,” said the white girl. “Indeed we do! We shouldn't mind all appearing in such vanities--what, Lady Franks!” boomed the Colonel. “I should think not,” replied his hostess. “When a man has honours conferred on him, it shows a poor spirit if he isn't proud of them.” “Of course I am proud of them!” said Sir William. “Well then, come and have them pinned on. I think it's wonderful to have got so much in one life-time--wonderful,” said Lady Franks. “Oh, Sir William is a wonderful man,” said the Colonel. “Well--we won't say so before him. But let us look at him in his orders.” Arthur, always ready on these occasions, had taken the large and shining British star from its box, and drew near to Sir William, who stood swelling his chest, pleased, proud, and a little wistful. “This one first, Sir,” said Arthur. Sir William stood very still, half tremulous, like a man undergoing an operation. “And it goes just here--the level of the heart. This is where it goes.” And carefully he pinned the large, radiating ornament on the black velvet dinner-jacket of the old man. “That is the first--and very becoming,” said Lady Franks. “Oh, very becoming! Very becoming!” said the tall wife of the Major--she was a handsome young woman of the tall, frail type. “Do you think so, my dear?” said the old man, with his eternal smile: the curious smile of old people when they are dead. “Not only becoming, Sir,” said the Major, bending his tall, slim figure forwards. “But a reassuring sign that a nation knows how to distinguish her valuable men.” “Quite!” said Lady Franks. “I think it is a very great honour to have got it. The king was most gracious, too-- Now the other. That goes beside it--the Italian--” Sir William stood there undergoing the operation of the pinning-on. The Italian star being somewhat smaller than the British, there was a slight question as to where exactly it should be placed. However, Arthur decided it: and the old man stood before the company with his two stars on his breast. “And now the Ruritanian,” said Lady Franks eagerly. “That doesn't go on the same level with the others, Lady Franks,” said Arthur. “That goes much lower down--about here.” “Are you sure?” said Lady Franks. “Doesn't it go more here?” “No no, no no, not at all. Here! Isn't it so, Sybil?” “Yes, I think so,” said Sybil. Old Sir William stood quite silent, his breast prepared, peering over the facings of his coat to see where the star was going. The Colonel was called in, and though he knew nothing about it, he agreed with Arthur, who apparently did know something. So the star was pinned quite low down. Sir William, peeping down, exclaimed: “Well, that is most curious now! I wear an order over the pit of my stomach! I think that is very curious: a curious place to wear an order.” “Stand up! Stand up and let us look!” said Lady Franks. “There now, isn't it handsome? And isn't it a great deal of honour for one man? Could he have expected so much, in one life-time? I call it wonderful. Come and look at yourself, dear”--and she led him to a mirror. “What's more, all thoroughly deserved,” said Arthur. “I should think so,” said the Colonel, fidgetting. “Ah, yes, nobody has deserved them better,” cooed Sybil. “Nor on more humane and generous grounds,” said the Major, _sotto voce._ “The effort to save life, indeed,” returned the Major's young wife: “splendid!” Sir William stood naively before the mirror and looked at his three stars on his black velvet dinner-jacket. “Almost directly over the pit of my stomach,” he said. “I hope that is not a decoration for my greedy APPETITE.” And he laughed at the young women. “I assure you it is in position, Sir,” said Arthur. “Absolutely correct. I will read it out to you later.” “Aren't you satisfied? Aren't you a proud man! Isn't it wonderful?” said Lady Franks. “Why, what more could a man want from life? He could never EXPECT so much.” “Yes, my dear. I AM a proud man. Three countries have honoured me--” There was a little, breathless pause. “And not more than they ought to have done,” said Sybil. “Well! Well! I shall have my head turned. Let me return to my own humble self. I am too much in the stars at the moment.” Sir William turned to Arthur to have his decorations removed. Aaron, standing in the background, felt the whole scene strange, childish, a little touching. And Lady Franks was so obviously trying to _console_ her husband: to console the frail, excitable old man with his honours. But why console him? Did he need consolation? And did she? It was evident that only the hard-money woman in her put any price on the decorations. Aaron came forward and examined the orders, one after the other. Just metal playthings of curious shiny silver and gilt and enamel. Heavy the British one--but only like some heavy buckle, a piece of metal merely when one turned it over. Somebody dropped the Italian cross, and there was a moment of horror. But the lump of metal took no hurt. Queer to see the things stowed in their boxes again. Aaron had always imagined these mysterious decorations as shining by nature on the breasts of heroes. Pinned-on pieces of metal were a considerable come-down. The orders were put away, the party sat round the fire in the comfortable library, the men sipping more _creme de menthe_, since nothing else offered, and the couple of hours in front promising the tedium of small-talk of tedious people who had really nothing to say and no particular originality in saying it. Aaron, however, had reckoned without his host. Sir William sat upright in his chair, with all the determination of a frail old man who insists on being level with the young. The new guest sat in a lower chair, smoking, that curious glimmer on his face which made him so attractive, and which only meant that he was looking on the whole scene from the outside, as it were, from beyond a fence. Sir William came almost directly to the attack. “And so, Mr. Sisson, you have no definite purpose in coming to Italy?” “No, none,” said Aaron. “I wanted to join Lilly.” “But when you had joined him--?” “Oh, nothing--stay here a time, in this country, if I could earn my keep.” “Ah!--earn your keep? So you hope to earn your keep here? May I ask how?” “By my flute.” “Italy is a poor country.” “I don't want much.” “You have a family to provide for.” “They are provided for--for a couple of years.” “Oh, indeed! Is that so?” The old man got out of Aaron the detailed account of his circumstances--how he had left so much money to be paid over to his wife, and had received only a small amount for himself. “I see you are like Lilly--you trust to Providence,” said Sir William. “Providence or fate,” said Aaron. “Lilly calls it Providence,” said Sir William. “For my own part, I always advise Providence plus a banking account. I have every belief in Providence, plus a banking account. Providence and no banking account I have observed to be almost invariably fatal. Lilly and I have argued it. He believes in casting his bread upon the waters. I sincerely hope he won't have to cast himself after his bread, one of these days. Providence with a banking account. Believe in Providence once you have secured enough to live on. I should consider it disastrous to believe in Providence BEFORE. One can never be SURE of Providence.” “What can you be sure of, then?” said Aaron. “Well, in moderation, I can believe in a little hard cash, and in my own ability to earn a little hard cash.” “Perhaps Lilly believes in his own ability, too.” “No. Not so. Because he will never directly work to earn money. He works--and works quite well, I am told: but only as the spirit moves him, and never with any eye to the market. Now I call that TEMPTING Providence, myself. The spirit may move him in quite an opposite direction to the market--then where is Lilly? I have put it to him more than once.” “The spirit generally does move him dead against the market,” said Aaron. “But he manages to scrape along.” “In a state of jeopardy: all the time in a state of jeopardy,” said the old man. “His whole existence, and that of his wife, is completely precarious. I found, in my youth, the spirit moved me to various things which would have left me and my wife starving. So I realised in time, this was no good. I took my spirit in hand, therefore, and made him pull the cart which mankind is riding in. I harnessed him to the work of productive labour. And so he brought me my reward.” “Yes,” said Aaron. “But every man according to his belief.” “I don't see,” said Sir William, “how a man can BELIEVE in a Providence unless he sets himself definitely to the work of earning his daily bread, and making provision for future needs. That's what Providence means to me--making provision for oneself and one's family. Now, Mr. Lilly--and you yourself--you say you believe in a Providence that does NOT compel you to earn your daily bread, and make provision. I confess myself I cannot see it: and Lilly has never been able to convince me.” “I don't believe in a kind-hearted Providence,” said Aaron, “and I don't believe Lilly does. But I believe in chance. I believe, if I go my own way, without tying my nose to a job, chance will always throw something in my way: enough to get along with.” “But on what do you base such a very unwarrantable belief?” “I just feel like that.” “And if you are ever quite without success--and nothing to fall back on?” “I can work at something.” “In case of illness, for example?” “I can go to a hospital--or die.” “Dear me! However, you are more logical than Lilly. He seems to believe that he has the Invisible--call it Providence if you will--on his side, and that this Invisible will never leave him in the lurch, or let him down, so long as he sticks to his own side of the bargain, and NEVER works for his own ends. I don't quite see how he works. Certainly he seems to me a man who squanders a great deal of talent unworthily. Yet for some reason or other he calls this true, genuine activity, and has a contempt for actual work by which a man makes provision for his years and for his family. In the end, he will have to fall back on charity. But when I say so, he denies it, and says that in the end we, the men who work and make provision, will have to fall back on him. Well, all I can say is, that SO FAR he is in far greater danger of having to fall back on me, than I on him.” The old man sat back in his chair with a little laugh of triumph. But it smote almost devilishly on Aaron's ears, and for the first time in his life he felt that there existed a necessity for taking sides. “I don't suppose he will do much falling back,” he said. “Well, he is young yet. You are both young. You are squandering your youth. I am an old man, and I see the end.” “What end, Sir William?” “Charity--and poverty--and some not very congenial 'job,' as you call it, to put bread in your mouth. No, no, I would not like to trust myself to your Providence, or to your Chance. Though I admit your Chance is a sounder proposition than Lilly's Providence. You speculate with your life and your talent. I admit the nature which is a born speculator. After all, with your flute, you will speculate in other people's taste for luxury, as a man may speculate in theatres or _trains de luxe_. You are the speculator. That may be your way of wisdom. But Lilly does not even speculate. I cannot see his point. I cannot see his point. I cannot see his point. Yet I have the greatest admiration for his mentality.” The old man had fired up during this conversation--and all the others in the room had gone silent. Lady Franks was palpably uneasy. She alone knew how frail the old man was--frailer by far than his years. She alone knew what fear of his own age, what fear of death haunted him now: fear of his own non-existence. His own old age was an agony to him; worse than an agony, a horror. He wanted to be young--to live, to live. And he was old, he was breaking up. The glistening youth of Aaron, the impetuousness of Lilly fascinated him. And both these men seemed calmly to contradict his own wealth and honours. Lady Franks tried to turn off the conversation to the trickles of normal chit-chat. The Colonel was horribly bored--so were all the women--Arthur was indifferent. Only the young Major was implicated, troubled in his earnest and philosophic spirit. “What I can't see,” he said, “is the place that others have in your scheme.” “Is isn't a scheme,” said Aaron. “Well then, your way of life. Isn't it pretty selfish, to marry a woman and then expect her to live on very little indeed, and that always precarious, just because you happen to believe in Providence or in Chance: which I think worse? What I don't see is where others come in. What would the world be like if everybody lived that way?” “Other people can please themselves,” said Aaron. “No, they can't--because you take first choice, it seems to me. Supposing your wife--or Lilly's wife--asks for security and for provision, as Sir William says. Surely she has a right to it.” “If I've no right to it myself--and I HAVE no right to it, if I don't want it--then what right has she?” “Every right, I should say. All the more since you are improvident.” “Then she must manage her rights for herself. It's no good her foisting her rights on to me.” “Isn't that pure selfishness?” “It may be. I shall send my wife money as long as I've money to send.” “And supposing you have none?” “Then I can't send it--and she must look out for herself.” “I call that almost criminal selfishness.” “I can't help it.” The conversation with the young Major broke off. “It is certainly a good thing for society that men like you and Mr. Lilly are not common,” said Sir William, laughing. “Becoming commoner every day, you'll find,” interjaculated the Colonel. “Indeed! Indeed! Well. May we ask you another question, Mr. Sisson? I hope you don't object to our catechism?” “No. Nor your judgment afterwards,” said Aaron, grinning. “Then upon what grounds did you abandon your family? I know it is a tender subject. But Lilly spoke of it to us, and as far I could see....” “There were no grounds,” said Aaron. “No, there weren't I just left them.” “Mere caprice?” “If it's a caprice to be begotten--and a caprice to be born--and a caprice to die--then that was a caprice, for it was the same.” “Like birth or death? I don't follow.” “It happened to me: as birth happened to me once--and death will happen. It was a sort of death, too: or a sort of birth. But as undeniable as either. And without any more grounds.” The old, tremulous man, and the young man were watching one another. “A natural event,” said Sir William. “A natural event,” said Aaron. “Not that you loved any other woman?” “God save me from it.” “You just left off loving?” “Not even that. I went away.” “What from?” “From it all.” “From the woman in particular?” “Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, that.” “And you couldn't go back?” Aaron shook his head. “Yet you can give no reasons?” “Not any reasons that would be any good. It wasn't a question of reasons. It was a question of her and me and what must be. What makes a child be born out of its mother to the pain and trouble of both of them? I don't know.” “But that is a natural process.” “So is this--or nothing.” “No,” interposed the Major. “Because birth is a universal process--and yours is a specific, almost unique event.” “Well, unique or not, it so came about. I didn't ever leave off loving her--not as far as I know. I left her as I shall leave the earth when I die--because it has to be.” “Do you know what I think it is, Mr. Sisson?” put in Lady Franks. “I think you are just in a wicked state of mind: just that. Mr. Lilly, too. And you must be very careful, or some great misfortune will happen to you.” “It may,” said Aaron. “And it will, mark my word, it will.” “You almost wish it might, as a judgment on me,” smiled Aaron. “Oh, no, indeed. I should only be too sorry. But I feel it will, unless you are careful.” “I'll be careful, then.” “Yes, and you can't be too careful.” “You make me frightened.” “I would like to make you very frightened indeed, so that you went back humbly to your wife and family.” “It would HAVE to be a big fright then, I assure you.” “Ah, you are really heartless. It makes me angry.” She turned angrily aside. “Well, well! Well, well! Life! Life! Young men are a new thing to me!” said Sir William, shaking his head. “Well, well! What do you say to whiskey and soda, Colonel?” “Why, delighted, Sir William,” said the Colonel, bouncing up. “A night-cap, and then we retire,” said Lady Franks. Aaron sat thinking. He knew Sir William liked him: and that Lady Franks didn't. One day he might have to seek help from Sir William. So he had better placate milady. Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, he turned to his hostess. “You wouldn't mind, Lady Franks, if I said nasty things about my wife and found a lot of fault with her. What makes you angry is that I know it is not a bit more her fault than mine, that we come apart. It can't be helped.” “Oh, yes, indeed. I disapprove of your way of looking at things altogether. It seems to me altogether cold and unmanly and inhuman. Thank goodness my experience of a man has been different.” “We can't all be alike, can we? And if I don't choose to let you see me crying, that doesn't prove I've never had a bad half hour, does it? I've had many--ay, and a many.” “Then why are you so WRONG, so wrong in your behaviour?” “I suppose I've got to have my bout out: and when it's out, I can alter.” “Then I hope you've almost had your bout out,” she said. “So do I,” said he, with a half-repentant, half-depressed look on his attractive face. The corners of his mouth grimaced slightly under his moustache. “The best thing you can do is to go straight back to England, and to her.” “Perhaps I'd better ask her if she wants me, first,” he said drily. “Yes, you might do that, too.” And Lady Franks felt she was quite getting on with her work of reform, and the restoring of woman to her natural throne. Best not go too fast, either. “Say when,” shouted the Colonel, who was manipulating the syphon. “When,” said Aaron. The men stood up to their drinks. “Will you be leaving in the morning, Mr. Sisson?” asked Lady Franks. “May I stay till Monday morning?” said Aaron. They were at Saturday evening. “Certainly. And you will take breakfast in your room: we all do. At what time? Half past eight?” “Thank you very much.” “Then at half past eight the man will bring it in. Goodnight.” Once more in his blue silk bedroom, Aaron grimaced to himself and stood in the middle of the room grimacing. His hostess' admonitions were like vitriol in his ears. He looked out of the window. Through the darkness of trees, the lights of a city below. Italy! The air was cold with snow. He came back into his soft, warm room. Luxurious it was. And luxurious the deep, warm bed. He was still asleep when the man came noiselessly in with the tray: and it was morning. Aaron woke and sat up. He felt that the deep, warm bed, and the soft, warm room had made him sleep too well: robbed him of his night, like a narcotic. He preferred to be more uncomfortable and more aware of the flight of the dark hours. It seemed numbing. The footman in his grey house-jacket was neat and Italian and sympathising. He gave good-morning in Italian--then softly arranged the little table by the bedside, and put out the toast and coffee and butter and boiled egg and honey, with silver and delicate china. Aaron watched the soft, catlike motions of the man. The dark eyes glanced once at the blond man, leaning on his elbow on the pillow. Aaron's face had that watchful, half-amused expression. The man said something in Italian. Aaron shook his head, laughed, and said: “Tell me in English.” The man went softly to the window curtains, and motioned them with his hand. “Yes, do,” said Aaron. So the man drew the buff-coloured silk curtains: and Aaron, sitting in bed, could see away beyond red roofs of a town, and in the further heaven great snowy mountains. “The Alps,” he said in surprise. “Gli Alpi--si, signore.” The man bowed, gathered up Aaron's clothes, and silently retired. Aaron watched through the window. It was a frosty morning at the end of September, with a clear blue morning-sky, Alpine, and the watchful, snow-streaked mountain tops bunched in the distance, as if waiting. There they were, hovering round, circling, waiting. They reminded him of marvellous striped sky-panthers circling round a great camp: the red-roofed city. Aaron looked, and looked again. In the near distance, under the house elm-tree tops were yellowing. He felt himself changing inside his skin. So he turned away to his coffee and eggs. A little silver egg-cup with a curious little frill round it: honey in a frail, iridescent glass bowl, gold-iridescent: the charm of delicate and fine things. He smiled half mockingly to himself. Two instincts played in him: the one, an instinct for fine, delicate things: he had attractive hands; the other, an inclination to throw the dainty little table with all its niceties out of the window. It evoked a sort of devil in him. He took his bath: the man had brought back his things: he dressed and went downstairs. No one in the lounge: he went down to the ground floor: no one in the big hall with its pillars of yellow marble and its gold arches, its enormous, dark, bluey-red carpet. He stood before the great glass doors. Some red flowers still were blooming in the tubs, on the steps, handsome: and beautiful chrysanthemums in the wide portico. Beyond, yellow leaves were already falling on the green grass and the neat drive. Everywhere was silent and empty. He climbed the wide stairs, sat in the long, upper lounge where the papers were. He wanted his hat and coat, and did not know where to find them. The windows looked on to a terraced garden, the hill rising steeply behind the house. He wanted to go out. So he opened more doors, and in a long drawing-room came upon five or six manservants, all in the grey house-jackets, all clean-shaven, neat, with neat black hair, all with dusters or brushes or feather brooms, and all frolicking, chattering, playing like so many monkeys. They were all of the same neat, smallish size. They were all laughing. They rolled back a great rug as if it were some football game, one flew at the curtains. And they merely looked at Aaron and went on chattering, and laughing and dusting. Surprised, and feeling that he trespassed, he stood at the window a moment looking out. The noise went on behind him. So he turned, smiling, and asked for his hat, pointing to his head. They knew at once what he wanted. One of the fellows beckoned him away, down to the hall and to the long cupboard place where hats and coats and sticks were hung. There was his hat; he put it on, while the man chattered to him pleasantly and unintelligibly, and opened for him the back door, into the garden. CHAPTER XIII. WIE ES IHNEN GEFAELLT The fresh morning air comes startling after a central heated house. So Aaron found it. He felt himself dashing up the steps into the garden like a bird dashing out of a trap where it has been caught: that warm and luxurious house. Heaven bless us, we who want to save civilisation. We had better make up our minds what of it we want to save. The kernel may be all well and good. But there is precious little kernel, to a lot of woolly stuffing and poisonous rind. The gardens to Sir William's place were not imposing, and still rather war-neglected. But the pools of water lay smooth in the bright air, the flowers showed their colour beside the walks. Many birds dashed about, rather bewildered, having crossed the Alps in their migration southwards. Aaron noted with gratification a certain big magnificence, a certain reckless powerfulness in the still-blossoming, harsh-coloured, autumn flowers. Distinct satisfaction he derived from it. He wandered upwards, up the succeeding flights of step; till he came to the upper rough hedge, and saw the wild copse on the hill-crest just above. Passing through a space in the hedge, he climbed the steep last bit of Sir William's lane. It was a little vineyard, with small vines and yellowing leaves. Everywhere the place looked neglected--but as if man had just begun to tackle it once more. At the very top, by the wild hedge where spindle-berries hung pink, seats were placed, and from here the view was very beautiful. The hill dropped steep beneath him. A river wound on the near side of the city, crossed by a white bridge. The city lay close clustered, ruddy on the plains, glittering in the clear air with its flat roofs and domes and square towers, strangely naked-seeming in the clear, clean air. And massive in the further nearness, snow-streaked mountains, the tiger-like Alps. Tigers prowling between the north and the south. And this beautiful city lying nearest exposed. The snow-wind brushed her this morning like the icy whiskers of a tiger. And clear in the light lay Novara, wide, fearless, violent Novara. Beautiful the perfect air, the perfect and unblemished Alp-sky. And like the first southern flower, Novara. Aaron sat watching in silence. Only the uneasy birds rustled. He watched the city and the winding river, the bridges, and the imminent Alps. He was on the south side. On the other side of the time barrier. His old, sleepy English nature was startled in its sleep. He felt like a man who knows it is time to wake up, and who doesn't want to wake up, to face the responsibility of another sort of day. To open his darkest eyes and wake up to a new responsibility. Wake up and enter on the responsibility of a new self in himself. Ach, the horror of responsibility! He had all his life slept and shelved the burden. And he wanted to go on sleeping. It was so hateful to have to get a new grip on his own bowels, a new hard recklessness into his heart, a new and responsible consciousness into his mind and soul. He felt some finger prodding, prodding, prodding him awake out of the sleep of pathos and tragedy and spasmodic passion, and he wriggled, unwilling, oh, most unwilling to undertake the new business. In fact he ran away again. He gave a last look at the town and its white-fanged mountains, and descended through the garden, round the way of the kitchen garden and garage and stables and pecking chickens, back to the house again. In the hall still no one. He went upstairs to the long lounge. There sat the rubicund, bald, boy-like Colonel reading the _Graphic_. Aaron sat down opposite him, and made a feeble attempt at conversation. But the Colonel wasn't having any. It was evident he didn't care for the fellow--Mr. Aaron, that is. Aaron therefore dried up, and began to sit him out, with the aid of _The Queen_. Came a servant, however, and said that the Signor Colonello was called up from the hospital, on the telephone. The Colonel once departed, Aaron fled again, this time out of the front doors, and down the steep little park to the gates. Huge dogs and little dogs came bounding forward. Out of the lodge came the woman with the keys, smiling very pleasantly this morning. So, he was in the street. The wide road led him inevitably to the big bridge, with the violent, physical stone statue-groups. Men and women were moving about, and he noticed for the first time the littleness and the momentaneousness of the Italians in the street. Perhaps it was the wideness of the bridge and the subsequent big, open boulevard. But there it was: the people seemed little, upright brisk figures moving in a certain isolation, like tiny figures on a big stage. And he felt himself moving in the space between. All the northern cosiness gone. He was set down with a space round him. Little trams flitted down the boulevard in the bright, sweet light. The barbers' shops were all busy, half the Novarese at that moment ambushed in lather, full in the public gaze. A shave is nothing if not a public act, in the south. At the little outdoor tables of the cafes a very few drinkers sat before empty coffee-cups. Most of the shops were shut. It was too soon after the war for life to be flowing very fast. The feeling of emptiness, of neglect, of lack of supplies was evident everywhere. Aaron strolled on, surprised himself at his gallant feeling of liberty: a feeling of bravado and almost swaggering carelessness which is Italy's best gift to an Englishman. He had crossed the dividing line, and the values of life, though ostensibly and verbally the same, were dynamically different. Alas, however, the verbal and the ostensible, the accursed mechanical ideal gains day by day over the spontaneous life-dynamic, so that Italy becomes as idea-bound and as automatic as England: just a business proposition. Coming to the station, he went inside. There he saw a money-changing window which was open, so he planked down a five-pound note and got two-hundred-and-ten lire. Here was a start. At a bookstall he saw a man buy a big timetable with a large railway map in it. He immediately bought the same. Then he retired to a corner to get his whereabouts. In the morning he must move: where? He looked on the map. The map seemed to offer two alternatives, Milan and Genoa. He chose Milan, because of its musical associations and its cathedral. Milano then. Strolling and still strolling, he found the boards announcing Arrivals and Departures. As far as he could make out, the train for Milan left at 9:00 in the morning. So much achieved, he left the big desolating caravanserai of the station. Soldiers were camped in every corner, lying in heaps asleep. In their grey-green uniform, he was surprised at their sturdy limbs and uniformly short stature. For the first time, he saw the cock-feathers of the Bersaglieri. There seemed a new life-quality everywhere. Many worlds, not one world. But alas, the one world triumphing more and more over the many worlds, the big oneness swallowing up the many small diversities in its insatiable gnawing appetite, leaving a dreary sameness throughout the world, that means at last complete sterility. Aaron, however, was too new to the strangeness, he had no eye for the horrible sameness that was spreading like a disease over Italy from England and the north. He plunged into the space in front of the station, and took a new, wide boulevard. To his surprise he ran towards a big and over-animated statue that stood resolutely with its back to the magnificent snow-domes of the wild Alps. Wolves in the street could not have startled him more than those magnificent fierce-gleaming mountains of snow at the street-end, beyond the statue. He stood and wondered, and never thought to look who the gentleman was. Then he turned right round, and began to walk home. Luncheon was at one o'clock. It was half-past twelve when he rang at the lodge gates. He climbed through the leaves of the little park, on a side-path, rather reluctantly towards the house. In the hall Lady Franks was discussing with Arthur a fat Pekinese who did not seem very well. She was sure the servants did not obey her orders concerning the Pekinese bitch. Arthur, who was more than indifferent, assured her they did. But she seemed to think that the whole of the male human race was in league against the miserable specimen of a she-dog. She almost cried, thinking her Queenie _might_ by some chance meet with, perhaps, a harsh word or look. Queenie apparently fattened on the secret detestation of the male human species. “I can't bear to think that a dumb creature might be ill-treated,” she said to Aaron. “Thank goodness the Italians are better than they used to be.” “Are they better than they used to be?” “Oh, much. They have learnt it from us.” She then enquired if her guest had slept, and if he were rested from his journey. Aaron, into whose face the faint snow-wind and the sun had brought a glow, replied that he had slept well and enjoyed the morning, thank you. Whereupon Lady Franks knitted her brows and said Sir William had had such a bad night. He had not been able to sleep, and had got up and walked about the room. The least excitement, and she dreaded a break-down. He must have absolute calm and restfulness. “There's one for you and your jawing last night, Aaron, my boy!” said our hero to himself. “I thought Sir William seemed so full of life and energy,” he said, aloud. “Ah, did you! No, he WANTS to be. But he can't do it. He's very much upset this morning. I have been very anxious about him.” “I am sorry to hear that.” Lady Franks departed to some duty. Aaron sat alone before the fire. It was a huge fireplace, like a dark chamber shut in by tall, finely-wrought iron gates. Behind these iron gates of curly iron the logs burned and flickered like leopards slumbering and lifting their heads within their cage. Aaron wondered who was the keeper of the savage element, who it was that would open the iron grille and throw on another log, like meat to the lions. To be sure the fire was only to be looked at: like wild beasts in the Zoo. For the house was warm from roof to floor. It was strange to see the blue air of sunlight outside, the yellow-edged leaves falling in the wind, the red flowers shaking. The gong sounded softly through the house. The Colonel came in heartily from the garden, but did not speak to Aaron. The Major and his wife came pallid down the stairs. Lady Franks appeared, talking domestic-secretarial business with the wife of Arthur. Arthur, well-nourished and half at home, called down the stairs. And then Sir William descended, old and frail now in the morning, shaken: still he approached Aaron heartily, and asked him how he did, and how he had spent his morning. The old man who had made a fortune: how he expected homage: and how he got it! Homage, like most things, is just a convention and a social trick. Aaron found himself paying homage, too, to the old man who had made a fortune. But also, exacting a certain deference in return, from the old man who had made a fortune. Getting it, too. On what grounds? Youth, maybe. But mostly, scorn for fortunes and fortune-making. Did he scorn fortunes and fortune-making? Not he, otherwise whence this homage for the old man with much money? Aaron, like everybody else, was rather paralysed by a million sterling, personified in one old man. Paralysed, fascinated, overcome. All those three. Only having no final control over his own make-up, he could not drive himself into the money-making or even into the money-having habit. And he had just wit enough to threaten Sir William's golden king with his own ivory queen and knights of wilful life. And Sir William quaked. “Well, and how have you spent your morning?” asked the host. “I went first to look at the garden.” “Ah, not much to see now. They have been beautiful with flowers, once. But for two and a half years the house has been a hospital for officers--and even tents in the park and garden--as many as two hundred wounded and sick at a time. We are only just returning to civil life. And flowers need time. Yes--yes--British officers--for two and a half years. But did you go up, now, to the belvedere?” “To the top--where the vines are? I never expected the mountains.” “You never expected the mountains? Pray, why not? They are always there!” “But I was never there before. I never knew they were there, round the town. I didn't expect it like that.” “Ah! So you found our city impressive?” “Very! Ah, very! A new world to me. I feel I've come out of myself.” “Yes, it is a wonderful sight--a wonderful sight-- But you have not been INTO the town?” “Yes. I saw the men being shaved, and all the soldiers at the station: and a statue, and mountains behind it. Oh, I've had a full morning.” “A full morning! That is good, that is good!” The old man looked again at the younger man, and seemed to get life from him, to live in him vicariously. “Come,” said the hostess. “Luncheon.” Aaron sat again on his hostess' left hand. The Colonel was more affable now it was meal-time. Sir William was again in a good humour, chaffing the young ladies with an old man's gallantry. But now he insisted on drawing Aaron into the play. And Aaron did not want to be drawn. He did not one bit want to chaffer gallantries with the young women. Between him and Sir William there was a curious rivalry--unconscious on both sides. The old knight had devoted an energetic, adventurous, almost an artistic nature to the making of his fortune and the developing of later philanthropies. He had no children. Aaron was devoting a similar nature to anything but fortune-making and philanthropy. The one held life to be a storing-up of produce and a conservation of energy: the other held life to be a sheer spending of energy and a storing-up of nothing but experience. There they were, in opposition, the old man and the young. Sir William kept calling Aaron into the chaffer at the other end of the table: and Aaron kept on refusing to join. He hated long distance answers, anyhow. And in his mood of the moment he hated the young women. He had a conversation with Arthur about statues: concerning which Aaron knew nothing, and Arthur less than nothing. Then Lady Franks turned the conversation to the soldiers at the station, and said how Sir William had equipped rest-huts for the Italian privates, near the station: but that such was the jealousy and spite of the Italian Red Cross--or some such body, locally--that Sir William's huts had been left empty--standing unused--while the men had slept on the stone floor of the station, night after night, in icy winter. There was evidently much bitter feeling as a result of Sir William's philanthropy. Apparently even the honey of lavish charity had turned to gall in the Italian mouth: at least the official mouth. Which gall had been spat back at the charitable, much to his pain. It is in truth a difficult world, particularly when you have another race to deal with. After which came the beef-olives. “Oh,” said Lady Franks, “I had such a dreadful dream last night, such a dreadful dream. It upset me so much. I have not been able to get over it all day.” “What was it?” said Aaron. “Tell it, and break it.” “Why,” said his hostess, “I dreamed I was asleep in my room--just as I actually was--and that it was night, yet with a terrible sort of light, like the dead light before dawn, so that one could see. And my maid Giuseppina came running into my room, saying: 'Signora! Signora! Si alza! Subito! Signora! Vengono su!'--and I said, 'Chi? Chi sono chi vengono? Chi?'--'I Novaresi! I Novaresi vengono su. Vengono qui!'--I got out of bed and went to the window. And there they were, in the dead light, rushing up to the house, through the trees. It was so awful, I haven't been able to forget it all day.” “Tell me what the words are in English,” said Aaron. “Why,” she said, “get up, get up--the Novaresi, the people of Novara are coming up--vengono su--they are coming up--the Novara people--work-people. I can't forget it. It was so real, I can't believe it didn't actually happen.” “Ah,” said Aaron. “It will never happen. I know, that whatever one foresees, and FEELS has happened, never happens in real life. It sort of works itself off through the imagining of it.” “Well, it was almost more real to me than real life,” said his hostess. “Then it will never happen in real life,” he said. Luncheon passed, and coffee. The party began to disperse--Lady Franks to answer more letters, with the aid of Arthur's wife--some to sleep, some to walk. Aaron escaped once more through the big gates. This time he turned his back on the town and the mountains, and climbed up the hill into the country. So he went between the banks and the bushes, watching for unknown plants and shrubs, hearing the birds, feeling the influence of a new soil. At the top of the hill he saw over into vineyards, and a new strange valley with a winding river, and jumbled, entangled hills. Strange wild country so near the town. It seemed to keep an almost virgin wildness--yet he saw the white houses dotted here and there. Just below him was a peasant house: and on a little loggia in the sun two peasants in white shirtsleeves and black Sunday suits were sitting drinking wine, and talking, talking. Peasant youths in black hats, their sweethearts in dark stuff dresses, wearing no hat, but a black silk or a white silk scarf, passed slowly along the little road just below the ridge. None looked up to see Aaron sitting there alone. From some hidden place somebody was playing an accordion, a jerky sound in the still afternoon. And away beyond lay the unchanging, mysterious valley, and the infolding, mysterious hills of Italy. Returning back again another way, he lost himself at the foot of the hill in new and deserted suburb streets--unfinished streets of seemingly unfinished houses. Then a sort of boulevard where bourgeois families were taking the Sunday afternoon walk: stout papas, stout, pallid mamas in rather cheap black fur, little girls very much dressed, and long lads in short socks and round sailor caps, ribbons fluttering. Alien they felt, alien, alien, as a bourgeois crowd always does, but particularly a foreign, Sunday-best bourgeois crowd. Aaron wandered and wandered, finding the tram terminus and trying blank, unfinished street after street. He had a great disinclination to ask his way. At last he recognised the bank and the little stream of water that ran along the street side. So he was back in time for tea. A hospital nurse was there, and two other strange women. Arthur played the part of host. Sir William came in from a walk with the dogs, but retired to his room without taking tea. And so the evening fell. Aaron sat in the hall at some distance from the fire, which burned behind its wrought iron gates. He was tired now with all his impressions, and dispirited. He thought of his wife and children at home: of the church-bells ringing so loudly across the field beyond his garden end: of the dark-clad people trailing unevenly across the two paths, one to the left, one to the right, forking their way towards the houses of the town, to church or to chapel: mostly to chapel. At this hour he himself would be dressed in his best clothes, tying his bow, ready to go out to the public house. And his wife would be resenting his holiday departure, whilst she was left fastened to the children. Rather tired and dispirited in this alien place, he wondered if he wished himself back. But the moment he actually _realised_ himself at home, and felt the tension of barrenness which it meant, felt the curious and deadly opposition of his wife's will against his own nature, the almost nauseating ache which it amounted to, he pulled himself together and rejoiced again in his new surroundings. Her will, her will, her terrible, implacable, cunning will! What was there in the female will so diabolical, he asked himself, that it could press like a flat sheet of iron against a man all the time? The female will! He realised now that he had a horror of it. It was flat and inflexible as a sheet of iron. But also it was cunning as a snake that could sing treacherous songs. Of two people at a deadlock, he always reminded himself, there is not one only wholly at fault. Both must be at fault. Having a detached and logical soul, he never let himself forget this truth. Take Lottie! He had loved her. He had never loved any other woman. If he had had his other affairs--it was out of spite or defiance or curiosity. They meant nothing. He and Lottie had loved one another. And the love had developed almost at once into a kind of combat. Lottie had been the only child of headstrong, well-to-do parents. He also had been the only child of his widowed mother. Well then, both he and Lottie had been brought up to consider themselves the first in whatsoever company they found themselves. During the early months of the marriage he had, of course, continued the spoiling of the young wife. But this never altered the fact that, by his very nature, he considered himself as first and almost as single in any relationship. First and single he felt, and as such he bore himself. It had taken him years to realise that Lottie also felt herself first and single: under all her whimsicalness and fretfulness was a conviction as firm as steel: that she, as woman, was the centre of creation, the man was but an adjunct. She, as woman, and particularly as mother, was the first great source of life and being, and also of culture. The man was but the instrument and the finisher. She was the source and the substance. Sure enough, Lottie had never formulated this belief inside herself. But it was formulated for her in the whole world. It is the substantial and professed belief of the whole white world. She did but inevitably represent what the whole world around her asserted: the life-centrality of woman. Woman, the life-bearer, the life-source. Nearly all men agree to the assertion. Practically all men, even while demanding their selfish rights as superior males, tacitly agree to the fact of the sacred life-bearing priority of woman. Tacitly, they yield the worship to that which is female. Tacitly, they conspire to agree that all that is productive, all that is fine and sensitive and most essentially noble, is woman. This, in their productive and religious souls, they believe. And however much they may react against the belief, loathing their women, running to prostitutes, or beer or _anything_, out of reaction against this great and ignominious dogma of the sacred priority of women, still they do but profane the god they worship. Profaning woman, they still inversely worship her. But in Aaron was planted another seed. He did not know it. He started off on the good old tack of worshipping his woman while his heart was honest, and profaning her in his fits of temper and revolt. But he made a bad show. Born in him was a spirit which could not worship woman: no, and would not. Could not and would not. It was not in him. In early days, he tried to pretend it was in him. But through his plaintive and homage-rendering love of a young husband was always, for the woman, discernible the arrogance of self-unyielding male. He never yielded himself: never. All his mad loving was only an effort. Afterwards, he was as devilishly unyielded as ever. And it was an instinct in her, that her man must yield to her, so that she should envelop him yielding, in her all-beneficent love. She was quite sure that her love was all-beneficent. Of this no shadow of doubt. She was quite sure that the highest her man could ever know or ever reach, was to be perfectly enveloped in her all-beneficent love. This was her idea of marriage. She held it not as an idea, but as a profound impulse and instinct: an instinct developed in her by the age in which she lived. All that was deepest and most sacred in he feeling centred in this belief. And he outraged her! Oh, from the first day and the first night, she felt he outraged her. True, for some time she had been taken in by his manifest love. But though you can deceive the conscious mind, you can never deceive the deep, unconscious instinct. She could never understand whence arose in her, almost from the first days of marriage with him, her terrible paroxysms of hatred for him. She was in love with him: ah, heaven, how maddeningly she was in love with him: a certain unseizable beauty that was his, and which fascinated her as a snake a bird. But in revulsion, how she hated him! How she abhorred him! How she despised and shuddered at him! He seemed a horrible thing to her. And then again, oh, God, the agony of her desire for him. The agony of her long, long desire for him. He was a passionate lover. He gave her, ostensibly, all she asked for. He withheld from her nothing, no experience, no degree of intimacy. She was his initiate, or he hers. And yet, oh, horror for a woman, he withheld everything from her. He withheld the very centre of himself. For a long time, she never realised. She was dazed and maddened only. But as months of married experience passed into years of married torment, she began to understand. It was that, after their most tremendous, and, it seemed to her, heaven-rending passion--yea, when for her every veil seemed rent and a terrible and sacred creative darkness covered the earth--then--after all this wonder and miracle--in crept a poisonous grey snake of disillusionment, a poisonous grey snake of disillusion that bit her to madness, so that she really was a mad woman, demented. Why? Why? He never gave himself. He never came to her, _really_. He withheld himself. Yes, in those supreme and sacred times which for her were the whole culmination of life and being, the ecstasy of unspeakable passional conjunction, he was not really hers. He was withheld. He withheld the central core of himself, like the devil and hell-fiend he was. He cheated and made play with her tremendous passional soul, her sacred sex passion, most sacred of all things for a woman. All the time, some central part of him stood apart from her, aside, looking on. Oh, agony and horror for a passionate, fierce-hearted woman! She who loved him. She who loved him to madness. She who would have died for him. She who did die with him, many terrible and magnificent connubial deaths, in his arms, her husband. Her husband! How bitter the word grew to her! Her husband! and him never once given, given wholly to her! Her husband--and in all the frenzied finality of desire, she never _fully_ possessed him, not once. No, not once. As time went on, she learned it for inevitable. Not once! And then, how she hated him! Cheated, foiled, betrayed, forced to love him or to hate him: never able to be at peace near him nor away from him: poor Lottie, no wonder she was as a mad woman. She was strictly as a woman demented, after the birth of her second child. For all her instinct, all her impulse, all her desire, and above all, all her _will_, was to possess her man in very fulness once: just once: and once and for all. Once, just once: and it would be once and for all. But never! Never! Not once! Never! Not for one single solitary second! Was it not enough to send a woman mad! Was it not enough to make her demented! Yes, and mad she was. She made his life a hell for him. She bit him to the bone with her frenzy of rage, chagrin, and agony. She drove him mad, too: mad, so that he beat her: mad so that he longed to kill her. But even in his greatest rages it was the same: he never finally lost himself: he remained, somewhere in the centre, in possession of himself. She sometimes wished he would kill her: or that she would kill him. Neither event happened. And neither of them understood what was happening. How should they? They were both dazed, horrified, and mortified. He took to leaving her alone as much as was possible. But when he _had_ to come home, there was her terrible will, like a flat, cold snake coiled round his soul and squeezing him to death. Yes, she did not relent. She was a good wife and mother. All her duties she fulfilled. But she was not one to yield. _He_ must yield. That was written in eternal letters, on the iron tablet of her will. _He_ must yield. She the woman, the mother of his children, how should she ever even think to yield? It was unthinkable. He, the man, the weak, the false, the treacherous, the half-hearted, it was he who must yield. Was not hers the divine will and the divine right? Ha, she would be less than woman if she ever capitulated, abandoned her divine responsibility as woman! No, _he_ must yield. So, he was unfaithful to her. Piling reproach after reproach upon himself, he added adultery to his brutality. And this was the beginning of the end. She was more than maddened: but he began to grow silent, unresponsive, as if he did not hear her. He was unfaithful to her: and oh, in such a low way. Such shame, such shame! But he only smiled carelessly now, and asked her what she wanted. She had asked for all she got. That he reiterated. And that was all he would do. Terrible was, that she found even his smile of insolent indifference half-beautiful. Oh, bitter chain to bear! But she summoned up all her strange woman's will. She fought against his fascination, the fascination he exerted over her. With fearful efforts of will she fought against it, and mastered it. And then, suddenly, horror and agony of it, up it would rush in her again, her unbearable desire for him, the longing for his contact, his quality of beauty. That was a cross hard to bear. Yet even that she bore. And schooled herself into a fretful, petulant manner of indifference. Her odd, whimsical petulance hid a will which he, and he alone, knew to be stronger than steel, strong as a diabolical, cold, grey snake that presses and presses and cannot-relax: nay, cannot relax. She became the same as he. Even in her moments of most passionate desire for him, the cold and snake-like tension of her will never relaxed, and the cold, snake-like eye of her intention never closed. So, till it reached a deadlock. Each will was wound tense, and so fixed. Fixed! There was neither any relaxing or any increase of pressure. Fixed. Hard like a numbness, a grip that was solidifying and turning to stone. He realised, somehow, that at this terrible passive game of fixed tension she would beat him. Her fixed female soul, her wound-up female will would solidify into stone--whereas his must break. In him something must break. It was a cold and fatal deadlock, profitless. A life-automatism of fixed tension that suddenly, in him, did break. His will flew loose in a recoil: a recoil away from her. He left her, as inevitably as a broken spring flies out from its hold. Not that he was broken. He would not do her even that credit. He had only flown loose from the old centre-fixture. His will was still entire and unabated. Only he did not know: he did not understand. He swung wildly about from place to place, as if he were broken. Then suddenly, on this Sunday evening in the strange country, he realised something about himself. He realised that he had never intended to yield himself fully to her or to anything: that he did not intend ever to yield himself up entirely to her or to anything: that his very being pivoted on the fact of his isolate self-responsibility, aloneness. His intrinsic and central aloneness was the very centre of his being. Break it, and he broke his being. Break this central aloneness, and he broke everything. It was the great temptation, to yield himself: and it was the final sacrilege. Anyhow, it was something which, from his profoundest soul, he did not intend to do. By the innermost isolation and singleness of his own soul he would abide though the skies fell on top of one another, and seven heavens collapsed. Vaguely he realised this. And vaguely he realised that this had been the root cause of his strife with Lottie: Lottie, the only person who had mattered at all to him in all the world: save perhaps his mother. And his mother had not mattered, no, not one-half nor one-fifth what Lottie had mattered. So it was: there was, for him, only her significant in the universe. And between him and her matters were as they were. He coldly and terribly hated her, for a moment. Then no more. There was no solution. It was a situation without a solution. But at any rate, it was now a defined situation. He could rest in peace. Thoughts something in this manner ran through Aaron's subconscious mind as he sat still in the strange house. He could not have fired it all off at any listener, as these pages are fired off at any chance reader. Nevertheless there it was, risen to half consciousness in him. All his life he had _hated_ knowing what he felt. He had wilfully, if not consciously, kept a gulf between his passional soul and his open mind. In his mind was pinned up a nice description of himself, and a description of Lottie, sort of authentic passports to be used in the conscious world. These authentic passports, self-describing: nose short, mouth normal, etc.; he had insisted that they should do all the duty of the man himself. This ready-made and very banal idea of himself as a really quite nice individual: eyes blue, nose short, mouth normal, chin normal; this he had insisted was really himself. It was his conscious mask. Now at last, after years of struggle, he seemed suddenly to have dropped his mask on the floor, and broken it. His authentic self-describing passport, his complete and satisfactory idea of himself suddenly became a rag of paper, ridiculous. What on earth did it matter if he was nice or not, if his chin was normal or abnormal. His mask, his idea of himself dropped and was broken to bits. There he sat now maskless and invisible. That was how he strictly felt: invisible and undefined, rather like Wells' _Invisible Man_. He had no longer a mask to present to people: he was present and invisible: they _could_ not really think anything about him, because they could not really see him. What did they see when they looked at him? Lady Franks, for example. He neither knew nor cared. He only knew he was invisible to himself and everybody, and that all thinking about what he was like was only a silly game of Mrs. Mackenzie's Dead. So there. The old Aaron Sisson was as if painfully transmuted, as the Invisible Man when he underwent his transmutations. Now he was gone, and no longer to be seen. His visibility lost for ever. And then what? Sitting there as an invisible presence, the preconceived world melted also and was gone. Lady Franks, Sir William, all the guests, they talked and maneuvered with their visible personalities, manipulating the masks of themselves. And underneath there was something invisible and dying--something fading, wilting: the essential plasm of themselves: their invisible being. Well now, and what next? Having in some curious manner tumbled from the tree of modern knowledge, and cracked and rolled out from the shell of the preconceived idea of himself like some dark, night-lustrous chestnut from the green ostensibility of the burr, he lay as it were exposed but invisible on the floor, knowing, but making no conceptions: knowing, but having no idea. Now that he was finally unmasked and exposed, the accepted idea of himself cracked and rolled aside like a broken chestnut-burr, the mask split and shattered, he was at last quiet and free. He had dreaded exposure: and behold, we cannot be exposed, for we are invisible. We cannot be exposed to the looks of others, for our very being is night-lustrous and unseeable. Like the Invisible Man, we are only revealed through our clothes and our masks. In his own powerful but subconscious fashion Aaron realized this. He was a musician. And hence even his deepest _ideas_: were not word-ideas, his very thoughts were not composed of words and ideal concepts. They too, his thoughts and his ideas, were dark and invisible, as electric vibrations are invisible no matter how many words they may purport. If I, as a word-user, must translate his deep conscious vibrations into finite words, that is my own business. I do but make a translation of the man. He would speak in music. I speak with words. The inaudible music of his conscious soul conveyed his meaning in him quite as clearly as I convey it in words: probably much more clearly. But in his own mode only: and it was in his own mode only he realised what I must put into words. These words are my own affair. His mind was music. Don't grumble at me then, gentle reader, and swear at me that this damned fellow wasn't half clever enough to think all these smart things, and realise all these fine-drawn-out subtleties. You are quite right, he wasn't, yet it all resolved itself in him as I say, and it is for you to prove that it didn't. In his now silent, maskless state of wordless comprehension, he knew that he had never wanted to surrender himself utterly to Lottie: nor to his mother: nor to anybody. The last extreme of self-abandon in love was for him an act of false behaviour. His own nature inside him fated him not to take this last false step, over the edge of the abyss of selflessness. Even if he wanted to, he could not. He might struggle on the edge of the precipice like an assassin struggling with his own soul, but he could not conquer. For, according to all the current prejudice and impulse in one direction, he too had believed that the final achievement, the consummation of human life, was this flinging oneself over the precipice, down the bottomless pit of love. Now he realised that love, even in its intensest, was only an attribute of the human soul: one of its incomprehensible gestures. And to fling down the whole soul in one gesture of finality in love was as much a criminal suicide as to jump off a church-tower or a mountain-peak. Let a man give himself as much as he liked in love, to seven thousand extremities, he must never give himself _away_. The more generous and the more passionate a soul, the more it _gives_ itself. But the more absolute remains the law, that it shall never give itself away. Give thyself, but give thyself not away. That is the lesson written at the end of the long strange lane of love. The _idee fixe_ of today is that every individual shall not only give himself, but shall achieve the last glory of giving himself away. And since this takes two--you can't even make a present of yourself unless you've got somebody to receive the present; since this last extra-divine act takes two people to perform it, you've got to take into count not only your giver but your receiver. Who is going to be the giver and who the receiver. Why, of course, in our long-drawn-out Christian day, man is given and woman is recipient. Man is the gift, woman the receiver. This is the sacrament we live by; the holy Communion we live for. That man gives himself to woman in an utter and sacred abandon, all, all, all himself given, and taken. Woman, eternal woman, she is the communicant. She receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage sacrament, poisoned by the sacred communion which was her goal and her soul's ambition. We have pushed a process into a goal. The aim of any process is not the perpetuation of that process, but the completion thereof. Love is a process of the incomprehensible human soul: love also incomprehensible, but still only a process. The process should work to a completion, not to some horror of intensification and extremity wherein the soul and body ultimately perish. The completion of the process of love is the arrival at a state of simple, pure self-possession, for man and woman. Only that. Which isn't exciting enough for us sensationalists. We prefer abysses and maudlin self-abandon and self-sacrifice, the degeneration into a sort of slime and merge. Perhaps, truly, the process of love is never accomplished. But it moves in great stages, and at the end of each stage a true goal, where the soul possesses itself in simple and generous singleness. Without this, love is a disease. So Aaron, crossing a certain border-line and finding himself alone completely, accepted his loneliness or singleness as a fulfilment, a state of fulfilment. The long fight with Lottie had driven him at last to himself, so that he was quiet as a thing which has its root deep in life, and has lost its anxiety. As for considering the lily, it is not a matter of consideration. The lily toils and spins hard enough, in her own way. But without that strain and that anxiety with which we try to weave ourselves a life. The lily is life-rooted, life-central. She _cannot_ worry. She is life itself, a little, delicate fountain playing creatively, for as long or as short a time as may be, and unable to be anxious. She may be sad or sorry, if the north wind blows. But even then, anxious she cannot be. Whether her fountain play or cease to play, from out the cold, damp earth, she cannot be anxious. She may only be glad or sorry, and continue her way. She is perfectly herself, whatever befall! even if frosts cut her off. Happy lily, never to be saddled with an _idee fixe_, never to be in the grip of a monomania for happiness or love or fulfilment. It is not _laisser aller_. It is life-rootedness. It is being by oneself, life-living, like the much-mooted lily. One toils, one spins, one strives: just as the lily does. But like her, taking one's own life-way amidst everything, and taking one's own life-way alone. Love too. But there also, taking one's way alone, happily alone in all the wonders of communion, swept up on the winds, but never swept away from one's very self. Two eagles in mid-air, maybe, like Whitman's Dalliance of Eagles. Two eagles in mid-air, grappling, whirling, coming to their intensification of love-oneness there in mid-air. In mid-air the love consummation. But all the time each lifted on its own wings: each bearing itself up on its own wings at every moment of the mid-air love consummation. That is the splendid love-way. ............... The party was festive at dinner-time, the women in their finest dresses, new flowers on the table, the best wine going. It was Sunday evening. Aaron too was dressed--and Lady Franks, in black lace and pearls, was almost gay. There were quails for dinner. The Colonel was quite happy. An air of conviviality gathered round the table during the course of the meal. “I hope,” said Aaron, “that we shall have some music tonight.” “I want so much to hear your flute,” said his hostess. “And I your piano,” he said. “I am very weak--very out of practise. I tremble at the thought of playing before a musician. But you must not be too critical.” “Oh,” said Aaron, “I am not a man to be afraid of.” “Well, we will see,” said Lady Franks. “But I am afraid of music itself.” “Yes,” said Aaron. “I think it is risky.” “Risky! I don't see that! Music risky? Bach? Beethoven! No, I don't agree. On the contrary, I think it is most elevating--most morally inspiring. No, I tremble before it because it is so wonderful and elevating.” “I often find it makes me feel diabolical,” said he. “That is your misfortune, I am sure,” said Lady Franks. “Please do take another--but perhaps you don't like mushrooms?” Aaron quite liked mushrooms, and helped himself to the _entree_. “But perhaps,” said she, “you are too modern. You don't care for Bach or Beethoven or Chopin--dear Chopin.” “I find them all quite as modern as I am.” “Is that so! Yes. For myself I am quite old-fashioned--though I can appreciate Strauss and Stravinsky as well, some things. But my old things--ah, I don't think the moderns are so fine. They are not so deep. They haven't fathomed life so deeply.” Lady Franks sighed faintly. “They don't care for depths,” said Aaron. “No, they haven't the capacity. But I like big, deep music. Oh, I love orchestra. But my instrument is the piano. I like the great masters, Bach, Beethoven. They have such faith. You were talking of faith--believing that things would work out well for you in the end. Beethoven inspires that in me, too.” “He makes you feel that all will be well with you at last?” “Yes, he does. He makes me feel faith in my PERSONAL destiny. And I do feel that there is something in one's special fate. I feel that I myself have a special kind of fate, that will always look after me.” “And you can trust to it?” “Yes, I can. It ALWAYS turns out right. I think something has gone wrong--and then, it always turns out right. Why when we were in London--when we were at lunch one morning it suddenly struck me, haven't I left my fur cloak somewhere? It was rather cold, so I had taken it with me, and then never put it on. And I hadn't brought it home. I had left it somewhere. But whether in a taxi, or in a shop, or in a little show of pictures I had been to, I couldn't remember. I COULD NOT remember. And I thought to myself: have I lost my cloak? I went round to everywhere I could think of: no-trace of it. But I didn't give it up. Something prompted me not to give it up: quite distinctly, I felt something telling me that I should get it back. So I called at Scotland Yard and gave the information. Well, two days later I had a notice from Scotland Yard, so I went. And there was my cloak. I had it back. And that has happened to me almost every time. I almost always get my things back. And I always feel that something looks after me, do you know: almost takes care of me.” “But do you mean when you lose things--or in your life?” “I mean when I lose things--or when I want to get something I want--I am very nearly ALWAYS successful. And I always feel there is some sort of higher power which does it for me.” “Finds your cloak for you.” “Yes. Wasn't it extraordinary? I felt when I saw my cloak in Scotland Yard: There, I KNEW I should recover you. And I always feel, as I say, that there is some higher power which helps me. Do you feel the same?” “No, not that way, worse luck. I lost a batch of music a month ago which didn't belong to me--and which I couldn't replace. But I never could recover it: though I'm sure nobody wanted it.” “How very unfortunate! Whereas my fur cloak was just the thing that gets stolen most.” “I wished some power would trace my music: but apparently we aren't all gifted alike with guardian angels.” “Apparently not. And that is how I regard it: almost as a gift, you know, that my fairy godmother gave me in my cradle.” “For always recovering your property?” “Yes--and succeeding in my undertakings.” “I'm afraid I had no fairy godmother.” “Well--I think I had. And very glad I am of it.” “Why, yes,” said Aaron, looking at his hostess. So the dinner sailed merrily on. “But does Beethoven make you feel,” said Aaron as an afterthought, “in the same way--that you will always find the things you have lost?” “Yes--he makes me feel the same faith: that what I lose will be returned to me. Just as I found my cloak. And that if I enter into an undertaking, it will be successful.” “And your life has been always successful?” “Yes--almost always. We have succeeded with almost everything.” “Why, yes,” said Aaron, looking at her again. But even so, he could see a good deal of hard wornness under her satisfaction. She had had her suffering, sure enough. But none the less, she was in the main satisfied. She sat there, a good hostess, and expected the homage due to her success. And of course she got it. Aaron himself did his little share of shoe-licking, and swallowed the taste of boot-polish with a grimace, knowing what he was about. The dinner wound gaily to an end. The ladies retired. Sir William left his seat of honour at the end of the table and came and sat next to Aaron, summoning the other three men to cluster near. “Now, Colonel,” said the host, “send round the bottle.” With a flourish of the elbow and shoulder, the Colonel sent on the port, actually port, in those bleak, post-war days! “Well, Mr. Sisson,” said Sir William, “we will drink to your kind Providence: providing, of course, that we shall give no offence by so doing.” “No, sir; no, sir! The Providence belonged to Mr. Lilly. Mr. Sisson put his money on kindly fortune, I believe,” said Arthur, who rosy and fresh with wine, looked as if he would make a marvelous _bonne bouchee_ for a finely-discriminating cannibal. “Ah, yes, indeed! A much more ingratiating lady to lift our glasses to. Mr. Sisson's kindly fortune. _Fortuna gentil-issima_! Well, Mr. Sisson, and may your Lady Fortune ever smile on you.” Sir William lifted his glass with an odd little smirk, some touch of a strange, prim old satyr lurking in his oddly inclined head. Nay, more than satyr: that curious, rather terrible iron demon that has fought with the world and wrung wealth from it, and which knows all about it. The devilish spirit of iron itself, and iron machines. So, with his strange, old smile showing his teeth rather terribly, the old knight glowered sightlessly over his glass at Aaron. Then he drank: the strange, careful, old-man's gesture in drinking. “But,” said Aaron, “if Fortune is a female---” “Fortune! Fortune! Why, Fortune is a lady. What do you say, Major?” “She has all the airs of one, Sir William,” said the Major, with the wistful grimness of his age and culture. And the young fellow stared like a crucified cyclops from his one eye: the black shutter being over the other. “And all the graces,” capped Sir William, delighted with himself. “Oh, quite!” said the Major. “For some, all the airs, and for others, all the graces.” “Faint heart ne'er won fair lady, my boy,” said Sir William. “Not that your heart is faint. On the contrary--as we know, and your country knows. But with Lady Fortune you need another kind of stout heart--oh, quite another kind.” “I believe it, sir: and the kind of stout heart which I am afraid I haven't got,” said the Major. “What!” said the old man. “Show the white feather before you've tackled the lady! Fill the Major's glass, Colonel. I am quite sure we will none of us ever say die.” “Not likely. Not if we know it,” said the Colonel, stretching himself heartily inside his tunic. He was becoming ruddier than the cherry. All he cared about at the moment was his gay little port glass. But the Major's young cheek was hollow and sallow, his one eye terribly pathetic. “And you, Mr. Sisson,” said Sir William, “mean to carry all before you by taking no thought for the morrow. Well, now, we can only wish you success.” “I don't want to carry all before me,” said Aaron. “I should be sorry. I want to walk past most of it.” “Can you tell us where to? I am intrigued, as Sybil says, to know where you will walk to. Come now. Enlighten us.” “Nowhere, I suppose.” “But is that satisfactory? Can you find it satisfactory?” “Is it even true?” said the Major. “Isn't it quite as positive an act to walk away from a situation as to walk towards it?” “My dear boy, you can't merely walk away from a situation. Believe that. If you walk away from Rome, you walk into the Maremma, or into the Alban Hills, or into the sea--but you walk into something. Now if I am going to walk away from Rome, I prefer to choose my direction, and therefore my destination.” “But you can't,” said the Major. “What can't you?” “Choose. Either your direction or your destination.” The Major was obstinate. “Really!” said Sir William. “I have not found it so. I have not found it so. I have had to keep myself hard at work, all my life, choosing between this or that.” “And we,” said the Major, “have no choice, except between this or nothing.” “Really! I am afraid,” said Sir William, “I am afraid I am too old--or too young--which shall I say?--to understand.” “Too young, sir,” said Arthur sweetly. “The child was always father to the man, I believe.” “I confess the Major makes me feel childish,” said the old man. “The choice between this or nothing is a puzzler to me. Can you help me out, Mr. Sisson? What do you make of this this-or-nothing business? I can understand neck-or-nothing---” “I prefer the NOTHING part of it to the THIS part of it,” said Aaron, grinning. “Colonel,” said the old man, “throw a little light on this nothingness.” “No, Sir William,” said the Colonel. “I am all right as I am.” “As a matter of fact, so are we all, perfectly A-one,” said Arthur. Aaron broke into a laugh. “That's the top and bottom of it,” he laughed, flushed with wine, and handsome. We're all as right as ninepence. Only it's rather nice to talk.” “There!” said Sir William. “We're all as right as ninepence! We're all as right ninepence. So there well leave it, before the Major has time to say he is twopence short.” Laughing his strange old soundless laugh, Sir William rose and made a little bow. “Come up and join the ladies in a minute or two,” he said. Arthur opened the door for him and he left the room. The four men were silent for a moment--then the Colonel whipped up the decanter and filled his glass. Then he stood up and clinked glasses with Aaron, like a real old sport. “Luck to you,” he said. “Thanks,” said Aaron. “You're going in the morning?” said Arthur. “Yes,” said Aaron. “What train?” said Arthur. “Eight-forty.” “Oh--then we shan't see you again. Well--best of luck.” “Best of luck--” echoed the Colonel. “Same to you,” said Aaron, and they all peered over their glasses and quite loved one another for a rosy minute. “I should like to know, though,” said the hollow-cheeked young Major with the black flap over his eye, “whether you do really mean you are all right--that it is all right with you--or whether you only say so to get away from the responsibility.” “I mean I don't really care--I don't a damn--let the devil take it all.” “The devil doesn't want it, either,” said the Major. “Then let him leave it. I don't care one single little curse about it all.” “Be damned. What is there to care about?” said the Colonel. “Ay, what?” said Aaron. “It's all the same, whether you care or don't care. So I say it's much easier not to care,” said Arthur. “Of course it is,” said the Colonel gaily. “And I think so, too,” said Aaron. “Right you are! We're all as right as ninepence--what? Good old sport! Here's yours!” cried the Colonel. “We shall have to be going up,” said Arthur, wise in his generation. As they went into the hall, Arthur suddenly put one arm round Aaron's waist, and one arm round the Colonel's, and the three did a sudden little barn-dance towards the stairs. Arthur was feeling himself quite let loose again, back in his old regimental mess. Approaching the foot of the stairs, he let go again. He was in that rosy condition when united-we-stand. But unfortunately it is a complicated job to climb the stairs in unison. The whole lot tends to fall backwards. Arthur, therefore, rosy, plump, looking so good to eat, stood still a moment in order to find his own neatly-slippered feet. Having found them, he proceeded to put them carefully one before the other, and to his enchantment found that this procedure was carrying him magically up the stairs. The Colonel, like a drowning man, clutched feebly for the straw of the great stair-rail--and missed it. He would have gone under, but that Aaron's hand gripped his arm. So, orientating once more like a fragile tendril, he reached again for the banister rail, and got it. After which, lifting his feet as if they were little packets of sand tied to his trouser buttons, he manipulated his way upwards. Aaron was in that pleasant state when he saw what everybody else was doing and was unconscious of what he did himself. Whilst tall, gaunt, erect, like a murdered Hamlet resurrected in khaki, with the terrible black shutter over his eye, the young Major came last. Arthur was making a stern fight for his composure. His whole future depended on it. But do what he would, he could not get the flushed, pleased, mess-happy look off his face. The Colonel, oh, awful man, did a sort of plump roly-poly-cake-walk, like a fat boy, right to the very door of that santum-sanctorum, the library. Aaron was inwardly convulsed. Even the Major laughed. But Arthur stiffened himself militarily and cleared his throat. All four started to compose themselves, like actors going on the stage, outside that library door. And then Arthur softly, almost wistfully, opened and held the door for the others to pass. The Colonel slunk meekly in, and sat in a chair in the background. The Major stalked in expressionless, and hovered towards the sofa where his wife sat. There was a rather cold-water-down-your-back feeling in the library. The ladies had been waiting for coffee. Sir William was waiting, too. Therefore in a little tension, half silent, the coffee was handed round. Lady Franks was discussing something with Arthur's wife. Arthur's wife was in a cream lace dress, and looking what is called lovely. The Major's wife was in amethyst chiffon with dark-red roses, and was looking blindingly beautiful. The Colonel was looking into his coffee-cup as wistfully as if it contained the illusion of tawny port. The Major was looking into space, as if there and there alone, etc. Arthur was looking for something which Lady Franks had asked for, and which he was much too flushed to find. Sir William was looking at Aaron, and preparing for another _coeur a coeur_. “Well,” he said, “I doubt if you will care for Milan. It is one of the least Italian of all the towns, in my opinion. Venice, of course, is a thing apart. I cannot stand, myself, that miserable specimen the modern Roman. He has most of the vices of the old Romans and none of the virtues. The most congenial town, perhaps, for a stranger, is Florence. But it has a very bad climate.” Lady Franks rose significantly and left the room, accompanied by Arthur's wife. Aaron knew, silently, that he was summoned to follow. His hostess had her eye on him this evening. But always postponing his obedience to the cool commands of women, he remained talking with his host in the library, and sipping _creme de menthe_! Came the ripple of the pianoforte from the open doorway down at the further end of the room. Lady Franks was playing, in the large drawing-room. And the ripple of the music contained in it the hard insistence of the little woman's will. Coldly, and decidedly, she intended there should be no more unsettling conversations for the old Sir William. Aaron was to come forthwith into the drawing room. Which Aaron plainly understood--and so he didn't go. No, he didn't go, though the pianoforte rippled and swelled in volume. No, and he didn't go even when Lady Franks left off playing and came into the library again. There he sat, talking with Sir William. Let us do credit to Lady Franks' will-power, and admit that the talk was quite empty and distracted--none of the depths and skirmishes of the previous occasions. None the less, the talk continued. Lady Franks retired, discomfited, to her piano again. She would never break in upon her lord. So now Aaron relented. He became more and more distracted. Sir William wandered away like some restless, hunted soul. The Colonel still sat in his chair, nursing his last drop of _creme de menthe_ resentfully. He did not care for the green toffee-stuff. Arthur was busy. The Major lay sprawled in the last stages of everything on the sofa, holding his wife's hand. And the music came pathetically through the open folding-doors. Of course, she played with feeling--it went without saying. Aaron's soul felt rather tired. But she had a touch of discrimination also. He rose and went to the drawing-room. It was a large, vacant-seeming, Empire sort of drawing-room, with yellow silk chairs along the walls and yellow silk panels upon the walls, and a huge, vasty crystal chandelier hanging from a faraway-above ceiling. Lady Franks sat at a large black Bechstein piano at one end of this vacant yellow state-room. She sat, a little plump elderly lady in black lace, for all the world like Queen Victoria in Max Beerbohm's drawing of Alfred Tennyson reading to her Victorian Majesty, with space before her. Arthur's wife was bending over some music in a remote corner of the big room. Aaron seated himself on one of the chairs by the wall, to listen. Certainly it was a beautiful instrument. And certainly, in her way, she loved it. But Aaron remembered an anthem in which he had taken part as a boy. His eye is on the sparrow So I know He watches me. For a long time he had failed to catch the word _sparrow_, and had heard: His eye is on the spy-hole So I know He watches me. Which was just how it had all seemed to him, as a boy. Now, as ever, he felt the eye was on the spy-hole. There sat the woman playing music. But her inward eye was on the spy-hole of her vital affairs--her domestic arrangements, her control of her household, guests and husband included. The other eye was left for the music, don't you know. Sir William appeared hovering in the doorway, not at all liking the defection of Mr. Aaron. Then he retreated. He seemed not to care for music. The Major's wife hovered--felt it her duty to _aude_, or play audience--and entered, seating herself in a breath of lilac and amethyst again at the near distance. The Major, after a certain beating about the bush, followed and sat wrapt in dim contemplation near his wife. Arthur luckily was still busy with something. Aaron of course made proper musical remarks in the intervals--Arthur's wife sorted out more pieces. Arthur appeared--and then the Colonel. The Colonel tip-toed beautifully across the wide blank space of the Empire room, and seated himself on a chair, rather in the distance, with his back to the wall, facing Aaron. When Lady Franks finished her piece, to everybody's amazement the Colonel clapped gaily to himself and said Bravo! as if at a Cafe Chantant, looking round for his glass. But there was no glass. So he crossed his neatly-khakied legs, and looked rapt again. Lady Franks started with a _vivace_ Schumann piece. Everybody listened in sanctified silence, trying to seem to like it. When suddenly our Colonel began to spring and bounce in his chair, slinging his loose leg with a kind of rapture up and down in the air, and capering upon his posterior, doing a sitting-down jig to the Schumann _vivace_. Arthur, who had seated himself at the farthest extremity of the room, winked with wild bliss at Aaron. The Major tried to look as if he noticed nothing, and only succeeded in looking agonised. His wife studied the point of her silver shoe minutely, and peeped through her hair at the performance. Aaron grimly chuckled, and loved the Colonel with real tenderness. And the game went on while the _vivace_ lasted. Up and down bounced the plump Colonel on his chair, kicking with his bright, black-patent toe higher and higher, getting quite enthusiastic over his jig. Rosy and unabashed, he was worthy of the great nation he belonged to. The broad-seated Empire chair showed no signs of giving way. Let him enjoy himself, away there across the yellow Sahara of this silk-panelled salon. Aaron felt quite cheered up. “Well, now,” he thought to himself, “this man is in entire command of a very important branch of the British Service in Italy. We are a great race still.” But Lady Franks must have twigged. Her playing went rather stiff. She came to the end of the _vivace_ movement, and abandoned her piece. “I always prefer Schumann in his _vivace_ moods,” said Aaron. “Do you?” said Lady Franks. “Oh, I don't know.” It was now the turn of Arthur's wife to sing. Arthur seemed to get further away: if it was possible, for he was at the remotest remote end of the room, near the gallery doors. The Colonel became quiet, pensive. The Major's wife eyed the young woman in white lace, and seemed not to care for lace. Arthur seemed to be trying to push himself backwards through the wall. Lady Franks switched on more lights into the vast and voluminous crystal chandelier which hung like some glory-cloud above the room's centre. And Arthur's wife sang sweet little French songs, and _Ye Banks and Braes_, and _Caro mio ben_, which goes without saying: and so on. She had quite a nice voice and was quite adequately trained. Which is enough said. Aaron had all his nerves on edge. Then he had to play the flute. Arthur strolled upstairs with him, arm-in-arm, where he went to fetch his instrument. “I find music in the home rather a strain, you know,” said Arthur. “Cruel strain. I quite agree,” said Aaron. “I don't mind it so much in the theatre--or even a concert--where there are a lot of other people to take the edge off-- But after a good dinner--” “It's medicine,” said Aaron. “Well, you know, it really is, to me. It affects my inside.” Aaron laughed. And then, in the yellow drawing-room, blew into his pipe and played. He knew so well that Arthur, the Major, the Major's wife, the Colonel, and Sir William thought it merely an intolerable bore. However, he played. His hostess even accompanied him in a Mozart bit. CHAPTER XIV. XX SETTEMBRE Aaron was awakened in the morning by the soft entrance of the butler with the tray: it was just seven o'clock. Lady Franks' household was punctual as the sun itself. But our hero roused himself with a wrench. The very act of lifting himself from the pillow was like a fight this morning. Why? He recognized his own wrench, the pain with which he struggled under the necessity to move. Why shouldn't he want to move? Why not? Because he didn't want the day in front--the plunge into a strange country, towards nowhere, with no aim in view. True, he said that ultimately he wanted to join Lilly. But this was hardly more than a sop, an excuse for his own irrational behaviour. He was breaking loose from one connection after another; and what for? Why break every tie? Snap, snap, snap went the bonds and ligatures which bound him to the life that had formed him, the people he had loved or liked. He found all his affections snapping off, all the ties which united him with his own people coming asunder. And why? In God's name, why? What was there instead? There was nothingness. There was just himself, and blank nothingness. He had perhaps a faint sense of Lilly ahead of him; an impulse in that direction, or else merely an illusion. He could not persuade himself that he was seeking for love, for any kind of unison or communion. He knew well enough that the thought of any loving, any sort of real coming together between himself and anybody or anything, was just objectionable to him. No--he was not moving _towards_ anything: he was moving almost violently away from everything. And that was what he wanted. Only that. Only let him _not_ run into any sort of embrace with anything or anybody--this was what he asked. Let no new connection be made between himself and anything on earth. Let all old connections break. This was his craving. Yet he struggled under it this morning as under the lid of a tomb. The terrible sudden weight of inertia! He knew the tray stood ready by the bed: he knew the automobile would be at the door at eight o'clock, for Lady Franks had said so, and he half divined that the servant had also said so: yet there he lay, in a kind of paralysis in this bed. He seemed for the moment to have lost his will. Why go forward into more nothingness, away from all that he knew, all he was accustomed to and all he belonged to? However, with a click he sat up. And the very instant he had poured his coffee from the little silver coffee-pot into his delicate cup, he was ready for anything and everything. The sense of silent adventure took him, the exhilarated feeling that he was fulfilling his own inward destiny. Pleasant to taste was the coffee, the bread, the honey--delicious. The man brought his clothes, and again informed him that the automobile would be at the door at eight o'clock: or at least so he made out. “I can walk,” said Aaron. “Milady ha comandato l'automobile,” said the man softly. It was evident that if Milady had ordered it, so it must be. So Aaron left the still-sleeping house, and got into the soft and luxurious car. As he dropped through the park he wondered that Sir William and Lady Franks should be so kind to him: a complete stranger. But so it was. There he sat in their car. He wondered, also, as he ran over the bridge and into the city, whether this soft-running automobile would ever rouse the socialistic bile of the work-people. For the first time in his life, as he sat among the snug cushions, he realised what it might be to be rich and uneasy: uneasy, even if not afraid, lurking there inside an expensive car.--Well, it wasn't much of a sensation anyhow: and riches were stuffy, like wadded upholstery on everything. He was glad to get out into the fresh air of the common crowd. He was glad to be in the bleak, not-very-busy station. He was glad to be part of common life. For the very atmosphere of riches seems to be stuffed and wadded, never any real reaction. It was terrible, as if one's very body, shoulders and arms, were upholstered and made cushiony. Ugh, but he was glad to shake off himself the atmosphere of wealth and motor-cars, to get out of it all. It was like getting out of quilted clothes. “Well,” thought Aaron, “if this is all it amounts to, to be rich, you can have riches. They talk about money being power. But the only sort of power it has over me is to bring on a kind of numbness, which I fairly hate. No wonder rich people don't seem to be really alive.” The relief of escaping quite took away his self-conscious embarrassment at the station. He carried his own bags, bought a third-class ticket, and got into the train for Milan without caring one straw for the comments or the looks of the porters. It began to rain. The rain ran across the great plain of north Italy. Aaron sat in his wood-seated carriage and smoked his pipe in silence, looking at the thick, short Lombards opposite him without heeding them. He paid hardly any outward attention to his surroundings, but sat involved in himself. In Milan he had been advised to go to the Hotel Britannia, because it was not expensive, and English people went there. So he took a carriage, drove round the green space in front of Milan station, and away into the town. The streets were busy, but only half-heartedly so. It must be confessed that every new move he made was rather an effort. Even he himself wondered why he was struggling with foreign porters and foreign cabmen, being talked at and not understanding a word. But there he was. So he went on with it. The hotel was small and congenial. The hotel porter answered in English. Aaron was given a little room with a tiny balcony, looking on to a quiet street. So, he had a home of his own once more. He washed, and then counted his money. Thirty-seven pounds he had: and no more. He stood on the balcony and looked at the people going by below. Life seems to be moving so quick, when one looks down on it from above. Across the road was a large stone house with its green shutters all closed. But from the flagpole under the eaves, over the central window of the uppermost floor--the house was four storeys high--waved the Italian flag in the melancholy damp air. Aaron looked at it--the red, white and green tricolour, with the white cross of Savoy in the centre. It hung damp and still. And there seemed a curious vacancy in the city--something empty and depressing in the great human centre. Not that there was really a lack of people. But the spirit of the town seemed depressed and empty. It was a national holiday. The Italian flag was hanging from almost every housefront. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Aaron sat in the restaurant of the hotel drinking tea, for he was rather tired, and looking through the thin curtains at the little square outside, where people passed: little groups of dark, aimless-seeming men, a little bit poorer looking--perhaps rather shorter in stature--but very much like the people in any other town. Yet the feeling of the city was so different from that of London. There seemed a curious emptiness. The rain had ceased, but the pavements were still wet. There was a tension. Suddenly there was a noise of two shots, fired in rapid succession. Aaron turned startled to look into the quiet piazza. And to his amazement, the pavements were empty, not a soul was in sight. Two minutes before the place was busy with passers-by, and a newspaper man selling the Corriere, and little carriages rattling through. Now, as if by magic, nobody, nothing. It was as if they had all melted into thin air. The waiter, too, was peeping behind the curtain. A carriage came trotting into the square--an odd man took his way alone--the traffic began to stir once more, and people reappeared as suddenly as they had disappeared. Then the waiter ran hastily and furtively out and craned his neck, peering round the square. He spoke with two youths--rather loutish youths. Then he returned to his duty in the hotel restaurant. “What was it? What were the shots?” Aaron asked him. “Oh--somebody shooting at a dog,” said the man negligently. “At a dog!” said Aaron, with round eyes. He finished his tea, and went out into the town. His hotel was not far from the cathedral square. Passing through the arcade, he came in sight of the famous cathedral with its numerous spines pricking into the afternoon air. He was not as impressed as he should have been. And yet there was something in the northern city--this big square with all the trams threading through, the little yellow Continental trams: and the spiny bulk of the great cathedral, like a grey-purple sea-urchin with many spines, on the one side, the ornamental grass-plots and flower beds on the other: the big shops going all along the further strands, all round: and the endless restless nervous drift of a north Italian crowd, so nervous, so twitchy; nervous and twitchy as the slipping past of the little yellow tram-cars; it all affected him with a sense of strangeness, nervousness, and approaching winter. It struck him the people were afraid of themselves: afraid of their own souls, and that which was in their own souls. Turning up the broad steps of the cathedral, he entered the famous building. The sky had cleared, and the freshened light shone coloured in living tablets round the wonderful, towering, rose-hearted dusk of the great church. At some altars lights flickered uneasily. At some unseen side altar mass was going on, and a strange ragged music fluttered out on the incense-dusk of the great and lofty interior, which was all shadow, all shadow, hung round with jewel tablets of light. Particularly beautiful the great east bay, above the great altar. And all the time, over the big-patterned marble floor, the faint click and rustle of feet coming and going, coming and going, like shallow uneasy water rustled back and forth in a trough. A white dog trotted pale through the under-dusk, over the pale, big-patterned floor. Aaron came to the side altar where mass was going on, candles ruddily wavering. There was a small cluster of kneeling women--a ragged handful of on-looking men--and people wandering up and wandering away, young women with neatly dressed black hair, and shawls, but without hats; fine young women in very high heels; young men with nothing to do; ragged men with nothing to do. All strayed faintly clicking over the slabbed floor, and glanced at the flickering altar where the white-surpliced boys were curtseying and the white-and-gold priest bowing, his hands over his breast, in the candle-light. All strayed, glanced, lingered, and strayed away again, as if the spectacle were not sufficiently holding. The bell chimed for the elevation of the Host. But the thin trickle of people trickled the same, uneasily, over the slabbed floor of the vastly-upreaching shadow-foliaged cathedral. The smell of incense in his nostrils, Aaron went out again by a side door, and began to walk along the pavements of the cathedral square, looking at the shops. Some were closed, and had little notices pinned on them. Some were open, and seemed half-stocked with half-elegant things. Men were carrying newspapers. In the cafes a few men were seated drinking vermouth. In the doorway of the restaurants waiters stood inert, looking out on the streets. The curious heart-eating _ennui_ of the big town on a holiday came over our hero. He felt he must get out, whatever happened. He could not bear it. So he went back to his hotel and up to his room. It was still only five o'clock. And he did not know what to do with himself. He lay down on the bed, and looked at the painting on his bedroom ceiling. It was a terrible business in reckitt's blue and browny gold, with awful heraldic beasts, rather worm-wriggly, displayed in a blue field. As he lay thinking of nothing and feeling nothing except a certain weariness, or dreariness, or tension, or God-knows-what, he heard a loud hoarse noise of humanity in the distance, something frightening. Rising, he went on to his little balcony. It was a sort of procession, or march of men, here and there a red flag fluttering from a man's fist. There had been a big meeting, and this was the issue. The procession was irregular, but powerful, men four abreast. They emerged irregularly from the small piazza to the street, calling and vociferating. They stopped before a shop and clotted into a crowd, shouting, becoming vicious. Over the shop-door hung a tricolour, a national flag. The shop was closed, but the men began to knock at the door. They were all workmen, some in railway men's caps, mostly in black felt hats. Some wore red cotton neck-ties. They lifted their faces to the national flag, and as they shouted and gesticulated Aaron could see their strong teeth in their jaws. There was something frightening in their lean, strong Italian jaws, something inhuman and possessed-looking in their foreign, southern-shaped faces, so much more formed and demon-looking than northern faces. They had a demon-like set purpose, and the noise of their voices was like a jarring of steel weapons. Aaron wondered what they wanted. There were no women--all men--a strange male, slashing sound. Vicious it was--the head of the procession swirling like a little pool, the thick wedge of the procession beyond, flecked with red flags. A window opened above the shop, and a frowsty-looking man, yellow-pale, was quickly and nervously hauling in the national flag. There were shouts of derision and mockery--a great overtone of acrid derision--the flag and its owner ignominiously disappeared. And the procession moved on. Almost every shop had a flag flying. And every one of these flags now disappeared, quickly or slowly, sooner or later, in obedience to the command of the vicious, derisive crowd, that marched and clotted slowly down the street, having its own way. Only one flag remained flying--the big tricolour that floated from the top storey of the house opposite Aaron's hotel. The ground floor of this house consisted of shop-premises--now closed. There was no sign of any occupant. The flag floated inert aloft. The whole crowd had come to a stop immediately below the hotel, and all were now looking up at the green and white and red tricolour which stirred damply in the early evening light, from under the broad eaves of the house opposite. Aaron looked at the long flag, which drooped almost unmoved from the eaves-shadow, and he half expected it to furl itself up of its own accord, in obedience to the will of the masses. Then he looked down at the packed black shoulders of the mob below, and at the curious clustering pattern of a sea of black hats. He could hardly see anything but hats and shoulders, uneasily moving like boiling pitch away beneath him. But the shouts began to come up hotter and hotter. There had been a great ringing of a door-bell and battering on the shop-door. The crowd--the swollen head of the procession--talked and shouted, occupying the centre of the street, but leaving the pavement clear. A woman in a white blouse appeared in the shop-door. She came out and looked up at the flag and shook her head and gesticulated with her hands. It was evidently not her flag--she had nothing to do with it. The leaders again turned to the large house-door, and began to ring all the bells and to knock with their knuckles. But no good--there was no answer. They looked up again at the flag. Voices rose ragged and ironical. The woman explained something again. Apparently there was nobody at home in the upper floors--all entrance was locked--there was no caretaker. Nobody owned the flag. There it hung under the broad eaves of the strong stone house, and didn't even know that it was guilty. The woman went back into her shop and drew down the iron shutter from inside. The crowd, nonplussed, now began to argue and shout and whistle. The voices rose in pitch and derision. Steam was getting up. There hung the flag. The procession crowded forward and filled the street in a mass below. All the rest of the street was empty and shut up. And still hung the showy rag, red and white and green, up aloft. Suddenly there was a lull--then shouts, half-encouraging, half-derisive. And Aaron saw a smallish-black figure of a youth, fair-haired, not more than seventeen years old, clinging like a monkey to the front of the house, and by the help of the heavy drain-pipe and the stone-work ornamentation climbing up to the stone ledge that ran under ground-floor windows, up like a sudden cat on to the projecting footing. He did not stop there, but continued his race like some frantic lizard running up the great wall-front, working away from the noise below, as if in sheer fright. It was one unending wriggling movement, sheer up the front of the impassive, heavy stone house. The flag hung from a pole under one of the windows of the top storey--the third floor. Up went the wriggling figure of the possessed youth. The cries of the crowd below were now wild, ragged ejaculations of excitement and encouragement. The youth seemed to be lifted up, almost magically on the intense upreaching excitement of the massed men below. He passed the ledge of the first floor, like a lizard he wriggled up and passed the ledge or coping of the second floor, and there he was, like an upward-climbing shadow, scrambling on to the coping of the third floor. The crowd was for a second electrically still as the boy rose there erect, cleaving to the wall with the tips of his fingers. But he did not hesitate for one breath. He was on his feet and running along the narrow coping that went across the house under the third floor windows, running there on that narrow footing away above the street, straight to the flag. He had got it--he had clutched it in his hand, a handful of it. Exactly like a great flame rose the simultaneous yell of the crowd as the boy jerked and got the flag loose. He had torn it down. A tremendous prolonged yell, touched with a snarl of triumph, and searing like a puff of flame, sounded as the boy remained for one moment with the flag in his hand looking down at the crowd below. His face was odd and elated and still. Then with the slightest gesture he threw the flag from him, and Aaron watched the gaudy remnant falling towards the many faces, whilst the noise of yelling rose up unheard. There was a great clutch and hiss in the crowd. The boy still stood unmoved, holding by one hand behind him, looking down from above, from his dangerous elevation, in a sort of abstraction. And the next thing Aaron was conscious of was the sound of trumpets. A sudden startling challenge of trumpets, and out of nowhere a sudden rush of grey-green carabinieri battering the crowd wildly with truncheons. It was so sudden that Aaron _heard_ nothing any more. He only saw. In utmost amazement he saw the greeny-grey uniformed carabinieri rushing thick and wild and indiscriminate on the crowd: a sudden new excited crowd in uniforms attacking the black crowd, beating them wildly with truncheons. There was a seething moment in the street below. And almost instantaneously the original crowd burst into a terror of frenzy. The mob broke as if something had exploded inside it. A few black-hatted men fought furiously to get themselves free of the hated soldiers; in the confusion bunches of men staggered, reeled, fell, and were struggling among the legs of their comrades and of the carabinieri. But the bulk of the crowd just burst and fled--in every direction. Like drops of water they seemed to fly up at the very walls themselves. They darted into any entry, any doorway. They sprang up the walls and clambered into the ground-floor windows. They sprang up the walls on to window-ledges, and then jumped down again, and ran--clambering, wriggling, darting, running in every direction; some cut, blood on their faces, terror or frenzy of flight in their hearts. Not so much terror as the frenzy of running away. In a breath the street was empty. And all the time, there above on the stone coping stood the long-faced, fair-haired boy, while four stout carabinieri in the street below stood with uplifted revolvers and covered him, shouting that if he moved they would shoot. So there he stood, still looking down, still holding with his left hand behind him, covered by the four revolvers. He was not so much afraid as twitchily self-conscious because of his false position. Meanwhile down below the crowd had dispersed--melted momentaneously. The carabinieri were busy arresting the men who had fallen and been trodden underfoot, or who had foolishly let themselves be taken; perhaps half a dozen men, half a dozen prisoners; less rather than more. The sergeant ordered these to be secured between soldiers. And last of all the youth up above, still covered by the revolvers, was ordered to come down. He turned quite quietly, and quite humbly, cautiously picked his way along the coping towards the drain-pipe. He reached this pipe and began, in humiliation, to climb down. It was a real climb down. Once in the street he was surrounded by the grey uniforms. The soldiers formed up. The sergeant gave the order. And away they marched, the dejected youth a prisoner between them. Then were heard a few scattered yells of derision and protest, a few shouts of anger and derision against the carabinieri. There were once more gangs of men and groups of youths along the street. They sent up an occasional shout. But always over their shoulders, and pretending it was not they who shouted. They were all cowed and hang-dog once more, and made not the slightest effort to save the youth. Nevertheless, they prowled and watched, ready for the next time. So, away went the prisoner and the grey-green soldiers, and the street was left to the little gangs and groups of hangdog, discontented men, all thoroughly out of countenance. The scene was ended. Aaron looked round, dazed. And then for the first time he noticed, on the next balcony to his own, two young men: young gentlemen, he would have said. The one was tall and handsome and well-coloured, might be Italian. But the other with his pale thin face and his rimless monocle in his eye, he was surely an Englishman. He was surely one of the young officers shattered by the war. A look of strange, arch, bird-like pleasure was on his face at this moment: if one could imagine the gleaming smile of a white owl over the events that had just passed, this was the impression produced on Aaron by the face of the young man with the monocle. The other youth, the ruddy, handsome one, had knitted his brows in mock distress, and was glancing with a look of shrewd curiosity at Aaron, and with a look of almost self-satisfied excitement first to one end of the street, then to the other. “But imagine, Angus, it's all over!” he said, laying his hand on the arm of the monocled young man, and making great eyes--not without a shrewd glance in Aaron's direction. “Did you see him fall!” replied Angus, with another strange gleam. “Yes. But was he HURT--?” “I don't know. I should think so. He fell right back out of that on to those stones!” “But how perfectly AWFUL! Did you ever see anything like it?” “No. It's one of the funniest things I ever did see. I saw nothing quite like it, even in the war--” Here Aaron withdrew into his room. His mind and soul were in a whirl. He sat down in his chair, and did not move again for a great while. When he did move, he took his flute and played he knew not what. But strange, strange his soul passed into his instrument. Or passed half into his instrument. There was a big residue left, to go bitter, or to ferment into gold old wine of wisdom. He did not notice the dinner gong, and only the arrival of the chamber-maid, to put the wash-table in order, sent him down to the restaurant. The first thing he saw, as he entered, was the two young Englishmen seated at a table in a corner just behind him. Their hair was brushed straight back from their foreheads, making the sweep of the head bright and impeccable, and leaving both the young faces clear as if in cameo. Angus had laid his monocle on the table, and was looking round the room with wide, light-blue eyes, looking hard, like some bird-creature, and seeming to see nothing. He had evidently been very ill: was still very ill. His cheeks and even his jaw seemed shrunken, almost withered. He forgot his dinner: or he did not care for it. Probably the latter. “What do you think, Francis,” he said, “of making a plan to see Florence and Sienna and Orvieto on the way down, instead of going straight to Rome?” He spoke in precise, particularly-enunciated words, in a public-school manner, but with a strong twang of South Wales. “Why, Angus,” came the graceful voice of Francis, “I thought we had settled to go straight through via Pisa.” Francis was graceful in everything--in his tall, elegant figure, in the poses of his handsome head, in the modulation of his voice. “Yes, but I see we can go either way--either Pisa or Florence. And I thought it might be nice to look at Florence and Sienna and Orvieto. I believe they're very lovely,” came the soft, precise voice of Angus, ending in a touch of odd emotion on the words “very lovely,” as if it were a new experience to him to be using them. “I'm SURE they're marvellous. I'm quite sure they're marvellously beautiful,” said Francis, in his assured, elegant way. “Well, then, Angus--suppose we do that, then?--When shall we start?” Angus was the nervous insister. Francis was quite occupied with his own thoughts and calculations and curiosity. For he was very curious, not to say inquisitive. And at the present moment he had a new subject to ponder. This new subject was Aaron, who sat with his back to our new couple, and who, with his fine sharp ears, caught every word that they said. Aaron's back was broad enough, and his shoulders square, and his head rather small and fairish and well-shaped--and Francis was intrigued. He wanted to know, was the man English. He _looked_ so English--yet he might be--he might perhaps be Danish, Scandinavian, or Dutch. Therefore, the elegant young man watched and listened with all his ears. The waiter who had brought Aaron his soup now came very free and easy, to ask for further orders. “What would you like to drink? Wine? Chianti? Or white wine? Or beer?”--The old-fashioned “Sir” was dropped. It is too old-fashioned now, since the war. “What SHOULD I drink?” said Aaron, whose acquaintance with wines was not very large. “Half-litre of Chianti: that is very good,” said the waiter, with the air of a man who knew only too well how to bring up his betters, and train them in the way they should go. “All right,” said Aaron. The welcome sound of these two magic words, All Right! was what the waiter most desired. “All right! Yes! All Right!” This is the pith, the marrow, the sum and essence of the English language to a southerner. Of course it is not _all right_. It is _Or-rye_--and one word at that. The blow that would be given to most foreign waiters, if they were forced to realize that the famous _orye_ was really composed of two words, and spelt _all right_, would be too cruel, perhaps. “Half litre Chianti. Orye,” said the waiter. And we'll let him say it. “ENGLISH!” whispered Francis melodramatically in the ear of Angus. “I THOUGHT so. The flautist.” Angus put in his monocle, and stared at the oblivious shoulders of Aaron, without apparently seeing anything. “Yes. Obviously English,” said Angus, pursing like a bird. “Oh, but I heard him,” whispered Francis emphatically. “Quite,” said Angus. “But quite inoffensive.” “Oh, but Angus, my dear--he's the FLAUTIST. Don't you remember? The divine bit of Scriabin. At least I believe it was Scriabin.--But PERFECTLY DIVINE!!! I adore the flute above all things--” And Francis placed his hand on Angus' arm, and rolled his eyes--Lay this to the credit of a bottle of Lacrimae Cristi, if you like. “Yes. So do I,” said Angus, again looking archly through the monocle, and seeing nothing. “I wonder what he's doing here.” “Don't you think we might ASK him?” said Francis, in a vehement whisper. “After all, we are the only three English people in the place.” “For the moment, apparently we are,” said Angus. “But the English are all over the place wherever you go, like bits of orange peel in the street. Don't forget that, Francesco.” “No, Angus, I don't. The point is, his flute is PERFECTLY DIVINE--and he seems quite attractive in himself. Don't you think so?” “Oh, quite,” said Angus, whose observations had got no further than the black cloth of the back of Aaron's jacket. That there was a man inside he had not yet paused to consider. “Quite a musician,” said Francis. “The hired sort,” said Angus, “most probably.” “But he PLAYS--he plays most marvellously. THAT you can't get away from, Angus.” “I quite agree,” said Angus. “Well, then? Don't you think we might hear him again? Don't you think we might get him to play for us?--But I should love it more than anything.” “Yes, I should, too,” said Angus. “You might ask him to coffee and a liqueur.” “I should like to--most awfully. But do you think I might?” “Oh, yes. He won't mind being offered a coffee and liqueur. We can give him something decent--Where's the waiter?” Angus lifted his pinched, ugly bare face and looked round with weird command for the waiter. The waiter, having not much to do, and feeling ready to draw these two weird young birds, allowed himself to be summoned. “Where's the wine list? What liqueurs have you got?” demanded Angus abruptly. The waiter rattled off a list, beginning with Strega and ending with cherry brandy. “Grand Marnier,” said Angus. “And leave the bottle.” Then he looked with arch triumph at Francis, like a wicked bird. Francis bit his finger moodily, and glowered with handsome, dark-blue uncertain eyes at Mr. Aaron, who was just surveying the _Frutte_, which consisted of two rather old pomegranates and various pale yellow apples, with a sprinkling of withered dried figs. At the moment, they all looked like a _Natura Morta_ arrangement. “But do you think I might--?” said Francis moodily. Angus pursed his lips with a reckless brightness. “Why not? I see no reason why you shouldn't,” he said. Whereupon Francis cleared his throat, disposed of his serviette, and rose to his feet, slowly but gracefully. Then he composed himself, and took on the air he wished to assume at the moment. It was a nice degage air, half naive and half enthusiastic. Then he crossed to Aaron's table, and stood on one lounging hip, gracefully, and bent forward in a confidential manner, and said: “Do excuse me. But I MUST ask you if it was you we heard playing the flute so perfectly wonderfully, just before dinner.” The voice was confidential and ingratiating. Aaron, relieved from the world's stress and seeing life anew in the rosy glow of half a litre of good old Chianti--the war was so near but gone by--looked up at the dark blue, ingenuous, well-adapted eyes of our friend Francis, and smiling, said: “Yes, I saw you on the balcony as well.” “Oh, did you notice us?” plunged Francis. “But wasn't it an extraordinary affair?” “Very,” said Aaron. “I couldn't make it out, could you?” “Oh,” cried Francis. “I never try. It's all much too new and complicated for me.--But perhaps you know Italy?” “No, I don't,” said Aaron. “Neither do we. And we feel rather stunned. We had only just arrived--and then--Oh!” Francis put up his hand to his comely brow and rolled his eyes. “I feel perfectly overwhelmed with it still.” He here allowed himself to sink friendlily into the vacant chair opposite Aaron's. “Yes, I thought it was a bit exciting,” said Aaron. “I wonder what will become of him--” “--Of the one who climbed for the flag, you mean? No!--But wasn't it perfectly marvellous! Oh, incredible, quite incredible!--And then your flute to finish it all! Oh! I felt it only wanted that.--I haven't got over it yet. But your playing was MARVELLOUS, really marvellous. Do you know, I can't forget it. You are a professional musician, of course.” “If you mean I play for a living,” said Aaron. “I have played in orchestras in London.” “Of course! Of course! I knew you must be a professional. But don't you give private recitals, too?” “No, I never have.” “Oh!” cried Francis, catching his breath. “I can't believe it. But you play MARVELLOUSLY! Oh, I just loved it, it simply swept me away, after that scene in the street. It seemed to sum it all up, you know.” “Did it,” said Aaron, rather grimly. “But won't you come and have coffee with us at our table?” said Francis. “We should like it most awfully if you would.” “Yes, thank you,” said Aaron, half-rising. “But you haven't had your dessert,” said Francis, laying a fatherly detaining hand on the arm of the other man. Aaron looked at the detaining hand. “The dessert isn't much to stop for,” he said. “I can take with me what I want.” And he picked out a handful of dried figs. The two went across to Angus' table. “We're going to take coffee together,” said Francis complacently, playing the host with a suave assurance that was rather amusing and charming in him. “Yes. I'm very glad,” said Angus. Let us give the show away: he was being wilfully nice. But he _was_ quite glad; to be able to be so nice. Anything to have a bit of life going: especially a bit of pleased life. He looked at Aaron's comely, wine-warmed face with gratification. “Have a Grand Marnier,” he said. “I don't know how bad it is. Everything is bad now. They lay it down to the war as well. It used to be quite a decent drink. What the war had got to do with bad liqueurs, I don't know.” Aaron sat down in a chair at their table. “But let us introduce ourselves,” said Francis. “I am Francis--or really Franz Dekker--And this is Angus Guest, my friend.” “And my name is Aaron Sisson.” “What! What did you say?” said Francis, leaning forward. He, too, had sharp ears. “Aaron Sisson.” “Aaron Sisson! Oh, but how amusing! What a nice name!” “No better than yours, is it?” “Mine! Franz Dekker! Oh, much more amusing, _I_ think,” said Francis archly. “Oh, well, it's a matter of opinion. You're the double decker, not me.” “The double decker!” said Francis archly. “Why, what do you mean!--” He rolled his eyes significantly. “But may I introduce my friend Angus Guest.” “You've introduced me already, Francesco,” said Angus. “So sorry,” said Francis. “Guest!” said Aaron. Francis suddenly began to laugh. “May he not be Guest?” he asked, fatherly. “Very likely,” said Aaron. “Not that I was ever good at guessing.” Francis tilted his eyebrows. Fortunately the waiter arrived with the coffee. “Tell me,” said Francis, “will you have your coffee black, or with milk?” He was determined to restore a tone of sobriety. The coffee was sipped in sober solemnity. “Is music your line as well, then?” asked Aaron. “No, we're painters. We're going to work in Rome.” “To earn your living?” “Not yet.” The amount of discretion, modesty, and reserve which Francis put into these two syllables gave Aaron to think that he had two real young swells to deal with. “No,” continued Francis. “I was only JUST down from Oxford when the war came--and Angus had been about ten months at the Slade--But I have always painted.--So now we are going to work, really hard, in Rome, to make up for lost time.--Oh, one has lost so much time, in the war. And such PRECIOUS time! I don't know if ever one will even be able to make it up again.” Francis tilted his handsome eyebrows and put his head on one side with a wise-distressed look. “No,” said Angus. “One will never be able to make it up. What is more, one will never be able to start again where one left off. We're shattered old men, now, in one sense. And in another sense, we're just pre-war babies.” The speech was uttered with an odd abruptness and didacticism which made Aaron open his eyes. Angus had that peculiar manner: he seemed to be haranguing himself in the circle of his own thoughts, not addressing himself to his listener. So his listener listened on the outside edge of the young fellow's crowded thoughts. Francis put on a distressed air, and let his attention wander. Angus pursed his lips and his eyes were stretched wide with a kind of pleasure, like a wicked owl which has just joyfully hooted an ill omen. “Tell me,” said Francis to Aaron. “Where were YOU all the time during the war?” “I was doing my job,” said Aaron. Which led to his explaining his origins. “Really! So your music is quite new! But how interesting!” cried Francis. Aaron explained further. “And so the war hardly affected you? But what did you FEEL about it, privately?” “I didn't feel much. I didn't know what to feel. Other folks did such a lot of feeling, I thought I'd better keep my mouth shut.” “Yes, quite!” said Angus. “Everybody had such a lot of feelings on somebody else's behalf, that nobody ever had time to realise what they felt themselves. I know I was like that. The feelings all came on to me from the outside: like flies settling on meat. Before I knew where I was I was eaten up with a swarm of feelings, and I found myself in the trenches. God knows what for. And ever since then I've been trying to get out of my swarm of feelings, which buzz in and out of me and have nothing to do with me. I realised it in hospital. It's exactly like trying to get out of a swarm of nasty dirty flies. And every one you kill makes you sick, but doesn't make the swarm any less.” Again Angus pursed and bridled and looked like a pleased, wicked white owl. Then he polished his monocle on a very choice silk handkerchief, and fixed it unseeing in his left eye. But Francis was not interested in his friend's experiences. For Francis had had a job in the War Office--whereas Angus was a war-hero with shattered nerves. And let him depreciate his own experiences as much as he liked, the young man with the monocle kept tight hold on his prestige as a war hero. Only for himself, though. He by no means insisted that anyone else should be war-bitten. Francis was one of those men who, like women, can set up the sympathetic flow and make a fellow give himself away without realising what he is doing. So there sat our friend Aaron, amusingly unbosoming himself of all his history and experiences, drawn out by the arch, subtle attentiveness of the handsome Francis. Angus listened, too, with pleased amusedness on his pale, emaciated face, pursing his shrunken jaw. And Aaron sipped various glasses of the liqueur, and told all his tale as if it was a comedy. A comedy it seemed, too, at that hour. And a comedy no doubt it was. But mixed, like most things in this life. Mixed. It was quite late before this seance broke up: and the waiter itching to get rid of the fellows. “Well, now,” said Francis, as he rose from the table and settled his elegant waist, resting on one hip, as usual. “We shall see you in the morning, I hope. You say you are going to Venice. Why? Have you some engagement in Venice?” “No,” said Aaron. “I only was going to look for a friend--Rawdon Lilly.” “Rawdon Lilly! Why, is he in Venice? Oh, I've heard SUCH a lot about him. I should like so much to meet him. But I heard he was in Germany--” “I don't know where he is.” “Angus! Didn't we hear that Lilly was in Germany?” “Yes, in Munich, being psychoanalysed, I believe it was.” Aaron looked rather blank. “But have you anything to take you to Venice? It's such a bad climate in the winter. Why not come with us to Florence?” said Francis. Aaron wavered. He really did not know what to do. “Think about it,” said Francis, laying his hand on Aaron's arm. “Think about it tonight. And we'll meet in the morning. At what time?” “Any time,” said Aaron. “Well, say eleven. We'll meet in the lounge here at eleven. Will that suit you? All right, then. It's so awfully nice meeting you. That marvellous flute.--And think about Florence. But do come. Don't disappoint us.” The two young men went elegantly upstairs. CHAPTER XV. A RAILWAY JOURNEY The next day but one, the three set off for Florence. Aaron had made an excursion from Milan with the two young heroes, and dined with them subsequently at the most expensive restaurant in the town. Then they had all gone home--and had sat in the young men's bedroom drinking tea, whilst Aaron played the flute. Francis was really musical, and enchanted. Angus enjoyed the novelty, and the moderate patronage he was able to confer. And Aaron felt amused and pleased, and hoped he was paying for his treat. So behold them setting off for Florence in the early morning. Angus and Francis had first-class tickets: Aaron took a third-class. “Come and have lunch with us on the train,” said Angus. “I'll order three places, and we can lunch together.” “Oh, I can buy a bit of food at the station,” said Aaron. “No, come and lunch with us. It will be much nicer. And we shall enjoy it as well,” said Angus. “Of course! Ever so much nicer! Of course!” cried Francis. “Yes, why not, indeed! Why should you hesitate?” “All right, then,” said Aaron, not without some feeling of constraint. So they separated. The young men settled themselves amidst the red plush and crochet-work, looking, with their hair plastered smoothly back, quite as first class as you could wish, creating quite the right impression on the porters and the travelling Italians. Aaron went to his third-class, further up the train. “Well, then, _au revoir_, till luncheon,” cried Francis. The train was fairly full in the third and second classes. However, Aaron got his seat, and the porter brought on his bags, after disposing of the young men's luggage. Aaron gave the tip uneasily. He always hated tipping--it seemed humiliating both ways. And the airy aplomb of the two young cavaliers, as they settled down among the red plush and the obsequiousness, and said “Well, then, _au revoir_ till luncheon,” was peculiarly unsettling: though they did not intend it so. “The porter thinks I'm their servant--their valet,” said Aaron to himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived long enough to know that as far as manhood and intellect went--nay, even education--he was not the inferior of the two young “gentlemen.” He knew quite well that, as far as intrinsic nature went, they did not imagine him an inferior: rather the contrary. They had rather an exaggerated respect for him and his life-power, and even his origin. And yet--they had the inestimable cash advantage--and they were going to keep it. They knew it was nothing more than an artificial cash superiority. But they gripped it all the more intensely. They were the upper middle classes. They were Eton and Oxford. And they were going to hang on to their privileges. In these days, it is a fool who abdicates before he's forced to. And therefore: “Well, then--_au revoir_ till luncheon.” They were being so awfully nice. And inwardly they were not condescending. But socially, they just had to be. The world is made like that. It wasn't their own private fault. It was no fault at all. It was just the mode in which they were educated, the style of their living. And as we know, _le style, c'est l'homme_. Angus came of very wealthy iron people near Merthyr. Already he had a very fair income of his own. As soon as the law-business concerning his father's and his grandfather's will was settled, he would be well off. And he knew it, and valued himself accordingly. Francis was the son of a highly-esteemed barrister and politician of Sydney, and in his day would inherit his father's lately-won baronetcy. But Francis had not very much money: and was much more class-flexible than Angus. Angus had been born in a house with a park, and of awful, hard-willed, money-bound people. Francis came of a much more adventurous, loose, excitable family, he had the colonial newness and adaptability. He knew, for his own part, that class superiority was just a trick, nowadays. Still, it was a trick that paid. And a trick he was going to play as long as it did pay. While Aaron sat, a little pale at the gills, immobile, ruminating these matters, a not very pleasant look about his nose-end, he heard a voice: “Oh, there you ARE! I thought I'd better come and see, so that we can fetch you at lunch time.--You've got a seat? Are you quite comfortable? Is there anything I could get you? Why, you're in a non-smoker!--But that doesn't matter, everybody will smoke. Are you sure you have everything? Oh, but wait just one moment--” It was Francis, long and elegant, with his straight shoulders and his coat buttoned to show his waist, and his face so well-formed and so modern. So modern, altogether. His voice was pleasantly modulated, and never hurried. He now looked as if a thought had struck him. He put a finger to his brow, and hastened back to his own carriage. In a minute, he returned with a new London literary magazine. “Something to read--I shall have to FLY--See you at lunch,” and he had turned and elegantly hastened, but not too fast, back to his carriage. The porter was holding the door for him. So Francis looked pleasantly hurried, but by no means rushed. Oh, dear, no. He took his time. It was not for him to bolt and scramble like a mere Italian. The people in Aaron's carriage had watched the apparition of the elegant youth intently. For them, he was a being from another sphere--no doubt a young milordo with power wealth, and glamorous life behind him. Which was just what Francis intended to convey. So handsome--so very, very impressive in all his elegant calm showiness. He made such a _bella figura_. It was just what the Italians loved. Those in the first class regions thought he might even be an Italian, he was so attractive. The train in motion, the many Italian eyes in the carriage studied Aaron. He, too, was good-looking. But by no means as fascinating as the young milordo. Not half as sympathetic. No good at all at playing a role. Probably a servant of the young signori. Aaron stared out of the window, and played the one single British role left to him, that of ignoring his neighbours, isolating himself in their midst, and minding his own business. Upon this insular trick our greatness and our predominance depends--such as it is. Yes, they might look at him. They might think him a servant or what they liked. But he was inaccessible to them. He isolated himself upon himself, and there remained. It was a lovely day, a lovely, lovely day of early autumn. Over the great plain of Lombardy a magnificent blue sky glowed like mid-summer, the sun shone strong. The great plain, with its great stripes of cultivation--without hedges or boundaries---how beautiful it was! Sometimes he saw oxen ploughing. Sometimes. Oh, so beautiful, teams of eight, or ten, even of twelve pale, great soft oxen in procession, ploughing the dark velvety earth, a driver with a great whip at their head, a man far behind holding the plough-shafts. Beautiful the soft, soft plunging motion of oxen moving forwards. Beautiful the strange, snaky lifting of the muzzles, the swaying of the sharp horns. And the soft, soft crawling motion of a team of oxen, so invisible, almost, yet so inevitable. Now and again straight canals of water flashed blue. Now and again the great lines of grey-silvery poplars rose and made avenues or lovely grey airy quadrangles across the plain. Their top boughs were spangled with gold and green leaf. Sometimes the vine-leaves were gold and red, a patterning. And the great square farm-homesteads, white, red-roofed, with their out-buildings, stood naked amid the lands, without screen or softening. There was something big and exposed about it all. No more the cosy English ambushed life, no longer the cosy littleness of the landscape. A bigness--and nothing to shelter the unshrinking spirit. It was all exposed, exposed to the sweep of plain, to the high, strong sky, and to human gaze. A kind of boldness, an indifference. Aaron was impressed and fascinated. He looked with new interest at the Italians in the carriage with him--for this same boldness and indifference and exposed gesture. And he found it in them, too. And again it fascinated him. It seemed so much bigger, as if the walls of life had fallen. Nay, the walls of English life will have to fall. Sitting there in the third-class carriage, he became happy again. The _presence_ of his fellow-passengers was not so hampering as in England. In England, everybody seems held tight and gripped, nothing is left free. Every passenger seems like a parcel holding his string as fast as he can about him, lest one corner of the wrapper should come undone and reveal what is inside. And every other passenger is forced, by the public will, to hold himself as tight-bound also. Which in the end becomes a sort of self-conscious madness. But here, in the third class carriage, there was no tight string round every man. They were not all trussed with self-conscious string as tight as capons. They had a sufficient amount of callousness and indifference and natural equanimity. True, one of them spat continually on the floor, in large spits. And another sat with his boots all unlaced and his collar off, and various important buttons undone. They did not seem to care if bits of themselves did show, through the gaps in the wrapping. Aaron winced--but he preferred it to English tightness. He was pleased, he was happy with the Italians. He thought how generous and natural they were. So the towns passed by, and the hours, and he seemed at last to have got outside himself and his old conditions. It seemed like a great escape. There was magic again in life--real magic. Was it illusion, or was it genuine? He thought it was genuine, and opened his soul a if there was no danger. Lunch-time came. Francis summoned Aaron down the rocking tram. The three men had a table to themselves, and all felt they were enjoying themselves very much indeed. Of course Francis and Angus made a great impression again. But in the dining car were mostly middle-class, well-to-do Italians. And these did not look upon our two young heroes as two young wonders. No, rather with some criticism, and some class-envy. But they were impressed. Oh, they were impressed! How should they not be, when our young gentlemen had such an air! Aaron was conscious all the time that the fellow-diners were being properly impressed by the flower of civilisation and the salt of the earth, namely, young, well-to-do Englishmen. And he had a faint premonition, based on experience perhaps, that fellow-passengers in the end never forgive the man who has “impressed” them. Mankind loves being impressed. It asks to be impressed. It almost forces those whom it can force to play a role and to make an impression. And afterwards, never forgives. When the train ran into Bologna Station, they were still in the restaurant car. Nor did they go at once to their seats. Angus had paid the bill. There was three-quarters-of-an-hour's wait in Bologna. “You may as well come down and sit with us,” said Francis. “We've got nobody in our carriage, so why shouldn't we all stay together during the wait. You kept your own seat, I suppose.” No, he had forgotten. So when he went to look for it, it was occupied by a stout man who was just taking off his collar and wrapping a white kerchief round his neck. The third class carriages were packed. For those were early days after the war, while men still had pre-war notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody will condescend to travel third! However, these were still modest, sombre months immediately after the peace. So a large man with a fat neck and a white kerchief, and his collar over his knee, sat in Aaron's seat. Aaron looked at the man, and at his own luggage overhead. The fat man saw him looking and stared back: then stared also at the luggage overhead: and with his almost invisible north-Italian gesture said much plainer than words would have said it: “Go to hell. I'm here and I'm going to stop here.” There was something insolent and unbearable about the look--and about the rocky fixity of the large man. He sat as if he had insolently taken root in his seat. Aaron flushed slightly. Francis and Angus strolled along the train, outside, for the corridor was already blocked with the mad Bologna rush, and the baggage belonging. They joined Aaron as he stood on the platform. “But where is YOUR SEAT?” cried Francis, peering into the packed and jammed compartments of the third class. “That man's sitting in it.” “Which?” cried Francis, indignant. “The fat one there--with the collar on his knee.” “But it was your seat--!” Francis' gorge rose in indignation. He mounted into the corridor. And in the doorway of the compartment he bridled like an angry horse rearing, bridling his head. Poising himself on one hip, he stared fixedly at the man with the collar on his knee, then at the baggage aloft. He looked down at the fat man as a bird looks down from the eaves of a house. But the man looked back with a solid, rock-like impudence, before which an Englishman quails: a jeering, immovable insolence, with a sneer round the nose and a solid-seated posterior. “But,” said Francis in English--none of them had any Italian yet. “But,” said Francis, turning round to Aaron, “that was YOUR SEAT?” and he flung his long fore-finger in the direction of the fat man's thighs. “Yes!” said Aaron. “And he's TAKEN it--!” cried Francis in indignation. “And knows it, too,” said Aaron. “But--!” and Francis looked round imperiously, as if to summon his bodyguard. But bodyguards are no longer forthcoming, and train-guards are far from satisfactory. The fat man sat on, with a sneer-grin, very faint but very effective, round his nose, and a solidly-planted posterior. He quite enjoyed the pantomime of the young foreigners. The other passengers said something to him, and he answered laconic. Then they all had the faint sneer-grin round their noses. A woman in the corner grinned jeeringly straight in Francis' face. His charm failed entirely this time: and as for his commandingness, that was ineffectual indeed. Rage came up in him. “Oh well--something must be done,” said he decisively. “But didn't you put something in the seat to RESERVE it?” “Only that _New Statesman_--but he's moved it.” The man still sat with the invisible sneer-grin on his face, and that peculiar and immovable plant of his Italian posterior. “Mais--cette place etait RESERVEE--” said Francis, moving to the direct attack. The man turned aside and ignored him utterly--then said something to the men opposite, and they all began to show their teeth in a grin. Francis was not so easily foiled. He touched the man on the arm. The man looked round threateningly, as if he had been struck. “Cette place est reservee--par ce Monsieur--” said Francis with hauteur, though still in an explanatory tone, and pointing to Aaron. The Italian looked him, not in the eyes, but between the eyes, and sneered full in his face. Then he looked with contempt at Aaron. And then he said, in Italian, that there was room for such snobs in the first class, and that they had not any right to come occupying the place of honest men in the third. “Gia! Gia!” barked the other passengers in the carriage. “Loro possono andare prima classa--PRIMA CLASSA!” said the woman in the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train to the first class carriages. “C'e posto la,” said one of the men, shrugging his shoulders. There was a jeering quality in the hard insolence which made Francis go very red and Augus very white. Angus stared like a death's-head behind his monocle, with death-blue eyes. “Oh, never mind. Come along to the first class. I'll pay the difference. We shall be much better all together. Get the luggage down, Francis. It wouldn't be possible to travel with this lot, even if he gave up the seat. There's plenty of room in our carriage--and I'll pay the extra,” said Angus. He knew there was one solution--and only one--Money. But Francis bit his finger. He felt almost beside himself--and quite powerless. For he knew the guard of the train would jeer too. It is not so easy to interfere with honest third-class Bolognesi in Bologna station, even if they _have_ taken another man's seat. Powerless, his brow knitted, and looking just like Mephistopheles with his high forehead and slightly arched nose, Mephistopheles in a rage, he hauled down Aaron's bag and handed it to Angus. So they transferred themselves to the first-class carriage, while the fat man and his party in the third-class watched in jeering, triumphant silence. Solid, planted, immovable, in static triumph. So Aaron sat with the others amid the red plush, whilst the train began its long slow climb of the Apennines, stinking sulphurous through tunnels innumerable. Wonderful the steep slopes, the great chestnut woods, and then the great distances glimpsed between the heights, Firenzuola away and beneath, Turneresque hills far off, built of heaven-bloom, not of earth. It was cold at the summit-station, ice and snow in the air, fierce. Our travellers shrank into the carriage again, and wrapped themselves round. Then the train began its long slither downhill, still through a whole necklace of tunnels, which fortunately no longer stank. So down and down, till the plain appears in sight once more, the Arno valley. But then began the inevitable hitch that always happens in Italian travel. The train began to hesitate--to falter to a halt, whistling shrilly as if in protest: whistling pip-pip-pip in expostulation as it stood forlorn among the fields: then stealing forward again and stealthily making pace, gathering speed, till it had got up a regular spurt: then suddenly the brakes came on with a jerk, more faltering to a halt, more whistling and pip-pip-pipping, as the engine stood jingling with impatience: after which another creak and splash, and another choking off. So on till they landed in Prato station: and there they sat. A fellow passenger told them, there was an hour to wait here: an hour. Something had happened up the line. “Then I propose we make tea,” said Angus, beaming. “Why not! Of course. Let us make tea. And I will look for water.” So Aaron and Francis went to the restaurant bar and filled the little pan at the tap. Angus got down the red picnic case, of which he was so fond, and spread out the various arrangements on the floor of the coupe. He soon had the spirit-lamp burning, the water heating. Francis proposed that he and Aaron should dash into Prato and see what could be bought, whilst the tea was in preparation. So off they went, leaving Angus like a busy old wizard manipulating his arrangements on the floor of the carriage, his monocle beaming with bliss. The one fat fellow--passenger with a lurid striped rug over his knees watched with acute interest. Everybody who passed the doorway stood to contemplate the scene with pleasure. Officials came and studied the situation with appreciation. Then Francis and Aaron returned with a large supply of roast chestnuts, piping hot, and hard dried plums, and good dried figs, and rather stale rusks. They found the water just boiling, Angus just throwing in the tea-egg, and the fellow-passenger just poking his nose right in, he was so thrilled. Nothing pleased Angus so much as thus pitching camp in the midst of civilisation. The scrubby newspaper packets of chestnuts, plums, figs and rusks were spread out: Francis flew for salt to the man at the bar, and came back with a little paper of rock-salt: the brown tea was dispensed in the silver-fitted glasses from the immortal luncheon-case: and the picnic was in full swing. Angus, being in the height of his happiness, now sat on the seat cross-legged, with his feet under him, in the authentic Buddha fashion, and on his face the queer rapt alert look, half a smile, also somewhat Buddhistic, holding his glass of brown tea in his hand. He was as rapt and immobile as if he really were in a mystic state. Yet it was only his delight in the tea-party. The fellow-passenger peered at the tea, and said in broken French, was it good. In equally fragmentary French Francis said very good, and offered the fat passenger some. He, however, held up his hand in protest, as if to say not for any money would he swallow the hot-watery stuff. And he pulled out a flask of wine. But a handful of chestnuts he accepted. The train-conductor, ticket-collector, and the heavy green soldier who protected them, swung open the door and stared attentively. The fellow passenger addressed himself to these new-comers, and they all began to smile good-naturedly. Then the fellow-passenger--he was stout and fifty and had a brilliant striped rug always over his knees--pointed out the Buddha-like position of Angus, and the three in-starers smiled again. And so the fellow-passenger thought he must try too. So he put aside his rug, and lifted his feet from the floor, and took his toes in his hands, and tried to bring his legs up and his feet under him. But his knees were fat, his trousers in the direst extreme of peril, and he could no more manage it than if he had tried to swallow himself. So he desisted suddenly, rather scared, whilst the three bunched and official heads in the doorway laughed and jested at him, showing their teeth and teasing him. But on our gypsy party they turned their eyes with admiration. They loved the novelty and the fun. And on the thin, elegant Angus in his new London clothes, they looked really puzzled, as he sat there immobile, gleaming through his monocle like some Buddha going wicked, perched cross-legged and ecstatic on the red velvet seat. They marvelled that the lower half of him could so double up, like a foot-rule. So they stared till they had seen enough. When they suddenly said “Buon 'appetito,” withdrew their heads and shoulders, slammed the door, and departed. Then the train set off also--and shortly after six arrived in Florence. It was debated what should Aaron do in Florence. The young men had engaged a room at Bertolini's hotel, on the Lungarno. Bertolini's was not expensive--but Aaron knew that his friends would not long endure hotel life. However, he went along with the other two, trusting to find a cheaper place on the morrow. It was growing quite dark as they drove to the hotel, but still was light enough to show the river rustling, the Ponte Vecchio spanning its little storeys across the flood, on its low, heavy piers: and some sort of magic of the darkening, varied houses facing, on the other side of the stream. Of course they were all enchanted. “I knew,” said Francis, “we should love it.” Aaron was told he could have a little back room and pension terms for fifteen lire a day, if he stayed at least fifteen days. The exchange was then at forty-five. So fifteen lire meant just six-shillings-and-six pence a day, without extras. Extras meant wine, tea, butter, and light. It was decided he should look for something cheaper next day. By the tone of the young men, he now gathered that they would prefer it if he took himself off to a cheaper place. They wished to be on their own. “Well, then,” said Francis, “you will be in to lunch here, won't you? Then we'll see you at lunch.” It was as if both the young men had drawn in their feelers now. They were afraid of finding the new man an incubus. They wanted to wash their hands of him. Aaron's brow darkened. “Perhaps it was right your love to dissemble But why did you kick me down stairs?...” Then morning found him out early, before his friends had arisen. It was sunny again. The magic of Florence at once overcame him, and he forgot the bore of limited means and hotel costs. He went straight out of the hotel door, across the road, and leaned on the river parapet. There ran the Arno: not such a flood after all, but a green stream with shoals of pebbles in its course. Across, and in the delicate shadow of the early sun, stood the opposite Lungarno, the old flat houses, pink, or white, or grey stone, with their green shutters, some closed, some opened. It had a flowery effect, the skyline irregular against the morning light. To the right the delicate Trinita bridge, to the left, the old bridge with its little shops over the river. Beyond, towards the sun, glimpses of green, sky-bloomed country: Tuscany. There was a noise and clatter of traffic: boys pushing hand-barrows over the cobble-stones, slow bullocks stepping side by side, and shouldering one another affectionately, drawing a load of country produce, then horses in great brilliant scarlet cloths, like vivid palls, slowly pulling the long narrow carts of the district: and men hu-huing!--and people calling: all the sharp, clattering morning noise of Florence. “Oh, Angus! Do come and look! OH, so lovely!” Glancing up, he saw the elegant figure of Francis, in fine coloured-silk pyjamas, perched on a small upper balcony, turning away from the river towards the bedroom again, his hand lifted to his lips, as if to catch there his cry of delight. The whole pose was classic and effective: and very amusing. How the Italians would love it! Aaron slipped back across the road, and walked away under the houses towards the Ponte Vecchio. He passed the bridge--and passed the Uffizi--watching the green hills opposite, and San Miniato. Then he noticed the over-dramatic group of statuary in the Piazza Mentana--male and physical and melodramatic--and then the corner house. It was a big old Florentine house, with many green shutters and wide eaves. There was a notice plate by the door--“Pension Nardini.” He came to a full stop. He stared at the notice-plate, stared at the glass door, and turning round, stared at the over-pathetic dead soldier on the arm of his over-heroic pistol-firing comrade; _Mentana_--and the date! Aaron wondered what and where Mentana was. Then at last he summoned his energy, opened the glass door, and mounted the first stairs. He waited some time before anybody appeared. Then a maid-servant. “Can I have a room?” said Aaron. The bewildered, wild-eyed servant maid opened a door and showed him into a heavily-gilt, heavily-plush drawing-room with a great deal of frantic grandeur about it. There he sat and cooled his heels for half an hour. Arrived at length a stout young lady--handsome, with big dark-blue Italian eyes--but anaemic and too stout. “Oh!” she said as she entered, not knowing what else to say. “Good-morning,” said Aaron awkwardly. “Oh, good-morning! English! Yes! Oh, I am so sorry to keep you, you know, to make you wait so long. I was upstairs, you know, with a lady. Will you sit?” “Can I have a room?” said Aaron. “A room! Yes, you can.” “What terms?” “Terms! Oh! Why, ten francs a day, you know, pension--if you stay--How long will you stay?” “At least a month, I expect.” “A month! Oh yes. Yes, ten francs a day.” “For everything?” “Everything. Yes, everything. Coffee, bread, honey or jam in the morning: lunch at half-past twelve; tea in the drawing-room, half-past four: dinner at half-past seven: all very nice. And a warm room with the sun--Would you like to see?” So Aaron was led up the big, rambling old house to the top floor--then along a long old corridor--and at last into a big bedroom with two beds and a red tiled floor--a little dreary, as ever--but the sun just beginning to come in, and a lovely view on to the river, towards the Ponte Vecchio, and at the hills with their pines and villas and verdure opposite. Here he would settle. The signorina would send a man for his bags, at half past two in the afternoon. At luncheon Aaron found the two friends, and told them of his move. “How very nice for you! Ten francs a day--but that is nothing. I am so pleased you've found something. And when will you be moving in?” said Francis. “At half-past two.” “Oh, so soon. Yes, just as well.--But we shall see you from time to time, of course. What did you say the address was? Oh, yes--just near the awful statue. Very well. We can look you up any time--and you will find us here. Leave a message if we should happen not to be in--we've got lots of engagements--” CHAPTER XVI. FLORENCE The very afternoon after Aaron's arrival in Florence the sky became dark, the wind cold, and rain began steadily to fall. He sat in his big, bleak room above the river, and watched the pale green water fused with yellow, the many-threaded streams fuse into one, as swiftly the surface flood came down from the hills. Across, the dark green hills looked darker in the wet, the umbrella pines held up in vain above the villas. But away below, on the Lungarno, traffic rattled as ever. Aaron went down at five o'clock to tea, and found himself alone next a group of women, mostly Swedes or Danish or Dutch, drinking a peculiar brown herb-brew which tasted like nothing else on earth, and eating two thick bits of darkish bread smeared with a brown smear which hoped it was jam, but hoped in vain. Unhappily he sat in the gilt and red, massively ornate room, while the foreign women eyed him. Oh, bitter to be a male under such circumstances. He escaped as soon as possible back to his far-off regions, lonely and cheerless, away above. But he rather liked the far-off remoteness in the big old Florentine house: he did not mind the peculiar dark, uncosy dreariness. It was not really dreary: only indifferent. Indifferent to comfort, indifferent to all homeliness and cosiness. The over-big furniture trying to be impressive, but never to be pretty or bright or cheerful. There it stood, ugly and apart. And there let it stand.--Neither did he mind the lack of fire, the cold sombreness of his big bedroom. At home, in England, the bright grate and the ruddy fire, the thick hearth-rug and the man's arm-chair, these had been inevitable. And now he was glad to get away from it all. He was glad not to have a cosy hearth, and his own arm-chair. He was glad to feel the cold, and to breathe the unwarmed air. He preferred the Italian way of no fires, no heating. If the day was cold, he was willing to be cold too. If it was dark, he was willing to be dark. The cosy brightness of a real home--it had stifled him till he felt his lungs would burst. The horrors of real domesticity. No, the Italian brutal way was better. So he put his overcoat over his knee, and studied some music he had bought in Milan: some Pergolesi and the Scarlatti he liked, and some Corelli. He preferred frail, sensitive, abstract music, with not much feeling in it, but a certain limpidity and purity. Night fell as he sat reading the scores. He would have liked to try certain pieces on his flute. But his flute was too sensitive, it winced from the new strange surroundings, and would not blossom. Dinner sounded at last--at eight o'clock, or something after. He had to learn to expect the meals always forty minutes late. Down he went, down the long, dark, lonely corridors and staircases. The dining room was right downstairs. But he had a little table to himself near the door, the elderly women were at some little distance. The only other men were Agostmo, the unshapely waiter, and an Italian duke, with wife and child and nurse, the family sitting all together at a table halfway down the room, and utterly pre-occupied with a little yellow dog. However, the food was good enough, and sufficient, and the waiter and the maid-servant cheerful and bustling. Everything felt happy-go-lucky and informal, there was no particular atmosphere. Nobody put on any airs, because nobody in the Nardini took any notice if they did. The little ducal dog yapped, the ducal son shouted, the waiter dropped half a dozen spoons, the old women knitted during the waits, and all went off so badly that it was quite pleasant. Yes, Aaron preferred it to Bertolini's, which was trying to be efficient and correct: though not making any strenuous effort. Still, Bertolini's was much more up to the scratch, there was the tension of proper standards. Whereas here at Nardini's, nothing mattered very much. It was November. When he got up to his far-off room again, Aaron felt almost as if he were in a castle with the drawbridge drawn up. Through the open window came the sound of the swelling Arno, as it rushed and rustled along over its gravel-shoals. Lights spangled the opposite side. Traffic sounded deep below. The room was not really cold, for the summer sun so soaks into these thick old buildings, that it takes a month or two of winter to soak it out.--The rain still fell. In the morning it was still November, and the dawn came slowly. And through the open window was the sound of the river's rushing. But the traffic started before dawn, with a bang and a rattle of carts, and a bang and jingle of tram-cars over the not-distant bridge. Oh, noisy Florence! At half-past seven Aaron rang for his coffee: and got it at a few minutes past eight. The signorina had told him to take his coffee in bed. Rain was still falling. But towards nine o'clock it lifted, and he decided to go out. A wet, wet world. Carriages going by, with huge wet shiny umbrellas, black and with many points, erected to cover the driver and the tail of the horse and the box-seat. The hood of the carriage covered the fare. Clatter-clatter through the rain. Peasants with long wagons and slow oxen, and pale-green huge umbrellas erected for the driver to walk beneath. Men tripping along in cloaks, shawls, umbrellas, anything, quite unconcerned. A man loading gravel in the river-bed, in spite of the wet. And innumerable bells ringing: but innumerable bells. The great soft trembling of the cathedral bell felt in all the air. Anyhow it was a new world. Aaron went along close to the tall thick houses, following his nose. And suddenly he caught sight of the long slim neck of the Palazzo Vecchio up above, in the air. And in another minute he was passing between massive buildings, out into the Piazza della Signoria. There he stood still and looked round him in real surprise, and real joy. The flat empty square with its stone paving was all wet. The great buildings rose dark. The dark, sheer front of the Palazzo Vecchio went up like a cliff, to the battlements, and the slim tower soared dark and hawk-like, crested, high above. And at the foot of the cliff stood the great naked David, white and stripped in the wet, white against the dark, warm-dark cliff of the building--and near, the heavy naked men of Bandinelli. The first thing he had seen, as he turned into the square, was the back of one of these Bandinelli statues: a great naked man of marble, with a heavy back and strong naked flanks over which the water was trickling. And then to come immediately upon the David, so much whiter, glistening skin-white in the wet, standing a little forward, and shrinking. He may be ugly, too naturalistic, too big, and anything else you like. But the David in the Piazza della Signoria, there under the dark great palace, in the position Michelangelo chose for him, there, standing forward stripped and exposed and eternally half-shrinking, half--wishing to expose himself, he is the genius of Florence. The adolescent, the white, self-conscious, physical adolescent: enormous, in keeping with the stark, grim, enormous palace, which is dark and bare as he is white and bare. And behind, the big, lumpy Bandinelli men are in keeping too. They may be ugly--but they are there in their place, and they have their own lumpy reality. And this morning in the rain, standing unbroken, with the water trickling down their flanks and along the inner side of their great thighs, they were real enough, representing the undaunted physical nature of the heavier Florentines. Aaron looked and looked at the three great naked men. David so much white, and standing forward, self-conscious: then at the great splendid front of the Palazzo Vecchio: and at the fountain splashing water upon its wet, wet figures; and the distant equestrian statue; and the stone-flagged space of the grim square. And he felt that here he was in one of the world's living centres, here, in the Piazza della Signoria. The sense of having arrived--of having reached a perfect centre of the human world: this he had. And so, satisfied, he turned round to look at the bronze Perseus which rose just above him. Benvenuto Cellini's dark hero looked female, with his plump hips and his waist, female and rather insignificant: graceful, and rather vulgar. The clownish Bandinellis were somehow more to the point.--Then all the statuary in the Loggia! But that is a mistake. It looks too much like the yard of a monumental mason. The great, naked men in the rain, under the dark-grey November sky, in the dark, strong inviolable square! The wonderful hawk-head of the old palace. The physical, self-conscious adolescent, Michelangelo's David, shrinking and exposing himself, with his white, slack limbs! Florence, passionate, fearless Florence had spoken herself out.--Aaron was fascinated by the Piazza della Signoria. He never went into the town, nor returned from it to his lodging, without contriving to pass through the square. And he never passed through it without satisfaction. Here men had been at their intensest, most naked pitch, here, at the end of the old world and the beginning of the new. Since then, always rather puling and apologetic. Aaron felt a new self, a new life-urge rising inside himself. Florence seemed to start a new man in him. It was a town of men. On Friday morning, so early, he heard the traffic. Early, he watched the rather low, two-wheeled traps of the peasants spanking recklessly over the bridge, coming in to town. And then, when he went out, he found the Piazza della Signoria packed with men: but all, all men. And all farmers, land-owners and land-workers. The curious, fine-nosed Tuscan farmers, with their half-sardonic, amber-coloured eyes. Their curious individuality, their clothes worn so easy and reckless, their hats with the personal twist. Their curious full oval cheeks, their tendency to be too fat, to have a belly and heavy limbs. Their close-sitting dark hair. And above all, their sharp, almost acrid, mocking expression, the silent curl of the nose, the eternal challenge, the rock-bottom unbelief, and the subtle fearlessness. The dangerous, subtle, never-dying fearlessness, and the acrid unbelief. But men! Men! A town of men, in spite of everything. The one manly quality, undying, acrid fearlessness. The eternal challenge of the un-quenched human soul. Perhaps too acrid and challenging today, when there is nothing left to challenge. But men--who existed without apology and without justification. Men who would neither justify themselves nor apologize for themselves. Just men. The rarest thing left in our sweet Christendom. Altogether Aaron was pleased with himself, for being in Florence. Those were early days after the war, when as yet very few foreigners had returned, and the place had the native sombreness and intensity. So that our friend did not mind being alone. The third day, however, Francis called on him. There was a tap at the bedroom door, and the young man entered, all eyes of curiosity. “Oh, there you ARE!” he cried, flinging his hand and twisting his waist and then laying his hand on his breast. “Such a LONG way up to you! But miles--! Well, how are you? Are you quite all right here? You are? I'm so glad--we've been so rushed, seeing people that we haven't had a MINUTE. But not a MINUTE! People! People! People! Isn't it amazing how many there are, and how many one knows, and gets to know! But amazing! Endless acquaintances!--Oh, and such quaint people here! so ODD! So MORE than odd! Oh, extraordinary--!” Francis chuckled to himself over the extraordinariness. Then he seated himself gracefully at Aaron's table. “Oh, MUSIC! What? Corelli! So interesting! So very CLEVER, these people, weren't they!--Corelli and the younger Scarlatti and all that crowd.” Here he closed the score again. “But now--LOOK! Do you want to know anybody here, or don't you? I've told them about you, and of course they're dying to meet you and hear you play. But I thought it best not to mention anything about--about your being hard-up, and all that. I said you were just here on a visit. You see with this kind of people I'm sure it's much the best not to let them start off by thinking you will need them at all--or that you MIGHT need them. Why give yourself away, anyhow? Just meet them and take them for what they're worth--and then you can see. If they like to give you an engagement to play at some show or other--well, you can decide when the time comes whether you will accept. Much better that these kind of people shouldn't get it into their heads at once that they can hire your services. It doesn't do. They haven't enough discrimination for that. Much best make rather a favour of it, than sort of ask them to hire you.--Don't you agree? Perhaps I'm wrong.” Aaron sat and listened and wondered at the wisdom and the genuine kindness of the young _beau_. And more still, he wondered at the profound social disillusionment. This handsome collie dog was something of a social wolf, half showing his fangs at the moment. But with genuine kindheartedness for another wolf. Aaron was touched. “Yes, I think that's the best way,” he said. “You do! Yes, so do I. Oh, they are such queer people! Why is it, do you think, that English people abroad go so very QUEER--so ultra-English--INCREDIBLE!--and at the same time so perfectly impossible? But impossible! Pathological, I assure you.--And as for their sexual behaviour--oh, dear, don't mention it. I assure you it doesn't bear mention.--And all quite flagrant, quite unabashed--under the cover of this fanatical Englishness. But I couldn't begin to TELL you all the things. It's just incredible.” Aaron wondered how on earth Francis had been able to discover and bear witness to so much that was incredible, in a bare two days. But a little gossip, and an addition of lurid imagination will carry you anywhere. “Well now,” said Francis. “What are you doing today?” Aaron was not doing anything in particular. “Then will you come and have dinner with us--?” Francis fixed up the time and the place--a small restaurant at the other end of the town. Then he leaned out of the window. “Fascinating place! Oh, fascinating place!” he said, soliloquy. “And you've got a superb view. Almost better than ours, I think.--Well then, half-past seven. We're meeting a few other people, mostly residents or people staying some time. We're not inviting them. Just dropping in, you know--a little restaurant. We shall see you then! Well then, _a rivederci_ till this evening.--So glad you like Florence! I'm simply loving it--revelling. And the pictures!--Oh--” The party that evening consisted all of men: Francis and Angus, and a writer, James Argyle, and little Algy Constable, and tiny Louis Mee, and deaf Walter Rosen. They all snapped and rattled at one another, and were rather spiteful but rather amusing. Francis and Angus had to leave early. They had another appointment. And James Argyle got quite tipsy, and said to Aaron: “But, my boy, don't let yourself be led astray by the talk of such people as Algy. Beware of them, my boy, if you've a soul to save. If you've a soul to save!” And he swallowed the remains of his litre. Algy's nose trembled a little, and his eyes blinked. “And if you've a soul to LOSE,” he said, “I would warn you very earnestly against Argyle.” Whereupon Algy shut one eye and opened the other so wide, that Aaron was almost scared. “Quite right, my boy. Ha! Ha! Never a truer thing said! Ha-ha-ha.” Argyle laughed his Mephistophelian tipsy laugh. “They'll teach you to save. Never was such a lot of ripe old savers! Save their old trouser-buttons! Go to them if you want to learn to save. Oh, yes, I advise it seriously. You'll lose nothing--not even a reputation.--You may lose a SOUL, of course. But that's a detail, among such a hoard of banknotes and trouser-buttons. Ha-ha! What's a soul, to them--?” “What is it to you, is perhaps the more pertinent question,” said Algy, flapping his eyelids like some crazy owl. “It is you who specialise in the matter of soul, and we who are in need of enlightenment--” “Yes, very true, you ARE! You ARE in need of enlightenment. A set of benighted wise virgins. Ha-ha-ha! That's good, that--benighted wise virgins! What--” Argyle put his red face near to Aaron's, and made a _moue_, narrowing his eyes quizzically as he peered up from under his level grey eyebrows. “Sit in the dark to save the lamp-oil--And all no good to them.--When the bridegroom cometh--! Ha-ha! Good that! Good, my boy!--The bridegroom--” he giggled to himself. “What about the bridegroom, Algy, my boy? Eh? What about him? Better trim your wick, old man, if it's not too late--” “We were talking of souls, not wicks, Argyle,” said Algy. “Same thing. Upon my soul it all amounts to the same thing. Where's the soul in a man that hasn't got a bedfellow--eh?--answer me that! Can't be done you know. Might as well ask a virgin chicken to lay you an egg.” “Then there ought to be a good deal of it about,” said Algy. “Of what? Of soul? There ought to be a good deal of soul about?--Ah, because there's a good deal of--, you mean.--Ah, I wish it were so. I wish it were so. But, believe me, there's far more damned chastity in the world, than anything else. Even in this town.--Call it chastity, if you like. I see nothing in it but sterility. It takes a rat to praise long tails. Impotence set up the praise of chastity--believe me or not--but that's the bottom of it. The virtue is made out of the necessity.--Ha-ha-ha!--Like them! Like them! Ha-ha! Saving their souls! Why they'd save the waste matter of their bodies if they could. Grieves them to part with it.--Ha! ha!--ha!” There was a pause. Argyle was in his cups, which left no more to be said. Algy, quivering and angry, looked disconcertingly round the room as if he were quite calm and collected. The deaf Jewish Rosen was smiling down his nose and saying: “What was that last? I didn't catch that last,” cupping his ear with his hand in the frantic hope that someone would answer. No one paid any heed. “I shall be going,” said Algy, looking round. Then to Aaron he said, “You play the flute, I hear. May we hear you some time?” “Yes,” said Aaron, non-committal. “Well, look here--come to tea tomorrow. I shall have some friends, and Del Torre will play the piano. Come to tea tomorrow, will you?” “Thank you, I will.” “And perhaps you'll bring your flute along.” “Don't you do any such thing, my boy. Make them entertain YOU, for once.--They're always squeezing an entertainment out of somebody--” and Argyle desperately emptied the remains of Algy's wine into his own glass: whilst Algy stood as if listening to something far off, and blinking terribly. “Anyhow,” he said at length, “you'll come, won't you? And bring the flute if you feel like it.” “Don't you take that flute, my boy,” persisted Argyle. “Don't think of such a thing. If they want a concert, let them buy their tickets and go to the Teatro Diana. Or to Marchesa del Torre's Saturday morning. She can afford to treat them.” Algy looked at Argyle, and blinked. “Well,” he said. “I hope you'll get home all right, Argyle.” “Thank you for your courtesy, Algy. Won't you lend me your arm?” As Algy was small and frail, somewhat shaky, and as Argyle was a finely built, heavy man of fifty or more, the slap was unkind. “Afraid I can't tonight. Good-night--” Algy departed, so did little Mee, who had sat with a little delighted disapproval on his tiny, bird-like face, without saying anything. And even the Jew Rosen put away his deaf-machine and began awkwardly to take his leave. His long nose was smiling to itself complacently at all the things Argyle had been saying. When he, too, had gone, Argyle arched his brows at Aaron, saying: “Oh, my dear fellow, what a lot they are!--Little Mee--looking like an innocent little boy. He's over seventy if he's a day. Well over seventy. Well, you don't believe me. Ask his mother--ask his mother. She's ninety-five. Old lady of ninety-five--” Argyle even laughed himself at his own preposterousness. “And then Algy--Algy's not a fool, you know. Oh, he can be most entertaining, most witty, and amusing. But he's out of place here. He should be in Kensington, dandling round the ladies' drawing rooms and making his _mots_. They're rich, you know, the pair of them. Little Mee used to boast that he lived on eleven-and-three-pence a week. Had to, poor chap. But then what does a white mouse like that need? Makes a heavy meal on a cheese-paring. Luck, you know--but of course he's come into money as well. Rich as Croesus, and still lives on nineteen-and-two-pence a week. Though it's nearly double, of course, what it used to be. No wonder he looks anxious. They disapprove of me--oh, quite right, quite right from their own point of view. Where would their money be otherwise? It wouldn't last long if I laid hands on it--” he made a devilish quizzing face. “But you know, they get on my nerves. Little old maids, you know, little old maids. I'm sure I'm surprised at their patience with me.--But when people are patient with you, you want to spit gall at them. Don't you? Ha-ha-ha! Poor old Algy.--Did I lay it on him tonight, or did I miss him?” “I think you got him,” said Aaron. “He'll never forgive me. Depend on it, he'll never forgive me. Ha-ha! I like to be unforgiven. It adds ZEST to one's intercourse with people, to know that they'll never forgive one. Ha-ha-ha! Little old maids, who do their knitting with their tongues. Poor old Algy--he drops his stitches now. Ha-ha-ha!--Must be eighty, I should say.” Aaron laughed. He had never met a man like Argyle before--and he could not help being charmed. The other man had a certain wicked whimsicality that was very attractive, when levelled against someone else, and not against oneself. He must have been very handsome in his day, with his natural dignity, and his clean-shaven strong square face. But now his face was all red and softened and inflamed, his eyes had gone small and wicked under his bushy grey brows. Still he had a presence. And his grey hair, almost gone white, was still handsome. “And what are you going to do in Florence?” asked Argyle. Aaron explained. “Well,” said Argyle. “Make what you can out of them, and then go. Go before they have time to do the dirty on you. If they think you want anything from them, they'll treat you like a dog, like a dog. Oh, they're very frightened of anybody who wants anything of them: frightened to death. I see nothing of them.--Live by myself--see nobody. Can't stand it, you know: their silly little teaparties--simply can't stand it. No, I live alone--and shall die alone.--At least, I sincerely hope so. I should be sorry to have any of them hanging round.” The restaurant was empty, the pale, malarial waiter--he had of course contracted malaria during the war--was looking purple round the eyes. But Argyle callously sat on. Aaron therefore rose to his feet. “Oh, I'm coming, I'm coming,” said Argyle. He got unsteadily to his feet. The waiter helped him on with his coat: and he put a disreputable-looking little curly hat on his head. Then he took his stick. “Don't look at my appearance, my dear fellow,” said Argyle. “I am frayed at the wrists--look here!” He showed the cuffs of his overcoat, just frayed through. “I've got a trunkful of clothes in London, if only somebody would bring it out to me.--Ready then! _Avanti!_” And so they passed out into the still rainy street. Argyle lived in the very centre of the town: in the Cathedral Square. Aaron left him at his hotel door. “But come and see me,” said Argyle. “Call for me at twelve o'clock--or just before twelve--and let us have luncheon together. What! Is that all right?--Yes, come just before twelve.--When?--Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning? Will you come tomorrow?” Aaron said he would on Monday. “Monday, eh! You say Monday! Very well then. Don't you forget now. Don't you forget. For I've a memory like a vice. _I_ shan't forget.--Just before twelve then. And come right up. I'm right under the roof. In Paradise, as the porter always says. _Siamo nel paradiso_. But he's a _cretin_. As near Paradise as I care for, for it's devilish hot in summer, and damned cold in winter. Don't you forget now--Monday, twelve o'clock.” And Argyle pinched Aaron's arm fast, then went unsteadily up the steps to his hotel door. The next day at Algy's there was a crowd Algy had a very pleasant flat indeed, kept more scrupulously neat and finicking than ever any woman's flat was kept. So today, with its bowls of flowers and its pictures and books and old furniture, and Algy, very nicely dressed, fluttering and blinking and making really a charming host, it was all very delightful to the little mob of visitors. They were a curious lot, it is true: everybody rather exceptional. Which though it may be startling, is so very much better fun than everybody all alike. Aaron talked to an old, old Italian elegant in side-curls, who peeled off his grey gloves and studied his formalities with a delightful Mid-Victorian dash, and told stories about a _plaint_ which Lady Surry had against Lord Marsh, and was quite incomprehensible. Out rolled the English words, like plums out of a burst bag, and all completely unintelligible. But the old _beau_ was supremely satisfied. He loved talking English, and holding his listeners spell-bound. Next to Aaron on the sofa sat the Marchesa del Torre, an American woman from the Southern States, who had lived most of her life in Europe. She was about forty years of age, handsome, well-dressed, and quiet in the buzz of the tea-party. It was evident she was one of Algy's lionesses. Now she sat by Aaron, eating nothing, but taking a cup of tea and keeping still. She seemed sad--or not well perhaps. Her eyes were heavy. But she was very carefully made up, and very well dressed, though simply: and sitting there, full-bosomed, rather sad, remote-seeming, she suggested to Aaron a modern Cleopatra brooding, Anthony-less. Her husband, the Marchese, was a little intense Italian in a colonel's grey uniform, cavalry, leather gaiters. He had blue eyes, his hair was cut very short, his head looked hard and rather military: he would have been taken for an Austrian officer, or even a German, had it not been for the peculiar Italian sprightliness and touch of grimace in his mobile countenance. He was rather like a gnome--not ugly, but odd. Now he came and stood opposite to Signor di Lanti, and quizzed him in Italian. But it was evident, in quizzing the old buck, the little Marchese was hovering near his wife, in ear-shot. Algy came up with cigarettes, and she at once began to smoke, with that peculiar heavy intensity of a nervous woman. Aaron did not say anything--did not know what to say. He was peculiarly conscious of the woman sitting next to him, her arm near his. She smoked heavily, in silence, as if abstracted, a sort of cloud on her level, dark brows. Her hair was dark, but a softish brown, not black, and her skin was fair. Her bosom would be white.--Why Aaron should have had this thought, he could not for the life of him say. Manfredi, her husband, rolled his blue eyes and grimaced as he laughed at old Lanti. But it was obvious that his attention was diverted sideways, towards his wife. Aaron, who was tired of nursing a tea-cup, placed in on a table and resumed his seat in silence. But suddenly the little Marchese whipped out his cigarette-case, and making a little bow, presented it to Aaron, saying: “Won't you smoke?” “Thank you,” said Aaron. “Turkish that side--Virginia there--you see.” “Thank you, Turkish,” said Aaron. The little officer in his dove-grey and yellow uniform snapped his box shut again, and presented a light. “You are new in Florence?” he said, as he presented the match. “Four days,” said Aaron. “And I hear you are musical.” “I play the flute--no more.” “Ah, yes--but then you play it as an artist, not as an accomplishment.” “But how do you know?” laughed Aaron. “I was told so--and I believe it.” “That's nice of you, anyhow--But you are a musician too.” “Yes--we are both musicians--my wife and I.” Manfredi looked at his wife. She flicked the ash off her cigarette. “What sort?” said Aaron. “Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose.” “No--what is your instrument? The piano?” “Yes--the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone. And so--you see--everything goes--” “But you will begin again?” “Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine woman--a friend--very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli, who composes--as you may know--” “Yes,” said Aaron. “Would you care to come and hear--?” “Awfully nice if you would--” suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as if she had merely been tired, and not talking before. “I should like to very much--” “Do come then.” While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest manner. “Now Marchesa--might we hope for a song?” “No--I don't sing any more,” came the slow, contralto reply. “Oh, but you can't mean you say that deliberately--” “Yes, quite deliberately--” She threw away her cigarette and opened her little gold case to take another. “But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?” “I can't say,” she replied, with a little laugh. “The war, probably.” “Oh, but don't let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else.” “Can't be helped,” she said. “I have no choice in the matter. The bird has flown--” She spoke with a certain heavy languor. “You mean the bird of your voice? Oh, but that is quite impossible. One can hear it calling out of the leaves every time you speak.” “I'm afraid you can't get him to do any more than call out of the leaves.” “But--but--pardon me--is it because you don't intend there should be any more song? Is that your intention?” “That I couldn't say,” said the Marchesa, smoking, smoking. “Yes,” said Manfredi. “At the present time it is because she WILL not--not because she cannot. It is her will, as you say.” “Dear me! Dear me!” said Algy. “But this is really another disaster added to the war list.--But--but--will none of us ever be able to persuade you?” He smiled half cajoling, half pathetic, with a prodigious flapping of his eyes. “I don't know,” said she. “That will be as it must be.” “Then can't we say it must be SONG once more?” To this sally she merely laughed, and pressed out her half-smoked cigarette. “How very disappointing! How very cruel of--of fate--and the war--and--and all the sum total of evils,” said Algy. “Perhaps--” here the little and piquant host turned to Aaron. “Perhaps Mr. Sisson, your flute might call out the bird of song. As thrushes call each other into challenge, you know. Don't you think that is very probable?” “I have no idea,” said Aaron. “But you, Marchesa. Won't you give us hope that it might be so?” “I've no idea, either,” said she. “But I should very much like to hear Mr. Sisson's flute. It's an instrument I like extremely.” “There now. You see you may work the miracle, Mr. Sisson. Won't you play to us?” “I'm afraid I didn't bring my flute along,” said Aaron “I didn't want to arrive with a little bag.” “Quite!” said Algy. “What a pity it wouldn't go in your pocket.” “Not music and all,” said Aaron. “Dear me! What a _comble_ of disappointment. I never felt so strongly, Marchesa, that the old life and the old world had collapsed.--Really--I shall soon have to try to give up being cheerful at all.” “Don't do that,” said the Marchesa. “It isn't worth the effort.” “Ah! I'm glad you find it so. Then I have hope.” She merely smiled, indifferent. The teaparty began to break up--Aaron found himself going down the stairs with the Marchesa and her husband. They descended all three in silence, husband and wife in front. Once outside the door, the husband asked: “How shall we go home, dear? Tram or carriage--?” It was evident he was economical. “Walk,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Aaron. “We are all going the same way, I believe.” Aaron said where he lived. They were just across the river. And so all three proceeded to walk through the town. “You are sure it won't be too much for you--too far?” said the little officer, taking his wife's arm solicitously. She was taller than he. But he was a spirited fellow. “No, I feel like walking.” “So long as you don't have to pay for it afterwards.” Aaron gathered that she was not well. Yet she did not look ill--unless it were nerves. She had that peculiar heavy remote quality of pre-occupation and neurosis. The streets of Florence were very full this Sunday evening, almost impassable, crowded particularly with gangs of grey-green soldiers. The three made their way brokenly, and with difficulty. The Italian was in a constant state of returning salutes. The grey-green, sturdy, unsoldierly soldiers looked at the woman as she passed. “I am sure you had better take a carriage,” said Manfredi. “No--I don't mind it.” “Do you feel at home in Florence?” Aaron asked her. “Yes--as much as anywhere. Oh, yes--quite at home.” “Do you like it as well as anywhere?” he asked. “Yes--for a time. Paris for the most part.” “Never America?” “No, never America. I came when I was quite a little girl to Europe--Madrid--Constantinople--Paris. I hardly knew America at all.” Aaron remembered that Francis had told him, the Marchesa's father had been ambassador to Paris. “So you feel you have no country of your own?” “I have Italy. I am Italian now, you know.” Aaron wondered why she spoke so muted, so numbed. Manfredi seemed really attached to her--and she to him. They were so simple with one another. They came towards the bridge where they should part. “Won't you come and have a cocktail?” she said. “Now?” said Aaron. “Yes. This is the right time for a cocktail. What time is it, Manfredi?” “Half past six. Do come and have one with us,” said the Italian. “We always take one about this time.” Aaron continued with them over the bridge. They had the first floor of an old palazzo opposite, a little way up the hill. A man-servant opened the door. “If only it will be warm,” she said. “The apartment is almost impossible to keep warm. We will sit in the little room.” Aaron found himself in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident he liked his guest. “Would you like to see the room where we have music?” he said. “It is a fine room for the purpose--we used before the war to have music every Saturday morning, from ten to twelve: and all friends might come. Usually we had fifteen or twenty people. Now we are starting again. I myself enjoy it so much. I am afraid my wife isn't so enthusiastic as she used to be. I wish something would rouse her up, you know. The war seemed to take her life away. Here in Florence are so many amateurs. Very good indeed. We can have very good chamber-music indeed. I hope it will cheer her up and make her quite herself again. I was away for such long periods, at the front.--And it was not good for her to be alone.--I am hoping now all will be better.” So saying, the little, odd officer switched on the lights of the long salon. It was a handsome room in the Italian mode of the Empire period--beautiful old faded tapestry panels--reddish--and some ormolu furniture--and other things mixed in--rather conglomerate, but pleasing, all the more pleasing. It was big, not too empty, and seemed to belong to human life, not to show and shut-upedness. The host was happy showing it. “Of course the flat in Paris is more luxurious than this,” he said. “But I prefer this. I prefer it here.” There was a certain wistfulness as he looked round, then began to switch off the lights. They returned to the little salotta. The Marchesa was seated in a low chair. She wore a very thin white blouse, that showed her arms and her throat. She was a full-breasted, soft-skinned woman, though not stout. “Make the cocktails then, Manfredi,” she said. “Do you find this room very cold?” she asked of Aaron. “Not a bit cold,” he said. “The stove goes all the time,” she said, “but without much effect.” “You wear such thin clothes,” he said. “Ah, no, the stove should give heat enough. Do sit down. Will you smoke? There are cigarettes--and cigars, if you prefer them.” “No, I've got my own, thanks.” She took her own cigarette from her gold case. “It is a fine room, for music, the big room,” said he. “Yes, quite. Would you like to play for us some time, do you think?” “Do you want me to? I mean does it interest you?” “What--the flute?” “No--music altogether--” “Music altogether--! Well! I used to love it. Now--I'm not sure. Manfredi lives for it, almost.” “For that and nothing else?” asked Aaron. “No, no! No, no! Other things as well.” “But you don't like it much any more?” “I don't know. Perhaps I don't. I'm not sure.” “You don't look forward to the Saturday mornings?” he asked. “Perhaps I don't--but for Manfredi's sake, of course, I do. But for his sake more than my own, I admit. And I think he knows it.” “A crowd of people in one's house--” said Aaron. “Yes, the people. But it's not only that. It's the music itself--I think I can't stand it any more. I don't know.” “Too emotional? Too much feeling for you?” “Yes, perhaps. But no. What I can't stand is chords, you know: harmonies. A number of sounds all sounding together. It just makes me ill. It makes me feel so sick.” “What--do you want discords?--dissonances?” “No--they are nearly as bad. No, it's just when any number of musical notes, different notes, come together, harmonies or discords. Even a single chord struck on the piano. It makes me feel sick. I just feel as if I should retch. Isn't it strange? Of course, I don't tell Manfredi. It would be too cruel to him. It would cut his life in two.” “But then why do you have the music--the Saturdays--then?” “Oh, I just keep out of the way as much as possible. I'm sure you feel there is something wrong with me, that I take it as I do,” she added, as if anxious: but half ironical. “No--I was just wondering--I believe I feel something the same myself. I know orchestra makes me blind with hate or I don't know what. But I want to throw bombs.” “There now. It does that to me, too. Only now it has fairly got me down, and I feel nothing but helpless nausea. You know, like when you are seasick.” Her dark-blue, heavy, haunted-looking eyes were resting on him as if she hoped for something. He watched her face steadily, a curious intelligence flickering on his own. “Yes,” he said. “I understand it. And I know, at the bottom, I'm like that. But I keep myself from realising, don't you know? Else perhaps, where should I be? Because I make my life and my living at it, as well.” “At music! Do you! But how bad for you. But perhaps the flute is different. I have a feeling that it is. I can think of one single pipe-note--yes, I can think of it quite, quite calmly. And I can't even think of the piano, or of the violin with its tremolo, or of orchestra, or of a string quartette--or even a military band--I can't think of it without a shudder. I can only bear drum-and-fife. Isn't it crazy of me--but from the other, from what we call music proper, I've endured too much. But bring your flute one day. Bring it, will you? And let me hear it quite alone. Quite, quite alone. I think it might do me an awful lot of good. I do, really. I can imagine it.” She closed her eyes and her strange, sing-song lapsing voice came to an end. She spoke almost like one in a trance--or a sleep-walker. “I've got it now in my overcoat pocket,” he said, “if you like.” “Have you? Yes!” She was never hurried: always slow and resonant, so that the echoes of her voice seemed to linger. “Yes--do get it. Do get it. And play in the other room--quite--quite without accompaniment. Do--and try me.” “And you will tell me what you feel?” “Yes.” Aaron went out to his overcoat. When he returned with his flute, which he was screwing together, Manfredi had come with the tray and the three cocktails. The Marchesa took her glass. “Listen, Manfredi,” she said. “Mr. Sisson is going to play, quite alone in the sala. And I am going to sit here and listen.” “Very well,” said Manfredi. “Drink your cocktail first. Are you going to play without music?” “Yes,” said Aaron. “I'll just put on the lights for you.” “No--leave it dark. Enough light will come in from here.” “Sure?” said Manfredi. “Yes.” The little soldier was an intruder at the moment. Both the others felt it so. But they bore him no grudge. They knew it was they who were exceptional, not he. Aaron swallowed his drink, and looked towards the door. “Sit down, Manfredi. Sit still,” said the Marchesa. “Won't you let me try some accompaniment?” said the soldier. “No. I shall just play a little thing from memory,” said Aaron. “Sit down, dear. Sit down,” said the Marchesa to her husband. He seated himself obediently. The flash of bright yellow on the grey of his uniform seemed to make him like a chaffinch or a gnome. Aaron retired to the other room, and waited awhile, to get back the spell which connected him with the woman, and gave the two of them this strange isolation, beyond the bounds of life, as it seemed. He caught it again. And there, in the darkness of the big room, he put his flute to his lips, and began to play. It was a clear, sharp, lilted run-and-fall of notes, not a tune in any sense of the word, and yet a melody, a bright, quick sound of pure animation, a bright, quick, animate noise, running and pausing. It was like a bird's singing, in that it had no human emotion or passion or intention or meaning--a ripple and poise of animate sound. But it was unlike a bird's singing, in that the notes followed clear and single one after the other, in their subtle gallop. A nightingale is rather like that--a wild sound. To read all the human pathos into nightingales' singing is nonsense. A wild, savage, non-human lurch and squander of sound, beautiful, but entirely unaesthetic. What Aaron was playing was not of his own invention. It was a bit of mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin, as we know it, a hateful wire-drawn nerve-torturer. After a little while, when he entered the smaller room again, the Marchesa looked full into his face. “Good!” she said. “Good!” And a gleam almost of happiness seemed to light her up. She seemed like one who had been kept in a horrible enchanted castle--for years and years. Oh, a horrible enchanted castle, with wet walls of emotions and ponderous chains of feelings and a ghastly atmosphere of must-be. She felt she had seen through the opening door a crack of sunshine, and thin, pure, light outside air, outside, beyond this dank and beastly dungeon of feelings and moral necessity. Ugh!--she shuddered convulsively at what had been. She looked at her little husband. Chains of necessity all round him: a little jailor. Yet she was fond of him. If only he would throw away the castle keys. He was a little gnome. What did he clutch the castle-keys so tight for? Aaron looked at her. He knew that they understood one another, he and she. Without any moral necessity or any other necessity. Outside--they had got outside the castle of so-called human life. Outside the horrible, stinking human castle Of life. A bit of true, limpid freedom. Just a glimpse. “Charming!” said the Marchese. “Truly charming! But what was it you played?” Aaron told him. “But truly delightful. I say, won't you play for us one of these Saturdays? And won't you let me take the accompaniment? I should be charmed, charmed if you would.” “All right,” said Aaron. “Do drink another cocktail,” said his hostess. He did so. And then he rose to leave. “Will you stay to dinner?” said the Marchesa. “We have two people coming--two Italian relatives of my husband. But--” No, Aaron declined to stay to dinner. “Then won't you come on--let me see--on Wednesday? Do come on Wednesday. We are alone. And do bring the flute. Come at half-past six, as today, will you? Yes?” Aaron promised--and then he found himself in the street. It was half-past seven. Instead of returning straight home, he crossed the Ponte Vecchio and walked straight into the crowd. The night was fine now. He had his overcoat over his arm, and in a sort of trance or frenzy, whirled away by his evening's experience, and by the woman, he strode swiftly forward, hardly heeding anything, but rushing blindly on through all the crowd, carried away by his own feelings, as much as if he had been alone, and all these many people merely trees. Leaving the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele a gang of soldiers suddenly rushed round him, buffeting him in one direction, whilst another gang, swinging round the corner, threw him back helpless again into the midst of the first gang. For some moments he struggled among the rude, brutal little mob of grey-green coarse uniforms that smelt so strong of soldiers. Then, irritated, he found himself free again, shaking himself and passing on towards the cathedral. Irritated, he now put on his overcoat and buttoned it to the throat, closing himself in, as it were, from the brutal insolence of the Sunday night mob of men. Before, he had been walking through them in a rush of naked feeling, all exposed to their tender mercies. He now gathered himself together. As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello, he stopped. He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket. His letter-case was gone. He had been robbed. It was as if lightning ran through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving him standing there almost unconscious. For a moment unconscious and superconscious he stood there. He had been robbed. They had put their hand in his breast and robbed him. If they had stabbed him, it could hardly have had a greater effect on him. And he had known it. He had known it. When the soldiers jostled him so evilly they robbed him. And he knew it. He had known it as if it were fate. Even as if it were fated beforehand. Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some evil electric fluid, he walked on. And as soon as he began to walk, he began to reason. Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat. Perhaps he had not had it with him at all. Perhaps he was feeling all this, just for nothing. Perhaps it was all folly. He hurried forward. He wanted to make sure. He wanted relief. It was as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it up. He did not want to admit the power of evil--particularly at that moment. For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst of that gang of Italian soldiers. He knew it--it had pierced him. It had _got_ him. But he wanted to say it was not so. Reaching the house, he hastened upwards to his far-off, lonely room, through the dark corridors. Once in his own apartment, he shut the door and switched on the light, a sensation like fear at his heart. Then he searched his other pockets. He looked everywhere. In vain. In vain, truly enough. For he _knew_ the thing was stolen. He had known it all along. The soldiers had deliberately plotted, had deliberately rushed him and taken his purse. They must have watched him previously. They must have grinned, and jeered at him. He sat down in a chair, to recover from the shock. The pocket-book contained four hundred francs, three one-pound notes, and various letters and private effects. Well, these were lost. But it was not so much the loss as the assault on his person that caused him to feel so stricken. He felt the jeering, gibing blows they had given as they jostled him. And now he sat, weak in every limb, and said to himself: “Yes--and if I hadn't rushed along so full of feeling: if I hadn't exposed myself: if I hadn't got worked up with the Marchesa, and then rushed all kindled through the streets, without reserve, it would never have happened. I gave myself away: and there was someone ready to snatch what I gave. I gave myself away. It is my own fault. I should have been on my guard. I should be always on my guard: always, always. With God and the devil both, I should be on my guard. Godly or devilish, I should hold fast to my reserve and keep on the watch. And if I don't, I deserve what I get.” But still he sat in his chair in his bedroom, dazed. One part of his soul was saying emphatically: It serves you right. It is nothing but right. It serves everybody right who rushes enkindled through the street, and trusts implicitly in mankind and in the life-spirit, as if mankind and the life-spirit were a playground for enkindled individuals. It serves you right. You have paid about twelve pounds sterling for your lesson. Fool, you might have known beforehand, and then you needn't have paid at all. You can ill afford twelve pounds sterling, you fool. But since paid you have, then mind, mind the lesson is learned. Never again. Never expose yourself again. Never again absolute trust. It is a blasphemy against life, is absolute trust. Has a wild creature ever absolute trust? It minds itself. Sleeping or waking it is on its guard. And so must you be, or you'll go under. Sleeping or waking, man or woman, God or the devil, keep your guard over yourself. Keep your guard over yourself, lest worse befall you. No man is robbed unless he incites a robber. No man is murdered unless he attracts a murderer. Then be not robbed: it lies within your own power. And be not murdered. Or if you are, you deserve it. Keep your guard over yourself, now, always and forever. Yes, against God quite as hard as against the devil. He's fully as dangerous to you.... Thus thinking, not in his mind but in his soul, his active, living soul, he gathered his equanimity once more, and accepted the fact. So he rose and tidied himself for dinner. His face was now set, and still. His heart also was still--and fearless. Because its sentinel was stationed. Stationed, stationed for ever. And Aaron never forgot. After this, it became essential to him to feel that the sentinel stood guard in his own heart. He felt a strange unease the moment he was off his guard. Asleep or awake, in the midst of the deepest passion or the suddenest love, or in the throes of greatest excitement or bewilderment, somewhere, some corner of himself was awake to the fact that the sentinel of the soul must not sleep, no, never, not for one instant. CHAPTER XVII. HIGH UP OVER THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE Aaron and Lilly sat in Argyle's little loggia, high up under the eaves of the small hotel, a sort of long attic-terrace just under the roof, where no one would have suspected it. It was level with the grey conical roof of the Baptistery. Here sat Aaron and Lilly in the afternoon, in the last of the lovely autumn sunshine. Below, the square was already cold in shadow, the pink and white and green Baptistery rose lantern-shaped as from some sea-shore, cool, cold and wan now the sun was gone. Black figures, innumerable black figures, curious because they were all on end, up on end--Aaron could not say why he expected them to be horizontal--little black figures upon end, like fishes that swim on their tails, wiggled endlessly across the piazza, little carriages on natural all-fours rattled tinily across, the yellow little tram-cars, like dogs slipped round the corner. The balcony was so high up, that the sound was ineffectual. The upper space, above the houses, was nearer than the under-currents of the noisy town. Sunlight, lovely full sunlight, lingered warm and still on the balcony. It caught the facade of the cathedral sideways, like the tips of a flower, and sideways lit up the stem of Giotto's tower, like a lily stem, or a long, lovely pale pink and white and green pistil of the lily of the cathedral. Florence, the flowery town. Firenze--Fiorenze--the flowery town: the red lilies. The Fiorentini, the flower-souled. Flowers with good roots in the mud and muck, as should be: and fearless blossoms in air, like the cathedral and the tower and the David. “I love it,” said Lilly. “I love this place, I love the cathedral and the tower. I love its pinkness and its paleness. The Gothic souls find fault with it, and say it is gimcrack and tawdry and cheap. But I love it, it is delicate and rosy, and the dark stripes are as they should be, like the tiger marks on a pink lily. It's a lily, not a rose; a pinky white lily with dark tigery marks. And heavy, too, in its own substance: earth-substance, risen from earth into the air: and never forgetting the dark, black-fierce earth--I reckon here men for a moment were themselves, as a plant in flower is for the moment completely itself. Then it goes off. As Florence has gone off. No flowers now. But it HAS flowered. And I don't see why a race should be like an aloe tree, flower once and die. Why should it? Why not flower again? Why not?” “If it's going to, it will,” said Aaron. “Our deciding about it won't alter it.” “The decision is part of the business.” Here they were interrupted by Argyle, who put his head through one of the windows. He had flecks of lather on his reddened face. “Do you think you're wise now,” he said, “to sit in that sun?” “In November?” laughed Lilly. “Always fear the sun when there's an 'r' in the month,” said Argyle. “Always fear it 'r' or no 'r,' _I_ say. I'm frightened of it. I've been in the South, I know what it is. I tell you I'm frightened of it. But if you think you can stand it--well--” “It won't last much longer, anyhow,” said Lilly. “Too long for me, my boy. I'm a shady bird, in all senses of the word, in all senses of the word.--Now are you comfortable? What? Have another cushion? A rug for your knees? You're quite sure now? Well, wait just one moment till the waiter brings up a syphon, and you shall have a whiskey and soda. Precious--oh, yes, very precious these days--like drinking gold. Thirty-five lire a bottle, my boy!” Argyle pulled a long face, and made a noise with his lips. “But I had this bottle given me, and luckily you've come while there's a drop left. Very glad you have! Very glad you have.” Here he poked a little table through the window, and put a bottle and two glasses, one a tooth-glass, upon it. Then he withdrew again to finish shaving. The waiter presently hobbled up with the syphon and third glass. Argyle pushed his head through the window, that was only a little higher than the balcony. He was soon neatly shaved, and was brushing his hair. “Go ahead, my boys, go ahead with that whiskey!” he said. “We'll wait for you,” said Lilly. “No, no, don't think of it. However, if you will, I shall be one minute only--one minute only. I'll put on the water for the tea now. Oh, damned bad methylated spirit they sell now! And six francs a litre! Six francs a litre! I don't know what I'm going to do, the air I breathe costs money nowadays--Just one moment and I'll be with you! Just one moment--” In a very little while he came from the tiny attic bedroom, through the tiniest cupboard of a sitting-room under the eaves, where his books were, and where he had hung his old red India tapestries--or silk embroideries--and he emerged there up above the world on the loggia. “Now then--_siamo nel paradiso_, eh? Paradisal enough for you, is it?” “The devil looking over Lincoln,” said Lilly laughing, glancing up into Argyle's face. “The devil looking over Florence would feel sad,” said Argyle. “The place is fast growing respectable--Oh, piety makes the devil chuckle. But respectability, my boy, argues a serious diminution of spunk. And when the spunk diminishes we-ell--it's enough to make the most sturdy devil look sick. What? No doubt about it, no doubt whatever--There--!” he had just finished settling his tie and buttoning his waistcoat. “How do I look, eh? Presentable?--I've just had this suit turned. Clever little tailor across the way there. But he charged me a hundred and twenty francs.” Argyle pulled a face, and made the little trumping noise with his lips. “However--not bad, is it?--He had to let in a bit at the back of the waistcoat, and a gusset, my boy, a gusset--in the trousers back. Seems I've grown in the arsal region. Well, well, might do worse.--Is it all right?” Lilly eyed the suit. “Very nice. Very nice indeed. Such a good cloth! That makes all the difference.” “Oh, my dear fellow, all the difference! This suit is eleven years old--eleven years old. But beautiful English cloth--before the war, before the war!” “It looks quite wonderfully expensive and smart now,” said Lilly. “Expensive and smart, eh! Ha-ha-ha! Well, it cost me a hundred and twenty francs to have it turned, and I found that expensive enough. Well, now, come--” here Argyle's voice took on a new gay cheer. “A whiskey and soda, Lilly? Say when! Oh, nonsense, nonsense! You're going to have double that. You're no lily of the valley here, remember. Not with me. Not likely. _Siamo nel paradiso_, remember.” “But why should we drink your whiskey? Tea would do for us just as well.” “Not likely! Not likely! When I have the pleasure of your company, my boy, we drink a glass of something, unless I am utterly stripped. Say when, Aaron.” “When,” said Aaron. Argyle at last seated himself heavily in a small chair. The sun had left the loggia, but was glowing still on Giotto's tower and the top of the cathedral facade, and on the remoter great red-tiled dome. “Look at my little red monthly rose,” said Argyle. “Wonderful little fellow! I wouldn't have anything happen to him for the world. Oh, a bacchic little chap. I made Pasquale wear a wreath of them on his hair. Very becoming they were, very.--Oh, I've had a charming show of flowers. Wonderful creatures sunflowers are.” They got up and put their heads over the balcony, looking down on the square below. “Oh, great fun, great fun.--Yes, I had a charming show of flowers, charming.--Zinnias, petunias, ranunculus, sunflowers, white stocks--oh, charming. Look at that bit of honeysuckle. You see the berries where his flowers were! Delicious scent, I assure you.” Under the little balcony wall Argyle had put square red-tiled pots, all round, and in these still bloomed a few pansies and asters, whilst in a corner a monthly rose hung flowers like round blood-drops. Argyle was as tidy and scrupulous in his tiny rooms and his balcony as if he were a first-rate sea-man on a yacht. Lilly remarked on this. “Do you see signs of the old maid coming out in me? Oh, I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. We all end that way. Age makes old maids of us all. And Tanny is all right, you say? Bring her to see me. Why didn't she come today?” “You know you don't like people unless you expect them.” “Oh, but my dear fellow!--You and Tanny; you'd be welcome if you came at my busiest moment. Of course you would. I'd be glad to see you if you interrupted me at any crucial moment.--I am alone now till August. Then we shall go away together somewhere. But you and Tanny; why, there's the world, and there's Lilly: that's how I put it, my boy.” “All right, Argyle.--Hoflichkeiten.” “What? Gar keine Hoflichkeiten. Wahrhaftiger Kerl bin ich.--When am I going to see Tanny? When are you coming to dine with me?” “After you've dined with us--say the day after tomorrow.” “Right you are. Delighted--. Let me look if that water's boiling.” He got up and poked half himself inside the bedroom. “Not yet. Damned filthy methylated spirit they sell.” “Look,” said Lilly. “There's Del Torre!” “Like some sort of midge, in that damned grey-and-yellow uniform. I can't stand it, I tell you. I can't stand the sight of any more of these uniforms. Like a blight on the human landscape. Like a blight. Like green-flies on rose-trees, smother-flies. Europe's got the smother-fly in these infernal shoddy militarists.” “Del Torre's coming out of it as soon as he can,” said Lilly. “I should think so, too.” “I like him myself--very much. Look, he's seen us! He wants to come up, Argyle.” “What, in that uniform! I'll see him in his grandmother's crinoline first.” “Don't be fanatical, it's bad taste. Let him come up a minute.” “Not for my sake. But for yours, he shall,” Argyle stood at the parapet of the balcony and waved his arm. “Yes, come up,” he said, “come up, you little mistkafer--what the Americans call a bug. Come up and be damned.” Of course Del Torre was too far off to hear this exhortation. Lilly also waved to him--and watched him pass into the doorway far below. “I'll rinse one of these glasses for him,” said Argyle. The Marchese's step was heard on the stone stairs: then his knock. “Come in! Come in!” cried Argyle from the bedroom, where he was rinsing the glass. The Marchese entered, grinning with his curious, half courteous greeting. “Go through--go through,” cried Argyle. “Go on to the loggia--and mind your head. Good heavens, mind your head in that doorway.” The Marchese just missed the top of the doorway as he climbed the abrupt steps on to the loggia.--There he greeted Lilly and Aaron with hearty handshakes. “Very glad to see you--very glad, indeed!” he cried, grinning with excited courtesy and pleasure, and covering Lilly's hand with both his own gloved hands. “When did you come to Florence?” There was a little explanation. Argyle shoved the last chair--it was a luggage stool--through the window. “All I can do for you in the way of a chair,” he said. “Ah, that is all right,” said the Marchese. “Well, it is very nice up here--and very nice company. Of the very best, the very best in Florence.” “The highest, anyhow,” said Argyle grimly, as he entered with the glass. “Have a whiskey and soda, Del Torre. It's the bottom of the bottle, as you see.” “The bottom of the bottle! Then I start with the tail-end, yes!” He stretched his blue eyes so that the whites showed all round, and grinned a wide, gnome-like grin. “You made that start long ago, my dear fellow. Don't play the _ingenue_ with me, you know it won't work. Say when, my man, say when!” “Yes, when,” said Del Torre. “When did I make that start, then?” “At some unmentionably young age. Chickens such as you soon learn to cheep.” “Chickens such as I soon learn to cheap,” repeated Del Torre, pleased with the verbal play. “What is cheap, please? What is TO CHEAP?” “Cheep! Cheep!” squeaked Argyle, making a face at the little Italian, who was perched on one strap of the luggage-stool. “It's what chickens say when they're poking their little noses into new adventures--naughty ones.” “Are chickens naughty? Oh! I thought they could only be good!” “Featherless chickens like yourself, my boy.” “Oh, as for featherless--then there is no saying what they will do.--” And here the Marchese turned away from Argyle with the inevitable question to Lilly: “Well, and how long will you stay in Florence?” Lilly did not know: but he was not leaving immediately. “Good! Then you will come and see us at once....” Argyle rose once more, and went to make the tea. He shoved a lump of cake--or rather panetone, good currant loaf--through the window, with a knife to cut it. “Help yourselves to the panetone,” he said. “Eat it up. The tea is coming at once. You'll have to drink it in your glasses, there's only one old cup.” The Marchese cut the cake, and offered pieces. The two men took and ate. “So you have already found Mr. Sisson!” said Del Torre to Lilly. “Ran straight into him in the Via Nazionale,” said Lilly. “Oh, one always runs into everybody in Florence. We are all already acquainted: also with the flute. That is a great pleasure.” “So I think.--Does your wife like it, too?” “Very much, indeed! She is quite _eprise_. I, too, shall have to learn to play it.” “And run the risk of spoiling the shape of your mouth--like Alcibiades.” “Is there a risk? Yes! Then I shan't play it. My mouth is too beautiful.--But Mr. Sisson has not spoilt his mouth.” “Not yet,” said Lilly. “Give him time.” “Is he also afraid--like Alcibiades?” “Are you, Aaron?” said Lilly. “What?” “Afraid of spoiling your beauty by screwing your mouth to the flute?” “I look a fool, do I, when I'm playing?” said Aaron. “Only the least little bit in the world,” said Lilly. “The way you prance your head, you know, like a horse.” “Ah, well,” said Aaron. “I've nothing to lose.” “And were you surprised, Lilly, to find your friend here?” asked Del Torre. “I ought to have been. But I wasn't really.” “Then you expected him?” “No. It came naturally, though.--But why did you come, Aaron? What exactly brought you?” “Accident,” said Aaron. “Ah, no! No! There is no such thing as accident,” said the Italian. “A man is drawn by his fate, where he goes.” “You are right,” said Argyle, who came now with the teapot. “A man is drawn--or driven. Driven, I've found it. Ah, my dear fellow, what is life but a search for a friend? A search for a friend--that sums it up.” “Or a lover,” said the Marchese, grinning. “Same thing. Same thing. My hair is white--but that is the sum of my whole experience. The search for a friend.” There was something at once real and sentimental in Argyle's tone. “And never finding?” said Lilly, laughing. “Oh, what would you? Often finding. Often finding. And losing, of course.--A life's history. Give me your glass. Miserable tea, but nobody has sent me any from England--” “And you will go on till you die, Argyle?” said Lilly. “Always seeking a friend--and always a new one?” “If I lose the friend I've got. Ah, my dear fellow, in that case I shall go on seeking. I hope so, I assure you. Something will be very wrong with me, if ever I sit friendless and make no search.” “But, Argyle, there is a time to leave off.” “To leave off what, to leave off what?” “Having friends: or a friend, rather: or seeking to have one.” “Oh, no! Not at all, my friend. Not at all! Only death can make an end of that, my friend. Only death. And I should say, not even death. Not even death ends a man's search for a friend. That is my belief. You may hang me for it, but I shall never alter.” “Nay,” said Lilly. “There is a time to love, and a time to leave off loving.” “All I can say to that is that my time to leave off hasn't come yet,” said Argyle, with obstinate feeling. “Ah, yes, it has. It is only a habit and an idea you stick to.” “Indeed, it is no such thing. Indeed, it is no such thing. It is a profound desire and necessity: and what is more, a belief.” “An obstinate persistency, you mean,” said Lilly. “Well, call it so if it pleases you. It is by no means so to me.” There was a brief pause. The sun had left the cathedral dome and the tower, the sky was full of light, the square swimming in shadow. “But can a man live,” said the Marchese, “without having something he lives for: something he wishes for, or longs for, and tries that he may get?” “Impossible! Completely impossible!” said Argyle. “Man is a seeker, and except as such, he has no significance, no importance.” “He bores me with his seeking,” said Lilly. “He should learn to possess himself--to be himself--and keep still.” “Ay, perhaps so,” said Aaron. “Only--” “But my dear boy, believe me, a man is never himself save in the supreme state of love: or perhaps hate, too, which amounts to the same thing. Never really himself.--Apart from this he is a tram-driver or a money-shoveller or an idea-machine. Only in the state of love is he really a man, and really himself. I say so, because I know,” said Argyle. “Ah, yes. That is one side of the truth. It is quite true, also. But it is just as true to say, that a man is never less himself, than in the supreme state of love. Never less himself, than then.” “Maybe! Maybe! But what could be better? What could be better than to lose oneself with someone you love, entirely, and so find yourself. Ah, my dear fellow, that is my creed, that is my creed, and you can't shake me in it. Never in that. Never in that.” “Yes, Argyle,” said Lilly. “I know you're an obstinate love-apostle.” “I am! I am! And I have certain standards, my boy, and certain ideals which I never transgress. Never transgress. And never abandon.” “All right, then, you are an incurable love-maker.” “Pray God I am,” said Argyle. “Yes,” said the Marchese. “Perhaps we are all so. What else do you give? Would you have us make money? Or do you give the centre of your spirit to your work? How is it to be?” “I don't vitally care either about money or my work or--” Lilly faltered. “Or what, then?” “Or anything. I don't really care about anything. Except that--” “You don't care about anything? But what is that for a life?” cried the Marchese, with a hollow mockery. “What do YOU care for?” asked Lilly. “Me? I care for several things. I care for my wife. I care for love. And I care to be loved. And I care for some pleasures. And I care for music. And I care for Italy.” “You are well off for cares,” said Lilly. “And you seem to me so very poor,” said Del Torre. “I should say so--if he cares for nothing,” interjaculated Argyle. Then he clapped Lilly on the shoulder with a laugh. “Ha! Ha! Ha!--But he only says it to tease us,” he cried, shaking Lilly's shoulder. “He cares more than we do for his own way of loving. Come along, don't try and take us in. We are old birds, old birds,” said Argyle. But at that moment he seemed a bit doddering. “A man can't live,” said the Italian, “without an object.” “Well--and that object?” said Lilly. “Well--it may be many things. Mostly it is two things.--love, and money. But it may be many things: ambition, patriotism, science, art--many things. But it is some objective. Something outside the self. Perhaps many things outside the self.” “I have had only one objective all my life,” said Argyle. “And that was love. For that I have spent my life.” “And the lives of a number of other people, too,” said Lilly. “Admitted. Oh, admitted. It takes two to make love: unless you're a miserable--” “Don't you think,” said Aaron, turning to Lilly, “that however you try to get away from it, if you're not after money, and can't fit yourself into a job--you've got to, you've got to try and find something else--somebody else--somebody. You can't really be alone.” “No matter how many mistakes you've made--you can't really be alone--?” asked Lilly. “You can be alone for a minute. You can be alone just in that minute when you've broken free, and you feel heart thankful to be alone, because the other thing wasn't to be borne. But you can't keep on being alone. No matter how many tunes you've broken free, and feel, thank God to be alone (nothing on earth is so good as to breathe fresh air and be alone), no matter how many times you've felt this--it wears off every time, and you begin to look again--and you begin to roam round. And even if you won't admit it to yourself, still you are seeking--seeking. Aren't you? Aren't you yourself seeking?” “Oh, that's another matter,” put in Argyle. “Lilly is happily married and on the shelf. With such a fine woman as Tanny I should think so--RATHER! But his is an exceptional nature, and an exceptional case. As for me, I made a hell of my marriage, and I swear it nearly sent me to hell. But I didn't forswear love, when I forswore marriage and woman. Not by ANY means.” “Are you not seeking any more, Lilly?” asked the Marchese. “Do you seek nothing?” “We married men who haven't left our wives, are we supposed to seek anything?” said Lilly. “Aren't we perfectly satisfied and in bliss with the wonderful women who honour us as wives?” “Ah, yes, yes!” said the Marchese. “But now we are not speaking to the world. Now we try to speak of that which we have in our centre of our hearts.” “And what have we there?” said Lilly. “Well--shall I say? We have unrest. We have another need. We have something that hurts and eats us, yes, eats us inside. Do I speak the truth?” “Yes. But what is the something?” “I don't know. I don't know. But it is something in love, I think. It is love itself which gnaws us inside, like a cancer,” said the Italian. “But why should it? Is that the nature of love?” said Lilly. “I don't know. Truly. I don't know.--But perhaps it is in the nature of love--I don't know.--But I tell you, I love my wife--she is very dear to me. I admire her, I trust her, I believe her. She is to me much more than any woman, more even than my mother.--And so, I am very happy. I am very happy, she is very happy, in our love and our marriage.--But wait. Nothing has changed--the love has not changed: it is the same.--And yet we are NOT happy. No, we are not happy. I know she is not happy, I know I am not--” “Why should you be?” said Lilly. “Yes--and it is not even happiness,” said the Marchese, screwing up his face in a painful effort of confession. “It is not even happiness. No, I do not ask to be happy. Why should I? It is childish--but there is for both of us, I know it, something which bites us, which eats us within, and drives us, drives us, somewhere, we don't know where. But it drives us, and eats away the life--and yet we love each other, and we must not separate--Do you know what I mean? Do you understand me at all in what I say? I speak what is true.” “Yes, I understand. I'm in the same dilemma myself.--But what I want to hear, is WHY you think it is so. Why is it?” “Shall I say what I think? Yes? And you can tell me if it is foolish to you.--Shall I tell you? Well. Because a woman, she now first wants the man, and he must go to her because he is wanted. Do you understand?--You know--supposing I go to a woman--supposing she is my wife--and I go to her, yes, with my blood all ready, because it is I who want. Then she puts me off. Then she says, not now, not now, I am tired, I am not well. I do not feel like it. She puts me off--till I am angry or sorry or whatever I am--but till my blood has gone down again, you understand, and I don't want her any more. And then she puts her arms round me, and caresses me, and makes love to me--till she rouses me once more. So, and so she rouses me--and so I come to her. And I love her, it is very good, very good. But it was she who began, it was her initiative, you know.--I do not think, in all my life, my wife has loved me from my initiative, you know. She will yield to me--because I insist, or because she wants to be a good submissive wife who loves me. So she will yield to me. But ah, what is it, you know? What is it a woman who allows me, and who has no answer? It is something worse than nothing--worse than nothing. And so it makes me very discontented and unbelieving.--If I say to her, she says it is not true--not at all true. Then she says, all she wants is that I should desire her, that I should love her and desire her. But even that is putting her will first. And if I come to her so, if I come to her of my own desire, then she puts me off. She puts me off, or she only allows me to come to her. Even now it is the same after ten years, as it was at first. But now I know, and for many years I did not know--” The little man was intense. His face was strained, his blue eyes so stretched that they showed the whites all round. He gazed into Lilly's face. “But does it matter?” said Lilly slowly, “in which of you the desire initiates? Isn't the result the same?” “It matters. It matters--” cried the Marchese. “Oh, my dear fellow, how MUCH it matters--” interrupted Argyle sagely. “Ay!” said Aaron. The Marchese looked from one to the other of them. “It matters!” he cried. “It matters life or death. It used to be, that desire started in the man, and the woman answered. It used to be so for a long time in Italy. For this reason the women were kept away from the men. For this reason our Catholic religion tried to keep the young girls in convents, and innocent, before marriage. So that with their minds they should not know, and should not start this terrible thing, this woman's desire over a man, beforehand. This desire which starts in a woman's head, when she knows, and which takes a man for her use, for her service. This is Eve. Ah, I hate Eve. I hate her, when she knows, and when she WILLS. I hate her when she will make of me that which serves her desire.--She may love me, she may be soft and kind to me, she may give her life for me. But why? Only because I am HERS. I am that thing which does her most intimate service. She can see no other in me. And I may be no other to her--” “Then why not let it be so, and be satisfied?” said Lilly. “Because I cannot. I cannot. I would. But I cannot. The Borghesia--the citizens--the bourgeoisie, they are the ones who can. Oh, yes. The bourgeoisie, the shopkeepers, these serve their wives so, and their wives love them. They are the marital maquereaux--the husband-maquereau, you know. Their wives are so stout and happy, and they dote on their husbands and always betray them. So it is with the bourgeoise. She loves her husband so much, and is always seeking to betray him. Or she is a Madame Bovary, seeking for a scandal. But the bourgeois husband, he goes on being the same. He is the horse, and she the driver. And when she says gee-up, you know--then he comes ready, like a hired maquereau. Only he feels so good, like a good little boy at her breast. And then there are the nice little children. And so they keep the world going.--But for me--” he spat suddenly and with frenzy on the floor. “You are quite right, my boy,” said Argyle. “You are quite right. They've got the start of us, the women: and we've got to canter when they say gee-up. I--oh, I went through it all. But I broke the shafts and smashed the matrimonial cart, I can tell you, and I didn't care whether I smashed her up along with it or not. I didn't care one single bit, I assure you.--And here I am. And she is dead and buried these dozen years. Well--well! Life, you know, life. And women oh, they are the very hottest hell once they get the start of you. There's NOTHING they won't do to you, once they've got you. Nothing they won't do to you. Especially if they love you. Then you may as well give up the ghost: or smash the cart behind you, and her in it. Otherwise she will just harry you into submission, and make a dog of you, and cuckold you under your nose. And you'll submit. Oh, you'll submit, and go on calling her my darling. Or else, if you won't submit, she'll do for you. Your only chance is to smash the shafts, and the whole matrimonial cart. Or she'll do for you. For a woman has an uncanny, hellish strength--she's a she-bear and a wolf, is a woman when she's got the start of you. Oh, it's a terrible experience, if you're not a bourgeois, and not one of the knuckling-under money-making sort.” “Knuckling-under sort. Yes. That is it,” said the Marchese. “But can't there be a balancing of wills?” said Lilly. “My dear boy, the balance lies in that, that when one goes up, the other goes down. One acts, the other takes. It is the only way in love--And the women are nowadays the active party. Oh, yes, not a shadow of doubt about it. They take the initiative, and the man plays up. That's how it is. The man just plays up.--Nice manly proceeding, what!” cried Argyle. “But why can't man accept it as the natural order of things?” said Lilly. “Science makes it the natural order.” “All my ---- to science,” said Argyle. “No man with one drop of real spunk in him can stand it long.” “Yes! Yes! Yes!” cried the Italian. “Most men want it so. Most men want only, that a woman shall want them, and they shall then play up to her when she has roused them. Most men want only this: that a woman shall choose one man out, to be her man, and he shall worship her and come up when she shall provoke him. Otherwise he is to keep still. And the woman, she is quite sure of her part. She must be loved and adored, and above all, obeyed, particularly in her sex desire. There she must not be thwarted, or she becomes a devil. And if she is obeyed, she becomes a misunderstood woman with nerves, looking round for the next man whom she can bring under. So it is.” “Well,” said Lilly. “And then what?” “Nay,” interrupted Aaron. “But do you think it's true what he says? Have you found it like that? You're married. Has your experience been different, or the same?” “What was yours?” asked Lilly. “Mine was the same. Mine was the same, if ever it was,” said Aaron. “And mine was EXTREMELY similar,” said Argyle with a grimace. “And yours, Lilly?” asked the Marchese anxiously. “Not very different,” said Lilly. “Ah!” cried Del Torre, jerking up erect as if he had found something. “And what's your way out?” Aaron asked him. “I'm not out--so I won't holloa,” said Lilly. “But Del Torre puts it best.--What do you say is the way out, Del Torre?” “The way out is that it should change: that the man should be the asker and the woman the answerer. It must change.” “But it doesn't. Prrr!” Argyle made his trumpeting noise. “Does it?” asked Lilly of the Marchese. “No. I think it does not.” “And will it ever again?” “Perhaps never.” “And then what?” “Then? Why then man seeks a _pis-aller_. Then he seeks something which will give him answer, and which will not only draw him, draw him, with a terrible sexual will.--So he seeks young girls, who know nothing, and so cannot force him. He thinks he will possess them while they are young, and they will be soft and responding to his wishes.--But in this, too, he is mistaken. Because now a baby of one year, if it be a female, is like a woman of forty, so is its will made up, so it will force a man.” “And so young girls are no good, even as a _pis-aller_.” “No good--because they are all modern women. Every one, a modern woman. Not one who isn't.” “Terrible thing, the modern woman,” put in Argyle. “And then--?” “Then man seeks other forms of loves, always seeking the loving response, you know, of one gentler and tenderer than himself, who will wait till the man desires, and then will answer with full love.--But it is all _pis-aller_, you know.” “Not by any means, my boy,” cried Argyle. “And then a man naturally loves his own wife, too, even if it is not bearable to love her.” “Or one leaves her, like Aaron,” said Lilly. “And seeks another woman, so,” said the Marchese. “Does he seek another woman?” said Lilly. “Do you, Aaron?” “I don't WANT to,” said Aaron. “But--I can't stand by myself in the middle of the world and in the middle of people, and know I am quite by myself, and nowhere to go, and nothing to hold on to. I can for a day or two--But then, it becomes unbearable as well. You get frightened. You feel you might go funny--as you would if you stood on this balcony wall with all the space beneath you.” “Can't one be alone--quite alone?” said Lilly. “But no--it is absurd. Like Saint Simeon Stylites on a pillar. But it is absurd!” cried the Italian. “I don't mean like Simeon Stylites. I mean can't one live with one's wife, and be fond of her: and with one's friends, and enjoy their company: and with the world and everything, pleasantly: and yet KNOW that one is alone? Essentially, at the very core of me, alone. Eternally alone. And choosing to be alone. Not sentimental or LONELY. Alone, choosing to be alone, because by one's own nature one is alone. The being with another person is secondary,” said Lilly. “One is alone,” said Argyle, “in all but love. In all but love, my dear fellow. And then I agree with you.” “No,” said Lilly, “in love most intensely of all, alone.” “Completely incomprehensible,” said Argyle. “Amounts to nothing.” “One man is but a part. How can he be so alone?” said the Marchese. “In so far as he is a single individual soul, he IS alone--ipso facto. In so far as I am I, and only I am I, and I am only I, in so far, I am inevitably and eternally alone, and it is my last blessedness to know it, and to accept it, and to live with this as the core of my self-knowledge.” “My dear boy, you are becoming metaphysical, and that is as bad as softening of the brain,” said Argyle. “All right,” said Lilly. “And,” said the Marchese, “it may be so by REASON. But in the heart--? Can the heart ever beat quite alone? Plop! Plop!--Can the heart beat quite alone, alone in all the atmosphere, all the space of the universe? Plop! Plop! Plop!--Quite alone in all the space?” A slow smile came over the Italian's face. “It is impossible. It may eat against the heart of other men, in anger, all in pressure against the others. It may beat hard, like iron, saying it is independent. But this is only beating against the heart of mankind, not alone.--But either with or against the heart of mankind, or the heart of someone, mother, wife, friend, children--so must the heart of every man beat. It is so.” “It beats alone in its own silence,” said Lilly. The Italian shook his head. “We'd better be going inside, anyhow,” said Argyle. “Some of you will be taking cold.” “Aaron,” said Lilly. “Is it true for you?” “Nearly,” said Aaron, looking into the quiet, half-amused, yet frightening eyes of the other man. “Or it has been.” “A miss is as good as a mile,” laughed Lilly, rising and picking up his chair to take it indoors. And the laughter of his voice was so like a simple, deliberate amiability, that Aaron's heart really stood still for a second. He knew that Lilly was alone--as far as he, Aaron, was concerned. Lilly was alone--and out of his isolation came his words, indifferent as to whether they came or not. And he left his friends utterly to their own choice. Utterly to their own choice. Aaron felt that Lilly was _there_, existing in life, yet neither asking for connection nor preventing any connection. He was present, he was the real centre of the group. And yet he asked nothing of them, and he imposed nothing. He left each to himself, and he himself remained just himself: neither more nor less. And there was a finality about it, which was at once maddening and fascinating. Aaron felt angry, as if he were half insulted by the other man's placing the gift of friendship or connection so quietly back in the giver's hands. Lilly would receive no gift of friendship in equality. Neither would he violently refuse it. He let it lie unmarked. And yet at the same time Aaron knew that he could depend on the other man for help, nay, almost for life itself--so long as it entailed no breaking of the intrinsic isolation of Lilly's soul. But this condition was also hateful. And there was also a great fascination in it. CHAPTER XVIII. THE MARCHESA So Aaron dined with the Marchesa and Manfredi. He was quite startled when his hostess came in: she seemed like somebody else. She seemed like a demon, her hair on her brows, her terrible modern elegance. She wore a wonderful gown of thin blue velvet, of a lovely colour, with some kind of gauzy gold-threaded filament down the sides. It was terribly modern, short, and showed her legs and her shoulders and breast and all her beautiful white arms. Round her throat was a collar of dark-blue sapphires. Her hair was done low, almost to the brows, and heavy, like an Aubrey Beardsley drawing. She was most carefully made up--yet with that touch of exaggeration, lips slightly too red, which was quite intentional, and which frightened Aaron. He thought her wonderful, and sinister. She affected him with a touch of horror. She sat down opposite him, and her beautifully shapen legs, in frail, goldish stockings, seemed to glisten metallic naked, thrust from out of the wonderful, wonderful skin, like periwinkle-blue velvet. She had tapestry shoes, blue and gold: and almost one could see her toes: metallic naked. The gold-threaded gauze slipped at her side. Aaron could not help watching the naked-seeming arch of her foot. It was as if she were dusted with dark gold-dust upon her marvellous nudity. She must have seen his face, seen that he was _ebloui_. “You brought the flute?” she said, in that toneless, melancholy, unstriving voice of hers. Her voice alone was the same: direct and bare and quiet. “Yes.” “Perhaps I shall sing later on, if you'll accompany me. Will you?” “I thought you hated accompaniments.” “Oh, no--not just unison. I don't mean accompaniment. I mean unison. I don't know how it will be. But will you try?” “Yes, I'll try.” “Manfredi is just bringing the cocktails. Do you think you'd prefer orange in yours?” “Ill have mine as you have yours.” “I don't take orange in mine. Won't you smoke?” The strange, naked, remote-seeming voice! And then the beautiful firm limbs thrust out in that dress, and nakedly dusky as with gold-dust. Her beautiful woman's legs, slightly glistening, duskily. His one abiding instinct was to touch them, to kiss them. He had never known a woman to exercise such power over him. It was a bare, occult force, something he could not cope with. Manfredi came in with the little tray. He was still in uniform. “Hello!” cried the little Italian. “Glad to see you--well, everything all right? Glad to hear it. How is the cocktail, Nan?” “Yes,” she said. “All right.” “One drop too much peach, eh?” “No, all right.” “Ah,” and the little officer seated himself, stretching his gaitered legs as if gaily. He had a curious smiling look on his face, that Aaron thought also diabolical--and almost handsome. Suddenly the odd, laughing, satanic beauty of the little man was visible. “Well, and what have you been doing with yourself?” said he. “What did you do yesterday?” “Yesterday?” said Aaron. “I went to the Uffizi.” “To the Uffizi? Well! And what did you think of it?” “Very fine.” “I think it is. I think it is. What pictures did you look at?” “I was with Dekker. We looked at most, I believe.” “And what do you remember best?” “I remember Botticelli's Venus on the Shell.” “Yes! Yes!--” said Manfredi. “I like her. But I like others better. You thought her a pretty woman, yes?” “No--not particularly pretty. But I like her body. And I like the fresh air. I like the fresh air, the summer sea-air all through it--through her as well.” “And her face?” asked the Marchesa, with a slow, ironic smile. “Yes--she's a bit baby-faced,” said Aaron. “Trying to be more innocent than her own common-sense will let her,” said the Marchesa. “I don't agree with you, Nan,” said her husband. “I think it is just that wistfulness and innocence which makes her the true Venus: the true modern Venus. She chooses NOT to know too much. And that is her attraction. Don't you agree, Aaron? Excuse me, but everybody speaks of you as Aaron. It seems to come naturally. Most people speak of me as Manfredi, too, because it is easier, perhaps, than Del Torre. So if you find it easier, use it. Do you mind that I call you Aaron?” “Not at all. I hate Misters, always.” “Yes, so do I. I like one name only.” The little officer seemed very winning and delightful to Aaron this evening--and Aaron began to like him extremely. But the dominating consciousness in the room was the woman's. “DO you agree, Mr. Sisson?” said the Marchesa. “Do you agree that the mock-innocence and the sham-wistfulness of Botticelli's Venus are her great charms?” “I don't think she is at all charming, as a person,” said Aaron. “As a particular woman, she makes no impression on me at all. But as a picture--and the fresh air, particularly the fresh air. She doesn't seem so much a woman, you know, as the kind of out-of-doors morning-feelings at the seaside.” “Quite! A sort of sea-scape of a woman. With a perfectly sham innocence. Are you as keen on innocence as Manfredi is?” “Innocence?” said Aaron. “It's the sort of thing I don't have much feeling about.” “Ah, I know you,” laughed the soldier wickedly. “You are the sort of man who wants to be Anthony to Cleopatra. Ha-ha!” Aaron winced as if struck. Then he too smiled, flattered. Yet he felt he had been struck! Did he want to be Anthony to Cleopatra? Without knowing, he was watching the Marchesa. And she was looking away, but knew he was watching her. And at last she turned her eyes to his, with a slow, dark smile, full of pain and fuller still of knowledge. A strange, dark, silent look of knowledge she gave him: from so far away, it seemed. And he felt all the bonds that held him melting away. His eyes remained fixed and gloomy, but with his mouth he smiled back at her. And he was terrified. He knew he was sulking towards her--sulking towards her. And he was terrified. But at the back of his mind, also, he knew there was Lilly, whom he might depend on. And also he wanted to sink towards her. The flesh and blood of him simply melted out, in desire towards her. Cost what may, he must come to her. And yet he knew at the same time that, cost what may, he must keep the power to recover himself from her. He must have his cake and eat it. And she became Cleopatra to him. “Age cannot wither, nor custom stale--” To his instinctive, unwilled fancy, she was Cleopatra. They went in to dinner, and he sat on her right hand. It was a smallish table, with a very few daisy-flowers: everything rather frail, and sparse. The food the same--nothing very heavy, all rather exquisite. They drank hock. And he was aware of her beautiful arms, and her bosom; her low-crowded, thick hair, parted in the centre: the sapphires on her throat, the heavy rings on her fingers: and the paint on her lips, the fard. Something deep, deep at the bottom of him hovered upon her, cleaved to her. Yet he was as if sightless, in a stupor. Who was she, what was she? He had lost all his grasp. Only he sat there, with his face turned to hers, or to her, all the time. And she talked to him. But she never looked at him. Indeed she said little. It was the husband who talked. His manner towards Aaron was almost caressive. And Aaron liked it. The woman was silent mostly, and seemed remote. And Aaron felt his life ebb towards her. He felt the marvellousness, the rich beauty of her arms and breast. And the thought of her gold-dusted smooth limbs beneath the table made him feel almost an idiot. The second wine was a gold-coloured Moselle, very soft and rich and beautiful. She drank this with pleasure, as one who understands. And for dessert there was a dish of cacchi--that orange-coloured, pulpy Japanese fruit--persimmons. Aaron had never eaten these before. Soft, almost slimy, of a wonderful colour, and of a flavour that had sunk from harsh astringency down to that first decay-sweetness which is all autumn-rich. The Marchese loved them, and scooped them out with his spoon. But she ate none. Aaron did not know what they talked about, what was said. If someone had taken his mind away altogether, and left him with nothing but a body and a spinal consciousness, it would have been the same. But at coffee the talk turned to Manfredi's duties. He would not be free from the army for some time yet. On the morrow, for example, he had to be out and away before it was day. He said he hated it, and wanted to be a free man once more. But it seemed to Aaron he would be a very bored man, once he was free. And then they drifted on to talk of the palazzo in which was their apartment. “We've got such a fine terrace--you can see it from your house where you are,” said Manfredi. “Have you noticed it?” “No,” said Aaron. “Near that tuft of palm-trees. Don't you know?” “No,” said Aaron. “Let us go out and show it him,” said the Marchesa. Manfredi fetched her a cloak, and they went through various doors, then up some steps. The terrace was broad and open. It looked straight across the river at the opposite Lungarno: and there was the thin-necked tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the great dome of the cathedral in the distance, in shadow-bulk in the cold-aired night of stars. Little trams were running brilliant over the flat new bridge on the right. And from a garden just below rose a tuft of palm-trees. “You see,” said the Marchesa, coming and standing close to Aaron, so that she just touched him, “you can know the terrace, just by these palm trees. And you are in the Nardini just across there, are you? On the top floor, you said?” “Yes, the top floor--one of the middle windows, I think.” “One that is always open now--and the others are shut. I have noticed it, not connecting it with you.” “Yes, my window is always open.” She was leaning very slightly against him, as he stood. And he knew, with the same kind of inevitability with which he knew he would one day die, that he would be the lover of this woman. Nay, that he was her lover already. “Don't take cold,” said Manfredi. She turned at once indoors. Aaron caught a faint whiff of perfume from the little orange trees in tubs round the wall. “Will you get the flute?” she said as they entered. “And will you sing?” he answered. “Play first,” she said. He did as she wished. As the other night, he went into the big music-room to play. And the stream of sound came out with the quick wild imperiousness of the pipe. It had an immediate effect on her. She seemed to relax the peculiar, drug-like tension which was upon her at all ordinary times. She seemed to go still, and yielding. Her red mouth looked as if it might moan with relief. She sat with her chin dropped on her breast, listening. And she did not move. But she sat softly, breathing rather quick, like one who has been hurt, and is soothed. A certain womanly naturalness seemed to soften her. And the music of the flute came quick, rather brilliant like a call-note, or like a long quick message, half command. To her it was like a pure male voice--as a blackbird's when he calls: a pure male voice, not only calling, but telling her something, telling her something, and soothing her soul to sleep. It was like the fire-music putting Brunnhilde to sleep. But the pipe did not flicker and sink. It seemed to cause a natural relaxation in her soul, a peace. Perhaps it was more like waking to a sweet, morning awakening, after a night of tormented, painful tense sleep. Perhaps more like that. When Aaron came in, she looked at him with a gentle, fresh smile that seemed to make the fard on her face look like a curious tiredness, which now she might recover from. And as the last time, it was difficult for her to identify this man with the voice of the flute. It was rather difficult. Except that, perhaps, between his brows was something of a doubt, and in his bearing an aloofness that made her dread he might go away and not come back. She could see it in him, that he might go away and not come back. She said nothing to him, only just smiled. And the look of knowledge in her eyes seemed, for the moment, to be contained in another look: a look of faith, and at last happiness. Aaron's heart stood still. No, in her moment's mood of faith and at last peace, life-trust, he was perhaps more terrified of her than in her previous sinister elegance. His spirit started and shrank. What was she going to ask of him? “I am so anxious that you should come to play one Saturday morning,” said Manfredi. “With an accompaniment, you know. I should like so much to hear you with piano accompaniment.” “Very well,” said Aaron. “Will you really come? And will you practise with me, so that I can accompany you?” said Manfredi eagerly. “Yes. I will,” said Aaron. “Oh, good! Oh, good! Look here, come in on Friday morning and let us both look through the music.” “If Mr. Sisson plays for the public,” said the Marchesa, “he must not do it for charity. He must have the proper fee.” “No, I don't want it,” said Aaron. “But you must earn money, mustn't you?” said she. “I must,” said Aaron. “But I can do it somewhere else.” “No. If you play for the public, you must have your earnings. When you play for me, it is different.” “Of course,” said Manfredi. “Every man must have his wage. I have mine from the Italian government---” After a while, Aaron asked the Marchesa if she would sing. “Shall I?” she said. “Yes, do.” “Then I will sing alone first, to let you see what you think of it--I shall be like Trilby--I won't say like Yvette Guilbert, because I daren't. So I will be like Trilby, and sing a little French song. Though not Malbrouck, and without a Svengali to keep me in tune.” She went near the door, and stood with heir hands by her side. There was something wistful, almost pathetic now, in her elegance. “Derriere chez mon pere _Vole vole mon coeur, vole_! Derriere chez mon pere Il y a un pommier doux. _Tout doux, et iou Et iou, tout doux. Il y a unpommier doux_. Trois belles princesses _Vole vole mon coeur, vole_! Trois belles princesses Sont assis dessous. _Tout doux, et iou Et iou, tout doux. Sont asses dessous._” She had a beautiful, strong, sweet voice. But it was faltering, stumbling and sometimes it seemed to drop almost to speech. After three verses she faltered to an end, bitterly chagrined. “No,” she said. “It's no good. I can't sing.” And she dropped in her chair. “A lovely little tune,” said Aaron. “Haven't you got the music?” She rose, not answering, and found him a little book. “What do the words mean?” he asked her. She told him. And then he took his flute. “You don't mind if I play it, do you?” he said. So he played the tune. It was so simple. And he seemed to catch the lilt and the timbre of her voice. “Come and sing it while I play--” he said. “I can't sing,” she said, shaking her head rather bitterly. “But let us try,” said he, disappointed. “I know I can't,” she said. But she rose. He remained sitting at the little table, the book propped up under the reading lamp. She stood at a little distance, unhappy. “I've always been like that,” she said. “I could never sing music, unless I had a thing drilled into me, and then it wasn't singing any more.” But Aaron wasn't heeding. His flute was at his mouth, he was watching her. He sounded the note, but she did not begin. She was twisting her handkerchief. So he played the melody alone. At the end of the verse, he looked up at her again, and a half mocking smile played in his eyes. Again he sounded the note, a challenge. And this time, as at his bidding, she began to sing. The flute instantly swung with a lovely soft firmness into the song, and she wavered only for a minute or two. Then her soul and her voice got free, and she sang--she sang as she wanted to sing, as she had always wanted to sing, without that awful scotch, that impediment inside her own soul, which prevented her. She sang free, with the flute gliding along with her. And oh, how beautiful it was for her! How beautiful it was to sing the little song in the sweetness of her own spirit. How sweet it was to move pure and unhampered at last in the music! The lovely ease and lilt of her own soul in its motion through the music! She wasn't aware of the flute. She didn't know there was anything except her own pure lovely song-drift. Her soul seemed to breathe as a butterfly breathes, as it rests on a leaf and slowly breathes its wings. For the first time! For the first time her soul drew its own deep breath. All her life, the breath had caught half-way. And now she breathed full, deep, to the deepest extent of her being. And oh, it was so wonderful, she was dazed. The song ended, she stood with a dazed, happy face, like one just coming awake. And the fard on her face seemed like the old night-crust, the bad sleep. New and luminous she looked out. And she looked at Aaron with a proud smile. “Bravo, Nan! That was what you wanted,” said her husband. “It was, wasn't it?” she said, turning a wondering, glowing face to him. His face looked strange and withered and gnome-like, at the moment. She went and sat in her chair, quite silent, as if in a trance. The two men also sat quite still. And in the silence a little drama played itself between the three, of which they knew definitely nothing. But Manfredi knew that Aaron had done what he himself never could do, for this woman. And yet the woman was his own woman, not Aaron's. And so, he was displaced. Aaron, sitting there, glowed with a sort of triumph. He had performed a little miracle, and felt himself a little wonder-worker, to whom reverence was due. And as in a dream the woman sat, feeling what a joy it was to float and move like a swan in the high air, flying upon the wings of her own spirit. She was as a swan which never before could get its wings quite open, and so which never could get up into the open, where alone it can sing. For swans, and storks make their music only when they are high, high up in the air. Then they can give sound to their strange spirits. And so, she. Aaron and Manfredi kept their faces averted from one another and hardly spoke to one another. It was as if two invisible hands pushed their faces apart, away, averted. And Aaron's face glimmered with a little triumph, and a little grimace of obstinacy. And the Italian's face looked old, rather monkey-like, and of a deep, almost stone-bare bitterness. The woman looked wondering from one man to the other--wondering. The glimmer of the open flower, the wonder-look, still lasted. And Aaron said in his heart, what a goodly woman, what a woman to taste and enjoy. Ah, what a woman to enjoy! And was it not his privilege? Had he not gained it? His manhood, or rather his maleness, rose powerfully in him, in a sort of mastery. He felt his own power, he felt suddenly his own virile title to strength and reward. Suddenly, and newly flushed with his own male super-power, he was going to have his reward. The woman was his reward. So it was, in him. And he cast it over in his mind. He wanted her--ha, didn't he! But the husband sat there, like a soap-stone Chinese monkey, greyish-green. So, it would have to be another time. He rose, therefore, and took his leave. “But you'll let us do that again, won't you?” said she. “When you tell me, I'll come,” said he. “Then I'll tell you soon,” said she. So he left, and went home to his own place, and there to his own remote room. As he laid his flute on the table he looked at it and smiled. He remembered that Lilly had called it Aaron's Rod. “So you blossom, do you?--and thorn as well,” said he. For such a long time he had been gripped inside himself, and withheld. For such a long time it had been hard and unyielding, so hard and unyielding. He had wanted nothing, his desire had kept itself back, fast back. For such a long time his desire for woman had withheld itself, hard and resistant. All his deep, desirous blood had been locked, he had wanted nobody, and nothing. And it had been hard to live, so. Without desire, without any movement of passionate love, only gripped back in recoil! That was an experience to endure. And now came his desire back. But strong, fierce as iron. Like the strength of an eagle with the lightning in its talons. Something to glory in, something overweening, the powerful male passion, arrogant, royal, Jove's thunderbolt. Aaron's black rod of power, blossoming again with red Florentine lilies and fierce thorns. He moved about in the splendour of his own male lightning, invested in the thunder of the male passion-power. He had got it back, the male godliness, the male godhead. So he slept, and dreamed violent dreams of strange, black strife, something like the street-riot in Milan, but more terrible. In the morning, however, he cared nothing about his dreams. As soon as it was really light, he rose, and opened his window wide. It was a grey, slow morning. But he saw neither the morning nor the river nor the woman walking on the gravel river-bed with her goose nor the green hill up to San Miniato. He watched the tuft of palm-trees, and the terrace beside it. He could just distinguish the terrace clearly, among the green of foliage. So he stood at his window for a full hour, and did not move. Motionless, planted, he stood and watched that terrace across above the Arno. But like a statue. After an hour or so, he looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. So he rang for his coffee, and meanwhile still stood watching the terrace on the hill. He felt his turn had come. The phoenix had risen in fire again, out of the ashes. Therefore at ten o'clock he went over the bridge. He wrote on the back of his card a request, would she please let him have the little book of songs, that he might practise them over. The manservant went, and came back with the request that Aaron should wait. So Aaron entered, while the man took his hat. The manservant spoke only French and Spanish, no English. He was a Spaniard, with greyish hair and stooping shoulders, and dark, mute-seeming eyes. He spoke as little as possible. The Marchesa had inherited him from her father. Aaron sat in the little sitting-room and waited. After a rather long time the Marchesa came in--wearing a white, thin blouse and a blue skirt. She was hardly made up at all. She had an odd pleased, yet brooding look on her face as she gave Aaron her hand. Something brooded between her brows. And her voice was strange, with a strange, secret undertone, that he could not understand. He looked up at her. And his face was bright, and his knees, as he sat, were like the knees of the gods. “You wanted the book of _chansons_?” she said. “I wanted to learn your tunes,” he replied. “Yes. Look--here it is!” And she brought him the little yellow book. It was just a hand-book, with melody and words only, no accompaniment. So she stood offering him the book, but waiting as if for something else, and standing as if with another meaning. He opened the leaves at random. “But I ought to know which ones you sing,” said he, rising and standing by her side with the open book. “Yes,” she said, looking over his arm. He turned the pages one by one. “_Trois jeunes tambours_,” said she. “Yes, that.... Yes, _En passant par la Lorraine_.... _Aupres de ma blonde_.... Oh, I like that one so much--” He stood and went over the tune in his mind. “Would you like me to play it?” he said. “Very much,” said she. So he got his flute, propped up the book against a vase, and played the tune, whilst she hummed it fragmentarily. But as he played, he felt that he did not cast the spell over her. There was no connection. She was in some mysterious way withstanding him. She was withstanding him, and his male super-power, and his thunderbolt desire. She was, in some indescribable way, throwing cold water over his phoenix newly risen from the ashes of its nest in flames. He realised that she did not want him to play. She did not want him to look at the songs. So he put the book away, and turned round, rather baffled, not quite sure what was happening, yet feeling she was withstanding him. He glanced at her face: it was inscrutable: it was her Cleopatra face once more, yet with something new and warm in it. He could not understand it. What was it in her face that puzzled him? Almost angered him? But she could not rob him of his male power, she could not divest him of his concentrated force. “Won't you take off your coat?” she said, looking at him with strange, large dark eyes. A strange woman, he could not understand her. Yet, as he sat down again, having removed his overcoat, he felt her looking at his limbs, his physical body. And this went against him, he did not want it. Yet quite fixed in him too was the desire for her, her beautiful white arms, her whole soft white body. And such desire he would not contradict nor allow to be contradicted. It was his will also. Her whole soft white body--to possess it in its entirety, its fulness. “What have you to do this morning?” she asked him. “Nothing,” he said. “Have you?” He lifted his head and looked at her. “Nothing at all,” said she. And then they sat in silence, he with his head dropped. Then again he looked at her. “Shall we be lovers?” he said. She sat with her face averted, and did not answer. His heart struck heavily, but he did not relax. “Shall we be lovers?” came his voice once more, with the faintest touch of irony. Her face gradually grew dusky. And he wondered very much to see it. “Yes,” said she, still not looking at him. “If you wish.” “I do wish,” he said. And all the time he sat with his eyes fixed on her face, and she sat with her face averted. “Now?” he said. “And where?” Again she was silent for some moments, as if struggling with herself. Then she looked at him--a long, strange, dark look, incomprehensible, and which he did not like. “You don't want emotions? You don't want me to say things, do you?” he said. A faint ironic smile came on her face. “I know what all that is worth,” she said, with curious calm equanimity. “No, I want none of that.” “Then--?” But now she sat gazing on him with wide, heavy, incomprehensible eyes. It annoyed him. “What do you want to see in me?” he asked, with a smile, looking steadily back again. And now she turned aside her face once more, and once more the dusky colour came in her cheek. He waited. “Shall I go away?” he said at length. “Would you rather?” she said, keeping her face averted. “No,” he said. Then again she was silent. “Where shall I come to you?” he said. She paused a moment still, then answered: “I'll go to my room.” “I don't know which it is,” he said. “I'll show it you,” she said. “And then I shall come to you in ten minutes. In ten minutes,” he reiterated. So she rose, and led the way out of the little salon. He walked with her to the door of her room, bowed his head as she looked at him, holding the door handle; and then he turned and went back to the drawing-room, glancing at his watch. In the drawing-room he stood quite still, with his feet apart, and waited. He stood with his hands behind him, and his feet apart, quite motionless, planted and firm. So the minutes went by unheeded. He looked at his watch. The ten minutes were just up. He had heard footsteps and doors. So he decided to give her another five minutes. He wished to be quite sure that she had had her own time for her own movements. Then at the end of the five minutes he went straight to her room, entered, and locked the door behind him. She was lying in bed, with her back to him. He found her strange, not as he had imagined her. Not powerful, as he had imagined her. Strange, in his arms she seemed almost small and childish, whilst in daily life she looked a full, womanly woman. Strange, the naked way she clung to him! Almost like a sister, a younger sister! Or like a child! It filled him with a curious wonder, almost a bewilderment. In the dark sightlessness of passion, she seemed almost like a clinging child in his arms. And yet like a child who in some deep and essential way mocked him. In some strange and incomprehensible way, as a girl-child blindly obstinate in her deepest nature, she was against him. He felt she was not his woman. Through him went the feeling, “This is not my woman.” When, after a long sleep, he awoke and came fully to himself, with that click of awakeness which is the end, the first shades were closing on the afternoon. He got up and reached for his watch. “Quarter past four,” he said. Her eyes stretched wide with surprise as she looked at him. But she said nothing. The same strange and wide, perhaps insatiable child-like curiosity was in her eyes as she watched him. He dressed very quickly. And her eyes were wide, and she said no single word. But when he was dressed, and bent over her to say goodbye, she put her arms round him, that seemed such frail and childish arms now, yet withal so deadly in power. Her soft arms round his neck, her tangle of hair over his face. And yet, even as he kissed her, he felt her deadly. He wanted to be gone. He wanted to get out of her arms and her clinging and her tangle of hair and her curiosity and her strange and hateful power. “You'll come again. We'll be like this again?” she whispered. And it was hard for him to realise that this was that other woman, who had sat so silently on the sofa, so darkly and reservedly, at the tea at Algy's. “Yes! I will! Goodbye now!” And he kissed her, and walked straight out of the room. Quickly he took his coat and his hat, quickly, and left the house. In his nostrils was still the scent with which the bed linen was faintly scented--he did not know what it was. But now he wiped his face and his mouth, to wipe it away. He had eaten nothing since coffee that morning, and was hungry, faint-feeling. And his face, and his mind, felt withered. Curiously he felt blasted as if blighted by some electricity. And he knew, he knew quite well he was only in possession of a tithe of his natural faculties. And in his male spirit he felt himself hating her: hating her deeply, damnably. But he said to himself: “No, I won't hate her. I won't hate her.” So he went on, over the Ponte Vecchio, where the jeweller's windows on the bridge were already blazing with light, on into the town. He wanted to eat something, so he decided to go to a shop he knew, where one could stand and eat good tiny rolls split into truffle or salami sandwiches, and drink Marsala. So one after the other he ate little truffle rolls, and drank a few glasses of Marsala. And then he did not know what to do. He did not want to eat any more, he had had what he wanted. His hunger had been more nervous than sensual. So he went into the street. It was just growing dark and the town was lighting up. He felt curiously blazed, as if some flame or electric power had gone through him and withered his vital tissue. Blazed, as if some kind of electric flame had run over him and withered him. His brain felt withered, his mind had only one of its many-sighted eyes left open and unscorched. So many of the eyes of his mind were scorched now and sightless. Yet a restlessness was in his nerves. What should he do? He remembered he had a letter in his pocket from Sir William Franks. Sir William had still teased him about his fate and his providence, in which he, Aaron, was supposed to trust. “I shall be very glad to hear from you, and to know how your benevolent Providence--or was yours a Fate--has treated you since we saw you---” So, Aaron turned away, and walked to the post office. There he took paper, and sat down at one of the tables in the writing room, and wrote his answer. It was very strange, writing thus when most of his mind's eyes were scorched, and it seemed he could hardly see to hold the pen, to drive it straight across the paper. Yet write he must. And most of his faculties being quenched or blasted for the moment, he wrote perhaps his greatest, or his innermost, truth.--“I don't want my Fate or my Providence to treat me well. I don't want kindness or love. I don't believe in harmony and people loving one another. I believe in the fight and in nothing else. I believe in the fight which is in everything. And if it is a question of women, I believe in the fight of love, even if it blinds me. And if it is a question of the world, I believe in fighting it and in having it hate me, even if it breaks my legs. I want the world to hate me, because I can't bear the thought that it might love me. For of all things love is the most deadly to me, and especially from such a repulsive world as I think this is....” Well, here was a letter for a poor old man to receive. But, in the dryness of his withered mind, Aaron got it out of himself. When a man writes a letter to himself, it is a pity to post it to somebody else. Perhaps the same is true of a book. His letter written, however, he stamped it and sealed it and put it in the box. That made it final. Then he turned towards home. One fact remained unbroken in the debris of his consciousness: that in the town was Lilly: and that when he needed, he could go to Lilly: also, that in the world was Lottie, his wife: and that against Lottie, his heart burned with a deep, deep, almost unreachable bitterness.--Like a deep burn on his deepest soul, Lottie. And like a fate which he resented, yet which steadied him, Lilly. He went home and lay on his bed. He had enough self-command to hear the gong and go down to dinner. White and abstract-looking, he sat and ate his dinner. And then, thank God, he could go to bed, alone, in his own cold bed, alone, thank God. To be alone in the night! For this he was unspeakably thankful. CHAPTER XIX. CLEOPATRA, BUT NOT ANTHONY Aaron awoke in the morning feeling better, but still only a part himself. The night alone had restored him. And the need to be alone still was his greatest need. He felt an intense resentment against the Marchesa. He felt that somehow, she had given him a scorpion. And his instinct was to hate her. And yet he avoided hating her. He remembered Lilly--and the saying that one must possess oneself, and be alone in possession of oneself. And somehow, under the influence of Lilly, he refused to follow the reflex of his own passion. He refused to hate the Marchesa. He _did_ like her. He did _esteem_ her. And after all, she too was struggling with her fate. He had a genuine sympathy with her. Nay, he was not going to hate her. But he could not see her. He could not bear the thought that she might call and see him. So he took the tram to Settignano, and walked away all day into the country, having bread and sausage in his pocket. He sat for long hours among the cypress trees of Tuscany. And never had any trees seemed so like ghosts, like soft, strange, pregnant presences. He lay and watched tall cypresses breathing and communicating, faintly moving and as it were walking in the small wind. And his soul seemed to leave him and to go far away, far back, perhaps, to where life was all different and time passed otherwise than time passes now. As in clairvoyance he perceived it: that our life is only a fragment of the shell of life. That there has been and will be life, human life such as we do not begin to conceive. Much that is life has passed away from men, leaving us all mere bits. In the dark, mindful silence and inflection of the cypress trees, lost races, lost language, lost human ways of feeling and of knowing. Men have known as we can no more know, have felt as we can no more feel. Great life-realities gone into the darkness. But the cypresses commemorate. In the afternoon, Aaron felt the cypresses rising dark about him, like so many high visitants from an old, lost, lost subtle world, where men had the wonder of demons about them, the aura of demons, such as still clings to the cypresses, in Tuscany. All day, he did not make up his mind what he was going to do. His first impulse was never to see her again. And this was his intention all day. But as he went home in the tram he softened, and thought. Nay, that would not be fair. For how had she treated him, otherwise than generously. She had been generous, and the other thing, that he felt blasted afterwards, which was his experience, that was fate, and not her fault. So he must see her again. He must not act like a churl. But he would tell her--he would tell her that he was a married man, and that though he had left his wife, and though he had no dogma of fidelity, still, the years of marriage had made a married man of him, and any other woman than his wife was a strange woman to him, a violation. “I will tell her,” he said to himself, “that at the bottom of my heart I love Lottie still, and that I can't help it. I believe that is true. It isn't love, perhaps. But it is marriage. I am married to Lottie. And that means I can't be married to another woman. It isn't my nature. And perhaps I can't bear to live with Lottie now, because I am married and not in love. When a man is married, he is not in love. A husband is not a lover. Lilly told me that: and I know it's true now. Lilly told me that a husband cannot be a lover, and a lover cannot be a husband. And that women will only have lovers now, and never a husband. Well, I am a husband, if I am anything. And I shall never be a lover again, not while I live. No, not to anybody. I haven't it in me. I'm a husband, and so it is finished with me as a lover. I can't be a lover any more, just as I can't be aged twenty any more. I am a man now, not an adolescent. And to my sorrow I am a husband to a woman who wants a lover: always a lover. But all women want lovers. And I can't be it any more. I don't want to. I have finished that. Finished for ever: unless I become senile---” Therefore next day he gathered up his courage. He would not have had courage unless he had known that he was not alone. The other man was in the town, and from this fact he derived his strength: the fact that Lilly was there. So at teatime he went over the river, and rang at her door. Yes, she was at home, and she had other visitors. She was wearing a beautiful soft afternoon dress, again of a blue like chicory-flowers, a pale, warm blue. And she had cornflowers in her belt: heaven knows where she had got them. She greeted Aaron with some of the childish shyness. He could tell that she was glad he had come, and that she had wondered at his not coming sooner. She introduced him to her visitors: two young ladies and one old lady and one elderly Italian count. The conversation was mostly in French or Italian, so Aaron was rather out of it. However, the visitors left fairly early, so Aaron stayed them out. When they had gone, he asked: “Where is Manfredi?” “He will come in soon. At about seven o'clock.” Then there was a silence again. “You are dressed fine today,” he said to her. “Am I?” she smiled. He was never able to make out quite what she felt, what she was feeling. But she had a quiet little air of proprietorship in him, which he did not like. “You will stay to dinner tonight, won't you?” she said. “No--not tonight,” he said. And then, awkwardly, he added: “You know. I think it is better if we are friends--not lovers. You know--I don't feel free. I feel my wife, I suppose, somewhere inside me. And I can't help it---” She bent her head and was silent for some moments. Then she lifted her face and looked at him oddly. “Yes,” she said. “I am sure you love your wife.” The reply rather staggered him--and to tell the truth, annoyed him. “Well,” he said. “I don't know about love. But when one has been married for ten years--and I did love her--then--some sort of bond or something grows. I think some sort of connection grows between us, you know. And it isn't natural, quite, to break it.--Do you know what I mean?” She paused a moment. Then, very softly, almost gently, she said: “Yes, I do. I know so well what you mean.” He was really surprised at her soft acquiescence. What _did_ she mean? “But we can be friends, can't we?” he said. “Yes, I hope so. Why, yes! Goodness, yes! I should be sorry if we couldn't be friends.” After which speech he felt that everything was all right--everything was A-one. And when Manfredi came home, the first sound he heard was the flute and his wife's singing. “I'm so glad you've come,” his wife said to him. “Shall we go into the sala and have real music? Will you play?” “I should love to,” replied the husband. Behold them then in the big drawing-room, and Aaron and the Marchese practising together, and the Marchesa singing an Italian folk-song while her husband accompanied her on the pianoforte. But her singing was rather strained and forced. Still, they were quite a little family, and it seemed quite nice. As soon as she could, the Marchesa left the two men together, whilst she sat apart. Aaron and Manfredi went through old Italian and old German music, tried one thing and then another, and seemed quite like brothers. They arranged a piece which they should play together on a Saturday morning, eight days hence. The next day, Saturday, Aaron went to one of the Del Torre music mornings. There was a string quartette--and a violin soloist--and the Marchese at the piano. The audience, some dozen or fourteen friends, sat at the near end of the room, or in the smaller salotta, whilst the musicians performed at the further end of the room. The Lillys were there, both Tanny and her husband. But apart from these, Aaron knew nobody, and felt uncomfortable. The Marchesa gave her guests little sandwiches and glasses of wine or Marsala or vermouth, as they chose. And she was quite the hostess: the well-bred and very simple, but still the conventional hostess. Aaron did not like it. And he could see that Lilly too was unhappy. In fact, the little man bolted the moment he could, dragging after him the indignant Tanny, who was so looking forward to the excellent little sandwiches. But no--Lilly just rudely bolted. Aaron followed as soon as he could. “Will you come to dinner tomorrow evening?” said his hostess to him as he was leaving. And he agreed. He had really resented seeing her as a conventional hostess, attending so charmingly to all the other people, and treating him so merely as one of the guests, among many others. So that when at the last moment she quietly invited him to dinner next day, he was flattered and accepted at once. The next day was Sunday--the seventh day after his coming together with the Marchesa--which had taken place on the Monday. And already he was feeling much less dramatic in his decision to keep himself apart from her, to be merely friends. Already the memory of the last time was fanning up in him, not as a warning but as a terrible incitement. Again the naked desire was getting hold of him, with that peculiar brutal powerfulness which startled him and also pleased him. So that by the time Sunday morning came, his recoil had exhausted itself, and he was ready again, eager again, but more wary this time. He sat in his room alone in the morning, playing his flute, playing over from memory the tunes she loved, and imagining how he and she would get into unison in the evening. His flute, his Aaron's rod, would blossom once again with splendid scarlet flowers, the red Florentine lilies. It was curious, the passion he had for her: just unalloyed desire, and nothing else. Something he had not known in his life before. Previously there had been always _some_ personal quality, some sort of personal tenderness. But here, none. She did not seem to want it. She seemed to hate it, indeed. No, all he felt was stark, naked desire, without a single pretension. True enough, his last experience had been a warning to him. His desire and himself likewise had broken rather disastrously under the proving. But not finally broken. He was ready again. And with all the sheer powerful insolence of desire he looked forward to the evening. For he almost expected Manfredi would not be there. The officer had said something about having to go to Padua on the Saturday afternoon. So Aaron went skipping off to his appointment, at seven o'clock. Judge of his chagrin, then, when he found already seated in the salotta an elderly, quite well-known, very cultured and very well-connected English authoress. She was charming, in her white hair and dress of soft white wool and white lace, with a long chain of filigree gold beads, like bubbles. She was charming in her old-fashioned manner too, as if the world were still safe and stable, like a garden in which delightful culture, and choice ideas bloomed safe from wind and weather. Alas, never was Aaron more conscious of the crude collapse in the world than when he listened to this animated, young-seeming lady from the safe days of the seventies. All the old culture and choice ideas seemed like blowing bubbles. And dear old Corinna Wade, she seemed to be blowing bubbles still, as she sat there so charming in her soft white dress, and talked with her bright animation about the influence of woman in Parliament and the influence of woman in the Periclean day. Aaron listened spell-bound, watching the bubbles float round his head, and almost hearing them go pop. To complete the party arrived an elderly litterateur who was more proud of his not-very-important social standing than of his literature. In fact he was one of those English snobs of the old order, living abroad. Perfectly well dressed for the evening, his grey hair and his prim face was the most well-dressed thing to be met in North Italy. “Oh, so glad to see you, Mr. French. I didn't know you were in Florence again. You make that journey from Venice so often. I wonder you don't get tired of it,” cried Corinna Wade. “No,” he said. “So long as duty to England calls me to Florence, I shall come to Florence. But I can LIVE in no town but Venice.” “No, I suppose you can't. Well, there is something special about Venice: having no streets and no carriages, and moving about in a gondola. I suppose it is all much more soothing.” “Much less nerve-racking, yes. And then there is a quality in the whole life. Of course I see few English people in Venice--only the old Venetian families, as a rule.” “Ah, yes. That must be very interesting. They are very exclusive still, the Venetian _noblesse_?” said Miss Wade. “Oh, very exclusive,” said Mr. French. “That is one of the charms. Venice is really altogether exclusive. It excludes the world, really, and defies time and modern movement. Yes, in spite of the steamers on the canal, and the tourists.” “That is so. That is so. Venice is a strange back-water. And the old families are very proud still, in these democratic days. They have a great opinion of themselves, I am told.” “Well,” said Mr. French. “Perhaps you know the rhyme: “'Veneziano gran' Signore Padovano buon' dotore. Vicenzese mangia il gatto Veronese tutto matto---'” “How very amusing!” said Miss Wade. “_Veneziana_ gran' Signore. The Venetian is a great gentleman! Yes, I know they are all convinced of it. Really, how very amusing, in these advanced days. To be born a Venetian, is to be born a great gentleman! But this outdoes divine right of king.” “To be born a Venetian GENTLEMAN, is to be born a great gentleman,” said Mr. French, rather fussily. “You seriously think so?” said Miss Wade. “Well now, what do you base your opinion on?” Mr. French gave various bases for his opinion. “Yes--interesting. Very interesting. Rather like the Byzantines--lingering on into far other ages. Anna Comnena always charmed me very much. HOW she despised the flower of the north--even Tancred! And so the lingering Venetian families! And you, in your palazzo on the Grand Canal: you are a northern barbarian civilised into the old Venetian Signoria. But how very romantic a situation!” It was really amusing to see the old maid, how she skirmished and hit out gaily, like an old jaunty free lance: and to see the old bachelor, how prim he was, and nervy and fussy and precious, like an old maid. But need we say that Mr. Aaron felt very much out of it. He sat and listened, with a sardonic small smile on his face and a sardonic gleam in his blue eyes, that looked so very blue on such an occasion. He made the two elderly people uncomfortable with his silence: his democratic silence, Miss Wade might have said. However, Miss Wade lived out towards Galuzzo, so she rose early, to catch her tram. And Mr. French gallantly and properly rose to accompany her, to see her safe on board. Which left Aaron and the Marchesa alone. “What time is Manfredi coming back?” said he. “Tomorrow,” replied she. There was a pause. “Why do you have those people?” he asked. “Who?” “Those two who were here this evening.” “Miss Wade and Mr. French?--Oh, I like Miss Wade so very much. She is so refreshing.” “Those old people,” said Aaron. “They licked the sugar off the pill, and go on as if everything was toffee. And we've got to swallow the pill. It's easy to be refreshing---” “No, don't say anything against her. I like her so much.” “And him?” “Mr. French!--Well, he's perhaps a little like the princess who felt the pea through three feather-beds. But he can be quite witty, and an excellent conversationalist, too. Oh yes, I like him quite well.” “Matter of taste,” said Aaron. They had not much to say to one another. The time passed, in the pauses. He looked at his watch. “I shall have to go,” he said. “Won't you stay?” she said, in a small, muted voice. “Stay all night?” he said. “Won't you?” “Yes,” he said quietly. Did he not feel the strength of his desire on him. After which she said no more. Only she offered him whiskey and soda, which he accepted. “Go then,” he said to her. “And I'll come to you.--Shall I come in fifteen minutes?” She looked at him with strange, slow dark eyes. And he could not understand. “Yes,” she said. And she went. And again, this night as before, she seemed strangely small and clinging in his arms. And this night he felt his passion drawn from him as if a long, live nerve were drawn out from his body, a long live thread of electric fire, a long, living nerve finely extracted from him, from the very roots of his soul. A long fine discharge of pure, bluish fire, from the core of his soul. It was an excruciating, but also an intensely gratifying sensation. This night he slept with a deeper obliviousness than before. But ah, as it grew towards morning how he wished he could be alone. They must stay together till the day was light. And she seemed to love clinging to him and curling strangely on his breast. He could never reconcile it with her who was a hostess entertaining her guests. How could she now in a sort of little ecstasy curl herself and nestle herself on his, Aaron's breast, tangling his face all over with her hair. He verily believed that this was what she really wanted of him: to curl herself on his naked breast, to make herself small, small, to feel his arms around her, while he himself was remote, silent, in some way inaccessible. This seemed almost to make her beside herself with gratification. But why, why? Was it because he was one of her own race, and she, as it were, crept right home to him? He did not know. He only knew it had nothing to do with him: and that, save out of _complaisance_, he did not want it. It simply blasted his own central life. It simply blighted him. And she clung to him closer. Strange, she was afraid of him! Afraid of him as of a fetish! Fetish afraid, and fetish-fascinated! Or was her fear only a delightful game of cat and mouse? Or was the fear genuine, and the delight the greater: a sort of sacrilege? The fear, and the dangerous, sacrilegious power over that which she feared. In some way, she was not afraid of him at all. In some other way she used him as a mere magic implement, used him with the most amazing priestess-craft. Himself, the individual man which he was, this she treated with an indifference that was startling to him. He forgot, perhaps, that this was how he had treated her. His famous desire for her, what had it been but this same attempt to strike a magic fire out of her, for his own ecstasy. They were playing the same game of fire. In him, however, there was all the time something hard and reckless and defiant, which stood apart. She was absolutely gone in her own incantations. She was absolutely gone, like a priestess utterly involved in her terrible rites. And he was part of the ritual only, God and victim in one. God and victim! All the time, God and victim. When his aloof soul realised, amid the welter of incantation, how he was being used,--not as himself but as something quite different--God and victim--then he dilated with intense surprise, and his remote soul stood up tall and knew itself alone. He didn't want it, not at all. He knew he was apart. And he looked back over the whole mystery of their love-contact. Only his soul was apart. He was aware of the strength and beauty and godlikeness that his breast was then to her--the magic. But himself, he stood far off, like Moses' sister Miriam. She would drink the one drop of his innermost heart's blood, and he would be carrion. As Cleopatra killed her lovers in the morning. Surely they knew that death was their just climax. They had approached the climax. Accept then. But his soul stood apart, and could have nothing to do with it. If he had really been tempted, he would have gone on, and she might have had his central heart's blood. Yes, and thrown away the carrion. He would have been willing. But fatally, he was not tempted. His soul stood apart and decided. At the bottom of his soul he disliked her. Or if not her, then her whole motive. Her whole life-mode. He was neither God nor victim: neither greater nor less than himself. His soul, in its isolation as she lay on his breast, chose it so, with the soul's inevitability. So, there was no temptation. When it was sufficiently light, he kissed her and left her. Quietly he left the silent flat. He had some difficulty in unfastening the various locks and bars and catches of the massive door downstairs, and began, in irritation and anger, to feel he was a prisoner, that he was locked in. But suddenly the ponderous door came loose, and he was out in the street. The door shut heavily behind him, with a shudder. He was out in the morning streets of Florence. CHAPTER XX. THE BROKEN ROD The day was rainy. Aaron stayed indoors alone, and copied music and slept. He felt the same stunned, withered feeling as before, but less intensely, less disastrously, this time. He knew now, without argument or thought that he would never go again to the Marchesa: not as a lover. He would go away from it all. He did not dislike her. But he would never see her again. A great gulf had opened, leaving him alone on the far side. He did not go out till after dinner. When he got downstairs he found the heavy night-door closed. He wondered: then remembered the Signorina's fear of riots and disturbances. As again he fumbled with the catches, he felt that the doors of Florence were trying to prevent his egress. However, he got out. It was a very dark night, about nine o'clock, and deserted seeming. He was struck by the strange, deserted feeling of the city's atmosphere. Yet he noticed before him, at the foot of the statue, three men, one with a torch: a long torch with naked flames. The men were stooping over something dark, the man with the torch bending forward too. It was a dark, weird little group, like Mediaeval Florence. Aaron lingered on his doorstep, watching. He could not see what they were doing. But now, the two were crouching down; over a long dark object on the ground, and the one with the torch bending also to look. What was it? They were just at the foot of the statue, a dark little group under the big pediment, the torch-flames weirdly flickering as the torch-bearer moved and stooped lower to the two crouching men, who seemed to be kneeling. Aaron felt his blood stir. There was something dark and mysterious, stealthy, in the little scene. It was obvious the men did not want to draw attention, they were so quiet and furtive-seeming. And an eerie instinct prevented Aaron's going nearer to look. Instead, he swerved on to the Lungarno, and went along the top of the square, avoiding the little group in the centre. He walked the deserted dark-seeming street by the river, then turned inwards, into the city. He was going to the Piazza Vittoria Emmanuele, to sit in the cafe which is the centre of Florence at night. There he could sit for an hour, and drink his vermouth and watch the Florentines. As he went along one of the dark, rather narrow streets, he heard a hurrying of feet behind him. Glancing round, he saw the torch-bearer coming along at a trot, holding his flaming torch up in front of him as he trotted down the middle of the narrow dark street. Aaron shrank under the wall. The trotting torch-bearer drew near, and now Aaron perceived the other two men slowly trotting behind, stealthily, bearing a stretcher on which a body was wrapped up, completely and darkly covered. The torch-bearer passed, the men with the stretcher passed too, hastily and stealthily, the flickering flames revealing them. They took no notice of Aaron, no notice of anything, but trotted softly on towards the centre of the city. Their queer, quick footsteps echoed down the distance. Then Aaron too resumed his way. He came to the large, brilliantly-lighted cafe. It was Sunday evening, and the place was full. Men, Florentines, many, many men sat in groups and in twos and threes at the little marble tables. They were mostly in dark clothes or black overcoats. They had mostly been drinking just a cup of coffee--others however had glasses of wine or liquor. But mostly it was just a little coffee-tray with a tiny coffee pot and a cup and saucer. There was a faint film of tobacco smoke. And the men were all talking: talking, talking with that peculiar intensity of the Florentines. Aaron felt the intense, compressed sound of many half-secret voices. For the little groups and couples abated their voices, none wished that others should hear what they said. Aaron was looking for a seat--there was no table to him-—when suddenly someone took him by the arm. It was Argyle. “Come along, now! Come and join us. Here, this way! Come along!” Aaron let himself be led away towards a corner. There sat Lilly and a strange man: called Levison. The room was warm. Aaron could never bear to be too hot. After sitting a minute, he rose and took off his coat, and hung it on a stand near the window. As he did so he felt the weight of his flute--it was still in his pocket. And he wondered if it was safe to leave it. “I suppose no one will steal from the overcoat pockets,” he said, as he sat down. “My dear chap, they'd steal the gold filling out of your teeth, if you happened to yawn,” said Argyle. “Why, have you left valuables in your overcoat?” “My flute,” said Aaron. “Oh, they won't steal that,” said Argyle. “Besides,” said Lilly, “we should see anyone who touched it.” And so they settled down to the vermouth. “Well,” said Argyle, “what have you been doing with yourself, eh? I haven't seen a glimpse of you for a week. Been going to the dogs, eh?” “Or the bitches,” said Aaron. “Oh, but look here, that's bad! That's bad! I can see I shall have to take you in hand, and commence my work of reform. Oh, I'm a great reformer, a Zwingli and Savonarola in one. I couldn't count the number of people I've led into the right way. It takes some finding, you know. Strait is the gate--damned strait sometimes. A damned tight squeeze....” Argyle was somewhat intoxicated. He spoke with a slight slur, and laughed, really tickled at his own jokes. The man Levison smiled acquiescent. But Lilly was not listening. His brow was heavy and he seemed abstracted. He hardly noticed Aaron's arrival. “Did you see the row yesterday?” asked Levison. “No,” said Aaron. “What was it?” It was the socialists. They were making a demonstration against the imprisonment of one of the railway-strikers. I was there. They went on all right, with a good bit of howling and gibing: a lot of young louts, you know. And the shop-keepers shut up shop, and nobody showed the Italian flag, of course. Well, when they came to the Via Benedetto Croce, there were a few mounted carabinieri. So they stopped the procession, and the sergeant said that the crowd could continue, could go on where they liked, but would they not go down the Via Verrocchio, because it was being repaired, the roadway was all up, and there were piles of cobble stones. These might prove a temptation and lead to trouble. So would the demonstrators not take that road--they might take any other they liked.--Well, the very moment he had finished, there was a revolver shot, he made a noise, and fell forward over his horse's nose. One of the anarchists had shot him. Then there was hell let loose, the carabinieri fired back, and people were bolting and fighting like devils. I cleared out, myself. But my God--what do you think of it?” “Seems pretty mean,” said Aaron. “Mean!--He had just spoken them fair--they could go where they liked, only would they not go down the one road, because of the heap of stones. And they let him finish. And then shot him dead.” “Was he dead?” said Aaron. “Yes--killed outright, the Nazione says.” There was a silence. The drinkers in the cafe all continued to talk vehemently, casting uneasy glances. “Well,” said Argyle, “if you let loose the dogs of war, you mustn't expect them to come to heel again in five minutes.” “But there's no fair play about it, not a bit,” said Levison. “Ah, my dear fellow, are you still so young and callow that you cherish the illusion of fair play?” said Argyle. “Yes, I am,” said Levison. “Live longer and grow wiser,” said Argyle, rather contemptuously. “Are you a socialist?” asked Levison. “Am I my aunt Tabitha's dachshund bitch called Bella,” said Argyle, in his musical, indifferent voice. “Yes, Bella's her name. And if you can tell me a damneder name for a dog, I shall listen, I assure you, attentively.” “But you haven't got an aunt called Tabitha,” said Aaron. “Haven't I? Oh, haven't I? I've got TWO aunts called Tabitha: if not more.” “They aren't of any vital importance to you, are they?” said Levison. “Not the very least in the world--if it hadn't been that my elder Aunt Tabitha had christened her dachshund bitch Bella. I cut myself off from the family after that. Oh, I turned over a new leaf, with not a family name on it. Couldn't stand Bella amongst the rest.” “You must have strained most of the gnats out of your drink, Argyle,” said Lilly, laughing. “Assiduously! Assiduously! I can't stand these little vermin. Oh, I am quite indifferent about swallowing a camel or two--or even a whole string of dromedaries. How charmingly Eastern that sounds! But gnats! Not for anything in the world would I swallow one.” “You're a bit of a SOCIALIST though, aren't you?” persisted Levison, now turning to Lilly. “No,” said Lilly. “I was.” “And am no more,” said Argyle sarcastically. “My dear fellow, the only hope of salvation for the world lies in the re-institution of slavery.” “What kind of slavery?” asked Levison. “Slavery! SLAVERY! When I say SLAVERY I don't mean any of your damned modern reform cant. I mean solid sound slavery on which the Greek and the Roman world rested. FAR finer worlds than ours, my dear chap! Oh FAR finer! And can't be done without slavery. Simply can't be done.--Oh, they'll all come to realise it, when they've had a bit more of this democratic washer-women business.” Levison was laughing, with a slight sneer down his nose. “Anyhow, there's no immediate danger--or hope, if you prefer it--of the re-instituting of classic slavery,” he said. “Unfortunately no. We are all such fools,” said Argyle. “Besides,” said Levison, “who would you make slaves of?” “Everybody, my dear chap: beginning with the idealists and the theorising Jews, and after them your nicely-bred gentlemen, and then perhaps, your profiteers and Rothschilds, and ALL politicians, and ending up with the proletariat,” said Argyle. “Then who would be the masters?--the professional classes, doctors and lawyers and so on?” “What? Masters. They would be the sewerage slaves, as being those who had made most smells.” There was a moment's silence. “The only fault I have to find with your system,” said Levison, rather acidly, “is that there would be only one master, and everybody else slaves.” “Do you call that a fault? What do you want with more than one master? Are you asking for several?--Well, perhaps there's cunning in THAT.--Cunning devils, cunning devils, these theorising slaves--” And Argyle pushed his face with a devilish leer into Aaron's face. “Cunning devils!” he reiterated, with a slight tipsy slur. “That be-fouled Epictetus wasn't the last of 'em--nor the first. Oh, not by any means, not by any means.” Here Lilly could not avoid a slight spasm of amusement. “But returning to serious conversation,” said Levison, turning his rather sallow face to Lilly. “I think you'll agree with me that socialism is the inevitable next step--” Lilly waited for some time without answering. Then he said, with unwilling attention to the question: “I suppose it's the logically inevitable next step.” “Use logic as lavatory paper,” cried Argyle harshly. “Yes--logically inevitable--and humanly inevitable at the same time. Some form of socialism is bound to come, no matter how you postpone it or try variations,” said Levison. “All right, let it come,” said Lilly. “It's not my affair, neither to help it nor to keep it back, or even to try varying it.” “There I don't follow you,” said Levison. “Suppose you were in Russia now--” “I watch it I'm not.” “But you're in Italy, which isn't far off. Supposing a socialist revolution takes place all around you. Won't that force the problem on you?--It is every man's problem,” persisted Levison. “Not mine,” said Lilly. “How shall you escape it?” said Levison. “Because to me it is no problem. To Bolsh or not to Bolsh, as far as my mind goes, presents no problem. Not any more than to be or not to be. To be or not to be is simply no problem--” “No, I quite agree, that since you are already existing, and since death is ultimately inevitable, to be or not to be is no sound problem,” said Levison. “But the parallel isn't true of socialism. That is not a problem of existence, but of a certain mode of existence which centuries of thought and action on the part of Europe have now made logically inevitable for Europe. And therefore there is a problem. There is more than a problem, there is a dilemma. Either we must go to the logical conclusion--or--” “Somewhere else,” said Lilly. “Yes--yes. Precisely! But where ELSE? That's the one half of the problem: supposing you do not agree to a logical progression in human social activity. Because after all, human society through the course of ages only enacts, spasmodically but still inevitably, the logical development of a given idea.” “Well, then, I tell you.--The idea and the ideal has for me gone dead--dead as carrion--” “Which idea, which ideal precisely?” “The ideal of love, the ideal that it is better to give than to receive, the ideal of liberty, the ideal of the brotherhood of man, the ideal of the sanctity of human life, the ideal of what we call goodness, charity, benevolence, public spirited-ness, the ideal of sacrifice for a cause, the ideal of unity and unanimity--all the lot--all the whole beehive of ideals--has all got the modern bee-disease, and gone putrid, stinking.--And when the ideal is dead and putrid, the logical sequence is only stink.--Which, for me, is the truth concerning the ideal of good, peaceful, loving humanity and its logical sequence in socialism and equality, equal opportunity or whatever you like.--But this time he stinketh--and I'm sorry for any Christus who brings him to life again, to stink livingly for another thirty years: the beastly Lazarus of our idealism.” “That may be true for you--” “But it's true for nobody else,” said Lilly. “All the worse for them. Let them die of the bee-disease.” “Not only that,” persisted Levison, “but what is your alternative? Is it merely nihilism?” “My alternative,” said Lilly, “is an alternative for no one but myself, so I'll keep my mouth shut about it.” “That isn't fair.” “I tell you, the ideal of fairness stinks with the rest.--I have no obligation to say what I think.” “Yes, if you enter into conversation, you have--” “Bah, then I didn't enter into conversation.--The only thing is, I agree in the rough with Argyle. You've got to have a sort of slavery again. People are not MEN: they are insects and instruments, and their destiny is slavery. They are too many for me, and so what I think is ineffectual. But ultimately they will be brought to agree--after sufficient extermination--and then they will elect for themselves a proper and healthy and energetic slavery.” “I should like to know what you mean by slavery. Because to me it is impossible that slavery should be healthy and energetic. You seem to have some other idea in your mind, and you merely use the word slavery out of exasperation--” “I mean it none the less. I mean a real committal of the life-issue of inferior beings to the responsibility of a superior being.” “It'll take a bit of knowing, who are the inferior and which is the superior,” said Levison sarcastically. “Not a bit. It is written between a man's brows, which he is.” “I'm afraid we shall all read differently.” “So long as we're liars.” “And putting that question aside: I presume that you mean that this committal of the life-issue of inferior beings to someone higher shall be made voluntarily--a sort of voluntary self-gift of the inferiors--” “Yes--more or less--and a voluntary acceptance. For it's no pretty gift, after all.--But once made it must be held fast by genuine power. Oh yes--no playing and fooling about with it. Permanent and very efficacious power.” “You mean military power?” “I do, of course.” Here Levison smiled a long, slow, subtle smile of ridicule. It all seemed to him the preposterous pretentiousness of a megalomaniac--one whom, after a while, humanity would probably have the satisfaction of putting into prison, or into a lunatic asylum. And Levison felt strong, overwhelmingly strong, in the huge social power with which he, insignificant as he was, was armed against such criminal-imbecile pretensions as those above set forth. Prison or the lunatic asylum. The face of the fellow gloated in these two inevitable engines of his disapproval. “It will take you some time before you'll get your doctrines accepted,” he said. “Accepted! I'd be sorry. I don't want a lot of swine snouting and sniffing at me with their acceptance.--Bah, Levison--one can easily make a fool of you. Do you take this as my gospel?” “I take it you are speaking seriously.” Here Lilly broke into that peculiar, gay, whimsical smile. “But I should say the blank opposite with just as much fervour,” he declared. “Do you mean to say you don't MEAN what you've been saying?” said Levison, now really looking angry. “Why, I'll tell you the real truth,” said Lilly. “I think every man is a sacred and holy individual, NEVER to be violated; I think there is only one thing I hate to the verge of madness, and that is BULLYING. To see any living creature BULLIED, in any way, almost makes a murderer of me. That is true. Do you believe it--?” “Yes,” said Levison unwillingly. “That may be true as well. You have no doubt, like most of us, got a complex nature which--” C R A S H! There intervened one awful minute of pure shock, when the soul was in darkness. Out of this shock Aaron felt himself issuing amid a mass of terrible sensations: the fearful blow of the explosion, the noise of glass, the hoarse howl of people, the rushing of men, the sudden gulf, the awful gulfing whirlpool of horror in the social life. He stood in agony and semi-blindness amid a chaos. Then as he began to recover his consciousness, he found himself standing by a pillar some distance from where he had been sitting: he saw a place where tables and chairs were all upside down, legs in the air, amid debris of glass and breakage: he saw the cafe almost empty, nearly everybody gone: he saw the owner, or the manager, advancing aghast to the place of debris: he saw Lilly standing not far off, white as a sheet, and as if unconscious. And still he had no idea of what had happened. He thought perhaps something had broken down. He could not understand. Lilly began to look round. He caught Aaron's eye. And then Aaron began to approach his friend. “What is it?” he asked. “A bomb,” said Lilly. The manager, and one old waiter, and three or four youths had now advanced to the place of debris. And now Aaron saw that a man was lying there--and horror, blood was running across the floor of the cafe. Men began now hastily to return to the place. Some seized their hats and departed again at once. But many began to crowd in--a black eager crowd of men pressing to where the bomb had burst--where the man was lying. It was rather dark, some of the lamps were broken--but enough still shone. Men surged in with that eager, excited zest of people, when there has been an accident. Grey carabinieri, and carabinieri in the cocked hat and fine Sunday uniform pressed forward officiously. “Let us go,” said Lilly. And he went to the far corner, where his hat hung. But Aaron looked in vain for his own hat. The bomb had fallen near the stand where he had hung it and his overcoat. “My hat and coat?” he said to Lilly. Lilly, not very tall, stood on tiptoe. Then he climbed on a chair and looked round. Then he squeezed past the crowd. Aaron followed. On the other side of the crowd excited angry men were wrestling over overcoats that were mixed up with a broken marble table-top. Aaron spied his own black hat under the sofa near the wall. He waited his turn and then in the confusion pressed forward to where the coats were. Someone had dragged out his, and it lay on the floor under many feet. He managed, with a struggle, to get it from under the feet of the crowd. He felt at once for his flute. But his trampled, torn coat had no flute in its pocket. He pushed and struggled, caught sight of a section, and picked it up. But it was split right down, two silver stops were torn out, and a long thin spelch of wood was curiously torn off. He looked at it, and his heart stood still. No need to look for the rest. He felt utterly, utterly overcome--as if he didn't care what became of him any further. He didn't care whether he were hit by a bomb, or whether he himself threw the next bomb, and hit somebody. He just didn't care any more about anything in life or death. It was as if the reins of his life slipped from his hands. And he would let everything run where it would, so long as it did run. Then he became aware of Lilly's eyes on him--and automatically he joined the little man. “Let us go,” said Lilly. And they pushed their way through the door. The police were just marching across the square. Aaron and Lilly walked in the opposite direction. Groups of people were watching. Suddenly Lilly swerved--in the middle of the road was a large black glisten of blood, trickling horribly. A wounded man had run from the blow and fallen here. Aaron did not know where he was going. But in the Via Tournabuoni Lilly turned towards the Arno, and soon they were on the Ponte Santa Trinita. “Who threw the bomb?” said Aaron. “I suppose an anarchist.” “It's all the same,” said Aaron. The two men, as if unable to walk any further, leaned on the broad parapet of the bridge and looked at the water in the darkness of the still, deserted night. Aaron still had his flute section in his hand, his overcoat over his arm. “Is that your flute?” asked Lilly. “Bit of it. Smashed.” “Let me look.” He looked, and gave it back. “No good,” he said. “Oh, no,” said Aaron. “Throw it in the river, Aaron,” said Lilly. Aaron turned and looked at him. “Throw it in the river,” repeated Lilly. “It's an end.” Aaron nervelessly dropped the flute into the stream. The two men stood leaning on the bridge-parapet, as if unable to move. “We shall have to go home,” said Lilly. “Tanny may hear of it and be anxious.” Aaron was quite dumbfounded by the night's event: the loss of his flute. Here was a blow he had not expected. And the loss was for him symbolistic. It chimed with something in his soul: the bomb, the smashed flute, the end. “There goes Aaron's Rod, then,” he said to Lilly. “It'll grow again. It's a reed, a water-plant--you can't kill it,” said Lilly, unheeding. “And me?” “You'll have to live without a rod, meanwhile.” To which pleasant remark Aaron made no reply. CHAPTER XXI. WORDS He went home to bed: and dreamed a strange dream. He dreamed that he was in a country with which he was not acquainted. Night was coming on, and he had nowhere to sleep. So he passed the mouth of a sort of cave or house, in which a woman, an old woman, sat. Therefore he entered, and though he could not understand the language, still his second self understood. The cave was a house: and men came home from work. His second self assumed that they were tin-miners. He wandered uneasily to and fro, no one taking any particular notice of him. And he realized that there was a whole vast country spreading, a sort of underworld country, spreading away beyond him. He wandered from vast apartment to apartment, down narrow corridors like the roads in a mine. In one of the great square rooms, the men were going to eat. And it seemed to him that what they were going to eat was a man, naked man. But his second self knew that what appeared to his eyes as a man was really a man's skin stuffed tight with prepared meat, as the skin of a Bologna sausage. This did not prevent his seeing the naked man who was to be eaten walk slowly and stiffly across the gangway and down the corridor. He saw him from behind. It was a big handsome man in the prime of life, quite naked and perhaps stupid. But of course he was only a skin stuffed with meat, whom the grey tin-miners were going to eat. Aaron, the dream-Aaron, turned another way, and strayed along the vast square rooms, cavern apartments. He came into one room where there were many children, all in white gowns. And they were all busily putting themselves to bed, in the many beds scattered about the room at haphazard. And each child went to bed with a wreath of flowers on its head, white flowers and pink, so it seemed. So there they all lay, in their flower-crowns in the vast space of the rooms. And Aaron went away. He could not remember the following part. Only he seemed to have passed through many grey domestic apartments, where were all women, all greyish in their clothes and appearance, being wives of the underground tin-miners. The men were away and the dream-Aaron remembered with fear the food they were to eat. The next thing he could recall was, that he was in a boat. And now he was most definitely two people. His invisible, _conscious_ self, what we have called his second self, hovered as it were before the prow of the boat, seeing and knowing, but unseen. His other self, the palpable Aaron, sat as a passenger in the boat, which was being rowed by the unknown people of this underworld. They stood up as they thrust the boat along. Other passengers were in the boat too, women as well, but all of them unknown people, and not noticeable. The boat was upon a great lake in the underworld country, a lake of dark blue water, but crystal clear and very beautiful in colour. The second or invisible Aaron sat in the prow and watched the fishes swimming suspended in the clear, beautiful dark-blue water. Some were pale fish, some frightening-looking, like centipedes swimming, and some were dark fish, of definite form, and delightful to watch. The palpable or visible Aaron sat at the side of the boat, on the end of the middle seat, with his naked right elbow leaning out over the side. And now the boat entered upon shallows. The impalpable Aaron in the bows saw the whitish clay of the bottom swirl up in clouds at each thrust of the oars, whitish-clayey clouds which would envelope the strange fishes in a sudden mist. And on the right hand of the course stakes stood up in the water, at intervals, to mark the course. The boat must pass very near these stakes, almost touching. And Aaron's naked elbow was leaning right over the side. As they approached the first stake, the boatmen all uttered a strange cry of warning, in a foreign language. The flesh-and-blood Aaron seemed not even to hear. The invisible Aaron heard, but did not comprehend the words of the cry. So the naked elbow struck smartly against the stake as the boat passed. The rowers rowed on. And still the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat with his arm over the side. Another stake was nearing. “Will he heed, will he heed?” thought the anxious second self. The rowers gave the strange warning cry. He did not heed, and again the elbow struck against the stake as the boat passed. And yet the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat on and made no sign. There were stakes all along this shallow part of the lake. Beyond was deep water again. The invisible Aaron was becoming anxious. “Will he never hear? Will he never heed? Will he never understand?” he thought. And he watched in pain for the next stake. But still the flesh-and-blood Aaron sat on, and though the rowers cried so acutely that the invisible Aaron almost understood their very language, still the Aaron seated at the side heard nothing, and his elbow struck against the third stake. This was almost too much. But after a few moments, as the boat rowed on, the palpable Aaron changed his position as he sat, and drew in his arm: though even now he was not aware of any need to do so. The invisible Aaron breathed with relief in the bows, the boat swung steadily on, into the deep, unfathomable water again. They were drawing near a city. A lake-city, like Mexico. They must have reached a city, because when Aaron woke up and tried to piece together the dream of which these are mere fragments, he could remember having just seen an idol. An Astarte he knew it as, seated by the road, and in her open lap, were some eggs: smallish hen's eggs, and one or two bigger eggs, like swan's, and one single little roll of bread. These lay in the lap of the roadside Astarte.... And then he could remember no more. He woke, and for a minute tried to remember what he had been dreaming, and what it all meant. But he quickly relinquished the effort. So he looked at his watch: it was only half-past three. He had one of those American watches with luminous, phosphorescent figures and fingers. And tonight he felt afraid of its eerily shining face. He was awake a long time in the dark--for two hours, thinking and not thinking, in that barren state which is not sleep, nor yet full wakefulness, and which is a painful strain. At length he went to sleep again, and did not wake till past eight o'clock. He did not ring for his coffee till nine. Outside was a bright day--but he hardly heeded it. He lay profitlessly thinking. With the breaking of the flute, that which was slowly breaking had finally shattered at last. And there was nothing ahead: no plan, no prospect. He knew quite well that people would help him: Francis Dekker or Angus Guest or the Marchese or Lilly. They would get him a new flute, and find him engagements. But what was the good? His flute was broken, and broken finally. The bomb had settled it. The bomb had settled it and everything. It was an end, no matter how he tried to patch things up. The only thing he felt was a thread of destiny attaching him to Lilly. The rest had all gone as bare and bald as the dead orb of the moon. So he made up his mind, if he could, to make some plan that would bring his life together with that of his evanescent friend. Lilly was a peculiar bird. Clever and attractive as he undoubtedly was, he was perhaps the most objectionable person to know. It was stamped on his peculiar face. Aaron thought of Lilly's dark, ugly face, which had something that lurked in it as a creature under leaves. Then he thought of the wide-apart eyes, with their curious candour and surety. The peculiar, half-veiled surety, as if nothing, nothing could overcome him. It made people angry, this look of silent, indifferent assurance. “Nothing can touch him on the quick, nothing can really GET at him,” they felt at last. And they felt it with resentment, almost with hate. They wanted to be able to get at him. For he was so open-seeming, so very outspoken. He gave himself away so much. And he had no money to fall back on. Yet he gave himself away so easily, paid such attention, almost deference to any chance friend. So they all thought: Here is a wise person who finds me the wonder which I really am.--And lo and behold, after he had given them the trial, and found their inevitable limitations, he departed and ceased to heed their wonderful existence. Which, to say the least of it, was fraudulent and damnable. It was then, after his departure, that they realised his basic indifference to them, and his silent arrogance. A silent arrogance that knew all their wisdom, and left them to it. Aaron had been through it all. He had started by thinking Lilly a peculiar little freak: gone on to think him a wonderful chap, and a bit pathetic: progressed, and found him generous, but overbearing: then cruel and intolerant, allowing no man to have a soul of his own: then terribly arrogant, throwing a fellow aside like an old glove which is in holes at the finger-ends. And all the time, which was most beastly, seeing through one. All the time, freak and outsider as he was, Lilly _knew_. He knew, and his soul was against the whole world. Driven to bay, and forced to choose. Forced to choose, not between life and death, but between the world and the uncertain, assertive Lilly. Forced to choose, and yet, in the world, having nothing left to choose. For in the world there was nothing left to choose, unless he would give in and try for success. Aaron knew well enough that if he liked to do a bit of buttering, people would gladly make a success of him, and give him money and success. He could become quite a favourite. But no! If he had to give in to something: if he really had to give in, and it seemed he had: then he would rather give in to the little Lilly than to the beastly people of the world. If he had to give in, then it should be to no woman, and to no social ideal, and to no social institution. No!--if he had to yield his wilful independence, and give himself, then he would rather give himself to the little, individual man than to any of the rest. For to tell the truth, in the man was something incomprehensible, which had dominion over him, if he chose to allow it. As he lay pondering this over, escaping from the _cul de sac_ in which he had been running for so long, by yielding to one of his pursuers: yielding to the peculiar mastery of one man's nature rather than to the quicksands of woman or the stinking bogs of society: yielding, since yield he must, in some direction or other: yielding in a new direction now, to one strange and incalculable little individual: as Aaron lay so relaxing, finding a peculiar delight in giving his soul to his mind's hero, the self-same hero tapped and entered. “I wondered,” he said, “if you'd like to walk into the country with me: it is such a nice day. I thought you might have gone out already. But here you are in bed like a woman who's had a baby.--You're all right, are you?” “Yes,” said Aaron. “I'm all right.” “Miserable about your flute?--Ah, well, there are more flutes. Get up then.” And Lilly went to the window, and stood looking out at the river. “We're going away on Thursday,” he said. “Where to?” said Aaron. “Naples. We've got a little house there for the winter--in the country, not far from Sorrento--I must get a bit of work done, now the winter is coming. And forget all about everything and just live with life. What's the good of running after life, when we've got it in us, if nobody prevents us and obstructs us?” Aaron felt very queer. “But for how long will you settle down--?” he asked. “Oh, only the winter. I am a vagrant really: or a migrant. I must migrate. Do you think a cuckoo in Africa and a cuckoo in Essex is one AND the same bird? Anyhow, I know I must oscillate between north and south, so oscillate I do. It's just my nature. All people don't have the same needs.” “Perhaps not,” said Aaron, who had risen and was sitting on the side of the bed. “I would very much like to try life in another continent, among another race. I feel Europe becoming like a cage to me. Europe may be all right in herself. But I find myself chafing. Another year I shall get out. I shall leave Europe. I begin to feel caged.” “I guess there are others that feel caged, as well as you,” said Aaron. “I guess there are.” “And maybe they haven't a chance to get out.” Lilly was silent a moment. Then he said: “Well, I didn't make life and society. I can only go my own way.” Aaron too was silent. A deep disappointment was settling over his spirit. “Will you be alone all winter?” “Just myself and Tanny,” he answered. “But people always turn up.” “And then next year, what will you do?” “Who knows? I may sail far off. I should like to. I should like to try quite a new life-mode. This is finished in me--and yet perhaps it is absurd to go further. I'm rather sick of seekers. I hate a seeker.” “What,” said Aaron rather sarcastically--“those who are looking for a new religion?” “Religion--and love--and all that. It's a disease now.” “Oh, I don't know,” said Aaron. “Perhaps the lack of love and religion is the disease.” “Ah--bah! The grinding the old millstones of love and God is what ails us, when there's no more grist between the stones. We've ground love very small. Time to forget it. Forget the very words religion, and God, and love--then have a shot at a new mode. But the very words rivet us down and don't let us move. Rivets, and we can't get them out.” “And where should we be if we could?” said Aaron. “We might begin to be ourselves, anyhow.” “And what does that mean?” said Aaron. “Being yourself--what does it mean?” “To me, everything.” “And to most folks, nothing. They've got to have a goal.” “There is no goal. I loathe goals more than any other impertinence. Gaols, they are. Bah--jails and jailers, gaols and gaolers---” “Wherever you go, you'll find people with their noses tied to some goal,” said Aaron. “Their wagon hitched to a star--which goes round and round like an ass in a gin,” laughed Lilly. “Be damned to it.” Aaron got himself dressed, and the two men went out, took a tram and went into the country. Aaron could not help it--Lilly put his back up. They came to a little inn near a bridge, where a broad stream rustled bright and shallow. It was a sunny warm day, and Aaron and Lilly had a table outside under the thin trees at the top of the bank above the river. The yellow leaves were falling--the Tuscan sky was turquoise blue. In the stream below three naked boys still adventurously bathed, and lay flat on the shingle in the sun. A wagon with two pale, loving, velvety oxen drew slowly down the hill, looking at each step as if they were going to come to rest, to move no more. But still they stepped forward. Till they came to the inn, and there they stood at rest. Two old women were picking the last acorns under three scrubby oak-trees, whilst a girl with bare feet drove her two goats and a sheep up from the water-side towards the women. The girl wore a dress that had been blue, perhaps indigo, but which had faded to the beautiful lavender-purple colour which is so common, and which always reminded Lilly of purple anemones in the south. The two friends sat in the sun and drank red wine. It was midday. From the thin, square belfry on the opposite hill the bells had rung. The old women and the girl squatted under the trees, eating their bread and figs. The boys were dressing, fluttering into their shirts on the stream's shingle. A big girl went past, with somebody's dinner tied in a red kerchief and perched on her head. It was one of the most precious hours: the hour of pause, noon, and the sun, and the quiet acceptance of the world. At such a time everything seems to fall into a true relationship, after the strain of work and of urge. Aaron looked at Lilly, and saw the same odd, distant look on his face as on the face of some animal when it lies awake and alert, yet perfectly at one with its surroundings. It was something quite different from happiness: an alert enjoyment of rest, an intense and satisfying sense of centrality. As a dog when it basks in the sun with one eye open and winking: or a rabbit quite still and wide-eyed, with a faintly-twitching nose. Not passivity, but alert enjoyment of being central, life-central in one's own little circumambient world. They sat thus still--or lay under the trees--for an hour and a half. Then Lilly paid the bill, and went on. “What am I going to do this winter, do you think?” Aaron asked. “What do you want to do?” “Nay, that's what I want to know.” “Do you want anything? I mean, does something drive you from inside?” “I can't just rest,” said Aaron. “Can't you settle down to something?--to a job, for instance?” “I've not found the job I could settle down to, yet,” said Aaron. “Why not?” “It's just my nature.” “Are you a seeker? Have you got a divine urge, or need?” “How do I know?” laughed Aaron. “Perhaps I've got a DAMNED urge, at the bottom of me. I'm sure it's nothing divine.” “Very well then. Now, in life, there are only two great dynamic urges--do you believe me--?” “How do I know?” laughed Aaron. “Do you want to be believed?” “No, I don't care a straw. Only for your own sake, you'd better believe me.” “All right then--what about it?” “Well, then, there are only two great dynamic urges in LIFE: love and power.” “Love and power?” said Aaron. “I don't see power as so very important.” “You don't see because you don't look. But that's not the point. What sort of urge is your urge? Is it the love urge?” “I don't know,” said Aaron. “Yes, you do. You know that you have got an urge, don't you?” “Yes--” rather unwillingly Aaron admitted it. “Well then, what is it? Is it that you want to love, or to be obeyed?” “A bit of both.” “All right--a bit of both. And what are you looking for in love?--A woman whom you can love, and who will love you, out and out and all in all and happy ever after sort of thing?” “That's what I started out for, perhaps,” laughed Aaron. “And now you know it's all my eye!” Aaron looked at Lilly, unwilling to admit it. Lilly began to laugh. “You know it well enough,” he said. “It's one of your lost illusions, my boy. Well, then, what next? Is it a God you're after? Do you want a God you can strive to and attain, through love, and live happy ever after, countless millions of eternities, immortality and all that? Is this your little dodge?” Again Aaron looked at Lilly with that odd double look of mockery and unwillingness to give himself away. “All right then. You've got a love-urge that urges you to God; have you? Then go and join the Buddhists in Burmah, or the newest fangled Christians in Europe. Go and stick your head in a bush of Nirvana or spiritual perfection. Trot off.” “I won't,” said Aaron. “You must. If you've got a love-urge, then give it its fulfilment.” “I haven't got a love-urge.” “You have. You want to get excited in love. You want to be carried away in love. You want to whoosh off in a nice little love whoosh and love yourself. Don't deny it. I know you do. You want passion to sweep you off on wings of fire till you surpass yourself, and like the swooping eagle swoop right into the sun. I know you, my love-boy.” “Not any more--not any more. I've been had too often,” laughed Aaron. “Bah, it's a lesson men never learn. No matter how sick they make themselves with love, they always rush for more, like a dog to his vomit.” “Well, what am I to do then, if I'm not to love?” cried Aaron. “You want to go on, from passion to passion, from ecstasy to ecstasy, from triumph to triumph, till you can whoosh away into glory, beyond yourself, all bonds loosened and happy ever after. Either that or Nirvana, opposite side of the medal.” “There's probably more hate than love in me,” said Aaron. “That's the recoil of the same urge. The anarchist, the criminal, the murderer, he is only the extreme lover acting on the recoil. But it is love: only in recoil. It flies back, the love-urge, and becomes a horror.” “All right then. I'm a criminal and a murderer,” said Aaron. “No, you're not. But you've a love-urge. And perhaps on the recoil just now. But listen to me. It's no good thinking the love-urge is the one and only. _Niente_! You can whoosh if you like, and get excited and carried away loving a woman, or humanity, or God. Swoop away in the love direction till you lose yourself. But that's where you're had. You can't lose yourself. You can try. But you might just as well try to swallow yourself. You'll only bite your fingers off in the attempt. You can't lose yourself, neither in woman nor humanity nor in God. You've always got yourself on your hands in the end: and a very raw and jaded and humiliated and nervous-neurasthenic self it is, too, in the end. A very nasty thing to wake up to is one's own raw self after an excessive love-whoosh. Look even at President Wilson: he love-whooshed for humanity, and found in the end he'd only got a very sorry self on his hands. “So leave off. Leave off, my boy. Leave off love-whooshing. You can't lose yourself, so stop trying. The responsibility is on your own shoulders all the time, and no God which man has ever struck can take it off. You ARE yourself and so BE yourself. Stick to it and abide by it. Passion or no passion, ecstasy or no ecstasy, urge or no urge, there's no goal outside you, where you can consummate like an eagle flying into the sun, or a moth into a candle. There's no goal outside you--and there's no God outside you. No God, whom you can get to and rest in. None. It's a case of: 'Trot, trot to market, to buy a penny bun, And trot, trot back again, as fast as you can run.' But there's no God outside you, whom you can rise to or sink to or swoop away to. You can't even gum yourself to a divine Nirvana moon. Because all the time you've got to eat your dinner and digest it. There is no goal outside you. None. “There is only one thing, your own very self. So you'd better stick to it. You can't be any bigger than just yourself, so you needn't drag God in. You've got one job, and no more. There inside you lies your own very self, like a germinating egg, your precious Easter egg of your own soul. There it is, developing bit by bit, from one single egg-cell which you were at your conception in your mother's womb, on and on to the strange and peculiar complication in unity which never stops till you die--if then. You've got an innermost, integral unique self, and since it's the only thing you have got or ever will have, don't go trying to lose it. You've got to develop it, from the egg into the chicken, and from the chicken into the one-and-only phoenix, of which there can only be one at a time in the universe. There can only be one of you at a time in the universe--and one of me. So don't forget it. Your own single oneness is your destiny. Your destiny comes from within, from your own self-form. And you can't know it beforehand, neither your destiny nor your self-form. You can only develop it. You can only stick to your own very self, and NEVER betray it. And by so sticking, you develop the one and only phoenix of your own self, and you unfold your own destiny, as a dandelion unfolds itself into a dandelion, and not into a stick of celery. “Remember this, my boy: you've never got to deny the Holy Ghost which is inside you, your own soul's self. Never. Or you'll catch it. And you've never got to think you'll dodge the responsibility of your own soul's self, by loving or sacrificing or Nirvaning--or even anarchising and throwing bombs. You never will....” Aaron was silenced for a moment by this flood of words. Then he said smiling: “So I'd better sit tight on my soul, till it hatches, had I?” “Oh, yes. If your soul's urge urges you to love, then love. But always know that what you are doing is the fulfilling of your own soul's impulse. It's no good trying to act by prescription: not a bit. And it's no use getting into frenzies. If you've got to go in for love and passion, go in for them. But they aren't the goal. They're a mere means: a life-means, if you will. The only goal is the fulfilling of your own soul's active desire and suggestion. Be passionate as much as ever it is your nature to be passionate, and deeply sensual as far as you can be. Small souls have a small sensuality, deep souls a deep one. But remember, all the time, the responsibility is upon your own head, it all rests with your own lonely soul, the responsibility for your own action.” “I never said it didn't,” said Aaron. “You never said it did. You never accepted. You thought there was something outside, to justify you: God, or a creed, or a prescription. But remember, your soul inside you is your only Godhead. It develops your actions within you as a tree develops its own new cells. And the cells push on into buds and boughs and flowers. And these are your passion and your acts and your thoughts and expressions, your developing consciousness. You don't know beforehand, and you can't. You can only stick to your own soul through thick and thin. “You are your own Tree of Life, roots and limbs and trunk. Somewhere within the wholeness of the tree lies the very self, the quick: its own innate Holy Ghost. And this Holy Ghost puts forth new buds, and pushes past old limits, and shakes off a whole body of dying leaves. And the old limits hate being empassed, and the old leaves hate to fall. But they must, if the tree-soul says so....” They had sat again during this harangue, under a white wall. Aaron listened more to the voice than the words. It was more the sound value which entered his soul, the tone, the strange speech-music which sank into him. The sense he hardly heeded. And yet he understood, he knew. He understood, oh so much more deeply than if he had listened with his head. And he answered an objection from the bottom of his soul. “But you talk,” he said, “as if we were like trees, alone by ourselves in the world. We aren't. If we love, it needs another person than ourselves. And if we hate, and even if we talk.” “Quite,” said Lilly. “And that's just the point. We've got to love and hate moreover--and even talk. But we haven't got to fix on any one of these modes, and say that's the only mode. It is such imbecility to say that love and love alone must rule. It is so obviously not the case. Yet we try and make it so.” “I feel that,” said Aaron. “It's all a lie.” “It's worse. It's a half lie. But listen. I told you there were two urges--two great life-urges, didn't I? There may be more. But it comes on me so strongly, now, that there are two: love, and power. And we've been trying to work ourselves, at least as individuals, from the love-urge exclusively, hating the power-urge, and repressing it. And now I find we've got to accept the very thing we've hated. “We've exhausted our love-urge, for the moment. And yet we try to force it to continue working. So we get inevitably anarchy and murder. It's no good. We've got to accept the power motive, accept it in deep responsibility, do you understand me? It is a great life motive. It was that great dark power-urge which kept Egypt so intensely living for so many centuries. It is a vast dark source of life and strength in us now, waiting either to issue into true action, or to burst into cataclysm. Power--the power-urge. The will-to-power--but not in Nietzsche's sense. Not intellectual power. Not mental power. Not conscious will-power. Not even wisdom. But dark, living, fructifying power. Do you know what I mean?” “I don't know,” said Aaron. “Take what you call love, for example. In the real way of love, the positive aim is to make the other person--or persons--happy. It devotes itself to the other or to others. But change the mode. Let the urge be the urge of power. Then the great desire is not happiness, neither of the beloved nor of oneself. Happiness is only one of many states, and it is horrible to think of fixing us down to one state. The urge of power does not seek for happiness any more than for any other state. It urges from within, darkly, for the displacing of the old leaves, the inception of the new. It is powerful and self-central, not seeking its centre outside, in some God or some beloved, but acting indomitably from within itself. “And of course there must be one who urges, and one who is impelled. Just as in love there is a beloved and a lover: The man is supposed to be the lover, the woman the beloved. Now, in the urge of power, it is the reverse. The woman must submit, but deeply, deeply submit. Not to any foolish fixed authority, not to any foolish and arbitrary will. But to something deep, deeper. To the soul in its dark motion of power and pride. We must reverse the poles. The woman must now submit--but deeply, deeply, and richly! No subservience. None of that. No slavery. A deep, unfathomable free submission.” “You'll never get it,” said Aaron. “You will, if you abandon the love idea and the love motive, and if you stand apart, and never bully, never force from the conscious will. That's where Nietzsche was wrong. His was the conscious and benevolent will, in fact, the love-will. But the deep power-urge is not conscious of its aims: and it is certainly not consciously benevolent or love-directed.--Whatever else happens, somewhere, sometime, the deep power-urge in man will have to issue forth again, and woman will submit, livingly, not subjectedly.” “She never will,” persisted Aaron. “Anything else will happen, but not that.” “She will,” said Lilly, “once man disengages himself from the love-mode, and stands clear. Once he stands clear, and the other great urge begins to flow in him, then the woman won't be able to resist. Her own soul will wish to yield itself.” “Woman yield--?” Aaron re-echoed. “Woman--and man too. Yield to the deep power-soul in the individual man, and obey implicitly. I don't go back on what I said before. I do believe that every man must fulfil his own soul, every woman must be herself, herself only, not some man's instrument, or some embodied theory. But the mode of our being is such that we can only live and have our being whilst we are implicit in one of the great dynamic modes. We MUST either love, or rule. And once the love-mode changes, as change it must, for we are worn out and becoming evil in its persistence, then the other mode will take place in us. And there will be profound, profound obedience in place of this love-crying, obedience to the incalculable power-urge. And men must submit to the greater soul in a man, for their guidance: and women must submit to the positive power-soul in man, for their being.” “You'll never get it,” said Aaron. “You will, when all men want it. All men say, they want a leader. Then let them in their souls submit to some greater soul than theirs. At present, when they say they want a leader, they mean they want an instrument, like Lloyd George. A mere instrument for their use. But it's more than that. It's the reverse. It's the deep, fathomless submission to the heroic soul in a greater man. You, Aaron, you too have the need to submit. You, too, have the need livingly to yield to a more heroic soul, to give yourself. You know you have. And you know it isn't love. It is life-submission. And you know it. But you kick against the pricks. And perhaps you'd rather die than yield. And so, die you must. It is your affair.” There was a long pause. Then Aaron looked up into Lilly's face. It was dark and remote-seeming. It was like a Byzantine eikon at the moment. “And whom shall I submit to?” he said. “Your soul will tell you,” replied the other. THE END 
15772	----	MACHIAVELLI WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY CUST. M.P. VOLUME I THE ART OF WAR TRANSLATED BY PETER WHITEHORNE 1560 THE PRINCE TRANSLATED BY EDWARD DACRES 1640 LONDON Published by DAVID NUTT at the Sign of the Phoenix LONG ACRE 1905 Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty TO MY FRIEND CHARLES WHIBLEY H.C. INTRODUCTION [Sidenote: The Life of a Day.] 'I am at my farm; and, since my last misfortunes, have not been in Florence twenty days. I spent September in snaring thrushes; but at the end of the month, even this rather tiresome sport failed me. I rise with the sun, and go into a wood of mine that is being cut, where I remain two hours inspecting the work of the previous day and conversing with the woodcutters, who have always some trouble on hand amongst themselves or with their neighbours. When I leave the wood, I go to a spring, and thence to the place which I use for snaring birds, with a book under my arm--Dante or Petrarch, or one of the minor poets, like Tibullus or Ovid. I read the story of their passions, and let their loves remind me of my own, which is a pleasant pastime for a while. Next I take the road, enter the inn door, talk with the passers-by, inquire the news of the neighbourhood, listen to a variety of matters, and make note of the different tastes and humours of men. 'This brings me to dinner-time, when I join my family and eat the poor produce of my farm. After dinner I go back to the inn, where I generally find the host and a butcher, a miller, and a pair of bakers. With these companions I play the fool all day at cards or backgammon: a thousand squabbles, a thousand insults and abusive dialogues take place, while we haggle over a farthing, and shout loud enough to be heard from San Casciano. 'But when evening falls I go home and enter my writing-room. On the threshold I put off my country habits, filthy with mud and mire, and array myself in royal courtly garments. Thus worthily attired, I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive me with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own and for which I was born. I feel no shame in conversing with them and asking them the reason of their actions. 'They, moved by their humanity, make answer. For four hours' space I feel no annoyance, forget all care; poverty cannot frighten, nor death appal me. I am carried away to their society. And since Dante says "that there is no science unless we retain what we have learned" I have set down what I have gained from their discourse, and composed a treatise, _De Principalibus_, in which I enter as deeply as I can into the science of the subject, with reasonings on the nature of principality, its several species, and how they are acquired, how maintained, how lost. If you ever liked any of my scribblings, this ought to suit your taste. To a prince, and especially to a new prince, it ought to prove acceptable. Therefore I am dedicating it to the Magnificence of Giuliano.' [Sidenote: Niccolò Machiavelli.] Such is the account that Niccolò Machiavelli renders of himself when after imprisonment, torture, and disgrace, at the age of forty-four, he first turned to serious writing. For the first twenty-six or indeed twenty-nine of those years we have not one line from his pen or one word of vaguest information about him. Throughout all his works written for publication, there is little news about himself. Montaigne could properly write, 'Ainsi, lecteur, je suis moy-mesme la matière de mon livre.' But the matter of Machiavelli was far other: 'Io ho espresso quanto io so, e quanto io ho imparato per una lunga pratica e continua lezione delle cose del mondo.' [Sidenote: The Man.] Machiavelli was born on the 3rd of May 1469. The period of his life almost exactly coincides with that of Cardinal Wolsey. He came of the old and noble Tuscan stock of Montespertoli, who were men of their hands in the eleventh century. He carried their coat, but the property had been wasted and divided. His forefathers had held office of high distinction, but had fallen away as the new wealth of the bankers and traders increased in Florence. He himself inherited a small property in San Casciano and its neighbourhood, which assured him a sufficient, if somewhat lean, independence. Of his education we know little enough. He was well acquainted with Latin, and knew, perhaps, Greek enough to serve his turn. 'Rather not without letters than lettered,' Varchi describes him. That he was not loaded down with learned reading proved probably a great advantage. The coming of the French, and the expulsion of the Medici, the proclamation of the Republic (1494), and later the burning of Savonarola convulsed Florence and threw open many public offices. It has been suggested, but without much foundation, that some clerical work was found for Machiavelli in 1494 or even earlier. It is certain that on July 14, 1498, he was appointed Chancellor and Secretary to the Dieci di Libertà e Pace, an office which he held till the close of his political life at fall of the Republic in 1512. [Sidenote: Official Life.] The functions of his Council were extremely varied, and in the hands of their Secretary became yet more diversified. They represented in some sense the Ministry for Home, Military, and especially for Foreign Affairs. It is impossible to give any full account of Machiavelli's official duties. He wrote many thousands of despatches and official letters, which are still preserved. He was on constant errands of State through the Florentine dominions. But his diplomatic missions and what he learned by them make the main interest of his office. His first adventure of importance was to the Court of Caterina Sforza, the Lady of Forlì, in which matter that astute Countess entirely bested the teacher of all diplomatists to be. In 1500 he smelt powder at the siege at Pisa, and was sent to France to allay the irritations of Louis XII. Many similar and lesser missions follow. The results are in no case of great importance, but the opportunities to the Secretary of learning men and things, intrigue and policy, the Court and the gutter were invaluable. At the camp of Cæsar Borgia, in 1502, he found in his host that fantastic hero whom he incarnated in _The Prince_, and he was practically an eye-witness of the amazing masterpiece, the Massacre of Sinigaglia. The next year he is sent to Rome with a watching brief at the election of Julius II., and in 1506 is again sent to negotiate with the Pope. An embassy to the Emperor Maximilian, a second mission to the French King at Blois, in which he persuades Louis XII. to postpone the threatened General Council of the Church (1511), and constant expeditions to report upon and set in order unrestful towns and provinces did not fulfil his activity. His pen was never idle. Reports, despatches, elaborate monographs on France, Germany, or wherever he might be, and personal letters innumerable, and even yet unpublished, ceased not night nor day. Detail, wit, character-drawing, satire, sorrow, bitterness, all take their turn. But this was only a fraction of his work. By duty and by expediency he was bound to follow closely the internal politics of Florence where his enemies and rivals abounded. And in all these years he was pushing forward and carrying through with unceasing and unspeakable vigour the great military dream of his life, the foundation of a National Militia and the extinction of Mercenary Companies. But the fabric he had fancied and thought to have built proved unsubstantial. The spoilt half-mutinous levies whom he had spent years in odious and unwilling training failed him at the crowning moment in strength and spirit: and the fall of the Republic implied the fall of Machiavelli and the close of his official life. He struggled hard to save himself, but the wealthy classes were against him, perhaps afraid of him, and on them the Medici relied. For a year he was forbidden to leave Florentine territory, and for a while was excluded from the Palazzo. Later his name was found in a list of Anti-Medicean conspirators. He was arrested and decorously tortured with six turns of the rack, and then liberated for want of evidence. [Sidenote: After his Fall.] For perhaps a year after his release the Secretary engaged in a series of tortuous intrigues to gain the favour of the Medici. Many of the stories may be exaggerated, but none make pleasant reading, and nothing proved successful. His position was miserable. Temporarily crippled by torture, out of favour with the Government, shunned by his friends, in deep poverty, burdened with debt and with a wife and four children, his material circumstances were ill enough. But, worse still, he was idle. He had deserved well of the Republic, and had never despaired of it, and this was his reward. He seemed to himself a broken man. He had no great natural dignity, no great moral strength. He profoundly loved and admired Dante, but he could not for one moment imitate him. He sought satisfaction in sensuality of life and writing, but found no comfort. Great things were stirring in the world and he had neither part nor lot in them. By great good fortune he began a correspondence with his friend Francesco Vettori, the Medicean Ambassador at Rome, to whom he appeals for his good offices: 'And if nothing can be done, I must live as I came into the world, for I was born poor and learnt to want before learning to enjoy.' Before long these two diplomats had co-opted themselves into a kind of Secret Cabinet of Europe. It is a strange but profoundly interesting correspondence, both politically and personally. Nothing is too great or too small, too glorious or too mean for their pens. Amid foolish anecdotes and rather sordid love affairs the politics of Europe, and especially of Italy, are dissected and discussed. Leo X. had now plunged into political intrigue. Ferdinand of Spain was in difficulty. France had allied herself with Venice. The Swiss are the Ancient Romans, and may conquer Italy. Then back again, or rather constant throughout, the love intrigues and the 'likely wench hard-by who may help to pass our time.' But through it all there is an ache at Machiavelli's heart, and on a sudden he will break down, crying, Però se aleuna volta io rido e canto Facciol, perchè non ho se non quest' una Via da sfogare il mio angoscioso pianto. Vettori promised much, but nothing came of it. By 1515 the correspondence died away, and the Ex-Secretary found for himself at last the true pathway through his vale of years. [Sidenote: The true Life.] The remainder of Machiavelli's life is bounded by his books. He settled at his villa at San Casciano, where he spent his day as he describes in the letter quoted at the beginning of this essay. In 1518 he began to attend the meetings of the Literary Club in the Orti Oricellarii, and made new and remarkable friends. 'Era amato grandamente da loro ... e della sua conversazione si dilettavano maravigliosamente, tenendo in prezzo grandissimo tutte l'opere sue,' which shows the personal authority he exercised. Occasionally he was employed by Florentine merchants to negotiate for them at Venice, Genoa, Lucca, and other places. In 1519 Cardinal Medici deigned to consult him as to the Government, and commissioned him to write the History of Florence. But in the main he wrote his books and lived the daily life we know. In 1525 he went to Rome to present his History to Clement VII., and was sent on to Guicciardini. In 1526 he was busy once more with military matters and the fortification of Florence. On the 22nd of June 1527 he died at Florence immediately after the establishment of the second Republic. He had lived as a practising Christian, and so died, surrounded by his wife and family. Wild legends grew about his death, but have no foundation. A peasant clod in San Casciano could not have made a simpler end. He was buried in the family Chapel in Santa Croce, and a monument was there at last erected with the epitaph by Doctor Ferroni--'Tanto nomini nullum par elogium.' The first edition of his complete works was published in 1782, and was dedicated to Lord Cowper. [Sidenote: His Character.] What manner of man was Machiavelli at home and in the market-place? It is hard to say. There are doubtful busts, the best, perhaps, that engraved in the 'Testina' edition of 1550, so-called on account of the portrait. 'Of middle height, slender figure, with sparkling eyes, dark hair, rather a small head, a slightly aquiline nose, a tightly closed mouth: all about him bore the impress of a very acute observer and thinker, but not that of one able to wield much influence over others.' Such is a reconstruction of him by one best able to make one. 'In his conversation,' says Varchi, 'Machiavelli was pleasant, serviceable to his friends, a friend of virtuous men, and, in a word, worthy to have received from Nature either less genius or a better mind.' If not much above the moral standard of the day he was certainly not below it. His habits were loose and his language lucid and licentious. But there is no bad or even unkind act charged against him. To his honesty and good faith he very fairly claims that his poverty bears witness. He was a kind, if uncertain, husband and a devoted father. His letters to his children are charming. Here is one written soon before his death to his little son Guido.--'Guido, my darling son, I received a letter of thine and was delighted with it, particularly because you tell me of your full recovery, the best news I could have. If God grants life to us both I expect to make a good man of you, only you must do your fair share yourself.' Guido is to stick to his books and music, and if the family mule is too fractious, 'Unbridle him, take off the halter and turn him loose at Montepulciano. The farm is large, the mule is small, so no harm can come of it. Tell your mother, with my love, not to be nervous. I shall surely be home before any trouble comes. Give a kiss to Baccina, Piero, and Totto: I wish I knew his eyes were getting well. Be happy and spend as little as you may. Christ have you in his keeping.'--There is nothing exquisite or divinely delicate in this letter, but there are many such, and they were not written by a bad man, any more than the answers they evoke were addressed to one. There is little more save of a like character that is known of Machiavelli the man. But to judge him and his work we must have some knowledge of the world in which he was to move and have his being. * * * * * [Sidenote: State of Italy.] At the beginning of the sixteenth century Italy was rotten to the core. In the close competition of great wickedness the Vicar of Christ easily carried off the palm, and the Court of Alexander VI. was probably the wickedest meeting-place of men that has ever existed upon earth. No virtue, Christian or Pagan, was there to be found; little art that was not sensuous or sensual. It seemed as if Bacchus and Venus and Priapus had come to their own again, and yet Rome had not ceased to call herself Christian. [Sidenote: Superstition.] 'Owing to the evil ensample of the Papal Court,' writes Machiavelli, 'Italy has lost all piety and all religion: whence follow infinite troubles and disorders; for as religion implies all good, so its absence implies the contrary. To the Church and priests of Rome we owe another even greater disaster which is the cause of her ruin. I mean that the Church has maintained, and still maintains Italy divided.' The Papacy is too weak to unite and rule, but strong enough to prevent others doing so, and is always ready to call in the foreigner to crush all Italians to the foreigner's profit, and Guicciardini, a high Papal officer, commenting on this, adds, 'It would be impossible to speak so ill of the Roman Court, but that more abuse should not be merited, seeing it is an infamy, and example of all the shames and scandals of the world.' The lesser clergy, the monks, the nuns followed, with anxious fidelity, the footsteps of their shepherds. There was hardly a tonsure in Italy which covered more than thoughts and hopes of lust and avarice. Religion and morals which God had joined together, were set by man a thousand leagues asunder. Yet religion still sat upon the alabaster throne of Peter, and in the filthy straw of the meanest Calabrian confessional. And still deeper remained a blind devoted superstition. Vitellozzo Vitelli, as Machiavelli tells us, while being strangled by Cæesar Borgia's assassin, implored his murderer to procure for him the absolution of that murderer's father. Gianpaolo Baglioni, who reigned by parricide and lived in incest, was severely blamed by the Florentines for not killing Pope Julius II. when the latter was his guest at Perugia. And when Gabrino Fondato, the tyrant of Cremona, was on the scaffold, his only regret was that when he had taken his guests, the Pope and Emperor, to the top of the Cremona tower, four hundred feet high, his nerve failed him and he did not push them both over. Upon this anarchy of religion, morals, and conduct breathed suddenly the inspiring breath of Pagan antiquity which seemed to the Italian mind to find its finest climax in tyrannicide. There is no better instance than in the plot of the Pazzi at Florence. Francesco Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini decided to kill Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici in the cathedral at the moment of the elevation of the Host. They naturally took the priest into their confidence. They escorted Giuliano to the Duomo, laughing and talking, and playfully embraced him--to discover if he wore armour under his clothes. Then they killed him at the moment appointed. [Sidenote: Pagan influence.] Nor were there any hills from which salvation might be looked for. Philosophy, poetry, science, expressed themselves in terms of materialism. Faith and hope are ever the last survivors in the life of a man or of a nation. But in Italy these brave comforters were at their latest breath. It is perhaps unfair to accept in full the judgment of Northern travellers. The conditions, training, needs of England and Germany were different. In these countries courage was a necessity, and good faith a paying policy. Subtlety could do little against a two-handed sword in the hands of an angry or partially intoxicated giant. Climate played its part as well as culture, and the crude pleasures and vices of the North seemed fully as loathsome to the refined Italian as did the tortuous policy and the elaborate infamies of the South to their rough invaders. Alone, perhaps, among the nations of Europe the Italians had never understood or practised chivalry, save in such select and exotic schools as the Casa Gioiosa under Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua. The oath of Arthur's knights would have seemed to them mere superfluity of silliness. _Onore_ connoted credit, reputation, and prowess. _Virtù_, which may be roughly translated as mental ability combined with personal daring, set the standard and ruled opinion. 'Honour in the North was subjective: _Onore_ in Italy objective.' Individual liberty, indeed, was granted in full to all, at the individual's risk. The love of beauty curbed grossness and added distinction. Fraud became an art and force a science. There is liberty for all, but for the great ones there is licence. And when the day of trial comes, it is the Churchmen and the Princes who can save neither themselves nor man, nor thing that is theirs. To such a world was Machiavelli born. To whom should he turn? To the People? To the Church? To the Princes and Despots? But hear him:-- 'There shall never be found any good mason, which will beleeve to be able to make a faire image of a peece of marble ill hewed, but verye well of a rude peece. Our Italian Princes beleeved, before they tasted the blowes of the outlandish warre, that it should suffice a Prince to know by writinges, how to make a subtell aunswere, to write a goodly letter, to shewe in sayinges, and in woordes, witte and promptenesse, to know how to canvas a fraude, to decke themselves with precious stones and gold, to sleepe and to eate with greater glory then other: To kepe many lascivious persons about them, to governe themselves with their subjects, covetously and proudely: To roote in idlenes, to give the degrees of the exercise of warre for good will, to dispise if any should have shewed them any laudable waie, minding that their wordes should bee aunswers of oracles: nor the sely wretches were not aware that they prepared themselves to be a pray to whome so ever should assaulte them. Hereby grew then in the thousand fowre hundred and nintie and fowre yere, the great feares, the sodaine flightes and the marveilous losses: and so three most mighty states which were in Italie, have bene dievers times sacked and destroyed. But that which is worse, is where those that remaine, continue in the very same errour, and liev in the verie same disorder and consider not, that those who in olde time would keepe their states, caused to be done these thinges, which of me hath beene reasoned, and that their studies were, to prepare the body to diseases, and the minde not to feare perills. Whereby grewe that Cæsar, Alexander, and all those men and excellent Princes in olde time, were the formost amongst the fighters, going armed on foote: and if they lost their state, they would loose their life, so that they lievd and died vertuously.' Such was the clay that waited the moulding of the potter's hand. 'Posterity, that high court of appeal, which is never tired of eulogising its own justice and discernment,' has recorded harsh sentence on the Florentine. It is better to-day to let him speak for himself. [Sidenote: _The Prince_.] The slender volume of _The Prince_ has probably produced wider discussion, more bitter controversy, more varied interpretations and a deeper influence than any book save Holy Writ. Kings and statesmen, philosophers and theologians, monarchists and republicans have all and always used or abused it for their purposes. Written in 1513, the first year of Machiavelli's disgrace, concurrently with part of the _Discorsi_, which contain the germs of it, the book represents the fulness of its author's thought and experience. It was not till after Machiavelli's death, that it was published in 1532, by order of Clement VII. Meanwhile, however, in manuscript it had been widely read and favourably received. [Sidenote: Its purpose.] The mere motive of its creation and dedication has been the theme of many volumes. Machiavelli was poor, was idle, was out of favour, and therefore, though a Republican, wrote a devilish hand-book of tyranny to strengthen the Medici and recover his position. Machiavelli, a loyal Republican, wrote a primer of such fiendish principles as might lure the Medici to their ruin. Machiavelli's one idea was to ruin the rich: Machiavelli's one idea was to oppress the poor: he was a Protestant, a Jesuit, an Atheist: a Royalist and a Republican. And the book published by one Pope's express authority was utterly condemned and forbidden, with all its author's works, by the express command of another (1559). But before facing the whirlwind of savage controversy which raged and rages still about _The Prince_, it may be well to consider shortly the book itself--consider it as a new book and without prejudice. The purpose of its composition is almost certainly to be found in the plain fact that Machiavelli, a politician and a man of letters, wished to write a book upon the subject which had been his special study and lay nearest to his business and bosom. To ensure prominence for such a book, to engage attention and incidentally perhaps to obtain political employment for himself, he dedicated it to Lorenzo de' Medici, the existing and accepted Chief of the State. But far and above such lighter motives stood the fact that he saw in Lorenzo the only man who might conceivably bring to being the vast dream of patriotism which the writer had imagined. The subject he proposed to himself was largely, though not wholly, conditioned by the time and place in which he lived. He wrote for his countrymen and he wrote for his own generation. He had heard with his ears and seen with his eyes the alternate rending anarchy and moaning paralysis of Italy. He had seen what Agricola had long before been spared the sight of. And what he saw, he saw not through a glass darkly or distorted, but in the whitest, driest light, without flinching and face to face. 'We are much beholden,' writes Bacon, 'to Machiavelli and others that wrote what men do, and not what they ought to do.' He did not despair of Italy, he did not despair even of Italian unity. But he despaired of what he saw around him, and he was willing at almost any price to end it. He recognised, despite the nominal example of Venice, that a Republican system was impossible, and that the small Principalities and Free Cities were corrupt beyond hope of healing. A strong central unifying government was imperative, and at that day such government could only be vested in a single man. For it must ever be closely remembered, as will be pointed out again, that throughout the book the Prince is what would now be called the Government. And then he saw with faithful prophecy, in the splendid peroration of his hope, a hope deferred for near four hundred years, he saw beyond the painful paths of blood and tyranny, a vision of deliverance and union. For at least it is plain that in all things Machiavelli was a passionate patriot, and _Amo la patria mia più dell' anima_ is found in one of the last of many thousand letters that his untiring pen had written. The purpose, then, of _The Prince_ is to lay down rules, within the possibilities of the time, for the making of a man who shall create, increase, and maintain a strong and stable government. This is done in the main by a plain presentation of facts, a presentation condensed and critical but based on men and things as they actually were. The ethical side is wholly omitted: the social and economical almost entirely. The aspect is purely political, with the underlying thought, it may be supposed, that under the postulated government, all else will prosper. [Sidenote: The Book; New States.] Machiavelli opens by discussing the various forms of governments, which he divides into Republics and Principalities. Of the latter some may be hereditary and some acquired. Of hereditary states he says little and quotes but one, the Duchy of Ferrara. He then turns to his true subject, the acquisition and preservation of States wholly new or new in part, States such as he saw himself on every side around him. Having gained possession of a new State, he says, you must first extirpate the family of your predecessor. You should then either reside or plant colonies, but not trust to garrisons. 'Colonies are not costly to the Prince, are more faithful and cause less offence to the subject States: those whom they may injure being poor and scattered, are prevented from doing mischief. For it should be observed that men ought either to be caressed or trampled out, seeing that small injuries may be avenged, whereas great ones destroy the possibility of retaliation: and so the damage that has to be inflicted ought to be such that it need involve no fear of reprisals.' There is perhaps in all Machiavelli no better example of his lucid scientific method than this passage. There is neither excuse nor hypocrisy. It is merely a matter of business calculation. Mankind is the raw material, the State is the finished work. Further you are to conciliate your neighbours who are weak and abase the strong, and you must not let the stranger within your gates. Above all look before as well as after and think not to leave it to time, _godere li benefici del tempo_, but, as did the Romans, strike and strike at once. For illustration he criticises, in a final and damning analysis, the career of Louis XII. in Italy. There was no canon of statecraft so absolute that the King did not ignore it, and in inevitable Nemesis, there was no ultimate disaster so crowning as not to be achieved. [Sidenote: Conquests.] After observing that a feudal monarchy is much less easy of conquest than a despotism, since in the one case you must vanquish many lesser lordships while in the other you merely replace slaves by slaves, Machiavelli considers the best method of subjugating Free Cities. Here again is eminent the terrible composure and the exact truth of his politics. A conquered Free City you may of course rule in person, or you may construct an oligarchy to govern for you, but the only safe way is to destroy it utterly, since 'that name of Liberty, those ancient usages of Freedom,' are things 'which no length of years and no benefits can extinguish in the nation's mind, things which no pains or forethought can uproot unless the citizens be utterly destroyed.' Hitherto the discussion has ranged round the material politics of the matter, the acquisition of material power. Machiavelli now turns to the heart of his matter, the proper character and conduct of a new Prince in a new Principality and the ways by which he shall deal most fortunately with friend and foe. For fortune it is, as well as ability, which go to the making of the man and the maintenance of his power. [Sidenote: Cæsar Borgia.] In the manner of the day Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus are led across the stage in illustration. The common attribute of all such fortunate masters of men was force of arms, while the mission of an unarmed prophet such as Savonarola was foredoomed to failure. In such politics Machiavelli is positive and ruthless: force is and must be the remedy and the last appeal, a principle which indeed no later generation has in practice set at naught. But in the hard dry eyes of the Florentine Secretary stood, above all others, one shining figure, a figure to all other eyes, from then till now, wrapped in mysterious and miasmatic cloud. In the pages of common history he was a tyrant, he was vicious beyond compare, he was cruel beyond the Inquisition, he was false beyond the Father of Lies, he was the Antichrist of Rome and he was a failure: but he was the hero of Niccolò Machiavelli, who, indeed, found in Cæsar Borgia the fine flower of Italian politics in the Age of the Despots. Son of the Pope, a Prince of the Church, a Duke of France, a master of events, a born soldier, diplomatist, and more than half a statesman, Cæsar seemed indeed the darling of gods and men whom original fortune had crowned with inborn ability. Machiavelli knew him as well as it was possible to know a soul so tortuous and secret, and he had been present at the most critical and terrible moments of Cæsar's life. That in despite of a life which the world calls infamous, in despite of the howling execrations of all Christendom, in despite of ultimate and entire failures, Machiavelli could still write years after, 'I know not what lessons I could teach a new Prince more useful than the example of his actions,' exhibits the ineffaceable impressions that Cæsar Borgia had made upon the most subtle and observant mind of modern history. [Sidenote: Cæsar's Career.] Cæsar was the acknowledged son of Pope Alexander by his acknowledged mistress Vannozza dei Cattani. Born in 1472, he was an Archbishop and a Cardinal at sixteen, and the murderer of his elder brother at an age when modern youths are at college. He played his part to the full in the unspeakable scandals of the Vatican, but already 'he spoke little and people feared him.' Ere long the splendours of the Papacy seemed too remote and uncertain for his fierce ambition, and, indeed, through his father, he already wielded both the temporal and the spiritual arms of Peter. To the subtlety of the Italian his Spanish blood had lent a certain stern resolution, and as with Julius and Sulla the lust for sloth and sensuality were quickened by the lust for sway. He unfrocked himself with pleasure. He commenced politician, soldier, and despot. And for the five years preceding Alexander's death he may almost be looked upon as a power in Europe. Invested Duke of Romagna, that hot-bed of petty tyranny and tumult, he repressed disorder through his governor Messer Ramiro with a relentless hand. When order reigned, Machiavelli tells us he walked out one morning into the market-place at Cesena and saw the body of Ramiro, who had borne the odium of reform, lying in two pieces with his head on a lance, and a bloody axe by his side. Cæsar reaped the harvest of Ramiro's severity, and the people recognising his benevolence and justice were 'astounded and satisfied.' But the gaze of the Borgia was not bounded by the strait limits of a mere Italian Duchy. Whether indeed there mingled with personal ambition an ideal of a united Italy, swept clean of the barbarians, it is hard to say, though Machiavelli would have us believe it. What is certain is that he desired the supreme dominion in Italy for himself, and to win it spared neither force nor fraud nor the help of the very barbarians themselves. With a decree of divorce and a Cardinal's hat he gained the support of France, the French Duchy of Valentinois, and the sister of the King of Navarre to wife. By largesse of bribery and hollow promises he brought to his side the great families of Rome, his natural enemies, and the great Condottieri with their men-at-arms. When by their aid he had established and extended his government he mistrusted their good faith. With an infinity of fascination and cunning, without haste and without rest, he lured these leaders, almost more cunning than himself, to visit him as friends in his fortress of Sinigaglia. 'I doubt if they will be alive to-morrow morning,' wrote Machiavelli, who was on the spot. He was right. Cæsar caused them to be strangled the same night, while his father dealt equal measure to their colleagues and adherents in Rome. Thenceforth, distrusting mercenaries, he found and disciplined out of a mere rabble, a devoted army of his own, and having unobtrusively but completely extirpated the whole families of those whose thrones he had usurped, not only the present but the future seemed assured to him. He had fulfilled the first of Machiavelli's four conditions. He rapidly achieved the remaining three. He bought the Roman nobles so as to be able to put a bridle in the new 'Pope's mouth.' He bought or poisoned or packed or terrorised the existing College of Cardinals and selected new Princes of the Church who should accept a Pontiff of his choosing. He was effectively strong enough to resist the first onset upon him at his father's death. Five years had been enough for so great an undertaking. One thing alone he had not and indeed could not have foreseen. 'He told me himself on the day on which (Pope) Julius was created, that he had foreseen and provided for everything else that could happen on his father's death, but had never anticipated that, when his father died, he too should have been at death's door.' Even so the fame and splendour of his name for a while maintained his authority against his unnumbered enemies. But soon the great betrayer was betrayed. 'It is well to cheat those who have been masters of treachery,' he had said himself in his hours of brief authority. His wheel had turned full cycle. Within three years his fate, like that of Charles XII., was destined to a foreign strand, a petty fortress, and a dubious hand. Given over to Spain he passed three years obscurely. 'He was struck down in a fight at Viana in Navarre (1507) after a furious resistance: he was stripped of his fine armour by men who did not know his name or quality and his body was left naked on the bare ground, bloody and riddled with wounds. He was only thirty-one.' And so the star of Machiavelli's hopes and dreams was quenched for a season in the clouds from which it came. [Sidenote: The Lesson.] It seems worth while to sketch the strange tempestuous career of Cæsar Borgia because in the remaining chapters of _The Prince_ and elsewhere in his writings, it is the thought and memory of Valentinois, transmuted doubtless and idealised by the lapse of years, that largely inform and inspire the perfect Prince of Machiavelli. But it must not be supposed that in life or in mind they were intimate or even sympathetic. Machiavelli criticises his hero liberally and even harshly. But for the work he wanted done he had found no better craftsman and no better example to follow for those that might come after. Morals and religion did not touch the purpose of his arguments except as affecting policy. In policy virtues may be admitted as useful agents and in the chapter following that on Cæsar, entitled, curiously enough, 'Of those who by their crimes come to be Princes,' he lays down that 'to slaughter fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honour, pity and religion cannot be counted as merits, for these are means which may lead to power but which confer no glory.' Cruelty he would employ without hesitation but with the greatest care both in degree and in kind. It should be immediate and complete and leave no possibility of counter-revenge. For it is never forgotten by the living, and 'he deceives himself who believes that, with the great, recent benefits cause old wrongs to be forgotten.' On the other hand 'Benefits should be conferred little by little so that they may be more fully relished.' The cruelty proper to a Prince (Government, for as ever they are identical) aims only at authority. Now authority must spring from love or fear. It were best to combine both motives to obedience but you cannot. The Prince must remember that men are fickle, and love at their own pleasure, and that men are fearful and fear at the pleasure of the Prince. Let him therefore depend on what is of himself, not on that which is of others. 'Yet if he win not love he may escape hate, and so it will be if he does not meddle with the property or women-folk of his subjects.' When he must punish let him kill. 'For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their estate.' And moreover you cannot always go on killing, but a Prince who has once set himself to plundering will never stop. This is the more needful because the only secure foundation of his rule lies in his trust of the people and in their support. And indeed again and again you shall find no more thorough democrat than this teacher of tyrants. 'The people own better broader qualities, fidelities and passions than any Prince and have better cause to show for them.' 'As for prudence and stability, I say that a people is more stable, more prudent, and of better judgment than a Prince.' If the people go wrong it is almost certainly the crime or negligence of the Prince which drives or leads them astray. 'Better far than any number of fortresses is not to be hated by your people.' The support of the people and a national militia make the essential strength of the Prince and of the State. [Sidenote: National Defence.] The chapters on military organisation may be more conveniently considered in conjunction with _The Art of War_. It is enough at present to point out two or three observations of Machiavelli which touch politics from the military side. To his generation they were entirely novel, though mere commonplace to-day. National strength means national stability and national greatness; and this can be achieved, and can only be achieved, by a national army. The Condottiere system, born of sloth and luxury, has proved its rottenness. Your hired general is either a tyrant or a traitor, a bully or a coward. 'In a word the armour of others is too wide or too strait for us: it falls off us, or it weighs us down.' And in a fine illustration he compares auxiliary troops to the armour of Saul which David refused, preferring to fight Goliath with his sling and stone. [Sidenote: Conduct of the Prince.] Having assured the external security of the State, Machiavelli turns once more to the qualities and conduct of the Prince. So closely packed are these concluding chapters that it is almost impossible to compress them further. The author at the outset states his purpose: 'Since it is my object to write what shall be useful to whosoever understands it, it seems to me better to follow the practical truth of things rather than an imaginary view of them. For many Republics and Princedoms have been imagined that were never seen or known to exist in reality. And the manner in which we live and in which we ought to live, are things so wide asunder that he who suits the one to betake himself to the other is more likely to destroy than to save himself.' Nothing that Machiavelli wrote is more sincere, analytic, positive and ruthless. He operates unflinchingly on an assured diagnosis. The hand never an instant falters, the knife is never blunt. He deals with what is, and not with what ought to be. Should the Prince be all-virtuous, all-liberal, all-humane? Should his word be his bond for ever? Should true religion be the master-passion of his life? Machiavelli considers. The first duty of the Prince (or Government) is to maintain the existence, stability, and prosperity of the State. Now if all the world were perfect so should the Prince be perfect too. But such are not the conditions of human life. An idealising Prince must fall before a practising world. A Prince must learn in self-defence how to be bad, but like Cæsar Borgia, he must be a great judge of occasion. And what evil he does must be deliberate, appropriate, and calculated, and done, not selfishly, but for the good of the State of which he is trustee. There is the power of Law and the power of Force. The first is proper to men, the second to beasts. And that is why Achilles was brought up by Cheiron the Centaur that he might learn to use both natures. A ruler must be half lion and half fox, a fox to discern the toils, a lion to drive off the wolves. Merciful, faithful, humane, religious, just, these he may be and above all should seem to be, nor should any word escape his lips to give the lie to his professions: and in fact he should not leave these qualities but when he must. He should, if possible, practise goodness, but under necessity should know how to pursue evil. He should keep faith until occasion alter, or reason of state compel him to break his pledge. Above all he should profess and observe religion, 'because men in general judge rather by the eye than by the hand, and every one can see but few can touch.' But none the less, must he learn (as did William the Silent, Elizabeth of England, and Henry of Navarre) how to subordinate creed to policy when urgent need is upon him. In a word, he must realise and face his own position, and the facts of mankind and of the world. If not veracious to his conscience, he must be veracious to facts. He must not be bad for badness' sake, but seeing things as they are, must deal as he can to protect and preserve the trust committed to his care. Fortune is still a fickle jade, but at least the half our will is free, and if we are bold we may master her yet. For Fortune is a woman who, to be kept under, must be beaten and roughly handled, and we see that she is more ready to be mastered by those who treat her so, than by those who are shy in their wooing. And always, like a woman, she gives her favours to the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer and more audaciously command her to their will. [Sidenote: The Appeal.] And so at the last the sometime Secretary of the Florentine Republic turns to the new Master of the Florentines in splendid exhortation. He points to no easy path. He proposes no mean ambition. He has said already that 'double will that Prince's glory be, who has founded a new realm and fortified it and adorned it with good laws, good arms, good friends, and good examples.' But there is more and better to be done. The great misery of men has ever made the great leaders of men. But was Israel in Egypt, were the Persians, the Athenians ever more enslaved, down-trodden, disunited, beaten, despoiled, mangled, overrun and desolate than is our Italy to-day? The barbarians must be hounded out, and Italy be free and one. Now is the accepted time. All Italy is waiting and only seeks the man. To you the darling of Fortune and the Church this splendid task is given, to and to the army of Italy and of Italians only. Arm Italy and lead her. To you, the deliverer, what gates would be closed, what obedience refused! What jealousies opposed, what homage denied. Love, courage, and fixed fidelity await you, and under your standards shall the voice of Petrarch be fulfilled: Virtu contro al furore Prenderà l'arme e fia il combatter corto: Chè l'antico valore Negl' Italici cor non è ancor morto. Such is _The Prince_ of Machiavelli. The vision of its breathless exhortation seemed then as but a landscape to a blind man's eye. But the passing of three hundred and fifty years of the misery he wept for brought at the last, almost in perfect exactness, the fulfilment of that impossible prophecy. [Sidenote: The Attack.] There is no great book in the world of smaller compass than _The Prince_ of Machiavelli. There is no book more lucidly, directly, and plainly written. There is no book that has aroused more vehement, venomous, and even truculent controversy from the moment of its publication until to-day. And it is asserted with great probability that _The Prince_ has had a more direct action upon real life than any other book in the world, and a larger share in breaking the chains and lighting the dark places of the Middle Ages. It is a truism to say that Machiavellism existed before Machiavelli. The politics of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, of Louis XI. of France, of Ferdinand of Spain, of the Papacy, of Venice, might have been dictated by the author of _The Prince_. But Machiavelli was the first to observe, to compare, to diagnose, to analyse, and to formulate their principles of government. The first to establish, not a divorce, but rather a judicial separation between the morals of a man and the morals of a government. It is around the purpose and possible results of such a separation in politics, ethics, and religion that the storm has raged most fiercely. To follow the path of that storm through near four centuries many volumes would be needed, and it will be more convenient to deal with the more general questions in summing up the influence of Machiavelli as a whole. But the main lines and varying fortunes of the long campaign may be indicated. During the period of its manuscript circulation and for a few years after its publication _The Prince_ was treated with favour or at worst with indifference, and the first mutterings were merely personal to the author. He was a scurvy knave and turncoat with neither bowels nor conscience, almost negligible. But still men read him, and a change in conditions brought a change in front. He had in _The Prince_, above all in the _Discorsi_, accused the Church of having ruined Italy and debauched the world. In view of the writer's growing popularity, of the Reformation and the Pagan Renaissance, such charges could no longer be lightly set aside. The Churchmen opened the main attack. Amongst the leaders was Cardinal Pole, to whom the practical precepts of _The Prince_ had been recommended in lieu of the dreams of Plato, by Thomas Cromwell, the _malleus monachorum_ of Henry VIII. The Catholic attack was purely theological, but before long the Jesuits joined in the cry. Machiavelli was burnt in effigy at Ingoldstadt. He was _subdolus diabolicarum cogitationum faber_, and _irrisor et atheos_ to boot. The Pope himself gave commissions to unite against him, and his books were placed on the Index, together, it must be admitted, with those of Boccaccio, Erasmus, and Savonarola so the company was goodly. But meanwhile, and perhaps in consequence, editions and translations of _The Prince_ multiplied apace. The great figures of the world were absorbed by it. Charles V., his son, and his courtiers studied the book. Catherine de Medici brought it to France. A copy of _The Prince_ was found on the murdered bodies of Henry III. and Henry IV. Richelieu praised it. Sextus V. analysed it in his own handwriting. It was read at the English Court; Bacon was steeped in it, and quotes or alludes to it constantly. Hobbes and Harrington studied it. But now another change. So then, cried Innocent Gentillet, the Huguenot, the book is a primer of despotism and Rome, and a grammar for bigots and tyrants. It doubtless is answerable for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The man is a _chien impur_. And in answer to this new huntsman the whole Protestant pack crashed in pursuit. Within fifty years of his death _The Prince_ and Machiavelli himself had become a legend and a myth, a haunting, discomforting ghost that would not be laid. Machiavellism had grown to be a case of conscience both to Catholic and Protestant, to Theologian, Moralist, and Philosopher. In Spain the author, damned in France for his despotism and popery, was as freshly and freely damned for his civil and religious toleration. In England to the Cavaliers he was an Atheist, to the Roundheads a Jesuit. Christina of Sweden annotated him with enthusiasm. Frederick the Great published his _Anti-Machiavel_ brimming with indignation, though it is impossible not to wonder what would have become of Prussia had not the Prussian king so closely followed in practice the precepts of the Florentine, above all perhaps, as Voltaire observed, in the publication of the _Anti-Machiavel_ itself. No doubt in the eighteenth century, when monarchy was so firmly established as not to need Machiavelli, kings and statesmen sought to clear kingship of the supposed stain he had besmirched them with. But their reading was as little as their misunderstanding was great, and the Florentine Secretary remained the mysterious necromancer. It was left for Rousseau to describe the book of this 'honnête homme et bon citoyen' as 'le livre des Républicains,' and for Napoleon, the greatest of the author's followers if not disciples, to draw inspiration and suggestion from his Florentine forerunner and to justify the murder of the Due d'Enghien by a quotation from _The Prince_. 'Mais après tout,' he said, 'un homme d'Etat est-il fait pour être sensible? N'est-ce pas un personnage--complètement excentrique, toujours seul d'un côté, avec le monde de l'autre?' and again 'Jugez done s'il doit s'amuser à ménager certaines convenances de sentiments si importantes pour le commun des hommes? Peut-il considérer les liens du sang, les affections, les puérils ménagements de la société? Et dans la situation où il se trouve, que d'actions séparées de l'ensemble et qu'on blâme, quoiqu'elles doivent contribuer au grand oeuvre que tout le monde n'aperçoit pas? ... Malheureux que vous êtes! vous retiendrez vos éloges parce que vous craindrez que le mouvement de cette grande machine ne fasse sur vous l'effet de Gulliver, qui, lorsqu'il déplaçait sa jambe, écrasait les Lilliputiens. Exhortez-vous, devancez le temps, agrandissez votre imagination, regardez de loin, et vous verrez que ces grands personnages que vous croyez violents, cruels, que sais-je? ne sont que des politiques. Ils se connaissent, se jugent mieux que vous, et, quand ils sont réellement habiles, ils savent se rendre maîtres de leurs passions car ils vont jusqu'à en calculer les effets.' Even in his carriage at Waterloo was found a French translation of _The Prince_ profusely annotated. [Sidenote: The Defence.] But from the first the defence was neither idle nor weak. The assault was on the morals of the man: the fortress held for the ideas of the thinker. He does not treat of morals, therefore he is immoral, cried the plaintiff. Has he spoken truth or falsehood? Is his word the truth and will his truth prevail? was the rejoinder. In Germany and Italy especially and in France and England in less degree, philosophers and critics have argued and written without stint and without cease. As history has grown wider and more scientific so has the preponderance of opinion leaned to the Florentine's favour. It would be impossible to recapitulate the arguments or even to indicate the varying points of view. And indeed the main hindrance in forming a just idea of _The Prince_ is the constant treatment of a single side of the book and the preconceived intent of the critic. Bacon has already been mentioned. Among later names are Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibnitz. Herder gives qualified approval, while Fichte frankly throws down the glove as _The Prince's_ champion. 'Da man weiss dass politische Machtfragen nie, am wenigsten in einem verderbten Volke, mit den Mitteln der Moral zu lösen sind, so ist es unverständig das Buch von Fürsten zu verschreien. Macchiavelli hatte einen Herrscher zu schildern, keinen Klosterbruder.' The last sentence may at least be accepted as a last word by practical politicians. Ranke and Macaulay, and a host of competent Germans and Italians have lent their thought and pens to solve the riddle in the Florentine's favour. And lastly, the course of political events in Europe have seemed to many the final justification of the teaching of _The Prince_. The leaders of the Risorgimento thought that they found in letters, 'writ with a stiletto,' not only the inspirations of patriotism and the aspirations to unity, but a sure and trusted guide to the achievement. Germany recognised in the author a schoolmaster to lead them to unification, and a military instructor to teach them of an Armed People. Half Europe snatched at the principle of Nationality. For in _The Prince_, Machiavelli not only begat ideas but fertilised the ideas of others, and whatever the future estimation of the book may be, it stands, read or unread, as a most potent, if not as the dominant, factor in European politics for four hundred years. [Sidenote: The _Discorsi_.] The _Discorsi_, printed in Rome by Blado, 1537, are not included in the present edition, as the first English translation did not appear until 1680, when almost the entire works of Machiavelli were published by an anonymous translator in London. But some account and consideration of their contents is imperative to any review of the Florentine's political thoughts. Such Discorsi and Relazioni were not uncommon at the time. The stronger and younger minds of the Renaissance wearied of discussing in the lovely gardens of the Rucellai the ideas of Plato or the allegories of Plotinus. The politics of Aristotle had just been intelligibly translated by Leonardo Bruni (1492). And to-day the young ears and eyes of Florence were alert for an impulse to action. They saw glimpses, in reopened fields of history, of quarries long grown over where the ore of positive politics lay hid. The men who came to-day to the Orti Oricellarii were men versed in public affairs, men of letters, historians, poets, living greatly in a great age, with Raphael, Michael Angelo, Ariosto, Leonardo going up and down amongst them. Machiavelli was now in fair favour with the Medici, and is described by Strozzi as _una persona per sorgere_ (a rising man). He was welcomed into the group with enthusiasm, and there read and discussed the _Discorsi_. Nominally mere considerations upon the First Decade of Livy, they rapidly encircled all that was known and thought of policy and state-craft, old and living. [Sidenote: Their Plan.] Written concurrently with _The Prince_, though completed later, the _Discorsi_ contain almost the whole of the thoughts and intents of the more famous book, but with a slightly different application. '_The Prince_ traces the progress of an ambitious man, the _Discorsi_ the progress of an ambitious people,' is an apt if inadequate criticism. Machiavelli was not the first Italian who thought and wrote upon the problems of his time. But he was the first who discussed grave questions in modern language. He was the first modern political writer who wrote of men and not of man, for the Prince himself is a collective individuality. 'This must be regarded as a general rule,' is ever in Machiavelli's mouth, while Guicciardini finds no value in a general rule, but only in 'long experience and worthy discretion.' The one treated of policy, the other of politics. Guicciardini considered specifically by what methods to control and arrange an existing Government. Machiavelli sought to create a science, which should show how to establish, maintain, and hinder the decline of states generally conceived. Even Cavour counted the former as a more practical guide in affairs. But Machiavelli was the theorist of humanity in politics, not the observer only. He distinguished the two orders of research. And, during the Italian Renaissance such distinction was supremely necessary. With a crumbled theology, a pagan Pope, amid the wreck of laws and the confusion of social order, _il sue particolare_ and _virtù_, individuality and ability (energy, political genius, prowess, vital force: _virtù_ is impossible to translate, and only does not mean virtue), were the dominating and unrelenting factors of life. Niccolò Machiavelli, unlike Montesquieu, agreed with Martin Luther that man was bad. It was for both the Wittenberger and the Florentine, in their very separate ways, to found the school and wield the scourge. In the naked and unashamed candour of the time Guicciardini could say that he loathed the Papacy and all its works. 'For all that, he adds, 'the preferments I have enjoyed, have forced me for my private ends to set my heart upon papal greatness. Were it not for this consideration, I should love Martin Luther as my second self.' In the _Discorsi_, Machiavelli bitterly arraigns the Church as having 'deprived Italians of religion and liberty.' He utterly condemns Savonarolà, yet he could love and learn from Dante, and might almost have said with Pym, 'The greatest liberty of the Kingdom is Religion. Thereby we are freed from spiritual evils, and no impositions are so grievous as those that are laid upon the soul.' [Sidenote: Religion.] The Florentine postulates religion as an essential element in a strong and stable State. Perhaps, with Gibbon, he deemed it useful to the Magistrate. But his science is impersonal. He will not tolerate a Church that poaches on his political preserves. Good dogma makes bad politics. It must not tamper with liberty or security. And most certainly, with Dante, in the _Paradiso_, he would either have transformed or omitted the third Beatitude, that the Meek shall inherit the earth. With such a temperament, Machiavelli must ever keep touch with sanity. It was not for him as for Aristotle to imagine what an ideal State should be, but rather to inquire what States actually were and what they might actually become. He seeks first and foremost 'the use that may be derived from history in politics'; not from its incidents but from its general principles. His darling model of a State is to be found where Dante found it, in the Roman Republic. The memory and even the substance of Dante occur again and again. But Dante's inspiration was spiritual: Machiavelli's frankly pagan, and with the latter Fortune takes the place of God. Dante did not love the Papacy, but Machiavelli, pointing out how even in ancient Rome religion was politic or utilitarian, leads up to his famous attack upon the Roman Church, to which he attributes all the shame and losses, political, social, moral, national, that Italy has suffered at her hands. And now for the first time the necessity for Italian Unity is laid plainly down, and the Church and its temporal power denounced as the central obstacles. In religion itself the Secretary saw much merit. 'But when it is an absolute question of the welfare of our country, then justice or injustice, mercy or cruelty, praise or ignominy, must be set aside, and we must seek alone whatever course may preserve the existence and liberty of the state.' Throughout the _Discorsi_, Machiavelli in a looser and more expansive form, suggests, discusses, or re-affirms the ideas of _The Prince_. There is the same absence of judgment on the moral value of individual conduct; the same keen decision of its practical effect as a political act. But here more than in _The Prince_, he deals with the action and conduct of the people. With his passion for personal and contemporary incarnation he finds in the Swiss of his day the Romans of Republican Rome, and reiterates the comparison in detail. Feudalism, mercenaries, political associations embodied in Arts and Guilds, the Temporal power of the Church, all these are put away, and in their stead he announces the new and daring gospel that for organic unity subjects must be treated as equals and not as inferiors. 'Trust the people' is a maxim he repeats and enforces again and again. And he does not shrink from, but rather urges the corollary, 'Arm the people.' Indeed it were no audacious paradox to state the ideal of Machiavelli, though he nominally preferred a Republic, as a Limited Monarchy, ruling over a Nation in Arms. No doubt he sought, as was natural enough in his day, to construct the State from without rather than to guide and encourage its evolution from within. It seemed to him that, in such an ocean of corruption, Force _was_ a remedy and Fraud no sluttish handmaid. 'Vice n'est-ce pas,' writes Montaigne, of such violent acts of Government, 'car il a quitté sa raison à une plus universelle et puissante raison.' Even so the Prince and the people could only be justified by results. But the public life is of larger value than the private, and sometimes one man must be crucified for a thousand. Despite all prejudice and make-belief, such a rule and practice has obtained from the Assemblies of Athens to the Parliaments of the twentieth century. But Machiavelli first candidly imparted it to the unwilling consciences and brains of men, and it is he who has been the chosen scape-goat to carry the sins of the people. His earnestness makes him belie his own precept to keep the name and take away the thing. In this, as in a thousand instances, he was not too darkly hidden; he was too plain. 'Machiavelli,' says one who studied the Florentine as hardly another had done, 'Machiavelli hat gesündigt, aber noch mehr ist gegen ihn gesündigt worden.' Liberty is good, but Unity is its only sure foundation. It is the way to the Unity of Government and People that the thoughts both of _The Prince_ and the _Discorsi_ lead, though the incidents be so nakedly presented as to shock the timorous and vex the prurient, the puritan, and the evil thinker. The people must obey the State and fight and die for its salvation, and for the Prince the hatred of the subjects is never good, but their love, and the best way to gain it is by 'not interrupting the subject in the quiet enjoyment of his estate.' Even so bland and gentle a spirit as the poet Gray cannot but comment, 'I rejoice when I see Machiavelli defended or illustrated, who to me appears one of the wisest men that any nation in any age hath produced.' [Sidenote: The Art of War.] Throughout both _The Prince_ and the _Discorsi_ are constant allusions to, and often long discussions on, military affairs. The Army profoundly interested Machiavelli both as a primary condition of national existence and stability, and also, as he pondered upon the contrast between ancient Rome and the Florence that he lived in, as a subject fascinating in itself. His _Art of War_ was probably published in 1520. Before that date the Florentine Secretary had had some personal touch both with the theory and practice of war. As a responsible official in the camp before Pisa he had seen both siege work and fighting. Having lost faith in mercenary forces he made immense attempts to form a National Militia, and was appointed Chancellor of the Nove della Milizia. In Switzerland and the Tyrol he had studied army questions. He planned with Pietro Navarro the defence of Florence and Prato against Charles V. At Verona and Mantua in 1509, he closely studied the famous siege of Padua. From birth to death war and battles raged all about him, and he had personal knowledge of the great captains of the Age. Moreover, he saw in Italy troops of every country, of every quality, in every stage of discipline, in every manner of formation. His love of ancient Rome led him naturally to the study of Livy and Vegetius, and from them with regard to formations, to the relative values of infantry and cavalry and other points of tactics, he drew or deduced many conclusions which hold good to-day. Indeed a German staff officer has written that in reading the Florentine you think you are listening to a modern theorist of war. But for the theorist of those days a lion stood in the path. The art of war was not excepted from the quick and thorough transformation that all earthly and spiritual things were undergoing. Gunpowder, long invented, was being applied. Armour, that, since the beginning, had saved both man and horse, had now lost the half of its virtue. The walls of fortresses, impregnable for a thousand years, became as matchwood ramparts. The mounted man-at-arms was found with wonder to be no match for the lightly-armoured but nimble foot-man. The Swiss were seen to hold their own with ease against the knighthood of Austria and Burgundy. The Free Companies lost in value and prestige what they added to their corruption and treachery. All these things grew clear to Machiavelli. But his almost fatal misfortune was that he observed and wrote in the mid-moment of the transition. He had no faith in fire-arms, and as regards the portable fire-arms of those days he was right. After the artillery work at Ravenna, Novara, and Marignano it is argued that he should have known better. But he was present at no great battles, and pike, spear, and sword had been the stable weapons of four thousand years. These were indeed too simple to be largely modified, and the future of mechanisms and explosives no prophet uninspired could foresee. And indeed the armament and formation of men were not the main intent of Machiavelli's thought. His care in detail, especially in fortifications, of which he made a special study, in encampments, in plans, in calculations, is immense. Nothing is so trivial as to be left inexact. [Sidenote: The New Model.] But he centred his observation and imagination on the origin, character, and discipline of an army in being. He pictures the horror, waste, and failure of a mercenary system, and lays down the fatal error in Italy of separating civil from military life, converting the latter into a trade. In such a way the soldier grows to a beast, and the citizen to a coward. All this must be changed. The basic idea of this astounding Secretary is to form a National Army, furnished by conscription and informed by the spirit of the New Model of Cromwell. All able-bodied men between the ages of seventeen and forty should be drilled on stated days and be kept in constant readiness. Once or twice a year each battalion must be mobilised and manoeuvred as in time of war. The discipline must be constant and severe. The men must be not only robust and well-trained, but, above all, virtuous, modest, and disposed to any sacrifice for the public good. So imbued should they be with duty and lofty devotion to their country that though they may rightly deceive the enemy, reward the enemy's deserters and employ spies, yet 'an apple tree laden with fruit might stand untouched in the midst of their encampment.' The infantry should far exceed the cavalry, 'since it is by infantry that battles are won.' Secrecy, mobility, and familiarity with the country are to be objects of special care, and positions should be chosen from which advance is safer than retreat. In war this army must be led by one single leader, and, when peace shines again, they must go back contented to their grateful fellow-countrymen and their wonted ways of living. The conception and foundation of such a scheme, at such a time, by such a man is indeed astounding. He broke with the past and with all contemporary organisations. He forecast the future of military Europe, though his own Italy was the last to win her redemption through his plans. 'Taken all in all,' says a German military writer, 'we may recognise Machiavelli in his inspired knowledge of the principles of universal military discipline as a true prophet and as one of the weightiest thinkers in the field of military construction and constitution. He penetrated the essence of military technique with a precision wholly alien to his period, and it is, so to say, a new psychological proof of the relationship between the art of war and the art of statecraft, that the founder of Modern Politics is also the first of modern Military Classics.' But woe to the Florentine Secretary with his thoughts born centuries before their time. As in _The Prince_, so in the _Art of War_, he closes with a passionate appeal of great sorrow and the smallest ray of hope. Where shall I hope to find the things that I have told of? What is Italy to-day? What are the Italians? Enervated, impotent, vile. Wherefore, 'I lament mee of nature, the which either ought not to have made mee a knower of this, or it ought to have given mee power, to have bene able to have executed it: For now beeing olde, I cannot hope to have any occasion, to be able so to doo: In consideration whereof, I have bene liberall with you who beeing grave young men, may (when the thinges said of me shall please you) at due times, in favoure of your Princes, helpe them and counsider them. Wherin I would have you not to be afraied, or mistrustfull, because this Province seemes to bee altogether given to raise up againe the things deade, as is seene by the perfection that Poesie, painting, and writing, is now brought unto: Albeit, as much as is looked for of mee, beeing strooken in yeeres, I do mistrust. Where surely, if Fortune had heretofore graunted mee so much state, as suffiseth for a like enterprise, I would not have doubted, but in most short time, to have shewed to the world, how much the auncient orders availe: and without peradventure, either I would have increased it with glory, or lost it without shame.' [Sidenote: _The History of Florence_.] In 1520 Machiavelli was an ageing and disappointed man. He was not popular with any party, but the Medici were willing to use him in minor matters if only to secure his adherence. He was commissioned by Giulio de Medici to write a history of Florence with an annual allowance of 100 florins. In 1525 he completed his task and dedicated the book to its begetter, Pope Clement VII. In the History, as in much of his other work, Machiavelli enriches the science of humanity with a new department. 'He was the first to contemplate the life of a nation in its continuity, to trace the operation of political forces through successive generations, to contrast the action of individuals with the evolution of causes over which they had but little control, and to bring the salient features of the national biography into relief by the suppression of comparatively unimportant details.' He found no examples to follow, for Villani with all his merits was of a different order. Diarists and chroniclers there were in plenty, and works of the learned men led by Aretino, written in Latin and mainly rhetorical. The great work of Guicciardini was not published till years after the Secretary's death. Machiavelli broke away from the Chronicle or any other existing form. He deliberately applied philosophy to the sequence of facts. He organised civil and political history. He originally intended to begin his work at the year 1234, the year of the return of Cosimo il Vecchio from exile and of the consolidation of Medicean power on the ground that the earlier periods had been covered by Aretino and Bracciolini. But he speedily recognised that they told of nothing but external wars and business while the heart of the history of Florence was left unbared. The work was to do again in very different manner, and in that manner he did it. Throughout he maintains and insistently insinuates his unfailing explanation of the miseries of Italy; the necessity of unity and the evils of the Papacy which prevents it. In this book dedicated to a Pope he scants nothing of his hatred of the Holy See. For ever he is still seeking the one strong man in a blatant land with almost absolute power to punish, pull down, and reconstruct on an abiding foundation, for to his clear eyes it is ever the events that are born of the man, and not the man of the events. He was the first to observe that the Ghibellines were not only the Imperial party but the party of the aristocrats and influential men, whereas the Guelphs were the party not only of the Church but of the people, and he traces the slow but increasing struggle to the triumph of democracy in the Ordinamenti di Giustizia (1293). But the triumph was not final. The Florentines were 'unable to preserve liberty and could not tolerate slavery.' So the fighting, banishments, bloodshed, cruelty, injustice, began once more. The nobles were in origin Germanic, he points out, the people Latin; so that a racial bitterness gave accent to their hate. But yet, he adds impartially, when the crushed nobility were forced to change their names and no longer dared be heard 'Florence was not only stripped of arms but likewise of all generosity.' It would be impossible to follow the History in detail. The second, seventh and eighth books are perhaps the most powerful and dramatic. Outside affairs and lesser events are lightly touched. But no stories in the world have been told with more intensity than those of the conspiracies in the seventh and eighth books, and none have given a more intimate and accurate perception of the modes of thought and feeling at the time. The History ends with the death of Lorenzo de Medici in 1492. Enough has been said of its breadth of scope and originality of method. The spirit of clear flaming patriotism, of undying hope that will not in the darkest day despair, the plangent appeal to Italy for its own great sake to rouse and live, all these are found pre-eminently in the History as they are found wherever Machiavelli speaks from the heart of his heart. Of the style a foreigner may not speak. But those who are proper judges maintain that in simplicity and lucidity, vigour, and power, softness, elevation, and eloquence, the style of Machiavelli is 'divine,' and remains, as that of Dante among the poets, unchallenged and insuperable among all writers of Italian prose. [Sidenote: Other Works.] Though Machiavelli must always stand as a political thinker, an historian, and a military theorist it would leave an insufficient idea of his mental activities were there no short notice of his other literary works. With his passion for incarnating his theories in a single personality, he wrote the _Life of Castruccio Castracani_, a politico-military romance. His hero was a soldier of fortune born Lucca in 1281, and, playing with a free hand, Machiavelli weaves a life of adventure and romance in which his constant ideas of war and politics run through and across an almost imaginary tapestry. He seems to have intended to illustrate and to popularise his ideals and to attain by a story the many whom his discourses could not reach. In verse Machiavelli was fluent, pungent, and prosaic. The unfinished _Golden Ass_ is merely made of paragraphs of the _Discorsi_ twined into rhymes. And the others are little better. Countless pamphlets, essays, and descriptions may be searched without total waste by the very curious and the very leisurely. The many despatches and multitudinous private letters tell the story both of his life and his mind. But the short but famous _Novella di Belfagor Arcidiavolo_ is excellent in wit, satire, and invention. As a playwright he wrote, among many lesser efforts, one supreme comedy, _Mandragola_, which Macaulay declares to be better than the best of Goldoni's plays, and only less excellent than the very best of Molière's. Italian critics call it the finest play in Italian. The plot is not for nursery reading, but there are tears and laughter and pity and anger to furnish forth a copious author, and it has been not ill observed that _Mandragola_ is the comedy of a society of which _The Prince_ is the tragedy. [Sidenote: The End.] It has been said of the Italians of the Renaissance that with so much of unfairness in their policy, there was an extraordinary degree of fairness in their intellects. They were as direct in thought as they were tortuous in action and could see no wickedness in deceiving a man whom they intended to destroy. To such a charge--if charge it be--Machiavelli would have willingly owned himself answerable. He observed, in order to know, and he wished to use his knowledge for the advancement of good. To him the means were indifferent, provided only that they were always apt and moderate in accordance with necessity, A surgeon has no room for sentiment: in such an operator pity were a crime. It is his to examine, to probe, to diagnose, flinching at no ulcer, sparing neither to himself or to his patient. And if he may not act, he is to lay down very clearly the reasons which led to his conclusions and to state the mode by which life itself may be saved, cost what amputation and agony it may. This was Machiavelli's business, and he applied his eye, his brains, and his knife with a relentless persistence, which, only because it was so faithful, was not called heroic. And we know that he suffered in the doing of it and that his heart was sore for his patient. But there was no other way. His record is clear and shining. He has been accused of no treachery, of no evil action. His patriotism for Italy as a fatherland, a dream undreamt by any other, never glowed more brightly than when Italy lay low in shame, and ruin, and despair. His faith never faltered, his spirit never shrank. And the Italy that he saw, through dark bursts of storm, broken and sinking, we see to-day riding in the sunny haven where he would have her to be. HENRY CUST. CONTENTS PAGE THE ARTE OF WARRE 1 THE PRINCE 251 THE ARTE OF WARRE WRITTEN FIRST IN ITALIAN BY NICHOLAS MACHIAVELL AND SET FORTHE IN ENGLISHE BY PETER WHITEHORNE STUDIENT AT GRAIES INNE WITH AN ADDICION OF OTHER LIKE MARCIALLE FEATES AND EXPERIMENTES AS IN A TABLE IN THE ENDE OF THE BOOKE MAIE APPERE 1560 _Menfss. Iulij_. TO THE MOSTE HIGHE, AND EXCELLENT PRINCES, ELIZABETH, by the Grace of God, Quene of Englande, Fraunce, and Irelande, defender of the faithe, and of the Churche of Englande, and Irelande, on yearth next under God, the supreme Governour. Although commonlie every man, moste worthie and renoumed Soveraine, seketh specially to commend and extolle the thing, whereunto he feleth hymself naturally bent and inclined, yet al soche parciallitie and private affection laid aside, it is to bee thought (that for the defence, maintenaunce, and advauncemente of a Kyngdome, or Common weale, or for the good and due observacion of peace, and administracion of Justice in the same) no one thinge to be more profitable, necessarie, or more honourable, then the knowledge of service in warre, and dedes of armes; bicause consideryng the ambicion of the worlde, it is impossible for any realme or dominion, long to continue free in quietnesse and savegarde, where the defence of the sweard is not alwaies in a readinesse. For like as the Grekes, beyng occupied aboute triflyng matters, takyng pleasure in resityng of Comedies, and soche other vain thinges, altogether neclecting Marciall feates, gave occasion to Philip kyng of Macedonia, father to Alexander the Great, to oppresse and to bring theim in servitude, under his subjeccion, even so undoubtedly, libertie will not be kepte, but men shall be troden under foote, and brought to moste horrible miserie and calamitie, if thei givyng theim selves to pastymes and pleasure, forssake the juste regarde of their owne defence, and savegarde of their countrie, whiche in temporall regimente, chiefly consisteth in warlike skilfulnesse. And therefore the aunciente Capitaines and mightie Conquerours, so longe as thei florished, did devise with moste greate diligence, all maner of waies, to bryng their men to the perfect knowledge of what so ever thing appertained to the warre: as manifestly appereth by the warlike games, whiche in old time the Princes of Grecia ordained, upon the mount Olimpus, and also by thorders and exercises, that the aunciente Romaines used in sundrie places, and specially in Campo Martio, and in their wonderful sumptuous Theaters, whiche chiefly thei builded to that purpose. Whereby thei not onely made their Souldiours so experte, that thei obtained with a fewe, in faightyng againste a greate houge multitude of enemies, soche marveilous victories, as in many credible Histories are mencioned, but also by the same meanes, their unarmed and rascalle people that followed their Campes, gotte soche understandyng in the feates of warre, that thei in the daie of battaile, beeyng lefte destitute of succour, were able without any other help, to set themselves in good order, for their defence againste the enemie, that would seke to hurte theim, and in soche daungerous times, have doen their countrie so good service, that verie often by their helpe, the adversaries have been put to flight, and fieldes moste happely wone. So that thantiquitie estemed nothing more happie in a common weale, then to have in the same many men skilfull in warlike affaires: by meanes whereof, their Empire continually inlarged, and moste wonderfully and triumphantly prospered. For so longe as men for their valiauntnesse, were then rewarded and had in estimacion, glad was he that could finde occasion to venter, yea, and spende his life, to benefite his countrie: as by the manly actes that Marcus Curcius, Oracius Cocles, and Gaius Mucius did for the savegarde of Rome and also by other innumerable like examples dooeth plainly appeare. But when through long and continuall peace, thei began to bee altogether given to pleasure and delicatenesse, little regardyng Marciall feates, nor soche as were expert in the practise thereof: Their dominions and estates, did not so moche before increase and prospere, as then by soche meanes and oversight, thei sodainly fell into decaie and utter ruine. For soche truly is the nature and condicion, bothe of peace and warre, that where in governemente, there is not had equalle consideration of them bothe, the one in fine, doeth woorke and induce, the others oblivion and utter abholicion. Wherfore, sith the necessitie of the science of warres is so greate, and also the necessarie use thereof so manifeste, that even Ladie Peace her self, doeth in maner from thens crave her chief defence and preservacion, and the worthinesse moreover, and honour of the same so greate, that as by prose we see, the perfecte glorie therof, cannot easely finde roote, but in the hartes of moste noble couragious and manlike personages, I thought most excellente Princes, I could not either to the specialle gratefiyng of your highnesse, the universall delight of all studious gentlemen, or the common utilitie of the publike wealth, imploie my labours more profitablie in accomplishyng of my duetie and good will, then in settyng foorthe some thing, that might induce to the augmentyng and increase of the knowledge thereof: inespecially thexample of your highnes most politike governemente over us, givyng plaine testimonie of the wonderfull prudente desire that is in you, to have your people instructed in this kinde of service, as well for the better defence of your highnesse, theim selves, and their countrie, as also to discourage thereby, and to be able to resist the malingnitie of the enemie, who otherwise would seeke peradventure, to invade this noble realme or kyngdome. When therfore about x. yeres paste, in the Emperours warres against the Mores and certain Turkes beyng in Barberie, at the siege and winnyng of Calibbia, Monesterio and Africa, I had as well for my further instruction in those affaires, as also the better to acquainte me with the Italian tongue, reduced into Englishe, the booke called The arte of Warre, of the famous and excellente Nicholas Machiavell, whiche in times paste he beyng a counsailour, and Secretarie of the noble Citee of Florence, not without his greate laude and praise did write: and havyng lately againe, somwhat perused the same, the whiche in soche continuall broiles and unquietnesse, was by me translated, I determined with my self, by publishyng thereof, to bestowe as greate a gift (sins greater I was not able) emongeste my countrie men, not experte in the Italian tongue, as in like woorkes I had seen before me, the Frenchemen, Duchemen, Spaniardes, and other forreine nacions, moste lovyngly to have bestowed emongeste theirs: The rather undoubtedly, that as by private readyng of the same booke, I then felt my self in that knowledge marveilously holpen and increased, so by communicatyng the same to many, our Englishemen findyng out the orderyng and disposyng of exploictes of warre therein contained, the aide and direction of these plaine and briefe preceptes, might no lesse in knowledge of warres become incomperable, then in prowes also and exercise of the same, altogether invincible: which my translacion moste gracious Soveraine, together with soche other thynges, as by me hath been gathered, and thought good to adde thereunto, I have presumed to dedicate unto youre highnes: not onely bicause the whole charge and furniture of warlike counsailes and preparacions, being determined by the arbitremente of Governours and Princes, the treatise also of like effecte should in like maner as of right, depende upon the protection of a moste worthie and noble Patronesse, but also that the discourse it self, and the woorke of a forrein aucthour, under the passeport and safeconduite of your highnes moste noble name, might by speciall aucthoritie of the same, winne emongest your Majesties subjectes, moche better credite and estimacion. And if mooste mightie Queen, in this kind of Philosophie (if I maie so terme it) grave and sage counsailes, learned and wittie preceptes, or politike and prudente admonicions, ought not to be accompted the least and basest tewels of weale publike. Then dare I boldely affirme, that of many straungers, whiche from forrein countries, have here tofore in this your Majesties realme arrived, there is none in comparison to bee preferred, before this worthie Florentine and Italian, who havyng frely without any gaine of exchaunge (as after some acquaintaunce and familiaritie will better appeare) brought with hym moste riche, rare and plentiful Treasure, shall deserve I trust of all good Englishe lishe hartes, most lovingly and frendly to be intertained, embraced and cherished. Whose newe Englishe apparell, how so ever it shall seme by me, after a grosse fasion, more fitlie appoincted to the Campe, then in nice termes attired to the Carpet, and in course clothyng rather putte foorthe to battaile, then in any brave shewe prepared to the bankette, neverthelesse my good will I truste, shall of your grace be taken in good parte, havyng fashioned the phraise of my rude stile, even accordyng to the purpose of my travaile, whiche was rather to profite the desirous manne of warre, then to delight the eares of the fine Rethorician, or daintie curious scholemanne: Moste humblie besechyng your highnes, so to accept my labour herein, as the first fruictes of a poore souldiours studie, who to the uttermoste of his smalle power, in the service of your moste gracious majestie, and of his countrie, will at al tymes, accordyng to his bounden duetie and allegeaunce, promptlie yeld hym self to any labour, travaile, or daunger, what so ever shal happen. Praiyng in the mean season the almightie God, to give your highnes in longe prosperous raigne, perfect health, desired tranquilitie, and against all your enemies, luckie and joifull victorie. Your humble subject and dailie oratour, PETER WHITEHORNE. THE PROHEME OF NICHOLAS MACHIAVELL, Citezein and Secretarie of Florence, upon his booke of the Arte of Warre, unto Laurence Philippe Strozze, one of the nobilitie of Florence. There have Laurence, many helde, and do holde this opinion, that there is no maner of thing, whiche lesse agreeth the one with the other, nor that is so much unlike, as the civil life to the Souldiours. Wherby it is often seen, that if any determin in thexercise of that kinde of service to prevaile, that incontinent he doeth not only chaunge in apparel, but also in custome and maner, in voice, and from the facion of all civil use, he doeth alter: For that he thinketh not meete to clothe with civell apparell him, who wil be redie, and promt to all kinde of violence, nor the civell customes, and usages maie that man have, the whiche judgeth bothe those customes to be effeminate, and those usages not to be agreable to his profession: Nor it semes not convenient for him to use the civill gesture and ordinarie wordes, who with fasing and blasphemies, will make afraied other menne: the whiche causeth in this time, suche opinion to be moste true. But if thei should consider thauncient orders, there should nothing be founde more united, more confirmable, and that of necessitie ought to love so much the one the other, as these: for as muche as all the artes that are ordeined in a common weale, in regarde or respecte of common profite of menne, all the orders made in the same, to live with feare of the Lawe, and of God should be vaine, if by force of armes their defence wer not prepared, which, well ordeined, doe maintain those also whiche be not well ordeined. And likewise to the contrarie the good orders, without the souldiours help, no lesse or otherwise doe disorder, then the habitacion of a sumptuous and roiall palais, although it wer decte with gold and precious stones, when without being covered, should not have wherewith to defende it from the raine. And if in what so ever other orders of Cities and Kyngdomes, there hath been used al diligence for to maintain men faithfull, peaceable, and full of the feare of God, in the service of warre, it was doubled: if for in what man ought the countrie to seke greater faith, then in him, who must promise to die for the same? In whom ought there to bee more love of peace, then in him, whiche onely by the warre maie be hurte? In whome ought there to bee more feare of GOD, then in him, which every daie committyng himself to infinite perilles, hath moste neede of his helpe? This necessitie considered wel, bothe of them that gave the lawes to Empires, and of those that to the exercise of service wer apoincted, made that the life of Souldiours, of other menne was praised, and with all studie folowed and imitated. But the orders of service of war, beyng altogether corrupted, and a greate waie from the auncient maners altered, there hath growen these sinisterous opinions, which maketh men to hate the warlike service, and to flie the conversacion of those that dooe exercise it. Albeit I judgeing by the same, that I have seen and redde, that it is not a thyng impossible, to bryng it again to the auncient maners, and to give it some facion of the vertue passed, I have determined to the entente not to passe this my idell time, without doyng some thyng, to write that whiche I doe understande, to the satisfaction of those, who of aunciente actes, are lovers of the science of warre. And although it be a bold thing to intreate of the same matter, wher of otherwise I have made no profession, notwithstanding I beleve it is no errour, to occupie with wordes a degree, the whiche many with greater presumpcion with their deedes have occupied: for as muche as the errours that I maie happen to make by writing, may be without harme to any man corrected: but those the whiche of them be made in doyng cannot be knowen without the ruine of Empires. Therefore Laurence you ought to consider the qualitie of this my laboure, and with your judgement to give it that blame, or that praise, as shall seeme unto you it hath deserved. The whiche I sende unto you, as well to shewe my selfe gratefull, although my habilitie reche not to the benefites, which I have received of you, as also for that beyng the custome to honour with like workes them who for nobilitie, riches, wisedome, and liberalitie doe shine: I knowe you for riches, and nobilitie, not to have many peeres, for wisedome fewe, and for liberalitie none. THE ARTE OF WARRE THE TABLE OF CERTAIN PRINCIPALL THINGES, CONTAINED IN THIS WOORKE OF MACHIAVEL IN THE FIRSTE BOOKE Why a good man ought not to exersise warfare as his arte, 33 Deedes of armes ought to be used privatly in time of peace for exersise, and in time of warre for necessetie and renoume, 36 The strength of an armie is the footemen, 38 The Romaines renued their Legions and had men in the flower of their age, 38 Whether men of armes ought to be kept, 40 What is requisete for the preparyng of an armie, 42 Out of what contrie souldiers ought to be chosen, 43 Souldiers ought to bee chosen, by thaucthoritie of the Prince, of suche men as be his oune subjectes, 44 The difference of ages, that is to be taken in the chosinge of souldiours for the restoring of an olde power and for the making of a newe, 44 The weapons or power that is prepared, of the naturall subjectes, of a common weale bringeth profit and not hurte, 47 What cause letted the Venetians, that they made not a Monarchi of the worlde, 48 How an armie maye bee prepared in the countrie, where were no exersise of warre, 49 The custome that the Romaines used, in the chosyng of their souldiours, 51 The greater number of men is best, 53 Whether the multitude of armed men ar occation of confusion and of dissorder, 55 How to prohibite, that the Capitaines make no discension, 57 IN THE SECONDE BOOKE What armour the antiquetie used, 61 The occation of the boldenes of the duchemen, 64 Whiche maner of armyng menne is better either the Duche or Romaine fasion, 64 Diverse examples of late dayes, 66 An example of Tigran, 69 Whether the footemen or the horsemen ought to bee estemed moste, 70 The cause whie the Romaines were overcome of the parthians, 71 What order, or what vertue maketh, that footemen overcum horsemen, 71 Howe the antiquitie exersised their men to learne them to handle their weapons, 73 What the antiquitie estemed moste happie in a common weale, 75 The maner, of maintainyng the order, 77 What a legion is, of Grekes called a Falange, and of Frenchemen Catterva, 77 The devision of a legion, and the divers names of orders, 78 The order of batellraye, and the manner of appoincting the battels, 82 How to order, CCCC.L. men to doo some severall feate, 88 The fation of a battaile that the Suisers make like a crosse, 90 What carriages the Capitaines ought to have, and the number of carriages requisite to every band of men, 91 Diverse effectes caused of diverse soundes, 93 Whereof cometh the utilitie, and the dissorder of the armies that are now a daies, 93 The manner of arminge men, 97 The number of carriages that men of armes and lighte horsemen ought to have, 98 IN THE THIRDE BOOKE The greatest dissorder that is used now a dayes in the orderinge of an armie, 102 How the Romaines devided their armie in Hastati, Principi and Triarii, 102 The manner that the Romaines used to order them selves agayne in the overthrow, 103 The custom of the Greekes, 103 A maine battaile of Suissers, 104 How manie legions of Romaine Citesens was in an ordinarie armie, 105 The manner how to pitche a fielde to faighte a battaile, 106 Of what number of faighting men an armie oughte to be, 110 The description of a battaile that is a faighting, 111 An exsample of Ventidio faighting against the Parthians, 114 An example of Epaminondas, 115 How the Artillerie is unprofitable, 116 How that a maine battaile of Suissers cannot ocupie more then fower pikes, 120 How the battailes when thei cum to be eight or ten, maye be receyved in the verie same space, that received the fyve, 123 The armes that the Standarde of all tharmie ought to have, 125 Divers examples of the antiquetie, 126 IN THE FOWERTH BOOKE Whether the fronte of the armie ought to bee made large, 132 To how many thinges respecte ought to be had, in the ordringe of an armie, 133 An example of Scipio, 134 In what place a Capitain maie order his armie with savegarde not to be clene overthrowen, 135 Aniball and Scipio praised for the orderynge of their armies, 135 Cartes used of the Asiaticans, 137 Diverse examples of the antiquitie, 137 The prudence which the Capitaine ought to use, in the accidence that chaunse in faightinge, 138 What a Capitaine ought to doo, that is the conqueror, or that is conquered, 140 A Capitaine ought not to faighte the battaile, but with advauntage, excepte he be constrained, 142 How to avoide the faightinge of the fielde, 144 Advertismentes that the Capitaine ought to have, 146 Speakyng to souldiers helpeth muche to make them to be curagious and bolde, 146 Whether all the armie ought to bee spoken unto, or onely to the heddes thereof, 147 IN THE FYVETH BOOKE The manner how to leade an armie gowinge thorough suspected places, or to incounter the enemie, 152 An example of Aniball, 156 Wether any thing oughte to bee commaunded with the voise or with the trompet, 159 The occations why the warres made now a dayes, doo impoverish the conquerors as well as the conquered, 162 Credite ought not to be given to thinges which stand nothinge with reason, 164 The armie ought not to knowe what the Capitaine purposeth to doo, 165 Diverse examples, 167 IN THE SIXTE BOOKE The maner how to incampe an armie, 175 How brode the spaces and the wayes ought to be within the campe, 182 What waye ought to be used when it is requiset to incampe nere the enemie, 184 How the watche and warde ought to be apoincted in the campe, and what punishmente they ought to have that doo not their dutie, 186 How the Romanies prohibited women to be in their armies and idell games to be used, 188 How to incampe accordinge to the nomber of men, and what nomber of menne maie suffise againste, what so ever enemie that wer, 191 How to doo to be assured, of the fideletie of those that are had in suspition, 193 What a Capitaine ought to doo beinge beseged of his enemies, 194 Example of Coriliano and others, 195 It is requiset chiefly for a Capitain to kepe his souldiers punished and payed, 197 Of aguries, 197 Moste excellent advertismentes and pollicies, 198 The occation of the overthrowe of the Frenchmen at Garigliano, 202 IN THE SEVENTH BOOKE Cities are strong, either by nature or by industrie, 205 The maner of fortificacion, 205 Bulwarkes ought not to be made oute of a towne distante from the same, 207 Example of Genoa, 208 Of the Countes Catherin, 208 The fation of percullesies used in Almaine, 210 Howe the battelmentes of walles were made at the first, and how thei are made now adaies, 210 The provisions that is mete to bee made, for the defence of a towne, 212 Divers pollicies, for the beseginge and defendinge of a toune or fortres, 214 Secrete conveing of letters, 219 The defence againste a breache, 219 Generall rules of warre, 222 THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE ARTE OF WARRE OF NICHOLAS MACHIAVEL, CITEZEIN AND SECRETARIE OF FLORENCE, UNTO LAURENCE PHILIP STROZZE ONE OF THE NOBILTIE OF FLORENCE. THE FIRST BOOKE Forasmuch as I beleve that after death, al men maie be praised without charge, al occasion and suspecte of flatterie beyng taken awaie, I shal not doubte to praise our Cosimo Ruchellay, whose name was never remembred of me without teares, havyng knowen in him those condicions, the whiche in a good frende or in a citezien, might of his freendes, or of his countrie, be desired: for that I doe not knowe what thyng was so muche his, not excepting any thing (saving his soule) which for his frendes willingly of him should not have been spent: I knowe not what enterprise should have made him afraide, where the same should have ben knowen to have been for the benefite of his countrie. And I doe painly confesse, not to have mette emongest so many men, as I have knowen, and practised withal, a man, whose minde was more inflamed then his, unto great and magnificent thynges. Nor he lamented not with his frendes of any thyng at his death, but because he was borne to die a yong manne within his owne house, before he had gotten honour, and accordynge to his desire, holpen any manne: for that he knewe, that of him coulde not be spoken other, savyng that there should be dead a good freende. Yet it resteth not for this, that we, and what so ever other that as we did know him, are not able to testifie (seeyng his woorkes doe not appere) of his lawdable qualities. True it is, that fortune was not for al this, so muche his enemie, that it left not some brief record of the readinesse of his witte, as doeth declare certaine of his writinges, and settyng foorthe of amorous verses, wherin (although he were not in love) yet for that he would not consume time in vain, til unto profounder studies fortune should have brought him, in his youthfull age he exercised himselfe. Whereby moste plainly maie be comprehended, with how moche felicitie he did describe his conceiptes, and how moche for Poetrie he should have ben estemed, if the same for the ende therof, had of him ben exercised. Fortune having therfore deprived us from the use of so great a frende, me thinketh there can bee founde no other remedie, then as muche as is possible, to seke to enjoye the memorie of the same, and to repeate suche thynges as hath been of him either wittely saied, or wisely disputed. And for as much as there is nothyng of him more freshe, then the reasonyng, the whiche in his last daies Signior Fabricio Collonna, in his orchard had with him, where largely of the same gentilman were disputed matters of warre, bothe wittely and prudently, for the moste parte of Cosimo demaunded, I thought good, for that I was present there with certain other of our frendes, to bring it to memorie, so that reading the same, the frendes of Cosimo, whiche thether came, might renewe in their mindes, the remembraunce of his vertue: and the other part beyng sorie for their absence, might partly learne hereby many thynges profitable, not onely to the life of Souldiours, but also to civil mennes lives, which gravely of a moste wise man was disputed. Therfore I saie, that Fabricio Collonna retournyng out of Lombardie, where longe time greatly to his glorie, he had served in the warres the catholike kyng, he determined, passyng by Florence, to rest himself certain daies in the same citee, to visite the Dukes excellencie, and to see certaine gentilmen, whiche in times paste he had been acquainted withal. For whiche cause, unto Cosimo it was thought beste to bid him into his orchard, not so muche to use his liberalitee, as to have occasion to talke with him at leasure, and of him to understande and to learne divers thinges, accordyng as of suche a man maie bee hoped for, semyng to have accasion to spende a daie in reasonyng of suche matters, which to his minde should best satisfie him. Then Fabricio came, accordyng to his desire, and was received of Cosimo together, with certain of his trustie frendes, emongest whome wer Zanoby Buondelmonti, Baptiste Palla, and Luigi Allamanni, all young men loved of him and of the very same studies moste ardente, whose good qualities, for as muche as every daie, and at every houre thei dooe praise themselves, we will omit. Fabricio was then accordyng to the time and place honoured, of all those honours, that thei could possible devise: But the bankettyng pleasures beyng passed, and the tabel taken up, and al preparacion of feastinges consumed, the which are sone at an ende in sight of greate men, who to honorable studies have their mindes set, the daie beyng longe, and the heate muche, Cosimo judged for to content better his desire, that it wer well doen, takyng occasion to avoide the heate, to bring him into the moste secret, and shadowest place of his garden. Where thei beyng come, and caused to sit, some upon herbes, some in the coldest places, other upon litle seates which there was ordeined, under the shadow of moste high trees, Fabricio praiseth the place, to be delectable, and particularly consideryng the trees, and not knowyng some of them, he did stande musinge in his minde, whereof Cosimo beeyng a ware saied, you have not peradventure ben acquainted with some of these sortes of trees: But doe not marvell at it, for as muche as there bee some, that were more estemed of the antiquitie, then thei are commonly now a daies: and he tolde him the names of them, and how Barnardo his graundfather did travaile in suche kinde of plantyng: Fabricio replied, I thought it shuld be the same you saie, and this place, and this studie, made me to remember certaine Princes of the Kyngdome of Naples, whiche of these anncient tillage and shadow doe delight. And staiyng upon this talke, and somewhat standyng in a studdie, saied moreover, if I thought I should not offende, I woud tell my opinion, but I beleeve I shall not, commonyng with friendes, and to dispute of thynges, and not to condemne them. How much better thei should have doen (be it spoken without displeasure to any man) to have sought to been like the antiquitie in thinges strong, and sharpe, not in the delicate and softe: and in those that thei did in the Sunne, not in the shadowe: and to take the true and perfecte maners of the antiquitie: not those that are false and corrupted: for that when these studies pleased my Romaines, my countrie fell into ruin. Unto which Cosimo answered. But to avoide the tediousnesse to repeate so many times he saied, and the other answered, there shall be onely noted the names of those that speakes, without rehersing other. Then COSIMO saied, you have opened the waie of a reasoning, which I have desired, and I praie you that you will speake withoute respecte, for that that I without respecte will aske you, and if I demaundyng, or repliyng shall excuse, or accuse any, it shal not be to excuse, or accuse, but to understande of you the truth. FABRICIO. And I shall be very well contented to tell you that, whiche I understand of al the same that you shall aske me, the whiche if it shall be true, or no, I wil report me to your judgemente: and I will be glad that you aske me, for that I am to learne, as well of you in askyng me, as you of me in aunswerynge you: for as muche as many times a wise demaunder, maketh one to consider many thynges, and to knowe many other, whiche without havyng been demaunded, he should never have knowen. COSIMO. I will retourne to thesame, that you said first, that my graundfather and those your Princes, should have doen more wisely, to have resembled the antiquitie in hard thinges, then in the delicate, and I will excuse my parte, for that, the other I shall leave to excuse for you. I doe not beleve that in his tyme was any manne, that so moche detested the livyng in ease, as he did, and that so moche was a lover of the same hardenesse of life, whiche you praise: notwithstandyng he knewe not how to bee able in persone, nor in those of his sonnes to use it, beeyng borne in so corrupte a worlde, where one that would digresse from the common use, should bee infamed and disdained of every man: consideryng that if one in the hottest day of Summer being naked, should wallowe hymself upon the Sande, or in Winter in the moste coldest monethes upon the snowe, as Diogenes did, he should be taken as a foole. If one, (as the Spartans were wonte to doe) should nourishe his children in a village, makyng them to slepe in the open aire, to go with hedde and feete naked, to washe them selves in the colde water for to harden them, to be able to abide moche paine, and for to make theim to love lesse life, and to feare lesse death, he should be scorned, and soner taken as a wilde beast, then as a manne. If there wer seen also one, to nourishe himself with peason and beanes, and to despise gold, as Fabricio doeth, he should bee praised of fewe, and followed of none: so that he being afraied of this present maner of livyng, he left thauncient facions, and thesame, that he could with lest admiracion imitate in the antiquitie, he did. FABRICIO. You have excused it in this parte mooste strongly: and surely you saie the truthe: but I did not speake so moche of this harde maner of livyng, as of other maners more humaine, and whiche have with the life now a daies greater conformitie. The whiche I doe not beleve, that it hath been difficulte to bryng to passe unto one, who is nombred emongest Princes of a citee: for the provyng whereof, I will never seke other, then thexample of the Romaines. Whose lives, if thei wer well considred, and thorders of thesame common weale, there should therin be seen many thinges, not impossible to induce into a cominaltie, so that it had in her any good thing. COSIMO. What thynges are those, that you would induce like unto the antiquitie. FABRICIO. To honour, and to reward vertue, not to despise povertie, to esteme the maners and orders of warfare, to constrain the citezeins to love one an other, to live without sectes, to esteme lesse the private, than the publike, and other like thinges, that easily might bee with this time accompanied: the which maners ar not difficult to bring to passe, when a man should wel consider them, and entre therin by due meanes: for asmoche as in thesame, the truth so moche appereth, that every common wit, maie easely perceive it: which thing, who that ordeineth, doth plant trees, under the shadowe wherof, thei abide more happie, and more pleasantly, then under these shadowes of this goodly gardeine. COSIMO. I will not speake any thyng againste thesame that you have saied, but I will leave it to bee judged of these, whom easely can judge, and I will tourne my communicacion to you, that is an accusar of theim, the whiche in grave, and greate doynges, are not followers of the antiquitie, thinkyng by this waie more easely to be in my entent satisfied. Therfore, I would knowe of you whereof it groweth, that of the one side you condempne those, that in their doynges resemble not the antiquitie? Of the other, in the warre, whiche is your art, wherin you are judged excellent, it is not seen, that you have indevoured your self, to bryng the same to any soche ende, or any thyng at all resembled therein the auncient maners. FABRICIO. You are happened upon the poincte, where I loked: for that my talke deserved no other question: nor I desired other: and albeit that I could save my self with an easie excuse, not withstandyng for my more contentacion, and yours, seyng that the season beareth it, I will enter in moche longer reasoning. Those men, whiche will enterprise any thyng, ought firste with all diligence to prepare theim selves, to be ready and apte when occasion serveth, to accomplish that, which thei have determined to worke: and for that when the preparacions are made craftely, thei are not knowen, there cannot be accused any man of any negligence, if firste it be not disclosed by thoccasion: in the which working not, is after seen, either that there is not prepared so moche as suffiseth, or that there hath not been of any part therof thought upon. And for as moche as to me there is not come any occasion to be able, to shewe the preparacions made of me, to reduce the servise of warre into his auncient orders, if I have not reduced it, I cannot be of you, nor of other blamed: I beleve this excuse shuld suffise for answere to your accusement. COSIMO. It should suffice, when I wer certain, that thoccasion were not come. FABRICIO. But for that I know, that you maie doubt whether this occasion hath been cum, or no, I will largely (when you with pacience will heare me) discourse what preparacions are necessary first to make, what occasion muste growe, what difficultie doeth let, that the preparacions help not, and why thoccasion cannot come, and how these things at ones, which some contrary endes, is most difficill, and most easie to do. COSIMO. You cannot do bothe to me, and unto these other, a thing more thankfull then this. And if to you it shall not be tedious to speake, unto us it shal never be grevous to heare: but for asmoch as this reasonyng ought to be long, I will with your license take helpe of these my frendes: and thei, and I praie you of one thyng, that is, that you will not bee greved, if some tyme with some question of importaunce, we interrupte you. [Sidenote: Why a good man ought never to use the exercise of armes, as his art.] FABRICIO. I am moste well contented, that you Cosimo with these other younge men here, doe aske me: for that I beleve, that youthfulnes, will make you lovers of warlike thinges, and more easie to beleve thesame, that of me shalbe saied. These other, by reason of havyng nowe their hedde white, and for havyng upon their backes their bloude congeled, parte of theim are wonte to bee enemies of warre, parte uncorrectable, as those, whom beleve, that tymes, and not the naughtie maners, constraine men to live thus: so that safely aske you all of me, and without respecte: the whiche I desire, as well, for that it maie be unto me a little ease, as also for that I shall have pleasure, not to leave in your mynde any doubt. I will begin at your woordes, where you saied unto me, that in the warre, that is my arte, I had not indevoured to bryng it to any aunciente ende: whereupon I saie, as this beyng an arte, whereby men of no maner of age can live honestly, it cannot bee used for an arte, but of a common weale: or of a kyngdome: and the one and the other of these, when thei bee well ordeined, will never consente to any their Citezeins, or Subjectes, to use it for any arte, nor never any good manne doeth exercise it for his particulare arte: for as moche as good he shall never bee judged, whom maketh an excersise thereof, where purposing alwaies to gaine thereby, it is requisite for hym to be ravenyng, deceiptfull, violente, and to have many qualities, the whiche of necessitie maketh hym not good: nor those menne cannot, whiche use it for an arte, as well the greate as the leaste, bee made otherwise: for that this arte doeth not nourishe them in peace. Wherfore thei ar constrained either to thinke that there is no peace, or so moche to prevaile in the tyme of warre, that in peace thei maie bee able to kepe them selves: and neither of these two thoughtes happeneth in a good man: for that in mindyng to bee able to finde himself at all tymes, dooe growe robberies, violence, slaughters, whiche soche souldiours make as well to the frendes, as to the enemies: and in mindyng not to have peace, there groweth deceiptes, whiche the capitaines use to those, whiche hire them, to the entent the warre maie continue, and yet though the peace come often, it happeneth that the capitaines beyng deprived of their stipendes, and of their licencious livyng, thei erecte an ansigne of adventures, and without any pitie thei put to sacke a province. Have not you in memorie of your affaires, how that beyng many Souldiours in Italie without wages, bicause the warre was ended, thei assembled together many companies, and went taxyng the tounes, and sackyng the countrie, without beyng able to make any remedie? Have you not red, that the Carthagenes souldiours, the first warre beyng ended which thei had with the Romaines, under Matho, and Spendio, twoo capitaines, rebelliously constituted of theim, made more perillous warre to the Carthaginens, then thesame whiche thei had ended with the Romaines? In the time of our fathers, Frances Sforza, to the entente to bee able to live honourably in the time of peace, not only beguiled the Millenars, whose souldiour he was, but he toke from them their libertie and became their Prince. Like unto him hath been all the other souldiours of Italie whiche have used warfare, for their particulare arte, and albeeit thei have not through their malignitie becomen Dukes of Milein, so moche the more thei deserve to bee blamed: for that although thei have not gotten so moch as he, thei have all (if their lives wer seen) sought to bring the like thynges to passe. Sforza father of Fraunces, constrained Quene Jone, to caste her self into the armes of the king of Aragon, havyng in a sodain forsaken her, and in the middest of her enemies, lefte her disarmed, onely to satisfie his ambicion, either in taxyng her, or in takyng from her the Kyngdome. Braccio with the verie same industrie, sought to possesse the kyngdome of Naples, and if he had not been overthrowen and slaine at Aquila, he had brought it to passe. Like disorders growe not of other, then of soche men as hath been, that use the exercise of warfare, for their proper arte. Have not you a Proverbe, whiche fortefieth my reasons, whiche saieth, that warre maketh Theves, and peace hangeth theim up? For as moche as those, whiche knowe not how to live of other exercise, and in the same finding not enie man to sustayne theym, and havyng not so moche power, to knowe how to reduce theim selves together, to make an open rebellion, they are constrayned of necessetie to Robbe in the highe waies, and Justice is enforced to extinguishe theim. COSIMO. You have made me to esteme this arte of warfare almoste as nothyng, and I have supposed it the moste excellentes, and moste honourableste that hath been used: so that if you declare me it not better, I cannot remaine satisfied: For that when it is thesame, that you saie, I knowe not, whereof groweth the glorie of Cesar, of Pompei, of Scipio, of Marcello, and of so many Romaine Capitaines, whiche by fame are celebrated as Goddes. FABRICIO. I have not yet made an ende of disputyng al thesame, that I purposed to propounde: whiche were twoo thynges, the one, that a good manne could not use this exercise for his arte: the other, that a common weale or a kingdome well governed, did never permitte, that their Subjectes or Citezeins should use it for an arte. Aboute the firste, I have spoken as moche as hath comen into my mynde: there remaineth in me to speake of the seconde where I woll come to aunswere to this your laste question, and I saie that Pompey and Cesar, and almoste all those Capitaines, whiche were at Rome, after the laste Carthagenens warre, gotte fame as valiaunt men, not as good, and those whiche lived before them, gotte glorie as valiaunte and good menne: the whiche grewe, for that these tooke not the exercise of warre for their arte: and those whiche I named firste, as their arte did use it. And so longe as the common weale lived unspotted, never any noble Citezein would presume, by the meane of soche exercise, to availe thereby in peace, breakyng the lawes, spoilyng the Provinces, usurpyng, and plaiyng the Tyraunte in the countrie, and in every maner prevailyng: nor any of how lowe degree so ever thei were, would goe aboute to violate the Religion, confederatyng theim selves with private men, not to feare the Senate, or to followe any tirannicall insolence, for to bee able to live with the arte of warre in all tymes. But those whiche were Capitaines, contented with triumphe, with desire did tourne to their private life, and those whiche were membres, would be more willyng to laie awaie their weapons, then to take them, and every manne tourned to his science, whereby thei gotte their livyng: Nor there was never any, that would hope with praie, and with this arte, to be able to finde theim selves. Of this there maie be made concernyng Citezeins, moste evidente conjecture, by the ensample of Regolo Attillio, who beyng Capitain of the Romaine armies in Affrica, and havyng as it wer overcome the Carthegenens, he required of the Senate, licence to retourne home, to kepe his possessions, and told them, that thei were marde of his housbandmen. Whereby it is more clere then the Sunne, that if thesame manne had used the warre as his arte, and by meanes thereof, had purposed to have made it profitable unto him, havyng in praie so many Provinces, he would not have asked license, to returne to kepe his feldes: for as moche as every daie he might otherwise, have gotten moche more, then the value of al those possessions: but bicause these good men and soche as use not the warre for their arte, will not take of thesame any thing then labour, perilles, and gloris, when thei are sufficiently glorious, thei desire to returne home, and to live of their owne science. Concernyng menne of lowe degree, and common souldiours, to prove that thei kepte the verie same order, it doeth appeare that every one willingly absented theim selves from soche exercise, and when thei served not in the warre, thei would have desired to serve, and when thei did serve, thei would have desired leave not to have served: whiche is wel knowen through many insamples, and inespecially seeyng how emonge the firste privileges, whiche the Romaine people gave to their Citezeins was, that thei should not be constrained against their willes, to serve in the warres. Therefore Rome so long as it was well governed, whiche was untill the commyng of Graccus, it had not any Souldiour that would take this exercise for an arte, and therefore it had fewe naughtie, and those few wer severely punished. Then a citee well governed, ought to desire, that this studie of warre, be used in tyme of peace for exercise, and in the time of warre, for necessitie and for glorie: and to suffer onely the common weale to use it for an arte, as Rome did, and what so ever Citezein, that hath in soche exercise other ende, is not good, and what so ever citee is governed otherwise, is not well ordeined. COSIMO. I remain contented enough and satisfied of thesame, whiche hetherto you have told, and this conclusion pleaseth me verie wel whiche you have made, and as muche as is loked for touching a common welth, I beleve that it is true, but concerning Kinges, I can not tell nowe, for that I woulde beleve that a Kinge would have about him, whome particularly should take suche exercise for his arte. FABRICIO. A kingdome well ordred ought moste of all to avoide the like kinde of men, for only thei, are the destruction of their king, and all together ministers of tiranny, and alledge me not to the contrarie anie presente kingdome, for that I woll denie you all those to be kingdomes well ordered, bicause the kingdomes whiche have good orders, give not their absolute Empire unto their king, saving in the armies, for as much as in this place only, a quicke deliberation is necessarie, and for this cause a principall power ought to be made. In the other affaires, he ought not to doe any thing without councell, and those are to be feared, which councell him, leaste he have some aboute him which in time of peace desireth to have warre bicause they are not able without the same to live, but in this, I wilbe a little more large: neither to seke a kingdome altogether good, but like unto those whiche be nowe a daies where also of a king those ought to be feared, whiche take the warre for theire art, for that the strength of armies without any doubte are the foote menne: so that if a king take not order in suche wise, that his men in time of peace may be content to returne home, and to live of their owne trades, it will follow of necessitie, that he ruinate: for that there is not found more perilous men, then those, whiche make the warre as their arte: bicause in such case, a king is inforsed either alwaies to make warre, or to paie them alwaies, or else to bee in perill, that they take not from him his kingdome. To make warre alwaies, it is not possible: to paie them alwaies it can not be: see that of necessitie, he runneth in peril to lese the state. The Romaines (as I have saide) so long as they were wise and good, would never permitte, that their Citizeins should take this exercise for their arte, although they were able to nurrishe them therin alwaies, for that that alwaies they made warre: but to avoide thesame hurte, whiche this continuall exercise might doe them, seyng the time did not varie, they changed the men, and from time to time toke such order with their legions, that in xv. yeres alwaies, they renewed them: and so thei had their men in the floure of their age, that is from xviij. to xxxiij. yeres, in which time the legges, the handes, and the yes answere the one the other, nor thei tarried not till there strengthe should decaie, and there naghtines increase, as it did after in the corrupted times. For as muche as Octavian first, and after Tiberius, minding more their own proper power, then the publicke profite, began to unarme the Romaine people, to be able easely to commaunde them, and to kepe continually those same armies on the frontries of the Empire: and bicause also they judged those, not sufficient to kepe brideled the people and Romaine Senate, they ordeined an armie called Pretoriano, which laie harde by the walles of Rome, and was as a rocke on the backe of the same Citie. And for as much as then thei began frely to permitte, that suche men as were apoincted in suche exercises, should use the service of warre for their arte, streight waie the insolence of theim grewe, that they became fearful unto the Senate, and hurtefull to the Emperour, whereby ensued suche harme, that manie were slaine thorough there insolensie: for that they gave, and toke awaie the Empire, to whome they thought good. And some while it hapned, that in one self time there were manie Emperours, created of divers armies, of whiche thinges proceded first the devision of the Empire, and at laste the ruine of the same. Therefore kinges ought, if thei wil live safely, to have there souldiours made of men, who when it is time to make warre, willingly for his love will go to the same, and when the peace cometh after, more willingly will returne home. Whiche alwaies wilbe, when thei shalbe men that know how to live of other arte then this: and so they ought to desire, peace beyng come, that there Prince doo tourne to governe their people, the gentilmen to the tending of there possessions, and the common souldiours to their particular arte, and everie one of these, to make warre to have peace, and not to seke to trouble the peace, to have warre. COSIMO. Truely this reasonyng of yours, I thinke to bee well considered, notwithstanding beyng almost contrarie to that, whiche till nowe I have thought, my minde as yet doeth not reste purged of all doubte, for as muche as I see manie Lordes and gentelmen, to finde them selves in time of peace, thorough the studies of warre, as your matches bee, who have provision of there princes, and of the cominaltie. I see also, almost al the gentelmen of armes, remaine with neir provision, I see manie souldiours lie in garison of Cities and fortresses, so that my thinkes, that there is place in time of peace, for everie one. FABRICIO. I doe not beleve that you beleve this, that in time of peace everie man may have place, bicause, put case that there coulde not be brought other reason, the small number, that all they make, whiche remaine in the places alledged of you, would answer you. What proporcion have the souldiours, whiche are requiset to bee in the warre with those, whiche in the peace are occupied? For as much as the fortreses, and the cities that be warded in time of peace, in the warre are warded muche more, unto whome are joyned the souldiours, whiche kepe in the fielde, whiche are a great number, all whiche in the peace be putte awaie. And concerning the garde of states, whiche are a small number, Pope July, and you have shewed to everie man, how muche are to be feared those, who will not learne to exercise any other art, then the warre, and you have for there insolence, deprived them from your garde, and have placed therin Swisers, as men borne and brought up under lawes, and chosen of the cominaltie, according to the true election: so that saie no more, that in peace is place for everie man. Concerning men at armes, thei al remaining in peace with their wages, maketh this resolution to seme more difficulte: notwithstandyng who considereth well all, shall finde the answere easie, bicause this manner of keping men of armes, is a corrupted manner and not good, the occasion is, for that they be men, who make thereof an arte, and of them their should grow every daie a thousande inconveniencies in the states, where thei should be, if thei were accompanied of sufficient company: but beyng fewe, and not able by them selves to make an armie, they cannot often doe suche grevous hurtes, neverthelesse they have done oftentimes: as I have said of Frances, and of Sforza his father, and of Braccio of Perugia: so that this use of keping men of armes, I doe not alowe, for it is a corrupte maner, and it may make great inconveniencies. COSIMO. Woulde you live without them? or keping them, how would you kepe them? [Sidenote: A kinge that hath about him any that are to much lovers of warre, or to much lovers of peace shal cause him to erre.] FABRICIO. By waie of ordinaunce, not like to those of the king of Fraunce: for as muche as they be perilous, and insolent like unto ours, but I would kepe them like unto those of the auncient Romaines, whom created their chivalry of their own subjectes, and in peace time, thei sente them home unto their houses, to live of their owne trades, as more largely before this reasoning ende, I shal dispute. So that if now this part of an armie, can live in such exercise, as wel when it is peace, it groweth of the corrupt order. Concerning the provisions, which are reserved to me, and to other capitaines, I saie unto you, that this likewise is an order moste corrupted: for as much as a wise common weale, ought not to give such stipendes to any, but rather thei ought to use for Capitaines in the warre, their Citezeins, and in time of peace to will, that thei returne to their occupations. Likewise also, a wise king either ought not to give to suche, or giving any, the occasion ought to be either for rewarde of some worthy dede, or else for the desire to kepe suche a kinde of man, as well in peace as in warre. And bicause you alledged me, I will make ensample upon my self, and saie that I never used the warre as an arte, for as muche as my arte, is to governe my subjectes, and to defende them, and to be able to defende them, to love peace, and to know how to make warre, and my kinge not so muche to rewarde and esteeme me, for my knowledge in the warre, as for the knowledge that I have to councel him in peace. Then a king ought not to desire to have about him, any that is not of this condicion if he be wise, and prudently minde to governe: for that, that if he shal have about him either to muche lovers of peace, or to much lovers of warre, they shall make him to erre. I cannot in this my firste reasoning, and according to my purpose saie more, and when this suffiseth you not, it is mete, you seke of them that may satisfie you better. You maie now verie well understand, how difficulte it is to bringe in use the auncient maners in the presente warres, and what preparations are mete for a wise man to make, and what occasions ought to be loked for, to be able to execute it. But by and by, you shall know these things better, if this reasoning make you not werie, conferring what so ever partes of the auncient orders hath ben, to the maners nowe presente. COSIMO. If we desired at the first to here your reason of these thinges, truly thesame whiche hetherto you have spoken, hath doubled our desire: wherefore we thanke you for that we have hard, and the rest, we crave of you to here. FABRICIO. Seyng that it is so your pleasure, I will begin to intreate of this matter from the beginning, to the intent it maye be better understode, being able by thesame meane, more largely to declare it. The ende of him that wil make warre, is to be able to fight with every enemy in the fielde and to be able to overcum an armie. To purpose to doe this, it is convenient to ordeine an hoost. To ordein an hoost, their must be found menne, armed, ordered, and as well in the small, as in the great orders exercised, to knowe howe to kepe araie, and to incampe, so that after bringing them unto the enemie, either standing or marching, they maie know how to behave themselves valiantly. In this thing consisteth all the industrie of the warre on the lande, whiche is the most necessarie, and the most honorablest, for he that can wel order a fielde against the enemie, the other faultes that he should make in the affaires of warre, wilbe borne with: but he that lacketh this knowledge, although that in other particulars he be verie good, he shal never bring a warre to honor: for as muche as a fielde that thou winnest, lesing? img 94 doeth cancell all other thy evill actes: so like wise lesing it, all thinges well done of thee before, remaine vaine. Therfore, beyng necessarie first to finde the menne, it is requiset to come to the choise of them. They whiche unto the warre have given rule, will that the menne be chosen out of temperate countries, to the intente they may have hardines, and prudence, for as muche as the hote countrey, bredes prudente men and not hardy, the colde, hardy, and not prudente. This rule is good to be geven, to one that were prince of all the world, bicause it is lawfull for him to choose men out of those places, whiche he shall thinke beste. But minding to give a rule, that every one may use, it is mete to declare, that everie common weale, and every kingdome, ought to choose their souldiours out of their owne countrie, whether it be hote, colde, or temperate: for that it is scene by olde ensamples, how that in every countrie with exercise, their is made good souldiours: bicause where nature lacketh, the industry supplieth, the which in this case is worthe more, then nature, and taking them in other places, you shal not have of the choise, for choise is as much to saie, as the best of a province, and to have power to chuse those that will not, as well as those that wil serve. Wherfore, you muste take your choise in those places, that are subjecte unto you, for that you cannot take whome you liste, in the countries that are not yours, but you muste take suche as will goe with you. COSIMO. Yet there maie bee of those, that will come, taken and lefte, and therefore, thei maie be called chosen. [Sidenote: Oute of what Countrie is best to chuse Souldiours to make a good election.] FABUICIO. You saie the truthe in a certaine maner, but consider the faultes, whiche soche a chosen manne hath in himselfe, for that also many times it hapneth, that he is not a chosen manne. For those that are not thy subjectes, and whiche willyngly doe serve, are not of the beste, but rather of the worste of a Province, for as moche as if any be sclanderous, idell, unruly, without Religion, fugetive from the rule of their fathers, blasphemours, Dise plaiers, in every condicion evill brought up, bee those, whiche will serve, whose customes cannot be more contrarie, to a true and good servise: Albeit, when there bee offered unto you, so many of soche men, as come to above the nomber, that you have appoincted, you maie chuse them: but the matter beyng naught, the choise is not possible to be good: also, many times it chaunceth, that thei be not so many, as will make up the nomber, whereof you have nede, so that beyng constrained to take them al, it commeth to passe, that thei cannot then bee called chosen men, but hired Souldiours. With this disorder the armies of Italie, are made now a daies, and in other places, except in Almaine, bicause there thei doe not hire any by commaundemente of the Prince, but accordyng to the will of them, that are disposed to serve. Then consider now, what maners of those aunciente armies, maie bee brought into an armie of men, put together by like waies. COSIMO. What waie ought to bee used then? FABRICIO. The same waie that I saied, to chuse them of their owne subjectes, and with the auethoritie of the Prince. COSMO. In the chosen, shall there bee likewise brought in any auncient facion? FABRICIO. You know well enough that ye: when he that should commaunde theim, were their Prince, or ordinarie lorde, whether he were made chief, or as a Citezein, and for the same tyme Capitaine, beyng a common weale, otherwise it is harde to make any thyng good. COSIMO. Why? FABRICIO. I will tell you a nane: For this time I will that this suffise you, that it cannot be wrought well by other waie. [Sidenote: Whether it be better to take menne oute of townes or out of the countrie to serve.] COSIMO. Having then to make this choyse of men in their owne countries, whether judge you that it be better to take them oute of the citie, or out of the countrie? FABRICIO. Those that have written of such matters, doe all agree, that it is best to chuse them out of the countrie, being men accustomed to no ease, nurished in labours, used to stonde in the sunne, to flie the shadow, knowing how to occupy the spade, to make a diche, to carrie a burden, and to bee without any deceite, and without malisiousnes. But in this parte my opinion should be, that beyng two sortes of souldiours, on foote, and on horsebacke, that those on foote, should be chosen out of the countrie, and those on horseback, oute of the Cities. [Sidenote: Of what age Souldiours ought to bee chosen.] COSIMO. Of what age would you choose them? FABRICIO. I would take them, when I had to make a newe armie, from xvii. to xl. yeres: when it were made alredy, and I had to restore them, of xvii. alwaies. COSIMO. I doe not understonde well this distinction. FABRICIO. I shall tell you: when I should ordaine an hooste to make warre, where were no hooste alredy, it should be necessarie to chuse all those men, which were most fitte and apte for the warre, so that they were of servisable age, that I might bee able to instructe theim, as by me shalbe declared: but when I would make my choise of menne in places, where a powre were alredy prepared, for suppliyng of thesame, I would take them of xvii. yeres: for as much as the other of more age be alredy chosen and apoincted. COSIMO. Then woulde you prepare a power like to those whiche is in our countrie? FABRICIO. Ye truly, it is so that I would arme them, Captaine them, exercise and order them in a maner, whiche I cannot tell, if you have ordred them so. COSIMO. Then do you praise the keping of order? FABRICIO. Wherefore would you that I should dispraise it? COSIMO. Bicause many wise menne have alwaies blamed it. FABRICIO. You speake against all reason, to saie that a wise man blameth order, he maie bee well thought wise, and be nothyng so. COSIMO. The naughtie profe, which it hath alwaies, maketh us to have soche opinion thereof. FABRICIO. Take hede it be not your fault, and not the kepyng of order, the whiche you shall knowe, before this reasonyng be ended. COSIMO. You shall doe a thyng moste thankfull, yet I will saie concernyng thesame, that thei accuse it, to the entente you maie the better justifie it. Thei saie thus, either it is unprofitable, and we trustyng on the same, shall make us to lese our state, or it shall be verteous, and by thesame meane, he that governeth may easely deprive us thereof. Thei alledge the Romaines, who by meane of their owne powers, loste their libertie. Thei alledge the Venicians, and the Frenche king, whiche Venicians, bicause thei will not be constrained, to obeie one of their owne Citezeins, use the power of straungers: and the Frenche kyng hath disarmed his people, to be able more easely to commaunde them, but thei whiche like not the ordinaunces, feare moche more the unprofitablenesse, that thei suppose maie insue thereby, then any thyng els: the one cause whiche thei allege is, bicause thei are unexperte: The other, for that thei have to serve par force: for asmoche as thei saie, that the aged bee not so dissiplinable, nor apte to learne the feate of armes, and that by force, is doen never any thyng good. [Sidenote: By what meanes souldiours bee made bolde and experte.] FABRICIO. All these reasons that you have rehearsed, be of men, whiche knoweth the thyng full little, as I shall plainly declare. And firste, concernyng the unprofitablenesse, I tell you, that there is no service used in any countrie more profitable, then the service by the Subjectes of thesame nor thesame service cannot bee prepared, but in this maner: and for that this nedeth not to be disputed of, I will not lese moche tyme: bicause al thensamples of auncient histores, make for my purpose, and for that thei alledge the lacke of experience, and to use constraint: I saie how it is true, that the lacke of experience, causeth lacke of courage, and constrainte, maketh evill contentacion: but courage, and experience thei are made to gette, with the maner of armyng theim, exercisyng, and orderyng theim, as in proceadyng of this reasonyng, you shall heare. But concernyng constrainte, you ought to understande, that the menne, whiche are conducted to warfare, by commaundement of their Prince, thei ought to come, neither altogether forced, nor altogether willyngly, for as moche as to moche willyngnesse, would make thinconveniencies, where I told afore, that he should not be a chosen manne, and those would be fewe that would go: and so to moche constraint, will bring forth naughtie effectes. Therefore, a meane ought to be taken, where is not all constrainte, nor all willingnesse: but beyng drawen of a respecte, that thei have towardes their Prince, where thei feare more the displeasure of thesame, then the presente paine: and alwaies it shall happen to be a constrainte, in maner mingled with willingnesse, that there cannot growe soche evil contentacion, that it make evill effectes. Yet I saie not for all this, that it cannot bee overcome, for that full many tymes, were overcome the Romaine armies, and the armie of Aniball was overcome, so that it is seen, that an armie cannot be ordained so sure, that it cannot be overthrowen. Therefore, these your wise men, ought not to measure this unprofitablenesse, for havyng loste ones, but to beleve, that like as thei lese, so thei maie winne, and remeadie the occasion of the losse: and when thei shall seke this thei shall finde, that it hath not been through faulte of the waie, but of the order, whiche had not his perfeccion and as I have saied, thei ought to provide, not with blamyng the order, but with redressing it, the whiche how it ought to be doen, you shall understande, from poinct to poinct. Concernyng the doubte, leste soche ordinaunces, take not from thee thy state, by meane of one, whiche is made hedde therof, I answere, that the armure on the backes of citezeins, or subjectes, given by the disposicion of order and lawe, did never harme, but rather alwaies it doeth good, and mainteineth the citee, moche lenger in suretie, through helpe of this armure, then without. Rome continued free CCCC. yeres, and was armed. Sparta viii.C. Many other citees have been disarmed, and have remained free, lesse then xl. For as moche as citees have nede of defence, and when thei have no defence of their owne, thei hire straungers, and the straunges defence, shall hurte moche soner the common weale, then their owne: bicause thei be moche easier to be corrupted, and a citezein that becommeth mightie, maie moche soner usurpe, and more easely bryng his purpose to passe, where the people bee disarmed, that he seketh to oppresse: besides this, a citee ought to feare a greate deale more, twoo enemies then one. Thesame citee that useth straungers power, feareth at one instant the straunger, whiche it hireth, and the Citezein: and whether this feare ought to be, remember thesame, whiche I rehearsed a little a fore of Frances Sforza. That citee, whiche useth her own proper power, feareth no man, other then onely her owne Citezein. But for all the reasons that maie bee saied, this shall serve me, that never any ordeined any common weale, or Kyngdome, that would not thinke, that thei theim selves, that inhabite thesame, should with their sweardes defende it. And if the Venicians had been so wise in this, as in all their other orders, thei should have made a new Monarchie in the world, whom so moche the more deserve blame, havyng been armed of their first giver of lawes: for havyng no dominion on the lande, thei wer armed on the sea, where thei made their warre vertuously, and with weapons in their handes, increased their countrie. But when thei were driven to make warre on the lande, to defende Vicenza, where thei ought to have sent one of their citezens, to have fought on the lande, thei hired for their capitain, the Marques of Mantua: this was thesame foolishe acte, whiche cut of their legges, from climyng into heaven, and from enlargyng their dominion: and if thei did it, bicause thei beleved that as thei knewe, how to make warre on the Sea, so thei mistrusted theim selves, to make it on the lande, it was a mistruste not wise: for as moche as more easely, a capitain of the sea, whiche is used to fight with the windes, with the water, and with men, shall become a Capitaine of the lande, where he shall fight with men onely, then a capitaine of the lande, to become a capitain of the sea. The Romanies knowyng how to fight on the lande, and on the sea, commyng to warre, with the Carthaginens, whiche were mightie on the sea, hired not Grekes, or Spaniardes, accustomed to the sea, but thei committed thesame care, to their Citezeins, whiche thei sent on the land, and thei overcame. If thei did it, for that one of their citezeins should not become a tiraunt, it was a feare smally considered: for that besides thesame reasons, whiche to this purpose, a little afore I have rehearsed, if a Citezein with the powers on the sea, was never made a tiraunt in a citee standyng in the sea, so moche the lesse he should have been able to accomplishe this with the powers of the lande: whereby thei ought to se that the weapons in the handes of their Citezeins, could not make tirantes: but the naughtie orders of the governement, whiche maketh tirannie in a citee, and thei havyng good governement, thei nede not to feare their owne weapons: thei toke therefore an unwise waie, the whiche hath been occasion, to take from them moche glorie, and moche felicitie. Concernyng the erroure, whiche the kyng of Fraunce committeth not kepyng instructed his people in the warre, the whiche those your wise men alledge for ensample, there is no man, (his particulare passions laied a side) that doeth not judge this fault, to be in thesame kyngdome, and this negligence onely to make hym weake. But I have made to greate a digression, and peradventure am come out of my purpose, albeit I have doen it to aunswere you, and to shewe you, that in no countrie, there can bee made sure foundacion, for defence in other powers but of their owne subjectes: and their own power, cannot be prepared otherwise, then by waie of an ordinaunce, nor by other waie, to induce the facion of an armie in any place, nor by other meane to ordein an instruction of warfare. If you have red the orders, whiche those first kynges made in Rome, and inespecially Servio Tullo, you shall finde that the orders of the Classi is no other, then an ordinaunce, to bee able at a sodaine, to bryng together an armie, for defence of thesame citee. But let us retourne to our choise, I saie againe, that havyng to renewe an olde order, I would take them of xvii. havyng to make a newe armie, I would take them of all ages, betwene xvii. and xl. to be able to warre straight waie. [Sidenote: Of what science soldiours ought to bee chosen.] COSIMO. Would you make any difference, of what science you would chuse them? FABRICIO. The aucthours, which have written of the arte of warre, make difference, for that thei will not, that there bee taken Foulers, Fishers, Cookes, baudes, nor none that use any science of voluptuousnesse. But thei will, that there bee taken Plowmen, Ferrars, Smithes, Carpenters, Buchars, Hunters, and soche like: but I would make little difference, through conjecture of the science, concernyng the goodnesse of the man, notwithstandyng, in as moche as to be able with more profite to use theim, I would make difference, and for this cause, the countrie men, which are used to till the grounde, are more profitable then any other. Next to whom be Smithes, Carpentars, Ferrars, Masons, wherof it is profitable to have enough: for that their occupacions, serve well in many thynges: beyng a thyng verie good to have a souldiour, of whom maie be had double servise. [Sidenote: Howe to chose a souldiour.] COSIMO. Wherby doe thei knowe those, that be, or are not sufficient to serve. FABRICIO. I will speake of the maner of chusing a new ordinaunce, to make an armie after, for that parte of this matter, doeth come also to be reasoned of, in the election, which should be made for the replenishing, or restoring of an old ordinaunce. I saie therfore, that the goodnesse of one, whiche thou muste chuse for a Souldiour, is knowen either by experience, thorough meane of some of his worthy doynges, or by conjecture. The proofe of vertue, cannot be founde in men whiche are chosen of newe, and whiche never afore have ben chosen, and of these are founde either fewe or none, in the ordinaunce that of newe is ordeined. It is necessarie therefore, lackyng this experience, to runne to the conjecture, whiche is taken by the yeres, by the occupacion, and by the personage: of those two first, hath been reasoned, there remaineth to speake of the thirde. And therefore, I saie how some have willed, that the souldiour bee greate, emongest whom was Pirrus. Some other have chosen theim onely, by the lustinesse of the body, as Cesar did: whiche lustinesse of bodie and mynde, is conjectured by the composicion of the members, and of the grace of the countenaunce: and therefore, these that write saie, that thei would have the iyes lively and cherefull, the necke full of sinowes, the breaste large, the armes full of musculles, the fingers long, little beallie, the flankes rounde, the legges and feete drie: whiche partes are wont alwayes to make a manne nimble and strong, whiche are twoo thynges, that in a souldiour are sought above al other. Regarde ought to bee had above all thynges, to his customes, and that in hym bee honestie, and shame: otherwise, there shall bee chosen an instrumente of mischief, and a beginnyng of corrupcion: for that lette no manne beleve that in the dishoneste educacion, and filthy minde, there maie take any vertue, whiche is in any parte laudable. And I thinke it not superfluous, but rather I beleve it to bee necessarie, to the entente you maie the better understande, the importaunce of this chosen, to tell you the maner that the Romaine Consuls, in the beginnyng of their rule, observed in the chosing of their Romain legions: in the whiche choise of men, bicause thesame legions were mingled with old souldiours and newe, consideryng the continuall warre thei kepte, thei might in their choise procede, with the experince of the old, and with the conjecture of the newe: and this ought to be noted, that these men be chosen, either to serve incontinently, or to exercise theim incontinently, and after to serve when nede should require. But my intencion is to shew you, how an armie maie be prepared in the countrie, where there is no warlike discipline: in which countrie, chosen men cannot be had, to use them straight waie, but there, where the custome is to levie armies, and by meane of the Prince, thei maie then well bee had, as the Romaines observed, and as is observed at this daie emong the Suisers: bicause in these chosen, though there be many newe menne, there be also so many of the other olde Souldiours, accustomed to serve in the warlike orders, where the newe mingled together with the olde, make a bodie united and good, notwithstanding, that themperours after, beginning the staciones of ordinarie Souldiours, had appoincted over the newe souldiours, whiche were called tironi, a maister to exercise theim, as appeareth in the life of Massimo the Emperour. The whiche thyng, while Rome was free, not onely in the armies, but in the citee was ordeined: and the exercises of warre, beyng accustomed in thesame, where the yong men did exercise, there grewe, that beyng chosen after to goe into warre, thei were so used in the fained exercise of warfare, that thei could easely worke in the true: but those Emperours havyng after put doune these exercises, thei wer constrained to use the waies, that I have shewed you. Therefore, comyng to the maner of the chosen Romain, I saie that after the Romain Consulles (to whom was appoincted the charge of the warre) had taken the rule, myndyng to ordeine their armies, for that it was the custome, that either of them should have twoo Legions of Romaine menne, whiche was the strength of their armies, thei created xxiiii. Tribunes of warre, and thei appoincted sixe for every Legion, whom did thesame office, whiche those doe now a daies, that we call Conestables: thei made after to come together, all the Romain men apte to beare weapons and thei put the Tribunes of every Legion, seperate the one from the other. Afterwarde, by lot thei drewe the Tribes, of whiche thei had firste to make the chosen, and of thesame Tribe thei chose fower of the best, of whiche was chosen one of the Tribunes, of the first Legion, and of the other three was chosen, one of the Tribunes of the second Legion, of the other two there was chosen one of the Tribunes of the third, and the same last fell to the fowerth Legion. After these iiij, thei chose other fower, of which, first one was chosen of the Tribunes of the seconde Legion, the seconde of those of the thirde, the thirde of those of the fowerth, the fowerth remained to the first. After, thei chose other fower, the first chose the thirde, the second the fowerth, the thirde the fiveth, the fowerth remained to the seconde: and thus thei varied successively, this maner of chosyng, so that the election came to be equall, and the Legions wer gathered together: and as afore we saied, this choise might bee made to use straighte waie, for that thei made them of men, of whom a good parte were experiensed in the verie warfare in deede, and all in the fained exercised, and thei might make this choise by conjecture, and by experience. But where a power must be ordeined of newe, and for this to chuse them out of hande, this chosen cannot be made, saving by conjecture, whiche is taken by consideryng their ages and their likelinesse. COSIMO. I beleve all to be true, as moche as of you hath been spoken: but before that you procede to other reasonyng, I woll aske of you one thing, which you have made me to remember: saiyng that the chosen, that is to be made where men were not used to warre, ought to be made by conjecture: for asmoche as I have heard some men, in many places dispraise our ordinaunce, and in especially concernyng the nomber, for that many saie, that there ought to bee taken lesse nomber, whereof is gotten this profite, that thei shall be better and better chosen, and men shal not be so moche diseased, so that there maie bee given them some rewarde, whereby thei maie bee more contented, and better bee commaunded, whereof I would understande in this parte your opinion, and whether you love better the greate nomber, than the little, and what waie you would take to chuse theim in the one, and in the other nomber. FABRICIO. Without doubte it is better, and more necessary, the great nomber, then the little: but to speake more plainly, where there cannot be ordeined a great nomber of men, there cannot be ordeined a perfect ordinaunce: and I will easely confute all the reasons of them propounded. I saie therefore firste, that the lesse nomber where is many people, as is for ensample Tuscane, maketh not that you have better, nor that the chosen be more excellent, for that myndyng in chosing the menne, to judge them by experience, there shall be founde in thesame countrie moste fewe, whom experience should make provable, bothe for that fewe hath been in warre, as also for that of those, mooste fewe have made triall, whereby thei might deserve to bee chosen before the other: so that he whiche ought in like places to chuse, it is mete he leave a parte the experience, and take them by conjecture. Then being brought likewise into soche necessitie, I would understande, if there come before me twentie young men of good stature, with what rule I ought to take, or to leave any: where without doubte, I beleve that every man will confesse, how it is lesse errour to take them al, to arme theim and exercise theim, beyng not able to knowe, whiche of theim is beste, and to reserve to make after more certaine chosen, when in practisyng theim with exercise, there shall be knowen those of moste spirite, and of moste life: which considered, the chusing in this case a fewe, to have them better, is altogether naught. Concernyng diseasing lesse the countrie, and men, I saie that the ordinaunce, either evill or little that it bee, causeth not any disease, for that this order doeth not take menne from any of their businesse, it bindeth them not, that thei cannot go to doe any of their affaires: for that it bindeth them onely in the idell daies, to assemble together, to exercise them, the whiche thyng doeth not hurt, neither to the countrie, nor to the men, but rather to yong men it shall bryng delite: For that where vilie on the holy daies thei stande idell in tipplyng houses, thei will go for pleasure to those exercises, for that the handlyng of weapons, as it is a goodly spectacle, so unto yong men it is pleasaunt. Concernyng to bee able to paie the lesse nomber, and for this to kepe theim more obediente, and more contented, I answere, how there cannot be made an ordinaunce of so fewe, whiche maie be in maner continually paied, where thesame paiment of theirs maie satisfie them. As for ensample, if there were ordeined a power of v. thousande men, for to paie them after soche sorte, that it might be thought sufficient, to content them, it shal bee convenient to give theim at least, ten thousaunde crounes the moneth: first, this nomber of men are not able to make an armie, this paie is intolerable to a state, and of the other side, it is not sufficiente to kepe men contented, and bounde to be able to serve at al times: so that in doyng this, there shall be spent moche, and a small power kept, whiche shall not be sufficient to defend thee, or to doe any enterprise of thine. If thou shouldest give theim more, or shouldest take more, so moche more impossibilitie it should be, for thee to paie theim: if thou shouldest give them lesse, or should take lesse, so moche the lesse contentacion should be in them, or so moche the lesse profite thei shal bring thee. Therfore, those that reason of makyng an ordinaunce, and whilest thei tary at home to paie them, thei reason of a thing either impossible, or unprofitable, but it is necessarie to paie them, when thei are taken up to be led to the warre: albeit, though soche order should somewhat disease those, in time of peace, that are appoincted in thesame, which I se not how, there is for recompence all those benefites, whiche a power brynges, that is ordeined in a countrie: for that without thesame, there is nothyng sure. I conclude, that he that will have the little nomber, to be able to paie them, or for any of the other causes alledged of you, doeth not understande, for that also it maketh for my opinion, that every nomber shall deminishe in thy handes, through infinite impedimentes, whiche men have: so that the little nomber shall tourne to nothing: again havyng thordinaunce greate, thou maiest at thy pleasure use fewe of many, besides this, it must serve thee in deede, and in reputacion and alwaies the great nomber shall give thee moste reputacion. More over, makyng the ordinaunce to kepe menne exercised, if thou appoincte a fewe nomber of men in many countries, the handes of men bee so farre a sonder, the one from the other, that thou canst not without their moste grevous losse, gather them together to exercise them, and without this exercise, the ordinaunce is unprofitable, as hereafter shall be declared. COSIMO. It suffiseth upon this my demaunde, that whiche you have saied: but I desire now, that you declare me an other doubt. Thei saie, that soche a multitude of armed men, will make confusion, discension and disorder in the countrie where thei are. [Sidenote: How to provid againste soche inconveniences as souldiours maie cause.] FABRICIO. This is an other vaine opinion, the cause wherof, I shall tell you: soche as are ordeined to serve in the warres, maie cause disorder in twoo maners, either betwene them selves, or against other, whiche thinges moste easely maie be withstode, where the order of it self, should not withstande it: for that concernyng the discorde emong theim selves, this order taketh it waie, and doeth not nourishe it, for that in orderyng them, you give them armour and capitaines. If the countrie where you ordein them, bee so unapte for the warre, that there are not armours emong the men of thesame, and that thei bee so united, that thei have no heddes, this order maketh theim moche fearser against the straunger, but it maketh them not any thyng the more disunited, for that men well ordered, feare the lawe beyng armed, as well as unarmed, nor thei can never alter, if the capitaines, which you give them, cause not the alteracion, and the waie to make this, shall be tolde now: but if the countrie where you ordein them, be warlike and disunited, this order onely shal be occasion to unite them: bicause this order giveth them armours profitable for the warre, and heddes, extinguishers of discencion: where their owne armours bee unprofitable for the warres, and their heddes nourishers of discorde. For that so sone as any in thesame countrie is offended, he resorteth by and by to his capitain to make complaint, who for to maintain his reputacion, comforteth hym to revengement not to peace. To the contrary doeth the publike hed, so that by this meanes, thoccasion of discorde is taken awaie, and the occasion of union is prepared, and the provinces united and effeminated, gette utilitie, and maintain union: the disunited and discencious, doe agree, and thesame their fearsnesse, which is wont disordinately to worke, is tourned into publike utilitie. To minde to have them, to doe no hurt against other, it ought to bee considered, that thei cannot dooe this, except by meane of the heddes, whiche governe them. To will that the heddes make no disorder, it is necessarie to have care, that thei get not over them to much auctoritie. And you must consider that this auctoritie, is gotten either by nature, or by accidente: and as to nature, it behoveth to provide, that he which is boren in one place, be not apoincted to the men billed in the same, but be made hedde of those places, where he hath not any naturall aquaintance: and as to the accident, the thing ought to be ordeined in suche maner, that every yere the heddes maie be changed from governement to goverment: for as muche as the continuall auctoritie over one sorte of menne, breedeth among them so muche union, that it maie turne easely to the prejudice of the Prince: whiche permutations howe profitable they be to those who have used theim, and hurtefull to them that have not observed theim, it is well knowen by the kingdome of the Assirians, and by the Empire of the Romaines: where is seene, that the same kingdome indured a M. yeres without tumulte, and without any Civill warre: whiche preceded not of other, then of the permutations, whiche from place to place everie yere thesame Capitaines made, unto whome were apoincted the charge of the Armies. Nor for any other occasion in the Romaine Empire, after the bloud of Cesar was extinguished, there grewe so many civill warres, betwene the Capitaines of the hostes, and so many conspiracies of the forsaied capitaines against the Emperours, not onely kepyng continually still those capitaines alwayes in one governement. And if in some of those firste Emperoures, of those after, whom helde the Empire with reputacion, as Adriane, Marcus, Severus, and soche like, there had been so moche foresight, that thei had brought this custome of chaungyng the capitaines in thesame Empire, without doubte it should have made theim more quiete, and more durable: For that the Capitaines should have had lesse occasion to make tumultes, the Emperours lesse cause to feare, and the senate in the lackes of the successions, should have had in the election of the Emperour, more aucthoritie, and by consequence should have been better: but the naughtie custome, either for ignoraunce, or through the little diligence of menne, neither for the wicked, nor good ensamples, can be taken awaie. COSIMO. I cannot tell, if with my questionyng, I have as it were led you out of your order, bicause from the chusyng of men, we be entred into an other matter, and if I had not been a little before excused, I should thinke to deserve some reprehension. [Sidenote: The nomber of horsemen, that the Romanies chose for a Legion, and for a Consailes armie.] FABRICIO. Let not this disquiete you, for that all this reasonyng was necessary, myndyng to reason of the ordinaunce, the which beyng blamed of many, it was requsite to excuse it, willyng to have this first parte of chusyng men to be alowed. But now before I discend to the other partes, I will reason of the choise of men on horsebacke. Of the antiquitie, these were made of the moste richeste, havyng regard bothe to the yeres, and to the qualitie of the man, and thei chose CCC. for a Legion, so that the Romain horse, in every Consulles armie, passed not the nomber of vi. C. COSIMO. Would you make an ordinaunce of hors, to exercise them at home, and to use their service when nede requires? [Sidenote: The choosing and ordering of horsemen, that is to be observed at this present.] FABRICIO. It is most necessary, and it cannot be doen otherwise, minding to have the power, that it be the owne proper, and not to purpose to take of those, which make thereof an art. COSIMO. How would you choose them? FABRICIO. I would imitate the Romans, I would take of the richest, I would give them heads or chief Captains, in the same manner, as nowadays to other is given, and I would arm them and exercise them. COSIMO. To these should it be well to give some provision? FABRICIO. Yea marie, but so much only as is necessary to keep the horse, for as much as bringing to thy subjects expenses, they might justly complain of thee, therefore it should be necessary, to pay them their charges of their horse. COSIMO. What number would you make? and how would you arme them? FABRICIO. You pass into another matter. I will tell you in convenient place, which shall be when I have told you, how footmen ought to be armed, and how a power of men is prepared, for a day of battle. THE SECOND BOOKE [Sidenote: Howe the Romaines armed their souldiers and what weapons thei used.] I beleeve that it is necessarye, men being founde, to arme them, and minding to doo this, I suppose that it is a needefull thing to examine, what armoure the antiquitie used, and of the same to chose the best. The Romanes devided their foote men in heavie and lighte armed: Those that were light armed, they called by the name of Veliti: Under this name were understoode all those that threwe with Slinges, shot with Crossebowes, cast Dartes, and they used the most parte of them for their defence, to weare on their heade a Murion, with a Targaet on their arme: they fought out of the orders, and farre of from the heavie armed, which did weare a head peece, that came downe to their shoulders, a Corselet, which with the tases came downe to the knees, and they had the legges and armes, covered with greaves, and vambraces, with a targaet on the left arme, a yarde and a halfe long, and three quarters of a yarde brode, whiche had a hoope of Iron upon it, to bee able to sustaine a blowe, and an other under, to the intente, that it being driven to the earth, it should not breake: for to offende, they had girte on their left flanke a swoorde, the length of a yearde and a naile, on their righte side, a Dagger: they had a darte in every one of their handes, the which they called Pilo, and in the beginning of the fight, they threwe those at the enemie. This was the ordering, and importaunce of the armours of the Romanes, by the which they possessed all the world. And although some of these ancient writers gave them, besides the foresayde weapons, a staffe in their hande like unto a Partasen, I cannot tell howe a heavy staff, may of him that holdeth a Targaet be occupied: for that to handle it with both hands, the Targaet should bee an impediment, and to occupye the same with one hande, there can be done no good therewith, by reason of the weightynesse thereof: besides this, to faight in the strong, and in the orders with such long kinde of weapon, it is unprofitable, except in the first front, where they have space enough, to thrust out all the staffe, which in the orders within, cannot be done, for that the nature of the battaile (as in the order of the same, I shall tell you) is continually to throng together, which although it be an inconvenience, yet in so doing they fear lesse, then to stande wide, where the perill is most evident, so that all the weapons, which passe in length a yarde and a halfe, in the throng, be unprofitable: for that, if a man have the Partasen, and will occupye it with both handes, put case that the Targaet let him not, he can not hurte with the same an enemy, whom is upon him, if he take it with one hande, to the intent to occupy also the Targaet, being not able to take it, but in the middest, there remayneth so much of the staff behind, that those which are behinde him, shall let him to welde it. And whether it were true, either that the Romans had not this Partasen, or that having it, did little good withal, read all the battailes, in the historye thereof, celebrated of Titus Livius, and you shall see in the same, most seldom times made mencion of Partasens, but rather alwaies he saieth, that the Dartes being thrown, they laid their hands on their sweardes. Therefore I will leave this staffe, and observe, concerning the Romanes, the swoorde for to hurte, and for defense the Targaet, with the other armours aforesaide. [Sidenote: A brave and a terrible thing to the enemies.] The Greekes did not arme them selves so heavyly, for their defense, as the Romans dyd: but for to offend the enemies, they grounded more on their staves, then on their swoordes, and in especiallye the Fallangye of Macedonia, which used staves, that they called Sarisse, seven yardes and a halfe long, with the which they opened the rankes of their enemies, and they keept the orders in their Fallangy. And although some writers saie, that they had also the Targaet, I can not tell (by the reasons aforesayde) howe the Sarisse and they coulde stande together. Besides this, in the battaile that Paulus Emilius made, with Persa king of Macedonia, I do not remember, that there is made any mention of Targaettes, but only of the Sarisse, and of the difficultie that the Romane armie had, to overcome them: so that I conjecture, that a Macedonicall Fallange, was no other wise, then is now a dayes a battaile of Suizzers, the whiche in their Pikes have all their force, and all their power. The Romanes did garnish (besides the armours) the footemen with feathers; the whiche thinges makes the fight of an armie to the friendes goodly, to the enemies terrible. The armour of the horsemen, in the same first Romane antiquitie, was a rounde Targaet, and they had their head armed, and the rest unarmed: They had a swoorde and a staffe, with an Iron head onely before, long and small: whereby it happened, that they were not able to staye the Targaet, and the staffe in the incountring broke, and they through being unarmed, were subjecte to hurtes: after, in processe of time, they armed them as the footemen, albeit they used the Targaette muche shorter, square, and the staffe more stiffe, and with twoo heades, to the entente, that breaking one of the heades, they mighte prevaile with the other. With these armours as well on foote, as on horsebacke, the Romanes conquered all the worlde, and it is to be beleeved, by the fruiet thereof, whiche is seene, that they were the beste appointed armies, that ever were: and Titus Livius in his history, doeth testifie verye often, where comming to comparison with the enemies armies, he saieth: But the Romanes, by vertue, by the kinde of their armours, and piactise in the service of warre, were superiours: and therfore I have more particularly reasoned of the armours of conquerours, then of the conquered. But nowe mee thikes good, to reason onelye of the manner of arming men at this presente. Footemen have for their defence, a breast plate, and for to offende, a launce, sixe yardes and three quarters long, which is called a pike, with a swoorde on their side, rather rounde at the poinct, then sharpe. This is the ordinarie arming of footemen nowe a dayes, for that fewe there be, which have their legges armed, and their armes, the heade none, and those fewe, beare insteede of a Pike, a Halberde, the staffe whereof as you know, is twoo yardes and a quarter long, and it hath the Iron made like an axe. Betweene them, they have Harkebutters, the which with the violence of the fire, do the same office, which in olde time the slingers did, and the Crosseboweshoters. This maner of arming, was found out by the Dutchemen, inespeciallye of Suizzers, whom being poore, and desirous to live free, they were, and be constrayned to fight, with the ambition of the Princes of Almaine, who being riche, were able to keepe horse, the which the same people could not do for povertye. Wherby it grewe, that being on foote, minding to defende them selves from the enemies, that were on horsebacke, it behooveth them to seeke of the aunciente orders, and to finde weapons, whiche from the furie of horses, should defende them: This necessitie hath made either to be maintayned, or to bee founde of them the aunciente orders, without whiche, as everye prudente man affirmeth, the footemen is altogether unprofitable. Therefore, they tooke for their weapon the Pike, a moste profitable weapon, not only to withstande horses, but to overcome them: and the Dutchemen have by vertue of these weapons, and of these orders, taken such boldnesse, that XV. or XX. thousande of them, will assault the greatest nomber of horse that maye be: and of this, there hath beene experience enough within this XXV. yeres. And the insamples of their vertue hath bene so mightie, grounded upon these weapons, and these orders, that sence King Charles passed into Italie, everye nation hath imitated them: so that the Spanish armies, are become into most great reputation. COSIMO. Which maner of arming, do you praise moste, either these Dutchemens, or the auncient Romanes? [Sidenote: Whether the Romanes maner in arming of men, be better then the arming of men, that is used nowe a daies.] FABRICIO. The Romane without doubte, and I will tell the commoditie, and the discommoditie of the one, and the other. The Dutche footemen, are able to withstande, and overcome the horses: they bee moste speedie to marche, and to be set in araye, being not laden with armours: of the other part, they be subjecte to all blowes, both farre of, and at hande: because they be unarmed, they bee unprofitable unto the battaile on the lande, and to everye fighte, where is strong resistaunce. But the Romanes withstoode, and overcame the horses, as well as the Dutchemen, they were safe from blowes at hande, and farre of, being covered with armours: they were also better able to charge, and better able to sustaine charges, having Targaettes: they might more aptly in the preace fight with the swoorde, then these with the Pike, and though the Dutchemen have likewise swoordes, yet being without Targaets, they become in suche case unprofitable: The Romanes might safelye assault townes, having their bodies cleane covered with armour, and being better able to cover themselves with their Targaettes. So that they had no other incommoditie, then the waightynesse of their armours, and the pain to cary them: the whiche thinges thei overcame, with accustomyng the body to diseases, and with hardenyng it, to bee able to indure labour. And you knowe, how that in thinges accustomed, men suffer no grief. And you have to understand this, that the footemen maie be constrained, to faight with footemen, and with horse, and alwaies those be unprofitable, whiche cannot either sustain the horses, or beyng able to sustain them, have notwithstandyng neede to feare the footemen, whiche be better armed, and better ordeined then thei. Now if you consider the Duchemen, and the Romaines, you shall finde in the Duchemen activitie (as we have said) to overcome the horses, but greate dissavauntage, when thei faighte with menne, ordeined as thei them selves are, and armed as the Romaines were: so that there shall be this advauntage more of the one, then of thother, that the Romaines could overcome the men, and the horses, the Duchemen onely the horses. COSIMO. I would desire, that you would come to some more particulare insample, whereby wee maie better understande. [Sidenote: An ensample whiche proveth that horsemen with staves, cannot prevaile against footemen with Pikes, and what great advauntage the armed have, againste the unarmed. The victory of Carminvola against the Duchemen.] FABRICIO. I saie thus, that you shall finde in many places of our histories, the Romain footemen to have overcome innumerable horses, and you shall never finde, that thei have been overcome of men on foote, for default that thei have had in their armour, or thorowe the vantage that the enemie hath had in the armours: For that if the maner of their armyng, should have had defaulte, it had been necessarie, that there should folowe, the one of these twoo thynges, either that findyng soche, as should arme theim better then thei, thei should not have gone still forwardes, with their conquestes, or that thei should have taken the straungers maners, and should have left their owne, and for that it folowed not in the one thing, nor in the other, there groweth that ther maie be easely conjectured, that the maner of their armyng, was better then thesame of any other. It is not yet thus happened to the Duchemen, for that naughtie profe, hath ben seen made them, when soever thei have chaunsed to faight with men on foote prepared, and as obstinate as thei, the whiche is growen of the vauntage, whiche thesame have incountred in thenemies armours. Philip Vicecounte of Milaine, being assaulted of xviii. thousande Suizzers, sent against theim the Counte Carminvola, whiche then was his capitaine. He with sixe thousande horse, and a fewe footemen, went to mete with them, and incounteryng theim, he was repulsed with his moste greate losse: wherby Carminvola as a prudente man, knewe straight waie the puisaunce of the enemies weapons, and how moche against the horses thei prevailed, and the debilitie of the horses, againste those on foote so appoincted: and gatheryng his men together again, he went to finde the Suizzers, and so sone as he was nere them, he made his men of armes, to a light from their horse, and in thesame mane, faightyng with them he slue theim all, excepte three thousande: the whiche seyng them selves to consume, without havyng reamedy, castyng their weapons to the grounde, yelded. COSIMO. Whereof cometh so moche disavauntage? [Sidenote: The battailes when thei are a faightyng, doe throng together.] FABRICIO. I have a little afore tolde you, but seyng that you have not understoode it, I will rehearse it againe. The Duchemen (as a little before I saied unto you) as it were unarmed, to defende themselves, have to offende, the Pike and the swearde: thei come with these weapons, and with their orders to finde the enemies, whom if thei bee well armed, to defende theim selves, as were the menne of armes of Carminvola, whiche made theim a lighte on foote, thei come with the sweard, and in their orders to find them, and have no other difficultie, then to come nere to the Suizzers, so that thei maie reche them with the sweard, for that so sone as thei have gotten unto them, thei faight safely: for asmoche as the Duch man cannot strike thenemie with the Pike, whom is upon him, for the length of the staffe, wherefore it is conveniente for hym, to put the hande to the sweard, the whiche to hym is unprofitable, he beyng unarmed, and havyng against hym an enemie, that is all armed. Whereby he that considereth the vantage, and the disavantage of the one, and of the other, shall see, how the unarmed, shall have no maner of remeady, and the overcommyng of the firste faight, and to passe the firste poinctes of the Pikes, is not moche difficulte, he that faighteth beyng well armed: for that the battailes go (as you shall better understande, when I have shewed you, how thei are set together) and incounteryng the one the other, of necessitie thei thrust together, after soche sorte, that thei take the one thother by the bosome, and though by the Pikes some bee slaine, or overthrowen, those that remain on their feete, be so many, that thei suffice to obtaine the victorie. Hereof it grewe, that Carminvola overcame them, with so greate slaughter of the Suizzers, and with little losse of his. COSIMO. Consider that those of Carminvola, were men of armes, whom although thei wer on foote, thei were covered all with stele, and therefore thei wer able to make the profe thei did: so that me thinkes, that a power ought to be armed as thei, mindyng to make the verie same profe. FABRICIO. If you should remember, how I tolde you the Romaines were armed, you would not thynke so: for as moche as a manne, that hath the hedde covered with Iron, the breaste defended of a Corselet, and of a Targaet, the armes and the legges armed, is moche more apt to defende hymself from the Pike, and to enter emong them, then a man of armes on foote. I wil give you a little of a late ensample. There wer come out of Cicelie, into the kyngdome of Naples, a power of Spaniardes, for to go to finde Consalvo, who was besieged in Barlet, of the Frenchemen: there made against theim Mounsier de Vhigni, with his menne of armes, and with aboute fower thousande Duchemen on foote: The Duchemen incountered with their Pikes lowe, and thei opened the power of the Spaniardes: but those beyng holp, by meane of their bucklers and of the agiletie of their bodies, mingled togethers with the Duchemen, so that thei might reche them with the swearde, whereby happened the death, almoste of all theim, and the victorie to the Spaniardes. Every man knoweth, how many Duchemen were slaine in the battaile of Ravenna, the whiche happened by the verie same occasion: for that the Spanishe souldiours, got them within a swerdes length of the Duche souldiours, and thei had destroied them all, if of the Frenche horsemen, the Duchemen on foote, had not been succored: notwithstandyng, the Spaniardes close together, brought themselves into a safe place. I conclude therefore, that a good power ought not onely to be able, to withstande the horses, but also not to have fear of menne on foote, the which (as I have many tymes saied) procedeth of the armours, and of the order. [Sidenote: How to arme men, and what weapons to appoincte theim, after the Romaine maner, and Duche facion.] COSIMO. Tell therefore, how you would arme them? FABRICIO. I would take of the Romaine armours, and of the Duchemennes weapons, and I would that the one haulfe, should bee appoincted like the Romaines, and the other haulfe like the Duchemen: for that if in sixe thousande footemen (as I shall tell you a little hereafter) I should have thre thousande men with Targaettes, after the Romain maner, and two thousande Pikes, and a thousand Harkebutters, after the Duche facion, thei should sufice me: for that I would place the Pikes, either in the fronte of the battaile, or where I should feare moste the horses, and those with the Targaetes and sweardes, shall serve me to make a backe to the Pikes, and to winne the battaile, as I shall shewe you: so that I beleeve, that a power thus ordayned, should overcome at this daye, any other power. COSIMO. This which hath beene saide, sufficeth concerning footemen, but concerning horsemen, wee desire to understand which you thinke more stronger armed, either ours, or the antiquitie. [Sidenote: The victorie of Lucullo, against Tiarane king of Armenia; For what pupose horsemen be most requisite.] FABRICIO. I beleeve that in these daies, having respect to the Saddelles bolstered, and to the stiroppes not used of the antiquitie, they stande more stronglye on horsebacke, then in the olde time: I thinke also they arme them more sure: so that at this daye, a bande of men of armes, paysing very muche, commeth to be with more difficultie withstoode, then were the horsemen of old time: notwithstanding for all this, I judge, that there ought not to be made more accompt of horses, then in olde time was made, for that (as afore is sayde) manye times in our dayes, they have with the footemen receyved shame and shall receyve alwayes, where they incounter, with a power of footemen armed, and ordered, as above hath bene declared. Tigrane king of Armenia, had againste the armie of the Romanes, wherof was Capitayne Lucullo, CL. thousande horsemen, amongest the whiche, were many armed, like unto our men of armes, which they called Catafratti, and of the other parte, the Romanes were about sixe thousande, with xxv. thousand footemen: so that Tigrane seeing the armie of the enemies, saide: these be horses enough for an imbassage: notwithstanding, incountering together, he was overthrowen: and he that writeth of the same fighte, disprayseth those Catafratti, declaring them to be unprofitable; for that hee sayeth, because they had their faces covered, they had muche a doe to see, and to offende the enemie, and they falling, being laden with armour coulde not rise up again, nor welde themselves in any maner to prevaile. I say therefore, that those people or kingdomes, whiche shall esteeme more the power of horses, then the power of footemen be alwaies weake, and subjecte to all ruine, as by Italie hath been seene in our time, the whiche hath beene taken, ruinated, and over run with straungers, through not other fault, then for having taken litle care, of the service on foote, and being brought the souldiours therof, all on horsebacke. Yet there ought to bee had horses, but for seconde, and not for firste foundaion of an armie: for that to make a discovery, to over run and to destroy the enemies countrie, and to keepe troubled and disquieted, the armie of the same, and in their armours alwayes, to let them of their victuals, they are necessary, and most profitable: but concerning for the daye of battaile, and for the fighte in the fielde, whiche is the importaunce of the warre, and the ende, for which the armies are ordeined, they are more meeter to follow the enemie being discomfited then to do any other thing which in the same is to be done, and they bee in comparison, to the footemen much inferiour. COSIMO. There is happened unto mee twoo doubtes, the one, where I knowe, that the Parthians dyd not use in the warre, other then horses, and yet they devided the worlde with the Romanes: the other is, that I woulde that you should shewe, howe the horsemen can be withstoode of footemen, and wherof groweth the strength of these, and the debilitie of those? [Sidenote: The reason why footmen are able to overcome horsemen; How footmen maie save them selves from horsemen; The exercise of Souldiours, ought to be devided into thre partes; What exercises the auncient common weales used to exercise their youth in, and what commoditie insued thereby; How the antiquitie, learned their yong soldiours, to handell their weapons; What thantiquitie estemed moste happie in a common weale; Mouster Maisters; for thexercisyng of yong men unexperte.] FABRICIO. Either I have tolde you, or I minded to tell you, howe that my reasoning of the affaires of warre, ought not to passe the boundes of Europe: when thus it is, I am not bounde unto you, to make accompte of the same, which is used in Asia, yet I muste saye unto you thus, that the warring of the Parthians, was altogether contrarye, to the same of the Romanes: for as muche as the Parthians, warred all on horsebacke, and in the fight, they proceeded confusedlye, and scattered, and it was a maner of fighte unstable, and full of uncertaintie. The Romanes were (it maye be sayde) almoste al on foote, and thei fought close together and sure, and thei overcame diversly, the one the other, according to the largenesse, or straightnesse of the situation: for that in this the Romaines were superiours, in thesame the Parthians, whom might make greate proofe, with thesame maner of warryng, consideryng the region, which thei had to defende, the which was moste large: for as moche as it hath the sea coaste, distant a thousande miles, the rivers thone from thother, twoo or three daies journey, the tounes in like maner and the inhabitauntes few: so that a Romaine armie heavie and slowe, by meanes of their armoures, and their orders, could not over run it, without their grevous hurt (those that defended it, being on horsebacke mooste expedite) so that thei were to daie in one place, and to morowe distaunt fiftie miles. Hereof it grewe, that the Parthians might prevaile with their chivalrie onely, bothe to the ruine of the armie of Crassus, and to the perill of thesame, of Marcus Antonius: but I (as I have told you) doe not intende in this my reasonyng, to speake of the warfare out of Europe, therfore I will stand upon thesame, whiche in times past, the Romaines ordained, and the Grekes, and as the Duchemen doe now adaies. But let us se to the other question of yours, where you desire to understande, what order, or what naturall vertue makes, that the footemen overcome the horsmen. And I saie unto you first that the horses cannot go, as the footmen in every place: Thei are slower then the footemen to obeie, when it is requisite to alter the order: for as moche, as if it be nedefull, either goyng forward, to turne backwarde, or tournyng backwarde, to go forwarde, or to move themselves standing stil, or goyng to stand still, without doubt, the horsemen cannot dooe it so redilie as the footemen: the horsemen cannot, being of some violence, disordained, returne in their orders, but with difficultie, although thesame violence cease, the whiche the footemen dooe moste easely and quickly. Besides this, it happeneth many tymes, that a hardie manne shall be upon a vile horse, and a coward upon a good, whereby it foloweth, that this evill matchyng of stomackes, makes disorder. Nor no man doeth marvell, that a bande of footemenne, susteineth all violence of horse for that a horse is a beaste, that hath sence, and knoweth the perilles, and with an ill will, will enter in them: and if you consider, what force maketh theim go forwarde, and what holdeth them backwarde, you shall se without doubt thesame to be greater, whiche kepeth them backe, then that whiche maketh them go forwardes: For that the spurre maketh theim go forwarde, and of the other side, either the swearde, or the Pike, kepeth theim backe: so that it hath been seen by the olde, and by the late experience, a bande of footemen to bee moste safe, ye, invinsible for horses. And if you should argue to this, that the heate, with whiche thei come, maketh theim more furious to incounter who that would withstande them, and lesse to regard the Pike, then the spurre: I saie, that if the horse so disposed, begin to see, that he must run upon the poincte of the Pike, either of himself, he wil refrain the course so that so sone as he shall feele himself pricked, he will stande still atones, or beeyng come to theim, he will tourne on the right, or on the lefte hande. Whereof if you wil make experience, prove to run a horse against a walle: you shall finde fewe, with what so ever furie he come withall, will strike against it. Cesar havyng in Fraunce, to faighte with the Suizzers, a lighted, and made every manne a light on foote, and to avoide from the araies, the horses, as a thyng more meete to flie, then to faight. But notwithstandyng these naturall impedimentes, whiche horses have, thesame Capitaine, whiche leadeth the footemen, ought to chuse waies, whiche have for horse, the moste impedimentes that maie bee, and seldome tymes it happeneth, but that a manne maie save hymself, by the qualitie of the countrie: for that if thou marche on the hilles, the situacion doeth save thee from thesame furie, whereof you doubt, that thei go withail in the plain, fewe plaines be, whiche through the tillage or by meanes of the woddes, doe not assure thee: for that every hillocke, every bancke, although it be but small, taketh awaie thesame heate, and every culture where bee Vines, and other trees, lettes the horses: and if thou come to battaile, the very same lettes happeneth, that chaunceth in marchyng: for as moche as every little impedemente, that the horse hath, abateth his furie. One thyng notwithstandyng, I will not forgette to tell you, how the Romaines estemed so moche their orders, and trusted so moche to their weapons, that if thei shuld have had, to chuse either so rough a place to save theim selves from horses, where thei should not have been able, to raunge their orders, or a place where thei should have nede, to feare more of horses, but ben able to deffende their battaile, alwaies thei toke this, and left that: but bicause it is tyme, to passe to the armie, having armed these souldiours, accordyng to the aunciente and newe use, let us see what exercises the Romaines caused theim make, before the menne were brought to the battaile. Although thei be well chosen, and better armed, thei ought with moste greate studie be exercised, for that without this exercise, there was never any souldiour good: these exercises ought to be devided into three partes, the one, for to harden the bodie, and to make it apte to take paines, and to bee more swifter and more readier, the other, to teach them, how to handell their weapons, the third, for to learne them to kepe the orders in the armie, as well in marchyng, as in faightyng, and in the incampyng: The whiche be three principall actes, that an armie doeth: for asmoche, as if an armie marche, incampe, and faight with order, and expertly, the Capitaine leseth not his honoure, although the battaile should have no good ende. Therfore, all thauncient common weales, provided these exercises in maner, by custome, and by lawe, that there should not be left behinde any part thereof. Thei exercised then their youth, for to make them swift, in runnyng, to make theim readie, in leapyng, for to make them strong, in throwyng the barre, or in wrestlyng: and these three qualities, be as it were necessarie in souldiours. For that swiftnesse, maketh theim apte to possesse places, before the enemie, and to come to them unloked for, and at unwares to pursue them, when thei are discomfaicted: the readinesse, maketh theim apte to avoide a blowe, to leape over a diche, to winne a banke: strength, maketh them the better able to beare their armours, to incounter the enemie, to withstande a violence. And above all, to make the bodie the more apte to take paines, thei used to beare greate burthens, the whiche custome is necessarie: for that in difficulte expedicions it is requisite many tymes, that the souldiour beside his armours, beare vitualles for many daies, and if he were not accustomed to this labour, he could not dooe it: and without this, there can neither bee avoided a perill, nor a victorie gotten with fame. Concernyng to learne how to handell the weapons, thei exercised theim, in this maner: thei would have the yong menne, to put on armour, whiche should waie twise as moche, as their field armour, and in stede of a swearde, thei gave them a cudgell leaded, whiche in comparison of a verie swearde in deede, was moste heavie; thei made for every one of them, a poste to be set up in the ground, which should be in height twoo yardes and a quarter, and in soche maner, and so strong, that the blowes should not slur nor hurle it doune, against the whiche poste, the yong man with a targaet, and with the cudgell, as against an enemie did exercise, and some whiles he stroke, as though he would hurte the hedde, or the face, somewhile he retired backe, an other while he made forewarde: and thei had in this exercise, this advertisment, to make theim apt to cover theim selves, and to hurte the enemie: and havyng the counterfaight armours moste heavy, their ordinarie armours semed after unto them more lighter. The Romanies, would that their souldiours should hurte with the pricke, and not with the cutte, as well bicause the pricke is more mortalle, and hath lesse defence, as also to thentent that he that should hurt, might lye the lesse open, and be more apt to redouble it, then with cuttes. Dooe not marvaile that these auncient men, should thinke on these small thynges, for that where the incounteryng of men is reasoned of, you shall perceive, that every little vauntage, is of greate importaunce: and I remember you the same, whiche the writers of this declare, rather then I to teache you. The antiquitie estemed nothing move happie, in a common weale, then to be in thesame, many men exercised in armes: bicause not the shining of precious stones and of golde, maketh that the enemies submit themselves unto thee, but onely the fear of the weapons: afterwarde the errours whiche are made in other thynges, maie sometymes be corrected, but those whiche are dooen in the warre, the paine straight waie commyng on, cannot be amended. Besides that, the knowlege to faight, maketh men more bold, bicause no man feareth to doe that thing, which he thinketh to have learned to dooe. The antiquitie would therefore, that their Citezeins should exercise themselves, in all marcial feates, and thei made them to throwe against thesame poste, dartes moche hevier then the ordinarie: the whiche exercise, besides the makyng men expert in throwyng, maketh also the arme more nimble, and moche stronger. Thei taught them also to shote in the long bowe, to whorle with the sling: and to all these thynges, thei appoincted maisters, in soche maner, that after when thei were chosen for to go to the warre, thei were now with mynde and disposicion, souldiours. Nor there remained them to learn other, then to go in the orders, and to maintain them selves in those, either marchyng, or faightyng: The whiche moste easely thei learned, mingeling themselves with those, whiche had long tyme served, whereby thei knewe how to stande in the orders. COSIMO. What exercises would you cause theim to make at this present? [Sidenote: The exercises that souldiers ought to make in these daies; The exercise of swimmyng; Tiber, is a river runnyng through Rome the water wher of will never corrupte; Thexercise of vautyng, and the commoditie thereof; An order that is taken in certain countries, concerning exercises of warre; What knowledge a Souldiour ought to have; A Cohorte is a bande of men; Of what nomer and of what kind of armours and weapons, a maine battaile ought to bee, and the distributing and appoinetyng of thesame; veliti are light armed men; Thecapitaines that ar appointed to every band of men; Twoo orders observed in an armie; How a captain muste instructe muste instructe his souldiours how thei ought to governe themselves in the battaile.] FABRICIO. A good many of those, whiche have been declared, as runnyng, and wrestlyng, makyng theim to leape, makyng theim to labour in armours, moche heavier then the ordinarie, making them shoote with Crosse bowes, and longe bowes, whereunto I would joyne the harkabus, a newe instrument (as you know) verie necessarie, and to these exercises I would use, al the youth of my state, but with greater industrie, and more sollicitatenesse thesame parte, whiche I should have alreadie appoincted to serve, and alwaies in the idell daies, thei should bee exercised. I would also that thei should learne to swimme, the whiche is a thyng verie profitable: for that there be not alwaies bridges over rivers, boates be not alwaies readie: so that thy army not knowyng howe to swime, remaineth deprived of many commodities: and many occasions to woorke well, is taken awaie. The Romaines for none other cause had ordained, that the yong men should exercise them selves in Campus Martius, then onely, for that havyng Tiber at hande, thei might, beyng weried with the exercise on lande, refreshe theim selves in the water, and partly in swimmyng, to exercise them selves. I would make also, as the antiquitie, those whiche should serve on horsebacke to exercise, the whiche is moste necessarie, for that besides to know how to ride, thei muste knowe how on horsebacke thei maie prevaile of them selves. And for this thei had ordeined horses of wood, upon the which thei practised, to leape by armed, and unarmed, without any helpe, and on every hande: the whiche made, that atones, and at a beck of a capitain, the horsmen were on foote, and likewise at a token, thei mounted on horsebacke. And soche exercises, bothe on foote and on horsebacke, as thei were then easie to bee doen, so now thei should not be difficult to thesame common weale, or to thesame prince, whiche would cause them to be put in practise of their yong men. As by experience is seen, in certaine citees of the Weste countrie, where is kepte a live like maners with this order. Thei devide all their inhabiters into divers partes: and every parte thei name of the kinde of those weapons, that thei use in the warre. And for that thei use Pikes, Halbardes, Bowes, and Harkebuses, thei call them Pike menne, Halberders, Harkebutters, and Archars: Therefore, it is mete for all the inhabiters to declare, in what orders thei will be appoincted in. And for that all men, either for age, or for other impedimentes, be not fitte for the warre, every order maketh a choise of men, and thei call them the sworen, whom in idell daies, be bounde to exercise themselves in those weapons, wherof thei be named: and every manne hath his place appoincted hym of the cominaltie, where soche exercise ought to be made: and those whiche be of thesame order, but not of the sworen, are contributaries with their money, to thesame expenses, whiche in soche exercises be necessarie: therfore thesame that thei doe, we maie doe. But our smal prudence dooeth not suffre us, to take any good waie. Of these exercises there grewe, that the antiquitie had good souldiours, and that now those of the Weste, bee better men then ours: for as moche as the antiquitie exercised them, either at home (as those common weales doe) or in the armies, as those Emperours did, for thoccasions aforesaied: but we, at home will not exercise theim, in Campe we cannot, bicause thei are not our subjectes, and for that we are not able to binde them to other exercises then thei them selves liste to doe: the whiche occacion hath made, that firste the armies bee neclected, and after, the orders, and that the kyngdomes, and the common weales, in especially Italians, live in soche debilitie. But let us tourne to our order, and folowyng this matter of exercises, I saie, how it suffiseth not to make good armies, for havyng hardened the men, made them strong, swift, and handsome, it is nedefull also, that thei learne to stande in the orders, to obeie to signes, to soundes, and to the voice of the capitain: to knowe, standyng, to retire them selves, goyng forwardes, bothe faightyng, and marchyng to maintain those: bicause without this knowlege, withal serious diligence observed, and practised, there was never armie good: and without doubt, the fierce and disordered menne, bee moche more weaker, then the fearfull that are ordered, for that thorder driveth awaie from men feare, the disorder abateth fiercenesse. And to the entente you maie the better perceive that, whiche here folowyng shalbe declared, you have to understande, how every nation, in the orderyng of their men to the warre, have made in their hoste, or in their armie, a principall member, the whiche though thei have varied with the name, thei have little varied with the nomber of the menne: for that thei all have made it, betwene sixe and viii. M. men. This nomber of men was called of the Romaines, a Legion, of Grekes a Fallange, of Frenchemen Caterva: this verie same in our tyme of the Suizzers, whom onely of the auncient warfare, kepe some shadowe, is called in their tongue that, whiche in ours signifieththe maine battaile. True it is, that every one of them, hath after devided it, accordyng to their purposes. Therefore me thinkes beste, that wee grounde our talke, upon this name moste knowen, and after, according to the aunciente, and to the orders now adaies, the beste that is possible to ordaine it; and bicause the Romaines devided their Legion, whiche was made betwene five and sixe thousande men, in ten Cohortes, I will that wee devide our main battaile, into ten battailes, and that we make it of sixe thousande menne on foote, and we will give to every battaile, CCCCL. men, of whiche shall be, CCCC. armed with heavie armour, and L. with light armour: the heavie armed, shall be CCC. Targettes with sweardes, and shalbe called Target men: and C. with Pikes, whiche shalbe called ordinarie Pikes: the light armed shalbe, L. men armed with Harkabuses, Crosse bowes, and Partisans, and smal Targaettes, and these by an aunciente name, were called ordinarie Veliti: all of the ten battailes therefore, comes to have three thousande Targaet men, a thousande ordinarie Pikes, CCCC. ordinarie Veliti, all whiche make the nomber of fower thousande and five hundred men. And we saied, that we would make the maine battaile of six thousande; therefore there must be added an other thousande, five hundred men, of whiche I will appoinet a thousande with Pikes, whom I will call extraordinarie Veliti, and thus my menne should come (as a little before I have saied) to bee made halfe of Targaetes, and halfe of Pikes and other weapons. I would appoinete to everie battaile, or bande of men, a Conestable, fower Centurions and fouretic peticapitaines, and moreover a hedde to the ordinarie Veliti. with five peticapitaines; I would give to the thousande extraordinarie Pikes, three Conestabelles, ten Centurions, and a hundred peticapitaines; to the extraodrinarie Veliti, two Conestabelles, v. Centurions, and l. peticapitaines: I would then apoinet a generall hed, over all the main battaile: I would that every Conestable should have an Ansigne, and a Drum. Thus there should be made a manne battaile of ten battailes, of three thousande Targaet men, of a thousande ordinarie Pikes, of a thousande extraordinarie of five hundred ordinarie Veliti, of five hundred extraordinarie, so there should come to bee sixe thousande men, emongeste the whiche there should bee M.D. peticapitaines, and moreover, xv. Conestables, with xv. Drummes, and xv. Ansignes, lv. Centurions, x. heddes of the ordinarie Veliti, and a Capitaine over all the maine battaile with his Asigne and Drume, and I have of purpose repeated this order the oftener, to the intent, that after when I shall shewe you, the maners of orderyng the battailes, and tharmies, you should not be confounded: I saie therefore, how that, that king, or that common weale, whiche intendeth to ordeine their subjectes to armes, ought to appoincte theim with these armoures and weapons, and with these partes, and to make in their countrie so many maine battailes, as it were able: and when thei should have ordained them, according to the forsaid distribucion, minding to exercise them in the orders, it should suffice to exercise every battaile by it self: and although the nomber of the men, of every one of them, cannot by it self, make the facion of a juste armie, notwithstandyng, every man maie learne to dooe thesame, whiche particularly appertaineth unto hym: for that in the armies, twoo orders is observed, the one, thesame that the men ought to doe in every battaile, and the other that, whiche the battaile ought to doe after, when it is with the other in an armie. And those men, whiche doe wel the first, mooste easely maie observe the seconde: But without knowyng thesame, thei can never come to the knowlege of the seconde. Then (as I have saied) every one of these battailes, maie by them selves, learne to kepe the orders of the araies, in every qualitie of movyng, and of place, and after learne to put them selves togethers, to understande the soundes, by meanes wherof in the faight thei are commaunded, to learne to know by that, as the Gallics by the whissell, what ought to be doen, either to stande still, or to tourne forward, or to tourne backwarde or whiche waie to tourne the weapons, and the face: so that knowyng how to kepe well the araie, after soche sorte, that neither place nor movyng maie disorder them, understandyng well the commaundementes of their heddes, by meanes of the sounde, and knowyng quickly, how to retourne into their place, these battailes maie after easly (as I have said) beyng brought many together, learne to do that, whiche all the body together, with the other battailes in a juste armie, is bounde to dooe. And bicause soche universall practise, is also not to bee estemed a little, ones or twise a yere, when there is peace, all the main battaile maie be brought together, to give it the facion of an whole armie, some daies exercisyng theim, as though thei should faight a fielde, settyng the fronte, and the sides with their succours in their places. And bicause a capitaine ordeineth his hoste to the fielde, either for coumpte of the enemie he seeth, or for that, of whiche without seyng he doubteth, he ought to exercise his armie in the one maner, and in the other, and to instructe theim in soche sorte, that thei maie knowe how to marche, and to faight, when nede should require, the wyng to his souldiours, how thei should governe theim selves, when thei should happen to be assaulted of this, or of that side: and where he ought to instructe theim how to faight againste the enemie, whom thei should see: he must shewe them also, how the faight is begun, and where thei ought to retire: being overthrowen, who hath to succeade in their places, to what signes, to what soundes, to what voices, thei ought to obeie, and to practise them in soche wise in the battaile, and with fained assaultes, that thei may desire the verie thyng in deede. For that an armie is not made coragious, bicause in thesame be hardie menne, but by reason the orders thereof bee well appoineted: For as moche as if I be one of the first faighters, and do knowe, beyng overcome, where I maie retire, and who hath to succeade in my place, I shall alwaies faight with boldnes, seing my succour at hand. If I shall be one of the seconde faighters, the first being driven backe, and overthrowen, I shall not bee afraied, for that I shall have presuposed that I maie bee, and I shall have desire to be thesame, whiche maie give the victory to my maister, and not to bee any of the other. These exercises bee moste necessarie, where an armie is made of newe, and where the old armie is, thei bee also necessarie: for that it is also seen, how the Romaines knew from their infancie, thorder of their armies, notwithstandyng, those capitaines before thei should come to thenemie, continually did exercise them in those. And Josephus in his historie saieth, that the continuall exercises of the Romaine armies, made that all thesame multitude, whiche folowe the campe for gain, was in the daie of battaile profitable: bicause thei all knewe, how to stande in the orders, and to faight kepyng the same: but in the armies of newe men, whether thou have putte theim together, to faight straight waie, or that thou make a power to faight, when neede requires, without these exercises, as well of the battailes severally by themselves, as of all the armie, is made nothing: wherefore the orders beying necessarie, it is conveniente with double industrie and laboure, to shewe them unto soche as knoweth them not, and for to teache it, many excellent capitaines have travailed, without any respecte. COSIMO. My thinkes that this reasoning, hath sumwhat transported you: for asmoche, as havyng not yet declared the waies, with the whiche the battailes bee exercised, you have reasoned of the whole armie, and of the daie of battaile. [Sidenote: The chief importance in the exercisyng of bandes of men; Three principall for thorderyng of menne into battaile raie; The manner how to bryng a bande of men into battaile raie after a square facion; The better waie for the ordring of a band of men in battaile raie, after the first facion; How to exercise men, and to take soche order, whereby a band of men that were by whatsoever chance disordred maye straighte wai be brought into order againe; What advertisement ought to bee used in tourning about a whole bande of menne, after soche sorte, as though it were but one bodie; How to order a band of menne after soche sort that thei maie make their front againste thenemie of whiche flanke thei list; How a band of man oughte to be ordered, when in marchyng thei should bee constrained to faighton their backes.] FABRICIO. You saie truth, but surely thoccasion hath been the affection, whiche I beare to these orders, and the grief that I feele, seyng thei be not put in use: notwithstanding, doubt not but that I will tourne to the purpose: as I have saied, the chief importaunce that is in thexercise of the battailes, is to knowe how to kepe well the armies: and bicause I tolde you that one of these battailes, ought to bee made of fower hundred men heavie armed, I wil staie my self upon this nomber. Thei ought then to be brought into lxxx. rankes, and five to a ranke: afterward goyng fast, or softly, to knit them together, and to lose them: the whiche how it is dooen, maie bee shewed better with deedes, then with wordes. Which nedeth not gretly to be taught, for that every manne, whom is practised in servise of warre, knoweth how this order procedeth, whiche is good for no other, then to use the souldiours to keepe the raie: but let us come to putte together one of these battailes, I saie, that there is given them three facions principally, the firste, and the moste profitablest is, to make al massive, and to give it the facion of two squares, the second is, to make it square with the front horned, the thirde is, to make it with a voide space in the middest: the maner to put men together in the first facion, maie be of twoo sortes, tho together in the first facion, maie be of twoo sortes, thone is to double the rankes, that is, to make the seconde ranke enter into the first, the iiii. into the third, the sixt into the fift, and so foorth, so that where there was lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, thei maie become xl. rankes, x. to a ranke. Afterward cause theim to double ones more in thesame maner, settyng the one ranke into an other, and so there shall remain twentie rankes, twentie men to a ranke: this maketh twoo squares aboute, for as moche as albeit that there bee as many men the one waie, as in the other, notwithstandyng to wardes the hedde, thei joine together, that the one side toucheth the other: but by the other waie, thei be distant the one from the other, at least a yarde and a haulfe, after soche sorte, that the square is moche longer, from the backe to the fronte, then from the one side to thother: and bicause we have at this presente, to speake often of the partes afore, of behinde, and of the sides of these battailes, and of all the armie together, knowe you, that when I saie either hedde or fronte, I meane the parte afore, when I shall saie backe, the part behind, when I shall saie flankes, the partes on the sides. The fiftie ordinarie veliti of the battaile, muste not mingle with the other rankes, but so sone as the battaile is facioned, thei shalbe set a long by the flankes therof. The other waie to set together the battaile is this, and bicause it is better then the firste, I will set it before your ives juste, how it ought to bee ordeined. I beleve that you remember of what nomber of menne, of what heddes it is made, and of what armours thei are armed, then the facion, that this battaile ought to have, is (as I have saied) of twentie rankes, twentie men to a ranke, five rankes of Pikes in the front, and fiftene rankes of Targaettes on the backe, twoo Centurions standying in the fronte, twoo behinde on the backe, who shall execute the office of those, whiche the antiquitie called Tergiductori. The Conestable with the Ansigne, and with the Drumme, shall stande in thesame space, that is betwene the five rankes of the Pikes, and the fiftene of the Targeaettes. Of the Peticapitaines, there shall stande one upon every side of the ranckes, so that every one, maie have on his side his men, those peticapitaines, whiche shalbe on the left hande, to have their men on the right hand, those Peticapitaines, whiche shall be on the right hand, to have their menne on the left hande: The fiftie Veliti, muste stande a long the flankes, and on the backe of the battaile. To mynde now, that this battaile maie be set together in this facion, the men goyng ordinarily, it is convenient to order them thus. Make the men to be brought into lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, as a little afore we have said, leavyng the Veliti either at the hedde, or at the taile, so that thei stande out of this order: and it ought to be ordeined, that every Centurion have behinde his back twentie rankes, and to bee nexte behinde every Centurion, five rankes of Pikes, and the reste Targaettes. The Conestable shall stande with the Drum, and the Ansigne, in thesame space, whiche is betwene the Pikes, and the Targaettes of the seconde Centurion, and to occupie the places of three Targaette men. Of the Peticapitaines, twentie shall stand on the sides of the rankes, of the first Centurion, on the lefte hande, and twentie shall stande on the sides of the rankes, of the last Centurion on the right hande. And you muste understande, that the Peticapitaine, whiche hath to leade the Pikes, ought to have a Pike, and those that leade the Targaettes, ought to have like weapons. Then the rankes beyng brought into this order, and mindyng in marchyng, to bryng them into battaile, for to make the hedde, the first Centurion must be caused to stande still, with the firste twentie rankes, and the seconde to proceade marchyng, and tournyng on the right hand, he must go a long the sides of the twentie rankes that stande still, till he come to bee even with the other Centurion, where he must also stande still, and the thirde Centurion to procede marchyng, likewise tournyng on the right hand, and a long the sides of the rankes that stande still, must go so farre, that he be even with the other twoo Centurions, and he also standyng still, the other Centurion must folowe with his rankes, likewise tournyng on the right hande, a longe the sides of the rankes that stande still, so farre that he come to the hed of the other, and then to stand still, and straight waie twoo Centurions onely, shall depart from the front, and go to the backe of the battaile, the whiche cometh to bee made in thesame maner, and with thesame order juste, as a little afore I have shewed you. The Veliti muste stande a long, by the flankes of thesame, accordyng as is disposed in the first waie, whiche waie is called redoublyng by right line, this is called redoublyng by flanke: the first waie is more easie, this is with better order, and commeth better to passe, and you maie better correcte it, after your owne maner, for that in redoublyng by righte line, you muste bee ruled by the nomber, bicause five maketh ten, ten twentie, twentie fourtie, so that with redoublyng by right line, you cannot make a hedde of fiftene, nor of five and twentie, nor of thirtie, nor of five and thirtie, but you must go where thesame nomber will leade you. And yet it happeneth every daie in particulare affaires, that it is convenient to make the forwarde with sixe hundred, or eight hundred men, so that to redouble by right line, should disorder you: therefore this liketh me better: that difficultie that is, ought moste with practise, and with exercise to bee made easie. Therefore I saie unto you, how it importeth more then any thyng, to have the souldiours to know how to set themselves in araie quickly, and it is necessarie to keepe theim in this battaile, to exercise theim therin, and to make them to go apace, either forward or backward, to passe through difficulte places, without troublyng thorder: for asmoche as the souldiours, whiche can doe this well, be expert souldiours, and although thei have never seen enemies in the face, thei maie be called old souldiours, and contrariwise, those whiche cannot keepe these orders, though thei have been in a thousande warres, thei ought alwaies to be reputed new souldiours. This is, concernyng setting them together, when thei are marching in small rankes: but beyng set, and after beyng broken by some accident or chaunce, whiche groweth either of the situacion, or of the enemie, to make that in a sodaine, thei maie come into order againe, this is the importaunce and the difficultie, and where is nedefull moche exercise, and moche practise, and wherin the antiquitie bestowed moche studie. Therefore it is necessarie to doe twoo thynges, firste to have this battaile full of countersignes, the other, to keepe alwaies this order, that those same men maie stand alwaies in the ranke, which thei were firste placed in: as for insample, if one have begon to stande in the seconde, that he stande after alwaie in that, and not onely in that self same rancke, but in that self same place: for the observyng whereof (as I have saied) bee necessarie many countersignes. In especially it is requisite, that the Ansigne bee after soche sorte countersigned, that companyng with the other battailes, it maie be knowen from theim, accordyng as the Conestable, and the Centurions have plumes of fethers in their heddes differente, and easie to be knowen, and that whiche importeth moste, is to ordaine that the peticapitaines bee knowen. Whereunto the antiquitie had so moche care, that thei would have nothing els written in their hedde peces, but the nomber that thei were named by, callyng them firste, seconde, thirde, and fourthe xc. And yet thei were not contented with this, but made every souldiour to have written in his Targaet, the nomber of the ranke, and the nomber of the place, in whiche ranke he was appoineted. Then the menne being countersigned thus, and used to stande betwene these limites, it is an easie thyng, thei beyng disordered, to sett theim all againe quickly into order: considering, that the Ansigne standyng still, the Centurions, and the Peticapitaines maie gesse their places by the iye, and beyng brought the left of the left, the right of the right, with their accustomed distance, the souldiours led by their rule, and by the differences of the cognisances, maie be quickly in their proper places, no otherwise, then as if the boordes of a tunne should bee taken a sunder, whiche beyng first marked, moste easely maie bee set together again, where thesame beyng not countersigned, were impossible to bryng into order any more. These thynges, with diligence and with exercise, are quickely taught, and quickly learned, and beyng learned, with difficultie are forgotten: for that the newe menne, be led of the olde, and with tyme, a Province with these exercises, may become throughly practised in the war. It is also necessarie to teache theim, to tourne theim selves all at ones, and when neede requires, to make of the flankes, and of the backe, the fronte, and of the front, flankes, or backe, whiche is moste easie: bicause it suffiseth that every manne doe tourne his bodie, towardes thesame parte that he is commaunded, and where thei tourne their faces, there the fronte commeth to bee. True it is, that when thei tourne to any of the flanckes, the orders tourne out of their proporcion: for that from the breast to the backe, there is little difference, and from the one flancke to the other, there is verie moche distance, the whiche is al contrarie to the ordinarie order of the battaile: therefore it is convenient, that practise, and discrecion, doe place them as thei ought to be: but this is small disorder, for that moste easely by themselves, thei maie remedie it. But that whiche importeth more, and where is requisite more practise, is when a battaile would tourne all at ones, as though it were a whole bodie, here is meete to have greate practise, and greate discrecion: bicause mindyng to tourne, as for insample on the left hande, the left corner must stande still, and those that be next to hym that standeth still, muste marche so softly, that thei that bee in the right corner, nede not to runne: otherwise all thing should be confounded. But bicause it happeneth alwaies, when an armie marcheth from place to place, that the battailes, whiche are not placed in the front, shall be driven to faight not by hedde, but either by flancke, or by backe, so that a battaile muste in a sodaine make of flancke, or of backe, hedde: and mindyng that like battailes in soche cace, maie have their proporcion, as above is declared, it is necessarie, that thei have the Pikes on thesame flancke, that ought to be hedde, and the Peticapitaines, Centurions, and Conestables, to resorte accordyngly to their places. Therefore to mynde to dooe this, in plasyng them together, you must ordeine the fower skore rankes, of five in a ranke, thus: Set all the Pikes in the first twentie rankes, and place the Peticapitaines thereof, five in the first places, and five in the last: the other three score rankes, whiche come after, bee all of Targaettes, whiche come to bee three Centuries. Therefore, the first and the laste ranke of every Centurion, would be Peticapitaines, the Conestable with the Ansigne, and with the Drumme, muste stande in the middest of the first Centurie of Targaettes, and the Centurions in the hed of every Centurie. The bande thus ordained, when you would have the Pikes to come on the left flancke, you must redouble Centurie by Centurie, on the right flancke: if you would have them to come on the right flancke, you must redouble theim on the lefte. And so this battaile tourneth with the Pikes upon a flancke, and the Conestable in the middeste: the whiche facion it hath marchyng: but the enemie commyng, and the tyme that it would make of flancke hedde, it nedeth not but to make every man to tourne his face, towardes thesame flancke, where the Pikes be, and then the battaile tourneth with the rankes, and with the heddes in thesame maner, as is aforesaied: for that every man is in his place, excepte the Centurions, and the Centurions straight waie, and without difficultie, place themselves: But when thei in marchyng, should bee driven to faight on the backe, it is convenient to ordein the rankes after soch sorte, that settyng theim in battaile, the Pikes maie come behinde, and to doe this, there is to bee kepte no other order, then where in orderyng the battaile, by the ordinarie, every Centurie hath five rankes of Pikes before, to cause that thei maie have them behind, and in all the other partes to observe thorder, whiche I declared firste. COSIMO. You have tolde (if I dooe well remember me) that this maner of exercise, is to bee able to bryng these battailes together into an armie, and that this practise, serveth to be able to order theim selves in the same: But if it should happen, that these CCCCL. men, should have to doe an acte seperate, how would you order them? [Sidenote: How a battaile is made with twoo hornes; The orderyng of a battaile with a voide space in the middeste.] FABRICIO. He that leadeth them, ought then to judge, where he will place the Pikes, and there to put them, the whiche doeth not repugne in any part to the order above written: for that also, though thesame bee the maner, that is observed to faighte a fielde, together with thother battailes, notwithstandyng it is a rule, whiche serveth to all those waies, wherein a band of menne should happen to have to doe: but in shewyng you the other twoo waies of me propounded, of ordering the battailes, I shal also satisfie you more to your question: for that either thei are never used, or thei are used when a battaile is a lone, and not in companie of other, and to come to the waie of ordering them, with twoo hornes, I saie, that thou oughteste to order the lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, in this maner. Place in the middest, one Centurion, and after hym xxv. rankes, whiche muste bee with twoo Pikes on the lefte hande, and with three Targaettes on the right, and after the first five, there must be put in the twentie folowyng, twentie Peticapitaines, all betwene the pikes, and the Targaettes, excepte those whiche beare the Pike, whom maie stand with the Pikes: after these xxv. rankes thus ordered, there is to be placed an other Centurion, and behinde hym fiftene rankes of Targaettes: after these, the Conestable betwene the Drum and the Ansigne, who also must have after him, other fiftene rankes of Targaettes: after this, the thirde Centurion must be placed, and behinde hym, xxv. rankes, in every one of whiche, ought to bee three Targaettes on the lefte flancke, and twoo Pikes on the right, and after the five first rankes, there must be xx. Peticapitaines placed betwene the Pikes, and the Targaettes: after these rankes, the fowerth Centurion must folowe. Intendying therefore, of these rankes thus ordered, to make a battaile with twoo hornes, the first Centurion must stand still, with the xxv. rankes, whiche be behinde him, after the second Centurion muste move, with the fiftene rankes of Targaettes, that bee behinde hym, and to tourne on the right hande, and up by the right flancke of the xxv. rankes, to go so farre, that he arrive to the xv. ranke, and there to stande still: after, the Conestable muste move, with the fiftene rankes of Targaettes, whiche be behinde hym, and tournyng likewise on the right hande, up by the right flancke of the fiftene rankes, that wer firste moved, muste marche so farre, that he come to their heddes, and there to stand stil: after, the thirde Centurion muste move with the xxv. rankes, and with the fowerth Centurion, whiche was behinde, and turnyng up straight, must go a long by the right flanck of the fiftene last rankes of the Targaettes, and not to stande still when he is at the heddes of them, but to followe marchyng so farre, that the laste ranke of the xxv. maie come to be even with the rankes behinde. And this dooen, the Centurion, whiche was hedde of the firste fiftene rankes of Targaettes, must go awaie from thens where he stoode, and go to the backe in the lefte corner: and thus a battaile shall be made of xxv. rankes, after twentie men to a rank, with two hornes, upon every side of the front, one horn, and every one, shall have ten rankes, five to a ranke, and there shall remain a space betwene the twoo hornes, as moche as containeth ten men, whiche tourne their sides, the one to thother. Betwene the two hornes, the capitain shall stande, and on every poinct of a horne, a Centurion: There shall bee also behinde, on every corner, a Centurion: there shal be twoo rankes of Pikes, and xx. Peticapitaines on every flancke. These twoo hornes, serve to kepe betwene theim the artillerie, when this battaile should have any withit, and the cariages: The Veliti muste stande a long the flankes, under the Pikes. But mindyng to bring this horned battaile, with a voide space in the middeste, there ought no other to bee doen, then of fiftene rankes, of twentie to a ranke, to take eight rankes, and to place them on the poinctes of the twoo hornes, whiche then of hornes, become backe of the voide space, in this place, the cariages are kept, the capitain standeth, and the Ansigne, but never the Artillerie, the whiche is placed either in the front, or a long the flankes. These be the waies, that a battaile maie use when it is constrained to passe alone through suspected places: notwithstandyng, the massive battaile without hornes, and without any soche voide place is better, yet purposyng to assure the disarmed, the same horned battaile is necessarie. The Suizzers make also many facions of battailes, emong which, thei make one like unto a crosse: bicause in the spaces that is betwen the armes therof, thei kepe safe their Harkebuters from the daunger of the enemies: but bicause soche battailes be good to faight by theim selves, and my intente is to shew, how many battailes united, do faight with thenemie, I wil not labour further in describing them. COSIMO. My thinkes I have verie well comprehended the waie, that ought to be kept to exercise the men in these battailes: But (if I remember me well) you have saied, how that besides the tenne battailes, you joyne to the maine battaile, a thousande extraordinarie Pikes, and five hundred extraordinarie Veliti: will you not appoincte these to be exercised? [Sidenote: To what purpose the Pikes and Velite extraordinarie must serve.] FABRICIO. I would have theim to bee exercised, and that with moste great diligence: and the Pikes I would exercise, at leaste Ansigne after Ansigne, in the orders of the battailes, as the other: For as moche as these should doe me more servise, then the ordinarie battailes, in all particulare affaires: as to make guides, to get booties, and to doe like thynges: but the Veliti, I would exercise at home, without bringing them together, for that their office being to faight a sonder, it is not mete, that thei should companie with other, in the common exercises: for that it shall suffice, to exercise them well in the particular exercises. Thei ought then (as I firste tolde you, nor now me thynkes no labour to rehearse it againe) to cause their men to exercise them selves in these battailes, whereby thei maie knowe how to kepe the raie, to knowe their places, to tourne quickly, when either enemie, or situacion troubleth them: for that, when thei knowe how to do this, the place is after easely learned, which a battaile hath to kepe, and what is the office thereof in the armie: and when a Prince, or a common weale, will take the paine, and will use their diligence in these orders, and in these exercisyng, it shall alwaies happen, that in their countrie, there shall bee good souldiours, and thei to be superiours to their neighbours, and shalbe those, whiche shall give, and not receive the lawes of other men: but (as I have saied) the disorder wherein thei live, maketh that thei neclecte, and doe not esteme these thynges, and therefore our armies be not good: and yet though there were either hed, or member naturally vertuous, thei cannot shewe it. COSIMO. What carriages would you, that every one of these battailes should have? [Sidenote: Neither Centurion nor Peticapitaine, ought not to ride; What carriages the Capitaines ought to have, and the nomber of carrages requisite to every bande of menne.] FABRICIO. Firste, I would that neither Centurion, nor Peticapitain, should be suffered to ride: and if the Conestable would nedes ride, I would that he should have a Mule, and not a horse: I would allowe hym twoo carriages, and one to every Centurion, and twoo to every three Peticapitaines, for that so many wee lodge in a lodgyng, as in the place therof we shall tell you: So that every battaile will come to have xxxvi. carriages, the whiche I would should carrie of necessitie the tentes, the vesselles to seeth meate, axes, barres of Iron, sufficient to make the lodgynges, and then if thei can carry any other thyng, thei maie dooe it at their pleasure. COSIMO. I beleve that the heddes of you, ordeined in every one of these battailes, be necessarie: albeit, I would doubt, lest that so many commaunders, should confounde all. [Sidenote: Without many capitaines, an armie cannot be governed; To what purpose Ansignes ought to serve; For what purpose Drummes oughte to bee used; The propertie that soundes of instrumentes have in mens myndes.] FABRICIO. That should bee, when it were not referred to one man, but referryng it, thei cause order, ye and without theim, it is impossible to governe an armie: for that a wall, whiche on every parte enclineth, requireth rather to have many proppes, and thicke, although not so strong, then fewe, though thei were strong: bicause the vertue of one a lone, doeth not remedie the ruine a farre of. And therefore in tharmies, and emong every ten men, it is convenient that there bee one, of more life, of more harte, or at leaste wise of more aucthoritie, who with stomacke, with wordes, and with example, maie kepe them constante, and disposed to faight, and these thynges of me declared, bee necessarie in an armie, as the Heddes, the Ansignes, and the Drummes, is seen that wee have theim all in our armies, but none doeth his office. First to mynde that the Peticapitaines doe thesame, for whiche thei are ordeined, it is necessarie (as I have said) that there bee a difference, betwene every one of them and their men, and that thei lodge together, doyng their duties, standyng in thorder with them: for that thei placed in their places, bee a rule and a temperaunce, to maintaine the raies straight and steddie, and it is impossible that thei disorder, or disorderyng, dooe not reduce themselves quickly into their places. But we now adaies, doe not use them to other purpose, then to give theim more wages, then to other menne, and to cause that thei dooe some particulare feate: The very same happeneth of the Ansigne bearers, for that thei are kept rather to make a faire muster, then for any other warlike use: but the antiquitie used theim for guides, and to bryng theim selves againe into order: for that every man, so sone as the Ansigne stoode still, knewe the place, that he kept nere to his Ansigne, wherunto he retourned alwaies: thei knewe also, how that the same movyng, or standyng, thei should staie, or move: therfore it is necessarie in an armie, that there be many bodies, and every bande of menne to have his Ansigne, and his guide: wherfore havyng this, it is mete that thei have stomackes inough, and by consequence life enough. Then the menne ought to marche, accordyng to the Ansigne: and the Ansigne to move, accordyng to the Drumme, the whiche Drumme well ordered, commaundeth to the armie, the whiche goyng with paces, that answereth the tyme of thesame, will come to kepe easilie thorders: for whiche cause the antiquitie had Shalmes, Flutes, and soundes perfectly tymed: For as moche as like as he that daunseth, proceadeth with the tyme of the Musick, and goyng with thesame doeth not erre, even so an armie obeiyng, in movyng it self to thesame sounde, doeth not disorder: and therefore, thei varied the sounde, accordyng as thei would varie the mocion, and accordyng as thei would inflame, or quiete, or staie the mindes of men: and like as the soundes were divers, so diversly thei named them: the sounde Dorico, ingendered constancie, the sounde Frigio, furie: whereby thei saie, that Alexander beyng at the Table, and one soundyng the sounde Frigio, it kendled so moche his minde, that he laied hande on his weapons. All these maners should be necessarie to finde again: and when this should bee difficulte, at least there would not be left behind those that teache the Souldiour to obeie, the whiche every man maie varie, and ordeine after his owne facion, so that with practise, he accustome the eares of his souldiours to knowe it: But now adaies of this sounde, there is no other fruicte taken for the moste part, then to make a rumour. COSIMO. I would desire to understande of you, if ever with your self you have discourced, whereof groweth so moche vilenesse, and so moche disorder, and so moche necligence in these daies of this exercise? [Sidenote: A notable discourse of the aucthour, declaryng whereof groweth so moche vilenes disorder and necligence in these daies, concernyng the exercises of warre.] FABRICIO. With a good will I will tell you thesame, that I thinke. You knowe how that of the excellente men of warre, there hath been named many in Europe, fewe in Affric, and lesse in Asia: this grewe, for that these twoo laste partes of the worlde, have had not paste one kyngdome, or twoo, and fewe common weales, but Europe onely, hath had many kyngdomes, and infinite common weales, where menne became excellent, and did shewe their vertue, accordyng as thei were sette a woorke, and brought before their Prince, or common weale, or king that he be: it followeth therefore, that where be many dominions, there rise many valiaunt menne, and where be fewe, fewe. In Asia is founde Ninus, Cirus, Artasercses, Mithridates: and verie fewe other, that to these maie be compared. In Africk, is named (lettyng stande thesame auncient Egipt) Massinissa, Jugurta, and those Capitaines, whiche of the Carthaginens common weale were nourished, whom also in respecte to those of Europe, are moste fewe: bicause in Europe, be excellente men without nomber, and so many more should be, if together with those should bee named the other, that be through the malignitie of time extincte: for that the worlde hath been moste vertuous, where hath been moste states, whiche have favoured vertue of necessitie, or for other humaine passion. There rose therfore in Asia, fewe excellente menne: bicause thesame Province, was all under one kyngdome, in the whiche for the greatnesse thereof, thesame standing for the moste parte of tyme idell, there could not growe men in doynges excellent. To Africke there happened the verie same, yet there were nourished more then in Asia, by reason of the Carthaginens common weale: for that in common weales, there growe more excellent men, then in kingdomes, bicause in common weales for the most part, vertue is honoured, in Kyngdomes it is helde backe: wherby groweth, that in thone, vertuous men are nourished, in the other thei are extincte. Therefore he that shall consider the partes of Europe, shall finde it to have been full of common weales, and of princedomes, the whiche for feare, that the one had of the other, thei wer constrained to kepe lively the warlike orders, and to honor them, whiche in those moste prevailed: for that in Grece, besides the kyngdome of the Macedonians, there were many common weales, and in every one of theim, were bred moste excellente men. In Italie, were the Romaines, the Sannites, the Toscanes, the Gallie Cisalpini. Fraunce, and Almainie, wer ful of common weales and princedomes. Spaine likewise: and although in comparison of the Romaines, there are named fewe other, it groweth through the malignitie of the writers, whom folowe fortune, and to theim for the moste parte it suffised, to honour the conquerours: but it standeth not with reason, that betwene the Sannites, and the Toscanes, whom fought CL. yeres with the Romaine people, before thei wer overcome, there should not growe exceadyng many excellente menne. And so likewise in Fraunce, and in Spaine: but that vertue, whiche the writers did not celebrate in particuler menne, thei celebrated generally in the people, where thei exalte to the starres, the obstinatenesse that was in them, to defende their libertie. Beyng then true, that where bee moste dominions, there riseth moste valiaunt menne, it foloweth of necessitie, that extinguishyng those, vertue is extincte straighte waie, the occasion decaiyng, whiche maketh menne vertuous. Therefore, the Romaine Empire beyng after increased, and havyng extinguished all the common weales, and Princedomes of Europe, and of Afrike, and for the moste part those of Asia, it lefte not any waie to vertue, excepte Rome: whereby grewe, that vertuous menne began to be as fewe in Europe, as in Asia: the whiche vertue, came after to the laste caste: For as moche, as all the vertue beyng reduced to Roome, so sone as thesame was corrupted, almoste all the worlde came to bee corrupted: and the Scithian people, were able to come to spoile thesame Empire, the whiche had extinguished the vertue of other, and knewe not howe to maintaine their owne: and after, although through the inundacion of those barberous nacions, thesame Empire was devided into many partes, this vertue is not renued: [Sidenote: The causes why the aunciente orders are neclected.] The one cause is, for that it greveth theim moche, to take againe the orders when thei are marde, the other, bicause the maner of livyng now adaies, having respect to the Christian religion, commaundeth not thesame necessitie to menne, to defende themselves, whiche in olde tyme was: for that then, the menne overcome in warre, either were killed, or remained perpetuall slaves, where thei led their lives moste miserably: The tounes overcome, either were rased, or the inhabiters thereof driven out, their goodes taken awaie, sent dispersed through the worlde: so that the vanquished in warre, suffered all extreme miserie: of this feare, men beyng made afraied, thei wer driven to kepe lively the warlike exercises, and thei honoured soche as were excellente in theim: But nowe adaies, this feare for the moste part is not regarded: of those that are overcom, fewe bee killed, none is kepte longe in prison: for that with facelitie, thei are sette at libertie: the citees also, whiche a thousande tymes have rebelled, are not destroied, the men wherof, are let a lone with their goodes, so that the greateste hurte that is feared, is but a taske: in so moche, that men will not submit them selves to the orders of warre, and to abide alwaies under those, to avoide the perilles whereof thei are little afraied: again these Provinces of Europe, be under a verie fewe heddes, in respecte as it hath been in times past: for that al Fraunce, obeieth one kyng, al Spain, an other: Italie is in fewe partes, so that the weake citees, are defended with leanyng to hym that overcometh, and the strong states, for the causes aforesaied, feare no soche extreme ruine. COSIMO. Yet ther hath ben seen many tounes that have ben sacked within this xxv. yeres, and lost their dominions, whose insample, ought to teache other how to live, and to take again some of those old orders. FABRICIO. You saie true: but if you note what tounes have gone to sacke, you shall not finde that thei have been the heddes of states, but of the members; as was seen sacked Tortona, and not Milaine: Capua, and not Napelles, Brescia, and not Venice, Ravenna, and not Roome: the whiche insamples maketh those that governe, not to chaunge their purposes, but rather maketh them to stande more in their opinion, to be able to redeme again all thynges with taskes, and for this, thei will not submit theim selves to the troubles of thexercises of warre, semyng unto them partly not necessarie, partly, an intrinsicate matter, whiche thei understande not: Those other, whiche bee subjectes to them, whom soche insamples ought to make afraied, have no power to remedie it: and those Princes, that have ones loste their estates, are no more able, and those which as yet kept them, know not, nor wil not. Bicause thei will without any disease rain by fortune, and not by their vertue: for that in the worlde beyng but little vertue, thei see fortune governeth all thynges. And thei will have it to rule theim, not thei to rule it. And to prove this that I have discoursed to bee true, consider Almaine, in the whiche, bicause there is many Princedomes, and common weales, there is moche vertue, and all thesame, whiche in the present service of warre is good, dependeth of the insamples of those people: who beyng all gellious of their states, fearing servitude, the which in other places is not feared, thei all maintaine theim selves Lordes, and honourable: this that I have saied, shall suffice to shewe the occacions of the presente utilitie, accordyng to my opinion: I cannot tell, whether it seeme thesame unto you, or whether there be growen in you any doubtyng. COSIMO. None, but rather I understande all verie well: onely I desire, tournyng to our principall matter, to understande of you, how you would ordein the horses with these battailes, and how many, and how thei should be governed, and how armed. [Sidenote: The armyng of horsemen; The weapons that light horsmenne should have; The nombre of horsmen requisite for a maine bataille of six thousand men; The nombre of carrages that men of armes and light horsmen ought to have.] FABRICIO. You thinke peraventure, that I have left it behinde: whereat doe not marvell, for that I purpose for twoo causes, to speake therof little, the one is, for that the strengthe, and the importaunce of an armie, is the footemen, the other is, bicause this part of service of warre, is lesse corrupted, then thesame of footemen. For that though it be not stronger then the old, yet it maie compare with thesame, nevertheles ther hath been spoken a little afore, of the maner of exercisyng them. And concernyng tharmyng them, I would arme them as thei doe at this present, as wel the light horsemen, as the menne of armes: but the light horsemen, I would that thei should be all Crossebowe shuters, with some Harkebutters emong them: the whiche though in the other affaires of warre, thei bee little profitable, thei be for this most profitable, to make afraied the countrie menne, and to drive them from a passage, that were kept of them: bicause a Harkebutter, shall feare them more, then twentie other armed. But commyng to the nomber, I saie, that having taken in hand, to imitate the service of warre of the Romaines, I would not ordein more then three hundred horse, profitable for every maine battaile, of whiche I would that there were CL. men of armes, and CL. light horsmen, and I would give to every one of these partes, a hedde, making after emong them fiftene peticapitaines for a bande, givyng to every one of them a Trompet, and a standarde: I would that every ten menne of armes, should have five carriages, and every ten light horsemen twoo, the whiche as those of the footemen, should carrie the tentes, the vesselles, and the axes, and the stakes, and the rest of their other harneis. Nor beleve not but that it is disorder, where the menne of armes have to their service fower horse, bicause soche a thyng is a corrupt use: for that the men of armes in Almaine, are seen to bee with their horse alone, every twentie of theim, havyng onely a carte, that carrieth after them their necessary thynges. The Romaine horsemen, were likewise a lone: true it is, that the Triary lodged nere them, whiche wer bound to minister helpe unto theim, in the kepyng of their horses the whiche maie easely be imitated of us, as in the distributyng of the lodgynges, I shall shewe you. Thesame then that the Romaines did, and that whiche the Duchmen doe now a daies, we maie doe also, ye, not doyng it, we erre. These horses ordained and appoincted together with a main battaile, maie sometymes be put together, when the battailes bee assembled, and to cause that betwene theim bee made some sight of assault, the whiche should be more to make them acquainted together, then for any other necessitie. But now of this part, there hath been spoke sufficiently, wherefore let us facion the armie, to be able to come into the field against the enemie, and hope to winne it: whiche thyng is the ende, for whiche the exercise of warre is ordeined, and so moche studie therein bestowed. THE THIRDE BOOKE COSIMO. Seeing that we chaunge reasonyng, I will that the demaunder be chaunged: bicause I would not be thought presumptuous, the which I have alwaies blamed in other: therfore, I resigne the Dictatorship, and give this aucthoritie to hym that will have it, of these my other frendes. ZANOBI. We would be moste glad, that you should procede, but seyng that you will not, yet tell at leaste, whiche of us shall succede in your place. COSIMO. I will give this charge to signor Fabricio. FABRICIO. I am content to take it, and I will that we folowe the Venecian custome, that is, that the youngeste speake firste: bicause this beyng an exercise for yong men, I perswade my self, that yong menne, bee moste apt to reason thereof, as thei be moste readie to execute it. COSIMO. Then it falleth to you Luigi: and as I have pleasure of soche a successour, so you shal satisfie your self of soche a demaunder: therefore I praie you, let us tourne to the matter, and let us lese no more tyme. [Sidenote: The greateste disorder that is used now a daies in pitching of a fielde; The order how a Romain Legion was appoincted to faight; The maner that the Grekes used in their Falangi, when thei fought against their enemies; The order that the Suizzers use in their main battailes when thei faight; Howe to appoincte a main battaile with armour and weapons, and to order thesame after the Greke and Romain maner.] FABRICIO. I am certain, that to mynde to shewe wel, how an armie is prepared, to faight a fielde, it should be necessarie to declare, how the Grekes, and the Romaines ordeined the bandes of their armies: Notwithstandyng, you your selves, beeyng able to rede, and to consider these tnynges, by meanes of the auncient writers. I will passe over many particulars: and I will onely bryng in those thynges, whiche I thinke necessarie to imitate, mindyng at this tyme, to give to our exercise of warre, some parte of perfection: The whiche shall make, that in one instant, I shall shewe you, how an armie is prepared to the field, and how it doeth incounter in the verie faight, and how it maie be exercised in the fained. The greatest disorder, that thei make, whiche ordeine an armie to the fielde, is in giving them onely one fronte, and to binde them to one brunt, and to one fortune: the whiche groweth, of havyng loste the waie, that the antiquitie used to receive one bande within an other: bicause without this waie, thei can neither succour the formoste, nor defende them, nor succede in the faight in their steede: the whiche of the Romaines, was moste excellently well observed. Therefore, purposyng to shewe this waie, I saie, how that the Romaines devided into iii. partes every Legion, in Hastati, Prencipi, and Triarii, of which, the Hastati wer placed in the first front, or forward of the armie, with thorders thicke and sure, behinde whom wer the Prencipi, but placed with their orders more thinne: after these, thei set the Triarii, and with so moche thinnes of orders, that thei might, if nede wer, receive betwene them the Prencipi, and the Hastati. Thei had besides these, the Slingers, and Crosbowshoters, and the other lighte armed, the whiche stoode not in these orders, but thei placed them in the bed of tharmie, betwene the horses and the other bandes of footemen: therefore these light armed, began the faight, if thei overcame (whiche happened seldom times) thei folowed the victorie: if thei were repulced, thei retired by the flanckes of the armie, or by the spaces ordained for soche purposes, and thei brought them selves emong the unarmed: after the departure of whom, the Hastati incountered with the enemie, the whiche if thei saw themselves to be overcome, thei retired by a little and little, by the rarenesse of thorders betwene the Prencipi, and together with those, thei renued the faight if these also wer repulced, thei retired al in the rarenesse of the orders of the Triarii, and al together on a heape, began againe the faight: and then, if thei were overcome, there was no more remeady, bicause there remained no more waies to renue them again. The horses stoode on the corners of the armie, to the likenes of twoo winges to a bodie, and somewhiles thei fought with the enemies horses, an other while, thei rescued the fotmen, according as nede required. This waie of renuyng theim selves three tymes, is almoste impossible to overcome: for that, fortune muste three tymes forsake thee, and the enemie to have so moche strengthe, that three tymes he maie overcome thee. The Grekes, had not in their Falangi, this maner of renuyng them selves, and although in those wer many heddes, and many orders, notwithstandyng, thei made one bodie, or els one hedde: the maner that thei kepte in rescuyng the one the other was, not to retire the one order within the other, as the Romaines, but to enter the one manne into the place of the other: the which thei did in this maner. Their Falange brought into rankes, and admit, that thei put in a ranke fiftie menne, commyng after with their hedde againste the enemie, of all the rankes the foremoste sixe, mighte faight: Bicause their Launces, the whiche thei called Sarisse, were so long, that the sixt ranke, passed with the hedde of their Launces, out of the first ranke: then in faightyng, if any of the first, either through death, or through woundes fell, straight waie there entered into his place, thesame man, that was behinde in the second ranke, and in the place that remained voide of the seconde, thesame man entred, whiche was behind hym in the thirde, and thus successively, in a sodaine the rankes behinde, restored the faultes of those afore, so that the rankes alwaies remained whole, and no place of the faighters was voide, except the laste rankes, the whiche came to consume, havyng not menne behinde their backes, whom might restore theim: So that the hurte that the first rankes suffered, consumed the laste, and the firste remained alwaies whole: and thus these Falangi by their order, might soner be consumed, then broken, for that the grosse bodie, made it more immovable. The Romaines used at the beginnyng the Falangi, and did set in order their Legions like unto them: after, this order pleased them not, and thei devided the Legions into many bodies, that is, in bandes and companies: Bicause thei judged (as a little afore I saied) that thesame bodie, should have neede of many capitaines, and that it should be made of sunderie partes, so that every one by it self, might be governed. The maine battailes of the Suizzers, use at this present, all the maners of the Falangi, as well in ordryng it grosse, and whole, as in rescuyng the one the other: and in pitchyng the field, thei set the main battailes, thone to the sides of the other: and though thei set them the one behinde the other, thei have no waie, that the firste retiryng it self, maie bee received of the seconde, but thei use this order, to the entent to bee able to succour the one thother, where thei put a maine battaile before, and an other behinde thesame on the right hande: so that if the first have nede of helpe, that then the other maie make forewarde, and succour it: the third main battaile, thei put behind these, but distant from them, a Harkebus shot: this thei doe, for that thesaid two main battailes being repulced, this maie make forwarde, and have space for theim selves, and for the repulced, and thesame that marcheth forward, to avoide the justling of the one the other: for asmoche as a grosse multitude, cannot bee received as a little bodie: and therefore, the little bodies beyng destincte, whiche were in a Romaine Legion, might be placed in soche wise, that thei might receive betwene theim, and rescue the one the other. And to prove this order of the Suizzers not to be so good, as the auncient Romaines, many insamples of the Romain Legions doe declare, when thei fought with the Grekes Falangi, where alwaies thei were consumed of theim: for that the kinde of their weapons (as I have said afore) and this waie of renuyng themselves, could do more, then the massivenesse of the Falangi. Havyng therefore, with these insamples to ordaine an armie, I have thought good, partly to retaine the maner of armyng and the orders of the Grekes Falangi, and partely of the Romain Legions: and therfore I have saied, that I would have in a main battaile, twoo thousande pikes, whiche be the weapons of the Macedonicall Falangi, and three thousande Targaettes with sweardes, whiche be the Romain weapons: I have devided the main battaile, into x. battailes, as the Romaines their Legion into ten Cohortes: I have ordeined the Veliti, that is the light armed, to begin the faight, as the Romaines used: and like as the weapons beyng mingled, doe participate of thone and of the other nacion, so the orders also doe participate: I have ordained, that every battaile shall have v. rankes of Pikes in the fronte, and the rest of Targaettes, to bee able with the front, to withstande the horses, and to enter easely into the battaile of the enemies on foot, having in the firste fronte, or vawarde, Pikes, as well as the enemie, the whiche shall suffice me to withstande them, the Targaettes after to overcome theim. And if you note the vertue of this order, you shal se al these weapons, to doe fully their office, for that the Pikes, bee profitable against the horses, and when thei come against the footemenne, thei dooe their office well, before the faight throng together, bicause so sone as thei presse together, thei become unprofitable: wherefore, the Suizzers to avoide this inconvenience, put after everye three rankes of Pikes, a ranke of Halberdes, the whiche they do to make roome to the Pikes, which is not yet so much as suffiseth. Then putting our Pikes afore, and the Targaettes behinde, they come to withstande the horses, and in the beginning of the fight, they open the rayes, and molest the footemen: But when the fight is thrust together, and that they become unprofitable, the Targaettes and swoords succeede, which may in every narowe place be handled. LUIGI. Wee looke nowe with desire to understande, howe you would ordeyne the armie to fighte the fielde, with these weapons, and with these order. [Sidenote: The nomber of men that was in a Counsulles armie; How the Romaines placed their Legions in the field; How to order an armie in the fielde to fighte a battaile, according to the minde of the authour; How the extraordinary pikes bee placed in the set battaile; The place where thextraordinarie archars and harkebutters, and the men of armes and lighte horsmen ought to stande when the field is pitched, and goeth to faighte the battaile; The ordinarie archars and harkebutters are placed aboute their owne battailes; The place where the generall hedde of a maine battaile muste stande, when thesame power of men is appoincted to faight; What menne a general capitain of a maine battaile oughte to have aboute hym; The place wher a general capitain of all thearmie must stand when the battaile is ready to be fought and what nomber of chosen men oughte to be aboute hym; How many canons is requisite for an armie, and of what sise they ought to bee; Where the artillerie ought to be placed when thearmie is reedie to fight; An armie that were ordered as above is declared, maie in fighting, use the Grekes maner, and the Roman fashion; To what purpose the spaces that be betwene every bande of men do serve.] FABRICIO. And I will not nowe shewe you other, then this: you have to understande, how that in an ordinarye Romane armie, which they call a Consull armie, there were no more, then twoo Legions of Romane Citezens which were sixe hundred horse, and about aleven thousande footemen: they had besides as many more footemen and horsemen, whiche were sente them from their friends and confiderates, whome they divided into twoo partes, and called the one, the right horne and the other the left horne: nor they never permitted, that these aiding footemen, should passe the nomber of the footemen of their Legions, they were well contented, that the nomber of those horse shoulde be more then theirs: with this armie, which was of xxii. thousand footemen, and about twoo thousande good horse, a Consul executed all affaires, and went to all enterprises: yet when it was needefull to set against a greater force, twoo Consulles joyned together with twoo armies. You ought also to note in especially, that in all the three principall actes, which an armie doth that is, to march, to incampe, and to fight, the Romanes used to put their Legions in the middeste, for that they woulde, that the same power, wherein they most trusted, shoulde bee moste united, as in the reasoning of these three actes, shall be shewed you: those aiding footemen, through the practise they had with the Legion Souldiours, were as profitable as they, because they were instructed, according as the souldiours of the Legions were, and therefore, in like maner in pitching the field, they pitched. Then he that knoweth how the Romaines disposed a Legion in their armie, to fight a field, knoweth how they disposed all: therefor, having tolde you how they devided a Legion into three bandes, and how the one bande received the other, I have then told you, how al tharmie in a fielde, was ordained. Wherefore, I minding to ordain a field like unto the Romaines, as they had twoo Legions, I will take ii. main batailes, and these being disposed, the disposicion of all an armie shalbe understode therby: bycause in joyning more men, there is no other to be doen, then to ingrosse the orders: I thinke I neede not to rehearse how many men a maine battaile hath, and howe it hath ten battailes, and what heades bee in a battaile and what weapons they have, and which be the ordinarie Pikes and Veliti, and which the extraordinarie for that a litle a fore I told you it destinctly, and I willed you to kepe it in memorie as a necessarie thing to purpose, to understande all the other orders: and therfore I will come to the demonstracion of the order without repeating it any more: Me thinkes good, that the ten battailes of one main battaile be set on the left flanke, and the tenne other, of the other main battaile, on the right: these that are placed on the left flanke, be ordeined in this maner, there is put five battailes the one to the side of the other in the fronte, after suche sorte, that betweene the one and the other, there remaine a space of three yardes, whiche come to occupie for largenesse Cvi. yardes, of ground, and for length thirtie: behinde these five battailes, I would put three other distante by right line from the firste thirtie yardes: twoo of the whiche, should come behinde by right line, to the uttermoste of the five, and the other should kepe the space in the middeste, and so these three, shall come to occupie for bredth and length, as moche space, as the five doeth. But where the five have betwene the one, and the other, a distaunce of three yardes, these shall have a distance of xxv. yardes. After these, I would place the twoo last battailes, in like maner behinde the three by right line, and distaunte from those three, thirtie yardes, and I would place eche of theim, behinde the uttermoste part of the three, so that the space, whiche should remain betwen the one and the other, should be lxviii. yardes: then al these battailes thus ordered, will take in bredth Cvi. yardes, and in length CL. Thextraordinarie Pikes, I would deffende a long the flanckes of these battailes, on the left side, distante from them fiftene yardes, makyng Cxliij. rankes, seven to a ranke, after soche sorte, that thei maie impale with their length, all the left sixe of the tenne battailes in thesame wise, declared of me to be ordained: and there shall remain fourtie rankes to keepe the carriages, and the unarmed, whiche ought to remaine in the taile of the armie, distributyng the Peticapitaines, and the Centurions, in their places: and of the three Conestables, I would place one in the hedde, the other in the middeste, the third in the laste ranke, the whiche should execute the office of a Tergiductore, whom the antiquitie so called hym, that was appoincted to the backe of the armie. But retournyng to the hedde of the armie, I saie how that I would place nere to the extraordinarie pikes, the Veliti extraordinarie, whiche you knowe to be five hundred, and I would give them a space of xxx. yardes: on the side of these likewise on the left hande, I would place the menne of armes, and I would thei should have a space of a Cxii. yardes: after these, the light horsemen, to whom I would appoinct as moche ground to stande in, as the menne of armes have: the ordinarie veliti, I would leave about their owne battailes, who should stand in those spaces, whiche I appoincte betwene thone battaile and thother: whom should be as their ministers, if sometyme I thought not good to place them under the extraordinarie Pikes: in dooyng or not doyng whereof, I would proceade, accordyng as should tourne best to my purpose. The generall hedde of all the maine battaile, I would place in thesame space, that were betwene the first and the seconde order of the battailes, or els in the hedde, and in thesame space, that is betwene the laste battaile of the firste five, and the extraordinarie Pikes, accordyng as beste should serve my purpose, with thirtie or fourtie chosen men about hym, that knewe by prudence, how to execute a commission, and by force, to withstande a violence, and thei to be also betwen the Drumme and the Ansigne: this is thorder, with the whiche I would dispose a maine battaile, whiche should bee the disposyng of halfe the armie, and it should take in breadth three hundred fourscore and twoo yardes, and in length as moche as above is saied, not accomptyng the space, that thesame parte of the extraordinarie Pikes will take, whiche muste make a defence for the unarmed, whiche will bee aboute lxxv. yardes: the other maine battaile, I would dispose on the righte side, after the same maner juste, as I have disposed that on the lefte, leavyng betwene the one main battaile, and thother, a space of xxii. yardes: in the hedde of whiche space, I would set some little carriages of artillerie, behynde the whiche, should stande the generall capitaine of all the armie, and should have about hym with the Trumpet, and with the Capitaine standerde, twoo hundred menne at least, chosen to be on foote the moste parte, emongest whiche there should be tenne or more, mete to execute all commaundementes, and should bee in soche wise a horsebacke, and armed, that thei mighte bee on horsebacke, and on foote, accordyng as neede should require. The artillerie of the armie, suffiseth ten Cannons, for the winning of Townes, whose shotte shoulde not passe fiftie pounde: the whiche in the fielde should serve mee more for defence of the campe, then for to fight the battaile: The other artillerie, should bee rather of ten, then of fifteene pounde the shotte: this I would place afore on the front of all the armie, if sometime the countrie should not stande in such wise, that I mighte place it by the flancke in a sure place, where it mighte not of the enemie be in daunger: this fashion of an armie thus ordered, may in fighting, use the order of the Falangi, and the order of the Romane Legions: for that in the fronte, bee Pikes, all the men bee set in the rankes, after such sorte, that incountering with the enemie, and withstanding him, maye after the use of the Falangi, restore the firste ranckes, with those behinde: on the other parte, if they be charged so sore, that they be constrayned to breake the orders, and to retire themselves, they maye enter into the voide places of the seconde battailes, which they have behinde them, and unite their selves with them, and making a new force, withstande the enemie, and overcome him: and when this sufficeth not, they may in the verie same maner, retire them selves the seconde time, and the third fight: so that in this order, concerning to fight, there is to renue them selves, both according to the Greeke maner, and according to the Romane: concerning the strength of the armie, there cannot be ordayned a more stronger: for as much, as the one and the other borne therof, is exceedingly well replenished, both with heades, and weapons, nor there remayneth weake, other then the part behinde of the unarmed, and the same also, hath the flanckes impaled with the extraordinarie Pikes: nor the enemie can not of anye parte assaulte it, where he shall not finde it well appointed, and the hinder parte can not be assaulted: Because there can not bee an enemie, that hath so much puissaunce, whome equallye maye assault thee on everye side: for that hee having so great a power, thou oughtest not then to matche thy selfe in the fielde with him: but when he were three times more then thou, and as well appointed as thou, hee doth weaken him selfe in assaulting thee in divers places, one part that thou breakest, will cause all the reste go to naughte: concerning horses, although he chaunce to have more then thine, thou needest not feare: for that the orders of the Pikes, which impale thee, defende thee from all violence of them, although thy horses were repulced. The heades besides this, be disposed in such place, that they may easyly commaunde, and obeye: the spaces that bee between the one battaile, and the other, and betweene the one order, and the other, not onely serve to be able to receyve the one the other, but also to give place to the messengers, whiche should go and come by order of the Capitayne. And as I tolde you firste, howe the Romanes had for an armie, aboute foure and twentie thousande men, even so this oughte to bee: and as the other souldiours tooke ensample of the Legions, for the maner of fighting, and the fashion of the armie, so those souldiours, whiche you shoulde joyne to oure twoo mayne battailes, oughte to take the forme and order of them: whereof having put you an ensample, it is an easye matter to imitate it, for that increasing, either twoo other mayne battailes unto the armie, or as many other souldiours, as they bee, there is no other to bee done, then to double the orders, and where was put tenne battailes on the lefte parte, to put twentie, either ingrossing, or distending the orders, according as the place, or the enemie shoulde compell thee. LUIGI. Surelye sir I imagine in suche wise of this armie, that mee thinkes I nowe see it, and I burne with a desire to see it incounter, and I woulde for nothing in the worlde, that you shoulde become Fabius Maximus intendyng to kepe the enemie at a baie, and to deferre the daie of battaile: bicause I would saie worse of you, then the Romain people saied of hym. [Sidenote: The descripcion of a battaile that is a faightyng.] FABRICIO. Doubt not: Doe you not heare the artillerie? Ours have alredie shotte, but little hurte the enemie: and thextraordinarie Veliti, issuyng out of their places together with the light horsemen, moste speadely, and with moste merveilous furie, and greateste crie that maie be, thei assaulte the enemie: whose artillerie hath discharged ones, and hath passed over the heddes of our footemen, without doyng them any hurt, and bicause it cannot shoote the seconde tyme, the Veliti, and our horsemen, have nowe gotten it, and the enemies for to defende it, are come fore warde, so that neither our ordinaunce, nor thenemies, can any more doe their office. Se with how moche vertue, strengthe and agilitie our men faighteth, and with how moche knowledge through the exercise, whiche hath made them to abide, and by the confidence, that thei have in the armie, the whiche, see, how with the pace therof, and with the men of armes on the sides, it marcheth in good order, to give the charge on the adversarie: See our artillerie, whiche to give theim place, and to leave them the space free, is retired by thesame space, from whens the Veliti issued: See how the capitaine incourageth them, sheweth them the victorie certain: See how the Veliti and light horsemen bee inlarged, and retourned on the flanckes of tharmie, to seke and view, if thei maie by the flanck, doe any injurie to the adversaries: behold how the armies be affronted. Se with how moche valiauntnesse thei have withstode the violence of thenemies, and with how moche silence, and how the capitain commaundeth the menne of armes, that thei sustain, and not charge, and that thei breake not from the order of the footemen: see how our light horsemen be gone, to give the charge on a band of the enemies Harkebutters, whiche would have hurt our men by flancke, and how the enemies horse have succoured them, so that tourned betwene the one and the other horse, thei cannot shoote, but are faine to retire behinde their owne battaile: see with what furie our Pikes doe also affront, and how the footemen be now so nere together the one to the other, that the Pikes can no more be occupied: so that according to the knowlege learned of us, our pikes do retire a little and a little betwen the targaettes. Se how in this while a great bande of men of armes of the enemies, have charged our men of armes on the lefte side, and how ours, accordyng to knowlege, bee retired under the extraordinarie Pikes, and with the help of those, giving again a freshe charge, have repulced the adversaries, and slain a good part of them: in so moche, that thordinarie pikes of the first battailes, be hidden betwene the raies of the Targaettes, thei havyng lefte the faight to the Targaet men: whom you maie see, with how moche vertue, securitie, and leasure, thei kill the enemie: see you not how moche by faightyng, the orders be thrust together? That thei can scarse welde their sweardes? Behold with how moche furie the enemies move: bicause beyng armed with the pike, and with the swerd unprofitable (the one for beyng to long, the other for findyng thenemie to well armed) in part thei fall hurt or dedde, in parte thei flie. See, thei flie on the righte corner, thei flie also on the lefte: behold, the victorie is ours. Have not we wonne a field moste happely? But with more happinesse it should bee wonne, if it were graunted me to put it in acte. And see, how there neded not the helpe of the seconde, nor of the third order, for our first fronte hath sufficed to overcome theim: in this part, I have no other to saie unto you, then to resolve if any doubt be growen you. [Sidenote: Questions concerning the shotyng of ordinaunce.] LUIGI. You have with so moche furie wonne this fielde that I so moche mervaile and am so astonied, that I beleve that I am not able to expresse, if any doubt remain in my mynde: yet trustyng in your prudence, I will be so bolde to tell thesame that I understande. Tell me firste, why made you not your ordinaunce to shoote more then ones? And why straighte waie you made them to retire into tharmie, nor after made no mension of them? Me thought also, that you leveled the artillerie of the enemie high, and appoincted it after your own devise: the whiche might very well bee, yet when it should happen, as I beleve it chaunseth often, that thei strike the rankes, what reamedie have you? And seyng that I have begun of the artillerie, I will finishe all this question, to the intente I nede not to reason therof any more. I have heard many dispraise the armours, and the orders of the aunciente armies, arguyng, how now a daies, thei can doe little, but rather should bee altogether unprofitable, havyng respecte to the furie of the artillerie: bicause, this breaketh the orders, and passeth the armours in soche wise, that it semeth unto them a foolishenesse to make an order, whiche cannot bee kepte, and to take pain to beare a harneis, that cannot defende a man. [Sidenote: An aunswere to the questions that were demaunded, concernyng the shoting of ordinaunce; The best remedie to avoide the hurte that the enemie in the fielde maie doe with his ordinaunce; A policie against bowes and dartes; Nothyng causeth greater confusion in an armie, than to hinder mennes fightes; Nothing more blindeth the sight of men in an armie, then the smoke of ordinaunce; A policie to trouble the enemies sight; The shotte of greate ordinaunce in the fielde, is not moche to bee feared of fotemenne; Bicause menne of armes stand closer together then light horsmen, thei ought to remaine behinde the armie till the enemies ordinaunce have done shootyng; The artillerie is no let, why the auncient orders of warfar ought not to be used in these daies.] FABRICIO. This question of yours (bicause it hath many heddes) hath neede of a long aunswere. It is true, that I made not thartillery to shoote more than ones, and also of thesame ones, I stoode in doubte: the occasion was, for asmoche as it importeth more, for one to take hede not to be striken, then it importeth to strike the enemie. You have to understande, that to purpose that a pece of ordinaunce hurte you not, it is necessarie either to stande where it cannot reche you, or to get behinde a wall, or behinde a banke: other thing there is not that can witholde it: and it is nedefull also, that the one and the other be moste strong. Those capitaines whiche come to faight a field, cannot stand behind a wal, or behind bankes, nor where thei maie not be reached: therfore it is mete for them, seyng thei cannot finde a waie to defende them, to finde some mean, by the whiche thei maie be least hurte: nor thei cannot finde any other waie, then to prevente it quickly: the waie to prevent it, is to go to finde it out of hande, and hastely, not at leasure and in a heape: for that through spede, the blowe is not suffered to bee redoubled, and by the thinnesse, lesse nomber of menne maie be hurt. This, a bande of menne ordered, cannot dooe; bicause if thesame marche hastely, it goweth out of order: if it go scattered, the enemie shall have no paine to breake it, for that it breaketh by it self: and therfore, I ordered the armie after soche sorte, that it might dooe the one thyng and the other: for as moche as havyng set in the corners thereof, a thousande Veliti, I appoincted that after that our ordinaunce had shotte, thei should issue out together with the light horsemen, to get the enemies artillerie: and therfore, I made not my ordinance to shoote again, to the intente, to give no tyme to the enemie to shoote: Bicause space could not be given to me, and taken from other men, and for thesame occasion, where I made my ordinaunce not to shoote the seconde tyme, was for that I would not have suffered the enemie to have shot at al, if I had could: seyng that to mynde that the enemies artillerie be unprofitable, there is no other remedie, but to assaulte it spedely: for as moche as if the enemies forsake it, thou takeste it, if thei will defende it, it is requisite that thei leave it behind, so that being possessed of enemies, and of frendes, it cannot shoote. I would beleve, that with out insamples these reasons should suffice you, yet beyng able to shewe olde ensamples, to prove my saiynges true, I will. Ventidio commyng to faight a field with the Parthians, whose strength for the moste part, consisted in bowes and arrowes, he suffered theim almoste to come harde to his campe, before he drewe out his armie, the whiche onely he did, to be able quickly to prevent them: and not to give them space to shoote. Cesar when he was in Fraunce, maketh mencion, that in faighting a battaile with the enemies, he was with so moche furie assaulted of them, that his menne had no time to whorle their Dartes, accordyng to the custome of the Romaines: wherfore it is seen, that to intende, that a thyng that shooteth farre of, beyng in the field, doe not hurte thee, there is no other remedy, then with as moche celeritie as maie bee, to prevente it. An other cause moved me to procede, without shotyng the ordinaunce, whereat peradventure you will laugh: yet I judge not that it is to be dispraised. Ther is nothyng that causeth greater confusion in an armie, then to hinder mennes fightes: whereby many moste puisaunte armies have been broken, by meanes their fighte hath been letted, either with duste, or with the Sunne: yet there is nothyng, that more letteth the sight then the smoke that the artillerie maketh in shotyng: therfore, I would thinke that it wer more wisedome, to suffer the enemie to blinde hymself, then to purpose (thou being blind) to go to finde hym: for this cause, either I would not shote, or (for that this should not be proved, considering the reputacion that the artillerie hath) I would place it on the corners of the armie, so that shootyng, it should not with the smoke thereof, blinde the front of thesame, whiche is the importaunce of my men. And to prove that it is a profitable thyng, to let the sight of the enemie, there maie be brought for insample Epaminondas, whom to blind the enemies armie, whiche came to faight with hym, he caused his light horsemen, to run before the fronte of the enemies, to raise up the duste, and to lette their sight, whereby he gotte the victorie. And where it semeth unto you, that I have guided the shot of the artillerie, after my owne devise, making it to passe over the heddes of my men, I answer you, that most often tymes, and without comparison, the greate ordinaunce misse the footemen, moche soner than hitte theim: for that the footemen are so lowe, and those so difficult to shoote; that every little that thou raisest theim, thei passe over the heddes of men: and if thei be leveled never so little to lowe, thei strike in the yearth, and the blowe cometh not to theim: also the unevenesse of the grounde saveth them, for that every little hillocke, or high place that is, betwene the men and thordinance, letteth the shot therof. And concernyng horsmen, and in especially men of armes, bicause thei ought to stand more close together, then the light horsemen, and for that thei are moche higher, maie the better be stroken, thei maie, untill the artillerie have shotte, be kepte in the taile of the armie. True it is, that the Harkebutters doe moche more hurt, and the field peces, then the greate ordinance, for the whiche, the greatest remedy is, to come to hande strokes quickly: and if in the firste assaulte, there be slaine some, alwaies there shall bee slaine: but a good capitaine, and a good armie, ought not to make a coumpte of a hurte, that is particulare, but of a generall, and to imitate the Suizzers, whom never eschue to faight, beyng made afraied of the artillerie: but rather punishe with death those, whiche for feare thereof, either should go out of the ranke, or should make with his body any signe of feare. I made them (so sone as thei had shotte) to bee retired into the armie, that thei might leave the waie free for the battaile: I made no more mencion of theim, as of a thyng unprofitable, the faight beyng begun. You have also saied, that consideryng the violence of this instrument, many judge the armours, and the auncient orders to be to no purpose, and it semeth by this your talke, that men now a daies, have founde orders and armours, whiche are able to defend them against the artillerie: if you knowe this, I would bee glad that you would teache it me: for that hetherto, I never sawe any, nor I beleve that there can any be founde: so that I would understande of soche men, for what cause the souldiours on foote in these daies, weare the breastplate, or the corselet of steele, and thei on horsebacke go all armed: bicause seyng that thei blame the aunciente armyng of men as unprofitable, considryng the artillery, thei ought to despise also this? I would understande moreover, for what occasion the Suizzers, like unto the auncient orders, make a battaile close together of sixe, or eight thousande menne, and for what occasion all other have imitated theim, this order bearyng the verie same perill, concernyng the artillerie, that those other should beare, whiche should imitate the antiquitie. I beleve thei should not knowe what to answere: but if you should aske soche Souldiours, as had some judgement, thei would aunswere first, that thei go armed, for that though thesame armoure defende theim not from the artillerie: it defendeth them from crossebowes, from Pikes, from sweardes, from stones, and from all other hurt, that commeth from the enemies, thei would answere also, that thei went close together, like the Suizzers, to be able more easely to overthrow the footemen, to be able to withstand better the horse and to give more difficultie to the enemie to breake them: so that it is seen, that the souldiours have to fear, many other thynges besides the ordinance: from which thynges, with the armours, and with the orders, thei are defended: whereof foloweth, that the better that an armie is armed, and the closer that it hath the orders, and stronger, so moche the surer it is: so that he that is of thesame opinion, that you saie, it behoveth either that he bee of smalle wisedome, or that in this thyng, he hath studied verie little: for as moche as if we see, that so little a parte of the aunciente maner of armyng, whiche is used now a daies, that is the pike, and so little a parte of those orders, as are the maine battailes of the Suizzers, dooe us so moche good, and cause our armies to bee so strong, why ought not we to beleve, that the other armours, and thother orders whiche are lefte, be profitable? Seyng that if we have no regard to the artillerie, in puttyng our selves close together, as the Suizzers, what other orders maie make us more to feare thesame? For as moche as no order can cause us so moche to feare thesame, as those, whiche bryng men together. Besides this, if the artillerie of the enemies should not make me afraied, in besiegyng a Toune, where it hurteth me with more safegarde, beyng defended of a wall, I beyng not able to prevente it, but onely with tyme, with my artillerie to lette it, after soche sorte that it maie double the blowe as it liste, why should I feare thesame in the field, where I maie quickly prevent it? So that I conclude thus, that the artillerie, according to my opinion, doeth not let, that the aunciente maners cannot be used, and to shewe the auncient vertue: and if I had not talked alreadie with you of this instrument, I would of thesame, declare unto you more at length: but I will remit my self to that, whiche then I saied. LUIGI. Wee maie now understande verie well, how moche you have aboute the artillerie discoursed: and in conclusion, my thinkes you have shewed, that the preventyng it quickly, is the greatest remedie, that maie be had for thesame, beyng in the fielde, and havyng an armie againste you. Upon the whiche there groweth in me a doubte: bicause me thinkes, that the enemie might place his ordinaunce in soche wise, in his armie, that it should hurt you, and should be after soche sort garded of the footemen, that it could not be prevented. You have (if you remember your self well) in the orderyng of your armie to faight, made distaunces of three yardes, betwene the one battaile and the other, makyng those distaunces fiftene, whiche is from the battailes, to thextraordinarie pikes: if thenemie, shuld order his armie like unto yours, and should putte the artillerie a good waie within those spaces, I beleve that from thens, it should hurte you with their moste greate safegard: bicause menne can not enter into the force of their enemies to prevent it. [Sidenote: A generall rule againste soche thynges as cannot bee withstoode.] FABRICIO. You doubt moste prudently, and I will devise with my self, either to resolve you the doubte, or shewe you the remedie: I have tolde you, that continually these battailes, either through goyng, or thorowe faightyng, are movyng, and alwaies naturally, thei come to drawe harde together, so that if you make the distaunces of a small breadth, where you set the artillerie, in a little tyme thei be shootte up, after soche sort, that the artillerie cannot any more shoote: if you make theim large, to avoide this perill, you incurre into a greater, where you through those distances, not onely give commoditie to the enemie, to take from you the artillerie, but to breake you: but you have to understande, that it is impossible to keepe the artillerie betwene the bandes, and in especially those whiche go on carriages: For that the artillerie goeth one waie, and shooteth an other waie: So that havyng to go and to shoote, it is necessary, before thei shote, that thei tourne, and for to tourne theim, thei will have so moche space, that fiftie cartes of artillerie, would disorder any armie: therfore, it is mete to kepe them out of the bandes, where thei may be overcome in the maner, as a little afore we have shewed: but admit thei might be kept, and that there might be found a waie betwen bothe, and of soche condicion, that the presyng together of men should not hinder the artillerie, and were not so open that it should give waie to the enemie, I saie, that it is remedied moste easely, with makyng distances in thy armie against it, whiche maie give free passage to the shot of those, and so the violence thereof shall come to be vain, the which maie be doen moste easely: for asmoche, as the enemie mindyng to have his artillerie stand safe, it behoveth that he put them behinde, in the furthest part of the distances, so that the shot of the same, he purposyng that thei hurt not his owne men, ought to passe by right line, and by that very same alwaies: and therefore with givyng theim place, easely thei maie bee avoided: for that this is a generall rule, that to those thynges, whiche cannot be withstoode, there must bee given waie, as the antiquitie made to the Eliphantes, and to the carres full of hookes. I beleve, ye, I am more then certaine, that it semeth unto you, that I have ordered and wonne a battaile after my own maner: notwithstanding, I answeer unto you this, when so moche as I have saied hetherto, should not suffice, that it should be impossible, that an armie thus ordered, and armed, should not overcome at the first incounter, any other armie that should bee ordained, as thei order the armies now adaies, whom most often tymes, make not but one front, havyng no targaettes, and are in soche wise unarmed, that thei cannot defende themselves from the enemie at hand, and thei order theim after soche sorte, that if thei set their battailes by flanck, the one to the other, thei make the armie thinne: if thei put the one behind the other, havyng no waie to receive the one the other, thei doe it confusedly, and apt to be easly troubled: and although thei give three names to their armies, and devide them into thre companies, vaward, battaile, and rereward, notwithstandyng it serveth to no other purpose, then to marche, and to distinguis the lodgynges: but in the daie of battaile, thei binde them all to the first brunte, and to the first fortune. LUIGI. I have noted also in the faightyng of your fielde, how your horsemen were repulced of the enemies horsemen: for whiche cause thei retired to the extraordinaire Pikes: whereby grewe, that with the aide of theim, thei withstode, and drave the enemies backe? I beleve that the Pikes maie withstande the horses, as you saie, but in a grosse and thicke maine battaile, as the Suizzers make: but you in your army, have for the hedde five rankes of Pikes, and for the flancke seven, so that I cannot tell how thei maie bee able to withstande them. [Sidenote: A Battaile how greate so ever it bee, cannot atones occupy above v. rankes of Pikes.] FABRICIO. Yet I have told you, how sixe rankes of pikes wer occupied at ones, in the Macedonicall Falangi, albeit you ought to understande, that a maine battaile of Suizzers, if it were made of a thousande rankes, it cannot occupie more then fower, or at the most five: bicause the Pikes be sixe yardes and three quarters longe, one yarde and halfe a quarter, is occupied of the handes, wherefore to the firste ranke, there remaineth free five yardes and a half, and a halfe quarter of Pike: the seconde ranke besides that whiche is occupied with the hande, consumeth a yarde and half a quarter in the space, whiche remaineth betwene the one ranke and thother: so that there is not left of pike profitable, more then fower yardes and a halfe: to the thirde ranke, by this verie same reason, there remaineth three yardes and a quarter and a halfe: to the fowerth, twoo yardes and a quarter: to the fift one yard and halfe a quarter: the other rankes, for to hurte, be unprofitable, but thei serve to restore these firste rankes, as we have declared, and to bee a fortificacion to those v. Then if five of their rankes can withstande the horse, why cannot five of ours withstande theim? to the whiche also there lacketh not rankes behinde, that doeth sustain and make them the very same staie, although thei have no pikes as the other. And when the rankes of thextraordinarie pikes, which are placed on the flanckes, should seme unto you thinne, thei maie bee brought into a quadrante, and put on the flancke nere the twoo battailes, whiche I set in the laste companie of the armie: From the whiche place, thei maie easely altogether succour the fronte, and the backe of the armie, and minister helpe to the horses, accordyng as nede shall require. LUIGI. Would you alwaies use this forme of order, when you would pitche a fielde. [Sidenote: An advertiement concernyng the pitchying of a field.] FABRICIO. No in no wise: for that you ought to varie the facion of the armie, according to the qualitie of the situacion, and the condicion and quantitie of the enemie, as before this reasonyng dooe ende, shall bee shewed certaine insamples: but this forme is given unto you, not so moche as moste strongeste of all, where in deede it is verie strong, as to the intente that thereby you maie take a rule, and an order to learne to knowe the waies to ordeine the other: for as moche, as every science hath his generalitie, upon the whiche a good part of it is grounded. One thing onely I advise you, that you never order an armie, after soche sorte, that those that faight afore, cannot bee sucoured of theim, whiche be set behind: bicause he that committeth this errour, maketh the greateste parte of his armie to bee unprofitable, and if it incounter any strength, it cannot overcome. LUIGI. There is growen in me, upon this parte a doubte. I have seen that in the placyng of the battailes, you make the fronte of five on a side, the middeste of three, and the last partes of twoo, and I beleve, that it were better to ordain them contrariwise: for that I thinke, that an armie should with more difficultie bee broken, when he that should charge upon it, the more that he should entre into the-same, so moche the stronger he should finde it: and the order devised of you, me thinkes maketh, that the more it is entered into, so moche the weaker it is founde. [Sidenote: How the front of the armie ought to bee made; How the middell part of the armie ought to be ordered.] FABRICIO. If you should remember how to the Triarii, whom were the thirde order of the Romain Legions, there were not assigned more then sixe hundred men, you would doubt lesse, havyng understode how thei were placed in the laste companie: For that you should see, how I moved of this insample, have placed in the last companie twoo battailes, whiche are nine hundred men, so that I come rather (folowyng the insample of the Romaine people) to erre, for havyng taken to many, then to fewe: and although this insample should suffice, I will tell you the reason, the which is this. The first fronte of the armie, is made perfectly whole and thicke, bicause it must withstande the brunt of the enemies, and it hath not to receive in it any of their felowes: and for this, it is fitte that it bee full of menne: bicause a fewe menne, should make it weake, either thinnesse, or for lacke of sufficiente nomber: but the seconde companie, for as moche as it must first receive their frendes, to sustain the enemie, it is mete that it have greate spaces, and for this it behoveth, that it be of lesse nomber then the first: for that if it wer of greater nomber, or equall, it should bee conveniente, either not to leave the distaunces, the whiche should be disorder, or leavyng theim, to passe the boundes of thoseafore, the whiche should make the facion of the armie unperfecte: and it is not true that you saie, that the enemie, the more that he entereth into the maine battaile, so moche the weaker he findeth it: for that the enemie, can never faight with the seconde order, except the first be joined with thesame: so that he cometh to finde the middest of the maine battaile more stronger, and not more weaker, havyng to faight with the first, and with the seconde order altogether: the verie same happeneth, when the enemie should come to the thirde companie: for that there, not with twoo battailes, whiche is founde freshe, but with all the maine battaile he must faight: and for that this last part hath to receive moste men, the spaces therof is requisite to be greatest, and that whiche receiveth them, to be the leste nomber. [Sidenote: The orderyng of the hinder part of tharmy.] LUIGI. It pleaseth me thesame that you have told: but answere me also this: if the five first battailes doe retire betwene the three seconde battailes, and after the eight betwene the twoo thirde, it semeth not possible, that the eight beyng brought together, and then the tenne together, maie bee received when thei bee eight, or when thei be tenne in the verie same space, whiche received the five. [Sidenote: The retire of the Pikes, to place the Targaet men.] FABRICIO. The first thyng that I aunswere is, that it is not the verie same space: For that the five have fower spaces in the middeste, whiche retiryng betwene the thre, or betwene the twoo, thei occupie: then there remaineth thesame space, that is betwene the one maine battaile and other and thesame that is, betwene the battailes, and the extraordinarie Pikes, al the whiche spaces makes largenesse: besides this, it is to bee considered, that the battailes kepe other maner of spaces, when thei bee in the orders without beyng altered, then when thei be altered: for that in the alteracion: either thei throng together, or thei inlarge the orders: thei inlarge theim, when thei feare so moche, that thei fall to fliyng, thei thrust them together, when thei feare in soche wise, that thei seke to save them selves, not with runnyng a waie, but with defence: So that in this case, thei should come to be destingueshed, and not to be inlarged. Moreover, the five rankes of the Pikes, that are before, so sone as thei have begun the faighte, thei ought betwene their battailes to retire, into the taile of the armie, for to give place to the Targaet men, that thei maie faighte: and thei goyng into the taile of the armie, maie dooe soche service as the capitain should judge, were good to occupie theim aboute, where in the forward, the faight beyng mingled, thei should otherwise bee altogether unprofitable. And for this the spaces ordained, come to bee for the remnaunte of the menne, wide inough to receive them: yet when these spaces should not suffice, the flankes on the sides be men, and not walles, whom givyng place, and inlargyng them selves, maie make the space to containe so moche, that it maie bee sufficient to receive theim. [Sidenote: How the pikes that are placed on the flankes of the armie ought to governe them selves when the rest of the armie is driven to retire.] LUIGI. The rankes of the extraordinarie Pikes, whiche you place on the flanckes of the armie, when the first battailes retire into the second, will you have them to stande still, and remain with twoo homes to the armie? Or will you that thei also retire together, with the battailes? The whiche when thei should do, I see not how thei can, havyng no battailes behinde with distaunces that maie receive them. [Sidenote: Thexercise of the army in generall; The nomber that is mete to be written in the Ansigne of every band of men; The degrees of honours in an armie, whiche soche a man ought to rise by, as should bee made a generall capitain.] FABRICIO. If the enemie overcome theim not, when he inforceth the battailes to retire, thei maie stande still in their order, and hurte the enemie on the flanck, after that the firste battailes retired: but if he should also overcome theim, as semeth reason, beyng so puisaunte, that he is able to repulce the other, thei also ought to retire: whiche thei maie dooe excellently well, although thei have not behinde, any to receive them: bicause from the middest thei maie redouble by right line, entring the one ranke into the other, in the maner whereof wee reasoned, when it was spoken of the order of redoublyng: True it is, that to mynde redoublyng to retire backe, it behoveth to take an other waie, then thesame that I shewed you: for that I told you, that the second ranke, ought to enter into the first, the fowerth into the thirde, and so foorth: in this case, thei ought not to begin before, but behinde, so that redoublyng the rankes, thei maie come to retire backewarde not to tourne forward: but to aunswere to all thesame, that upon this foughten field by me shewed, might of you bee replied. I saie unto you again, that I have ordained you this armie, and shewed this foughten field for two causes, thone, for to declare unto you how it is ordered, the other to shewe you how it is exercised: thorder, I beleve you understande moste well: and concernyng the exersice, I saie unto you, that thei ought to be put together in this forme, as often times as maie be: for as moche as the heddes learne therby, to kepe their battailes in these orders: for that to particulare souldiours, it appertaineth to keepe well the orders of every battaile, to the heddes of the battailes, it appertaineth to keepe theim well in every order of the armie, and that thei knowe how to obeie, at the commaundement of the generall capitain: therefore, it is conveniente that thei knowe, how to joyne the one battaile with thother, that thei maie knowe how to take their place atones: and for this cause it is mete that thansigne of every battaile, have written in some evident part, the nomber therof: as well for to be able to commaunde them, as also for that the capitain, and the souldiours by thesame nomber, maie more easely knowe theim againe: also the maine battailes, ought to be nombred, and to have the nomber in their principal Ansigne: Therefore it is requisite, to knowe of what nomber the maine battaile shall be, that is placed on the left, or on the right horne of what nombers the battailes bee, that are set in the fronte, and in the middeste, and so foorthe of the other. The antiquitie would also, that these nombers should bee steppes to degrees, of honors of the armies: as for insample, the first degree, is the Peticapitain, the seconde, the hedde of fiftie ordinarie Veliti, the thirde, the Centurion, the fowerth, the hedde of the first battaile, the fifte, of the second, the sixt, of the thirde, and so forthe, even to the tenth battaile, the whiche must be honoured in the seconde place, nexte the generall capitaine of a maine battaile: nor any ought to come to thesame hedde, if first, he have not risen up by all these degrees. And bicause besides these heddes, there be the three Conestables of the extraordinarie Pikes, and twoo of the extraordinarie Veliti, I would that thei should be in the same degree of the Conestable of the first battaile: nor I would not care, that there were sixe men of like degree, to thintent, that every one of them might strive, who should doe beste, for to be promised to be hedde of the seconde battaile. Then every one of these heddes, knowyng in what place his battaile ought to be sette in, of necessitie it must folowe, that at a sounde of the Trompette, so sone as the hedde standarde shall bee erected, all the armie shall be in their places: and this is the first exercise, whereunto an armie ought to bee accustomed, that is to set theim quickly together: and to doe this, it is requisite every daie, and divers times in one daie, to set them in order, and to disorder them. LUIGI. What armes would you that thansignes of all the armie, shoul'd have beside the nomber? [Sidenote: The armes that oughte to bee in the standarde, and in the ansignes of an armie; The second and thirde exercise of an armie; The fowerth exercise of an armie; The soundes of the instrumentes of musicke, that the antiquitie used in their armies; What is signified by the sounde of the Trompet.] FABRICIO. The standarde of the generall Capitaine oughte to have the armes of the Prince of the armie, all the other, maie have the verie same armes, and to varie with the fieldes, or to varie with the armes, as should seme beste to the Lorde of the armie: Bicause this importeth little, so that the effect growe, that thei be knowen the one from the other. But let us passe to the other exercise: the which is to make them to move, and with a convenient pace to marche, and to se, that marehyng thei kepe the orders. The third exercise is, that thei learne to handle themselves in thesame maner, whiche thei ought after to handle theimselves in the daie of battaile, to cause the artillerie to shoote, and to bee drawen out of the waie, to make the extraordinarie Veliti to issue out, after a likenes of an assault, to retire theim: To make that the firste battailes, as though thei wer sore charged, retire into the spaces of the second: and after, all into the thirde, and from thens every one to retourne to his place: and in soche wise to use theim in this exercise, that to every manne, all thyng maie be knowen, and familiar: the which with practise, and with familiaritie, is brought to passe moste quickly. The fowerth exercise is, that thei learne to knowe by meane of the sounde, and of the Ansigne, the commaundemente of their capitaine: for as moche as that, whiche shall be to them pronounced by voice, thei without other commaundemente, maie understande: and bicause the importaunce of this commaundement, ought to growe of the sounde, I shall tell you what soundes the antiquitie used. Of the Lacedemonians, accordyng as Tucidido affirmeth, in their armies were used Flutes: for that thei judged, that this armonie, was moste mete to make their armie to procede with gravetie, and with furie: the Carthaginens beyng moved by this verie same reason, in the first assaulte, used the violone. Aliatte kyng of the Lidians, used in the warre the violone, and the Flutes: but Alexander Magnus, and the Romaines, used hornes, and Trumpettes, as thei, that thought by vertue of soche instrumentes, to bee able to incourage more the myndes of Souldiours, and make theim to faight the more lustely: but as we have in armyng the armie, taken of the Greke maner, and of the Romaine, so in distrihutyng the soundes, we will keepe the customes of the one, and of the other nacion: therefore, nere the generall capitain, I would make the Trompettes to stand, as a sounde not onely apt to inflame the armie, but apte to bee heard in all the whole tumoult more, then any other sounde: all the other soundes, whiche should bee aboute the Conestables, and the heddes of maine battailes I would, that thei should bee smalle Drummes, and Flutes, sounded not as thei sounde theim now but as thei use to sounde theim at feastes. The capitaine then with the Trompet, should shewe when thei must stande still, and go forward, or tourne backward, when the artillerie must shoote, when the extraordinarie Veliti must move, and with the varietie or distinccion of soche soundes, to shewe unto the armie all those mocions, whiche generally maie bee shewed, the whiche Trompettes, should bee after followed of the Drummes, and in this exercise, bicause it importeth moche, it behoveth moche to exercise the armie. Concernyng the horsemen, there would be used likewise Trompettes, but of a lesse sounde, and of a divers voice from those of the Capitaine. This is as moche as is come into my remembraunce, aboute the order of the armie, and of the exercise of thesame. LUIGI. I praie you let it not be grevous unto you to declare unto me an other thyng, that is, for what cause you made the light horsmen, and the extraordinarie Veliti, to goe with cries, rumours, and furie, when thei gave the charge? And after in the incountering of the rest of tharmie, you shewed, that the thing folowed with a moste greate scilence? And for that I understande not the occasion of this varietie, I would desire that you would declare it unto me. [Sidenote: The cries, and rumours, wher with the firste charge is given unto the enemies, and the silence that ought to bee used after, when the faight is ones begunne.] FABRICIO. The opinion of auncient capitaines, hath been divers about the commyng to handes, whether thei ought with rumour to go a pace, or with scilence to go faire and softely: this laste waie, serveth to kepe the order more sure, and to understande better the commaundementes of the Capitaine: the firste, serveth to incourage more the mindes of men: and for that I beleve, that respecte ought to bee had to the one, and to the other of these twoo thynges, I made the one goe with rumour, and thother with scilence: nor me thinkes not in any wise, that the continuall rumours bee to purpose: bicause thei lette the commaundementes, the whiche is a thyng moste pernicious: nor it standeth not with reason, that the Romaines used, except at the firste assaulte to make rumour: for that in their histories, is seen many tymes to have happened, that through the wordes, and comfortinges of the capitain the souldiours that ranne awaie, were made to stande to it, and in sundrie wise by his commaundemente, to have varied the orders, the whiche should not have followed, if the rumoures had been louder then his voyce. THE FOWERTH BOOKE LUIGI. Seng that under my governement, a field hath been wonne so honourably, I suppose that it is good, that I tempt not fortune any more, knowyng how variable, and unstable she is: and therefore, I desire to give up my governement, and that Zanobi do execute now this office of demaundyng, mindyng to followe the order, whiche concerneth the youngeste: and I knowe he will not refuse this honoure, or as we would saie, this labour, as well for to doe me pleasure, as also for beyng naturally of more stomach than I: nor it shall not make hym afraied, to have to enter into these travailes, where he maie bee as well overcome, as able to conquere. ZANOBI. I am readie to do what soever shall please you to appoinete me, although that I desire more willingly to heare: for as moche as hetherto, your questions have satisfied me more, then those should have pleased me, whiche in harkenyng to your reasonyng, hath chaunced to come into my remembraunce. But sir, I beleve that it is good, that you lese no tyme, and that you have pacience, if with these our Ceremonies we trouble you. FABRICIO. You doe me rather pleasure, for that this variacion of demaunders, maketh me to knowe the sundrie wittes and sunderie appetites of yours: But remaineth there any thyng, whiche seemeth unto you good, to bee joyned to the matter, that alreadie hath been reasoned of? ZANOBI. Twoo thinges I desire, before you passe to an other parte: the one is, to have you to shewe, if in orderyng armies, there needeth to bee used any other facion: the other, what respectes a capitaine ought to have, before he conducte his men to the faight, and in thesame an accidente risyng or growyng, what reamedie maie be had. [Sidenote: To deffende moche the fronte of an armie, is most perillous; What is beste for a capitaine to dooe, where his power is, moche lesse then thenemies power; A general rule; The higher grounde ought to be chosen; An advertisement not to place an armie wher the enemie maie se what the same doeth; Respectes for the Sonne and Winde; The variyng of order and place maie cause the conquered to become victorius; A policie in the ordering of men and pitchyng of a fielde; How to compasse about the enemies power; How a capitaine maie faight and bee as it were sure, not to be overcome; How to trouble the orders of the enemie; What a capitaine oughte to dooe when he hath not so many horsmen as the enemie; A greate aide for horsemen; The policies used betwene Aniball and Scipio.] FABRICIO. I will inforce my self to satisfie you, I will not answere now distinctly to your questions: for that whileste I shall aunswere to one, many tymes it will come to passe, that I muste aunswere to an other. I have tolde you, how I have shewed you a facion of an armie, to the intent, that accordyng to thesame, there maie bee given all those facions, that the enemie, and the situacion requireth: For as moche as in this case, bothe accordyng to the power thereof, and accordyng to the enemie, it proceadeth: but note this, that there is not a more perillous facion, then to deffende moche the front of tharmie, if then thou have not a most puisant, and moste great hoste: otherwise, thou oughtest to make it rather grosse, and of small largenesse, then of moche largenes and thin: for when thou hast fewe men in comparison to thenemie, thou oughtest to seke other remedies, as is to ordain thine army in soche a place, wher thou maiest be fortefied, either through rivers, or by meanes of fennes, after soch sort, that thou canst not bee compassed aboute, or to inclose thy self on the flanckes with diches, as Cesar did in Fraunce. You have to take in this cace, this generall rule, to inlarge your self, or to draw in your self with the front, according to your nomber, and thesame of the enemie. For thenemies being of lesse nomber, thou oughtest to seke large places, havyng in especially thy men well instructed: to the intent thou maiest, not onely compasse aboute the enemie, but to deffende thy orders: for that in places rough and difficulte, beyng not able to prevaile of thy orders, thou commeste not to have any advauntage, hereby grewe, that the Romaines almoste alwaies, sought the open fieldes, and advoided the straightes. To the contrarie, as I have said, thou oughtest to doe, if thou hast fewe menne, or ill instructed: for that then thou oughteste to seeke places, either where the little nomber maye be saved, and where the small experience dooe not hurte thee: Thou oughtest also to chuse the higher grounde, to be able more easily to infest them: notwithstandyng, this advertisment ought to be had, not to ordaine thy armie, where the enemie maie spie what thou doest and in place nere to the rootes of the same, where the enemies armie maie come: For that in this case, havyng respecte unto the artillerie, the higher place shall gette thee disadvauntage: Bicause that alwaies and commodiously, thou mightest of the enemies artillerie bee hurte, without beyng able to make any remedy, and thou couldest not commodiously hurte thesame, beyng hindered by thine owne men. Also, he that prepareth an armie to faight a battaile, ought to have respecte, bothe to the Sunne, and to the Winde, that the one and the other, doe not hurte the fronte, for that the one and the other, will let thee the sight, the one with the beames, and the other with the duste: and moreover, the Winde hindereth the weapons, whiche are stroken at the enemie, and maketh their blowes more feable: and concerning the Sunne, it sufficeth not to have care, that at the firste it shine not in the face, but it is requisite to consider, that increasyng the daie, it hurte thee not: and for this, it should bee requsite in orderyng the men, to have it all on the backe, to the entente it should have to passe moche tyme, to come to lye on the fronte. This waie was observed of Aniball at Canne, and of Mario against the Cimbrians. If thou happen to be moche inferiour of horses, ordaine thine armie emongeste Vines, and trees, and like impedimentes, as in our time the Spaniardes did, when thei overthrewe the Frenchmenne at Cirignuola. And it hath been seen many times, with all one Souldiours, variyng onely the order, and the place, that thei have become of losers victorers: as it happened to the Carthageners, whom havyng been overcome of Marcus Regolus divers tymes, were after by the counsaill of Santippo a Lacedemonian, victorious: whom made them to go doune into the plaine, where by vertue of the horses, and of Eliphantes, thei were able to overcome the Romaines. It semes unto me, accordyng to the auncient insamples that almoste all the excellente Capitaines, when thei have knowen, that the enemie hath made strong one side of his battaile, thei have not set against it, the moste strongest parte, but the moste weakest, and thother moste strongest thei have set against the most weakest: after in the beginning the faighte, thei have commaunded to their strongest parte, that onely thei sustaine the enemie, and not to preace upon hym, and to the weaker, that thei suffer them selves to be overcome, and to retire into the hindermoste bandes of the armie. This breadeth twoo greate disorders to the enemie: the firste, that he findeth his strongest parte compassed about, the second is, that semyng unto him to have the victorie, seldome tymes it happeneth, that thei disorder not theim selves, whereof groweth his sodain losse. Cornelius Scipio beyng in Spain, againste Asdruball of Carthage, and understanding how to Asdruball it was knowen, that he in the orderyng the armie, placed his Legions in the middest, the whiche was the strongest parte of his armie, and for this how Asdruball with like order ought to procede: after when he came to faighte the battaile, he chaunged order, and put his Legions on the hornes of the armie, and in the middest, placed all his weakeste men: then commyng to the handes, in a sodain those men placed in the middeste, he made to marche softly, and the hornes of the armie, with celeritie to make forwarde, so that onely the hornes of bothe the armies fought, and the bandes in the middest, through beyng distaunt the one from the other, joyned not together, and thus the strongest parte of Scipio, came to faight with the weakest of Asdruball, and overcame hym. The whiche waie was then profitable, but now havyng respect to the artillerie, it cannot be used: bicause the same space, whiche should remain in the middest, betwene the one armie and the other, should give tyme to thesame to shoote: The whiche is moste pernicious, as above is saied: Therefore it is requisite to laie this waie aside, and to use, as a little afore we saied, makyng all the armie to incounter, and the weakest parte to give place. When a capitaine perceiveth, that he hath a greater armie then his enemie, mindyng to compasse hym aboute, before he be aware let hym ordaine his fronte equall, to thesame of his adversaries, after, so sone as the faight is begun, let hym make the fronte by a little and little to retire, and the flanckes to deffende, and alwaies it shall happen, that the enemie shal find hymself, before he be aware compassed about. When a capitain will faight, as it wer sure not to be broken, let hym ordaine his armie in place, where he hath refuge nere, and safe, either betwene Fennes, or betwene hilles, or by some strong citee: for that in this case, he cannot bee followed of the enemie, where the enemie maie be pursued of him: this poincte was used of Aniball, when fortune began to become his adversarie, and that he doubted of the valiauntnesse of Marcus Marcello. Some to trouble the orders of the enemie, have commaunded those that were light armed, to begin the faight, and that beyng begunne, to retire betwene the orders: and when the armies were after buckled together, and that the fronte of either of them were occupied in faightyng, thei have made theim to issue out by the flanckes of the battaile, and thesame have troubled and broken. If any perceive hymself to bee inferiour of horse, he maie besides the waies that are alredie shewed, place behinde his horsemen a battaile of Pikes, and in faightyng take order, that thei give waie to the Pikes, and he shall remain alwaies superiour. Many have accustomed to use certain fotemenne lighte armed, to faighte emong horsemen, the whiche hath been to the chivalrie moste greate helpe. Of all those, which have prepared armies to the field, be moste praised Aniball and Scipio, when thei fought in Africk: and for that Aniball had his armie made of Carthaginers, and of straungers of divers nacions, he placed in the first fronte thereof lxxx. Elephantes, after he placed the straungers, behinde whom he sette his Carthaginers, in the hindermoste place, he putte the Italians, in whom he trusted little: the whiche thing he ordained so, for that the straungers havyng before theim the enemie, and behinde beyng inclosed of his men, could not flie: so that being constrained to faight thei should overcome, or wearie the Romaines, supposyng after with his freshe and valiaunte men, to be then able easely to overcome the Romaines, beeyng wearied. Against this order, Scipio set the Astati, the Prencipi, and the Triarii, in the accustomed maner, to bee able to receive the one the other, and to rescue the one the other: he made the fronte of the armie, full of voide spaces, and bicause it should not be perceived but rather should seme united, he filled them ful of veliti, to whom he commaunded, that so sone as the Eliphantes came, thei should avoide, and by the ordinarie spaces, should enter betwene the Legins, and leave open the waie to the Eliphauntes, and so it came to passe, that it made vaine the violence of theim, so that commyng to handes, he was superiour. ZANOBI. You have made me to remember, in alledging me this battaile, how Scipio in faighting, made not the Astati to retire into thorders of the Prencipi, but he devided theim, and made theim to retire in the hornes of the armie, to thintent thei might give place to the Prencipi, when he would force forwarde: therfore I would you should tell me, what occasion moved hym, not to observe the accustomed order. [Sidenote: Cartes full of hookes made to destroie the enemies; The remedy that was used against Cartes full of hookes; The straunge maner that Silla used in orderyng his army against Archelaus; How to trouble in the faighte the armie of the enemies; A policie of Caius Sulpitius, to make his enemies afraied; A policie of Marius againste the Duchmenne; A policie of greate importaunce, while a battaile is a faightyng; How horsemen maie bee disordered; How the turke gave the Sophie an overthrowe; How the Spaniardes overcame the armie of Amilcare; How to traine the enemie, to his destruccion; A policie of Tullo Hostilio and Lucius Silla in dessemlyng of a mischaunce; Sertorius slue a man for telling him of the death of one of his capitaines; Howe certaine captaines have staied their men that hath been running awaie; Attillius constrained his men that ran awaie to tourne again and to faight; How Philip king of Macedonia made his men afraied to run awaie; Victorie ought with all celeritie to bee folowed; What a capitaine ought to dooe, when he should chaunce to receive an overthrowe; How Martius overcame the armie of the Carthaginers; A policie of Titus Dimius to hide a losse, whiche he had received in a faight; A general rule; Aniball; Scipio; Asdruball; A Capitaine ought not to faight without advantage, excepte he be constrained; How advauntage maie bee taken of the enemies; Furie withstode, converteth into vilenesse; What maner of men a capitaine ought to have about him continually, to consult withall; The condicions of the capitain of the enemies, and of those that are about hym is moste requisite to bee knowen; A timerous army is not to be conducted to faight; How to avoide the faightyng of a fielde.] FABRICIO. I will tell you. Aniball had putte all the strengthe of his armie, in the seconde bande: wherefore Scipio for to set againste thesame like strengthe, gathered the Prencipi and the Triarii together: So that the distaunces of the Prencipi, beyng occupied of the Triarii, there was no place to bee able to receive the Astati: and therefore he made the Astati to devide, and to go in the hornes of the armie, and he drewe them not betwene the Prencipi. But note, that this waie of openyng the first bande, for to give place to the seconde, cannot bee used, but when a man is superiour to his enemie: for that then there is commoditie to bee able to dooe it, as Scipio was able: but beyng under, and repulced, it cannot be doen, but with thy manifest ruine: and therefore it is convenient to have behinde, orders that maie receive thee, but let us tourne to our reasonyng. The auncient Asiaticans, emongest other thynges devised of them to hurt the enemies, used carres. The whiche had on the sides certaine hookes, so that not onely thei served to open with their violence the bandes, but also to kill with the hookes the adversaries: against the violence of those, in thre maners thei provided, either thei sustained theim with the thickenesse of the raies, or thei received theim betwene the bandes, as the Eliphantes were received, or els thei made with arte some strong resistence: As Silla a Romaine made againste Archelaus, whom had many of these cartes, whiche thei called hooked, who for to sustaine theim, drave many stakes into the grounde, behinde his first bandes of men, whereby the cartes beyng stopped, lost their violence. And the newe maner that Silla used against hym in orderyng the armie, is to bee noted: for that he put the Veliti, and the horse, behinde, and all the heavie armed afore, leavyng many distaunces to be able to sende before those behinde, when necessite required: whereby the fight beyng begun, with the helpe of the horsemen, to the whiche he gave the waie, he got the victorie. To intende to trouble in the faight the enemies armie, it is conveniente to make some thyng to growe, that maie make theim afraied, either with showyng of newe helpe that commeth, or with showyng thynges, whiche maie represente a terrour unto theim: after soche sorte, that the enemies begiled of that sight, maie be afraied, and being made afraied, thei maie easely bee overcome: the whiche waies Minutio Rufo used, and Accilio Glabrione Consulls of Rome. Caius Sulpitius also set a greate many of sackes upon Mules, and other beastes unprofitable for the warre, but in soche wise ordained, that thei semed men of armes, and he commaunded, that thei should appere upon a hill, while he were a faightyng with the Frenchemen, whereby grewe his victorie. The verie same did Marius, when he foughte against the Duchemen. Then the fained assaultes availyng moche, whilest the faight continueth, it is conveniente, that the very assaultes in deede, dooe helpe moche: inespecially if at unwares in the middest of the faight, the enemie might bee assaulted behinde, or on the side: the whiche hardely maie be doen, if the countrie helpe thee not: for that when it is open, parte of thy men cannot bee hid, as is mete to bee doen in like enterprises: but in woddie or hille places, and for this apt for ambusshes parte of thy men maie be well hidden, to be able in a sodain, and contrary to thenemies opinion to assaut him, whiche thyng alwaies shall be occasion to give thee the victorie. It hath been sometyme of greate importaunce, whilest the faighte continueth, to sowe voices, whiche doe pronounce the capitaine of thenemies to be dedde, or to have overcome on the other side of the armie: the whiche many times to them that have used it, hath given the victorie. The chivalrie of the enemies maie bee easely troubled, either with sightes, or with rumours, not used: as Creso did, whom put Camelles againste the horses of the adversaries, and Pirrus sette againste the Romaine horsemen Eliphantes, the sighte of whiche troubled and disordered them. In our time, the Turke discomfited the Sophi in Persia, and the Soldane in Surria with no other, then with the noise of Harkabuses, the whiche in soche wise, with their straunge rumours, disturbed the horses of those, that the Turke mighte easely overcome them: The Spaniardes to overcome the armie of Amilcare, put in the firste fronte Cartes full of towe drawen of oxen, and comming to handes, thei kindeled fire to thesame, wherfore the oxen to flie from the fire, thrust into the armie of Amilcar, and opened it. Thei are wonte (as we have saied) to begile the enemie in the faight, drawyng him into their ambusshes, where the Countrie is commodious for the same purpose, but where it were open and large, many have used to make diches, and after have covered them lightly with bowes and yearth, and lefte certain spaces whole, to be able betnene those to retire: after, so sone as the faight hath been begunne, retiryng by those, and the enemie folowing them, hath fallen in the pittes. If in the faight there happen thee, any accident that maie feare thy souldiours, it is a moste prudente thyng, to knowe how to desemble it, and to pervert it to good, as Tullo Hostilio did, and Lucius Silla: whom seyng while thei fought, how a parte of his men wer gone to the enemies side, and how thesame thing had verie moche made afraied his men, he made straighte waie throughout all the armie to be understoode, how all thing proceded, accordyng to his order: the whiche not onely did not trouble the armie, but it increased in them so moche stomack, that he remained victorious. It happened also to Silla, that havyng sente certaine souldiours to doe some businesse, and thei beyng slain he saied, to the intent his armie should not be made afraied thereby, that he had with crafte sent theim into the handes of the enemies, for that he had found them nothyng faithfull. Sertorius faightyng a battaile in Spaine, slue one, whom signified unto hym the death of one of his capitaines, for feare that tellyng the very same to other, he should make theim afraied. It is a moste difficult thyng, an armie beyng now moved to flie, to staie it, and make it to faight. And you have to make this distinccion: either that it is all moved, and then to be impossible to tourne it, or there is moved a parte thereof, and then there is some remedie. Many Romain capitaines, with making afore those whiche fled, have caused them to staie, making them ashamed of running awaie, as Lucius Silla did, where alredy parte of his Legions beyng tourned to flight, driven awaie by the men of Mithridates, he made afore them with a swearde in his hande criyng: if any aske you, where you left your capitaine, saie, we have left hym in Boecia, where he faighteth. Attillius a consull set againste that ran awaie, them that ranne not awaie, and made them to understande, that if thei would not tourne, thei should be slaine of their frendes, and of their enemies. Philip of Macedonia understanding how his men feared the Scithian Souldiours, placed behinde his armie, certaine of his moste trustie horsemen, and gave commission to theim, that thei should kill whom so ever fledde: wherfore, his men mindyng rather to die faightyng, then fliyng, overcame. Many Romaines, not so moche to staie a flight, as for to give occasion to their men, to make greater force, have whileste thei have foughte, taken an Ansigne out of their owne mennes handes, and throwen it emongeste the enemies, and appoincted rewardes to hym that could get it again. I doe not beleve that it is out of purpose, to joyne to this reasonyng those thynges, whiche chaunce after the faight, in especially beyng brief thinges, and not to be left behinde, and to this reasonyng conformable inough. Therefore I saie, how the fielde is loste, or els wonne: when it is wonne, the victorie ought with all celeritie to be folowed, and in this case to imitate Cesar, and not Aniball, whom staiyng after that he had discomfited the Romaines at Canne, loste the Empire of Rome: The other never rested after the victorie, but folowed the enemie beyng broken, with greater violence and furie, then when he assalted hym whole: but when a capitaine dooeth loese, he ought to see, if of the losse there maie growe any utilite unto hym, inespecially if there remain any residue of tharmie. The commoditie maie growe of the small advertisment of the enemie, whom moste often times after the victorie, becometh negligent, and giveth thee occasion to oppresse hym, as Marcius a Romaine oppressed the armie of the Carthaginers, whom having slain the twoo Scipions, and broken their armie, not estemyng thesame remnaunt of menne, whiche with Marcius remained a live, were of hym assaulted and overthrowen: for that it is seen, that there is no thing so moche to bee brought to passe, as thesame, whiche the enemie thinketh, that thou canst not attempte: bicause for the moste parte, men bee hurte moste, where thei doubt leaste: therefore a capitain ought when he cannot doe this, to devise at least with diligence, that the losse bee lesse hurtfull, to dooe this, it is necessarie for thee to use meanes, that the enemie maie not easely folowe thee, or to give him occasion to make delaie: in the first case, some after thei have been sure to lese, have taken order with their heddes, that in divers partes, and by divers waies thei should flie, havyng appoincted wher thei should after assemble together: the which made, that thenemie (fearing to devide the armie) was faine to let go safe either all, or the greatest part of them. In the seconde case, many have cast before the enemie, their dearest thinges, to the entent that he tariyng about the spoile, might give them more laisure to flie. Titus Dimius used no small policie to hide the losse, whiche he had received in the faight, for asmoche as havyng fought untill night, with great losse of his menne, he made in the night to be buried, the greatest part of them, wherefore in the mornyng, the enemies seyng so many slaine of theirs, and so fewe of the Romaines, belevyng that thei had the disavauntage, ran awaie. I trust I have thus confusedly, as I saied, satisfied in good part your demaunde: in dede about the facions of the armies, there resteth me to tell you, how some tyme, by some Capitaines, it hath been used to make theim with the fronte, like unto a wedge, judgyng to bee able by soche meane, more easely to open the enemies armie. Against this facion, thei have used to make a facion like unto a paire of sheres, to be able betwene thesame voide place, to receive that wedge, and to compasse it about, and to faight with it on every side: whereupon I will that you take this generall rule, that the greatest remedie that is used againste a devise of the enemie, is to dooe willingly thesame, whiche he hath devised that thou shalt dooe perforce: bicause that doyng it willingly, thou doest it with order, and with thy advauntage, and his disadvauntage, if thou shouldest doe it beyng inforced, it should be thy undoyng: For the provyng whereof, I care not to reherse unto you, certain thynges alredy tolde. The adversary maketh the wedge to open thy bandes: if thou gowest with them open, thou disorderest hym, and he disordereth not thee. Aniball set the Elephantes in the fronte of his armie, to open with theim the armie of Scipio. Scipio went with it open, and it was the occasion of his victorie, and of the ruine of hym. Asdruball placed his strongest men in the middest of the fronte of his armie, to overthrowe Scipios menne: Scipio commaunded, that by them selves thei should retire and he broke theim: So that like devises when thei are foreseen, bee the causes of the victorie of him, against whom thei be prepared. There remaineth me also, if I remember my self well, to tell you what respectes a Capitaine ought to have, before he leade his men to faight: upon whiche I have to tell you firste, how a capitaine ought never to faight a battaile, except he have advauntage, or be constrained. The vantage groweth of the situacion, of the order, of havyng more, or better menne: the necessitie groweth when thou seest how that not faightyng, thou muste in any wise lose, as should bee for lackyng of money, and for this, thy armie to bee ready all maner of waies to resolve, where famishemente is ready to assaulte thee, where the enemie looketh to bee ingrosed with newe men: in these cases, thou oughtest alwaies to faight, although with thy disadvauntage: for that it is moche better to attempte fortune, where she maie favour thee, then not attemptyng, to see thy certaine ruine: and it is as grevous a faulte in this case, in a capitain not to faight, as to have had occasion to overcome, and not to have either knowen it through ignoraunce, or lefte it through vilenesse. The advauntages some tymes the enemie giveth thee, and some tymes thy prudence: Many in passyng Rivers have been broken of their enemie, that hath been aware thereof, whom hath taried, till the one halfe hath been of the one side, and the other halfe on the other, and then hath assaulted them: as Cesar did to the Suizzers, where he destroied the fowerth parte of theim, through beyng halfe over a river. Some tyme thy enemie is founde wearie, for havyng folowed thee to undescritely, so that findyng thy self freshe and lustie, thou oughtest not to let passe soche an occasion: besides this, if the enemie offer unto thee in the mornyng betymes to faight, thou maiest a good while deferre to issue out of thy lodgyng, and when he hath stoode long in armour, and that he hath loste that same firste heate, with the whiche he came, thou maiest then faight with him. This waie Scipio and Metellus used in Spaine: the one against Asdruball, the other against Sertorius. If the enemie be deminished of power, either for havyng devided the armie, as the Scipions in Spain, or for some other occasion, thou oughteste to prove chaunce. The greateste parte of prudent capitaines, rather receive the violence of the enemies, then go with violence to assalte them: for that the furie is easely withstoode of sure and steddie menne, and the furie beyng sustained, converteth lightly into vilenesse: Thus Fabius did againste the Sannites, and against the Galles, and was victorious and his felowe Decius remained slain. Some fearing the power of their enemies, have begun the faight a little before night, to the intent that their men chaunsyng to bee overcome, might then by the helpe of the darkenesse thereof, save theim selves. Some havyng knowen, how the enemies armie beyng taken of certaine supersticion, not to faight in soche a tyme, have chosen thesame tyme to faighte, and overcome: The whiche Cesar observed in Fraunce, againste Arionistus, and Vespasian in Surrie, againste the Jewes. The greatest and moste importaunte advertismente, that a capitaine ought to have, is to have aboute hym faithfull menne, that are wise and moste expert in the warre, with whom he must continually consulte and reason of his men, and of those of the enemies, whiche is the greater nomber, whiche is beste armed, or beste on horsebacke, or best exercised, whiche be moste apte to suffer necessitie, in whom he trusteth moste, either in the footemen, or in the horsemen: after thei ought to consider the place where thei be, and whether it be more to the purpose for thenemie, then for him: which of theim hath victualles moste commodious: whether it be good to deferre the battaile, or to faight it: what good might bee given hym, or taken awaie by tyme: for that many tymes, souldiours seyng the warre to be delaied, are greved, and beyng wearie, in the pain and in the tediousnesse therof, wil forsake thee. It importeth above all thyng, to knowe the capitain of the enemies, and whom he hath aboute hym, whether he be rashe, or politike, whether he be fearfull, or hardie: to see how thou maiest truste upon the aidyng souldiours. And above all thyng thou oughtest to take hede, not to conducte the armie to faight when it feareth, or when in any wise it mistrusteth of the victorie: for that the greatest signe to lose, is thei beleve not to be able to winne: and therfore in this case, thou oughtest to avoide the faightyng of the fielde, either with doyng as Fabius Maximus, whom incampyng in strong places, gave no courage to Aniball, to goe to finde hym, or when thou shouldest thinke, that the enemie also in strong places, would come to finde thee, to departe out of the fielde, and to devide the menne into thy tounes to thentent that tediousnesse of winnyng them, maie wearie hym. ZANOBI. Cannot the faightyng of the battaile be otherwise avoided, then in devidyng the armie in sunderie partes and placyng the men in tounes? [Sidenote: Fabius Maximus.] FABRICIO. I beleve that ones alreadie, with some of you I have reasoned, how that he, that is in the field, cannot avoide to faight the battaile, when he hath an enemie, which will faight with hym in any wise, and he hath not, but one remedie, and that is, to place him self with his armie distant fiftie miles at leaste, from his adversarie, to be able betymes to avoide him, when he should go to finde hym. For Fabius Maximus never avoided to faight the battaile with Aniball, but he would have it with his advauntage: and Aniball did not presume to bee able to overcome hym, goyng to finde hym in the places where he incamped: where if he had presupposed, to have been able to have overcome, it had been conveniente for Fabius, to have fought the battaile with hym, or to have avoided. [Sidenote: Philip king of Macedonia, overcome by the Romaines; How Cingentorige avoided the faightyng of the fielde with Cesar; The ignorance of the Venecians; What is to be doen wher soldiours desire to faight, contrary to their capitaines minde; How to incourage souldiers; An advertisment to make the soldiour most obstinately to faight.] Philip Kyng of Macedonia, thesame that was father to Perse, commyng to warre with the Romaines, pitched his campe upon a verie high hill, to the entent not to faight with theim: but the Romaines wente to find hym on thesame hill, and discomfaited hym. Cingentorige capitain of the Frenche menne, for that he would not faight the field with Cesar, whom contrarie to his opinion, had passed a river, got awaie many miles with his men. The Venecians in our tyme, if thei would not have come to have fought with the Frenche kyng, thei ought not to have taried till the Frenche armie, had passed the River Addus, but to have gotten from them as Cingentorige, where thei havyng taried knewe not how to take in the passyng of the men, the occasion to faight the battaile, nor to avoide it: For that the Frenche men beyng nere unto them, as the Venecians went out of their Campe, assaulted theim, and discomfited theim: so it is, that the battaile cannot bee avoided, when the enemie in any wise will faight, nor let no man alledge Fabius, for that so moche in thesame case, he did flie the daie of battaile, as Aniball. It happeneth many tymes, that thy souldiours be willyng to faight, and thou knoweste by the nomber, and by the situacion, or for some other occasion to have disadvauntage, and desirest to make them chaunge from this desire: it happeneth also, that necessitie, or occasion, constraineth thee to faight, and that thy souldiours are evill to be trusted, and smally disposed to faight: where it is necessarie in thone case, to make theim afraied, and in the other to incourage theim: In the firste case, when perswacions suffiseth not, there is no better waie, then to give in praie, a part of them unto thenemie, to thintent those that have, and those that have not fought, maie beleve thee: and it may very wel be doen with art, thesame which to Fabius Maximus hapned by chaunce. Tharmie of Fabius (as you knowe) desired to faight with Aniballs armie: the very same desire had the master of his horses: to Fabius it semed not good, to attempte the faight: so that through soche contrary opinions, he was fain to devide the armie: Fabius kept his men in the campe, the other fought, and commyng into great perill, had been overthrowen, if Fabius had not rescued him: by the whiche insample the maister of the horse, together with all the armie, knewe how it was a wise waie to obeie Fabius. Concernyng to incourage theim to faight, it should be well doen, to make them to disdain the enemies, shewyng how thei speake slaunderous woordes of them, to declare to have intelligence with them, and to have corrupted part of them, to incampe in place, where thei maie see the enemies, and make some light skirmishe with them, for that the thyng that is dailie seen, with more facilitie is despised: to shewe theim to bee unworthie, and with an oracion for the purpose, to reprehende them of their cowardnesse, and for to make them ashamed, to tell theim that you will faight alone, when thei will not beare you companie. And you ought above all thyng to have this advertismente, mindyng to make the Souldiour obstinate to faight, not to permitte, that thei maie send home any of their substaunce, or to leave it in any place, till the warre bee ended, that thei maie understande, that although fliyng save their life, yet it saveth not theim their goodes, the love whereof, is wonte no lesse then thesame, to make men obstinate in defence. ZANOBI. YOU have tolde, how the souldiours maie be tourned to faight, with speakyng to theim: doe you meane by this, that all the armie must bee spoken unto, or to the heddes thereof? [Sidenote: It is requisite for excellent Capitaines to bee good orators; Alexander Magnus used openly to perswade his armie; The effecteousnes of speking; Souldiours ought to be accustomed to heare their Capitaine speake; How in olde time souldiers were threatened for their faltes; Enterprises maie the easelier be brought to passe by meanes of religion; Sertorius; A policie of Silla; A policie of Charles the seventh king of Fraunce against the Englishmen; How souldiers maiebee made to esteme little their enemies; The surest wai to make souldiours moste obstinat to faight; By what meanes obstinatenesse to faighte is increased.] FABRICIO. TO perswade, or to diswade a thyng unto fewe, is verie easie, for that if woordes suffise not, you maie then use aucthoritie and force: but the difficultie is, to remove from a multitude an evill opinion, and that whiche is contrary either to the common profite, or to thy opinion, where cannot be used but woordes, the whiche is meete that thei be heard of every man, mindyng to perswade them all. Wherfore, it was requisite that the excellente Capitaines were oratours: for that without knowyng how to speake to al the army, with difficultie maie be wrought any good thing: the whiche altogether in this our tyme is laied aside. Rede the life of Alexander Magnus, and you shall see how many tymes it was necessarie for hym to perswade, and to speake publikly to his armie: otherwise he should never have brought theim, beyng become riche, and full of spoile, through the desertes of Arabia, and into India with so moche his disease, and trouble: for that infinite tymes there growe thynges, wherby an armie ruinateth, when the capitain either knoweth not, or useth not to speake unto thesame, for that this speakyng taketh awaie feare, in courageth the mindes, increaseth the obstinatenes to faight, discovereth the deceiptes, promiseth rewardes, sheweth the perilles, and the waie to avoide theim, reprehendeth, praieth, threatened, filleth full of hope, praise, shame, and doeth a11 those thynges, by the whiche the humaine passions are extincte or kendled: wherefore, that prince, or common weale, whiche should appoincte to make a newe power, and cause reputacion to their armie, ought to accustome the Souldiours thereof, to heare the capitain to speake, and the capitain to know how to speake unto them. In kepyng desposed the souldiours in old tyme, to faight for their countrie, the religion availed moche, and the othes whiche thei gave them, when thei led theim to warfare: for as moche as in al their faultes, thei threatned them not onely with those punishementes, whiche might be feared of men but with those whiche of God might be looked for: the whiche thyng mingled with the other Religious maners, made many tymes easie to the auncient capitaines all enterprises, and will doe alwaies, where religion shall be feared, and observed. Sertorius prevailed, by declaryng that he spake with a Stagge, the whiche in Goddes parte, promised hym the victorie. Silla saied, he spoke with an Image, whiche he had taken out of the Temple of Apollo. Many have tolde how God hath appered unto them in their slepe, whom hath admonished them to faight. In our fathers time, Charles the seventh kyng of Fraunce, in the warre whiche he made againste the Englishemen, saied, he counsailed with a maide, sent from God, who was called every where the Damosell of Fraunce, the which was occacion of his victorie. There maie be also used meanes, that maie make thy men to esteme little the enemie, as Agesilao a Spartaine used, whom shewed to his souldiours, certain Persians naked, to the intent that seyng their delicate members, thei should not have cause to feare them. Some have constrained their men to faight through necessitie, takyng awaie from them all hope of savyng theim selves, savyng in overcommyng. The whiche is the strongest, and the beste provision that is made, to purpose to make the souldiour obstinate to faight: whiche obstinatenesse is increased by the confidence, and love of the Capitaine, or of the countrie. Confidence is caused through the armour, the order the late victorie, and the opinion of the Capitaine. The love of the countrie, is caused of nature: that of the Capitain, through vertue, more then by any other benefite: the necessities maie be many, but that is strongest, whiche constraineth thee; either to overcome, or to dye. THE FIVETH BOOKE [Sidenote: How the Romaines marched with their armies; How the Romaines ordered their armie when it happened to be assaulted on the waie; How the main battailes ought to marche; The orderyng of an armie after soche sorte, that it maie marche safelie through the enemies countrie and be alwaies in a redines to faight; The place in the armie wher the bowmen and Harkabutters are appoincted; The place in the armie wher thextraordinarie Pikes are appoincted. The place in the armie wherthe generall capitain must be; Where the artillerie must be placed. The light horsmenne must be sente before to discover the countrie and the menne of armes to come behind tharmy; A generall rule concernyng horse; Wher the carriages and the unarmed are placed; The waie must be made plaine wher the armie shall marche in order; How many miles a day an armie maie marche in battaile raie, to bee able to incampe before sunne set; The orderyng of the armie, when it is assaulted on the vawarde; The orderyng of tharmie when thenemie commes to assaulte it behinde; How the armie is ordered when it is assaulted of any of the sides; doen when the army is assaulted on twoo sides.] FABRICIO. I have shewed you, how an armi, is ordained to faight a fielde with an other armie, which is seen pitched against it, and have declared unto you, howe the same is overcome, and after many circumstaunces, I have likewise shewed you, what divers chaunces, maie happen about thesame, so that me thinkes tyme to shewe you now, how an armie is ordered, againste thesame enemie, whiche otherwise is not seen, but continually feared, that he assaulte thee: this happeneth when an armie marcheth through the enemies countrie, or through suspected places. Firste, you must understande, how a Romaine armie, sent alwaies ordinarely afore, certaine bandes of horsemen, as spies of the waie: after followed the right horne, after this, came all the carriages, whiche to thesame apperteined, after this, came a Legion, after it, the carriages therof, after that, an other legion, and next to it, their carriages, after whiche, came the left horne, with the carriages thereof at their backe, and in the laste part, folowed the remnaunte of the chivalrie: this was in effecte the maner, with whiche ordinarily thei marched: and if it happened that the armie were assaulted in the waie on the fronte, or on the backe, thei made straight waie all the carriages to bee drawen, either on the right, or on the lefte side, accordyng as chaunsed, or as thei could beste, havyng respecte to the situacion: and all the men together free from their impedimentes, made hedde on that parte, where the enemie came. If thei were assaulted on the flancke, thei drue the carriages towardes thesame parte that was safe, and of the other, thei made hedde. This waie beyng well and prudently governed, I have thought meete to imitate, sending afore the light horsemen, as exploratours of the Countrie: Then havyng fower maine battailes I would make them to marche in araie, and every one with their carriages folowyng theim. And for that there be twoo sortes of carriages, that is partainyng to particulare souldiours, and partainyng to the publike use of all the Campe, I would devide the publike Carriages into fower partes, and to every maine battaile, I would appoinct his parte, deviding also the artillerie into fower partes, and all the unarmed, so that every nomber of armed menne, should equally have their impedimentes. But bicause it happeneth some times, that thei marche through the countrie, not onely suspected, but so daungerous, that thou fearest every hower to be assaulted, thou art constrained for to go more sure, to chaunge the forme of marchyng, and to goe in soche wise prepared, that neither the countrie menne, nor any armie, maie hurte thee, findyng thee in any parte unprovided. In soche case, the aunciente capitaines were wont, to marche with the armie quadrante, whiche so thei called this forme, not for that it was altogether quadrante, but for that it was apte to faight of fower partes, and thei saied, that thei wente prepared, bothe for the waie, and for the faight: from whiche waie, I will not digresse, and I will ordaine my twoo maine battailes, whiche I have taken for to make an armie of, to this effect. Mindyng therefore, to marche safely through the enemies Countrie, and to bee able to aunswere hym on every side, when at unwares the armie might chaunce to be assaulted, and intendyng therefore, accordyng to the antiquitie, to bryng thesame into a square, I would devise to make a quadrant, that the rome therof should be of space on every part Clix. yardes, in this maner. First I would put the flanckes, distant the one flanck from the other, Clix. yardes, and I would place five battailes for a flancke, in a raie in length, and distant the one from the other, twoo yardes and a quarter: the whiche shall occupie with their spaces, every battaile occupiyng thirtie yardes, Clix. yardes. Then betwen the hedde and the taile of these two flanckes, I would place the other tenne battailes, in every parte five, orderyng them after soche sorte, that fower should joyne to the hedde of the right flanck, and fower to the taile of the lefte flancke, leaving betwene every one of them, a distance of thre yardes: one should after joyne to the hedde of the lefte flancke, and one to the taile of the right flancke: and for that the space that is betwene the one flancke and the other, is Clix. yardes, and these battailes whiche are set the one to the side of the other by breadth, and not by length, will come to occupie with the distaunces one hundred yardes and a halfe yarde, there shall come betwene theim fower battailes, placed in the fronte on the right flancke, and the one placed in thesame on the lefte, to remaine a space of fiftie and eighte yardes and a halfe, and the verie same space will come to remaine in the battailes, placed in the hinder parte: nor there shall bee no difference, saving that the one space shall come on the parte behind towardes the right horne, and thother shall come on the parte afore, towardes the lefte home. In the space of the lviii. yardes and a halfe before, I would place all the ordinarie Veliti, in thesame behinde, the extraordinarie, which wil come to be a thousande for a space, and mindyng to have the space that ought to be within the armie, to be every waie Clix. yardes, it is mete that the five battailes, whiche are placed in the hedde, and those whiche are placed in the taile, occupie not any parte of the space, whiche the flanckes keepe: and therefore it shall be convenient, that the five battailes behinde, doe touche with the fronte, the taile of their flanckes, and those afore, with the taile to touche he hedde, after soche sorte, that upon every corner of the ame armie, there maie remaine a space, to receive an other battaile: and for that there bee fower spaces, I would take fower bandes of the extraordinarie Pikes, and in every corner I would place one, and the twoo Ansignes of the foresaied Pikes, whiche shall remain overplus, I would sette in the middest of the rome of this armie, in a square battaile, on the hedde whereof, should stande the generall capitaine, with his menne about him. And for that these battailes ordeined thus, marche all one waie, but faight not all one waie, in puttyng them together, those sides ought to be ordained to faight, whiche are not defended of thother battailes. And therfore it ought to be considered, that the five battailes that be in the front, have all their other partes defended, excepte the fronte: and therfore these ought to bee put together in good order, and with the Pikes afore. The five battailes whiche are behinde, have all their sides defended, except the parte behinde, and therefore those ought to bee put together in soche wise, that the Pikes come behind, as in the place therof we shall shewe. The five battailes that bee in the right flancke, have all their sides defended, except the right flancke. The five that be on the left flanck, have all their partes defended, excepte the lefte flancke: and therefore in orderyng the battailes, thei ought to bee made, that the Pikes maie tourne on the same flanck, that lieth open: and the Peticapitaines to stand on the hedde, and on the taile, so that nedyng to faight, all the armour and weapons maie be in their due places, the waie to doe this, is declared where we reasoned of the maner of orderyng the battailes. The artillerie I would devide, and one parte I would place without, on the lefte flancke, and the other on the right. The light horsemen, I would sende afore to discover the countrie. Of the menne of armes, I would place part behinde, on the right home, and parte on the lefte, distante about thirtie yardes from the battailes: and concerning horse, you have to take this for a general rule in every condicion, where you ordaine an armie, that alwaies thei ought to be put, either behinde, or on the flanckes of thesame: he that putteth them afore, over against the armie, it behoveth hym to doe one of these twoo thinges, either that he put them so moche afore, that beyng repulced, thei maie have so moche space, that maie give them tyme, to be able to go a side from thy footemen, and not to runne upon them, or to order them in soche wise, with so many spaces, that the horses by those maie enter betwene them, without disorderyng them. Nor let no man esteme little this remembraunce, for as moche as many capitaines, whom havyng taken no hede thereof, have been ruinated, and by themselves have been disordered, and broken. The carriages and the unarmed menne are placed, in the rome that remaineth within the armie, and in soche sorte equally devided, that thei maie give the waie easely, to whom so ever would go, either from the one corner to the other, or from the one hedde, to the other of the armie. These battailes without the artillerie and the horse, occupie every waie from the utter side, twoo hundred and eleven yardes and a halfe of space: and bicause this quadrante is made of twoo main battailes, it is convenient to distinguishe, what part thone maine battaile maketh, and what the other: and for that the main battailes are called by the nomber, and every of theim hath (as you knowe) tenne battailes, and a generall hed, I would cause that the first main battaile, should set the first v. battailes therof in the front, the other five, in the left flanck, and the capitain of the same should stande in the left corner of the front. The seconde maine battaile, should then put the firste five battailes therof, in the right flanck, and the other five in the taile, and the hedde capitain of thesame, should stande in the right corner, whom should come to dooe the office of the Tergiductor. The armie ordained in this maner, ought to be made to move, and in the marchyng, to observe all this order, and without doubte, it is sure from all the tumultes of the countrie men. Nor the capitain ought not to make other provision, to the tumultuarie assaultes, then to give sometyme Commission to some horse, or Ansigne of Veliti, that thei set themselves in order: nor it shall never happen that these tumultuous people, will come to finde thee at the drawyng of the swerd, or pikes poincte: for that men out of order, have feare of those that be in araie: and alwaies it shall bee seen, that with cries and rumours, thei will make a greate assaulte, without otherwise commyng nere unto thee, like unto barking curres aboute a Mastie. Aniball when he came to the hurte of the Romaines into Italie, he passed through all Fraunce, and alwaies of the Frenche tumultes, he took small regarde. Mindyng to marche, it is conveniente to have plainers and labourers afore, whom maie make thee the waie plaine, whiche shall bee garded of those horsemen, that are sent afore to viewe the countrie: an armie in this order maie marche tenne mile the daie, and shall have tyme inough to incampe, and suppe before Sunne goyng doune, for that ordinarely, an armie maie marche twentie mile: if it happen that thou be assaulted, of an armie set in order, this assaulte cannot growe sodainly: for that an armie in order, commeth with his pace, so that thou maiest have tyme inough, to set thy self in order to faight the field, and reduce thy menne quickly into thesame facion, or like to thesame facion of an armie, which afore is shewed thee. For that if thou be assaulted, on the parte afore, thou needeste not but to cause, that the artillerie that be on the flanckes, and the horse that be behinde, to come before, and place theimselves in those places, and with those distaunces, as afore is declared. The thousande Veliti that bee before, must go out of their place, and be devided into CCCCC. for a parte, and go into their place, betwene the horse and the hornes of tharmy: then in the voide place that thei shal leave, the twoo Ansignes of the extraordinarie Pikes muste entre, whiche I did set in the middest of the quadrante of the armie. The thousande Veliti, whiche I placed behinde, must departe from thesame place, and devide them selves in the flanckes of the battailes, to the fortificacion of those: and by the open place that thei shal leave, all the carriages and unarmed menne must go out, and place themselves on the backe of the battaile. Then the rome in the middeste beyng voided, and every man gone to his place: the five battailes, whiche I placed behinde on the armie, must make forward in the voide place, that is betwene the one and the other flanck, and marche towardes the battailes, that stand in the hedde, and three of theim, muste stande within thirtie yardes of those, with equall distances, betwene the one and the other, and the other twoo shal remain behinde, distaunte other thirtie yardes: the whiche facion maie bee ordained in a sodaine, and commeth almoste to bee like, unto the firste disposicion, whiche of tharmy afore we shewed. And though it come straighter in the fronte, it commeth grosser in the flanckes, whiche giveth it no lesse strength: but bicause the five battailes, that be in the taile, have the Pikes on the hinder parte, for the occasion that before we have declared, it is necessarie to make theim to come on the parte afore, mindyng to have theim to make a backe to the front of tharmie: and therfore it behoveth either to make them to tourne battaile after battaile, as a whole body, or to make them quickly to enter betwen thorders of targettes, and conduct them afore, the whiche waie is more spedy, and of lesse disorder, then to make them to turn al together: and so thou oughtest to doe of all those, whiche remain behind in every condicion of assault, as I shal shewe you. If it appere that thenemie come on the part behinde, the first thyng that ought to bee dooen, is to cause that every man tourne his face where his backe stode, and straight waie tharmie cometh to have made of taile, hed, and of hed taile: then al those waies ought to be kept, in orderyng thesame fronte, as I tolde afore. If the enemie come to incounter the right flancke, the face of thy armie ought to bee made to tourne towardes thesame side: after, make all those thynges in fortificacion of thesame hedde, whiche above is saied, so that the horsemen, the Veliti, and the artillerie, maie be in places conformable to the hed thereof: onely you have this difference, that in variyng the hed of those, which are transposed, some have to go more, and some lesse. In deede makyng hedde of the right flancke, the Veliti ought to enter in the spaces, that bee betwene the horne of the armie, and those horse, whiche were nerest to the lefte flancke, in whose place ought to enter, the twoo Ansignes of the extraordinarie Pikes, placed in the middest: But firste the carriages and the unarmed, shall goe out by the open place, avoidyng the rome in the middest, and retiryng themselves behinde the lefte flancke, whiche shall come to bee then the taile of the armie: the other Veliti that were placed in the taile, accordyng to the principall orderyng of the armie, in this case, shall not move: Bicause the same place should not remaine open, whiche of taile shall come to be flancke: all other thyng ought to bee dooen, as in orderyng of the firste hedde is saied: this that is told about the makyng hed of the right flanck, must be understode to be told, havyng nede to make it of the left flanck: for that the very same order ought to bee observed. If the enemie should come grose, and in order to assaulte thee on twoo sides, those twoo sides, whiche he commeth to assaulte thee on, ought to bee made stronge with the other twoo sides, that are not assaulted, doublyng the orders in eche of theim, and devidyng for bothe partes the artillerie, the Veliti, and the horse. If he come on three or on fower sides, it is necessarie that either thou or he lacke prudence: for that if thou shalt bee wise, thou wilte never putte thy self in place, that the enemie on three or fower sides, with a greate nomber of men, and in order, maie assault thee: for that mindyng, safely to hurte thee, it is requisit, that he be so great, that on every side, he maie assault thee, with as many men, as thou haste almoste in al thy army: and if thou be so unwise, that thou put thy self in the daunger and force of an enemie, whom hath three tymes more menne ordained then thou, if thou catche hurte, thou canste blame no man but thy self: if it happen not through thy faulte, but throughe some mischaunce, the hurt shall be without the shame, and it shal chaunce unto thee, as unto the Scipions in Spaine, and to Asdruball in Italie but if the enemie have not many more men then thou, and intende for to disorder thee, to assaulte thee on divers sides, it shal be his foolishnesse, and thy good fortune: for as moche as to doe so, it is convenient, that he become so thinne in soche wise, that then easely thou maiste overthrow one bande, and withstande an other, and in short time ruinate him: this maner of ordering an armie against an enemie, whiche is not seen, but whiche is feared, is a necessarie and a profitable thing, to accustome thy souldiours, to put themselves together, and to march with soche order, and in marchyng, to order theimselves to faight, accordyng to the first hedde, and after to retourne in the forme, that thei marched in, then to make hedde of the taile, after, of the flanckes, from these, to retourne into the first facion: the whiche exercises and uses bee necessarie, mindyng to have an armie, throughly instructed and practised: in whiche thyng the Princes and the capitaines, ought to take paine. Nor the discipline of warre is no other, then to knowe how to commaunde, and to execute these thynges. Nor an instructed armie is no other, then an armie that is wel practised in these orders: nor it cannot be possible, that who so ever in this time, should use like disciplin shall ever bee broken. And if this quadrante forme whiche I have shewed you, is somewhat difficulte, soche difficultnesse is necessarie, takyng it for an exercise: for as moche as knowyng well, how to set theim selves in order, and to maintaine theim selves in the same, thei shall knowe after more easely, how to stand in those, whiche should not have so moche difficultie. ZANOBI. I beleve as you saie, that these orders bee verie necessarie, and I for my parte, knowe not what to adde or take from it: true it is, that I desire to know of you twoo thynges, the one, if when you will make of the taile, or of the flancke hedde, and would make them to tourne, whether this be commaunded by the voice, or with the sounde: thother, whether those that you sende afore, to make plain the waie, for the armie to marche, ought to be of the verie same souldiours of your battailes, or other vile menne appoincted, to like exercise. [Sidenote: Commaundementes of Capitaines being not wel understoode, maie be the destruction of an armie; Respect that is to be had in commaundementes made with the sounde of the Trompet; In commaundmentes made with the voice, what respect is to be had; Of Pianars.] FABRICIO. Your firste question importeth moche: for that many tymes the commaundementes of Capitaines, beyng not well understoode, or evill interpreted, have disordered their armie: therfore the voices, with the whiche thei commaunde in perilles, ought to bee cleare, and nete. And if thou commaunde with the sounde, it is convenient to make, that betwene the one waie and the other, there be so moche difference, that the one cannot be chaunged for the other: and if thou commaundest with the voice, thou oughteste to take heede, that thou flie the general voices, and to use the particulares, and of the particulars, to flie those, whiche maie be interpreted sinisterly. Many tymes the saiyng backe, backe, hath made to ruinate an armie; therfore this voice ought not to be used, but in steede therof to use, retire you. If you will make theim to tourne, for to chaunge the hedde, either to flanck, or to backe, use never to saie tourne you, but saie to the lefte, to the right, to the backe, to the front: thus all the other voices ought to be simple, and nete, as thrust on, march, stande stronge, forwarde, retourne you: and all those thynges, whiche maie bee dooen with the voice, thei doe, the other is dooen with the sounde. Concernyng those menne, that must make the waies plaine for the armie to marche, whiche is your seconde question, I would cause my owne souldiours to dooe this office, as well bicause in the aunciente warfare thei did so, as also for that there should be in the armie, lesser nomber of unarmed men, and lesse impedimentes: and I would choose out of every battaile, thesame nomber that should nede, and I would make theim to take the instrumentes, meete to plaine the grounde withall, and their weapons to leave with those rankes, that should bee nereste them, who should carrie them, and the enemie commyng, thei shall have no other to doe, then to take them again, and to retourne into their araie. ZANOBI. Who shall carrie thinstrumentes to make the waie plaine withall? FABRICIO. The Cartes that are appoincted to carrie the like instrumentes. ZANOBI. I doubte whether you should ever brynge these our souldiours, to labour with Shovell or Mattocke, after soche sorte. [Sidenote: The victualles that thantiquitie made provision of, for their armies.] FABRICIO. All these thynges shall bee reasoned in the place thereof, but now I will let alone this parte, and reason of the maner of the victualing of the armie: for that me thinketh, havyng so moche traivailed theim, it is tyme to refreshe them, and to comfort them with meate. You have to understande, that a Prince ought to ordaine his armie, as expedite as is possible, and take from thesame all those thynges, whiche maie cause any trouble or burthen unto it, and make unto hym any enterprise difficulte. Emongest those thynges that causeth moste difficultie, is to be constrained to keepe the armie provided of wine, and baked bread. The antiquitie cared not for Wine, for that lackyng it, thei dranke water, mingeled with a little vinegre, to give it a taste: For whiche cause, emong the municions of victualles for the hoste, vineger was one, and not wine. Thei baked not the breade in Ovens, as thei use for Citees, but thei provided the Meale, and of thesame, every Souldiour after his owne maner, satisfied hym self, havyng for condimente Larde and Baken, the whiche made the breade saverie, that thei made, and maintained theim strong, so that the provision of victualles for the armie, was Meale, Vineger, Larde, and Bacon, and for the horses Barley. Thei had ordinarely heardes of greate beastes and small, whiche folowed the armie, the whiche havyng no nede to bee carried, caused not moche impedimente. Of this order there grewe, that an armie in old time, marched somtymes many daies through solitarie places, and difficulte, without sufferyng disease of victualles: for that thei lived of thyngs, whiche easely thei might convey after them. To the contrarie it happeneth in the armies, that are now a daies, whiche mindyng not to lacke wine, and to eate baked breade in thesame maner, as when thei are at home, whereof beyng not able to make provision long, thei remaine often tymes famished, or though thei be provided, it is dooen with disease, and with moste greate coste: therfore I would reduce my armie to this maner of living: and I would not that thei should eate other bread, then that, which by themselves thei should bake. Concernyng wine, I would not prohibite the drinkyng thereof, nor yet the commyng of it into the armie, but I would not use indevour, nor any labour for to have it, and in the other provisions, I would governe my self altogether, like unto the antiquitie: the whiche thing, if you consider well, you shall see how moche difficultie is taken awaie, and how moche trouble and disease, an armie and a capitaine is avoided of, and how moche commoditie shall bee given, to what so ever enterprise is to bee dooen. ZANOBI. We have overcome thenemie in the field, marched afterward upon his countrie, reason would, that spoiles be made, tounes sacked, prisoners taken, therefore I would knowe how the antiquitie in these thynges, governed them selves. [Sidenote: The occasions why the warres made nowe adaies, doe impoverishe the conquerors as well as the conquered; The order that the Romaines toke, concerning the spoile and the booties that their souldiours gotte; An order that the antiquitie tooke, concernyng their soldiours wages.] FABRICIO. Beholde, I will satisfie you. I beleve you have considered, for that once alredie with some of you I have reasoned, howe these present warres, impoverishe as well those lordes that overcome, as those that leese: for that if the one leese his estate, the other leeseth his money, and his movables: the whiche in olde time was not, for that the conquerour of the warre, waxed ritche. This groweth of keepyng no compte in these daies of the spoiles, as in olde tyme thei did, but thei leave it to the discreacion of the souldiours. This manner maketh twoo moste great disorders: the one, that whiche I have tolde: the other that the souldiour becometh more covetous to spoyle, and lesse observeth the orders: and manie times it hath been seen, howe the covetousnesse of the praye, hath made those to leese, whome were victorious. Therefore the Romaines whiche were princes of armies, provided to the one and to the other of these inconvenienses, ordainyng that all the spoyle should apertaine to the publicke, and that the publicke after should bestowe it, as shoulde be thought good: and therfore thei had in tharmie the questours, whom were as we would say, the chamberlaines, to whose charge all the spoyle and booties were committed: whereof the consull was served to geve the ordinarie pay to the souldiours, to succour the wounded, and the sicke, and for the other businesse of the armie. The consull might well, and he used it often, to graunte a spoyle to soldiours: but this grauntyng, made no disorder: for that the armie beyng broken all the pray was put in the middest, and distributed by hedde, accordyng to the qualitee of everie man: the which maner thei constituted, to thintente, that the soldiours should attend to overcome, and not to robbe: and the Romaine Legions overcame the enemies, and folowed them not, for that thei never departed from their orders: onely there folowed them, the horsemenne with those that were light armed, and if there were any other souldiours then those of the legions, they likewyse pursued the chase. Where if the spoyle shoulde have ben his that gotte it, it had not ben possible nor reasonable, to have kepte the legions steddie, and to withstonde manie perils; hereby grewe therefore, that the common weale inritched, and every Consull carried with his triumphe into the treasurie, muche treasure, whiche all was of booties and spoiles. An other thing the antiquetie did upon good consideration, that of the wages, whiche they gave to every souldiour, the thirde parte they woulde shoulde be laied up nexte to him, whome carried the ansigne of their bande, whiche never gave it them againe, before the warre was ended: this thei did, beyng moved of twoo reasons, the first was to thintente, that the souldiour should thrive by his wages, because the greatest parte of them beyng yonge men, and carelesse, the more thei have, so muche the more without neede thei spende, the other cause was, for that knowyng, that their movabelles were nexte to the ansigne, thei should be constrained to have more care thereof, and with more obstinatenesse to defende it: and this made them stronge and to holde together: all which thynges is necessarie to observe, purposinge to reduce the exercise of armes unto the intier perfection therof. ZANOBI. I beleeve that it is not possible, that to an armie that marcheth from place to place, there fal not perrilous accidentes, where the industerie of the capitaine is needefull, and the worthinesse of the souldiours, mindyng to avoyde them. Therefore I woulde be glad, that you remembring any, would shew them. [Sidenote: Captaines mai incurre the daunger of ambusshes twoo maner of wayes; How to avoide the perill of ambusshes; Howe ambusshes have ben perceived; Howe the Capitaine of the enemies ought to be esteemed; Where men be in greatest perill; The description of the countrey where an army muste marche, is most requiset for a Capitaine to have; A most profitable thyng it is for a capitayne to be secrete in all his affaires; An advertisment concernyng the marchyng of an armie; The marching of an armie ought to be ruled by the stroke of the Drumme; The condicion of the enemie ought to be considered.] FABRICIO. I shall contente you with a good will, beyng inespetially necessarie, intendyng to make of this exercise a perfecte science. The Capitaines ought above all other thynges, whileste thei marche with an armie, to take heede of ambusshes, wherein they incurre daunger twoo waies, either marchynge thou entrest into them, or thoroughe crafte of the enemie thou arte trained in before thou arte aware. In the first case, mindyng to avoide suche perill, it is necessarie to sende afore double warde, whome may discover the countrey, and so muche the more dilligence ought to be used, the more that the countrey is apte for ambusshes, as be the woddie or hilly countries, for that alwaies thei be layd either in a wodde, or behind a hille: and as the ambusshe not forseene, doeth ruin thee, so forseyng the same, it cannot hurte thee. Manie tymes birdes or muche duste have discovered the enemie: for that alwayes where the enemie cometh to finde thee, he shall make great duste, whiche shall signifie unto thee his comyng: so often tymes a Capitaine seyng in the places where he ought to passe, Doves to rise, or other of those birdes that flie in flockes, and to tourne aboute and not to light, hath knowen by the same the ambusshe of the enemies to be there, and sendynge before his men, and sertainely understandyng it, hath saved him selfe and hurte his enemie. Concernyng the seconde case, to be trained in, (which these our men cal to be drawen to the shot) thou ought to take heede, not straight way to beleve those thinges, which are nothyng reasonable, that thei be as they seeme: as shoulde be, if the enemie should set afore thee a praie, thou oughtest to beleeve that in the same is the hooke, and that therin is hid the deceipte. If many enemies be driven away by a fewe of thine, if a fewe enemies assaulte manie of thine, if the enemies make a sodeine flight, and not standynge with reason, alwaies thou oughtest in suche cases to feare deceipte, and oughtest never to beleeve that the enemie knoweth not how to doe his businesse, but rather intendyng that he may begile thee the lesse, and mindyng to stand in lesse peril, the weaker that he is, and the lesse craftier that the enemie is, so muche the more thou oughtest to esteeme him: and thou muste in this case use twoo sundrie poinctes, for that thou oughtest to feare him in thy minde and with the order, but with wordes, and with other outewarde demonstracion, to seeme to dispyse him: because this laste way, maketh that the souldiours hope the more to have the victorie: the other maketh thee more warie, and lesse apte to be begyled. And thou hast to understand, that when men marche thoroughe the enemies countrey, they ar in muche more, and greater perils, then in fayghtyng the fielde: and therefore the Capitaine in marchyng, ought to use double diligence: and the first thyng that he ought to doo, is to get described, and payncted oute all the countrie, thorough the which he must marche, so that he maye know the places, the number, the distances, the waies, the hilles, the rivers, the fennes, and all the quallites of them: and to cause this to bee knowen, it is convenient to have with him diversly, and in sundrie maners such men, as know the places, and to aske them with diligence, and to se whether their talke agree, and accordyng to the agreyng therof, to note: he oughte also to sende afore the horsemen, and with them prudente heddes, not so muche to discover the enemie, as to viewe the countrey, to se whether it agree with the description, and with the knowledge that they have of the same. Also the guydes that are sente, ought to be kepte with hope of rewarde, and feare of paine. And above all thynges it ought to be provided, that the armie knowe not to what businesse he leadeth them: for that there is nothyng in the warre more profitable, then to keepe secret the thynges that is to be dooen: and to thintente a suddeine assaulte dooe not trouble thy soldiours, thou oughteste to see them to stande reddie with their weapons, because the thynges that ar provided for, offend lesse. Manie for to avoyde the confusion of marchyng, have placed under the standerde, the carriages, and the unarmed, and have commaunded them to folow the same, to the intente that in marchyng needyng to staye, or to retire, they might dooe it more easely, which thyng as profitable, I alowe very muche. Also in marchyng, advertismente ought to be had, that the one parte of the armie goe not a sunder from the other, or that thoroughe some goyng fast, and some softe, the armie become not slender: the whiche thynges, be occation of dissorder: therfore the heddes muste be placed in suche wise, that they may maintaine the pace even, causing to goe softe those that goe to fast, and to haste forward the other that goe to sloe, the whiche pace can not bee better ruled, then by the stroke of the drumme. The waies ought to be caused to be inlarged, so that alwaies at least a bande of iiii. hundred men may marche in order of battaile. The custome and the qualitie of the enemie ought to be considered, and whether that he wil assaulte thee either in the mornyng, or at none or in the evenynge, and whether he be more puisante with fotemen or horsemen, and accordyng as thou understandest, to ordeine and to provide for thy self. But let us come to some particular accidente. It hapneth sometime, that thou gettyng from the enemie, because thou judgest thy selfe inferiour, and therfore mindynge not to faight with him, and he comyng at thy backe, thou arivest at the banke of a river, passyng over the which, asketh time, so that the enemie is redie to overtake thee and to fayght with thee. Some, which chaunsing to bee in suche perill, have inclosed their armie on the hinder parte with a diche, and fillyng the same full of towe, and firyng it, have then passed with the armie without beyng able to be letted of the enemie, he beyng by the same fire that was betwene them held backe. [Sidenote: Annone of Carthage.] ZANOBI. I am harde of beliefe, that this fyre coulde stay theim, in especially because I remember that I have harde, howe Annone of Carthage, beyng besieged of enemies, inclosed him selfe on the same parte, with wodde, which he did set on fire where he purposed to make eruption. Wherfore the enemies beyng not intentive on the same parte to looke to him, he made his armie to passe over the same flame, causing every man to holde his Target before his face for to defend them from the fire, and smoke. [Sidenote: Nabide a spartayne; Quintus Luttatius pollecie to passe over a river; How to passe a ryver without a bridge; A polecie of Cesar to passe a river, where his enemie beyng on the other side therof sought to lette hym.] FABRICIO. You saye well: but consider you howe I have saied, and howe Annone did: for as muche as I saied that they made a diche, and filled it with towe, so that he, that woulde passe over the same, should be constrained to contende with the diche and with fire: Annone made the fire, without the diche, and because he intended to passe over it, he made it not great, for that otherwise without the diche, it shoulde have letted him. Dooe you not knowe, that Nabide a Spartan beyng besieged in Sparta of the Romaines, set fire on parte of his towne to let the way to the Romaines, who alredie wer entred in? And by meane of the same flame not onely hindered their way, but drave them oute: but let us turne to our matter. Quintus Luttatius a Romaine, havyng at his backe the Cimbri, and commyng to a river, to thentente the enemie should give him time to passe over, semed to geve time to them to faight with him: and therfore he fained that he would lodge there, and caused trenches to be made, and certaine pavilions to be erected, and sent certayne horsemen into the countrie for forredge: so that the Cimbrise beleevyng, that he incamped, they also incamped, and devided them selves into sundrie partes, to provide for victuals, wherof Luttatius being aware, passed the river they beyng not able to let him. Some for to passe a river havynge no bridge, have devided it, and one parte they have turned behynde their backes, and the other then becomynge shalower, with ease they have passed it: when the rivers be swift, purposyng to have their footemen to passe safely, they place their strongest horses on the higher side, that thei may sustain the water, and an other parte be lowe that may succour the men, if any of the river in passyng should be overcome with the water: They passe also rivers, that be verie deepe, with bridges, with botes, and with barrelles: and therfore it is good to have in a redinesse in an armie wherewith to be able to make all these thynges. It fortuneth sometime that in passyng a river, the enemie standynge agaynst thee on the other banke, doeth let thee: to minde to overcome this difficultie, I know not a better insample to folow, then the same of Cesar, whome havynge his armie on the banke of a river in Fraunce, and his passage beynge letted of Vergintorige a Frenche man, the whiche on the other side of the river had his men, marched many daies a longe the river, and the like did the enemie: wherfore Cesar incamping in a woddie place, apte to hide men, he tooke out of every legion three cohortes, and made them to tarie in the same place, commaundynge theim that so soone as he was departed, they shoulde caste over a bridge, and should fortefie it, and he with his other menne folowed on the waye: wherfore Vergintorige seyng the number of the legions, thinkyng that there was not left anie parte of theim behinde, folowed also his way: but Cesar when he supposed that the bridge was made, tourned backewarde, and findynge all thinges in order, passed the river without difficultee. ZANOBI. Have ye any rule to know the foordes? [Sidenote: How to know the Foordes of a river.] FABRICIO. Yea, we have: alwaies the river, in that parte, whiche is betwene the water, that is stilleste, and the water that runneth fastest, there is least depth and it is a place more meete to be looked on, then any other where. For that alwaies in thesame place, the river is moste shallowest. The whiche thyng, bicause it hath been proved many tymes, is moste true. ZANOBI. If it chaunce that the River hath marde the Foorde, so that the horses sincke, what reamedy have you? [Sidenote: Howe to escape oute of a straight where the same is besette with enemies; Howe Lutius Minutius escaped out of a strayght wherin he was inclosed of his enemies; Howe some Capitaynes have suffered them selves to be compassed aboute of their enemies; A polecie of Marcus Antonius; A defence for the shotte of arrowes.] FABRICIO. The remedie is to make hardels of roddes whiche must be placed in the bottome of the river, and so to passe upon those: but let us folowe our reasonyng. If it happen that a capitain be led with his armie, betwen two hilles, and that he have not but twoo waies to save hymself, either that before, or that behinde, and those beyng beset of thenemies, he hath for remidie to doe the same, which some have doen heretofore: that which have made on their hinder parte a greate trenche, difficult to passe over, and semed to the enemie, to mynde to kepe him of, for to be able with al his power, without neding to feare behinde, to make force that waie, whiche before remaineth open. The whiche the enemies belevyng, have made theim selves stronge, towardes the open parte, and have forsaken the inclosed and he then castyng a bridge of woode over the Trenche, for soche an effect prepared, bothe on thesame parte, with out any impedimente hath passed, and also delivered hymself out of the handes of the enemie. Lucius Minutus a Consul of Rome, was in Liguria with an armie, and was of the enemies inclosed, betwene certaine hilles, whereby he could not go out: therefore he sente certaine souldiours of Numidia on horsebacke, whiche he had in his armie (whom were evill armed, and upon little leane horses) towardes the places that were kepte of the enemies, whom at the first sight made the enemies, to order theim selves together, to defende the passage: but after that thei sawe those men ill apoincted, and accordyng to their facion evill horsed, regardyng theim little, enlarged the orders of their warde, wherof so sone as the Numidians wer a ware, givyng the spurres to their horses, and runnyng violently upon theim, passed before thei could provide any remedy, whom beyng passed, destroied and spoiled the countrie after soche sorte, that thei constrained the enemies, to leave the passage free to the armie of Lucius. Some capitaine, whiche hath perceived hymself to be assaulted of a greate multitude of enemies, hath drawen together his men, and hath given to the enemie commoditie, to compasse hym all about, and then on thesame part, whiche he hath perceived to be moste weake, hath made force, and by thesame waie, hath caused to make waie, and saved hymself. Marcus Antonius retiryng before the armie of the Parthians, perceived how the enemies every daie before Sunne risyng, when he removed, assaulted him, and all the waie troubled hym: in so moch, that he determined not to departe the nexte daie, before None: so that the Parthians beleving, that he would not remove that daie, retourned to their tentes. Whereby Marcus Antonius might then all the reste of the daie, marche without any disquietnesse. This self same man for to avoide the arrowes of the Parthians, commaunded his men, that when the Parthians came towardes them, thei should knele, and that the second ranke of the battailes, should cover with their Targaettes, the heddes of the firste, the thirde, the seconde, the fowerth the third, and so successively, that all the armie came, to be as it were under a pentehouse, and defended from the shotte of the enemies. This is as moche as is come into my remembraunce, to tell you, which maie happen unto an armie marchyng: therefore, if you remember not any thyng els, I will passe to an other parte. THE SIXTHE BOOKE ZANOBI. I beleve that it is good, seyng the reasonyng must be chaunged, that Baptiste take his office, and I to resigne myne, and wee shall come in this case, to imitate the good Capitaines (accordyng as I have nowe here understoode of the gentilman) who place the beste souldiours, before and behinde the armie, semyng unto theim necessarie to have before, soche as maie lustely beginne the faight, and soche as behinde maie lustely sustaine it. Now seyng Cosimus began this reasonyng prudently, Baptiste prudently shall ende it. As for Luigi and I, have in this middeste intertained it, and as every one of us hath taken his part willingly, so I beleve not, that Baptiste wil refuse it. BAPTISTE. I have let my self been governed hetherto, so I minde to doe still. Therfore be contente sir, to folowe your reasonyng, and if we interrupte you with this practise of ours, have us excused. [Sidenote: How the Grekes incamped; Howe the Romaines incamped; The maner of the incamping of an armie; The lodging for the generall capitaine.] FABRICIO. You dooe me, as all readie I have saied, a moste greate pleasure; for this your interrupting me, taketh not awaie my fantasie, but rather refresheth me. But mindyng to followe our matter I saie, how that it is now tyme, that we lodge this our armie, for that you knowe every thyng desireth reste and saftie, bicause to reste, and not to reste safely, is no perfecte reste: I doubte moche, whether it hath not been desired of you, that I should firste have lodged them, after made theim to marche, and laste of all to faight, and we have doen the contrary: whereunto necessitie hath brought us, for that intendyng to shewe, how an armie in going, is reduced from the forme of marching, to thesame maner of faightyng, it was necessarie to have firste shewed, how thei ordered it to faight. But tournyng to our matter, I saie, that minding to have the Campe sure, it is requisite that it be strong, and in good order: the industrie of the Capitaine, maketh it in order, the situacion, or the arte, maketh it stronge. The Grekes sought strong situacions, nor thei would never place theim selves, where had not been either cave, or bancke of a river, or multitude of trees, or other naturall fortificacion, that might defende theim: but the Romaines not so moche incamped safe through the situacion, as through arte, nor thei would never incampe in place, where thei should not have been able to have raunged all their bandes of menne, accordyng to their discipline. Hereby grewe, that the Romaines might kepe alwaies one forme of incamping, for that thei would, that the situacion should bee ruled by them, not thei by the situacion: the which the Grekes could not observe, for that beyng ruled by the situacion, and variyng the situacion and forme, it was conveniente, that also thei should varie the maner of incampyng, and the facion of their lodgynges. Therefore the Romaines, where the situacion lacked strength thei supplied thesame with arte, and with industrie. And for that I in this my declaracion, have willed to imitate the Romaines, I will not departe from the maner of their incamping, yet not observyng altogether their order, but takyng thesame parte, whiche semeth unto me, to be mete for this present tyme. I have told you many tymes, how the Romaines had in their consull armies, twoo Legions of Romaine men, whiche were aboute a leven thousande footemen, and sixe hundred horsemen, and moreover thei had an other leven thousande footemen, sente from their frendes in their aide: nor in their armie thei had never more souldiers that were straungers, then Romaines, excepte horsemenne, whom thei cared not, though thei were more in nomber then theirs: and in all their doynges, thei did place their Legions in the middeste, and the aiders, on the sides: the whiche maner, thei observed also in incampyng, as by your self you maie rede, in those aucthoures, that write of their actes: and therefore I purpose not to shewe you distinctly how thei incamped, but to tell you onely with what order, I at this presente would incampe my armie, whereby you shall then knowe, what parte I have taken out of the Romaine maners. You knowe, that in stede of twoo Romaine Legions, I have taken twoo maine battailes of footemen, of sixe thousande footemen, and three hundred horsemen, profitable for a maine battaile, and into what battailes, into what weapons, into what names I have devided theim: you knowe howe in orderyng tharmie to marche, and to faight, I have not made mencion of other men, but onely have shewed, how that doublyng the men, thei neded not but to double the orders: but mindyng at this presente, to shew you the maner of incampyng, me thinketh good not to stande onely with twoo maine battailes, but to bryng together a juste armie, made like unto the Romaines, of twoo maine battailes, and of as many more aidyng men: the whiche I make, to the intent that the forme of the incampyng, maie be the more perfect, by lodgyng a perfecte armie: whiche thyng in the other demonstracions, hath not semed unto me so necessarie. Purposing then, to incampe a juste armie, of xxiiii. thousande footemen, and of twoo thousande good horsemenne, beeyng devided into fower maine battailes, twoo of our owne menne, and twoo of straungers, I would take this waie. The situacion beyng founde, where I would incampe, I would erecte the hed standarde, and aboute it, I would marke out a quadrant, whiche should have every side distante from it xxxvii. yardes and a half, of whiche every one of them should lye, towardes one of the fower regions of heaven, as Easte, Weste, Southe, and Northe: betwene the whiche space, I would that the capitaines lodgyng should be appoincted. And bicause I beleve that it is wisedom, to devide the armed from the unarmed, seyng that so, for the moste parte the Romaines did, I would therefore seperate the menne, that were cumbered with any thing, from the uncombered. I would lodge all, or the greatest parte of the armed, on the side towardes the Easte, and the unarmed, and the cumbred, on the Weste side, makyng Easte the hedde, and Weste the backe of the Campe, and Southe, and Northe should be the flanckes: and for to distinguishe the lodgynges of the armed, I would take this waie. I would drawe a line from the hedde standarde, and lead it towardes the Easte, the space of CCCCC.x. yardes and a half: I would after, make two other lines, that should place in the middeste the same, and should bee as longe as that, but distante eche of theim from it a leven yardes and a quarter: in the ende whereof, I would have the Easte gate, and the space that is betwene the twoo uttermoste lines, should make a waie, that should go from the gate, to the capitaines lodging, whiche shall come to be xxii. yardes and a halfe broad, and CCCClxxii. yardes and a halfe longe, for the xxxvii. yardes and a halfe, the lodgyng of the Capitaine will take up: and this shall bee called the Capitaine waie. Then there shall be made an other waie, from the Southe gate, to the Northe gate, and shall passe by the hedde of the capitaine waie, and leave the Capitaines lodgyng towardes theaste, whiche waie shalbe ix.C.xxxvii. yardes and a halfe long (for the length therof wilbe as moche as the breadth of all the lodgynges) and shall likewise be xxii. yardes and a half broad, and shalbe called the crosse waie. Then so sone as the Capitaines lodgyng, were appoincted out, and these twoo waies, there shall bee begun to be appoincted out, the lodginges of our own two main battailes, one of the whiche, I would lodge on the right hand of the capitaines waie, and the other, on the lefte: and therefore passing over the space, that the breadth of the crosse waie taketh, I would place xxxii. lodgynges, on the lefte side of the capitain waie, and xxxii. on the right side, leavyng betwene the xvi. and the xvii. lodgyng, a space of xxii. yardes and a halfe, the whiche should serve for a waie overthwart, whiche should runne overthwarte, throughout all the lodgynges of the maine battailes as in the distributyng of them shall bee seen. [Sidenote: The lodgings for the men of armes, and their Capitaine; Note, which is breadth and whiche length in the square campe; The lodgings for the lighte horsemen, and their capitain; The lodgings for the footemen of twoo ordinary main battailes; The lodgings for the conestables; The nomber of footemen appoincted to every lodging; The lodynges for the chiefe Capitaines of the maine battayles and for the treasurers, marshals and straungers; Lodginges for the horsemen, of the extraordinarie mayne battailes; The lodgynges for the extraordinarie Pykes and Veliti; How the Artillerie must be placed in the Campe; Lodgynges for the unarmed men, and the places that are apoineted for the impedimentes of the campe.] Of these twoo orders of lodgynges in the beginnyng of the head, whiche shall come to joygne to the crosse waye, I would lodge the Capitaine of the men of armes, in the xv. lodgynges, which on everie side foloweth next, their men of armes, where eche main battaile, havyng a CL. men of armes, it will come to ten men of armes for a lodgyng. The spaces of the Capitaines lodgynges, should be in bredth xxx. and in length vii. yardes and a halfe. And note that when so ever I sai bredeth, it signifieth the space of the middest from Southe to Northe, and saiyng length, that whiche is from weste to Easte. Those of the men of armes, shoulde be xi. yardes and a quarter in length, and xxii. yardes and a halfe in bredeth. In the other xv. lodgynges, that on everie syde should folowe, the whiche should have their beginnyng on the other side of the overthwarte way, and whiche shall have the very same space, that those of the men of armes had, I woulde lodge the light horsemen: wherof beynge a hundred and fiftie, it will come to x. horsemen for a lodgyng, and in the xvi. that remaineth, I woulde lodge their Capitaine, gevynge him the verie same space, that is geven to the Capitain of the men of armes: and thus the lodginges of the horsemen of two maine battailes, will come to place in the middest the Capitaine way, and geve rule to the lodginges of the footemen, as I shall declare. You have noted how I have lodged the CCC. horsemen of everie main battaile with their Capitaines, in xxxii. lodgynges placed on the Captaine waie, havynge begun from the crosse waie, and how from the xvi. to the xvii. there remaineth a space of xxii. yardes and a halfe, to make awaie overthwarte. Mindyng therefore to lodge the xx. battailes, which the twoo ordinarie maine battailes have, I woulde place the lodgyng of everie twoo battailes, behinde the lodgynges of the horsemen, everie one of whiche, should have in length xi. yardes and a quarter, and in bredeth xxii. yardes and a half as those of the horsemens, and shoulde bee joigned on the hinder parte, that thei shoulde touche the one the other. And in every first lodgyng on everie side which cometh to lie on the crosse waie, I woulde lodge the Counstable of a battaile, whiche should come to stand even with the lodgyng of the Capitayne of the men of armes, and this lodgyng shall have onely of space for bredeth xv. yardes, and for length vii. yardes and a halfe. In the other xv. lodgynges, that on everie side followeth after these, even unto the overthwarte way, I would lodge on everie part a battaile of foote men, whiche beyng iiii. hundred and fiftie, there will come to a lodgyng xxx. The other xv. lodgynges, I woulde place continually on every side on those of the light horse men, with the verie same spaces, where I woulde lodge on everie part, an other battaile of fote men, and in the laste lodgyng, I would place on every parte the Conestable of the battaile, whiche will come to joigne with the same of the Capitaine of the lighte horsemen, with the space of vii. yardes and a halfe for length, and xv. for bredeth: and so these two firste orders of lodgynges, shal be halfe of horsemen, and halfe of footemen. And for that I woulde (as in the place therof I have tolde you) these horse menne shoulde be all profitable, and for this havynge no servauntes whiche in kepyng the horses, or in other necessarie thynges might helpe them, I woulde that these footemen, who lodge behynde the horse, should bee bounde to helpe to provide, and to keepe theim for their maisters: and for this to bee exempted from the other doynges of the Campe. The whiche maner, was observed of the Romanies. Then leavyng after these lodgynges on everie parte, a space of xxii. yardes and a halfe, whiche shoulde make awaye, that shoulde be called the one, the firste waye on the righte hande, and the other the firste waie on the lefte hand, I woulde pitche on everie side an other order of xxxii. double lodgynges, whiche should tourne their hinder partes the one againste the other with the verie same spaces, as those that I have tolde you of, and devided after the sixtenth in the verie same maner for to make the overthwarte waie, where I would lodge on every side iiii. battailes of footemen, with their constables in bothe endes. Then leavyng on every side an other space of xxii. yardes and a halfe, that shoulde make a waie, whiche shoulde be called of the one side, the seconde waie on the right hande, and on the other syde, the seconde way on the lefte hande, I would place an other order on everie side of xxxii. double lodgynges, with the verie same distance and devisions, where I would lodge on everie side, other iiii. battailes with their Constables: and thus the horesemenne and the bandes of the twoo ordinarie maine battailes, should come to be lodged in three orders of lodgynges, on the one side of the capitaine waie, and in three other orders of lodgynges on the other side of the Capitaine waie. The twoo aidyng maine battels (for that I cause them to be made of the verie same nation) I woulde lodge them on everie parte of these twoo ordinarie maine battailes, with the very same orders of double lodgynges, pitchyng first one order of lodgynges, where should lodge halfe the horsemen, and half the foote men, distance xxii. yardes and a halfe from the other, for to make a way whiche should be called the one, the thirde waie on the right hande, and the other the thirde waie on the lefte hande. And after, I woulde make on everie side, twoo other orders of lodgynges, in the verie same maner destinguesshed and ordeined, as those were of the ordinarie maine battelles, which shall make twoo other wayes, and they all should be called of the numbre, and of the hande, where thei should be placed: in suche wyse, that all this side of the armie, shoulde come to be lodged in xii. orders of double lodgynges, and in xiii. waies, reckenynge captaine waie, and crosse waie: I would there should remayne a space from the lodgynges to the Trenche of lxxv. yardes rounde aboute: and if you recken al these spaces, you shall see that from the middest of the Capitaines lodgyng to the easte gate, there is Dx. yardes. Now there remaineth twoo spaces, whereof one is from the Capitaines lodgyng to the Southe gate, the other is from thense to the Northe gate: whiche come to be (either of them measurynge them from the poincte in the middest) CCCC.lxxvi. yardes. Then takyng out of everie one of these spaces xxxvii. yardes and a halfe, whiche the Capitaynes lodgynge occupieth, and xxxiiii. yardes everie waie for a market place, and xxii. yardes and a halfe for way that devides everie one of the saied spaces in the middest, and lxxv. yardes, that is lefte on everie part betweene the lodgynges and the Trenche, there remaineth on every side a space for lodginges of CCC. yardes broade, and lxxv. yardes longe, measurynge the length with the space that the Captaines lodgynge taketh up. Devidynge then in the middest the saied lengthe, there woulde be made on every hande of the Capitaine xl. lodgynges xxxvii. yardes and a halfe longe, and xv. broade, whiche will come to be in all lxxx. lodgynges, wherin shall be lodged the heddes of the maine battailes, the Treasurers, the Marshalles of the fielde, and all those that shoulde have office in the armie, leavyng some voide for straungers that shoulde happen to come, and for those that shall serve for good will of the Capitaine. On the parte behinde the Capitaines lodgynge, I would have a way from Southe to Northe xxiii. yardes large, and shoulde be called the bed way, whiche shall come to be placed a longe by the lxxx. lodgynges aforesayd: for that this waie, and the crosseway, shall come to place in the middest betweene them bothe the Capitaines lodgynge, and the lxxx. lodgynges that be on the sides therof. From this bed waie, and from over agaynst the captaines lodgyng, I would make an other waie, which shoulde goe from thens to the weste gate, lykewyse broade xxii. yardes and a halfe, and should aunswer in situation and in length to the Captaine way, and should be called the market waie. These twoo waies beynge made, I woulde ordeine the market place, where the market shall bee kepte, whiche I woulde place on the head of the market way over against the capitaines lodgynge, and joigned to the head way, and I woulde have it to be quadrante, and woulde assigne lxxxx. yardes and three quarters to a square: and on the right hande and lefte hande, of the saied market place, I would make two orders of lodginges, where everie order shal have eight double lodginges, which shall take up in length, ix. yardes, and in bredeth xxii. yardes and a halfe, so that there shall come to be on every hande of the market place, xvi. lodgynges that shall place the same in the middest which shall be in al xxxii. wherin I woulde lodge those horsemen, which shoulde remaine to the aidyng mayne battailes: and when these should not suffise, I woulde assigne theim some of those lodginges that placeth between them the Capitaines lodgynge, and in especially those, that lie towardes the Trenche. There resteth now to lodge the Pikes, and extraordinarie Veliti, that everie main battaile hath, which you know accordynge to our order, how everie one hath besides the x. battailes M. extraordinarie Pikes, and five hundreth Veliti: so that the twoo cheefe maine battailes, have two thousande extraordinarie Pikes, and a thousande extraordinarie Veliti, and the ayders as many as those, so that yet there remaineth to be lodged, vi. M. menne, whome I woulde lodge all on the weste side, and a longe the Trenche. Then from the ende of the hed waye, towardes Northe, leavyng the space of lxxv. yardes from them to the trenche, I woulde place an order of v. double lodgynges, whiche in all shoulde take up lvi. yardes in lengthe, and xxx. in bredeth: so that the bredeth devided, there will come to everie lodgyng xi. yardes and a quarter for lengthe, and for bredeth twoo and twentie yardes and a half. And because there shall be x. lodgynges, I will lodge three hundred men, apoinctyng to every lodging xxx. men: leavyng then a space of three and twentie yardes and a quarter, I woulde place in like wise, and with like spaces an other order of five double lodgynges, and againe an other, till there were five orders of five double lodgynges: which wil come to be fiftie lodgynges placed by right line on the Northe side, every one of them distante from the Trenche lxxv. yardes, which will lodge fifteene hundred men. Tournyng after on the lefte hande towardes the weste gate, I woulde pitche in all the same tracte, whiche were from them to the saied gate, five other orders of double lodgynges, with the verie same spaces, and with the verie same maner: true it is, that from the one order to the other, there shall not be more then a xi. yardes and a quarter of space: wherin shall be lodged also fifteene hundred men: and thus from the Northe gate to the weste, as the Trenche turneth, in a hundred lodginges devided in x. rewes of five double lodgynges in a rowe, there will be lodged all the Pikes and extraordinarie Veliti of the cheefe maine battayles. And so from the west gate to the Southe, as the Trenche tourneth even in the verie same maner, in other ten rewes of ten lodgynges in a rewe, there shall be lodged the pikes, and extraordinarie Veliti of the aidyng mayne battailes. Their headdes or their counstables may take those lodgynges, that shal seeme unto them moste commodious, on the parte towardes the trenche. The Artillerie, I woulde dispose throughoute all the Campe, a longe the banke of the Trenche: and in all the other space that shoulde remaine towardes weste, I woulde lodge all the unarmed, and place all the impedimentes of the Campe. And it is to be understoode, that under this name of impedimentes (as you know) the antiquitee mente all the same trayne, and all those thynges, which are necessarie for an armie, besides the souldiours: as are Carpenters, Smithes, Masons, Ingeners, Bombardiers, althoughe that those might be counted in the numbre of the armed, herdemen with their herdes of motons and beeves whiche for victuallyng of the armie, are requiset: and moreover maisters of all sciences, together with publicke carriages of the publicke munition, whiche pertaine as well to victuallyng, as to armynge. Nor I would not distinguishe these lodginges perticularly, only I would marke out the waies which should not be occupied of them: then the other spaces, that betweene the waies shall remaine, whiche shall be fower, I woulde appoincte theim generally for all the saied impedimentes, that is one for the herdemen, the other for artificers and craftes men, the thirde for publicke carriages of victuals, the fowerth for the municion of armour and weapons. The waies whiche I woulde shoulde be lefte without ocupiyng them, shal be the market waie, the head waye, and more over a waie that shoulde be called the midde waye, whiche should goe from Northe to Southe, and should passe thoroughe the middest of the market waie, whiche from the weste parte, shoulde serve for the same purpose that the overthwarte way doeth on the east parte. And besides this, a waye whiche shall goe aboute on the hinder parte, alonge the lodgynges of the Pikes and extraordinarie Veliti, and all these wayes shall be twoo and tweentie vardes and a halfe broade. And the Artilerie, I woulde place a longe the Trenche of the Campe, rounde aboute the same. BAPTISTE. I confesse that I understand not, nor I beleeve that also to saye so, is any shame unto me, this beyng not my exercise: notwithstandyng, this order pleaseth me muche: onely I woulde that you shoulde declare me these doubtes: The one, whie you make the waie, and the spaces aboute so large. The other, that troubleth me more, is these spaces, whiche you apoincte oute for the lodgynges, howe they ought to be used. [Sidenote: The Campe ought to be all waies of one facion.] FABRICIO. You must note, that I make all the waies, xxii. yardes and a halfe broade, to the intente that thorowe them, maie go a battaile of men in araie, where if you remember wel, I tolde you how every bande of menne, taketh in breadth betwene xviii. and xxii. yardes of space to marche or stande in. Nowe where the space that is betwene the trenche, and the lodgynges, is lxxv. yardes broade, thesame is moste necessarie, to the intent thei maie there order the battailes, and the artillerie, bothe to conducte by thesame the praies, and to have space to retire theim selves with newe trenches, and newe fortificacion if neede were: The lodginges also, stande better so farre from the diches, beyng the more out of daunger of fires, and other thynges, whiche the enemie, might throwe to hurte them. Concernyng the seconde demaunde, my intent is not that every space, of me marked out, bee covered with a pavilion onely, but to be used, as tourneth commodious to soch as lodge there, either with more or with lesse Tentes, so that thei go not out of the boundes of thesame. And for to marke out these lodginges, there ought to bee moste cunnyng menne, and moste excellente Architectours, whom, so sone as the Capitaine hath chosen the place, maie knowe how to give it the facion, and to distribute it, distinguishyng the waies, devidyng the lodgynges with Coardes and staves, in soche practised wise, that straight waie, thei maie bee ordained, and devided: and to minde that there growe no confusion, it is conveniente to tourne the Campe, alwaies one waie, to the intente that every manne maie knowe in what waie, in what space he hath to finde his lodgyng: and this ought to be observed in every tyme, in every place, and after soche maner, that it seme a movyng Citee, the whiche where so ever it goweth, carrieth with it the verie same waies, the verie same habitacions, and the verie same aspectes, that it had at the firste: The whiche thing thei cannot observe, whom sekyng strong situacions, must chaunge forme, accordyng to the variacion of the grounde: but the Romaines in the plaine, made stronge the place where thei incamped with trenches, and with Rampires, bicause thei made a space about the campe, and before thesame a ditche, ordinary broad fower yardes and a halfe, and depe aboute twoo yardes and a quarter, the which spaces, thei increased, according as thei intended to tarie in a place, and accordyng as thei feared the enemie. I for my parte at this presente, would not make the listes, if I intende not to Winter in a place: yet I would make the Trenche and the bancke no lesse, then the foresaied, but greater, accordyng to necessitie. Also, consideryng the artellerie, I would intrench upon every corner of the Campe, a halfe circle of ground, from whens the artillerie might flancke, whom so ever should seke to come over the Trenche. In this practise in knowyng how to ordain a campe, the souldiours ought also to be exercised, and to make with them the officers expert, that are appoincted to marke it out, and the Souldiours readie to knowe their places: nor nothyng therein is difficulte, as in the place thereof shall bee declared: wherefore, I will goe forewarde at this tyme to the warde of the campe, bicause without distribucion of the watche, all the other pain that hath been taken, should be vain. BAPTISTE. Before you passe to the watche, I desire that you would declare unto me, when one would pitche his campe nere the enemie, what waie is used: for that I knowe not, how a man maie have tyme, to be able to ordaine it without perill. FABRICIO. You shall understande this, that no Capitaine will lye nere the enemie, except he, that is desposed to faight the fielde, when so ever his adversarie will: and when a capitaine is so disposed, there is no perill, but ordinarie: for that the twoo partes of the armie, stande alwaies in a redinesse, to faight the battaile, and thother maketh the lodginges. The Romaines in this case, gave this order of fortifiyng the Campe, unto the Triarii: and the Prencipi, and the Astati, stoode in armes. This thei did, for as moche as the Triarii, beyng the last to faight, might have time inough, if the enemie came, to leave the woorke, and to take their weapons, and to get them into their places. Therfore, accordyng unto the Romaines maner, you ought to cause the Campe to be made of those battailes, whiche you will set in the hinder parte of the armie, in the place of the Triarii. But let us tourne to reason of the watche. [Sidenote: Theantiquitie used no Scoutes; The watche and warde of the Campe.] I thinke I have not founde, emongest the antiquitie, that for to warde the campe in the night, thei have kepte watche without the Trenche, distaunte as thei use now a daies, whom thei call Scoutes: the whiche I beleve thei did, thinkyng that the armie might easely bee deceived, through the difficultie, that is in seeyng them againe, for that thei might bee either corrupted, or oppressed of the enemie: So that to truste either in parte, or altogether on them, thei judged it perillous. And therefore, all the strength of the watche, was with in the trenche, whiche thei did withall diligence kepe, and with moste greate order, punished with death, whom so ever observed not thesame order: the whiche how it was of them ordained, I will tell you no other wise, leaste I should bee tedious unto you, beyng able by your self to see it, if as yet you have not seen it: I shall onely briefly tell that, whiche shall make for my purpose, I wold cause to stand ordinarely every night, the thirde parte of the armie armed, and of thesame, the fowerth parte alwaies on foote, whom I would make to bee destributed, throughout all the banckes, and throughout all the places of the armie, with double warde, placed in every quadrante of thesame: Of whiche, parte should stande still, parte continually should go from the one corner of the Campe, to the other: and this order, I would observe also in the daie, when I should have the enemie nere. [Sidenote: Dilligence ought to be used, to knowe who lieth oute of the Campe, and who they be that cometh of newe; Claudius Nero; The justice that ought to be in a campe. The fauts that the antiquitie punisshed with Death; Where greate punishementes be, there oughte likewise to bee great rewardes; It was no marvel that the Romaines became mightie Princes; A meane to punishe and execute Justice, without raising tumultes; Manlius Capitolinus; Souldiours sworen to kepe the discipline of warre.] Concernyng the givyng of the watche worde, and renuyng thesame every evening, and to doe the other thynges, whiche in like watches is used, bicause thei are thynges well inough knowen, I will speake no further of them: onely I shall remember one thyng, for that it is of greate importaunce, and whiche causeth great saulfgarde observyng it, and not observyng it, moche harme: The whiche is, that there be observed greate diligence, to knowe at night, who lodgeth not in the Campe, and who commeth a newe: and this is an easie thing to see who lodgeth, with thesame order that wee have appoincted: for as moche as every lodgyng havyng the determined nomber of menne, it is an easie matter to see, if thei lacke, or if there be more menne: and when thei come to be absente without lisence, to punishe them as Fugetives, and if there bee more, to understande what thei be, what they make there, and of their other condicions. This diligence maketh that the enemie cannot but with difficultie, practise with thy capitaines, and have knowlege of thy counsailes: which thing if of the Romaines, had not been diligently observed, Claudius Nero could not, havyng Aniball nere hym, depart from his Campe, whiche he had in Lucania, and to go and to retourne from Marca, without Aniball should have firste heard thereof some thyng. But it suffiseth not to make these orders good, excepte thei bee caused to bee observed, with a greate severtie: for that there is nothyng that would have more observacion, then is requisite in an armie: therefore the lawes for the maintenaunce of thesame, ought to be sharpe and harde, and the executour therof moste harde. The Romaines punished with death him that lacked in the watch, he that forsoke the place that was given hym to faight in, he that caried any thynge, hidde out of the Campe, if any manne should saie, that he had doen some worthy thing in the faight, and had not doen it, if any had fought without the commaundemente of the Capitaine, if any had for feare, caste awaie his weapons: and when it happened, that a Cohorte, or a whole Legion, had committed like fault, bicause thei would not put to death all, thei yet tooke al their names, and did put them in a bagge, and then by lotte, thei drue oute the tenthe parte, and so those were put to death: the whiche punishemente, was in soche wise made, that though every man did not feele it every man notwithstandyng feared it: and bicause where be greate punishementes, there ought to be also rewardes, mindyng to have menne at one instant, to feare and to hope, thei had appoincted rewardes to every worthie acte: as he that faighting, saved the life of one of his Citezeins, to hym that firste leapte upon the walle of the enemies Toune, to hym that entered firste into the Campe of the enemies, to hym that had in faightyng hurte, or slaine the enemie, he that had stroken him from his horse: and so every vertuous act, was of the Consulles knowen and rewarded, and openly of every manne praised: and soche as obtained giftes, for any of these thynges, besides the glorie and fame, whiche thei got emongest the souldiours, after when thei returned into their countrie, with solemne pompe, and with greate demonstracion emong their frendes and kinsfolkes, thei shewed them. Therefore it was no marveile, though thesame people gotte so moche dominion, having so moche observacion in punishemente, and rewarde towardes theim, whom either for their well doyng, or for their ill doyng, should deserve either praise or blame: Of whiche thynges it were convenient, to observe the greater parte. Nor I thinke not good to kepe secrete, one maner of punishmente of theim observed, whiche was, that so sone as the offendour, was before the Tribune, or Consulle convicted, he was of the same lightely stroken with a rodde: after the whiche strikyng, it was lawfull for the offendour to flie, and to all the Souldiours to kill hym: so that straight waie, every man threwe at hym either stones, or dartes, or with other weapons, stroke hym in soche wise, that he went but little waie a live, and moste fewe escaped, and to those that so escaped, it was not lawfull for them to retourne home, but with so many incommodities, and soche greate shame and ignomie, that it should have ben moche better for him to have died. This maner is seen to be almoste observed of the Suizzers, who make the condempned to be put to death openly, of thother souldiours, the whiche is well considered, and excellently dooen: for that intendyng, that one be not a defendour of an evill doer, the greateste reamedie that is founde, is to make hym punisher of thesame: bicause otherwise, with other respecte he favoureth hym: where when he hymself is made execucioner, with other desire, he desireth his punishemente, then when the execucion commeth to an other. Therefore mindyng, not to have one favored in his faulte of the people, a greate remedie it is, to make that the people, maie have hym to judge. For the greater proofe of this, thinsample of Manlius Capitolinus might be brought, who being accused of the Scenate, was defended of the people, so longe as thei were not Judge, but becommyng arbitratours in his cause, thei condempned hym to death. This is then a waie to punishe, without raisyng tumultes, and to make justise to be kepte: and for as moche as to bridell armed menne, neither the feare of the Lawes, nor of menne suffise not, the antiquitie joined thereunto the aucthoritie of God: and therefore with moste greate Ceremonies, thei made their souldiours to sweare, to kepe the discipline of warre, so that doyng contrariewise, thei should not onely have to feare the Lawes, and menne, but God: and thei used all diligence, to fill them with Religion. [Sidenote: Women and idell games, were not suffered by the antiquitie, to bee in their armies.] BAPTISTE. Did the Romaines permitte, that women might bee in their armies, or that there might be used these idell plaies, whiche thei use now a daies. FABRICIO. Thei prohibited the one and thother, and this prohibicion was not moche difficulte: For that there were so many exercises, in the whiche thei kept every daie the souldiours, some whiles particularely, somewhiles generally occupied that thei had no time to thinke, either on Venus, or on plaies, nor on any other thyng, whiche sedicious and unproffitable souldiours doe. BAPTISTE. I am herein satisfied, but tell me, when the armie had to remove, what order kepte thei? [Sidenote: Ordre in the removing the armie by the soundes of a Trumpet.] FABRICIO. The chief Trumpet sounded three tymes, at the firste sound, thei toke up the Tentes, and made the packes, at the seconde, thei laded the carriage, at the thirde, thei removed in thesame maner aforsaied, with the impedimentes after every parte of armed men, placyng the Legions in the middeste: and therefore you ought to cause after thesame sorte, an extraordinarie maine battaile to remove: and after that, the particulare impedimentes therof, and with those, the fowerth part of the publike impedimentes, which should bee all those, that were lodged in one of those partes, whiche a little afore we declared: and therfore it is conveniente, to have every one of them, appointed to a maine battaile, to the entente that the armie removyng, every one might knowe his place in marchyng: and thus every maine battaile ought to goe awaie, with their owne impedimentes, and with the fowerth parte of the publike impedimentes, followyng after in soche maner, as wee shewed that the Romaines marched. BAPTISTE. In pitchyng the Campe, had thei other respectes, then those you have tolde? [Sidenote: Respectes to be had for incampyng; How to choose a place to incampe; How to avoide diseases from the armie; The wonderfull commoditie of exercise; The provision of victualles that ought alwaies to bee in a readinesse in an armie.] FABRICIO. I tell you again, that the Romaines when thei encamped, would be able to kepe the accustomed fashion of their maner, the whiche to observe, thei had no other respecte: but concernyng for other consideracions, thei had twoo principall, the one, to incampe theim selves in a wholesome place, the other, to place themselves, where thenemie could not besiege theim, nor take from them the waie to the water, or victualles. Then for to avoide infirmitie, thei did flie from places Fennie, or subjecte to hurtfull windes: whiche thei knewe not so well, by the qualitie of the situacion, as by the face of the inhabitours: for when thei sawe theim evill coloured, or swollen, or full of other infeccion, thei would not lodge there: concernyng thother respecte to provide not to be besieged, it is requisite to consider the nature of the place, where the friendes lye, and thenemies, and of this to make a conjecture, if thou maiest be besieged or no: and therefore it is meete, that the Capitaine be moste experte, in the knowlege of situacions of countries, and have aboute him divers men, that have the verie same expertenes. Thei avoide also diseases, and famishment, with causyng the armie to kepe no misrule, for that to purpose to maintain it in health, it is nedefull to provide, that the souldiours maie slepe under tentes, that thei maie lodge where bee Trees, that make shadowe, where woodde is for to dresse their meate, that thei go not in the heate, and therefore thei muste bee drawen out of the campe, before daie in Summer, and in Winter, to take hede that thei marche not in the Snowe, and in the Froste, without havyng comoditie to make fire, and not to lack necessarie aparel, nor to drink naughtie water: those that fall sicke by chaunce, make them to bee cured of Phisicions: bicause a capitain hath no reamedie, when he hath to faight with sicknesse, and with an enemie: but nothing is so profitable, to maintaine the armie in health, as is the exercise: and therfore the antiquitie every daie, made them to exercise: wherby is seen how muche exercise availeth: for that in the Campe, it kepeth thee in health, and in the faight victorious. Concernyng famishemente, it is necessarie to see, that the enemie hinder thee not of thy victualles, but to provide where thou maieste have it, and to see that thesame whiche thou haste, bee not loste: and therefore it is requisite, that thou have alwaies in provision with the armie, sufficiente victuall for a monethe, and then removyng into some strong place, thou muste take order with thy nexte frendes, that daily thei maie provide for thee, and above al thinges bestowe the victual with diligence, givyng every daie to every manne, a reasonable measure, and observe after soche sorte this poincte, that it disorder thee not: bicause all other thyng in the warre, maie with tyme be overcome, this onely with tyme overcometh thee: nor there shall never any enemie of thyne, who maie overcome thee with famishemente, that will seeke to overcome thee with iron. For that though the victory be not so honourable, yet it is more sure and more certaine: Then, thesame armie cannot avoide famishemente, that is not an observer of justice, whiche licenciously consumeth what it liste: bicause the one disorder, maketh that the victualls commeth not unto you, the other, that soche victuall as commeth, is unprofitably consumed: therefore thantiquitie ordained, that thei should spende thesame, whiche thei gave, and in thesame tyme when thei appoincted: for that no souldiour did eate, but when the Capitaine did eate: The whiche how moche it is observed of the armies nowe adaies, every manne knoweth, and worthely thei can not bee called menne of good order and sober, as the antiquitie, but lasivious and drunkardes. BAPTISTE. You saied in the beginnyng of orderynge the Campe, that you woulde not stande onely uppon twoo maine battailes, but woulde take fower, for to shewe how a juste armie incamped: therfore I would you shoulde tell me twoo thynges, the one, when I shoulde have more or lesse men, howe I ought to incampe them, the other, what numbre of souldiours should suffice you to faight against what so ever enemie that were. [Sidenote: Howe to lodge in the Campe more or lesse menne, then the ordinarie; The nombre of men that an army ought to be made of, to bee able to faighte with the puisantest enemie that is; Howe to cause men to do soche a thing as shold bee profitable for thee, and hurtfull to them selves; Howe to overcome menne at unwares; How to tourne to commoditie the doynges of soche, as use to advertise thy enemie of thy proceadynges; How to order the campe, that the enemie shal not perceive whether the same bee deminished, or increased; A saiyng of Metellus; Marcus Crassus; How to understand the secretes of thy enemie; A policie of Marius, to understande howe he might truste the Frenchmen; What some Capitaines have doen when their countrie have been invaded of enemies; To make the enemie necligente in his doynges; Silla Asdruball; The policie of Aniball, where by he escaped out of the danger of Fabius Maximus; A Capitayne muste devise how to devide the force of his enemies; How to cause the enemie to have in suspect his most trusty men; Aniball Coriolanus; Metellus against Jugurte; A practis of the Romayne oratours, to bryng Aniball out of Credit with Antiochus; Howe to cause the enemie to devide his power; Howe Titus Didius staied his enemies that wer going to incounter a legion of men that were commyng in his ayde; Howe some have caused the enemie to devide his force; A policie to winne the enemies countrie before he be aware; Howe to reforme sedicion and discorde; The benefitte that the reputacion of the Capitaine causeth, which is only gotten by vertue; The chiefe thyng that a capitayne ought to doe; When paie wanteth, punishment is not to be executed; The inconvenience of not punisshynge; Cesar chaunsynge to fall, made the same to be supposed to signifi good lucke; Religion taketh away fantasticall opinions; In what cases a Capitaine ought not to faight with his enemie if he may otherwyse choose; A policie of Fulvius wherby he got and spoyled his enemies Campe; A policie to disorder the enemie; A policie to overcome the enemie; A policie; How to beguile the enemie; Howe Mennonus trained his enemies oute of stronge places to bee the better able to overcom them.] FABRICIO. To the first question I answer you, that if the armie be more or lesse, then fower or sixe thousande souldiours, the orders of lodgynges, may bee taken awaie or joined, so many as suffiseth: and with this way a man may goe in more, and in lesse, into infinite: Notwithstandynge the Romaines, when thei joigned together twoo consull armies, thei made twoo campes, and thei tourned the partes of the unarmed, thone against thother. Concernyng the second question, I say unto you, that the Romaines ordinary armie, was about xxiiii. M. souldiours: but when thei were driven to faight against the greatest power that might be, the moste that thei put together, wer L. M. With this number, thei did set against two hundred thousand Frenchemen, whome assaulted them after the first warre, that thei had with the Carthageners. With this verie same numbre, thei fought againste Anniball. And you muste note, that the Romaines, and the Grekes, have made warre with fewe, fortefiyng themselves thorough order, and thorough arte: the west, and the easte, have made it with multitude: But the one of these nacions, doeth serve with naturall furie: as doe the men of the west partes, the other through the great obedience whiche those men have to their kyng. But in Grece, and in Italy, beyng no naturall furie, nor the naturall reverence towardes their king, it hath been necessary for them to learne the discipline of warre, the whiche is of so muche force, that it hath made that a fewe, hath been able to overcome the furie, and the naturall obstinatenesse of manie. Therefore I saie, that mindyng to imitate the Romaines, and the Grekes, the number of L. M. souldiers ought not to bee passed, but rather to take lesse: because manie make confucion, nor suffer not the discipline to be observed, and the orders learned, and Pirrus used to saie, that with xv. thousande men he woulde assaile the worlde: but let us pas to an other parte. We have made this our armie to winne a field and shewed the travailes, that in the same fight may happen: we have made it to marche, and declared of what impedimentes in marchyng it may be disturbed: and finally we have lodged it: where not only it ought to take a littell reste of the labours passed, but also to thinke howe the warre ought to be ended: for that in the lodgynges, is handeled many thynges, inespecially thy enemies as yet remainyng in the fielde, and in suspected townes, of whome it is good to be assured, and those that be enemies to overcome them: therfore it is necessarie to come to this demonstracion, and to passe this difficultie with the same glorie, as hitherto we have warred. Therfore comynge to particular matters, I saie that if it shoulde happen, that thou wouldest have manie men, or many people to dooe a thyng, whiche were to thee profittable, and to theim greate hurte, as should be to breake downe the wall of their citie, or to sende into exile many of them, it is necessarie for thee, either to beguile them in such wise that everie one beleeve not that it toucheth him: so that succouryng not the one the other, thei may finde them selves al to be oppressed without remedie, or els unto all to commaunde the same, whiche they ought to dooe in one selfe daie, to the intente that every man belevyng to be alone, to whome the commaundement is made, maie thinke to obey and not to remedie it: and so withoute tumulte thy commaundement to be of everie man executed. If thou shouldest suspecte the fidelitie of anie people, and woulde assure thee, and overcome them at unawares, for to colour thy intente more easelie, thou canst not doe better, then to counsel with them of some purpose of thine, desiryng their aide, and to seeme to intende to make an other enterprise, and to have thy minde farre from thinkyng on them: the whiche will make, that thei shall not think on their owne defence, beleevyng not that thou purposest to hurte them, and thei shal geve thee commoditie, to be able easely to satisfie thy desire. When thou shouldest perceive, that there were in thine armie some, that used to advertise thy enemie of thy devises, thou canst not doe better, myndynge to take commoditie by their traiterous mindes, then to commen with them of those thynges, that thou wilte not doe, and those that thou wilt doe, to kepe secret, and to say to doubte of thynges, that thou doubtest not, and those of whiche thou doubtest, to hide: the which shall make thenemie to take some enterprise in hand, beleving to know thy devises, where by easly thou maiest beguile and opresse hym. If thou shouldest intende (as Claudius Nero did) to deminishe thy armie, sendynge helpe to some freende, and that the enemie shoulde not bee aware therof, it is necessarie not to deminishe the lodgynges, but to maintayne the signes, and the orders whole, makyng the verie same fires, and the verye same wardes throughout all the campe, as wer wont to be afore. Lykewise if with thy armie there should joigne new men, and wouldest that the enemie shoulde not know that thou werte ingrosed, it is necessarie not to increase the lodgynges: Because keepyng secrete doynges and devises, hath alwaies been moste profitable. Wherfore Metellus beyng with an armie in Hispayne, to one, who asked him what he would doe the nexte daie, answered, that if his sherte knew therof, he would bourne it. Marcus Craussus, unto one, whome asked him, when the armie shoulde remove, saied beleevest thou to be alone not to here the trumpet? If thou shouldest desire to understande the secretes of thy enemie, and to know his orders, some have used to sende embassadours, and with theim in servauntes aparel, moste expertest men in warre: whom havynge taken occasion to se the enemies armie, and to consider his strengthe and weakenesse, it hath geven them oportunitie to overcome him. Some have sente into exile one of their familiars, and by meanes of the same, hath knowen the devises of his adversarie. Also like secrettes are understoode of the enemies when for this effecte there were taken any prisoners. Marius whiche in the warre that he made with the Cimbrie, for to know the faieth of those Frenchmen, who then inhabited Lombardie, and were in leage with the Romaine people, sent them letters open, and sealed: and in the open he wrote, that they shoulde not open the sealed, but at a certaine time, and before the same time demaundyng them againe, and finding them opened, knew thereby that their faithe was not to be trusted. Some Capitaines, being invaded, have not desired to goe to meete the enemie, but have gone to assaulte his countrey, and constrained him to retorne to defende his owne home: The whiche manie times hath come wel to passe, for that those soldiours beginnyng to fil them selves with booties, and confidence to overcome, shall sone make the enemies souldiours to wexe afraide, when they supposynge theim selves conquerours, shal understand to become losers: So that to him that hath made this diversion, manie times it hath proved well. But onely it may be doen by him, whiche hath his countrey stronger then that of the enemies, because when it were otherwise, he should goe to leese. It hath been often a profitable thyng to a capitaine, that hath been besieged in his lodgynges by the enemie, to move an intreatie of agreemente, and to make truse with him for certaine daies: the which is wonte to make the enemies more necligente in all doynges: so that avaylynge thee of their necligence, thou maiest easely have occacion to get thee oute of handes. By this way Silla delivered him selfe twise from the enemies: and with this verie same deceipte, Asdruball in Hispayne got oute of the force of Claudious Nero, whome had besieged him. It helpeth also to deliver a man out of the daunger of the enemie, to do some thyng beside the forsaied, that may keepe him at a baye: this is dooen in two maners, either to assaulte him with parte of thy power, so that he beyng attentive to the same faight, may geve commoditie to the reste of thy men to bee able to save theim selves, or to cause to rise some newe accidente, which for the strayngenesse of the thynge, maie make him to marvell, and for this occasion to stande doubtefull, and still: as you knowe howe Anniball dyd, who beynge inclosed of Fabius Maximus, tied in the nighte small Bavens kindeled beetweene the hornes of manie Oxen, so that Fabius astonied at the strangenesse of the same sight, thought not to lette him at all the passage. A Capitayne oughte amonge all other of his affaires, with al subtiltie to devise to devide the force of the enemie, either with makyng him to suspecte his owne menne, in whome he trusteth, or to give him occasion, that he maye seperate his menne, and therby to be come more weake. The fyrste way is dooen with keepyng saulfe the thynges of some of those whiche he hath aboute him, as to save in the warre their menne and their possessions, renderynge theim their children, or other their necessaries withoute raunsome. You know that Anniball havynge burned all the fieldes aboute Rome, he made onely to bee reserved saulfe those of Fabius Maximus. You know how Coriolanus comyng with an armie to Rome, preserved the possessions of the nobilitie, and those of the comminaltie he bourned, and sacked. Metellus havinge an armie againste Jugurte, all the oratours, whiche of Jugurte were sente him, were required of him, that they woulde geve him Jugurte prisoner, and after to the verie same men writyng letters of the verie same matter, wrought in suche wise, that in shorte tyme Jugurte havyng in suspecte all his counsellours, in diverse maners put them to death. Anniball beynge fled to Antiochus, the Romaine oratours practised with him so familiarly, that Antiochus beyng in suspecte of him, trusted not anie more after to his counselles. Concernyng to devide the enemies men, there is no more certainer waie, then to cause their countrie to be assaulted to the intente that being constrained to goe to defende the same, they maie forsake the warre. This way Fabius used havynge agaynst his armie the power of the Frenchemen, of the Tuscans, Umbries and Sannites. Titus Didius havyng a few men in respecte to those of the enemies, and lookynge for a legion from Rome, and the enemies purposinge to goe to incounter it, to the intente that they should not goe caused to bee noised through all his armie, that he intended the nexte daie to faighte the field with the enemies: after he used means, that certaine of the prisoners, that he had taken afore, had occasion to runne awaie. Who declaryng the order that the Consull had taken to faighte the nexte daie, by reason wherof the enemies beyng afraide to deminishe their owne strength, went not to incounter the same legion, and by this way thei wer conducted safe. The which means serveth not to devide the force of the enemies, but to augmente a mans owne. Some have used to devide the enemies force, by lettyng him to enter into their countrie, and in profe have let him take manie townes, to the intente that puttynge in the same garrisons, he might thereby deminishe his power, and by this waie havynge made him weake, have assaulted and overcomen him. Some other mindyng to goe into one province, have made as though they woulde have invaded an other, and used so much diligence, that sodenly entryng into the same, where it was not doubted that they woulde enter, they have first wonne it, before the ennemie coulde have time to succour it: for that thy enemie beynge not sure, whether thou purposest to tourne backe, to the place fyrste of thee threatned, is constrained not to forsake the one place, to succour the other, and so many times he defendeth neither the one nor the other. It importeth besides the sayde thynges to a Capitaine, if there growe sedicion or discorde amonge the souldiours, to knowe with arte howe to extynguishe it: The beste waie is to chastise the headdes of the faultes, but it muste be doen in such wise, that thou maiest first have oppressed them, before they be able to be aware: The way is if they be distante from thee, not onely to call the offenders, but together with theim all the other, to the entente that not beleevynge, that it is for any cause to punishe them, they become not contumelius, but geve commoditie to the execution of the punishemente: when thei be present, thou oughtest to make thy selfe stronge with those that be not in faulte, and by meane of their helpe to punishe the other. When there hapneth discorde amonge them, the beste waye is, to bryng them to the perill, the feare whereof is wonte alwaies to make them agree. But that, which above all other thynge kepeth the armie in unitee, is the reputacion of the Capitaine, the whiche onely groweth of his vertue: because neither bloud, nor authoritie gave it ever without vertue. And the chiefe thyng, whiche of a Capitain is looked for to be doen, is, to keepe his souldiours punisshed, and paied: for that when so ever the paie lacketh, it is conveniente that the punisshement lacke: because thou canst not correcte a souldiour, that robbeth, if thou doest not paie him, nor the same mindynge to live, cannot abstaine from robbynge: but if thou paiest him and punisshest him not, he beecometh in everie condicion insolente: For that thou becomest of small estimacion, where thou chaunsest not to bee able to maintaine the dignitie of thy degree, and not mainetainyng it, there foloweth of necessitee tumulte, and discorde, whiche is the ruine of an armie. Olde Capitaines had a troubell, of the which the presente be almoste free, whiche was to interprete to their purpose the sinister auguries: because if there fell a thunderbolte in an armie, if the sunne were darkened or the Moone, if there came an erthequake, if the Capitaine either in gettyng up, or in lightynge of his horse fell, it was of the souldiours interpreted sinisterously: And it ingendred in them so moche feare, that comynge to faight the fielde, easely they should have lost it: and therefore the aunciente Capitaines so sone as a lyke accidente grewe, either they shewed the cause of the same, and redused it to a naturall cause, or they interpreted it to their purpose. Cesar fallyng in Africa, in comyng of the sea saied, Africa I have taken thee. Moreover manie have declared the cause of the obscuryng of the Moone, and of earthquakes: which thing in our time cannot happen, as well because our men be not so supersticious, as also for that our religion taketh away altogether such opinions: al be it when they should chaunse, the orders of the antiquitie ought to be imitated. When either famishement, or other naturall necessitie, or humaine passion, hath broughte thy enemie to an utter desperation, and he driven of the same, cometh to faight with thee, thou oughtest to stande within thy campe, and as muche as lieth in thy power, to flie the faight. So the Lacedemonians did against the Masonians, so Cesar did against Afranio, and Petreio. Fulvius beyng Consul, against the Cimbrians, made his horsemen manie daies continually to assaulte the enemies, and considered how thei issued out of their campe for to folow them: wherfore he sette an ambusshe behinde the Campe of the Cimbrians, and made them to be assaulted of his horsmen, and the Cimbrians issuyng oute of their campe for to follow them. Fulvio gotte it, and sacked it. It hath ben of great utilitie to a Capitaine, havyng his armie nere to the enemies armie, to sende his menne with the enemies ansignes to robbe, and to burne his owne countrey, whereby the enemies beleevynge those to bee menne, whiche are come in their aide, have also runne to helpe to make them the pray: and for this disorderyng them selves, hathe therby given oportunitie to the adversary to overcome them. This waie Alexander of Epirus used againste the Illirans and Leptenus of Siracusa against the Carthaginers and bothe to the one and to the other, the devise came to passe most happely. Manie have overcome the enemie, gevyng him occasion to eate and to drinke oute of measure, fayning to have feared, and leaving their Campes full of wyne and herdes of cattell, wherof the enemie beyng filled above all naturall use, have then assaulted him, and with his destruction overthrowen him. So Tamirus did against Cirus, and Tiberius Graccus agaynst the Spaniardes. Some have poysoned the wine, and other thynges to feede on, for to be able more easely to overcome them. I saied a littel afore how I founde not, that the antiquetie kepte in the night Scoutes abroade, and supposed that they did it for to avoide the hurte, whiche might growe therby: because it is founde, that through no other meane then throughe the watche man, whiche was set in the daie to watche the enemie, hath been cause of the ruin of him, that set him there: for that manie times it hath hapned, that he beyng taken, hath been made perforce to tell theim the token, whereby they might call his felowes, who commyng to the token, have been slaine or taken. It helpeth to beguile the enemie sometime to varie a custome of thine, whereupon he having grounded him self, remaineth ruinated: as a Capitaine did once, whome usinge to cause to be made signes to his men for comynge of the enemies in the night with fire, and in the daie with smoke, commaunded that withoute anie intermission, they shoulde make smoke and fire, and after commynge upon them the enemie, they should reste, whome beleevyng to come without beynge seen, perceivyng no signe to be made of beyng discovered, caused (through goeyng disordered) more easie the victorie to his adversarie. Mennonus a Rodian mindynge to drawe from stronge places the enemies armie, sente one under colour of a fugitive, the whiche affirmed, howe his armie was in discorde, and that the greater parte of them wente awaie: and for to make the thynge to be credited, he caused to make in sporte, certaine tumultes amonge the lodgynges: whereby the enemie thvnkyng thereby to be able to discomfaighte them, assaultynge theim, were overthrowen. [Sidenote: The enemie ought not to be brought into extreme desperacion; How Lucullus constrained certaine men that ran awaie from him to his enemies, to fayght whether they wold or not.] Besides thesaied thynges, regarde ought to be had not to brynge the enemie into extreme desperacion: whereunto Cesar had regarde, faightyng with the Duchemen, who opened them the waie, seyng, howe thei beyng not able to flie, necessitie made them strong, and would rather take paine to followe theim, when thei fled, then the perill to overcome them, when thei defended them selves. Lucullus seyng, how certaine Macedonian horsemenne, whiche were with hym, went to the enemies parte, straight waie made to sounde to battaile, and commaunded, that the other men should folowe hym: whereby the enemies beleving, that Lucullus would begin the faight, went to incounter the same Macedonians, with soche violence, that thei were constrained to defende themselves: and so thei became against their willes, of fugetives, faighters. It importeth also to knowe, how to be assured of a toune, when thou doubteste of the fidelitie thereof, so sone as thou haste wonne the fielde, or before, the whiche certain old insamples maie teache thee. [Sidenote: A policie wher by Pompey got a towne; How Publius Valerius assured him self of a towne; A policie that Alexander Magnus used to be assured of all Tracia, which Philip kynge of Spaine did practise to be asured of England when he wente to sainct Quintens; Examples for Capitaines to winne the hartes of the people.] Pompei doubtyng of the Catinensians, praied them that thei would bee contente, to receive certaine sicke menne, that he had in his armie, and sendyng under the habite of sicke persones, most lustie menne, gotte the toune. Publius Valerius, fearyng the fidelitie of the Epidannians, caused to come, as who saieth, a Pardon to a churche without the toune, and when al the people wer gone for Pardon, he shutte the gates, receivyng after none in, but those whom he trusted. Alexander Magnus, mindyng to goe into Asia, and to assure himself of Thracia, toke with him all the principall of thesame Province, givyng theim provision, and he set over the common people of Thracia, men of lowe degree, and so he made the Princes contented with paiyng theim, and the people quiete, havyng no heddes that should disquiete them: But emong all the thynges, with the whiche the Capitaines, winne the hartes of the people, be the insamples of chastitie and justice, as was thesame of Scipio in Spaine, when he rendered that yong woman, moste faire of personage to her father, and to her housebande: the whiche made him more, then with force of armes to winne Spain. Cesar having caused that woodde to bee paied for, whiche he had occupied for to make the Listes, about his armie in Fraunce, got so moche a name of justice, that he made easier the conquest of thesame province. I cannot tell what remaineth me, to speake more upon these accidentes, for that concerning this matter, there is not lefte any parte, that hath not been of us disputed. Onely there lacketh to tell, of the maner of winnyng, and defendyng a toune: the whiche I am readie to doe willingly, if you be not now wearie. BAPTISTE. Your humanitie is so moche, that it maketh us to followe our desires, without beyng afraied to be reputed presumptuous, seyng that you liberally offer thesame, whiche we should have been ashamed, to have asked you: Therefore, we saie unto you onely this, that to us you cannot dooe a greater, nor a more gratefuller benefite, then to finishe this reasonyng. But before that you passe to that other matter, declare us a doubte, whether it bee better to continewe the warre, as well in the Winter, as thei use now adaies, or to make it onely in the Sommer, and to goe home in the Winter, as the antiquitie did. [Sidenote: Warre ought not to be made in winter; Rough situacions, colde and watrie times, are enemies to the oder of warre; An overthrowe caused by winter.] FABRICIO. See, that if the prudence of the demaunder were not, there had remained behinde a speciall part, that deserveth consideracion. I answere you againe, that the antiquitie did all thynges better, and with more prudence then wee: and if wee in other things commit some erroure, in the affaires of warre, wee commit all errour. There is nothing more undiscrete, or more perrillous to a Capitayne, then to make warre in the Winter, and muche more perrill beareth he, that maketh it, then he that abideth it: the reason is this. All the industrie that is used in the discipline of warre, is used for to bee prepared to fighte a fielde with thy enemie, because this is the ende, whereunto a Capitayne oughte to goo or endevour him selfe: For that the foughten field, geveth thee the warre wonne or loste: then he that knoweth best how to order it, and he that hath his army beste instructed, hath moste advauntage in this, and maye beste hope to overcome. On the other side, there is nothing more enemie to the orders, and then the rough situacions, or the colde watery time: for that the rough situacions, suffereth thee not to deffende thy bandes, according to thee discipline: the coulde and watery times, suffereth thee not to keepe thy men together, nor thou canst not bring them in good order to the enemy: but it is convenient for thee to lodge them a sunder of necessitie, and without order, being constrayned to obeye to Castells, to Boroughes, and to the Villages, that maye receyve thee, in maner that all thy laboure of thee, used to instructe the army is vaine. Nor marvayle you not though now a daies, they warre in the Winter, because the armies being without discipline, know not the hurt that it dooth them, in lodging not together, for that it is no griefe to them not to be able to keepe those orders, and to observe that discipline, which they have not: yet they oughte to see howe much harme, the Camping in the Winter hath caused, and to remember, how the Frenchmen in the yeare of oure Lorde God, a thousande five hundred and three, were broken at Gariliano of the Winter, and not of the Spaniardes: For as much as I have saide, he that assaulteth, hath more disadvauntage then he that defendeth: because the fowle weather hurteth him not a littell, being in the dominion of others and minding to make warre. For that he is constrayned, either to stande together with his men, and to sustaine the incommoditie of water and colde, or to avoide it to devide his power: But he that defendeth, may chuse the place as he listeth, and tary him with his freshe men: and he in a sodayne may set his men in araye, and goo to find a band of the enemies men, who cannot resiste the violence of them. So the Frenchemen were discomfited, and so they shall alwayes be discomfited, which will assaulte in the Winter an enemye, whoo hath in him prudence. Then he that will that force, that orders, that discipline and vertue, in anye condition availe him not, let him make warre in the fielde in the winter: and because that the Romaines woulde that all these thinges, in which they bestowed so much diligence, should availe them, fleedde no otherwise the Winter, then the highe Alpes, and difficulte places, and whatsoever other thing shoulde let them, for being able to shewe their arte and their vertue. So this suffiseth to your demaund, wherefore we wil come to intreate of the defending and besieging of tounes, and of their situacions and edifications. THE SEVENTH BOOKE [Sidenote: Tounes and Fortresses maie be strong twoo waies; The place that now a daies is moste sought to fortifie in; How a Toune walle ought to bee made; The walle of a toune ought to bee high, and the diche within, and not without; The thickenes that a Toune walle ought to bee of, and the distaunces betwene everie flancker, and of what breadth and deapth the dich ought to bee; How the ordinaunce is planted, for the defence of a toune; The nature of the batterie.] You oughte to knowe, how that tounes and fortresses, maie bee strong either by nature, or by industrie; by nature, those bee strong, whiche bee compassed aboute with rivers, or with Fennes, as Mantua is and Ferrara, or whiche bee builded upon a Rocke, or upon a stepe hille, as Monaco, and Sanleo: For that those that stande upon hilles, that be not moche difficulct to goe up, be now a daies, consideryng the artillerie and the Caves, moste weake. And therfore moste often times in building, thei seke now a daies a plain, for to make it stronge with industrie. The firste industrie is, to make the walles crooked, and full of tournynges, and of receiptes: the whiche thyng maketh, that thenemie cannot come nere to it, bicause he maie be hurte, not onely on the front, but by flancke. If the walles be made high, thei bee to moche subjecte to the blowes of the artillerie: if thei be made lowe, thei bee moste easie to scale. If thou makeste the diches on the out side thereof, for to give difficultie to the Ladders, if it happen that the enemie fill them up (whiche a great armie maie easely dooe) the wall remaineth taken of thenemie. Therefore purposyng to provide to the one and thother foresaid inconveniences, I beleve (savyng alwaies better judgement) that the walle ought to be made highe, and the Diche within, and not without. This is the moste strongeste waie of edificacion, that is made, for that it defendeth thee from the artillerie, and from Ladders, and it giveth not facilitie to the enemie, to fill up the diche: Then the walle ought to be high, of that heighth as shall bee thought beste, and no lesse thick, then two yardes and a quarter, for to make it more difficult to ruinate. Moreover it ought to have the toures placed, with distances of CL. yardes betwen thone and thother: the diche within, ought to be at leaste twoo and twentie yardes and a halfe broad, and nine depe, and al the yearth that is digged out, for to make the diche, muste be throwen towardes the Citee, and kepte up of a walle, that muste be raised from the bottome of the diche, and goe so high over the toune, that a man maie bee covered behinde thesame, the whiche thing shal make the depth of the diche the greater. In the bottome of the diche, within every hundred and l. yardes, there would be a slaughter house, which with the ordinaunce, maie hurte whom so ever should goe doune into thesame: the greate artillerie that defende the citee, are planted behinde the walle, that shutteth the diche, bicause for to defende the utter walle, being high, there cannot bee occupied commodiously, other then smalle or meane peeses. If the enemie come to scale, the heigth of the firste walle moste easely defendeth thee: if he come with ordinaunce, it is convenient for hym to batter the utter walle: but it beyng battered, for that the nature of the batterie is, to make the walle to fall, towardes the parte battered, the ruine of the walle commeth, finding no diche that receiveth and hideth it, to redouble the profunditie of thesame diche: after soche sorte, that to passe any further, it is not possible, findyng a ruine that with holdeth thee, a diche that letteth thee, and the enemies ordinaunce, that from the walle of the diche, moste safely killeth thee. Onely there is this remedie, to fill the diche: the whiche is moste difficulte to dooe, as well bicause the capacitie thereof is greate, as also for the difficultie, that is in commyng nere it, the walle beeyng strong and concaved, betwene the whiche, by the reasons aforesaied, with difficultie maie be entered, havyng after to goe up a breache through a ruin, whiche giveth thee moste greate difficultie, so that I suppose a citee thus builded, to be altogether invinsible. BAPTISTE. When there should bee made besides the diche within, a diche also without, should it not bee stronger? FABRICIO. It should be without doubt, but mindyng to make one diche onely, myne opinion is, that it standeth better within then without. BAPTISTE. Would you, that water should bee in the diches, or would you have them drie? [Sidenote: A drie diche is moste sureste.] FABRICIO. The opinion of men herein bee divers, bicause the diches full of water, saveth thee from mines under grounde, the Diches without water, maketh more difficulte the fillyng of them: but I havyng considered all, would make them without water, for that thei bee more sure: For diches with water, have been seen in the Winter to bee frosen, and to make easie the winnyng of a citee, as it happened to Mirandola, when Pope Julie besieged it: and for to save me from mines, I would make it so deepe, that he that would digge lower, should finde water. [Sidenote: An advertisemente for the buildyng and defending of a Toune or Fortresse; Small fortresses cannot bee defended; A toune of war or Fortresse, ought not to have in them any retiring places; Cesar Borgia; The causes of the losse of the Fortresse of Furlie, that was thought invincible; Howe the houses that are in a toune of war or Fortresse ought to be builded.] The Fortresses also, I would builde concernyng the diches and the walles in like maner, to the intent thei should have the like difficultie to be wonne. One thyng I will earnestly advise hym, that defendeth a Citee: and that is, that he make no Bulwarkes without distaunte from the walle of thesame: and an other to hym that buildeth the Fortresse, and this is, that he make not any refuge place in them, in whiche he that is within, the firste walle beyng loste, maie retire: That whiche maketh me to give the firste counsaile is, that no manne ought to make any thyng, by meane wherof, he maie be driven without remedie to lese his firste reputacion, the whiche losyng, causeth to be estemed lesse his other doinges, and maketh afraied them, whom have taken upon theim his defence, and alwaies it shall chaunce him this, whiche I saie, when there are made Bulwarkes out of the Toune, that is to bee defended, bicause alwaies he shall leese theim, little thynges now a daies, beyng not able to bee defended, when thei be subject to the furie of ordinance, in soche wise that lesyng them, thei be beginning and cause of his ruine. When Genua rebelled againste king Leus of Fraunce, it made certaine Bulwarkes alofte on those hilles, whiche bee about it, the whiche so sone as thei were loste, whiche was sodainly, made also the citee to be loste. Concernyng the second counsaile, I affirme nothyng to be to a Fortresse more perilous, then to be in thesame refuge places, to be able to retire: Bicause the hope that menne have thereby, maketh that thei leese the utter warde, when it is assaulted: and that loste, maketh to bee loste after, all the Fortresse. For insample there is freshe in remembraunce, the losse of the Fortresse of Furly, when Catherin the Countesse defended it againste Cesar Borgia, sonne to Pope Alexander the vi. who had conducted thether the armie of the king of Fraunce: thesame Fortresse, was al full of places, to retire out of one into an other: for that there was firste the kepe, from the same to the Fortresse, was a diche after soche sorte, that thei passed over it by a draw bridge: the fortresse was devided into three partes, and every parte was devided from the other with diches, and with water, and by Bridges, thei passed from the one place to the other: wherefore the Duke battered with his artillerie, one of the partes of the fortresse, and opened part of the walle: For whiche cause Maister Jhon Casale, whiche was appoincted to that Warde, thought not good to defende that breache, but abandoned it for to retire hymself into the other places: so that the Dukes men having entered into that parte without incounter, in a sodaine thei gotte it all: For that the Dukes menne became lordes of the bridges, whiche went from one place to an other. Thei loste then this Fortresse, whiche was thought invinsible, through two defaultes, the one for havyng so many retiryng places, the other, bicause every retiryng place, was not Lorde of the bridge thereof. Therefore, the naughtie builded Fortresse, and the little wisedome of them that defended it, caused shame to the noble enterprise of the countesse, whoe had thought to have abidden an armie, whiche neither the kyng of Naples, nor the Duke of Milaine would have abidden: and although his inforcementes had no good ende, yet notwithstandyng he gotte that honoure, whiche his valiauntnesse had deserved: The whiche was testified of many Epigrammes, made in those daies in his praise. Therefore, if I should have to builde a Fortresse, I would make the walles strong, and the diches in the maner as we have reasoned, nor I would not make therein other, then houses to inhabite, and those I would make weake and lowe, after soche sorte that thei should not let him that should stande in the middest of the Market place, the sight of all the walle, to the intente that the Capitain might see with the iye, where he maie succour: and that every manne should understande, that the walle and the diche beyng lost, the fortresse were lost. And yet when I should make any retiryng places, I would make the bridges devided in soche wise, that every parte should be Lorde of the bridges of his side, ordainyng, that thei should fall upon postes, in the middest of the diche. BAPTISTE. You have saied that littel thynges now a daies can not bee defended, and it seemed unto me to have understoode the contrarie, that the lesser that a thyng wer, the better it might be defended. [Sidenote: The fortifiyng of the entrance of a Toune.] FABRICIO. You have not understoode well, because that place cannot be now a daies called stronge, wher he that defendeth it, hath not space to retire with new diches, and with new fortificacions, for that the force of the ordinance is so much, that he that trusteth uppon the warde of one wall and of one fortification only, is deceived: and because the Bulwarkes (mindyng that they passe not their ordinarie measure, for that then they shoulde be townes and Castels) be not made, in suche wise that men maie have space within them to retire, thei are loste straight waie. Therefore it is wisdom to let alone those Bulwarkes without, and to fortifie thenterance of the toune, and to kever the gates of the same with turnyngs after suche sort, that men cannot goe in nor oute of the gate by right line: and from the tournynges to the gate, to make a diche with a bridge. Also they fortifie the gate, with a Percullis, for to bee abell to put therin their menne, when they be issued out to faight, and hapnyng that the enemies pursue them, to avoide, that in the mingelynge together, they enter not in with them: and therfore these be used, the which the antiquitie called Cattarratte, the whiche beyng let fall, exclude thenemies, and save the freendes, for that in suche a case, men can do no good neither by bridges nor by a gate, the one and the other beynge ocupied with prease of menne. BAPTISTE. I have seene these Perculleses that you speake of, made in Almayne of littell quarters of woodde after the facion of a grate of Iron, and these percullises of ouers, be made of plankes all massive: I woulde desire to understande whereof groweth this difference, and which be the strongest. [Sidenote: Battelments ought to be large and thicke and the flanckers large within.] FABRICIO. I tell you agayne, that the manners and orders of the warre, throughe oute all the worlde, in respecte to those of the antiquitie, be extinguesshed, and in Italye they bee altogether loste, for if there bee a thing somewhat stronger then the ordinarye, it groweth of the insample of other countries. You mighte have understoode and these other may remember, with howe muche debilitie before, that king Charles of Fraunce in the yere of our salvation a thousande CCCC. xciiii. had passed into Italie, they made the batelmentes not halfe a yarde thicke, the loopes, and the flanckers were made with a litle opening without, and muche within, and with manye other faultes whiche not to be tedious I will let passe: for that easely from thinne battelments the defence is taken awaye, the flanckers builded in the same maner, moste easylye are opened: Nowe of the Frenchemen is learned to make the battelment large and thicke, and the flanckers to bee large on the parte within, and to drawe together in the middeste of the wall, and then agayn to waxe wider unto the uttermost parte without: this maketh that the ordinaunce hardlye can take away the defence. Therfore the Frenchmen have, manye other devises like these, the whiche because they have not beene seene of our men, they have not beene considered. Among whiche, is this kinde of perculles made like unto a grate, the which is a greate deale better then oures: for that if you have for defence of a gate a massive parculles as oures, letting it fall, you shutte in your menne, and you can not though the same hurte the enemie, so that hee with axes, and with fire, maye breake it downe safely: but if it bee made like a grate, you maye, it being let downe, through those holes and through those open places, defende it with Pikes, with crosbowes, and with all other kinde of weapons. BAPTISTE. I have seene in Italye an other use after the outelandishe fashion, and this is, to make the carriage of the artillery with the spokes of the wheele crooked towardes the Axeltree. I woulde knowe why they make them so: seeming unto mee that they bee stronger when they are made straighte as those of oure wheeles. [Sidenote: Neither the ditche, wall tillage, nor any kinde of edificacion, ought to be within a mile of a toune of warre.] FABRICIO. Never beleeve that the thinges that differ from the ordinarie wayes, be made by chaunce: and if you shoulde beleeve that they make them so, to shewe fayrer, you are deceaved: because where strength is necessarie, there is made no counte of fayrenesse: but all groweth, for that they be muche surer and muche stronger then ours. The reason is this: the carte when it is laden, either goeth even, or leaning upon the righte, or upon the lefte side: when it goeth even, the wheeles equally sustayne the wayght, the which being equallye devided betweene them, doth not burden much, but leaning, it commeth to have all the paise of the cariage on the backe of that wheele upon the which it leaneth. If the spokes of the same be straight they wil soone breake: for that the wheele leaning, the spokes come also to leane, and not to sustaine the paise by the straightnesse of them, and so when the carte goeth even, and when they are least burdened, they come to bee strongest: when the Carte goeth awrye, and that they come to have moste paise, they bee weakest. Even the contrarie happeneth to the crooked spokes of the Frenche Cartes, for that when the carte leaning upon one side poincteth uppon them, because they bee ordinary crooked, they come then to bee straight, and to be able to sustayne strongly al the payse, where when the carte goeth even, and that they bee crooked, they sustayne it halfe: but let us tourne to our citie and Fortresse. The Frenchemen use also for more safegarde of the gates of their townes, and for to bee able in sieges more easylye to convey and set oute men of them, besides the sayde thinges, an other devise, of which I have not seene yet in Italye anye insample: and this is, where they rayse on the oute side from the ende of the drawe bridge twoo postes, and upon either of them they joigne a beame, in suche wise that the one halfe of them comes over the bridge, the other halfe with oute: then all the same parte that commeth withoute, they joygne together with small quarters of woodde, the whiche they set thicke from one beame to an other like unto a grate, and on the parte within, they fasten to the ende of either of the beames a chaine: then when they will shutte the bridge on the oute side, they slacke the chaines, and let downe all the same parte like unto a grate, the whiche comming downe, shuttethe the bridge, and when they will open it, they drawe the chaines, and the same commeth to rise up, and they maye raise it up so much that a man may passe under it, and not a horse, and so much that there maye passe horse and man, and shutte it againe at ones, for that it falleth and riseth as a window of a battelment. This devise is more sure than the Parculles, because hardely it maye be of the enemye lette in such wise, that it fall not downe, falling not by a righte line as the Parculles, which easely may be underpropped. Therfore they which will make a citie oughte to cause to be ordained all the saide things: and moreover aboute the walle, there woulde not bee suffered any grounde to be tilled, within a myle thereof, nor any wall made, but shoulde be all champaine, where should be neither ditch nor banck, neither tree nor house, which might let the fighte, and make defence for the enemie that incampeth. [Sidenote: Noote; The provision that is meete to be made for the defence of a toune.] And noote, that a Towne, whiche hathe the ditches withoute, with the banckes higher then the grounde, is moste weake: for as muche as they make defence to the enemye which assaulteth thee, and letteth him not hurte thee, because easely they may be opened, and geve place to his artillerye: but let us passe into the Towne. I will not loose so muche time in shewing you howe that besides the foresayde thinges, it is requisite to have provision of victualles, and wherewith to fight, for that they be thinges that everye man underdeth, and without them, all other provision is vaine: and generally twoo thinges oughte to be done, to provide and to take the commoditie from the enemie that he availe not by the things of thy countrey: therfore the straw, the beastes, the graine, whiche thou canste not receive into house, ought to be destroied. Also he that defendeth a Towne, oughte to provide that nothing bee done tumultuouslye and disordinatelye, and to take suche order, that in all accidentes everye man maye knowe what he hath to doo. [Sidenote: What incoragethe the enemy most that besiegeth a toune; What he that besiegeth and he that defendeth oughte to doo; Advertisementes for a besieged towne; Howe the Romaines vitaled Casalino besieged of Aniball; A policie for the besieged.] The order that oughte to be taken is thus, that the women, the olde folkes, the children, and the impotent, be made to keepe within doores, that the Towne maye be left free, to yong and lustie men, whom being armed, must be destributed for the defence of the same, appointing part of them to the wall, parte to the gates, parte to the principall places of the Citie, for to remedie those inconveniences, that might growe within: an other parte must not be bound to any place, but be ready to succour all, neede requiring: and the thing beeing ordained thus, with difficultie tumulte can growe, whiche maye disorder thee. Also I will that you note this, in the besieging and defending of a Citie, that nothing geveth so muche hoope to the adversarye to be able to winne a towne, as when he knoweth that the same is not accustomed to see the enemie: for that many times for feare onely without other experience of force, cities have bene loste: Therefore a man oughte, when he assaulteth a like Citie, to make all his ostentacions terrible. On the other parte he that is assaulted, oughte to appoincte to the same parte, whiche the enemie fighteth againste, strong men and suche as opinion makethe not afraide, but weapons onely: for that if the first proofe turne vaine, it increaseth boldenesse to the besieged, and then the enemie is constrained to overcome them within, with vertue and reputacion. The instrumentes wherwith the antiquitie defended townes, where manie: as balistes, onagris, scorpions, Arcubalistes, Fustibals, Slinges: and also those were manie with which thei gave assaultes. As Arrieti, Towers, Musculi Plutei, Viney, Falci, testudeni, in steede of which thynges be now a daies the ordinance, the whiche serve him that bessegeth, and him that defendeth: and therfore I will speake no forther of theim: But let us retourne to our reasonyng and let us come to particular offences. They ought to have care not to be taken by famine, and not to be overcome through assaultes: concernyng famin, it hath ben tolde, that it is requiset before the siege come, to be well provided of vitualles. But when a towne throughe longe siege, lacketh victuals, some times hath ben seen used certaine extraordinarie waies to be provided of their friendes, whome woulde save them: inespeciall if through the middest of the besieged Citie there runne a river, as the Romaines vittelled their castell called Casalino besieged of Anibal, whom being not able by the river to sende them other victual then Nuttes, wherof castyng in the same great quantitie, the which carried of the river, without beyng abel to be letted, fedde longe time the Casalinians. Some besieged, for to shew unto the enemie, that they have graine more then inough and for to make him to dispaire, that he cannot, by famin overcome theim, have caste breade oute of the gates, or geven a Bullocke graine to eate, and after have suffered the same to be taken, to the intent that kilde and founde full of graine, might shewe that aboundance, whiche they had not. On the other parte excellent Capitaines have used sundrie waies to werie the enemie. [Sidenote: A policie of Fabius in besieging of a toune; A policie of Dionisius in besiegynge of a toune.] Fabius suffered them whome he besieged, to sowe their fieldes, to the entente that thei should lacke the same corne, whiche they sowed. Dionisius beynge in Campe at Regio, fained to minde to make an agreement with them, and duryng the practise therof he caused him selfe to be provided of their victuales, and then when he had by this mean got from them their graine, he kepte them straight and famished them. [Sidenote: Howe Alexander wanne Leucadia.] Alexander Magnus mindyng to winne Leucadia overcame all the Castels aboute it, and by that means drivyng into the same citie a great multitude of their owne countrie men, famished them. [Sidenote: The besieged ought to take heed of the first brunte; The remedie that townes men have, when the enemies ar entred into the towne; How to make the townes men yeelde.] Concernynge the assaultes, there hath been tolde that chiefely thei ought to beware of the firste bronte, with whiche the Romaines gotte often times manie townes, assaultyng them sodainly, and on every side: and thei called it _Aggredi urbem corona_. As Scipio did, when he wanne newe Carthage in Hispayne: the which brunte if of a towne it be withstoode, with difficultie after will bee overcome: and yet thoughe it should happen that the enemie were entred into the citie, by overcomynge the wall, yet the townes men have some remedie, so thei forsake it not: for as much as manie armies through entring into a toune, have ben repulced or slaine: the remedie is, that the townes men doe keepe them selves in highe places, and from the houses, and from the towers to faight with them: the whiche thynge, they that have entered into the citie, have devised to overcome in twoo manners: the one with openyng the gates of the citie, and to make the waie for the townes men, that thei might safely flie: the other with sendynge foorthe a proclamacion, that signifieth, that none shall be hurte but the armed, and to them that caste their weapons on the grounde, pardon shall be graunted: the whiche thynge hath made easie the victorie of manie cities. [Sidenote: How townes or cities are easelie wonne; How duke Valentine got the citie of Urbine; The besieged ought to take heede of the deciptes and policies of the enemie; How Domitio Calvino wan a towne.] Besides this, the Citees are easie to bee wonne, if thou come upon them unawares: whiche is dooen beyng with thy armie farre of, after soche sort, that it be not beleved, either that thou wilte assaulte theim, or that thou canst dooe it, without commyng openly, bicause of the distance of the place: wherefore, if thou secretely and spedely assaulte theim, almoste alwaies it shall followe, that thou shalte gette the victorie. I reason unwillingly of the thynges succeded in our tyme, for that to me and to mine, it should be a burthen, and to reason of other, I cannot tel what to saie: notwithstanding, I cannot to this purpose but declare, the insample of Cesar Borgia, called duke Valentine, who beyng at Nocera with his menne, under colour of goyng to besiege Camerino, tourned towardes the state of Urbin, and gotte a state in a daie, and without any paine, the whiche an other with moche time and cost, should scante have gotten. It is conveniente also to those, that be besieged, to take heede of the deceiptes, and of the policies of the enemie, and therefore the besieged ought not to truste to any thyng, whiche thei see the enemie dooe continually, but let theim beleve alwaies, that it is under deceipte, and that he can to their hurte varie it. Domitio Calvino besiegyng a toune, used for a custome to compasse aboute every daie, with a good parte of his menne, the wall of the same: whereby the Tounes menne, belevyng that he did it for exercise, slacked the Ward: whereof Domicius beyng aware, assaulted and overcame them. [Sidenote: A policie to get a towne.] Certaine Capitaines understandyng, that there should come aide to the besieged, have apareled their Souldiours, under the Ansigne of those, that should come, and beyng let in, have gotte the Toune. [Sidenote: How Simon of Athens wan a towne; A policie to get a towne; How Scipio gotte certaine castels in Afrike.] Simon of Athens set fire in a night on a Temple, whiche was out of the toune, wherefore, the tounes menne goyng to succour it, lefte the toune in praie to the enemie. Some have slaine those, whiche from the besieged Castle, have gone a foragyng, and have appareled their souldiours, with the apparell of the forragers, whom after have gotte the toune. The aunciente Capitaines, have also used divers waies, to destroie the Garison of the Toune, whiche thei have sought to take. Scipio beyng in Africa, and desiring to gette certaine Castles, in whiche were putte the Garrisons of Carthage, he made many tymes, as though he would assaulte theim, albeit, he fained after, not onely to abstaine, but to goe awaie from them for feare: the whiche Aniball belevyng to bee true, for to pursue hym with greater force, and for to bee able more easely to oppresse him, drewe out all the garrisons of theim: The whiche Scipio knowyng, sente Massinissa his Capitaine to overcome them. [Sidenote: Howe Pirrus wan the chiefe Citie of Sclavonie; A policie to get a towne; How the beseiged are made to yelde; Howe to get a towne by treason; A policie of Aniball for the betraiyng of a Castell; How the besieged maie be begiled; How Formion overcame the Calcidensians; What the besieged muste take heede of; Liberalitie maketh enemies frendes; The diligence that the besieged ought to use in their watche and ward.] Pirrus makyng warre in Sclavonie, to the chiefe citee of the same countrie, where were brought many menne in Garrison, fained to dispaire to bee able to winne it, and tourning to other places, made that the same for to succour them, emptied it self of the warde, and became easie to bee wonne. Many have corrupted the water, and have tourned the rivers an other waie to take Tounes. Also the besieged, are easely made to yelde them selves, makyng theim afraied, with signifiyng unto them a victorie gotten, or with new aides, whiche come in their disfavour. The old Capitaines have sought to gette Tounes by treason, corruptyng some within, but thei have used divers meanes. Sum have sente a manne of theirs, whiche under the name of a fugetive, might take aucthoritie and truste with the enemies, who after have used it to their profite. Some by this meanes, have understode the maner of the watche, and by meanes of the same knowledge, have taken the Toune. Some with a Carte, or with Beames under some colour, have letted the gate, that it could not bee shutte, and with this waie, made the entrie easie to the enemie. Aniball perswaded one, to give him a castle of the Romaines, and that he should fain to go a huntyng in the night, makyng as though he could not goe by daie, for feare of the enemies, and tournyng after with the Venison, should put in with hym certaine of his menne, and so killyng the watchmen, should give hym the gate. Also the besieged are beguiled, with drawyng them out of the Toune, and goyng awaie from them, faining to flie when thei assault thee. And many (emong whom was Anibal) have for no other intente, let their Campe to be taken, but to have occasion to get betwene theim and home, and to take their Toune. Also, thei are beguiled with fainyng to departe from them, as Formion of Athens did, who havyng spoiled the countrie of the Calcidensians, received after their ambassadours, fillyng their Citee with faire promises, and hope of safetie, under the which as simple menne, thei were a little after of Formione oppressed. The besieged ought to beware of the men, whiche thei have in suspecte emong them: but some times thei are wont, as well to assure them selves with deserte, as with punishemente. Marcellus knoweyng how Lucius Bancius a Nolane, was tourned to favour Aniball so moche humanitie and liberalitie, he used towardes him, that of an enemie, he made him moste frendely. The besieged ought to use more diligence in the warde, when the enemie is gone from theim, then when he is at hande. And thei ought to warde those places, whiche thei thinke, that maie bee hurt least: for that many tounes have been loste, when thenemie assaulteth it on thesame part, where thei beleve not possible to be assaulted. And this deceipt groweth of twoo causes, either for the place being strong, and to beleve, that it is invinsible, or through craft beyng used of the enemie, in assaltyng theim on one side with fained alaroms, and on the other without noise, and with verie assaltes in deede: and therefore the besieged, ought to have greate advertisment, and above all thynges at all times, and in especially in the night to make good watche to bee kepte on the walles, and not onely to appoincte menne, but Dogges, and soche fiearse Mastives, and lively, the whiche by their sente maie descrie the enemie, and with barkyng discover him: and not Dogges onely, but Geese have ben seen to have saved a citee, as it happened to Roome, when the Frenchemen besieged the Capitoll. [Sidenote: An order of Alcibiades for the dew keping of watch and warde.] Alcibiades for to see, whether the warde watched, Athense beeyng besieged of the Spartaines, ordained that when in the night, he should lifte up a light, all the ward should lift up likewise, constitutyng punishmente to hym that observed it not. [Sidenote: The secrete conveighyng of Letters; The defence against a breach; How the antiquitie got tounes by muining under grounde.] Isicrates of Athens killed a watchman, which slept, saiyng that he lefte him as he found him. Those that have been besieged, have used divers meanes, to sende advise to their frendes: and mindyng not to send their message by mouth, thei have written letters in Cifers, and hidden them in sundrie wise: the Cifers be according, as pleaseth him that ordaineth them, the maner of hidyng them is divers. Some have written within the scaberde of a sweard: Other have put the Letters in an unbaked lofe, and after have baked the same, and given it for meate to hym that caried theim. Certaine have hidden them, in the secreteste place of their bodies: other have hidden them in the collor of a Dogge, that is familiare with hym, whiche carrieth theim: Some have written in a letter ordinarie thinges, and after betwene thone line and thother, have also written with water, that wetyng it or warming it after, the letters should appere. This waie hath been moste politikely observed in our time: where some myndyng to signifie to their freendes inhabityng within a towne, thinges to be kept secret, and mindynge not to truste any person, have sente common matters written, accordyng to the common use and enterlined it, as I have saied above, and the same have made to be hanged on the gates of the Temples, the whiche by countersignes beyng knowen of those, unto whome they have been sente, were taken of and redde: the whiche way is moste politique, bicause he that carrieth them maie bee beguiled, and there shall happen hym no perill. There be moste infinite other waies, whiche every manne maie by himself rede and finde: but with more facilitie, the besieged maie bee written unto, then the besieged to their frendes without, for that soche letters cannot be sent, but by one, under colour of a fugetive, that commeth out of a toune: the whiche is a daungerous and perilous thing, when thenemie is any whit craftie: But those that sende in, he that is sente, maie under many colours, goe into the Campe that besiegeth, and from thens takyng conveniente occasion, maie leape into the toune: but lette us come to speake of the present winnyng of tounes. I saie that if it happen, that thou bee besieged in thy citee, whiche is not ordained with diches within, as a little before we shewed, to mynde that thenemie shall not enter through the breach of the walle, whiche the artillerie maketh: bicause there is no remedie to lette thesame from makyng of a breache, it is therefore necessarie for thee, whileste the ordinance battereth, to caste a diche within the wall which is battered, and that it be in bredth at leaste twoo and twentie yardes and a halfe, and to throwe all thesame that is digged towardes the toun, whiche maie make banke, and the diche more deper: and it is convenient for thee, to sollicitate this worke in soche wise, that when the walle falleth, the Diche maie be digged at least, fower or five yardes in depth: the whiche diche is necessarie, while it is a digging, to shutte it on every side with a slaughter house: and when the wall is so strong, that it giveth thee time to make the diche, and the slaughter houses, that battered parte, commeth to be moche stronger, then the rest of the citee: for that soche fortificacion, cometh to have the forme, of the diches which we devised within: but when the walle is weake, and that it giveth thee not tyme, to make like fortificacions, then strengthe and valiauntnesse muste bee shewed, settyng againste the enemies armed menne, with all thy force. This maner of fortificacion was observed of the Pisans, when you besieged theim, and thei might doe it, bicause thei had strong walles, whiche gave them time, the yearth beyng softe and moste meete to raise up banckes, and to make fortificacions: where if thei had lacked this commoditie, thei should have loste the toune. Therefore it shall bee alwaies prudently doen, to provide afore hand, makyng diches within the citee, and through out all the circuite thereof, as a little before wee devised: for that in this case, the enemie maie safely be taried for at laisure, the fortificacions beyng redy made. The antiquitie many tymes gotte tounes, with muinyng under ground in twoo maners, either thei made a waie under grounde secretely, whiche risse in the toune, and by thesame entered, in whiche maner the Romaines toke the citee of Veienti, or with the muinyng, thei overthrewe a walle, and made it ruinate: this laste waie is now a daies moste stronge, and maketh, that the citees placed high, be most weake, bicause thei maie better bee under muined: and puttyng after in a Cave of this Gunne pouder, whiche in a momente kindelyng, not onely ruinateth a wall, but it openeth the hilles, and utterly dissolveth the strength of them. [Sidenote: The reamedie against Caves or undermuinynges; What care the besieged ought to have; What maketh a citee or campe difficulte to bee defended; By what meanes thei that besiege ar made afraied; Honour got by constancie.] The remedie for this, is to builde in the plain, and to make the diche that compasseth thy citee, so deepe, that the enemie maie not digge lower then thesame, where he shall not finde water, whiche onely is enemie to the caves: for if thou be in a toune, which thou defendest on a high ground, thou canst not remedie it otherwise, then to make within thy walles many deepe Welles, the whiche be as drouners to thesame Caves, that the enemie is able to ordain against thee. An other remedie there is, to make a cave againste it, when thou shouldeste bee aware where he muineth, the whiche waie easely hindereth hym, but difficultly it is foreseen, beyng besieged of a craftie enemie. He that is besieged, ought above al thinges to have care, not to bee oppressed in the tyme of reste: as is after a battaile fought, after the watche made, whiche is in the Mornyng at breake of daie, and in the Evenyng betwen daie and night, and above al, at meale times: in whiche tyme many tounes have been wonne, and armies have been of them within ruinated: therefore it is requisite with diligence on all partes, to stande alwaies garded, and in a good part armed. I will not lacke to tell you, how that, whiche maketh a citee or a campe difficult to be defended, is to be driven to kepe sundred all the force, that thou haste in theim, for that the enemie beyng able to assaulte thee at his pleasure altogether, it is conveniente for thee on every side, to garde every place, and so he assaulteth thee with all his force, and thou with parte of thine defendest thee. Also, the besieged maie bee overcome altogether, he without cannot bee, but repulced: wherefore many, whom have been besieged, either in a Campe, or in a Toune, although thei have been inferiour of power, have issued out with their men at a sodaine, and have overcome the enemie. This Marcellus of Nola did: this did Cesar in Fraunce, where his Campe beeyng assaulted of a moste great nomber of Frenchmen, and seeyng hymself not able to defende it, beyng constrained to devide his force into many partes, and not to bee able standyng within the Listes, with violence to repulce thenemie: he opened the campe on thone side, and turning towardes thesame parte with all his power, made so moche violence against them, and with moche valiantnes, that he vanquisshed and overcame them. The constancie also of the besieged, causeth many tymes displeasure, and maketh afraied them that doe besiege. Pompei beyng against Cesar, and Cesars armie beeyng in greate distresse through famine, there was brought of his bredde to Pompei, whom seyng it made of grasse, commaunded, that it should not bee shewed unto his armie, least it shoulde make them afraide, seyng what enemies they had against theim. Nothyng caused so muche honour to the Romaines in the warre of Aniball, as their constancie: for as muche as in what so ever envious, and adverse fortune thei were troubled, they never demaunded peace, thei never made anie signe of feare, but rather when Aniball was aboute Rome, thei solde those fieldes, where he had pitched his campe, dearer then ordinarie in other times shoulde have been solde: and they stoode in so much obstinacie in their enterprises, that for to defende Rome, thei would not raise their campe from Capua, the whiche in the verie same time that Roome was besieged, the Romaines did besiege. I knowe that I have tolde you of manie thynges, the whiche by your selfe you might have understoode, and considered, notwithstandyng I have doen it (as to daie also I have tolde you) for to be abell to shewe you better by meane therof, the qualitie of this armie, and also for to satisfie those, if there be anie, whome have not had the same commoditie to understand them as you. Nor me thinkes that there resteth other to tell you, then certaine generall rules, the whiche you shal have moste familiar, which be these. [Sidenote: Generall rules of warre.] The same that helpeth the enemie, hurteth thee: and the same that helpeth thee, hurteth the enemie. He that shall be in the warre moste vigilant to observe the devises of the enemie, and shall take moste payne to exercise his armie, shall incurre least perilles and maie hope moste of the victorie. Never conducte thy men to faight the field, if first them hast not confirmed their mindes and knowest them to be without feare, and to be in good order: for thou oughteste never to enterprise any dangerous thyng with thy souldiours, but when thou seest, that they hope to overcome. It is better to conquere the enemie with faminne, then with yron: in the victorie of which, fortune maie doe much more then valiantnesse. No purpose is better then that, whiche is hidde from the enemie untill thou have executed it. To know in the warre how to understande occasion, and to take it, helpeth more then anie other thynge. Nature breedeth few stronge menne, the industrie and the exercise maketh manie. Discipline maie doe more in warre, then furie. When anie departe from the enemies side for to come to serve thee, when thei be faithfull, thei shalbe unto thee alwaies great gaines: for that the power of thadversaries are more deminisshed with the losse of them, that runne awaie, then of those that be slaine, although that the name of a fugetive be to new frendes suspected, to olde odius. Better it is in pitchyng the fielde, to reserve behynde the first front aide inoughe, then to make the fronte bigger to disperse the souldiours. He is difficultely overcome, whiche can know his owne power and the same of the enemie. The valiantenesse of the souldiours availeth more then the multitude. Some times the situacion helpeth more then the valiantenesse. New and sudden thynges, make armies afrayde. Slowe and accustomed thinges, be littell regarded of them. Therfore make thy armie to practise and to know with small faightes a new enemie, before thou come to faight the fielde with him. He that with disorder foloweth the enemie after that he is broken, will doe no other, then to become of a conquerour a loser. He that prepareth not necessarie victualles to live upon, is overcome without yron. He that trusteth more in horsemen then in footemen, more in footemen then in horsemen, must accommodate him selfe with the situacion. When thou wilte see if in the daie there be comen anie spie into the Campe, cause everie man to goe to his lodgynge. Chaunge purpose, when thou perceivest that the enemie hath forseene it. [Sidenote: How to consulte.] Consulte with many of those thinges, which thou oughtest to dooe: the same that thou wilt after dooe, conferre with fewe. Souldiours when thei abide at home, are mainteined with feare and punishemente, after when thei ar led to the warre with hope and with rewarde. Good Capitaines come never to faight the fielde, excepte necessitie constraine theim, and occasion call them. Cause that thenemies know not, how thou wilte order thy armie to faight, and in what so ever maner that thou ordainest it, make that the firste bande may be received of the seconde and of the thirde. In the faight never occupie a battell to any other thyng, then to the same, for whiche thou haste apoineted it, if thou wilt make no disorder. The sodene accidentes, with difficultie are reamedied: those that are thought upon, with facilitie. [Sidenote: What thynges are the strength of the warre.] Men, yron, money, and bread, be the strengthe of the warre, but of these fower, the first twoo be moste necessarie: because men and yron, finde money and breade: but breade and money fynde not men and yron. The unarmed riche man, is a bootie to the poore souldiour. Accustome thy souldiours to dispise delicate livyng and lacivius aparell. This is as muche as hapneth me generally to remember you, and I know that there might have ben saied manie other thynges in all this my reasonynge: as should be, howe and in howe manie kinde of waies the antiquitie ordered their bandes, how thei appareled them, and how in manie other thynges they exercised them, and to have joygned hereunto manie other particulars, the whiche I have not judged necessarie to shew, as wel for that you your self may se them, as also for that my intente hath not been to shew juste how the olde servis of warre was apoincted, but howe in these daies a servis of warre might be ordained, whiche should have more vertue then the same that is used. Wherfore I have not thought good of the auncient thynges to reason other, then that, which I have judged to suche introduction necessarie. I know also that I might have delated more upon the service on horsebacke, and after have reasoned of the warre on the Sea: for as muche as he that destinguissheth the servis of warre, saieth, how there is an armie on the sea, and of the lande, on foote, and on horsebacke. Of that on the sea, I will not presume to speake, for that I have no knowledge therof: but I will let the Genoues, and the Venecians speake therof, whome with like studies have heretofore doen great thinges. Also of horses, I wil speake no other, then as afore I have saied, this parte beynge (as I have declared) least corrupted. Besides this, the footemen being wel ordained, which is the puissance of the armie, good horses of necessitie will come to be made. [Sidenote: Provisions that maie bee made to fill a Realme full of good horse; The knowledge that a capitaine oughte to have.] Onely I counsel him that would ordayne the exercise of armes in his owne countrey, and desireth to fill the same with good horses, that he make two provisions: the one is, that he destribute Mares of a good race throughe his dominion, and accustome his menne to make choise of coltes, as you in this countrie make of Calves and Mules: the other is, that to thentente the excepted might finde a byer, I woulde prohibet that no man should kepe a Mule excepte he woulde keepe a horse: so that he that woulde kepe but one beaste to ride on, shoulde be constrained to keepe a horse: and moreover that no man should weare fine cloathe except he which doeth keepe a horse: this order I under stande hath beene devised of certaine princes in our time, whome in short space have therby, brought into their countrey an excellente numbre of good horses. Aboute the other thynges, as much as might be looked for concernynge horse, I remit to as much as I have saied to daie, and to that whiche they use. Peradventure also you woulde desire to understand what condicions a Capitaine ought to have: wherof I shal satisfie you moste breeflie: for that I cannot tell how to chose anie other man then the same, who shoulde know howe to doe all those thynges whiche this daie hath ben reasoned of by us: the which also should not suffise, when he should not knowe howe to devise of him selfe: for that no man without invencion, was ever excellent in anie science: and if invencion causeth honour in other thynges, in this above all, it maketh a man honorable: for everie invention is seen, although it were but simple, to be of writers celebrated: as it is seen, where Alexander Magnus is praised, who for to remove his Campe moste secretely, gave not warnyng with the Trumpette, but with a hatte upon a Launce. And was praised also for havyng taken order that his souldiours in buckelynge with the enemies, shoulde kneele with the lefte legge, to bee able more strongly to withstande their violence: the whiche havyng geven him the victorie, it got him also so muche praise, that all the Images, whiche were erected in his honour, stoode after the same facion. But because it is tyme to finishe this reasonyng, I wil turne againe to my first purpose, and partly I shall avoide the same reproche, wherin they use to condempne in this towne, such as knoweth not when to make an ende. [Sidenote: The auctor retorneth to his first purpose and maketh a littel discorse to make an ende of his reasonyng.] If you remembre Cosimus you tolde me, that I beyng of one side an exalter of the antiquitie, and a dispraiser of those, which in waightie matters imitated them not, and of the other side, I havynge not in the affaires of war, wherin I have taken paine, imitated them, you coulde not perceive the occasion: wherunto I answered, how that men which wil doo any thing, muste firste prepare to knowe how to doe it, for to be able, after to use it, when occasion permitteth: whether I doe know how to bryng the servis of warre to the auncient manners or no, I will be judged by you, whiche have hearde me upon this matter longe dispute wherby you may know, how much time I have consumed in these studies: and also I beleeve that you maie imagen, how much desire is in me to brynge it to effecte: the whiche whether I have been able to have doen, or that ever occasion hath been geven me, most easely you maie conjecture: yet for to make you more certaine and for my better justificacion, I will also aledge the occasions: and as much as I have promised, I will partely performe, to shew you the difficultie and the facelitie, whiche bee at this presente in suche imitacions. [Sidenote: A prince may easelie brynge to intiere perfection the servis of warre; Two sortes of Capitaines worthie to bee praysed.] Therfore I saie, how that no deede that is doen now a daies emong men, is more easie to be reduced unto the aunciente maners, then the service of Warre: but by them onely that be Princes of so moche state, who can at least gather together of their owne subjectes, xv. or twentie thousande yong menne: otherwise, no thyng is more difficulte, then this, to them whiche have not soche commoditie: and for that you maie the better understande this parte, you have to knowe, howe that there bee of twoo condicions, Capitaines to bee praised: The one are those, that with an armie ordained through the naturalle discipline thereof, have dooen greate thynges: as were the greater parte of the Romaine Citezeins, and suche as have ledde armies, the which have had no other paine, then to maintaine them good, and to se them guided safely: the other are they, whiche not onely have had to overcome the enemie, but before they come to the same, have been constrained to make good and well ordered their armie: who without doubte deserve muche more praise, then those have deserved, which with olde armies, and good, have valiantely wrought. Of these, such wer Pelopida, and Epaminonda, Tullus Hostillius, Phillip of Macedony father of Alexander, Cirus kyng of the Percians, Graccus a Romaine: they all were driven first to make their armies good, and after to faighte with them: they all coulde doe it, as well throughe their prudence, as also for havynge subjectes whome thei might in like exercises instruct: nor it shuld never have ben otherwise possible, that anie of theim, though they had ben never so good and ful of al excellencie, should have been able in a straunge countrey, full of men corrupted, not used to anie honest obedience, to have brought to passe anie laudable worke. It suffiseth not then in Italie, to know how to governe an army made, but first it is necessarie to know how to make it and after to know how to commaunde it: and to do these things it is requisit they bee those princes, whome havyng much dominion, and subjectes inoughe, maie have commoditie to doe it: of whiche I can not bee, who never commaunded, nor cannot commaunde, but to armies of straungers, and to men bounde to other, and not to me: in whiche if it be possible, or no, to introduce anie of those thynges that this daie of me hath ben reasoned, I will leave it to your judgement. Albeit when coulde I make one of these souldiours which now a daies practise, to weare more armur then the ordinarie, and besides the armur, to beare their owne meate for two or three daies, with a mattocke: When coulde I make theim to digge, or keepe theim every daie manie howers armed, in fained exercises, for to bee able after in the verie thyng in deede to prevaile? When woulde thei abstaine from plaie, from laciviousnesse, from swearynge, from the insolence, whiche everie daie they committe? when would they be reduced into so muche dissepline, into so much obedience and reverence, that a tree full of appels in the middest of their Campe, shoulde be founde there and lefte untouched? As is redde, that in the auncient armies manie times hapned. What thynge maye I promis them, by meane wherof thei may have me in reverence to love, or to feare, when the warre beyng ended, they have not anie more to doe with me? wher of maie I make them ashamed, whiche be borne and brought up without shame? whie shoulde thei be ruled by me who knowe me not? By what God or by what sainctes may I make them to sweare? By those that thei worship, or by those that they blaspheme? Who they worship I knowe not anie: but I knowe well they blaspheme all. How shoulde I beleeve that thei will keepe their promise to them, whome everie hower they dispise? How can they, that dispise God, reverence men? Then what good fashion shoulde that be, whiche might be impressed in this matter? And if you should aledge unto me that Suyzzers and Spaniardes bee good souldiours, I woulde confesse unto you, how they be farre better then the Italians: but if you note my reasonynge, and the maner of procedyng of bothe, you shall see, howe they lacke many thynges to joygne to the perfection of the antiquetie. And how the Suyzzers be made good of one of their naturall uses caused of that, whiche to daie I tolde you: those other are made good by mean of a necessitie: for that servyng in a straunge countrie, and seemyng unto them to be constrained either to die, or to overcome, thei perceivynge to have no place to flie, doe become good: but it is a goodnesse in manie partes fawtie: for that in the same there is no other good, but that they bee accustomed to tarie the enemie at the Pike and sweardes poincte: nor that, which thei lacke, no man should be meete to teache them, and so much the lesse, he that coulde not speake their language. [Sidenote: The Auctor excuseth the people of Italie to the great reproche of their prynces for their ignorance in the affaires of warre.] But let us turne to the Italians, who for havynge not had wise Princes, have not taken anie good order: and for havyng not had the same necessitie, whiche the Spaniardes have hadde, they have not taken it of theim selves, so that they remaine the shame of the worlde: and the people be not to blame, but onely their princes, who have ben chastised, and for their ignorance have ben justely punisshed, leesinge moste shamefully their states, without shewing anie vertuous ensample. And if you will see whether this that I say be trew: consider how manie warres have ben in Italie since the departure of kyng Charles to this day, where the war beyng wonte to make men warlyke and of reputacion, these the greater and fierser that they have been, so muche the more they have made the reputacion of the members and of the headdes therof to bee loste. This proveth that it groweth, that the accustomed orders were not nor bee not good, and of the newe orders, there is not anie whiche have knowen how to take them. Nor never beleeve that reputacion will be gotten, by the Italians weapons, but by the same waie that I have shewed, and by means of theim, that have great states in Italie: for that this forme maie be impressed in simple rude men, of their owne, and not in malicious, ill brought up, and straungers. Nor there shall never bee founde anie good mason, whiche will beleeve to be able to make a faire image of a peece of Marbell ill hewed, but verye well of a rude peece. [Sidenote: A discription of the folishenesse of the Italian princes; Cesar and Alexander, were the formoste in battell; The Venecians and the duke of Ferare began to have reduced the warfare to the Aunciente maners; He that despiseth the servis of warre, despiseth his own welthe.] Our Italian Princes beleved, before thei tasted the blowes of the outlandishe warre, that it should suffice a Prince to knowe by writynges, how to make a subtell answere, to write a goodly letter, to shewe in saiynges, and in woordes, witte and promptenesse, to knowe how to canvas a fraude, to decke theim selves with precious stones and gold, to slepe and to eate with greater glorie then other: To keepe many lascivious persones aboute them, to governe theim selves with their subjectes, covetuously and proudely: To rotte in idlenesse, to give the degrees of the exercise of warre, for good will, to despise if any should have shewed them any laudable waie, minding that their wordes should bee aunswers of oracles: nor the sely wretches were not aware, that thei prepared theim selves to bee a praie, to whom so ever should assaulte theim. Hereby grewe then in the thousande fower hundred nintie and fower yere, the greate feares, the sodain flightes, and the marveilous losses: and so three most mightie states which were in Italie, have been divers times sacked and destroied. But that which is worse, is where those that remaine, continue in the verie same erroure, and live in the verie same disorder, and consider not, that those, who in old time would kepe their states, caused to be dooen these thynges, which of me hath been reasoned, and that their studies wer, to prepare the body to diseases, and the minde not to feare perilles. Whereby grewe that Cesar, Alexander, and all those menne and excellente Princes in old tyme, were the formoste emongest the faighters, goyng armed on foote: and if thei loste their state, thei would loose their life, so that thei lived and died vertuously. And if in theim, or in parte of theim, there might bee condempned to muche ambicion to reason of: yet there shall never bee founde, that in theim is condempned any tendernesse or any thynge that maketh menne delicate and feable: the whiche thyng, if of these Princes were redde and beleved, it should be impossible, that thei should not change their forme of living, and their provinces not to chaunge fortune. And for that you in the beginnyng of this our reasonyng, lamented your ordinaunces, I saie unto you, that if you had ordained it, as I afore have reasoned, and it had given of it self no good experience, you might with reason have been greved therewith: but if it bee not so ordained, and exercised, as I have saied, it maie be greeved with you, who have made a counterfaite thereof, and no perfecte figure. The Venecians also, and the Duke of Ferare, beganne it, and followed it not, the whiche hath been through their faulte, not through their menne. And therfore I assure you, that who so ever of those, whiche at this daie have states in Italie, shall enter firste into this waie, shall be firste, before any other, Lorde of this Province, and it shall happen to his state, as to the kyngdome of the Macedonians, the which commyng under Philip, who had learned the maner of settyng armies in order of Epaminondas a Thebane, became with this order, and with these exercises (whileste the reste of Grece stoode in idlenesse, and attended to risite comedes) so puisant, that he was able in few yeres to possesse it all, and to leave soche foundacion to his sonne, that he was able to make hymself, prince of all the world. He then that despiseth these studies, if he be a Prince, despiseth his Princedome: if he bee a Citezein, his Citee. Wherefore, I lamente me of nature, the whiche either ought not to have made me a knower of this, or it ought to have given me power, to have been able to have executed it: For now beyng olde, I cannot hope to have any occasion, to bee able so to dooe: In consideracion whereof, I have been liberall with you, who beeyng grave yong menne, maie (when the thynges saied of me shall please you) at due tymes in favour of your Princes, helpe theim and counsaile them, wherein I would have you not to bee afraied, or mistrustfull, bicause this Province seemes to bee altogether given, to raise up againe the thynges dedde, as is seen by the perfeccion that poesie, paintyng, and writing, is now brought unto: Albeit, as moche as is looked for of me, beyng strooken in yeres, I do mistruste. Where surely, if Fortune had heretofore graunted me so moche state, as suffiseth for a like enterprise, I would not have doubted, but in moste shorte tyme, to have shewed to the worlde, how moche the aunciente orders availe: and without peradventure, either I would have increased it with glory, or loste it without shame. * * * * * The ende of the seventh and laste booke of the arte of warre, of Nicholas Machiavell, Citezein and Secretarie of Florence, translated out of Italian into Englishe: By Peter Whitehorne, felow of Graise Inne. NICHOLAS MACHIAVEL, CITEZEIN AND SECRETARIE OF FLORENCE, TO THE READERS To thentente that such as rede this booke maie without difficultie understande the order of the battailes, or bandes of men, and of the armies, and lodgynges in the Campe, accordynge as they in the discription of theim are apoincted, I thinke it necessarie to shewe you the figure of everie one of them: wherefore it is requiset firste, to declare unto you, by what poinctes and letters, the footemen, the horsemen, and everie other particuler membre are set foorthe. KNOW THERFORE THAT .} Signifieth {Targetmen. '} {Pikemen. c} {a Capitaine of ten men. v} {Veliti ordinarie. (Those men that shoot with harcabuses or bowes) r} {Veliti extraordinari. C} {a Centurion or captaine of a hundred men. k} {a Constable or a captaine of a band of fower hundred and fiftie men. H} {The hed captain of a maine battel. G} {The general Captaine of the whole armie. t} {The Trompet. d} {The Drum. b} {The Ansigne. s} {The Standerde. m} {Men of Armes. l} {Light horsemen. A} {Artillerie or ordinance. In the first figure nexte folowyng, is discribed the forme of an ordinarie battaile or bande of fower hundred and fiftie men, and in what maner it is redoubled by flanke. And also how with the verie same order of lxxx. rankes, by chaungyng onely to the hinder parte the five rankes of Pikes which were the formost of everie Centurie, thei maye likewise in bringyng them in battaile raie, come to bee placed behinde: whiche may be doen, when in marchyng, the enemies should come to assaulte them at their backes: accordynge as the orderyng therof is before declared. Fol. 87. In the seconde figure, is shewed how a battaile or bande of men is ordered, whiche in marchyng should be driven to faight on the flanke: accordyng as in the booke is declared. Fol. 87. In the thirde figure, is shewed how a battaile or bande of men, is ordered with two hornes, fol. 88, and after is shewed how the same maie be made with a voide place in the middest: accordynge as the orderyng therof, in the booke moste plainely is declared, fol. 89. In the fowerth figure, is shewed the forme or facion of an armie apoincted to faight the battaile with the enemies: and for the better understandynge thereof, the verie same is plainlier set foorthe in the figure next unto it, wherby the other two figures next folowyng maie the easier be understoode: accordynge as in the booke is expressed. Fol. 105. In the fifte figure, is shewed the forme of a fower square armie: as in the booke is discribed. Fol. 152. In the sixte figure, is shewed howe an Armie is brought from a fower square facion, to the ordinarie forme, to faight a fielde: accordyng as afore is declared. Fol. 156. In the seventh figure, is discribed the maner of incamping: according as the same in the booke is declared. Fol. 174. THE FIRSTE FIGURE This is the maner of ordering of CCCC. men, into lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, to bring them into a iiii square battaile with the Pikes on the front, as after foloweth. C c'''' c'''' c'''' c'''' c'''' c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... c.... C ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... C ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... C ''''c ''''c ''''c ''''c ''''c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c ....c This is the foresaied lxxx. rankes of iiii. C. men brought into a fower square battaile with the Pikes on the fronte. And the fiftie Veliti on the sides and on the backe. C C vc''''''''''''''''''cv vc''''''''''''''''''cv vc''''''''''''''''''cv vc''''''''''''''''''cv vc''''''''''''''''''cv vc........dkb.......cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv vc..................cv C v v v v v v v v v v C THE SECONDE FIGURE This is the maner of ordering of CCCC. men, into lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, to bring them into a iiii square battaile with the Pikes on the side, as after foloweth. C ccccc ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ''''' ccccc C ccccc ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ccccc C ccccc ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ccccc C ccccc ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ccccc This is the foresaied lxxx. rankes of iiii. C. men brought into a fower square battaile with the Pikes on the side. CvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvC cccccccccccccccccccc v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' ...............''''' v...............''''' cccccccccccccccccccc CvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvC THE THYRDE FIGURE These are the nombers of rankes appoincted to make the horned battaile of, and the square battaile with the voide space in the middest, as after foloweth. ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ............... ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ............... cccccccccccccccccccc.....C...............C ......................... ............... ......................... ............... ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''' Ccccccccccccccccccccc.....C ......................... ......................... ............... ............... ............... ............... ...............d ...............k ...............b ............... ............... ............... ............... ......................... ......................... Ccccccccccccccccccccc.....C ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ............... ......................... ............... ......................... ...............Ccccccccccccccccccccc.....C ............... ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ............... ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''' Ccccccccccccccccccccc.....C ......................... ......................... ....... ........ ....... ........ ....... ........ ....... d ........ ....... k ........ ....... b ........ ....... ........ ....... ........ ....... ........ ....... ........ ......................... ......................... Ccccccccccccccccccccc.....C ''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''' THE FOURTH FIGURE A A A A A A llm mCrCCC Cu,,uCCu,,uCCu,,uCCu,,uCCu,,uCA llm mrrr,,, vu,,uvvu,,uvvu,,uvvu,,uvvu,,uvA llm mrrrdkb vdk bvvdk bvvdk bvvdk bvvdk bv lltksdkb,,, vc..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uv t G llm mrrr,,, vc..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uv lll ktm mrrr,,, vc..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uvvu..uv .... lsm mCr(,,, Cu..uCCu..uCCu..uCCu..uCCu..uC llm m ,,, llm m ,,, ..... llm m ,,, dHb llm m ,,, ..... ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, Cu..uC Cu..uC Cu..uC ,,, vu,,uv vu,,uv vu,,uv ,,, vdk bv vdk bv vdk bv CdkbC vu..uv vu..uv vu..uv ,, vu..uv vu..uv vu..uv ,,, vu..uv vu..uv vu..uv ,,, Cu..uC Cu..uC Cu..uC ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, Cu,,uC Cu,,uC ,,, vu,,uv vu,,uv ,,, vdk bv vdk bv ,,, vu..uv vu..uv dkb vu..uv vu..uv ,,, vu..uv vu..uv C C Cu..uC Cu..uC The cariages and the unarmed. 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WITH SOME ANIMADVERSIONS NOTING AND TAXING HIS ERRORS 1640 TO THE MOST NOBLE AND ILLUSTRIOUS, JAMES Duke of Lenox, Earle of March, Baron of Setrington, Darnly, Terbanten, and Methuen, Lord Great Chamberlain and Admiral of Scotland, Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter, and one of his Majesties most honourable Privy Counsel in both kingdomes. Poysons are not all of that malignant and noxious quality, that as destructives of Nature, they are utterly to be abhord; but we find many, nay most of them have their medicinal uses. This book carries its poyson and malice in it; yet mee thinks the judicious peruser may honestly make use of it in the actions of his life, with advantage. The Lamprey, they say, hath a venemous string runs all along the back of it; take that out, and it is serv'd in for a choyce dish to dainty palates; Epictetus the Philosopher, sayes, Every thing hath two handles, as the fire brand, it may be taken up at one end in the bare hand without hurt: the other being laid hold on, will cleave to the very flesh, and the smart of it will pierce even to the heart. Sin hath the condition of the fiery end; the touch of it is wounding with griefe unto the soule: nay it is worse; one sin goes not alone but hath many consequences. Your Grace may find the truth of this in your perusal of this Author: your judgement shall easily direct you in finding out the good uses of him: I have pointed at his chiefest errors with my best endeavors, and have devoted them to your Graces service: which if you shall accept and protect, I shall remain Your Graces humble and devoted servant, EDWARD DACRES. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER. Questionless some men will blame me for making this Author speak in our vulgar tongue. For his Maximes and Tenents are condemnd of all, as pernicious to all Christian States, and hurtfull to all humane Societies. Herein I shall answer for my self with the Comoedian, _Placere studeo bonis quam plurimis, et minimé multos lædere_: I endeavor to give content to the most I can of those that are well disposed, and no scandal to any. I grant, I find him blamed and condemned: I do no less my self. Reader, either do thou read him without a prejudicate opinion, and out of thy own judgement taxe his errors; or at least, if thou canst stoop so low, make use of my pains to help thee; I will promise thee this reward for thy labor: if thou consider well the actions of the world, thou shalt find him much practised by those that condemn him; who willingly would walk as theeves do with close lanternes in the night, that they being undescried, and yet seeing all, might surprise the unwary in the dark. Surely this book will infect no man: out of the wicked treasure of a mans own wicked heart, he drawes his malice and mischief. From the same flower the Bee sucks honey, from whence the Spider hath his poyson. And he that means well, shall be here warnd, where the deceitfull man learnes to set his snares. A judge who hath often used to examine theeves, becomes the more expert to sift out their tricks. If mischief come hereupon, blame not me, nor blame my Author: lay the saddle on the right horse: but _Hony soit qui mal y pense_: let shame light on him that hatcht the mischief. THE PRINCE NICHOLAS MACHIAVELLI, to the Magnificent LAURENCE sonne to PETER OF MEDICIS health. They that desire to ingratiate themselves with a Prince, commonly use to offer themselves to his view, with things of that nature as such persons take most pleasure and delight in: whereupon we see they are many times presented with Horses and Armes, cloth of gold, pretious stones, and such like ornaments, worthy of their greatness. Having then a mind to offer up my self to your Magnificence, with some testimony of my service to you, I found nothing in my whole inventory, that I think better of, or more esteeme, than the knowlege of great mens actions, which I have learned by a long experience of modern affairs, and a continual reading of those of the ancients. Which, now that I have with great diligence long workt it out, and throughly sifted, I commend to your Magnificence. And, however I may well think this work unworthy of your view; yet such is your humanity, that I doubt not but it shall find acceptance, considering, that for my part I am not able to tender a greater gift, than to present you with the means, whereby in a very short time you may be able to understand all that, which I, in the space of many years, and with many sufferances and dangers, have made proof and gaind the knowledge of. And this work I have not set forth either with elegancy of discourse or stile, nor with any other ornament whereby to captivate the reader, as others use, because I would not have it gain its esteem from elsewhere than from the truth of the matter, and the gravity of the subject. Nor can this be thought presumption, if a man of humble and low condition venture to dilate and discourse upon the governments of Princes; for even as they that with their pensils designe out countreys, get themselves into the plains below to consider the nature of the mountains, and other high places above; and again to consider the plains below, they get up to the tops of the mountains; in like manner to understand the nature of the people, it is fit to be a Prince; and to know well the dispositions of Princes, sutes best with the understanding of a subject. Your Magnificence then may be pleased, to receive this small present, with the same mind that I send it; which if you shall throughly peruse and consider, you shall perceive therein that I exceedingly wish, that you may attain to that greatness, which your own fortune, and your excellent endowments promise you: and if your Magnificence from the very point of your Highness shall sometime cast your eyes upon these inferior places, you shall see how undeservedly I undergoe an extream and continual despight of Fortune. THE TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. 1. How many sorts of Principalities there are, and how many wayes they are attained to, 263 CHAP. 2. Of hereditary Principalities, 264 CHAP. 3. Of mixt Principalities, 265 CHAP. 4. Wherefore Darius his Kingdome, taken by Alexander, rebelled not against his successors after Alexanders death, 273 CHAP. 5. In what manner Cities and Principalities are to be governed, which before they were conquered, lived under their own laws, 276 CHAP. 6. Of new Principalities that are conquered by ones own armes and valor, 277 CHAP. 7. Of new Principalities gotten by fortune and other mens forces, 281 CHAP. 8. Concerning those who by wicked means have attaind to a Principality, 289 CHAP. 9. Of the Civil Principality, 293 CHAP. 10. In what manner the forces of all Principalities ought to be measured, 297 CHAP. 11. Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities, 299 CHAP. 12. How many sorts of Military discipline there be; and touching mercenary soldiers, 302 CHAP. 13. Of Auxiliary Soldiers, mixt and natives, 307 CHAP. 14. What belongs to the Prince touching military discipline, 310 CHAP. 15. Of those things in respect whereof men, and especially Princes are prais'd or disprais'd, 313 CHAP. 16. Of Liberality and Miserableness, 315 CHAP. 17. Of Cruelty and Clemency, and whether it is better to be belov'd or feared, 318 CHAP. 18. In what manner Princes ought to keep their word, 321 CHAP. 19. That Princes should take a care not to incur contempt or hatred, 325 CHAP. 20. Whether the Citadels and many other things, which Princes make use of, are profitable or dammageable, 335 CHAP. 21. How a Prince ought to behave himself to gain reputation, 339 CHAP. 22. Touching Princes Secretaries, 343 CHAP. 23. That Flatterers are to be avoyded, 344 CHAP. 24. Wherefore the Princes of Italy have lost their States, 347 CHAP. 25. How great power Fortune hath in humane affairs, and what means there is to resist it, 349 CHAP. 26. An exhortation to free Italy from the Barbarions, 353 THE PRINCE Written by NICHOLAS MACHIAVELLI, Secretary and Citizen of Florence. CHAP. I How many sorts of Principalities there are, and how many wayes they are attained to. All States, all Dominions that have had, or now have rule over men, have been and are, either Republiques or Principalities. Principalities are either hereditary, whereof they of the blood of the Lord thereof have long time been Princes; or else they are new; and those that are new, are either all new, as was the Dutchy of Millan to Francis Sforce; or are as members adjoyned to the hereditary State of the Prince that gains it; as the Kingdom of Naples is to the King of Spain. These Dominions so gotten, are accustomed either to live under a Prince, or to enjoy their liberty; and are made conquest of, either with others forces, or ones own, either by fortune, or by valor. CHAP. II Of Hereditary Principalities. I will not here discourse of Republiques, because I have other where treated of them at large: I will apply my self only to a Principality, and proceed, while I weave this web, by arguing thereupon, how these Principallities can be governed and maintained. I say then that in States of inheritance, and accustomed to the blood of their Princes, there are far fewer difficulties to keep them, than in the new: for it suffices only not to transgress the course his Ancestors took, and so afterward to temporise with those accidents that can happen; that if such a Prince be but of ordinary industry, he shall allwaies be able to maintain himself in his State, unless by some extraordinary or excessive power he be deprived thereof; and when he had lost it, upon the least sinister chance that befalls the usurper, he recovers it again. We have in Italy the Duke of Ferrara for example hereof, who was of ability to resist the Venetians, in the year 84, and to withstand Pope Julius in the tenth for no other reason, than because he had of old continued in that rule; for the natural Prince hath fewer occasions, and less heed to give offence, whereupon of necessity he must be more beloved; and unless it be that some extravagant vices of his bring him into hatred, it is agreeable to reason, that naturally he should be well beloved by his own subjects: and in the antiquity and continuation of the Dominion, the remembrances and occasions of innovations are quite extinguished: for evermore one change leaves a kind of breach or dent, to fasten the building of another. CHAP. III Of mixt Principalities. But the difficulties consist in the new Principality; and first, if it be not all new, but as a member, so that it may be termed altogether as mixt; and the variations thereof proceed in the first place from a natural difficulty, which we commonly finde in all new Principalities; for men do willingly change their Lord, beleeving to better their condition; and this beliefe causes them to take armes against him that rules over them, whereby they deceive themselves, because they find after by experience, they have made it worse: which depends upon another natural and ordinary necessity, forcing him alwaies to offend those, whose Prince he newly becomes, as well by his soldiers he is put to entertain upon them as by many other injuries, which a new conquest draws along with it; in such manner as thou findest all those thine enemies, whom thou hast endammaged in the seizing of that Principality, and afterwards canst not keep them thy friends that have seated thee in it, for not being able to satisfie them according to their expectations, nor put in practice strong remedies against them, being obliged to them. For however one be very well provided with strong armies, yet hath he alwaies need of the favor of the inhabitants in the Countrey, to enter thereinto. For these reasons, Lewis the twelfth, King of France, suddenly took Milan, and as soon lost it; and the first time Lodwick his own forces served well enough to wrest it out of his hands; for those people that had opened him the gates, finding themselves deceived of their opinion, and of that future good which they had promised themselves, could not endure the distastes the new Prince gave them. True it is, that Countreys that have rebelled again the second time, being recovered, are harder lost; for their Lord, taking occasion from their rebellion, is less respective of persons, but cares only to secure himself, by punishing the delinquents, to clear all suspicions, and to provide for himself where he thinks he is weakest: so that if to make France lose Milan the first time, it was enough for Duke Lodwick to make some small stir only upon the confines; yet afterwards, before they could make him lose it the second time, they had need of the whole world together against him, and that all his armies should be wasted and driven out of Italy; which proceeded from the forenamed causes: however though both the first and second time it was taken from him. The generall causes of the first we have treated of; it remains now that we see those of the second; and set down the remedies that he had, or any one else can have that should chance to be in those termes he was, whereby he might be able to maintain himself better in his conquest than the King of France did. I say therefore, that these States which by Conquest are annexed to the ancient states of their conqueror, are either of the same province and the same language, or otherwise; and when they are, it is very easy to hold them, especially when they are not used to live free; and to enjoy them securely, it is enough to have extinguished the Princes line who ruled over them: For in other matters, allowing them their ancient conditions, and there being not much difference of manners betwixt them, men ordinarily live quiet enough; as we have seen that Burgundy did, Britany, Gascony, and Normandy, which so long time continued with France: for however there be some difference of language between them, yet can they easily comport one with another; and whosoever makes the conquest of them, meaning to hold them, must have two regards; the first, that the race of their former Prince be quite extinguished; the other, that he change nothing, neither in their lawes nor taxes, so that in a very short time they become one entire body with their ancient Principality. But when any States are gaind in a Province disagreeing in language, manners, and orders, here are the difficulties, and here is there need of good fortune, and great industry to maintain them; and it would be one of the best and livelyest remedies, for the Conqueror to goe in person and dwell there; this would make the possession hereof more secure and durable; as the Turk hath done in Greece, who among all the other courses taken by him for to hold that State, had he not gone thither himself in person to dwell, it had never been possible for him to have kept it: for abiding there, he sees the disorders growing in their beginnings, and forthwith can remedy them; whereas being not there present, they are heard of when they are grown to some height, and then is there no help for them. Moreover, the Province is not pillaged by the officers thou sendest thither: the subjects are much satisfied of having recourse to the Prince near at hand, whereupon have they more reason to love him, if they mean to be good; and intending to do otherwise, to fear him: and forrein Princes will be well aware how they invade that State; insomuch, that making his abode there, he can very hardly lose it. Another remedy, which is also a better, is to send Colonies into one or two places, which may be as it were the keys of that State; for it is necessary either to do this, or to maintain there many horse and foot. In these colonies the Prince makes no great expence, and either without his charge, or at a very small rate, he may both send and maintain them; and gives offence only to them from whom he takes their fields and houses, to bestow them on those new inhabitants who are but a very small part of that State; and those that he offends, remaining dispersed and poore, can never hurt him: and all the rest on one part, have no offence given them, and therefore a small matter keeps them in quiet: on the other side, they are wary not to erre, for fear it befalls not them, as it did those that were dispoild. I conclude then, that those colonies that are not chargeable, are the more trusty, give the less offence; and they that are offended, being but poor and scattered, can do but little harme, as I have said; for it is to be noted, that men must either be dallyed and flattered withall, or else be quite crusht; for they revenge themselves of small dammages; but of great ones they are not able; so that when wrong is done to any man, it ought so to be done, that it need fear no return of revenge again. But in lieu of Colonies, by maintaining soldiers there, the expence is great; for the whole revenues of that State are to be spent in the keeping of it; so the conquest proves but a loss to him that hath got it, and endammages him rather; for it hurts that whole State to remove the army from place to place, of which annoyance every one hath a feeling, and so becomes enemie to thee; as they are enemies, I wis, who are outraged by thee in their own houses, whensoever they are able to do thee mischief. Every way then is this guard unprofitable. Besides, he that is in a different Province, (as it is said) should make himself Head and defender of his less powerfull neighbors, and devise alwaies to weaken those that are more mighty therein, and take care that upon no chance there enter not any foreiner as mighty as himself; for it will alwaies come to pass, that they shall be brought in by those that are discontented, either upon ambition, or fear; as the Etolians brought the Romans into Greece; and they were brought into every countrey they came, by the Natives; and the course of the matter is, that so soon as a powerfull Stranger enters a countrey, all those that are the less powerfull there, cleave to him, provoked by an envy they beare him that is more mighty than they; so that for these of the weaker sort, he may easily gain them without any pains: for presently all of them together very willingly make one lump with that he hath gotten: He hath only to beware that these increase not their strengths, nor their authorities, and so he shall easily be able by his own forces, and their assistances, to take down those that are mighty, and remain himself absolute arbitre of that Countrey. And he that playes not well this part, shall quickly lose what he hath gotten; and while he holds it, shall find therein a great many troubles and vexations. The Romans in the Provinces they seiz'd on, observed well these points, sent colonies thither, entertained the weaker sort, without augmenting any thing their power, abated the forces of those that were mighty, and permitted not any powerfull forreiner to gain too much reputation there. And I will content my self only with the countrey of Greece for example hereof. The Achayans and Etolians were entertained by them, the Macedons kingdome was brought low, Antiochus was driven thence, nor ever did the Achayans or Etolians deserts prevail so far for them, that they would ever promise to enlarge their State, nor the perswasions of Philip induce them ever to be his friends, without bringing him lower; nor yet could Antiochus his power make them ever consent that he should hold any State in that countrey: for the Romans did in these cases that which all judicious Princes ought to do, who are not only to have regard unto all present mischiefs, but also to the future, and to provide for those with all industry; for by taking order for those when they are afarre off, it is easie to prevent them; but by delaying till they come near hand to thee, the remedy comes too late; for this malignity is grown incurable: and it befalls this, as the physicians say of the hectick feaver, that in the beginning it is easily cur'd, but hardly known; but in the course of time, not having been known in the beginning, nor cured, it becomes easie to know, but hard to cure. Even so falls it out in matters of State; for by knowing it aloof off (which is given only to a wise man to do) the mischiefs that then spring up, are quickly helped; but when, for not having been perceived, they are suffered to increase, so that every one sees them, there is then no cure for them: therefore the Romans, seeing these inconvenients afar off, alwaies prevented them, and never sufferd them to follow; for to escape a war, because they knew that a war is not undertaken, but deferred for anothers advantage; therefore would they rather make a war with Philip and Antiochus in Greece, to the end it should not afterwards be made with them in Italy, though for that time they were able to avoid both the one and the other, which they thought not good to do: nor did they approve of that saying that is ordinarily in the mouthes of the Sages of our dayes, _to enjoy the benefits of the present time_; but that rather, to take the benefit of their valor and wisdome; for time drives forward everything, and may bring with it as well good as evil, and evil as good. But let us return to France, and examine if any of the things prescribed have been done by them: and we will speak of Lewis, and not of Charles, as of whom by reason of the long possession he held in Italy we better knew the wayes he went: and you shall see he did the clean contrary to what should have been done by him that would maintain a State of different Language and conditions. King Lewis was brought into Italy by the Venetians ambition, who would have gotten for their shares half the State of Lombardy: I will not blame his comming, or the course he took, because he had a mind to begin to set a foot in Italy; but having not any friends in the country, all gates being barred against him, by reason of King Charles his carriage there, he was constrained to joyn friendship with those he could; and this consideration well taken, would have proved lucky to him, when in the rest of his courses he had not committed any error. The King then having conquered Lombardy, recovered presently all that reputation that Charles had lost him; Genua yeelded to him, the Florentines became friends with him; the Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivolti, the Lady of Furli, the Lord of Faenza, Pesaro Rimino, Camerino, and Piombino, the Lucheses, Pisans and Sienses, every one came and offered him friendship: then might the Venetians consider the rashness of the course they had taken, who, only to get into their hands two Townes in Lombardy, made the King Lord of two thirds in Italy. Let any man now consider with how small difficulty could the King have maintained his reputation in Italy, if he had followed these aforenamed rules, and secured and defended those his friends, who because their number was great, and they weak and fearful, some of the Church, and others of the Venetians were alwaies forced to hold with him, and by their means he might easily have been able to secure himself against those that were mightiest: but he was no sooner got into Milan, than he took a quite wrong course, by giving ayd to Pope Alexander, to seize upon Romania, and perceiv'd not that by this resolution he weakned himself, ruining his own friends, and those had cast themselves into his bosom, making the Church puissant, by adding to their Spiritual power, they gaind their authority, and so much temporal estate. And having once got out of the way, he was constrained to go on forward; insomuch as to stop Alexanders ambition, and that he should not become Lord of all Tuscany, of force he was to come into Italy: and this sufficed him not, to have made the Church mighty, and taken away his own friends; but for the desire he had to get the Kingdome of Naples, he divided it with the King of Spain: and where before he was the sole arbitre of Italy, he brought in a competitor, to the end that all the ambitious persons of that country, and all that were ill affected to him, might have otherwhere to make their recourse: and whereas he might have left in that Kingdome some Vice-King of his own, he took him from thence, to place another there, that might afterward chace him thence. It is a thing indeed very natural and ordinary, to desire to be of the getting hand: and alwaies when men undertake it, if they can effect it, they shall be prais'd for it, or at least not blam'd: but when they are not able, and yet will undertake it, here lies the blame, here is the error committed. If France then was able with her own power to assail the Kingdome of Naples, she might well have done it; but not being able, she should not have divided it: and if the division she made of Lombardy with the Venetians, deserv'd some excuse, thereby to set one foot in Italy; yet this merits blame, for not being excused by that necessity. Lewis then committed these five faults; extinguisht the feebler ones, augmented the State of another that was already powerful in Italy, brought thereinto a very puissant forreiner, came not thither himself to dwell there, nor planted any colonies there: which faults while he liv'd, he could not but be the worse for; yet all could not have gone so ill, had he not committed the sixt, to take from the Venetians their State; for if he had not enlarg'd the Churches territories nor brought the Spaniard into Italy, it had bin necessary to take them lower; but having first taken those other courses, he should never have given way to their destruction; for while they had been strong, they would alwaies have kept the others off from venturing on the conquest of Lombardy. For the Venetians would never have given their consents thereto, unless they should have been made Lords of it themselves; and the others would never have taken it from France, to give it them: and then they would never have dar'd to go and set upon them both together. And if any one should say, that King Lewis yeelded Romania to Alexander, and the Kingdome of Naples to Spain, to avoid a war; I answer with the reasons above alledged, that one should never suffer any disorder to follow, for avoiding of a war; for that war is not sav'd, but put off to thy disadvantage. And if any others argue, that the King had given his word to the Pope, to do that exploit for him, for dissolving of his marriage, and for giving the Cardinals Cap to him of Roan; I answer with that which hereafter I shall say touching Princes words, how they ought to be kept. King Lewis then lost Lombardy, for not having observ'd some of those termes which others us'd, who have possessed themselves of countries, and desir'd to keep them. Nor is this any strange thing, but very ordinary and reasonable: and to this purpose I spake at Nantes with that French Cardinal, when Valentine (for so ordinarily was Cæsar Borgia Pope Alexanders son call'd) made himself master of Romania; for when the Cardinal said to me, that the Italians understood not the feats of war; I answered, the Frenchmen understood not matters of State: for had they been well vers'd therein, they would never have suffer'd the Church to have grown to that greatness. And by experience we have seen it, that the power hereof in Italy, and that of Spain also, was caused by France, and their own ruine proceeded from themselves. From whence a general rule may be taken, which never, or very seldom fails, _That he that gives the means to another to become powerful, ruines himself_; for that power is caus'd by him either with his industry, or with his force; and as well the one as the other of these two is suspected by him that is grown puissant. CHAP. IV Wherefore Darius his Kingdome taken by Alexander, rebelled not against Alexanders Successors after his death. The difficulties being consider'd, which a man hath in the maintaining of a State new gotten, some might marvaile how it came to pass, that Alexander the great subdued all Asia in a few years; and having hardly possessed himself of it, died; whereupon it seemed probable that all that State should have rebelled; nevertheless his Successors kept the possession of it, nor found they other difficulty in holding it, than what arose among themselves through their own ambition. I answer, that all the Principalities whereof we have memory left us, have been governed in two several manners; either by a Prince, and all the rest Vassals, who as ministers by his favor and allowance, do help to govern that Kingdom; or by a Prince and by Barons, who not by their Princes favor, but by the antiquity of blood hold that degree. And these kinds of Barons have both states of their own, and Vassals who acknowledge them for their Lords; and bare them a true natural affection. Those States that are govern'd by a Prince and by Vassals, have their Prince ruling over them with more authority; for in all his countrey, there is none acknowledged for superior, but himself: and if they yeeld obedience to any one else, it is but as to his minister and officer, nor beare they him any particular good will. The examples of these two different Governments now in our dayes, are, the Turk, and the King of France. The Turks whole Monarchy is govern'd by one Lord, and the rest are all his Vassals; and dividing his whole Kingdom into divers Sangiacques or Governments, he sends several thither, and those he chops and changes, as he pleases. But the King of France is seated in the midst of a multitude of Lords, who of old have been acknowledg'd for such by their subjects, and being belov'd by them, enjoy their preheminencies; nor can the King take their States from them without danger. He then that considers the one and the other of these two States, shall find difficulty in the conquest of the Turks State; but when once it is subdu'd, great facility to hold it. The reasons of these difficulties in taking of the Turks Kingdom from him, are, because the Invader cannot be called in by the Princes of that Kingdom, nor hope by the rebellion of those which he hath about him, to be able to facilitate his enterprize: which proceeds from the reasons aforesaid; for they being all his slaves, and oblig'd to him, can more hardly be corrupted; and put case they were corrupted, little profit could he get by it, they not being able to draw after them any people, for the reasons we have shewed: whereupon he that assails the Turk, must think to find him united; and must rather relie upon his own forces, than in the others disorders: but when once he is overcome and broken in the field, so that he cannot repair his armies, there is nothing else to be doubted than the Royal blood, which being once quite out, there is none else left to be feard, none of the others having any credit with the people. And as the conqueror before the victory could not hope in them; so after it, ought he not to fear them. The contrary falls out in Kingdoms governed as is that of France: for it is easie to be enterd by the gaining of any Baron in the Kingdom; for there are alwaies some malecontents to be found, and those that are glad of innovation. Those for the reasons alledg'd are able to open thee a way into that State, and to further thy victory, which afterwards to make good to thee, draws with it exceeding many difficulties, as well with those that have ayded thee, as those thou hast supprest. Nor is it enough for thee to root out the Princes race: for there remaine still those Lords who quickly will be the ring-leaders of new changes; and in case thou art not able to content these, nor extinguish them, thou losest that State, whensoever the occasion is offerd. Now if thou shalt consider what sort of government that of Darius was, thou shalt find it like to the Turks dominion, and therefore Alexander was necessitated first to defeat him utterly, and drive him out of the field; after which victory Darius being dead, that State was left secure to Alexander, for the reasons we treated of before: and his successors, had they continued in amity, might have enjoy'd it at ease: nor ever arose there in that Kingdome other tumults, than those they themselves stir'd up. But of the States that are order'd and grounded as that of France, it is impossible to become master at such ease: and from hence grew the frequent rebellions of Spain, France, and Greece against the Romans, by reason of the many Principalities those States had: whereof while the memory lasted, the Romans were alwayes doubtfull of the possession of them; but the memory of them being quite wip't out, by the power and continuance of the Empire, at length they enjoy'd it securely; and they also were able afterwards fighting one with another, each of one them to draw after them the greater part of those provinces, according as their authority had gain'd them credit therein: and that because the blood of their ancient Lords was quite spent, they acknowledg'd no other but the Romans. By the consideration then of these things, no man will marvaile that Alexander had so little trouble to keep together the State of Asia; and that others have had such great difficulties to maintain their conquest, as Pyrrhus, and many others; which proceeds not from the small or great valour of the conquerour, but from the difference of the subject. CHAP. V In what manner Cities and Principalities are to be govern'd, which, before they were conquer'd, liv'd under their own Laws. When those States that are conquered, as it is said, have been accustomed to live under their own Laws, and in liberty, there are three wayes for a man to hold them. The first is to demolish all their strong places; the other, personally to goe and dwell there; the third, to suffer them to live under their own Laws, drawing from them some tribute, and creating therein an Oligarchy, that may continue it in thy service: for that State being created by that Prince, knowes it cannot consist without his aid and force, who is like to doe all he can to maintain it; and with more facility is a City kept by meanes of her own Citizens, which hath been us'd before to live free, than by any other way of keeping. We have for example the Spartans and the Romans; the Spartans held Athens and Thebes, creating there an Oligarchy: yet they lost it. The Romans to be sure of Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantell'd them quite, and so lost them not: they would have kept Greece as the Spartans had held them, leaving them free, and letting them enjoy their own Laws; and it prospered not with them: so that they were forc'd to deface many Cities of that province to hold it. For in truth there is not a surer way to keep them under, than by demolishments; and whoever becomes master of a City us'd to live free, and dismantells it not, let him look himselfe to bee ruin'd by it; for it alwayes in time of rebellion takes the name of liberty for refuge, and the ancient orders it had; which neither by length of time, nor for any favours afforded them, are ever forgotten; and for any thing that can be done, or order'd, unlesse the inhabitants be disunited and dispers'd, that name is never forgotten, nor those customes: but presently in every chance recourse is thither made: as Pisa did after so many yeeres that she had been subdu'd by the Florentines. But when the Cities or the Provinces are accustomed to live under a Prince, and that whole race is quite extirpated: on one part being us'd to obey; on the other, not having their old Prince; they agree not to make one from among themselves: they know not how to live in liberty, in such manner that they are much slower to take armes; and with more facility may a Prince gaine them, and secure himselfe of them. But in Republiques there is more life in them, more violent hatred, more earnest desire of revenge; nor does the remembrance of the ancient liberty ever leave them, or suffer them to rest; so that the safest way, is, either to ruine them, or dwell among them. CHAP. VI Of new Principalities, that are conquer'd by ones own armes and valour. Let no man marvaile, if in the discourse I shall make of new Principalities, both touching a Prince, and touching a State, I shall alledge very famous examples: for seeing men almost alwayes walk in the pathes beaten by others, and proceed in their actions by imitation; and being that others wayes cannot bee exactly follow'd, nor their vertues, whose patterne thou set'st before thee, attain'd unto; a wise man ought alwayes to tread the footsteps of the worthiest persons, and imitate those that have been the most excellent: to the end that if his vertue arrive not thereto, at least it may yeeld some favour thereof, and doe as good Archers use, who thinking the place they intend to hit, too farre distant, and knowing how farr the strength of their bow will carry, they lay their ayme a great deale higher than the mark; not for to hit so high with their arrow, but to bee able with the help of so high an aime to reach the place they shoot at. I say, that in Principalities wholly new, where there is a new Prince, there is more and lesse difficulty in maintaining them, as the vertue of their Conquerour is greater or lesser. And because this successe, to become a Prince of a private man, presupposes either vertue, or fortune; mee thinks the one and other of these two things in part should mitigate many difficulties; however he that hath lesse stood upon fortune, hath maintain'd himselfe the better. Moreover it somewhat facilitates the matter in that the Prince is constrain'd, because he hath not other dominions, in person to come and dwell there. But to come to these who by their own vertues, and not by fortune, attain'd to be Princes; the excellentest of these are Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and such like; and though of Moses we are not to reason, he onely executing the things that were commanded him by God; yet merits he well to be admir'd, were it only for that grace that made him worthy to converse with God. But considering Cyrus, and the others, who either got or founded Kingdomes, we shall find them all admirable; and if there particular actions and Lawes be throughly weigh'd, they will not appeare much differing from those of Moyses, which he receiv'd from so Sovraigne an instructer. And examining their lives and actions, it will not appeare, that they had other help of fortune, than the occasion, which presented them with the matter wherein they might introduce what forme they then pleas'd; and without that occasion, the vertue of their mind had been extinguish'd; and without that vertue, the occasion had been offer'd in vaine. It was then necessary for Moses to find the people of Israel slaves in Ægypt, and oppress'd by the Ægyptians, to the end that they to get out of their thraldome, should bee willing to follow him. It was fit that Romulus should not be kept in Albia, but expos'd presently after his birth, that he might become King of Rome, and founder of that City. There was need that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the Medes government, and the Medes delicate and effeminate through their long peace. Theseus could not make proof his vertue, had not he found the Athenians dispers'd. These occasions therefore made these men happy, and their excellent vertue made the occasion be taken notice of, whereby their countrey became enobled, and exceeding fortunate. They, who by vertuous waies, like unto these, become Princes, attain the Principality with difficulty, but hold it with much ease; and the difficulties they find in gaining the Principality, arise partly from the new orders and courses they are forc'd to bring in, to lay the foundation of their State, and work their own security. And it is to be consider'd, how there is not any thing harder to take in hand, nor doubtfuller to succeed, nor more dangerous to mannage, than to be the chief in bringing in new orders; for this Chief finds all those his enemies, that thrive upon the old orders; and hath but luke warme defenders of all those that would do well upon the new orders, which luke-warme temper proceeds partly from fear of the opposers who have the laws to their advantage; partly from the incredulity of the men who truly beleeve not a new thing, unless there be some certain proof given them thereof. Whereupon it arises, that whensoever they that are adversaries, take the occasion to assayle, they do it factiously; and these others defend but cooly, so that their whole party altogether runs a hazzard. Therefore it is necessary, being we intend throughly to discourse this part, to examine if these innovators stand of themselves, or if they depend upon others; that is, if to bring their work to effect, it be necessary they should intreat, or be able to constrain; in the first case they allwayes succeed ill, and bring nothing to pass; but when they depend of themselves, and are able to force, then seldom it is that they hazzard. Hence came it that all the prophets that were arm'd, prevail'd; but those that were unarm'd, were too weak: for besides what we have alledg'd, the nature of the people is changeable, and easie to be perswaded to a matter; but it is hard also to settle them in that perswasion. And therefore it behoves a man to be so provided, that when they beleeve no longer, he may be able to compel them thereto by force. Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus would never have been able to cause their Laws to be obey'd, had they been disarm'd; as in our times it befel Fryer Jerome Savanarola, who perished in his new constitutions, when the multitude began not to beleeve him; neither had he the means to keep them firme, that had beleev'd; not to force beleefe in them that had not beleev'd him. Wherefore such men as these, in their proceedings find great difficulty, and all their dangers are in the way, and these they must surmount by their vertue; but having once master'd them, and beginning to be honored by all, when they have rooted those out that envi'd their dignities, they remain powerful, secure, honorable, and happy. To these choice examples, I will add one of less remark; but it shall hold some proportion with them, and this shall suffice me for all others of this kind, which is Hiero the Siracusan. He of a private man, became Prince of Siracusa, nor knew he any other ayd of fortune than the occasion: for the Siracusans being oppress'd, made choyce of him for their Captain, whereupon he deserv'd to be made their Prince: and he was of such vertue even in his private fortune, that he who writes of him, sayes, he wanted nothing of reigning, but a Kingdom; this man extinguish'd all the old soldiery, ordaind the new; left the old allyances, entertained new; and as he had friendship, and soldiers that were his own, upon that ground he was able to build any edifice; so that he indured much trouble in gaining, and suffered but little in maintaining. CHAP. VII Of new Principalities, gotten by fortune, and other mens forces. They who by fortune only become Princes of private men, with small pains attain to it, but have much ado to maintain themselves in it; and find no difficulty at all in the way, because they are carried thither with wings: but all the difficulties arise there, after they are plac'd in them. And of such sort are those who have an estate given them for money, by the favor of some one that grants it them: as it befell many in Greece, in the cities of Jonia, and Hellespont; where divers Princes were made by Darius, as well for his own safety as his glory; as also them that were made Emperors; who from private men by corrupting the soldiers, attaind to the Empire. These subsist meerly upon the will, and fortune of those that have advanced them; which are two voluble and unsteady things; and they neither know how, nor are able to continue in that dignity: they know not how, because unless it be a man of great understanding and vertue, it is not probable that he who hath always liv'd a private life, can know how to command: neither are they able, because they have not any forces that can be friendly or faithful to them. Moreover those States that suddenly fall into a mans hands, as all other things in nature that spring and grow quickly, cannot well have taken root, nor have made their correspondencies so firm, but that the first storm that takes them, ruines them; in case these, who (as it is said) are thus on a sudden clambred up to be Princes, are not of that worth and vertue as to know how to prepare themselves to maintain that which chance hath cast into their bosoms, and can afterwards lay those foundations, which others have cast before they were Princes. For the one and the other of these wayes about the attaining to be a Prince, by Vertue, or by Fortune, I will alledge you two examples which have been in the dayes of our memory. These were Francis Sforza, and Cæsar Borgia; Francis by just means and with a great deal of vertue, of a private man got to be Duke of Millan; and that which with much pains he had gaind, he kept with small ado. On the other side Cæesar Borgia (commonly termed Duke Valentine) got his state by his Fathers fortune, and with the same lost it; however that for his own part no pains was spar'd, nor any thing omitted, which by a discreet and valorus man ought to have been done, to fasten his roots in those Estates, which others armes or fortune had bestowed on him; for (as it was formerly said) he that lays not the foundations first, yet might be able by means of his extraordinary vertues to lay them afterwards, however it be with the great trouble of the architect, and danger of the edifice. If therefore we consider all the Dukes progresses, we may perceive how great foundations he had cast for his future power, which I judge a matter not superfluous to run over; because I should not well know, what better rules I might give to a new Prince, than the pattern of his actions; and however the courses he took, availd him not, yet was it not his fault, but it proceeded from an extraordinary and extream malignity of fortune. Pope Alexander the sixt, desiring to make the Duke his son a great man, had a great many difficulties, present and future: first he saw no way there was whereby he might be able to make him Lord of any State, that was not the Churches; and if he turnd to take that from the Church, he knew that the Duke of Milan, and the Venetians would never agree to it; for Faenza and Riminum were under the Venetians protection. Moreover, he saw that the armes of Italy, and those whereof in particular he might have been able to make some use, were in their hands, who ought to fear the Popes greatness; and therefore could not any wayes rely upon them: being all in the Orsins and Colonies hands, and those of their faction. It was necessary then, that those matters thus appointed by them should be disturbed, and the States of Italy disordered, to be able safely to master part of them, which he then found easie to do, seeing the Venetians upon three considerations had us'd the means to bring the French men back again into Italy: which he not only did not withstand, but furthered, with a resolution of King Lewis his ancient marriage. The King then past into Italy with the Venetians ayd, and Alexanders consent; nor was he sooner arrived in Milan, than the Pope had soldiers from him for the service of Romania, which was quickly yeelded up to him upon the reputation of the Kings forces. The Duke then having made himself master of Romania, and beaten the Colonies, desiring to hold it, and proceed forward, two things hindered him: the one, his own soldiers, which he thought were not true to him; the other, the French mens good wills; that is to say, he feared that the Princes soldiers, whereof he had served himself, would fail him, and not only hinder his conquest, but take from him what he had gotten; and that the King also would serve him the same turn. He had experience of the Orsini upon an occasion, when after the taking of Faenza he assaulted Bolonia, to which assault he saw them go very cold. And touching the King, he discovered his mind, when having taken the Dutchy of Urbin, he invaded Tuscany; from which action the King made him retire; whereupon the Duke resolved to depend no more upon fortune, and other mens armes. And the first thing he did, was, to weaken the Orsini, and Colonnies factions in Rome: for he gain'd all their adherents that were gentlemen, giving them large allowances, and honoring them according to their qualities with charges and governments; so that in a few months the good will they bare to the parties was quite extinguisht, and wholly bent to the Duke. After this, he waited an occasion to root out the Orsini, having before dispersed those of the family of Colonnia, which fell out well to his hand; and he us'd it better. For the Orsini being too late aware, that the Dukes and the Churches greatness was their destruction, held a Council together in a dwelling house of theirs in the country adjoyning to Perusia. From thence grew the rebellion of Urbin, and the troubles of Romania, and many other dangers befell the Duke, which he overcame all with the help of the French: and having regained his reputation, trusting neither France, nor any forrein forces, to the end he might not be put to make trial of them again, he betook himself to his sleghts; and he knew so well to disguise his intention, that the Orsins, by the mediation of Paul Orsine, were reconciled to him, to whom the Duke was no way wanting in all manner of courtesies whereby to bring them into security, giving them rich garments, money, and horses, til their own simplicities led them all to Sinigallia, into his hands. These heads being then pluck'd off, and their partisans made his friends; the Duke had laid very good foundations, to build his own greatness on, having in his power all Romania with the Dutchy of Urbin, and gained the hearts of those people, by beginning to give them some relish of their well being. And because this part is worthy to be taken notice of, and to be imitated by others, I will not let it escape. The Duke, when he had taken Romania, finding it had been under the hands of poor Lords who had rather pillag'd their subjects, than chastis'd or amended them, giving them more cause of discord, than of peace and union, so that the whole countrey was fraught with robberies, quarrels, and other sorts of insolencies; thought the best way to reduce them to termes of pacification, and obedience to a Princely power, was, to give them some good government: and therefore he set over them one Remiro D'Orco, a cruel hasty man, to whom he gave an absolute power. This man in a very short time setled peace and union amongst them with very great reputation. Afterwards the Duke thought such excessive authority serv'd not so well to his purpose, and doubting it would grow odious, he erected a civil Judicature in the midst of the countrey, where one excellent Judge did Preside, and thither every City sent their Advocate: and because he knew the rigors past had bred some hatred against him, to purge the minds of those people, and to gain them wholly to himself, he purpos'd to shew, that if there was any cruelty used, it proceeded not from any order of his, but from the harsh disposition of his Officers. Whereupon laying hold on him, at this occasion, he caus'd his head to be struck off one morning early in the market place at Cesena, where he was left upon a gibbet, with a bloody sword by his side; the cruelty of which spectacle for a while satisfied and amaz'd those people. But to return from whence we have digressd: I say, that the Duke finding himself very strong, and in part out of doubt of the present dangers, because he was arm'd after his own manner, and had in some good measure suppress'd those forces, which, because of their vicinity, were able to annoy him, he wanted nothing else to go on with his Conquest, but the consideration of France: for he knew, that the King, who now, though late, was advis'd of his error, would never suffer him: and hereupon he began to seek after new allyances, and to waver with France, when the French came towards Naples against the Spaniards, who then besieged Gagetta; and his design was only to be out of their danger, which had been effected for him, had Pope Alexander lived. And thus were his businesses carried touching his present estate. As for the future, he had reason to doubt lest the new successor to the Papacy would not be his friend, and would endeavor to take that from him that Alexander had bestowed on him; and he thought to provide for this foure waies: First by rooting out the races of all those Lords he had dispoyled, whereby to take those occasions from the Pope. Secondly, by gaining all the gentlemen of Rome, whereby he might be able with those to keep the Pope in some awe. Thirdly, to make the Colledge of Cardinals as much at his devotion as possibly might be. Fourthly, by making of so large Conquests, before the Popes death, as that he might be able of himself to withstand the first fury of his enemies. Three of these fowre at Pope Alexanders death he had effected, and the fourth he had neare brought to a point. For of those Lords he had stript, he put to death as many as he could come at, and very few escap'd him: he gaind him the Roman Gentlemen: and in the Colledge he had made a great faction. And touching his new Conquest, he had a designe to become Lord of Tuscany. And he had possessed himself already of Perusia, and Pombin, and taken protection of Pisa: and so soon as he should have cast off his respect to France (which now he meant to hold no longer) being the French were now driven out of the Kingdome of Naples by the Spaniards, so that each of them was forc'd to buy his friendship at any termes; he was then to leap into Pisa. After this Lucca and Siena were presently to fall to him, partly for envy to the Florentines, and partly for fear. The Florentines had no way to escape him: all which, had it succeeded with him, as without question it had, the very same year that Alexander dy'd, he had made himself master of so great forces, and such reputation, that he would have been able to have stood upon his own bottom, without any dependance of fortune, or resting upon others helps, but only upon his own strength and valor. But Alexander dy'd five years after that he had begun to draw forth his sword: and left him setled only in the State of Romania, with all his other designes in the ayre, sick unto death, between two very strong armies of his enemies; and yet was there in this Duke such a spirit and courage; and he understood so well, how men are to be gaind, and how to be lost, and so firm were the grounds he had laid in a short time, that, had he not had those armies upon his back, or had been in health, he would have carried through his purpose in spight of all opposition; and that the foundations he grounded upon were good, it appeard in that Romania held for him above a moneth, and he remained secure in Rome, though even at deaths doore: and however the Baglioni, Vitelli, and Orsini came into Rome; yet found they none would take their parts against him. And this he was able to have effected, that if he could not have made him Pope whom be would, he could have hindred him that he would not should be Pope. But had he been in health when Alexander dy'd, every thing had gone easily with him; and he told me on that day that Julius the second was created Pope, that he had fore-thought on all that which could happen, in case his father chanc'd to dye, and for every thing provided its remedy, this onely excepted, that he foresaw not that he should at the same time be brought unto deaths dore also. Having then collected all the Dukes actions, me thinks I could not well blame him, but rather (as I have here done) set him as a pattern to be followed by all those who by fortune and others armes have been exalted to an Empire. For he being of great courage, and having lofty designes, could not carry himself otherwise; and the only obstacle of his purposes was the brevity of Alexanders life, and his own sickness. Whoever therefore deemes it necessary in his entrance into a new Principality, to secure himself of his enemies, and gain him friends, to overcome either by force or by cunning, to make himself beloved, or feared of his people, be followed and reverenced by his soldiers, to root out those that can, or owe thee any hurt, to change the ancient orders with new wayes, to be severe, and yet acceptable, magnanimous, and liberall; to extinguish the unfaithfull soldiery, and create new; to maintain to himself the armities of Kings and Princes, so that they shall either with favor benefit thee, or be wary how to offend thee; cannot find more fresh and lively examples than the actions of this man. He deserves to be found fault withall for the creation of Julius the second, wherein an evil choice was made for him: for, as it is said, not being able to make a Pope to his mind, he could have withheld any one from being Pope; and should never have consented that any one of those Cardinals should have got the Papacy, whom he had ever done harme to; or who having attaind the Pontificate were likely to be afraid of him: because men ordinarily do hurt either for fear, or hatred. Those whom he had offended, were among others, he who had the title of St. Peter ad Vincula, Colonna, St. George, and Ascanius; all the others that were in possibility of the Popedome, were such as might have feard him rather, except the Cardinal of Roan, and the Spaniards; these by reason of their allyance and obligation with him, the other because of the power they had, having the Kingdome of France on their party; wherefore the Duke above all things should have created a Spanyard Pope, and in case he could not have done that, he should have agreed that Roan should have been, and not St. Peter ad Vincula. And whoever beleeves, that with great personages new benefits blot on the remembrance of old injuries, is much deceiv'd. The Duke therefore in this election, was the cause of his own ruine at last. Till wee come to this seaventh Chapter, I find not any thing much blame-worthy, unlesse it be on ground he layes in the second Chapter; whereupon hee builds most of this Fabrick, viz. That Subjects must either be dallyed or flatterd withall, or quite crusht. Whereby our Author advises his Prince to support his authority with two Cardinall Vertues, Dissimulation, and Cruelty. He considers not herein that the head is but a member of the body, though the principall; and the end of the parts is the good of the whole. And here he goes against himselfe in the twenty sixt Chapter of his Rep. 1. 1. where hee blames Philip of Macedon for such courses, terming them very cruell, and against all Christian manner of living; and that every man should refuse to be a King, and desire rather to live a private life, than to reigne so much to the ruine of mankind. The life of Cæsar Borgia, which is here given as a paterne to new Princes, we shall find to have been nothing else but a cunning carriage of things so, that he might thereby first deceive and inveigle, and then suppresse all those that could oppose or hinder his ambition. For if you runne over his life, you shall see the Father Pope Alexander the sixt and him, both imbarqued for his advancement, wherein they engag'd the Papall authority, and reputation of Religion; for faith and conscience these men never knew, though they exacted it of others: there was never promise made, but it was only so farre kept as servd for advantage; Liberality was made use of: Clemency and Cruelty, all alike, as they might serve to worke with their purposes. All was sacrific'd to ambition; no friendship could tye these men, nor any religion: and no marvell: for ambition made them forget both God and man. But see the end of all this cunning: though this Cæsar Borgia contrived all his businesse so warily, that our Author much commends him, and hee had attaind neere the pitch of his hopes, and had provided for each misadventure could befall him its remedy; Policy shewd it selefe short-sighted; for hee foresaw not at the time of his Fathers death, he himself should bee brought unto deaths doore also. And me thinks this Example might have given occasion to our Author to confesse, that surely there is a God that ruleth the earth. And many times God cutts off those cunning and mighty men in the hight of their purposes, when they think they have neare surmounted all dangers and difficulties. 'To the intent that the living may know, that the most high ruleth in the Kingdome of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.' Daniel. 4. 17. CHAP. VIII Concerning those who by wicked meanes have attaind to a Principality. But because a man becomes a Prince of a private man two wayes, which cannot wholly be attributed either to Fortune or Vertue, I think not fit to let them passe me: howbeit the one of them may be more largely discoursed upon, where the Republicks are treated of. These are, when by some wicked and unlawfull meanes a man rises to the Principality; or when a private person by the favour of his fellow Citizens becomes Prince of his countrey. And speaking of the first manner, it shall be made evident by two Examples, the one ancient, the other moderne, without entring otherwise into the justice or merit of this part; for I take it that these are sufficient for any body that is forc'd to follow them. Agathocles the Sicilian, not of a private man onely, but from a base and abject fortune, got to be King of Siracusa. This man borne but of a Potter, continued alwayes a wicked life throughout all the degrees of this fortune: neverthelesse he accompanied his lewdnesse with such a courage and resolution, that applying himselfe to military affaires, by the degrees thereof he attained to bee Prætour of Siracusa, and being setled in that degree, and having determined that he would become Prince, and hold that by violence and without obligation to any other, which by consent had been granted him: and to this purpose haveing had some private intelligence touching his designe with Amilcar the Carthaginian, who was imployd with his army in Sicily, one morining gatherd the people together and the Senate of Syracusa, as if he had some what to advise with them of matters belonging to the Commonwealth, and upon a signe given, caus'd his souldiers to kill his Senatours, and the richest of the people; who being slaine, he usurp'd the Principality of that City without any civill strife: and however he was twice broken by the Carthaginians, and at last besieged, was able not onely to defend his own City, but leaving part of his own army at the defence thereof, with the other invaded Affrique, and in a short time freed Siracusa from the siege, and brought the Carthaginians into extreme necessity, who were constraind to accord with him, be contented with the possession of Affrique, and quitt Sicily to Agathocles. He then that should consider the actions and valour of this man, would not see any, or very few things to be attributed unto Fortune; seeing that as is formerly sayd, not by any ones favour, but by the degrees of service in warre with many sufferings and dangers, to which he had risen, he came to the Principality; and that hee maintained afterwards with so many resolute and hazardous undertakings. Yet cannot this be term'd vertue or valour to slay his own Citizens, betray his friends, to be without faith, without pitty, without religion, which wayes are of force to gaine dominion, but not glory: for if Agathocles his valour bee well weighd, in his enturing upon, and comming off from dangers, and the greatnesse of his courage, in supporting and mastering of adversities, no man can see why he should be thought any way inferiour even to the ablest Captaines. Notwithstanding his beastly cruelty and inhumanity with innumerable wickednesses, allow not that he should be celebrated among the most excellent men. That cannot then be attributed to Fortune or Vertue, which without the one or the other was attaind to by him. In our dayes, while Alexander the sixth held the sea, Oliverotte of Fermo, who some few yeeres before had been left young by his parents, was brought up under the care of an uncle of his on the mothers side, called John Foliani, and in the beginning of his youth given, by him to serve in the warres under Paulo Vitelli: to the end that being well instructed in that discipline, he might rise to some worthy degree in the warrs. Afterwards when Paulo was dead, he served under Vitellozzo his brother, and in very short time, being ingenious, of a good personage, and brave courage, he became one of the prime men among the troops he served in: but thinking it but servile to depend upon another, he plotted by the ayd of some Citizens of Fermo (who lik'd rather the thraldome of their City than the liberty of it) and by the favour of the Vitelli, to make himselfe master of Fermo; and writ to John Foliani, that having been many yeeres from home, he had a mind to come and see him and the City, and in some part take notice of his own patrimony; and because he had not imployd himselfe but to purchase honour, to the end his Citizens might perceive, that he had not vainely spent his time, he had a desire to come in good equipage and accompanied with a hundred horse of his friends and servants; and he intreated him that he would be pleasd so to take order, that he might be honourably received by the inhabitants of Fermo, which turnd as well to his honor that was his uncle, as his that was the nephew. In this, John faild not in any office of courtesie due to his nephew: and caused him to be well receivd by them of Fermo, and lodged him in his own house: where having passed some dayes, and stayd to put in order somewhat that was necessary for his intended villany, he made a very solemne feast, whether he invited John Foliani, and all the prime men of Fermo: and when all their chear was ended, and all their other entertainments, as in such feasts it is customary, Oliverotto of purpose mov'd some grave discourses; speaking of the greatnesse of Pope Alexander, and Cæsar his son, and their undertakings; where unto John and the others making answer, he of a sudden stood up, saying, that those were things to be spoken of in a more secret place, and so retir'd into a chamber, whether John and all the other Citizens followd him; nor were they sooner set downe there, than from some secret place therein camp forth diverse souldiers, who slew John and all the others: after which homicide Oliverotto got a horsebacke and ravaged the whole towne, and besieged the supreme Magistrate in the palace, so that for feare they were all constraind to obey him, and to settle a government, whereof hee made himselfe Prince; and they being all dead who, had they been discontented with him, could have hurt him; he strengthned himselfe with new civill and military orders, so that in the space of a yeer that he held the Principality, he was not only secure in the City of Fermo, but became fearefull to all his neighbours; and the conquest of him would have prov'd difficult, as that of Agathocles, had he not let himselfe been deceivd by Cæsar Borgia, when at Sinigallia, as before was said, he took the Orsini and Vitelli: where he also being taken a yeere after he had committed the parricide, was strangled together with Vitellozzo (whome he had had for master both of his vertues and vices.) Some man might doubt from whence it should proceed, that Agathocles, and such like, after many treacheries and crueltyes, could possibly live long secure in his own countrey, and defend himselfe from his forrein enemies, and that never any of his own Citizens conspir'd against him, seeing that by means of cruelty, many others have never been able even in peaceable times to maintaine their States, much lesse in the doubtfull times of warre. I beleeve that this proceeds from the well, or ill using of those cruelties: they may bee termd well us'd (if it bee lawfull to say well of evill) that are put in practice only once of necessity for securities sake, not insisting therein afterwards; but there is use made of them for the subjects profit, as much as may be. But those that are ill us'd, are such as though they bee but few in the beginning, yet they multiply rather in time, than diminish. They that take that first way, may with the help of God, and mens care, find some remedy for their State, as Agathocles did: for the others, it is impossible they should continue. Whereupon it is to be noted, that in the laying hold of a State, the usurper thereof ought to runne over and execute all his cruelties at once, that he be not forced often to returne to them, and that he may be able, by not renewing of them, to give men some security, and gaine their affections by doing them some courtesies. Hee that carries it otherwise, either for fearefullnesse, or upon evill advice, is alwayes constraind to hold his sword drawne in his hand; nor ever can hee rely upon his subjects, there being no possibility for them, because of his daily and continuall injuries, to live in any safety: for his injuries should bee done altogether, that being seldomer tasted, they might lesse offend; his favours should bee bestowd by little, and little to the end they might keep their taste the better; and above all things a Prince must live with his subjects in such sort, that no accident either of good or evill can make him vary: for necessity comming upon him by reason of adversities, thou hast not time given thee to make advantage of thy cruelties; and the favours which then thou bestowest, will little help thee, being taken as if they came from thee perforce, and so yeeld no returne of thanks. CHAP. IX Of the Civill Principality. But comming to the other part, when a principall Citizen, not by villany, or any other insufferable violence, but by the favour of his fellow-citizens becomes Prince of his native countrey: which we may terme a Civill Principality; nor to attaine hereunto is Vertue wholly or Fortune wholly necessary, but rather a fortunate cunning: I say, this Principality is climb'd up to, either by the peoples help, or the great mens. For, in every City we finde these two humours differ; and they spring from this, that the people desire not to be commanded nor oppressed by the great ones, and the great ones are desirous to command and oppresse the people: and from these two several appetites, arise in the City one of these three effects, either a Principality, or Liberty, or Tumultuary licentiousnesse. The Principality is caused either by the people, or the great ones, according as the one or other of these factions have the occasion offerd; for the great ones seeing themselves not able to resist the people, begin to turne the whole reputation to one among them, and make him Prince, whereby they may under his shadow vent their spleenes. The people also, not being able to support the great mens insolencies, converting the whole reputation to one man, create him their Prince, to be protected by his authority. He that comes to the Principality by the assistance of the great ones, subsists with more difficulty, than he that attaines to it by the peoples favour; for he being made Prince, hath many about him, who account themselves his equalls, and therefore cannot dispose nor command them at his pleasure. But he that gaines the Principality by the peoples favor, finds himselfe alone in his throne, and hath none or very few neare him that are not very supple to bend: besides this, the great ones cannot upon easie termes be satisfied, or without doing of wrong to others, where as a small matter contents the people: for the end which the people propound to themselves, is more honest than that of the great men, these desiring to oppresse, they only not to be oppressed. To this may be added also, that the Prince which is the peoples enemy, can never well secure himselfe of them, because of their multitude; well may hee bee sure of the Nobles, they being but a few. The worst that a Prince can look for of the people become his enemy, is to be abandoned by them: but when the great ones once grow his enemies, he is not only to feare their abandoning of him, but their making of a party against him also: for there being in them more forecast and craft, they alwayes take time by the forelocks whereby to save themselves, and seeke credit with him who they hope shall get the mastery. The Prince likewise is necessitated alwayes to live with the same people, but can doe well enough without the same great men; he being able to create new ones, and destroy them again every day, and to take from them, and give them credit as he pleases: and to cleare this part, I say, that great men ought to be considerd two wayes principally, that is, if they take thy proceedings so much to heart, as to engage their fortunes wholly in thine, in case they lye not alwayes catching at spoyle, they ought to be well honourd and esteem'd: those that bind themselves not to thy fortune, are to be considerd also two wayes; either they doe it for lack of courage, and naturall want of spirit, and then shouldst thou serve thy selfe of them, and of them especially that are men of good advice; for if thy affaires prosper, thou dost thy selfe honour thereby; if crost, thou needst not feare them: but when they oblige not themselves to thee of purpose, and upon occasion of ambition, it is a signe they think more of themselves than of thee: and of these the Prince ought to beware, and account of them as his discoverd enemyes: for alwayes in thy adversity they will give a hand too to ruine thee. Therefore ought hee that comes to be Prince by the peoples favour, keepe them his friends: which he may easily doe, they desiring only to live free from oppression: but he that becomes Prince by the great mens favour, against the will of the people, ought above all things to gaine the people to him, which he may easily effect, when he takes upon him their protection: And because men when they find good, where they look for evill, are thereby more endered to their benefactour, therefore growes the people so pliant in their subjection to him, as if by their favours he had attaind his dignity. And the Prince is able to gaine them to his side by many wayes, which because they vary according to the subject, no certaine rule can be given thereupon; wherefore we shall let them passe I will only conclude, that it is necessary for a Prince to have the people his friend; otherwise in his adversities he hath no helpe. Nabis Prince of the Spartans supported the siege of all Greece, and an exceeding victorious army of the Romans, and against those defended his native countrey and State, and this suffic'd him alone, that as the danger came upon him, he secur'd himself of a fewer; whereas if the people had been his enemy, this had nothing availd him. And let no man think to overthrow this my opinion with that common proverb, that He who relyes upon the people, layes his foundation in the dirt; for that is true where a private Citizen grounds upon them, making his account that the people shall free him, when either his enemyes or the Magistrates oppresse him: In this case he should find himself often deceiv'd, as it befell the Gracchyes in Rome, and in Florence George Scali: but he being a Prince that grounds thereupon, who can command, and is a man of courage, who hath his wits about him in his adversityes, and wants not other preparations, and holds together the whole multitude animated with his valour and orders, shall not prove deceiv'd by them, and shall find he hath layd good foundations. These Principalityes are wont to be upon the point of falling when they goe about to skip from the civil order to the absolute: for these Princes either command of themselves, or by the Magistrate; in this last case their State is more weak and dangerous, because they stand wholly at the will and pleasure of these Citizens, who then are set over the Magistrates, who especially in adverse times are able with facility to take their State from them either by rising up against them, or by not obeying them; and then the Prince is not at hand in those dangers to take the absolute authority upon him: for the Citizens and subjects that are accustomed to receive the commands from the Magistrates, are not like in those fractions to obey his: and in doubtfull times he shall alwayes have greatest penury of whom he may trust; for such a Prince cannot ground upon that which he sees in peaceable times, when the Citizens have need of the State; for then every one runs, and every one promises, and every one will venture his life for him, where there is no danger neare; but in times of hazzard, when the State hath need of Citizens, there are but few of them then, and so much the more is this experience dangerous, in that it can be but once made. Therefore a prudent Prince ought to devise a way whereby his Citizens alwayes and in any case and quality of time may have need of his government, and they shall alwaies after prove faithfull to him. CHAP. X In what manner the Forces of all Principalities ought to be measured. It is requisite in examining the quality of those Principalities, to have another consideration of them, that is, if a Prince have such dominions, that he is able in case of necessity to subsist of himself, or else whether he hath alwaies need of another to defend him. And to cleer this point the better, I judge them able to stand of themselves, who are of power either for their multitudes of men, or quantity of money, to bring into the field a compleat armie, and joyn battel with whoever comes to assail them: and so I think those alwaies to stand in need of others help, who are not able to appear in the field against the enemy, but are forc'd to retire within their walls and guard them. Touching the first case, we have treated already, and shall adde somwhat thereto as occasion shall require. In the second case, we cannot say other, save only to encourage such Princes to fortifie and guard their own Capital city, and of the countrey about, not to hold much account; and whoever shall have well fortified that town, and touching other matters of governments shall have behaved himself towards his subjects, as hath been formerly said, and hereafter shall be, shall never be assaild but with great regard; for men willingly undertake not enterprises, where they see difficulty to work them through; nor can much facility be there found, where one assails him, who hath his town strong and wel guarded, and is not hated of his people. The cities of Germany are very free; they have but very little of the countrey about them belonging to them; and they obey the Emperor, when they please, and they stand not in fear, neither of him nor any other Potentate about them: for they are in such a manner fortified, that every one thinks the siege of any of them would prove hard and tedious: for all of them have ditches, and rampires, and good store of Artillery, and alwaies have their publick cellars well provided with meat and drink and firing for a yeer: besides this, whereby to feed the common people, and without any loss to the publick, they have alwaies in common whereby they are able for a year to imploy them in the labor of those trades that are the sinews and the life of that city, and of that industry whereby the commons ordinarily supported themselves: they hold up also the military exercises in repute, and hereupon have they many orders to maintain them. A Prince then that is master of a good strong city, and causeth not himself to be hated, cannot be assaulted; and in case he were, he that should assail him, would be fain to quit him with shame: for the affairs of the world are so various, that it is almost impossible that an army can lie incampt before a town for the space of a whole yeer: and if any should reply, that the people having their possessions abroad, in case they should see them a fire, would not have patience, and the tedious siege and their love to themselves would make them forget their Prince: I answer that a Prince puissant and couragious, will easily master those difficulties, now giving his subjects hope, that the mischief will not be of durance; sometimes affright them with the cruelty of their enemies, and other whiles cunningly securing himself of those whom he thinks too forward to run to the enemy. Besides this by ordinary reason the enemy should burne and waste their countrey, upon his arrival, and at those times while mens minds are yet warme, and resolute in their defence: and therefore so much the less ought a Prince doubt: for after some few dayes, that their courages grow coole, the dammages are all done, and mischiefs received, and there is no help for it, and then have they more occasion to cleave faster to their Prince, thinking he is now more bound to them, their houses having for his defence been fired, and their possessions wasted; and mens nature is as well to hold themselves oblig'd for the kindnesses they do, as for those they receive; whereupon if all be well weigh'd, a wise Prince shall not find much difficulty to keep sure and true to him his Citizens hearts at the beginning and latter end of the siege, when he hath no want of provision for food and ammunition. CHAP. XI Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities. There remains now only that we treat of the Ecclesiastical Principalities, about which all the difficulties are before they are gotten: for they are attained to either by vertue, or Fortune; and without the one or the other they are held: for they are maintaind by orders inveterated in the religion, all which are so powerfull and of such nature, that they maintain their Princes in their dominions in what manner soever they proceed and live. These only have an Estate and defend it not; have subjects and govern them not; and yet their States because undefended, are not taken from them; nor their subjects, though not govern'd, care not, think not, neither are able to aliene themselves from them. These Principalities then are only happy and secure: but they being sustained by superior causes, whereunto humane understanding reaches not, I will not meddle with them: for being set up and maintained by God, it would be the part of a presumptuous and rash man to enter into discourse of them. Yet if any man should ask me whence it proceeds, that the Church in temporal power hath attaind to such greatness, seeing that till the time of Alexander the sixt, the Italian Potentates, and not only they who are entituled the potentates, but every Baron and Lord though of the meanest condition in regard of the temporality, made but small account of it; and now a King of France trembles at the power thereof; and it hath been able to drive him out of Italy, and ruine the Venetians; and however this be well known, me thinks it is not superstitious in some part to recall it to memory. Before that Charles King of France past into Italy, this countrey was under the rule of the Pope, Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These Potentates took two things principally to their care; the one, that no forreiner should invade Italy; the other that no one of them should inlarge their State. They, against whom this care was most taken, were the Pope and the Venetians; and to restrain the Venetians, there needed the union of all the rest, as it was in the defence of Ferrara; and to keep the Pope low, they served themselves of the Barons of Rome, who being divided into two factions, the Orsini and Colonnesi, there was alwaies occasion of offence between them, who standing ready with their armes in hand in the view of the Pope, held the Popedome weak and feeble: and however sometimes there arose a couragious Pope, as was Sextus; yet either his fortune, or his wisdome was not able to free him of these incommodities, and the brevity of their lives was the cause thereof; for in ten years, which time, one with another, Popes ordinarily liv'd, with much ado could they bring low one of the factions. And if, as we may say, one had near put out the Colonnesi, there arose another enemy to the Orsini, who made them grow again, so that there was never time quite to root them out. This then was the cause, why the Popes temporal power was of small esteem in Italy; there arose afterwards Pope Alexander the sixt, who of all the Popes that ever were, shewed what a Pope was able to do with money and forces: and he effected, by means of his instrument, Duke Valentine, and by the ocasion of the French mens passage, all those things which I have formerly discoursed upon in the Dukes actions: and however his purpose was nothing at all to inlarge the Church dominions, but to make the Duke great; yet what he did, turnd to the Churches advantage, which after his death when the Duke was taken away, was the heir of all his pains. Afterwards succeeded Pope Julius, and found the Church great, having all Romania, and all the Barons of Rome being quite rooted out, and by Alexanders persecutions, all their factions worne down; he found also the way open for the heaping up of moneys, never practised before Alexanders time; which things Julius not only follow'd, but augmented; and thought to make himself master of Bolonia, and extinguish the Venetians, and chase the French men out of Italy: and these designes of his prov'd all lucky to him, and so much the more to his praise in that he did all for the good of the Church, and in no private regard: he kept also the factions of the Orsins and Colonnesi, in the same State he found them: and though there were among them some head whereby to cause an alteration; yet two things have held them quiet; the one the power of the Church, which somewhat affrights them; the other because they have no Cardinals of their factions, who are the primary causes of all the troubles amongst them: nor shall these parties ever be at rest, while they have Cardinals; because they nourish the factions both in Rome, and abroad; and the Barons then are forced to undertake the defence of them: and thus from the Prelates ambitions arise the discords and tumults among the Barons. And now hath Pope Leo his Holiness found the Popedome exceeding puissant, of whom it is hoped, that if they amplified it by armes, he by his goodness, and infinite other vertues, will much more advantage and dignifie it. CHAP. XII How many sorts of Military discipline there are and touching Mercenary soldiers. Having treated particularly of the qualities of those Principalities, which in the beginning I propounded to discourse upon, and considered in some part the reasons of their well and ill being, and shewd the waies whereby many have sought to gain, and hold them, it remains now that I speak in general of the offences and defences, that may chance in each of the forenamed. We have formerly said that it is necessary for a Prince to have good foundations laid; otherwise it must needs be that he go to wrack. The Principal foundations that all States have, as well new, as old, or mixt, are good laws, and good armes; and because there cannot be good laws, where there are not good armes; and where there are good armes, there must needs be good laws, I will omit to discourse of the laws, and speak of armes. I say then that the armes, wherewithall a Prince defends his State, either are his own, or mercenary, or auxiliary, or mixt. Those that are mercenary and auxiliar, are unprofitable, and dangerous, and if any one holds his State founded upon mercenary armes, he shall never be quiet, nor secure, because they are never well united, ambitious, and without discipline, treacherous, among their friends stour, among their enemies cowardly; they have no fear of God, nor keep any faith with men; and so long only defer they the doing of mischief, till the enemy comes to assul thee; and in time of peace thou art despoyled by them, in war by thy enemies: the reason hereof is, because they have no other love, nor other cause to keep them in the field, but only a small stipend, which is not of force to make them willing to hazard their lives for thee: they are willing indeed to be thy soldiers, till thou goest to fight; but then they fly, or run away; which thing would cost me but small pains to perswade; for the ruine of Italy hath not had any other cause now a dayes, than for that it hath these many years rely'd upon mercenary armes; which a good while since perhaps may have done some man some service, and among themselves they may have been thought valiant: but so soon as any forrein enemy appeared, they quickly shewed what they were. Whereupon Charles the King of France, without opposition, made himself master of all Italy: and he that said, that the causes thereof were our faults, said true; but these were not those they beleeved, but what I have told; and because they were the Princes faults, they also have suffered the punishment. I will fuller shew the infelicity of these armes. The mercenary Captains are either very able men, or not: if they be, thou canst not repose any trust in them: for they will alwaies aspire unto their own proper advancements, either by suppressing of thee that art their Lord, or by suppressing of some one else quite out of thy purpose: but if the Captain be not valorous, he ordinarily ruines thee: and in case it be answered, that whoever shall have his armes in his hands, whether mercenary or not, will do so: I would reply, that armes are to be imployed either by a Prince, or Common-wealth. The Prince ought to go in person, and performe the office of a commander: the Republick is to send forth her Citizens: and when she sends forth one that proves not of abilities, she ought to change him then; and when he does prove valorous, to bridle him so by the laws, that he exceed not his commission. And by experience we see, that Princes and Republiques of themselves alone, make very great conquests; but that mercenary armes never do other than harme; and more hardly falls a Republick armed with her own armes under the obedience of one of her own Citizens, than one that is armed by forrein armes. Rome and Sparta subsisted many ages armed and free. The Swissers are exceedingly well armed, and yet very free. Touching mercenary armes that were of old, we have an example of the Carthagians, who near upon were oppress'd by their own mercenary soldiers, when the first war with the Romans was finished; however the Carthagians had their own Citizens for their Captains. Philip of Macedon was made by the Thebans after Epaminondas his death, General of their Armies; and after the victory, he took from them liberty. The Milaneses when Duke Philip was dead, entertaind Francis Sforza into their pay against the Venetians, who having vanquisht their enemie at Caravaggio, afterwards joyned with them, where by to usurp upon the Milaneses his Masters. Sforza his father, being in Joan the Queen of Naples pay, left her on a sudden disarmed; whereupon she, to save her Kingdom, was constraind to cast her self into the King of Arrragon's bosome. And in case the Venetians and the Florentines have formerly augmented their State with these kind of armes, and their own Captains, and yet none of them have ever made themselves their Princes, but rather defended them: I answer, that the Florentines in this case have had fortune much their friend: for of valorous Captains, which they might any way fear, some have not been victors, some have had opposition, and others have laid the aim of their ambitions another way. He who overcame not, was John Aouto, of whose faith there could no proof be made, being he vanquisht not; but every one will acknowledge, that, had he vanquisht, the Florentines were at his discretion. Sforza had alwaies the Bracceschi for his adversaries, so that they were as a guard one upon another. Francis converted all his ambition against Lombardy. Braccio against the Church, and the Kingdome of Naples. But let us come to that which followed a while agoe. The Florentines made Paul Vitelli their General, a throughly advis'd man, and who from a private fortune had rose to very great reputation: had he taken Pisa, no man will deny but that the Florentines must have held fast with him; for had he been entertained in their enemies pay, they had no remedy; and they themselves holding of him, of force were to obey him. The Venetians, if we consider their proceedings, we shall see wrought both warily and gloriously, while themselves made war, which was before their undertakings by land, where the gentlemen with their own Commons in armes behav'd themselves bravely: but when they began to fight by land, they lost their valor, and follow'd the customes of Italy; and in the beginning of their enlargement by land, because they had not much territory, and yet were of great reputation, they had not much cause to fear their Captains; but as they began to extend their bounds, which was under their Commander Carminiola, they had a taste of this error: for perceiving he was exceeding valorous, having under his conduct beaten the Duke of Milan; and knowing on the other side, how he was cold in the war, they judg'd that they could not make any great conquest with him; and because they neither would, nor could cashier him, that they might not lose what they had gotten, they were forced for their own safeties to put him to death. Since they have had for their General Bartholomew of Berganio, Robert of St. Severin, the Count of Petilian, and such like: whereby they were to fear their losses, as well as to hope for gain: as it fell out afterwards at Vayla, where in one day they lost that, which with so much pains they had gotten in eight hundred years: for from these kind of armes grow slack and slow and weak gains; but sudden and wonderfull losses: And because I am now come with these examples into Italy, which now these many years, have been governd by mercenary armes, I will search deeper into them, to the end that their course and progress being better discoverd, they may be the better amended. You have to understand, that so soon as in these later times the yoak of the Italian Empire began to be shaken off, and the Pope had gotten reputation in the temporality, Italy was divided into several States: for many of the great cities took armes against their Nobility; who under the Emperors protection had held them in oppression; and the Pope favored these, whereby he might get himself reputation, in the temporality; of many others, their Citizens became Princes, so that hereupon Italy being come into the Churches hands as it were, and some few Republicks, those Priests and Citizens not accustomed to the use of armes, began to take strangers to their pay. The first that gave reputation to these soldiers was Alberick of Como in Romania. From his discipline among others descended Brachio and Sforza, who in their time were the arbitres of Italy; after these followed all others, who even till our dayes have commanded the armes of Italy; and the success of their valor hath been, that it was overrun by Charles, pillaged by Lewis, forc'd by Ferdinand, and disgrac'd by the Swissers. The order which they have held, hath been, first whereby to give reputation to their own armes to take away the credit of the Infantry. This they did, because they having no State of their own, but living upon their industry, their few foot gave them no reputation, and many they were not able to maintain; whereupon they reduc'd themselves to cavalery, and so with a supportable number they were entertained and honored: and matters were brought to such termes, that in an army of twenty thousand soldiers you should not find two thousand foot. They had moreover us'd all industry to free themselves and their soldiers of all pains and fear, in their skirmishes, not killing, but taking one another prisoners, and without ransome for their freedom; they repaired not all to their tents by night, nor made palizado or trench thereabout, nor lay in the field in the summer: and all these things were thus contrived and agreed of among them in their military orders, whereby (as is said) to avoid pains and dangers, insomuch as they have brought Italy into slavery and disgrace. CHAP. XIII Of Auxiliary Soldiers, mixt, and native. The Auxiliary forces, being the other kind of unprofitable armes, are, when any puissant one is called in, who with his forces comes to assist and defend thee; such as in these later times did Pope Julius use, who having seen the evil proof of his mercenary soldiers in the enterprize of Ferrara, applied himself to the Auxiliaries, and agreed with Ferdinand King of Spain, that with his Forces he should aid him. These armes may be profitable and advantagious for themselves; but for him that calls them in, hurtfull; because in losing, thou art left defeated; and conquering, thou becomest their prisoner. And however that of these examples the ancient stories are full fraught; yet will I not part from this of Pope Julius the second, which is as yet fresh: whose course could not have been more inconsiderate, for the desire he had to get Ferrara, putting himself wholly into strangers hands: but his good fortune caused another cause to arise, that hindred him from receiving the fruit of his evil choice; for his Auxiliaries being broken at Ravenna, and the Swissers thereupon arriving, who put the Conquerors to flight beyond all opinion, even their own and others, he chanced not to remain his enemies prisoner, they being put to flight, nor prisoner to his Auxiliaries, having vanquished by other forces than theirs. The Florentines being wholly disarmed, brought ten thousand French to Pisa for to take it: by which course they ran more hazzard, than in any time of their troubles. The Emperor of Constantinople, to oppress his neighbors, brought into Greece ten thousand Turks, who when the war was ended, could not be got out thence, which was the beginning of Greeces servitude under the Infidels. He then that will in no case be able to overcome, let him serve himself of these armes; for they are much more dangerous than the mercenaries; for by those thy ruine is more suddenly executed; for they are all united, and all bent to the obedience of another. But for the mercenaries to hurt thee, when they have vanquished, there is no more need of time, and greater occasion, they not being all united in a body, and being found out and paid by thee, wherein a third that thou mak'st their head, cannot suddenly gaine so great authority, that he can endammage thee. In summe, in the mercenaries their sloth and lazinesse to fight is more dangerous: in the auxiliaries their valour. Wherefore a wise Prince hath alwayes avoyded these kind of armes, and betaken himselfe to his owne, and desired rather to loss with his owne, than conquer with anothers, accounting that not a true victorie which was gotten with others armes. I will not doubt to alleadge Cæsar Borgia, and his actions. This Duke entred into Romania with auxiliarie armes, bringing with him all French souldiers: but afterwards not accounting those armes secure, bent himselfe to mercenaries, judging lesse danger to be in those, and tooke in pay the Orsini and the Vitelli, which afterwards in the proof of them, finding wavering, unfaithful, and dangerous, he extinguishd, and betook himselfe to his owne; and it may easily be perceiv'd what difference there is between the one and the other of these armes, considering the difference that was between the Dukes reputation, when he had the French men alone, and when he had the Orsini and Vitelli; but when he remaind with his own, and stood of himselfe, we shall find it was much augmented: nor ever was it of grate esteeme, but when every one saw, that he wholly possessed his owne armes. I thought not to have parted from the Italian examples of late memory; but that I must not let passe that of Hiero the Siracusan, being one of those I formerly nam'd. This man (as I said before) being made general of the Siracusans forces, knew presently that mercenary souldiery was nothing for their profit in that they were hirelings, as our Italians are; and finding no way either to hold, or cashier them made them all bee cut to peeces, and afterwards waged warre with his owne men, and none others. I will also call to memory a figure of the old Testament serving just to this purpose. When David presented himselfe before Saul to goe to fight with Goliah the Philistins Champion, Saul to encourage him, clad him with his owne armes, which David when he had them upon back, refused, saying, he was not able to make any proofe of himself therein, and therefore would goe meet the enemy with his own sling and sword. In summe, others armes either fall from thy shoulders, or cumber or streighten thee. Charls the seventh, Father of Lewis the eleventh, having by his good fortune and valour set France at liberty from the English, knew well this necessity of being arm'd with his owne armes, and settled in his Kingdome the ordinances of men at armes, and infantry. Afterwards King Lewis his sonne abolisht those of the infantry, and began to take the Swissers to pay; which errour follow'd by the others, is (as now indeed it appeares) the cause of that Kingdomes dangers. For having given reputation to the Swissers, they have renderd all their own armes contemptible; for this hath wholly ruind their foot, and oblig'd their men at armes to forrein armes: for being accustomed to serve with the Swissers, they think they are not able to overcome without them. From whence it comes that the French are not of force against the Swissers, and without them also against others they use not to adventure. Therefore are the French armies mixt, part mercenaries, and part natives, which armes are farre better than the simple mercenaries or simple auxiliaries, and much inferiour to the natives; and let the said example suffice for that: for the Kingdome of France would have been unconquerable, if Charles his order had been augmented and maintaind: but men in their small wisdome begin a thing, which then because it hath some favour of good, discovers not the poyson that lurkes thereunder, as I before said of the hectick feavers. Wherefore that Prince which perceives not mischiefes, but as they grow up, is not truely wise; and this is given but to few: and if we consider the first ruine of the Romane Empire, we shall find it was from taking the Goths first into their pay; for from that beginning the forces of the Romane Empire began to grow weak, and all the valour that was taken hence was given to them. I conclude then that without having armes of their owne, no Principality can be secure, or rather is wholly oblig'd to fortune, not having valour to shelter it in adversity. And it was alwayes the opinion and saying of wise men, that nothing is so weak and unsetled, as is the reputation of power not founded upon ones owne proper forces: which are those that are composed of thy subjects, or Citizens, or servants; all the rest are mercenary or auxiliary; and the manner how to order those well, is easie to find out, if those orders above nam'd by me, shall be but run over, and if it shall be but consider'd, how Philip Alexander the Great his Father, and in what manner many Republicks and Princes have armd and appointed themselves, to which appointments I referre my selfe wholly. CHAP. XIV What belongs to the Prince touching military Discipline. A prince then ought to have no other ayme, nor other thought, nor take any thing else for his proper art, but warr, and the orders and discipline thereof: for that is the sole arte which belongs to him that commands, and is of so great excellency, that not only those that are borne Princes, it maintains so; but many times raises men from a private fortune to that dignity. And it is seene by the contrary, that when Princes have given themselves more to their delights, than to the warres, they have lost their States; and the first cause that makes thee lose it, is the neglect of that arte; and the cause that makes thee gaine it, is that thou art experienc'd and approvd in that arte. Francis Sforza by being a man at armes, of a private man became Duke of Milan; and his sons by excusing themselves of the troubles and paines belonging to those imployments of Princes, became private men. For among other mischiefes thy neglect of armes brings upon thee, it causes thee to be contemnd, which is one of those disgraces, from which a Prince ought to keepe himselfe, as hereafter shall be sayd: for from one that is disarmd to one that is armd there is no proportion; and reason will not, that he who is in armes, should willingly yeeld obedience to him that is unfurnishd of them, and that he that is disarmd should be in security among his armed vassalls; for there being disdaine in the one, and suspicion in the other, it is impossible these should ever well cooperate. And therefore a Prince who is quite unexperienced in matter of warre, besides the other infelicities belonging to him, as is said, cannot be had in any esteeme among his souldiers, nor yet trust in them. Wherefore he ought never to neglect the practice of the arte of warre, and in time of peace should he exercise it more than in the warre; which he may be able to doe two wayes; the one practically, and in his labours and recreations of his body, the other theoretically. And touching the practick part, he ought besides the keeping of his own subjects well traind up in the discipline and exercise of armes, give himselfe much to the chase, whereby to accustome his body to paines, and partly to understand the manner of situations, and to know how the mountaines arise, which way the vallyes open themselves, and how the plaines are distended flat abroad, and to conceive well the nature of the rivers, and marrish ground, and herein to bestow very much care, which knowledge is profitable in two kinds: first he learnes thereby to know his own countrey, and is the better enabled to understand the defence thereof, and afterwards by meanes of this knowledge and experience in these situations, easily comprehends any other situation, which a new he hath need to view, for the little hillocks, vallies, plaines, rivers, and marrish places. For example, they in Tuscany are like unto those of other countries: so that from the knowledge of the site of one country, it is easie to attain to know that of others. And that Prince that wants this skill, failes of the principall part a Commander should be furnisht with; for this shows the way how to discover the enemy, to pitch the camp, to lead their armies, to order their battells, and also to besiege a town at thy best advantage, Philopomenes Prince of the Achayans, among other praises Writers give him, they say, that in time of peace, he thought not upon any thing so much as the practise of warre; and whensoever he was abroad in the field to disport himselfe with his friends, would often stand still, and discourse with them, in case the enemies were upon the top of that hill, and we here with our army, whether of us two should have the advantage, and how might we safely goe to find them, keeping still our orders; and if we would retire our selves, what course should we take if they retir'd, how should we follow them? and thus on the way, propounded them all such accidents could befall in any army; would heare their opinions, and tell his owne, and confirme it by argument; so that by his continuall thought hereupon, when ever he led any army no chance could happen, for which he had not a remedy. But touching the exercise of the mind, a Prince ought to read Histories, and in them consider the actions of the worthiest men, marke how they have behav'd themselves in the warrs, examine the occasions of their victories, and their losses; wherby they may be able to avoyd these, and obtaine those; and above all, doe as formerly some excellent man hath done, who hath taken upon him to imitate, if any one that hath gone before him hath left his memory glorious; the course he took, and kept alwaies near unto him the remembrances of his actions and worthy deeds: as it is said, that Alexander the great imitated Achilles; Cæsar Alexander, and Scipio Cyrus. And whoever reads the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon, may easily perceive afterwards in Scipio's life how much glory his imitation gaind him, and how much Scipio did conforme himselfe in his chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality with those things, that are written by Xenophon of Cyrus. Such like wayes ought a wise Prince to take, nor ever be idle in quiet times, but by his paines then, as it were provide himself of store, whereof he may make some use in his adversity, the end that when the times change, he may be able to resist the stormes of his hard fortune. CHAP. XV Of those things, in respect whereof, men, and especially Princes, are praised, or dispraised. It now remaines that we consider what the conditions of a Prince ought to be, and his termes of government over his subjects, and towards his friends. And because I know that many have written hereupon; I doubt, lest I venturing also to treat thereof, may be branded with presumption, especially seeing I am like enough to deliver an opinion different from others. But my intent being to write for the advantage of him that understands me, I thought it fitter to follow the effectuall truth of the matter, than the imagination thereof; And many Principalities and Republiques, have been in imagination, which neither have been seen nor knowne to be indeed: for there is such a distance between how men doe live, and how men ought to live; that he who leaves that which is done, for that which ought to be done, learnes sooner his ruine than his preservation; for that man who will professe honesty in all his actions, must needs goe to ruine among so many that are dishonest. Whereupon it is necessary for a Prince, desiring to preserve himselfe, to be able to make use of that honestie, and to lay it aside againe, as need shall require. Passing by then things that are only in imagination belonging to a Prince, to discourse upon those that are really true; I say that all men, whensoever mention is made of them, and especially Princes, because they are placed aloft in the view of all, are taken notice of for some of these qualities, which procure them either commendations or blame: and this is that some one is held liberal, some miserable, (miserable I say, nor covetous; for the covetous desire to have, though it were by rapine; but a miserable man is he, that too much for bears to make use of his owne) some free givers, others extortioners; some cruell, others pitious; the one a Leaguebreaker, another faithfull; the one effeminate and of small courage, the other fierce and couragious; the one courteous, the other proud; the one lascivious, the other chaste; the one of faire dealing, the other wily and crafty; the one hard, the other easie; the one grave, the other light; the one religious, the other incredulous, and such like. I know that every one will confesse, it were exceedingly praise worthy for a Prince to be adorned with all these above nam'd qualities that are good: but because this is not possible, nor doe humane conditions admit such perfection in vertues, it is necessary for him to be so discret, that he know how to avoid the infamie of those vices which would thrust him out of his State; and if it be possible, beware of those also which are not able to remove him thence; but where it cannot be, let them passe with lesse regard. And yet, let him not stand much upon it, though he incurre the infamie of those vices, without which he can very hardly save his State: for if all be throughly considerd, some thing we shall find which will have the colour and very face of Vertue, and following them, they will lead the to thy destruction; whereas some others that shall as much seeme vice, if we take the course they lead us, shall discover unto us the way to our safety and well-being. The second blemish in this our Authours book, I find in his fifteenth Chapter: where he instructs his Prince to use such an ambidexterity as that he may serve himselfe either of vertue, or vice, according to his advantage, which in true pollicy is neither good in attaining the Principality nor in securing it when it is attaind. For Politicks, presuppose Ethiques, which will never allow this rule: as that a man might make this small difference between vertue, and vice, that he may indifferently lay aside, or take up the one or the other, and put it in practise as best conduceth to the end he propounds himselfe. I doubt our Authour would have blamd Davids regard to Saul when 1 Sam. 24. in the cave he cut off the lap of Sauls garment, and spared his head; and afterwards in the 26. when he forbad Abishai to strike him as he lay sleeping. Worthy of a Princes consideration is that saying of Abigal to David 1 Sam. 25. 30. 'It shall come to passe when the Lord shall have done to my Lord according to all that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee Ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief to thee, nor offence of heart unto my Lord, that thou hast forborne to shed blood, etc.' For surely the conscience of this evill ground whereupon they have either built, or underpropped their tyranny, causes men, as well _metus_ as _spes in longum projicere_, which sets them a work on further mischiefe. CHAP. XVI Of Liberality, and Miserablenesse. Beginning then at the first of the above mentioned qualities, I say that it would be very well to be accounted liberall: neverthelesse, liberality used in such a manner, as to make thee be accounted so, wrongs thee: for in case it be used vertuously, and as it ought to be, it shall never come to be taken notice of, so as to free thee from the infamie of its contrary. And therefore for one to hold the name of liberal among men, it were needfull not to omit any sumptuous quality, insomuch that a Prince alwayes so dispos'd, shall waste all his revenues, and at the end shall be forc'd, if he will still maintaine that reputation of liberality, heavily to burthen his subjects, and become a great exactour; and put in practise all those things that can be done to get mony: Which begins to make him hatefull to his subjects, and fall into every ones contempt, growing necessitous: so that having with this liberality wrong'd many, and imparted of his bounty but to a few; he feels every first mischance, and runs a hazard of every first danger: Which he knowing, and desiring to withdraw himself from, incurs presently the disgrace of being termed miserable. A Prince therefore not being able to use this vertue of liberality, without his own damage, in such a sort, that it may be taken notice of, ought, if he be wise, not to regard the name of Miserable; for in time he shall alwaies be esteemed the more liberal, seeing that by his parsimony his own revenues are sufficient for him; as also he can defend himself against whoever makes war against him, and can do some exploits without grieving his subjects: so that he comes to use his liberality to all those, from whom he takes nothing, who are infinite in number; and his miserableness towards those to whom he gives nothing, who are but a few. In our dayes we have not seen any, but those who have been held miserable, do any great matters; but the others all quite ruin'd. Pope Julius the second, however he serv'd himself of the name of Liberal, to get the Papacy, yet never intended he to continue it, to the end he might be able to make war against the King of France: and he made so many wars without imposing any extraordinary tax, because his long thrift supplyed his large expences. This present King of Spain could never have undertaken, nor gone through with so many exploits, had he been accounted liberal. Wherefore a Prince ought little to regard (that he may not be driven to pillage his subjects, that he may be able to defend himself, that he may not fall into poverty and contempt, that he be not forced to become an extortioner) though he incurre the name of miserable; for this is one of those vices, which does not pluck him from his throne. And if any one should say, Cæsar by his liberality obtained the Empire, and many others (because they both were, and were esteemd liberal) attaind to exceeding great dignities. I answer, either thou art already come to be a Prince, or thou art in the way to it; in the first case, this liberality is hurtful; in the second, it is necessary to be accounted so; and Cæsar was one of those that aspired to the Principality of Rome. But if after he had gotten it, he had survived, and not forborne those expences, he would quite have ruined that Empire. And if any one should reply; many have been Princes, and with their armies have done great exploits, who have been held very liberal. I answer, either the Prince spends of his own and his subjects, or that which belongs to others: in the first, he ought to be sparing; in the second, he should not omit any part of liberality. And that Prince that goes abroad with his army, and feeds upon prey, and spoyle, and tributes, and hath the disposing of that which belongs to others, necessarily should use this liberality; otherwise would his soldiers never follow him; and of that which is neither thine, nor thy subjects, thou mayest well be a free giver, as were Cyrus, Cæsar and Alexander; for the spending of that which is anothers, takes not away thy reputation, but rather adds to it, only the wasting of that which is thine own hurts thee; nor is there any thing consumes itself so much as liberality, which whilest thou usest, thou losest the means to make use of it, and becomest poore and abject; or to avoid this poverty, an extortioner and hatefull person. And among all those things which a Prince ought to beware of is, to be dispised, and odious; to one and the other of which, liberality brings thee. Wherefore there is more discretion to hold the stile of Miserable, which begets an infamy without hatred, than to desire that of Liberal, whereby to incurre the necessity of being thought an extortioner, which procures an infamy with hatred. CHAP. XVII Of Cruelty, and Clemency, and whether it is better to be belov'd, or feard. Descending afterwards unto the other fore-alledged qualities, I say, that every Prince should desire to be held pitiful, and not cruel. Nevertheless ought he beware that he ill uses not this pitty. Cæsar Borgia was accounted cruel, yet had his cruelty redrest the disorders in Romania, setled it in union, and restored it to peace, and fidelity: which, if it be well weighed, we shall see was an act of more pitty, than that of the people of Florence, who to avoyd the terme of cruelty, suffered Pistoya to fall to destruction. Wherefore a Prince ought not to regard the infamy of cruelty, for to hold his subjects united and faithfull: for by giving a very few proofes of himself the other way, he shall be held more pittiful than they, who through their too much pitty, suffer disorders to follow, from whence arise murthers and rapines: for these are wont to hurt an intire universality, whereas the executions practised by a Prince, hurt only some particular. And among all sorts of Princes, it is impossible for a new Prince to avoyd the name of cruel, because all new States are full of dangers: whereupon Virgil by the mouth of Dido excuses the inhumanity of her Kingdom, saying, _Res dura et Regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri et latè fines custode tenere._ My hard plight and new State force me to guard My confines all about with watch and ward. Nevertheless ought he to be judicious in his giving belief to any thing, or moving himself thereat, nor make his people extreamly afraid of him; but proceed in a moderate way with wisdome, and humanity, that his too much confidence make him not unwary, and his too much distrust intolerable; from hence arises a dispute, whether it is better to be belov'd or feard: I answer, a man would wish he might be the one and the other: but because hardly can they subsist both together, it is much safer to be feard, than be loved; being that one of the two must needs fail; for touching men, we may say this in general, they are unthankful, unconstant, dissemblers, they avoyd dangers, and are covetous of gain; and whilest thou doest them good, they are wholly thine; their blood, their fortunes, lives and children are at thy service, as is said before, when the danger is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt. And that Prince who wholly relies upon their words, unfurnished of all other preparations, goes to wrack: for the friendships that are gotten with rewards, and not by the magnificence and worth of the mind, are dearly bought indeed; but they will neither keep long, nor serve well in time of need: and men do less regard to offend one that is supported by love, than by fear. For love is held by a certainty of obligation, which because men are mischievous, is broken upon any occasion of their own profit. But fear restrains with a dread of punishment which never forsakes a man. Yet ought a Prince cause himself to be belov'd in such a manner, that if he gains not love, he may avoid hatred: for it may well stand together, that a man may be feard and not hated; which shall never fail, if he abstain from his subjects goods, and their wives; and whensoever he should be forc'd to proceed against any of their lives, do it when it is to be done upon a just cause, and apparent conviction; but above all things forbeare to lay his hands on other mens goods; for men forget sooner the death of their father, than the loss of their patrimony. Moreover the occasions of taking from men their goods, do never fail: and alwaies he that begins to live by rapine, finds occasion to lay hold upon other mens goods: but against mens lives, they are seldome found, and sooner fail. But where a Prince is abroad in the field with his army, and hath a multitude of soldiers under his government, then is it necessary that he stands not much upon it, though he be termed cruel: for unless he be so, he shall never have his soldiers live in accord one with another, nor ever well disposed to any brave piece of service. Among Hannibals actions of mervail, this is reckoned for one, that having a very huge army, gathered out of several nations, and all led to serve in a strange countrey, there was never any dissention neither amongst themselves, nor against their General, as well in their bad fortune as their good. Which could not proceed from any thing else than from that barbarous cruelty of his, which together with his exceeding many vertues, rendred him to his soldiers both venerable and terrible; without which, to that effect his other vertues had served him to little purpose: and some writers though not of the best advised, on one side admire these his worthy actions, and on the otherside, condemn the principal causes thereof. And that it is true, that his other vertues would not have suffic'd him, we may consider in Scipio, the rarest man not only in the dayes he liv'd, but even in the memory of man; from whom his army rebel'd in Spain: which grew only upon his too much clemency, which had given way to his soldiers to become more licentious, than was well tollerable by military discipline: for which he was reprov'd by Fabius Maximus in the Senate, who termed him the corrupter of the Roman soldiery. The Locrensians having been destroyed by a Lieutenant of Scipio's, were never reveng'd by him, nor the insolence of that Lieutenant punisht; all this arising from his easie nature: so that one desiring to excuse him in the Senate, said, that there were many men knew better how to keep themselves from faults, than to correct the faults of other men: which disposition of his in time would have wrong'd Scipio's reputation and glory, had he therewith continu'd in his commands: but living under the government of the Senate, this quality of his that would have disgrac'd him not only was conceal'd, but prov'd to the advancement of his glory. I conclude then, returning to the purpose of being feard, and belov'd; insomuch as men love at their own pleasure, and to serve their own turne, and their fear depends upon the Princes pleasure, every wise Prince ought to ground upon that which is of himself, and not upon that which is of another: only this, he ought to use his best wits to avoid hatred, as was said. CHAP. XVIII In what manner Princes ought to keep their words. How commendable in a Prince it is to keep his word, and live with integrity, not making use of cunning and subtlety, every one knows well: yet we see by experience in these our dayes, that those Princes have effected great matters, who have made small reckoning of keeping their words, and have known by their craft to turne and wind men about, and in the end, have overcome those who have grounded upon the truth. You must then know, there are two kinds of combating or fighting; the one by right of the laws, the other meerly by force. That first way is proper to men, the other is also common to beasts: but because the first many times suffices not, there is a necessity to make recourse to the second; wherefore it behooves a Prince to know how to make good use of that part which belongs to a beast, as well as that which is proper to a man. This part hath been covertly shew'd to Princes by ancient writers; who say that Achilles and many others of those ancient Princes were intrusted to Chiron the Senator, to be brought up under his discipline: the moral of this, having for their teacher one that was half a beast and half a man, was nothing else, but that it was needful for a Prince to understand how to make his advantage of the one and the other nature, because neither could subsist without the other. A Prince then being necessitated to know how to make use of that part belonging to a beast, ought to serve himself of the conditions of the Fox and the Lion; for the Lion cannot keep himself from snares, nor the Fox defend himself against the Wolves. He had need then be a Fox, that he may beware of the snares, and a Lion that he may scare the wolves. Those that stand wholly upon the Lion, understand not well themselves. And therefore a wise Prince cannot, nor ought not keep his faith given when the observance thereof turnes to disadvantage, and the occasions that made him promise, are past. For if men were all good, this rule would not be allowable; but being they are full of mischief, and would not make it good to thee, neither art thou tyed to keep it with them: nor shall a Prince ever want lawfull occasions to give colour to this breach. Very many modern examples hereof might be alledg'd, wherein might be shewed how many peaces concluded, and how many promises made, have been violated and broken by the infidelity of Princes; and ordinarily things have best succeeded with him that hath been nearest the Fox in condition. But it is necessary to understand how to set a good colour upon this disposition, and to be able to fain and dissemble throughly; and men are so simple, and yeeld so much to the present necessities, that he who hath a mind to deceive, shall alwaies find another that will be deceivd. I will not conceal any one of the examples that have been of late. Alexander the sixth, never did any thing else than deceive men, and never meant otherwise, and alwaies found whom to work upon; yet never was there man would protest more effectually, nor aver any thing with more solemn oaths, and observe them less than he; nevertheless, his cousenages all thriv'd well with him; for he knew how to play this part cunningly. Therefore is there no necessity for a Prince to be endued with all above written qualities, but it behooveth well that he seem to be so; or rather I will boldly say this, that having these qualities, and alwaies regulating himself by them, they are hurtfull; but seeming to have them, they are advantageous; as to seem pittiful, faithful, mild, religious, and of integrity, and indeed to be so; provided withall thou beest of such a composition, that if need require to use the contrary, thou canst, and knowest how to apply thy self thereto. And it suffices to conceive this, that a Prince, and especially a new Prince, cannot observe all those things, for which men are held good; he being often forc'd, for the maintenance of his State, to do contrary to his faith, charity, humanity, and religion: and therefore it behooves him to have a mind so disposd, as to turne and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes; and as formerly I said, not forsake the good, while he can; but to know how to make use of the evil upon necessity. A Prince then ought to have a special care, that he never let fall any words, but what are all season'd with the five above written qualities, and let him seem to him that sees and hears him, all pitty, all faith, all integrity, all humanity, all religion; nor is there any thing more necessary for him to seem to have, than this last quality: for all men in general judge thereof, rather by the sight, than by the touch; for every man may come to the sight of him, few come to the touch and feeling of him; yvery man may come to see what thou seemest, few come to perceive and understand what thou art; and those few dare not oppose the opinion of many, who have the majesty of State to protect them: And in all mens actions, especially those of Princes wherein there is no judgement to appeale unto men, forbeare to give their censures, till the events and ends of things. Let a Prince therefore take the surest courses he can to maintain his life and State: the means shall alwaies be thought honorable, and commended by every one; for the vulgar is over-taken with the appearance and event of a thing: and for the most part of people, they are but the vulgar: the others that are but few, take place where the vulgar have no subsisteance. A Prince there is in these dayes, whom I shall not do well to name, that preaches nothing else but peace and faith; but had he kept the one and the other, several times had they taken from him his state and reputation. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth Chap, our Author descends to particulars, perswading his Prince in his sixteenth to such a suppleness of disposition, as that upon occasion he can make use either of liberality or miserableness, as need shall require. But that of liberality is to last no longer than while he is in the way to some designe: which if he well weigh, is not really a reward of vertue, how ere it seems; but a bait and lure to bring birds to the net. In the seventeenth Chap, he treats of clemency and cruelty, neither of which are to be exercis'd by him as acts of mercy or justice; but as they may serve to advantage his further purposes. And lest the Prince should incline too much to clemency, our Author allows rather the restraint by fear, than by love. The contrary to which all stories shew us. I will say this only, cruelty may cut of the power of some, but causes the hatred of all, and gives a will to most to take the first occasion offerd for revenge. In the eighteenth Chap, our Author discourses how Princes ought to govern themselves in keeping their promises made: whereof he sayes they ought to make such small reckoning, as that rather they should know by their craft how to turne and wind men about, whereby to take advantage of all winds and fortunes. To this I would oppose that in the fifteenth Psal. v. 5. He that sweareth to his neighbor, and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hindrance. It was a King that writ it, and me thinks the rule he gave, should well befit both King and Subject: and surely this perswades against all taking of advantages. A man may reduce all the causes of faith-breaking to three heads. One may be, because he that promised, had no intention to keep his word; and this is a wicked and malitious way of dealing. A second may bee, because hee that promisd, repents of his promise made; and that is grounded on unconstancy, and lightness in that he would not be well resolved before he entred into covenant. The third may be, when it so falls out, that it lyes not in his power that made the promise to performe it. In which case a man ought to imitate the good debter, who having not wherewithall to pay, hides not himself, but presents his person to his creditor, willingly suffering imprisonment. The first and second are very vitious and unworthy of a Prince: in the third, men might well be directed by the examples of those two famous Romans, Regulus and Posthumius. I shall close this with the answer of Charles the fifth, when he was pressed to break his word with Luther for his safe return from Wormes; _Fides rerum promissarum etsi toto mundo exulet, tamen apud imperatorem cam consistere oportet_. Though truth be banisht out of the whole world, yet should it alwaies find harbour in an Emperors breast. [Sidenote: _Gulielmus Xenocarus_ in vit. Car. Quinti.] CHAP. XIX That Princes should take a care, not to incurre contempt or hatred. But because among the qualities, whereof formerly mention is made, I have spoken of those of most importance, I will treat of the others more briefly under these qualityes that a Prince is to beware, as in part is above-said, and that he fly those things which cause him to be odious or vile: and when ever he shall avoid this, he shall fully have plaid his part, and in the other disgraces he shall find no danger at all. There is nothing makes him so odious, as I said, as his extortion of his subjects goods, and abuse of their women, from which he ought to forbear; and so long as he wrongs not his whole people, neither in their goods, nor honors, they live content, and he hath only to strive with the Ambition of some few: which many waies and easily too, is restrain'd. To be held various, light, effeminate, faint-hearted, unresolv'd, these make him be contemnd and thought base, which a Prince should shun like rocks, and take a care that in all his actions there appear magnanimity, courage, gravity, and valor; and that in all the private affairs of his subjects, he orders it so, that his word stand irrevocable: and maintain himself in such repute, that no man may think either to deceive or wind and turn him about: that Prince that gives such an opinion of himself, is much esteemed, and against him who is so well esteemed, hardly are any conspiracies made by his subjects, or by forreiners any invasion, when once notice is taken of his worth, and how much he is reverenced by his subjects: For a Prince ought to have two fears, the one from within, in regard of his subjects; the other from abroad, in regard of his mighty neighbors; from these he defends himself by good armes and good friends; and alwayes he shall have good friends, if he have good armes; and all things shall alwaies stand sure at home, when those abroad are firme, in case some conspiracy have not disturbed them; and however the forrein matters stand but ticklishly; yet if he have taken such courses at home, and liv'd as we have prescribed, he shall never be able (in case he forsake not himself) to resist all possibility, force and violence, as I said Nabis the Spartan did: but touching his subjects, even when his affairs abroad are setled, it is to be fear'd they may conspire privily; from which a Prince sufficiently secure himself by shunning to be hated or contemned, and keeping himself in his peoples good opinion, which it is necessary for him to compass, as formerly we treated at large. And one of the powerfullest remedies a Prince can have against conspiracies, is, not to be hated nor dispised by the universality; for alwaies he that conspires, beleeves the Princes death is acceptable to the subject: but when he thinks it displeases them, he hath not the heart to venture on such a matter; for the difficulties that are on the conspirators side, are infinite. By experience it is plain, that many times plots have been laid, but few of them have succeeded luckily; for he that conspires, cannot be alone, nor can he take the company of any, but of those, who he beleeves are malecontents; and so soon as thou hast discover'd thy self to a malecontent, thou givest him means to work his own content: for by revealing thy treason, he may well hope for all manner of favour: so that seeing his gain certain of one side; and on the other, finding only doubt and danger, either he had need be a rare friend, or that he be an exceeding obstinate enemy to the Prince, if he keeps his word with thee. And to reduce this matter into short termes: I say, there is nothing but jealousie, fear, and suspect of punishment on the conspirators part to affright him; but on the Princes part, there is the majesty of the principality, the laws, the defences of his friends and the State, which do so guard him, that to all these things the peoples good wills being added, it is unpossible any one should be so head-strong as to conspire; for ordinarily where a traytor is to feare before the execution of his mischiefe, in this case he is also to feare afterwards, having the people for his enemy when the fact is commited, and therefore for this cause, not being able to hope for any refuge. Touching this matter, many examples might be brought; but I will content my selfe to name one which fell out in the memory of our Fathers. Annibal Bentivolii, grand Father of this Annibal who now lives, that was Prince in Bolonia, being slaine by the Canneschi that conspir'd against him, none of his race being left, but this John, who was then in swadling clouts; presently the people rose upon this murder, and slew all the Canneschi which proceeded from the popular affection, which the family of the Bentivolii held then in Bolonia: which was so great, that being there remain'd not any, now Anniball was dead, that was able to manage the State; and having notice that in Florence there was one borne of the Bentivolii, who till then was taken for a Smiths sonne: the citizens of Bolonia went to Florence for him, and gave the government of their City to him, which was rul'd by him, untill John was of fit yeares to governe. I conclude then, that a Prince ought to make small account of treasons, whiles he hath the people to friend: but if they be his enemies and hate him, he may well feare every thing, and every one. And well ordered States, and discreet Princes have taken care withall diligence, not to cause their great men to fall into desperation, and to content the people, and so to maintaine them: for this is one of the most important businesses belonging to a Prince. Among the Kingdomes that are well orderd and governd in our dayes, is that of France, and therein are found exceeding many good orders, whereupon the Kings liberty and security depends: of which the chiefe is the Parliament, and the authority thereof: for he that founded that Kingdome, knowing the great mens ambition and insolence; and judgeing it necessary there should be a bridle to curbe them; and on the other side knowing the hatred of the Commonalty against the great ones, grounded upon feare, intending to secure them, would not lay this care wholly upon the King, but take this trouble from him, which he might have with the great men, in case he favourd the Commonalty; or with the Commonalty, in case he favourd the great men; and thereupon set up a third judge, which was that, to the end it should keep under the great ones, and favour the meaner sort, without any imputation to the King. It was not possible to take a better, nor wiser course then this; nor a surer way to secure the King, and the Kingdome. From whence we may draw another conclusion worthie of note, that Princes ought to cause others to take upon them the matters of blame and imputation; and upon themselves to take only those of grace and favour. Here againe I conclude, that a Prince ought to make good esteeme of his Nobility; but not thereby to incur the Commons hatred: It would seeme perhaps to many, considering the life and death of many Romane Emperours, that they were examples contrary to my opinion, finding that some have liv'd worthily, and shewd many rare vertues of the minde, and yet have lost the Empire, and been put to death by their owne subjects, conspiring against them. Intending then to answer these objections, I shall discourse upon the qualities of some Emperours, declaring the occasions of their ruine, not disagreeing from that which I have alledgd; and part thereof I will bestow on the consideration of these things, which are worthy to be noted by him that reads the actions of those times: and it shall suffice me to take all those Emperours that succeeded in the Empire from Marcus the Philosopher to Maximinus, who were Mercus and Commodus his sonne, Pertinax, Julian, Severus, Antonius, Caracalla his sonne, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximin. And first it is to be noted, that where in the other Principalities, they are to contend only with the ambition of the Nobles, and the insolence of the people; the Romane Emperours had a third difficulty, having to support the cruelty and covetousnesse of the souldiers, which was so hard a thing, that it caused the ruine of many, being hard to satisfy the souldiers, and the people; for the people love their quiet, and therefore affect modest Princes; and the souldiers love a Prince of a warlike courage, that is insolent, cruell, and plucking from every one: which things they would have them exercise upon the people, whereby they might be able to double their stipends, and satisfie their avarice and cruelty: whence it proceeds, that those Emperours who either by Nature or by Art, had not such a reputation, as therewith they could curbe the one and the other, were alwayes ruind: and the most of them, specially those who as new men came to the principality, finding the difficulty of those two different humours, applyed themselves to content the souldiers, making small account of wronging the people, which was a course then necessary; for the Princes not being able to escape the hatred of every one, ought first endeavour that they incurre not the hatred of any whole universality; and when they cannot attaine thereunto, they are to provide with all industry, to avoyd the hatred of those universalities that are the most mighty. And therefore those Emperors, who because they were but newly call'd to the Empire, had need of extraordinary favours, more willingly stuck to the soldiers, than to the people; which neverthelesse turnd to their advantage, or otherwise, according as that Prince knew how to maintaine his repute with them. From these causes aforesayd proceeded it, that Marcus Pertinax, and Alexander, though all living modestly, being lovers of justice, and enemies of cruelty, courteous and bountifull, had all from Marcus on ward, miserable ends; Marcus only liv'd and dy'd exceedingly honoured: for he came to the Empire by inheritance, and was not to acknowledge it either from the soldiers, nor from the people: afterwards being accompanyed with many vertues, which made him venerable, he held alwayes whilst he liv'd the one and the other order within their limits, and was never either hated, or contemnd. But Pertinax was created Emperour against the soldiers wills, who being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus, could not endure that honest course that Pertinax sought to reduce them to: Whereupon having gotten himself hatred, and to this hatred added contempt, in that he was old, was ruind in the very beginning of his government. Whence it ought to be observed, that hatred is gaind as well by good deeds as bad; and therefore as I formerly said, when a Prince would maintaine the State, he is often forced not to be good: for when that generality, whether it be the people, or soldiers, or Nobility, whereof thou thinkst thou standst in need to maintain thee, is corrupted, it behoves thee to follow their humour, and content them, and then all good deeds are thy adversaries. But let us come to Alexander who was of that goodnesse, that among the prayses given him, had this for one, that in fourteen yeers wherein he held the Empire, he never put any man to death, but by course of justice; neverthelesse being held effeminate, and a man that suffered himselfe to be ruled by his mother, and thereupon fallen into contempt, the army conspird against him. Now on the contrary discoursing upon the qualities of Commodus, Severus, Antonius, Caracalla, and Maximinus, you shall find them exceeding cruell, and ravinous, who to satisfie their soldiers, forbeare no kinde of injury that could be done upon the people; and all of them, except Severus, came to evill ends: for in Severus, there was such extraordinary valour, that while he held the soldiers his freinds, however the people were much burthend by him, he might alwayes reigne happily: for his valour rendred him so admirable in the souldiers and peoples sights; that these in a manner stood amazd and astonishd, and those others reverencing and honoring him. And because the actions of this man were exceeding great, being in a new Prince, I will briefly shew how well he knew to act the Foxes and the Lions parts; the conditions of which two, I say, as before, are very necessary for a Prince to imitate. Severus having had experience of Julian the Emperours sloth, perswaded his army (whereof he was commander in Sclavonia) that they should doe well to goe to Rome to revenge Pertinax his death, who was put to death by the Imperiall guard; and under this pretence, not making any shew that he aspird unto the Empire, set his army in march directly towards Rome, and was sooner come into Italy, than it was knowne he had mov'd from his station. Being ariv'd at Rome, he was by the Senate chosen Emperour for feare, and Julian slaine. After this beginning, two difficulties yet remaind to Severus, before he could make himselfe Lord of the whole State; the one in Asia, where Niger the Generall of those armies had gotten the title of Emperour, the other in the West with Albinus, who also aspird to the Empire: and because he thought there might be some danger to discover himselfe enemy to them both, he purposed to set upon Niger, and cozen Albinus, to whom he writ, that being elected Emperour by the Senate, he would willingly communicate it with him; and thereupon sent him the title of Cæsar, and by resolution of the Senate, tooke him to him for his Colleague; which things were taken by Albinus in true meaning. But afterwards when Severus had overcome and slaine Niger, and pacified the affaires and in the East, being returned to Rome, he complaind in the Senate of Albinus, how little weighing the benefits received from him, he had sought to slay him by treason, and therefore was he forc'd to goe punish his ingratitude: afterwards he went into France, where he bereft him both of his State and life, whoever then shall in particular examine his actions, shall finde he was a very cruell Lion, and as crafty a Fox: and shall see that he was alwayes feard and reverenc'd by every one, and by the armies not hated; and shall nothing marvell that he being a new man, was able to hold together such a great Empire: for his extraordinary reputation defended him alwayes from that hatred, which the people for his extortions might have conceiv'd against him. But Antonius his sonne, was also an exceeding brave man, and endued with most excellent qualities, which causd him to be admird by the people, and acceptable to the souldiers, because he was a warlike man, enduring all kind of travell and paines, despising all delicate food, and all kinde of effeminacy, which gaind him the love of all the armies: neverthelesse his fiercenesse and cruelty were such, and so hideous, having upon many particular occasions put to death a great part of the people of Rome, and all those of Alexandria, that he grew odious to the world, and began to be feard by those also that were neare about him; so that he was slaine by a Centurion in the very midst of his army. Where it is to be noted, that these kinde of deaths, which follow upon the deliberation of a resolv'd and obstinate minde, cannot by a Prince be avoyded: for every one that feares not to dye, is able to doe it; but a Prince ought to be lesse afraid of it because it very seldome falls out. Only should he beware not to doe any extreame injury to any of those of whom he serves himself, or that he hath near about him in any imployment of his Principality, as Antonius did: who had reproachfully slaine a brother of that Centurion; also threatned him every day, and neverthelesse entertaind him still as one of the guards of his body, which was a rash course taken, and the way to destruction, as befell him. But let us come to Commodus for whom it was very easie to hold the Empire, by reason it descended upon him by inheritance, being Marcus his sonne, and it had been enough for him to follow his fathers footsteps, and then had he contented both the people and the soldiers: but being of a cruell and savage disposition, whereby to exercise his actions upon the people, he gave himselfe to entertaine armies, and those in all licentiousnesse. On the other part not maintaining his dignity, but often descending upon the stages to combate with fencers, and doing such other like base things, little worthy of the Imperiall majesty, he became contemptible in the soldiers sight; and being hated of one part, and despisd of the other, he was conspird against, and slaine. It remaines now, that we declare Maximinus his conditions, who was a very warlike man; and the armies loathing Alexanders effeminacy, whereof I spake before, when they had slain him, chose this man Emperour, who not long continued so, because two things there were that brought him into hatred and contempt; the one because he was very base, having kept cattell in Thrace, which was well knowne to every one, and made them to scorne him; the other, because in the beginning of his Principality having delayd to goe to Rome, and enter into possession of the Imperiall throne, he had gaind the infamy of being thought exceeding cruell, having by his Prefects in Rome, and in every place of the Empire, exercisd many cruelties, insomuch that the whole world being provok'd against him to contempt for the basenesse of his blood; on the other side upon the hatred conceiv'd against him for feare of his crulty; first Affrica, afterwards the Senate, with all the people of Rome and all Italy, conspired against him, with whom his own army took part; which incamping before Aquileya, and finding some difficulty to take the town, being weary of his cruelties, and because they saw he had so many enemies, fearing him the lesse, slew him. I purpose not to say any thing either of Heliogabalus, Macrinus, or Julian, who because they were throughly base, were sudenly extinguished: but I will come to the conclusion of this discourse; and I say, that the Princes of our times have lesse of this difficulty to satisfie the Soldiers extraordinarily in their government; for notwithstanding that there be some considerations to be had of them, yet presently are those armies dissolved, because none of these Princes do use to maintaine any armies together, which are annex'd and inveterated with the governments of the provinces, as were the armies of the Romane Empire. And therefore if then it was necessary rather to content the soldiers than the people, it was because the soldiers were more powerfull than the people: now is it more necessary for all Princes, (except the Turk and the Souldan) to satisfie their people than their soldiers, because the people are more mighty than they; wherein I except the Turk, he alwayes maintaining about his person 12000 foot, and 15000 horse, upon which depends the safety and strength of his Kingdome; and it is necessary that laying aside all other regard of his people, he maintaine these his friends. The Souldans Kingdome is like hereunto, which being wholy in the souldiers power, he must also without respect of his people keep them his friends. And you are to consider, that this State of the Souldans differs much from all the other Principalities: For it is very like the Papacy, which cannot be termd an hereditary Principality: nor a new Principality: for the sons of the deceasd Prince are not heires and Lords thereof, but he that is chosen receives that dignity from those who have the authority in them. And this order being of antiquity, cannot be termd a new Principality, because therein are none of those difficulties that are in new ones: for though the Prince be new, yet are the orders of that state ancient, and ordaind to receive him, as if he were their hereditary Prince. But let us returne to our matter; whosoever shall consider our discourse before, shall perceive that either hatred, or contempt have caus'd the ruine of the afore-named Emperors; and shall know also, from it came that part of them proceeding one way, and part a contrary; yet in any of them the one had a happy success, and the others unhappy: for it was of no availe, but rather hurtful for Pertinax and Alexander, because they were new Princes, to desire to imitate Marcus, who by inheritance came to the Principality: and in like manner it was a wrong to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximus, to imitate Severus, because none of them were endued with so great valor as to follow his steps therein. Wherefore a new Prince in his Principality cannot well imitate Marcus his actions; nor yet is it necessary to follow those of Severus: but he ought make choyce of those parts in Severus which are necessary for the founding of a State; and to take from Marcus those that are fit and glorious to preserve a State which is already established and setled. CHAP. XX Whether the Citadels and many other things which Princes often make use of, are profitable or dammageable. Some Princes, whereby they might safely keep their State, have disarmed their subjects; some others have held the towns under their dominion, divided into factions; others have maintain'd enmities against themselves; others have appli'd themselves to gain them, where they have suspected at their entrance into the government; others have built Fortresses; and others again have ruined and demolished them: and however that upon all these things, a man cannot well pass a determinate sentence, unless one comes to the particulars of these States, where some such like determinations were to be taken; yet I shall speak of them in so large a manner, as the matter of it self will bear. It was never then that a new Prince would disarme his own subjects; but rather when he hath found them disarmed, he hath alwaies arm'd them. For being belov'd, those armes become thine; those become faithful, which thou hadst in suspicion; and those which were faithful, are maintaind so; and thy subjects are made thy partisans; and because all thy subjects cannot be put in armes, when thou bestowest favors on those thou armest, with the others thou canst deal more for thy safety; and that difference of proceeding which they know among them, obliges them to thee; those others excuse thee, judgeing it necessary that they have deservd more, who have undergone more danger, and so have greater obligation: but when thou disarmst them, thou beginst to offend them, that thou distrustest them, either for cowardise, or small faith; and the one or the other of those two opinions provokes their hatred against thee; and because thou canst not stand disarmed, thou must then turn thy self to mercenary Soldiery, whereof we have formerly spoken what it is, and when it is good; it can never be so much as to defend thee from powerful enemies, and suspected subjects; therefore as I have said, a new Prince in a new Principality hath alwaies ordaind them armes. Of examples to this purpose, Histories are full. But when a Prince gains a new State, which as a member he adds to his ancient dominions, then it is necessary to disarme that State, unless it be those whom thou hast discoverd to have assisted thee in the conquest thereof; and these also in time and upon occasions, it is necessary to render delicate and effeminate, and so order them, that all the arms of thy State be in the hands of thy own Soldiers, who live in thy ancient State near unto thee. Our ancestors and they that were accounted Sages, were wont to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoya in factions, and Pisa with Fortresses; and for this cause maintaind some towns subject to them in differences, whereby to hold it more easily. This, at what time Italy was ballanc'd in a certain manner, might be well done; but mee thinks it cannot now a dayes be well given for a precept; for I do not beleeve, that divisions made can do any good; rather it must needs be, that when the enemy approaches them, Cities divided are presently lost; for alwaies the weaker part will cleave to the forrein power, and the other not be able to subsist. The Venetians (as I think) mov'd by the aforesaid reasons, maintaind the factions of the Guelfes and Gibellins, in their townes; and however they never suffered them to spill one anothers blood, yet they nourish'd these differences among them, to the end that the citizens imployd in these quarrels, should not plot any thing against them: which as it proved, never serv'd them to any great purpose: for being defeated at Vayla, presently one of those two factions took courage and seizd upon their whole State. Therefore such like waies argue the Princes weakness; for in a strong principality they never will suffer such divisions; for they shew them some kind of profit in time of peace, being they are able by means thereof more easily to mannage their subjects: but war comming, such like orders discover their fallacy. Without doubt, Princes become great, when they overcome the difficulties and oppositions that are made against them; and therefore Fortune especially when she hath to make any new Prince great, who hath more need to gain reputation than an hereditary Prince, causes enemies to rise against him, and him to undertake against them: to the end he may have occasion to master them, and know that ladder, which his enemies have set him upon, whereby to rise yet higher. And therefore many think, that a wise Prince when he hath the occasion, ought cunningly to nourish some enmity, that by the suppressing thereof, his greatness may grow thereupon. Princes, especially those that are new, have found more faith and profit in those men, who in the beginning of their State, have been held suspected, than in those who at their entrance have been their confidents. Pandulphus Petrucci, Prince of Siena, governd his State, more with them that had been suspected by him, than with the others. But of this matter we cannot speak at large, because it varies according to the subject; I will only say this, that those men, who in the beginning of a Principality were once enemies, if they be of quality so that to maintain themselves they have need of support, the Prince might alwaies with the greatest facility gain for his; and they are the rather forced to serve him faithfully, insomuch as they know it is more necessary for them by their deeds to cancel that sinister opinion, which was once held of them; and so the Prince ever draws from these more advantage, than from those, who serving him too supinely, neglect his affairs. And seing the matter requires it, I will not omit to put a Prince in mind, who hath anew made himself master of a State, by means of the inward helps he had from thence that he consider well the cause that mov'd them that favor'd him to favor him, if it be not a natural affection towards him; for if it be only because they were not content with their former government, with much pains and difficulties shall he be able to keep them long his friends, because it will be impossible for him to content them. By these examples then which are drawn out of ancient and modern affaires, searching into the cause hereof, we shall find it much more easie to gain those men for friends, who formerly were contented with the State, and therefore were his enemies: than those, who because they were not contented therewith, became his fiends, and favor'd him in getting the mastery of it. It hath been the custome of Princes, whereby to hold their States more securely, to build Citadels, which might be bridles and curbs to those that should purpose any thing against them, and so to have a secure retreat from the first violences. I commend this course, because it hath been used of old; notwithstanding Nicholas Vitelli in our dayes hath been known to demolish two Citadels in the town of Castello, the better to keep the State; Guidubaldo Duke of Urbin being to return into his State, out of which he was driven by Cæsar Borgia, raz'd all the Fortresses of that Countrey, and thought he should hardlyer lose that State again without them. The Bentivolii returning into Bolonia, used the like courses. Citadels then are profitable, or not, according to the times; and if they advantage thee in one part, they do thee harme in another; and this part may be argued thus. That Prince who stands more in fear of his own people than of strangers, ought to build Fortresses: but he that is more afraid of strangers than of his people, should let them alone. Against the house of Sforza, the Castle of Milan, which Francis Sforza built, hath and will make more war, than any other disorder in that State: and therefore the best Citadel that may be, is not to incurre the peoples hatred; for however thou holdest a Fortress, and the people hate thee, thou canst hardly scape them; for people, when once they have taken armes, never want the help of strangers at their need to take ther parts. In our dayes we never saw that they ever profited any Prince, unless it were the Countess of Furli, when Count Hieronymo of Furli her husband was slain; for by means thereof she escap'd the peoples rage, and attended aid from Milan, and so recover'd her State: and then such were the times that the stranger could not assist the people: but afterwards they serv'd her to little purpose, when Cæsar Borgia assaild her, and that the people which was her enemy, sided with the stranger. Therefore both then, and at first, it would have been more for her safety, not to have been odious to the people, than to have held the Fortresses. These things being well weigh'd then, I will commend those that shall build up Fortresses, and him also that shall not; and I will blame him, howsoever he be, that relying upon those, shall make small account of being hated by his people. CHAP. XXI How a Prince ought to behave himself to gain reputation. There is nothing gains a Prince such repute as great exploits, and rare tryals of himself in Heroick actions. We have now in our dayes Ferdinand King of Arragon the present King of Spain: he in a manner may be termed a new Prince; for from a very weak King, he is now become for fame and glory, the first King of Christendome, and if you shall wel consider his actions, you shall find them all illustrious, and every one of them extraordinary. He in the beginning of his reign assaild Granada, and that exploit was the ground of his State. At first he made that war in security, and without suspicion he should be any waies hindred, and therein held the Barons of Castiglias minds busied, who thinking upon that war, never minded any innovation; in this while he gaind credit and authority with them, they not being aware of it; was able to maintain with the Church and the peoples money all his soldiers, and to lay a foundation for his military ordinances with that long war, which afterwards gaind him exceeding much honor. Besides this, to the end he might be able hereamong to undertake greater matters, serving himself alwaies of the colour of religion, he gave himself to a kind of religious cruelty, chasing and dispoyling those Jewes out of the Kingdome; nor can this example be more admirable and rare: under the same cloke he invaded Affrick and went through with his exploit in Italy: and last of all hath he assaild France, and so alwaies proceeded on forwards contriving of great matters, which alwaies have held his subjects minds in peace and admiration, and busied in attending the event, what it should be: and these his actions have thus grown, one upon another, that they have never given leisure to men so to rest, as they might ever plot any thing against them. Moreover it much avails a Prince to give extraordinary proofes of himself touching the government within, such as those we have heard of Bernard of Milan, whensoever occasion is given by any one, that may effectuate some great thing either of good or evil, in the civil government; and to find out some way either to reward or punish it, whereof in the world much notice may be taken. And above all things a Prince ought to endeavor in all his actions to spread abroad a fame of his magnificence and worthiness. A Prince also is well esteemed, when he is a true friend, or a true enemy; when without any regard he discovers himself in favor of one against another; which course shall be alwaies more profit, than to stand neuter: for if two mighty ones that are thy neighbors, come to fall out, or are of such quality, that one of them vanquishing, thou art like to be in fear of the vanquisher, or not; in either of these two cases, it will ever prove more for thy profit, to discover thy self, and make a good war of it: for in the first case, if thou discoverest not thy selfe, thou shalt alwaies be a prey to him that overcomes, to the contentment and satisfaction of the vanquisht; neither shalt thou have reason on thy side, nor any thing else to defend or receive thee. For he that overcomes, will not have any suspected friends that give him no assistance in his necessity: and he that loses, receives thee not, because thou wouldest not with thy armes in hand run the hazzard of his fortune. Antiochus passed into Greece, thereunto induc'd by the Etolians, to chace the Romans thence: and sent his Ambassadors to the Achayans, who were the Romans friends, to perswade them to stand neuters; on the other side the Romans moved them to joyne armes with theirs: this matter came to be deliberated on in the council of the Achayans, where Antiochus his Ambassador encouraged them to stand neuters, whereunto the Romans Ambassador answerd; Touching the course, that is commended to you, as best and profitablest for your State, to wit, not to intermeddle in the war between us, nothing can be more against you: because, not taking either part, you shall remain without thanks, and without reputation a prey to the conqueror. And it will alwaies come to pass that he who is not thy friend, will requite thy neutrality; and he that is thy friend, will urge thee to discover thy self by taking arms for him: and evil advised Princes; to avoyd the present dangers, folow often times that way of neutrality, and most commonly go to ruine: but when a Prince discovers himself strongly in favor of a party; if he to whom thou cleavest, overcomes; however that he be puissant, and thou remainest at his disposing, he is oblig'd to thee, and there is a contract of friendship made; and men are never so openly dishonest, as with such a notorious example of dishonesty to oppress thee. Besides victories are never so prosperous, that the conqueror is like neglect all respects, and especially of justice. But if he to whom thou stickst, loses, thou art received by him; and, while he is able, he aydes thee, and so thou becomest partner of a fortune that may arise again; the second case, when they that enter into the lists together, are of such quality, that thou needest not fear him that vanquisheth, so much the more is it discretion in thee to stick to him; for thou goest to ruine one with his assistance, who ought to do the best he could to save him, if he were well advised; and he overcomming, is left at thy discretion; and it is unpossible but with thy ayd he must overcome. And here it is to be noted, that a Prince should be well aware never to joyn with any one more powerfull than himself, to offend another, unless upon necessity, as formerly is said. For when he overcomes, thou art left at his discretion, and Princes ought avoid as much as they are able, to stand at anothers discretion. The Venetians took part with France against the Duke of Milan, and yet could have avoided that partaking, from which proceeded their ruine. But when it cannot be avoyded, as it befel the Florentines when the Pope and the King of Spain went both with their armies to Lombardy, there the Prince ought to side with them for the reasons aforesaid. Nor let any State think they are able to make such sure parties, but rather that they are all doubtfull; for in the order of things we find it alwaies, that whensoever a man seeks to avoid one inconvenient, he incurs another. But the principal point of judgement, is in discerning between the qualities of inconvenients, and not taking the bad for the good. Moreover a Prince ought to shew himself a lover of vertue, and that he honors those that excel in every Art. Afterwards ought he encourage his Citizens, whereby they may be enabled quickly to exercise their faculties as well in merchandise, and husbandry, as in any other kind of traffick, to the end that no man forbear to adorne and cultivate his possessions for fear that he be despoyled of them; or any other to open the commerce upon the danger of heavy impositions: but rather to provide rewards for those that shall set these matters afoot, or for any one else that shall any way amplifie his City or State. Besides he ought in the fit times of the year entertain the people with Feasts and Maskes; and because every City is devided into Companies, and arts, and Tribes, he ought to take special notice of those bodies, and some times afford them a meeting, and give them some proof of his humanity, and magnificence; yet withall holding firme the majestie of his State; for this must never fail in any case. CHAP. XXII Touching Princes Secretaries. It is no small importance to a Prince, the choyce he makes, of servants being ordinarily good or bad, as his wisdome is. And the first conjecture one gives of a great man, and of his understanding, is, upon the sight of his followers and servants he hath about him, when they prove able and faithful, and then may he alwaies be reputed wise because he hath known how to discern those that are able, and to keep them true to him. But when they are otherwise, there can be no good conjecture made of him; for the first error he commits, is in this choyce. There was no man that had any knowledge of Antonio of Vanafro, the servant of Pandulfus Petrucci Prince of Sicily, who did not esteem Pandulfus for a very discreet man, having him for his servant. And because there are three kinds of understandings; the one that is advised by it self; the other that understands when it is informed by another; the third that neither is advised by it self nor by the demonstration of another; the first is best, the second is good, and the last quite unprofitable. Therefore it was of necessity, that if Pandulfus attaind not the first degree, yet he got to the second; for whenever any one hath the judgement to discerne between the good and the evil, that he does and sayes, however that he hath not his distinction from himself, yet still comes he to take notice of the good or evil actions of that servant; and those he cherishes, and these he suppresses; insomuch that the servant finding no means to deceive his master, keeps himself upright and honest. But how a Prince may throughly understand his servant, here is the way that never fails. When thou seest the servant study more for his own advantage than thine, and that in all his actions, he searches most after his own profit; this man thus qualified, shall never prove good servant, nor canst thou ever relie upon him: for he that holds the Sterne of the State in hand, ought never call home his cares to his own particular, but give himself wholly over to his Princes service, nor ever put him in minde of any thing not appertaining to him. And on the other side the Prince to keep him good to him, ought to take a care for his servant, honoring him, enriching, and obliging him to him, giving him part both of dignities and offices, to the end that the many honors and much wealth bestowed on him, may restrain his desires from other honors, and other wealth, and that those many charges cause him to fear changes that may fall, knowing he is not able to stand without his master. And when both the Princes and the servants are thus disposed, they may rely the one upon the other: when otherwise, the end will ever prove hurtfull for the one as well as for the other. CHAP. XXIII That Flatterers are to be avoyded. I will not omit one principle of great inportance, being an errour from which Princes with much difficulty defend themselves, unlesse they be very discreet, and make a very good choice; and this is concerning flatterers; whereof all writings are full: and that because men please themselves so much in their own things, and therein cozen themselves, that very hardly can they escape this pestilence; and desiring to escape it, there is danger of falling into contempt; for there is no other way to be secure from flattery, but to let men know, that they displease thee not in telling thee truth: but when every one hath this leave, thou losest thy reverence. Therefore ought a wise Prince take a third course, making choyce of some understanding men in his State, and give only to them a free liberty of speaking to him the truth; and touching those things only which he inquires of, and nothing else; but he ought to be inquisitive of every thing, and hear their opinions, and then afterwards advise himself after his own manner; and in these deliberations, and with every one of them so carrie himself, that they all know, that the more freely they shall speak, the better they shall be liked of: and besides those, not give eare to any one; and thus pursue the thing resolved on, and thence continue obstinate in the resolution taken. He who does otherwise, either falls upon flatterers, or often changes upon the varying of opinions, from whence proceeds it that men conceive but slightly of him. To this purpose I will alledge you a moderne example. Peter Lucas a servant of Maximilians the present Emperor, speaking of his Majesty, said that he never advised with any body, nor never did any thing after his own way: which was because he took a contrary course to what we have now said: for the Emperor is a close man, who communicates his secrets to none, nor takes counsel of any one; but as they come to be put in practise, they begin to be discovered and known, and so contradicted by those that are near about him; and he as being an easy man, is quickly wrought from them. Whence it comes that what he does to day, he undoes on the morrow; and that he never understands himself what he would, nor what he purposes, and that there is no grounding upon any of his resolutions. A Prince therefore ought alwayes to take counsell, but at his owne pleasure, and not at other mens; or rather should take away any mans courage to advise him of any thing, but what he askes: but he ought well to aske at large, and then touching the things inquird of, be a patient hearer of the truth; and perceiving that for some respect the truth were conceald from him, be displeased thereat. And because some men have thought that a Prince that gaines the opinion to bee wise, may bee held so, not by his owne naturall indowments, but by the good counsells he hath about him; without question they are deceivd; for this is a generall rule and never failes, that a Prince who of himselfe is not wise, can never be well advised, unlesse he should light upon one alone, wholly to direct and govern him, who himself were a very wise man. In this case it is possible he may be well governd: but this would last but little: for that governor in a short time would deprive him of his State; but a Prince not having any parts of nature, being advised of more then one, shall never be able to unite these counsels: of himself shall he never know how to unite them; and each one of the Counsellers, probably will follow that which is most properly his owne; and he shall never find the meanes to amend or discerne these things; nor can they fall out otherwise, because men alwayes prove mischievous, unlesse upon some necessity they be forc'd to become good: we conclude therefore, that counsells from whencesoever they proceed, must needs take their beginning from the Princes wisdome, and not the wisdome of the Prince from good counsells. In this Chapter our Authour prescribes some rules how to avoyd flattery, and not to fall into contempt. The extent of these two extreames is so large on both sides, that there is left but a very narrow path for the right temper to walke between them both: and happy were that Prince, who could light on so good a Pilote as to bring him to Port between those rocks and those quicksands. Where Majesty becomes familiar, unlesse endued with a super-eminent vertue, it loses all awfull regards: as the light of the Sunne, because so ordinary, because so common, we should little value, were it not that all Creatures feele themselves quickned by the rayes thereof. On the other side, _Omnis insipiens arrogantiâ et plausibus capitur_, Every foole is taken with his owne pride and others flatteryes: and this foole keeps company so much with all great wise men, that hardly with a candle and lantern can they be discernd betwixt. The greatest men are more subject to grosse and palpable flatteries; and especially the greatest of men, who are Kings and Princes: for many seek the Rulers favour. _Prov._ 28. 26. For there are divers meanes whereby private men are instructed; Princes have not that good hap: but they whose instruction is of most importance, so soone as they have taken the government upon them, no longer suffer any reproovers: for but few have accesse unto them, and they who familiary converse with them, doe and say all for favour. Isocrat, to Nicocles, All are afraid to give him occasion of displeasure, though by telling him truth. To this purpose therefore sayes one; a Prince excells in learning to ride the great horse, rather than in any other exercise, because his horse being no flatterer, will shew him he makes no difference between him and another man, and unlesse he keepe his seate well, will lay him on the ground. This is plaine dealing. Men are more subtile, more double-hearted, they have a heart and a heart neither is their tongue their hearts true interpreter. Counsell in the heart of man is like deepe waters; but a man of understanding will draw it out. _Prov._ 20. 5. This understanding is most requisite in a Prince, inasmuch as the whole Globe is in his hand, and the inferiour Orbes are swayed by the motion of the highest. And therefore surely it is the honour of a King to search out such a secret: _Prov._ 25. 2. His counsellours are his eyes and eares; as they ought to be dear to him, so they ought to be true to him, and make him the true report of things without disguise. If they prove false eyes, let him pluck them out; he may as they use glasse eyes, take them forth without paine, and see never a whit the worse for it. The wisdome of a Princes Counsellours is a great argument of the Princes wisdome. And being the choyce of them imports the Princes credit and safety, our Authour will make him amends for his other errours by his good advice in his 22 Chap. whether I referre him. CHAP. XXIV Wherefore the Princes of Italy have lost their States. When these things above said are well observ'd, they make a new Prince seeme as if he had been of old, and presently render him more secure and firme in the State, than if he had already grown ancient therein: for a new Prince is much more observd in his action, than a Prince by inheritance; and when they are known to bee vertuous, men are much more gaind and oblig'd to them thereby, than by the antiquity of their blood: for men are much more taken by things present, than by things past, and when in the present they find good, they content themselves therein, and seeke no further; or rather they undertake the defence of him to their utmost, when the Prince is not wanting in other matters to himself; and so shall he gaine double glory to have given a beginning to a new Principality, adornd, and strengthnd it with good lawes, good arms, good friends, and good examples; as he shall have double shame, that is born a Prince, and by reason of his small discretion hath lost it. And if we shall consider those Lords, that in Italy have lost their States in our dayes, as the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and others; first we shall find in them a common defect, touching their armes, for the reasons which have been above discoursd at length. Afterwards we shall see some of them, that either shall have had the people for their enemies; or be it they had the people to friend, could never know how to assure themselves of the great ones: for without such defects as these, States are not lost, which have so many nerves, that they are able to maintaine an army in the feld. Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander the Great, but he that was vanquished by Titus Quintius, had not much State in regard of the greatnesse of the Romanes and of Greece that assail'd him; neverthelesse in that he was a warlike man and knew how to entertaine the people, and assure himself of the Nobles, for many yeares he made the warre good against them: and though at last some town perhaps were taken from him, yet the Kingdome remaind in his hands still. Wherefore these our Princes who for many yeares had continued in their Principalities, for having afterwards lost them, let them not blame Fortune, but their own sloth; because they never having thought during the time of quiet, that they could suffer a change (which is the common fault of men, while faire weather lasts, not to provide for the tempest) when afterwards mischiefes came upon them, thought rather upon flying from them, than upon their defence, and hop'd that the people, weary of the vanquishers insolence, would recall them: which course when the others faile, is good: but very ill is it to leave the other remedies for that: for a man wou'd never go to fall, beleeving another would come to take him up: which may either not come to passe, or if it does, it is not for thy security, because that defence of his is vile, and depends not upon thee; but those defences only are good, certaine, and durable, which depend upon thy owne selfe, and thy owne vertues. CHAP. XXV How great power Fortune hath in humane affaires, and what meanes there is to resist it. It is not unknown unto me, how that many have held opinion, and still hold it, that the affaires of the world are so governd by fortune, and by God, that men by their wisdome cannot amend or alter them; or rather that there is no remedy for them: and hereupon they would think that it were of no availe to take much paines in any thing, but leave all to be governd by chance. This opinion hath gain'd the more credit in our dayes, by reason of the great alteration of things, which we have of late seen, and do every day see, beyond all humane conjecture: upon which, I sometimes thinking, am in some parte inclind to their opinion: neverthelesse not to extinguish quite our owne free will, I think it may be true, that Fortune is the mistrisse of one halfe of our actions; but yet that she lets us have rule of the other half, or little lesse. And I liken her to a precipitous torrent, which when it rages, over-flows the plaines, overthrowes the trees, and buildings, removes the earth from one side, and laies it on another, every one flyes before it, every one yeelds to the fury thereof, as unable to withstand it; and yet however it be thus, when the times are calmer, men are able to make provision against these excesses, with banks and fences so, that afterwards when it swels again, it shall all passe smoothly along, within its channell, or else the violence thereof shall not prove so licentious and hurtfull. In like manner befals it us with fortune, which there shewes her power where vertue is not ordeind to resist her, and thither turnes she all her forces, where she perceives that no provisions nor resistances are made to uphold her. And if you shall consider Italy, which is the seat of these changes, and that which hath given them their motions, you shall see it to be a plaine field, without any trench or bank; which had it been fenc'd with convenient vertue as was Germany, Spain or France; this inundation would never have causd these great alterations it hath, or else would it not have reach'd to us: and this shall suffice to have said, touching the opposing of fortune in generall. But restraining my selfe more to particulars, I say that to day we see a Prince prosper and flourish and to morrow utterly go to ruine; not seeing that he hath alterd any condition or quality; which I beleeve arises first from the causes which we have long since run over, that is because that Prince that relies wholly upon fortune, runnes as her wheele turnes. I beleeve also, that he proves the fortunate man, whose manner of proceeding meets with the quality of the time; and so likewise he unfortunate from whose course of proceeding the times differ: for we see that men, in the things that induce them to the end, (which every one propounds to himselfe, as glory and riches) proceed therein diversly; some with respects, others more bold, and rashly; one with violence, and th'other with cunning; the one with patience, th'other with its contrary; and every one of severall wayes may attaine thereto; we see also two very respective and wary men, the one come to his purpose, and th'other not; and in like maner two equally prosper, taking divers course; the one being wary the other head-strong; which proceeds from nothing else, but from the quality of the times, which agree, or not, with their proceedings. From hence arises that which I said, that two working diversly, produce the same effect: and two equaly working, the one attains his end, the other not. Hereupon depends the alteration of the good; for if to one that behaves himself with warinesse and patience, times and affaires turne so favourably, that the carriage of his businesse prove well, he prospers; but if the times and affaires chance, he is ruind, because he changes not his manner of proceeding: nor is there any man so wise, that can frame himselfe hereunto; as well because he cannot go out of the way, from that whereunto Nature inclines him: as also, for that one having alwayes prosperd, walking such a way, cannot be perswaded to leave it; and therefore the respective and wary man, when it is fit time for him to use violence and force, knows not how to put it in practice, whereupon he is ruind: but if he could change his disposition with the times and the affaires, he should not change his fortune. Pope Julius the second proceeded in all his actions with very great violence, and found the times and things so conformable to that his manner of proceeding that in all of them he had happy successe. Consider the first exploit he did at Bolonia, even while John Bentivolio lived: the Venetians were not well contented therewith; the King of Spaine likewise with the French, had treated of that enterprise; and notwithstanding al this, he stirrd up by his own rage and fiercenesse, personally undertook that expedition: which action of his put in suspence and stopt Spaine and the Venetians; those for feare, and the others for desire to recover the Kingdome of Naples; and on the other part drew after him the King of France; for that King seeing him already in motion, and desiring to hold him his friend, whereby to humble the Venetians, thought he could no way deny him his souldiers, without doing him an open injury. Julius then effected that with his violent and heady motion, which no other Pope with all humane wisdome could ever have done; for if he had expected to part from Rome with his conclusions settled, and all his affaires ordered before hand, as any other Pope would have done, he had never brought it to passe: For the King of France would have devised a thousand excuses, and others would have put him in as many feares. I will let passe his other actions, for all of them were alike, and all of them prov'd lucky to him; and the brevity of his life never sufferd him to feele the contrary: for had he litt upon such times afterwards, that it had been necessary for him to proceed with respects, there had been his utter ruine; for he would never have left those wayes, to which he had been naturally inclind. I conclude then, fortune varying, and men continuing still obstinate to their own wayes, prove happy, while these accord together: and as they disagree, prove unhappy: and I think it true, that it is better to be heady than wary; because Fortune is a mistresse; and it is necessary, to keep her in obedience to ruffle and force her: and we see, that she suffers her self rather to be masterd by those, than by others that proceed coldly. And therefore, as a mistresse, shee is a friend to young men, because they are lesse respective, more rough, and command her with more boldnesse. I have considered the 25 Chapter, as representing me a full view of humane policy and cunning: yet me thinks it cannot satisfie a Christian in the causes of the good and bad successe of things. The life of man is like a game at Tables; skill availes much I grant, but that's not all: play thy game well, but that will not winne: the chance thou throwest must accord with thy play. Examine this; play never so surely, play never so probably, unlesse the chance thou castest, lead thee forward to advantage, all hazards are losses, and thy sure play leaves thee in the lurch. The sum of this is set down in Ecclesiastes chap. 9. v. 11. The race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong: neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance hapeneth to them all. Our cunning Author for all his exact rules he delivere in his books, could not fence against the despight of Fortune, as he complaines in his Epistle to this booke. Nor that great example of policy, Duke Valentine, whome our Author commends to Princes for his crafts-master, could so ruffle or force his mistresse Fortune, that he could keep her in obedience. Man can contribute no more to his actions than vertue and wisdome: but the successe depends upon a power above. Surely there is the finger of god; or as Prov. 16. v. 33. 'The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.' It was not Josephs wisdome made all things thrive under his hand; but because the Lord was with him; and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper, Gen. 39. Surely this is a blessing proceeding from the divine providence, which beyond humane capacity so cooperateth with the causes, as that their effects prove answerable, and sometimes (that we may know there is something above the ordinary causes) the success returns with such a supereminency of worth, that it far exceeds the vertue of the ordinary causes. CHAP. XXVI An Exhortation to free Italy from the Barbarians. Having then weighed all things above discours'd, and devising with my self, whether at this present in Italy the time might serve to honor a new Prince, and whether there were matter that might minister occasion to a wise and valorous Prince, to introduce such a forme, that might do honor to him, and good to the whole generality of the people in the countrey: me thinks so many things concurre in favor of a new Prince, that I know not whether there were ever any time more proper for this purpose. And if as I said, it was necessary, desiring to see Moses his vertue, that the children of Israel should be inthrald in Ægypt; and to have experience of the magnanimity of Cyrus his mind, that the Persians should be oppress'd by the Medes; and to set forth the excellency of Theseus, that the Athenians should be dispersed; so at this present now we are desirous to know the valor of an Italian spirit, it were necessary Italy should be reduc'd to the same termes it is now in, and were in more slavery than the Hebrews were; more subject than the Persians, more scatterd than the Athenians; without head, without order, battered, pillaged, rent asunder, overrun, and had undergone all kind of destruction. And however even in these later dayes, we have had some kind of shew of hope in some one, whereby we might have conjectur'd, that he had been ordained for the deliverance hereof, yet it prov'd afterwards, that in the very height of all his actions he was curb'd by fortune, insomuch that this poore countrey remaining as it were without life, attends still for him that shall heal her wounds, give an end to all those pillagings and sackings of Lombardy, to those robberies and taxations of the Kingdome, and of Tuscany, and heal them of their soars, now this long time gangren'd. We see how she makes her prayers to God, that he send some one to redeem her from these Barbarous cruelties and insolencies. We see her also wholly ready and disposed to follow any colours, provided there be any one take them up. Nor do we see at this present, that she can look for other, than your Illustrious Family, to become Cheiftain of this deliverance, which hath now by its own vertue and Fortune been so much exalted, and favored by God and the Church, whereof it now holds the Principality: and this shall not be very hard for you to do, if you shall call to mind the former actions, and lives of those that are above named. And though those men were very rare and admirable, yet were they men, and every one of them began upon less occasion than this; for neither was their enterprize more just than this, nor more easie; nor was God more their friend, than yours. Here is very great justice: for that war is just, that is necessary; and those armes are religious, when there is no hope left otherwhere, but in them. Here is an exceeding good disposition thereto: nor can there be, where there is a good disposition, a giant difficulty, provided that use be made of those orders, which I propounded for aim and direction to you. Besides this, here we see extraordinary things without example effected by God; the sea was opened, a cloud guided the way, devotion poured forth the waters, and it rain'd down Manna; all these things have concurred in your greatness, the rest is left for you to do. God will not do every thing himself, that he may not take from us our free will, and of that glory that belongs to us. Neither is it a marvel, if any of the aforenamed Italians have not been able to compass that, which we may hope your illustrious family shall: though in so many revolutions of Italy, and so many feats of war, it may seem that the whole military vertue therein be quite extinguisht; for this arises from that the ancient orders thereof were not good; and there hath since been none that hath known how to invent new ones. Nothing can so much honor a man rising anew, as new laws and new ordinances devised by him: these things when they have a good foundation given them, and contain in them their due greatness, gain him reverence and admiration; and in Italy their wants not the matter wherein to introduce any forme. Here is great vertue in the members, were it not wanting in the heads. Consider in the single fights that have been, and duels, how much the Italians have excel'd in their strength, activity and address; but when they come to armies, they appear not, and all proceeds from the weakness of the Chieftaines; for they that understand the managing of these matters, are not obeyed; and every one presumes to understand; hitherto there having not been any one so highly raised either by fortune or vertue, as that others would submit unto him. From hence proceeds it, that in so long time, and in so many battels fought for these last past 20 years, when there hath been an army wholly Italian, it alwaies hath had evil success; whereof the river Tarus first was witness, afterwards Alexandria, Capua, Genua, Vayla, Bolonia, Mestri. Your Illustrious family then being desirous to tread the footsteps of these Worthyes who redeem'd their countreys, must above all things as the very foundation of the whole fabrick, be furnished with soldiers of your own natives: because you cannot have more faithful, true, nor better soldiers; and though every one of them be good, all together they will become better when they shall find themselves entertained, commanded, and honored by their own Prince. Wherefore it is necessary to provide for those armes, whereby to be able with the Italian valor to make a defence against forreiners. And however the Swisse infantry and Spanish be accounted terrible; yet is there defect in both of them, by which a third order might not only oppose them, but may be confident to vanquish them: for the Spaniards are not able to indure the Horse, and the Swisse are to feare the foot, when they incounter with them, as resolute in the fight as they; whereupon it hath been seen, and upon experience shall be certain, that the Spaniards are not able to beare up against the French Cavalery, and the Swisses have been routed by the Spanish Foot. And though touching this last, there hath not been any entire experience had, yet was there some proof thereof given in the battel of Ravenna, when the Spanish Foot affronted the Dutch battalions, which keep the same rank the Swisses do, where the Spaniards with their nimbleness of body, and the help of their targets entred in under their Pikes, and there stood safe to offend them, the Dutch men having no remedy: and had it not been for the Cavalery that rusht in upon them, they had quite defeated them. There may then (the defect of the one and other of these two infantries being discoverd) another kind of them be anew ordained, which may be able to make resistance against the Horse, and not fear the Foot, which shall not be a new sort of armes, but change of orders. And these are some of those things which ordained a new, gain reputation and greatness to a new Prince. Therefore this occasion should not be let pass, to the end that Italy after so long a time may see some one redeemer of hers appear. Nor can I express with what dearness of affection he would be received in all those countreys which have suffered by those forrein scums, with what thirst of revenge, with what resolution of fidelity, with what piety, with what tears. Would any gates be shut again him? Any people deny him obedience? Any envy oppose him? Would not every Italian fully consent with him? This government of the Barbarians stinks in every ones nostrils. Let your Illustrious Family then undertake this worthy exployt with that courage and those hopes wherewith such just actions are to be attempted; to the end that under your colours, this countrey may be enabled, and under the protection of your fortune that saying of Petrarch be verifyed. _Virtù contr' al fuore Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto: Che l'antico valore Ne gli Italici cor non è morto._ Vertue against fury shall advance the fight, And it i' th' combate soon shall put to flight: For th' old Roman valor is not dead, Nor in th' Italians brests extinguished. FINIS 
33022	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 33022-h.htm or 33022-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33022/33022-h/33022-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33022/33022-h.zip) Transcriber's note: This e-book contains numerous sidenotes. All sidenotes have been moved to the beginning of the paragraph in which they appear. Duplicate date sidenotes within a section have been removed. Phonetic symbols are represented by [)a] (short a) and [=a] (long a). The "because" symbol (an inverted triangle of 3 dots) is represented by [V]. The last four lines on page 22 in the edition used to prepare this e-book were erroneously duplicated from another page. For details, see the note at the end of this e-book. Inconsistent spellings of proper nouns have been retained as they appear in the original, except where clearly incorrect. VILLANI'S CHRONICLE Being Selections from the First Nine Books of the Croniche Fiorentine of Giovanni Villani Translated by Rose E. Selfe and Edited by Philip H. Wicksteed M.A. London Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd. 1906 SECOND EDITION Carefully Revised Ditemi dell' ovil di San Giovanni Quanto era allora, e chi eran le genti Tra esso degne di più alti scanni [Illustration] PREFATORY NOTE The Editor is responsible for the selection of the passages translated, and for the Introduction. He has also compared the translation with the original text, has satisfied himself of its general accuracy, and has made numerous suggestions. The Translator is responsible for the fidelity of the translation in detail, and for its general tone and style. She has also drawn up the Indexes, and seen the work through the press. For the selection of marginal references to the works of Dante the Editor and Translator are jointly responsible. Both Translator and Editor desire to express their obligations to Mr. A.J. Butler, who has given them his ungrudging assistance in every difficulty, and whose learning and judgment have been invaluable. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xxv BOOK I. _This book is called the New Chronicle, in which many past things are treated of, and especially the root and origins of the city of Florence; then all the changes through which it has passed and shall pass in the course of time: begun to be compiled in the year of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, 1300. Here begins the preface and the First Book._ § 1. 1 § 2.--_How through the confusion of the Tower of Babel the world began to be inhabited_ 2 § 5.--_Of the third part of the world called Europe, and its boundaries_ 4 § 7.--_How King Atlas first built the city of Fiesole_ 4 § 8.--_How Atlas had three sons, Italus and Dardanus and Sicanus_ 6 § 9.--_How Italus and Dardanus came to agree which should succeed to the city of Fiesole and the kingdom of Italy_ 7 § 10.--_How Dardanus came to Phrygia and built the city of Dardania, which was afterwards the great Troy_ 8 § 11.--_How Dardanus had a son which was named Tritamus, which was the father of Trojus, after whose name the city of Troy was so called_ 8 § 17.--_How Antenor and the young Priam, having departed from Troy, built the city of Venice, and that of Padua_ 9 § 21.--_How Æneas departed from Troy and came to Carthage in Africa_ 10 § 22.--_How Æneas came into Italy_ 13 § 23.--_How the King Latinus ruled over Italy, and how Æneas had his daughter to wife, and all his kingdom_ 14 § 29.--_How Rome was ruled for a long time by the government of the consuls and senators, until Julius Cæsar became Emperor_ 16 § 30.--_How a conspiracy was formed in Rome by Catiline and his followers_ 18 § 31.--_How Catiline caused the city of Fiesole to rebel against the city of Rome_ 19 § 32.--_How Catiline and his followers were discomfited by the Romans in the plain of Piceno_ 20 § 33.--_How Metellus with his troops made war upon the Fiesolans_ 22 § 34.--_How Metellus and Fiorinus discomfited the Fiesolans_ 22 § 35.--_How the Romans besieged Fiesole the first time, and how Fiorinus was slain_ 23 § 36.--_How, because of the death of Fiorinus, the Romans returned to the siege of Fiesole_ 24 § 37.--_How the city of Fiesole surrendered itself to the Romans, and was destroyed and laid waste_ 26 § 38.--_How the city of Florence was first built_ 27 § 39.--_How Cæsar departed from Florence, and went to Rome, and was made consul to go against the French_ 30 § 40.--_Of the ensign of the Romans and of the Emperors, and how from them it came to the city of Florence and other cities_ 31 § 42.--_How the Temple of Mars, which is now called the Duomo of S. Giovanni, was built in Florence_ 32 § 50.--_Of the city of Luni_ 34 § 57.--_The story returns to the doings of the city of Florence, and how S. Miniato there suffered martyrdom under Decius, the Emperor_ 35 § 59.--_Of Constantine the Emperor, and his descendants, and the changes which came thereof in Italy_ 38 § 60.--_How the Christian faith first came to Florence_ 39 BOOK II. § 1.--_Here begins the Second Book: how the city of Florence was destroyed by Totila, the scourge of God, king of the Goths and Vandals_ 43 § 2.--_How Totila caused the city of Fiesole to be rebuilt_ 47 § 4.--_How the Goths remained lords of Italy after the death of Totila_ 47 § 10.--_How Charles Martel came from France to Italy at the summons of the Church against the Lombards; and of the origin of the city of Siena_ 48 § 12.--_How Telofre [Astolf], king of the Lombards, persecuted Holy Church, and how King Pepin, at the summons of Pope Stephen, came from France and defeated him, and took him prisoner_ 49 § 13.--_How Desiderius, son of Telofre, began war again with Holy Church, for the which thing Charles the Great passed into Italy, and defeated him, and took away and destroyed the lordship of the Lombards_ 51 § 15.--_How Charles the Great, king of France, was made Emperor of Rome_ 54 § 21.--_How the city of Florence lay waste and in ruins for 350 years_ 56 BOOK III. _Goes back somewhat to tell how the city of Florence was rebuilt by the power of Charles the Great and the Romans._ § 1. 59 § 2.--_Of the form and size in which the city of Florence was rebuilt_ 62 § 3.--_How Charles the Great came to Florence, and granted privileges to the city, and caused Santo Apostolo to be built_ 65 BOOK IV. § 2.--_Of the Emperor Otho III., and the Marquis Hugh, which built the Badia at Florence_ 69 § 4.--_Of the progeny of the Kings of France, which descended from Hugh Capet_ 71 § 6.--_How in the time of the said Henry, the Florentines took the city of Fiesole, and destroyed it_ 71 § 7.--_How that many Fiesolans came to dwell in Florence, and made one people with the Florentines_ 74 § 8.--_How the city of Florence increased its circuit, first by moats and palisades, and then by walls_ 75 § 9.--_How Conrad I. was made Emperor_ 78 § 10.--_Of the nobles which were in the city of Florence in the time of the said Emperor Conrad, and first of those about the Duomo_ 79 § 11.--_Concerning the houses of the nobles in the quarter of Porta San Piero_ 80 § 12.--_Of them of the quarter of Porta San Brancazio_ 81 § 13.--_Concerning them of the great quarter of Porta Santa Maria and of San Piero Scheraggio_ 81 § 18.--_Narration of many things that were in those times_ 83 § 19.--_Of Robert Guiscard and his descendants, which were kings of Sicily and of Apulia_ 84 § 20.--_Concerning the successors of Robert Guiscard, which were kings of Sicily and of Apulia_ 89 § 21.--_Of the Countess Matilda_ 92 § 29.--_How the Florentines defeated the Vicar of the Emperor Henry IV._ 95 § 30.--_How the city of Florence took fire twice, whence a great part of the city was burnt_ 95 § 31.--_How the Pisans took Majorca, and the Florentines protected the city of Pisa_ 96 § 32.--_How the Florentines took and destroyed the fortress of Fiesole_ 98 § 36.--_How the Florentines destroyed the fortress of Montebuono_ 98 BOOK V. _Here begins the Fifth Book: How Frederick I. of Staufen of Suabia was Emperor of Rome, and of his descendants, and concerning the doings of Florence, which were in their times, and of all Italy._ § 1. 101 § 2.--_How Pope Alexander returned from France to Venice, and the Emperor returned to obedience_ 105 § 3.--_How the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was reconciled with the Church, and went over seas, and there died_ 106 § 8.--_Of the great fires which were in the city of Florence_ 108 § 9.--_How civil war began in Florence between the Uberti and the government of the Consuls_ 109 § 12.--_How the Emperor Frederick I. took their territory from the city of Florence, and many other cities of Tuscany_ 110 § 13.--_How the Florentines took the cross, and went over seas to conquer Damietta, and therefore recovered their territory_ 111 § 16.--_How Henry of Suabia was made Emperor by the Church, and how Constance, queen of Sicily, was given him to wife_ 112 § 24.--_How the Order of the Minor Friars began_ 114 § 25.--_How the Order of the Preaching Friars began_ 114 § 26.--_How the Florentines destroyed the castle of Frondigliano_ 115 § 30.--_How the Florentines destroyed the strongholds of Simifonti and of Combiata_ 116 § 31.--_Destruction of Montelupo, and how the Florentines gained Montemurlo_ 116 § 32.--_How the Florentines elected their first Podestà_ 117 § 36.--_How during Otho's lifetime Frederick II. of Suabia was elected Emperor by the desire of the Church at Rome_ 118 § 37.--_Concerning the death of the old Count Guido, and of his progeny_ 119 § 38.--_How the parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines arose in Florence_ 121 § 39.--_Of the families and the nobles which became Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence_ 123 § 41.--_How the Florentines caused the dwellers in the country around to swear fealty to the city, and how the new Carraia Bridge was begun_ 125 BOOK VI. _How Frederick II. was consecrated and made Emperor, and the great things which came to pass._ § 1. 127 § 5.--_How the Florentines led an army against Pistoia, and laid waste the country round about_ 129 § 14.--_How the Emperor Frederick came to enmity with the Church_ 130 § 22.--_How the Emperor laid hold of King Henry, his son_ 133 § 23.--_How the war began between Pope Innocent IV. and the Emperor Frederick_ 134 § 24.--_Of the sentence which Pope Innocent pronounced at the council of Lyons-on-Rhine, upon the Emperor Frederick_ 135 § 25.--_How the Pope and the Church caused a new Emperor to be elected in place of Frederick, the deposed Emperor_ 138 § 26.--_We will tell an incident in the affairs of Florence_ 140 § 33.--_How the Guelf party was first driven from Florence by the Ghibellines and the forces of the Emperor Frederick_ 140 § 34.--_How the host of the Emperor Frederick was defeated by the Parmesans, and by the Pope's legate_ 146 § 35.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence were taken in the fortress of Capraia_ 147 § 39.--_How the Primo Popolo was formed in Florence to be a defence against the violence and attacks of the Ghibellines_ 149 § 41.--_How the Emperor Frederick died at Firenzuola in Apulia_ 151 § 42.--_How the Popolo of Florence peaceably restored the Guelfs to Florence_ 152 § 43.--_How at the time of the said Popolo the Florentines discomfited the men of Pistoia, and afterwards banished certain families of the Ghibellines from Florence_ 153 § 44.--_How King Conrad, son of Frederick the Emperor, came from Germany into Apulia, and had the lordship over the realm of Sicily, and how he died_ 154 § 45.--_How Manfred, natural son of Frederick, took the lordship of the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia, and caused himself to be crowned_ 156 § 46.--_Of the war between Pope Alexander and King Manfred_ 158 § 50.--_How the bridge Santa Trinita was built_ 160 § 53.--_How the golden florins were first made in Florence_ 161 § 55.--_How the Florentines marched against Siena, and the Sienese came to terms with them, and there was peace between them_ 162 § 65.--_How the Popolo of Florence drave out the Ghibellines for the first time from Florence, and the reason why_ 164 § 69.--_Incidents of the doings that were in Florence at the time of the Popolo_ 166 § 72.--_How the great tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano, was defeated by the Cremonese and died in prison_ 167 § 73.--_How both the king of Castille and Richard, earl of Cornwall, were elected king of the Romans_ 169 § 74.--_How the Ghibelline refugees from Florence sent into Apulia to King Manfred for succour_ 169 § 75.--_How the commonwealth and people of Florence led a great host up to the gates of Siena with the carroccio_ 170 § 76.--_How King Manfred sent Count Giordano with 800 Germans to succour the Sienese and the Ghibelline refugees from Florence_ 173 § 77.--_How the Ghibelline refugees from Florence prepared to deceive the commonwealth and people of Florence, and cause them to be betrayed_ 174 § 78.--_How the Florentines raised an army to fortify Montalcino, and were discomfited by Count Giordano and by the Sienese at Montaperti_ 177 § 79.--_How the Guelfs of Florence, after the said discomfiture, departed from Florence and went to Lucca_ 181 § 80.--_How the news of the defeat of the Florentines came to the court of the Pope, and the prophecy which was made thereupon by Cardinal Bianco_ 183 § 81.--_How the Ghibellines of Tuscany purposed to destroy the city of Florence, and how M. Farinata degli Uberti defended it_ 184 § 83.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence sent their ambassadors into Germany to stir up Conradino against Manfred_ 187 § 86.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence, and the other exiles of Tuscany, drave out the Ghibellines from Modena and afterwards from Reggio_ 188 § 87.--_How Manfred persecuted Pope Urban and the Church with his Saracens of Nocera, and how a crusade was proclaimed against them_ 190 § 88.--_How the Church of Rome elected Charles of France to be king of Sicily and of Apulia_ 192 § 89.--_How Charles, count of Anjou and of Provence, accepted the election offered him by the Church of Rome to Sicily and Apulia_ 193 § 90.--_Incident relating to the good Count Raymond of Provence_ 195 BOOK VII. _Here begins the Seventh Book, which treats of the coming of King Charles, and of many changes and events which followed thereupon._ § 1. 199 § 2.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence took the arms of Pope Clement, and how they joined the French army of Count Charles_ 201 § 3.--_How Count Charles departed from France, and passed by sea from Provence to Rome_ 202 § 4.--_How Count Guy of Montfort, with the horse of Count Charles, passed through Lombardy_ 204 § 5.--_How King Charles was crowned in Rome king of Sicily, and how he straightway departed with his host to go against King Manfred_ 205 § 6.--_How, after King Charles had taken the pass of Cepperano, he stormed the city of San Germano_ 207 § 7.--_How King Manfred went to Benivento, and how he arrayed his troops to fight against King Charles_ 209 § 8.--_How King Charles arrayed his troops to fight against King Manfred_ 211 § 9.--_Concerning the battle between King Charles and King Manfred, and how King Manfred was discomfited and slain_ 213 § 13.--_How the Thirty-six were established in Florence, and how the Guilds of Arts were formed and standards given thereto_ 217 § 14.--_How the second Popolo rose in Florence, for the which cause Count Guido Novello, with the Ghibelline leaders, left Florence_ 220 § 15.--_How the Popolo restored the Guelfs to Florence, and how they afterwards drave out the Ghibellines_ 223 § 16.--_How, after the Ghibellines had been driven from Florence, the ordinances and councils of the city were reorganized_ 225 § 17.--_How the Guelfs of Florence instituted the Ordinances of the Party_ 226 § 23.--_How the young Conradino, son of King Conrad, came from Germany into Italy against King Charles_ 228 § 24.--_How the marshal of King Charles was defeated at Ponte a Valle by Conradino's army_ 231 § 25.--_How Conradino entered into Rome, and afterwards with his host passed into the kingdom of Apulia_ 232 § 26.--_How the host of Conradino and that of King Charles met in battle at Tagliacozzo_ 233 § 27.--_How Conradino and his people were defeated by King Charles_ 235 § 29.--_--How Conradino and certain of his barons were taken by King Charles, and how he caused their heads to be cut off_ 240 § 31.--_How the Florentines defeated the Sienese at the foot of Colle di Valdelsa_ 242 § 34.--_How there was a great flood of waters which carried away the Santa Trinita Bridge and the Carraia Bridge_ 245 § 37.--_How King Louis of France made an expedition to Tunis, wherein he died_ 246 § 38.--_How King Charles concluded a treaty with the king of Tunis, and how the host departed_ 249 § 39.--_How Gregory X. was made Pope at Viterbo, and how Henry, son of the king of England, there died_ 251 § 42.--_How Pope Gregory came with his court to Florence, and caused peace to be made between the Guelfs and Ghibellines_ 255 § 50.--_Of the death of Pope Gregory, and of three other Popes after him_ 258 § 54.--_How Nicholas III., of the Orsini, was made Pope, and concerning that which he did in his time_ 261 § 56.--_How the Cardinal Latino, by the Pope's command, made peace between the Guelfs and Ghibellines of Florence, and composed all the other feuds in the city_ 263 § 61.--_How and after what manner the island of Sicily rebelled against King Charles_ 267 § 79.--_How the Office of Priors was first created in Florence_ 269 § 81.--_How M. Jean d'Appia, count of Romagna, was defeated at Forlì by the count of Montefeltro_ 272 § 95.--_How the good King Charles passed from this life at the city of Foggia in Apulia_ 274 § 105.--_How the king of France departed from Aragon, and died at Perpignan_ 277 § 114.--_Of a notable thing which came to pass in Florence at this time_ 279 § 121.--_How the judge of Gallura and the Guelf party were driven from Pisa, and the Count Ugolino taken prisoner_ 280 § 128.--_How the Pisans chose for captain the count of Montefeltro, and how they starved to death Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons_ 283 § 130.--_Of the coronation of King Charles II., and how he passed through Florence, and left Messer Amerigo di Nerbona as captain of war for the Florentines_ 284 § 131.--_How the Florentines defeated the Aretines at Certomondo in Casentino_ 286 § 132.--_How the Florentines besieged the city of Arezzo, and laid waste the region round about_ 291 § 145.--_How the soldan of Babylon conquered by force the city of Acre, to the great hurt of the Christians_ 294 § 146.--_Of the death of King Rudolf of Germany_ 298 § 149.--_How the city of Forlì in Romagna was taken by Maghinardo da Susinana_ 298 BOOK VIII. _Here begins the Eighth Book. It tells how the second Popolo arose in the city of Florence, and of many great changes which by reason thereof came afterwards to pass in Florence, following on with the other events of those times._ § 1. 301 § 5.--_How Celestine V. was elected and made Pope, and how he renounced the papacy_ 304 § 6.--_How Boniface VIII. was elected and made Pope_ 306 § 8.--_How the great man of the people, Giano della Bella, was driven out of Florence_ 309 § 10.--_How M. Gianni di Celona came into Tuscany as Imperial Vicar_ 312 § 12.--_How the magnates of Florence raised a tumult in the city to break up the Popolo_ 313 § 13.--_How King Charles made peace with King James of Aragon_ 315 § 23.--_How the Colonnesi came to ask pardon of the Pope, and afterwards rebelled a second time_ 317 § 26.--_When the palace of the people of Florence was begun, where dwell the Priors_ 318 § 36.--_How Pope Boniface VIII. gave pardon to all Christians which should go to Rome, in the year of the jubilee_, 1300 320 § 38.--_How the parties of the Blacks and Whites first began in the city of Pistoia_ 321 § 39.--_How the city of Florence was divided and brought to shame by the said White and Black parties_ 323 § 40.--_How the Cardinal Acquasparta came as legate from the Pope to make peace in Florence, and could not do it_ 327 § 41.--_Concerning the evils and dangers which followed afterwards to our city_ 329 § 42.--_Of the same_ 330 § 43.--_How Pope Boniface sent into France for M. Charles of Valois_ 331 § 45.--_How the Black party were driven out of Pistoia_ 332 § 49.--_How M. Charles of Valois of France came to Pope Boniface, and afterwards came to Florence and drove out the White party_ 333 § 59.--_How Folcieri da Calvoli, Podestà of Florence, caused certain citizens of the White party to be beheaded_ 339 § 60.--_How the White party and the Ghibelline refugees from Florence came to Puliciano and departed thence in discomfiture_ 340 § 61.--_Incident, relating how M. Maffeo Visconti was driven from Milan_ 342 § 62.--_How there arose strife and enmity between Pope Boniface and King Philip of France_ 344 § 63.--_How the king of France caused Pope Boniface to be seized in Anagna by Sciarra della Colonna, whence the said Pope died a few days afterwards_ 346 § 64.--_We will further tell of the ways of Pope Boniface_ 350 § 67.--_How King Edward of England recovered Gascony and defeated the Scots_ 352 § 68.--_How there were in Florence great changes and civic battles through desire that the accounts of the commonwealth should be examined_ 353 § 69.--_How the Pope sent into Florence as legate the Cardinal da Prato to make peace, and how he departed thence in shame and confusion_ 356 § 70.--_How the bridge of Carraia fell, and how many people died there_ 360 § 71.--_How Florence was set on fire, and a great part of the city burnt_ 361 § 72.--_How the Whites and Ghibellines came to the gates of Florence, and departed thence in discomfiture_ 364 § 80.--_How Pope Benedict died, and of the new election of Pope Clement V._ 369 § 84.--_How there arose in Lombardy one Fra Dolcino with a great company of heretics, and how they were burnt_ 375 § 88.--_Of the great war which was begun against the marquis of Ferrara, and how he died_ 376 § 92.--_How and after what fashion was destroyed the Order and mansion of the Temple of Jerusalem by the machinations of the king of France_ 377 § 96.--_How Corso Donati, the great and noble citizen of Florence, died_ 382 § 101.--_After what manner Henry, count of Luxemburg, was elected Emperor of Rome_ 386 § 102.--_How Henry the Emperor was confirmed by the Pope_ 389 § 112.--_How Robert was crowned king over the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia_ 390 § 120.--_How the ambassadors of Henry, king of the Romans, came to Florence_ 391 BOOK IX. _Here begins the Ninth Book. How Henry, count of Luxemburg, was made Emperor._ § 1. 393 § 7.--_How the Emperor Henry departed from Germany to go into Italy_ 394 § 8.--_How King Robert came to Florence as he returned from his coronation_ 395 § 9.--_How the Emperor Henry passed into Italy, and gained the city of Milan_ 396 § 10.--_How the Florentines enclosed the new circle of the city with moats_ 397 § 11.--_How the della Torre were driven out of Milan_ 398 § 12.--_How there was great scarcity in Florence, and concerning other events_ 400 § 14.--_How the Emperor besieged Cremona, and his people took Vicenza_ 400 § 15.--_How the Emperor took the city of Cremona_ 401 § 16.--_How the Florentines, by reason of the Emperor's coming, recalled from banishment all the Guelfs_ 402 § 17.--_How the Florentines, with all the Guelf cities of Tuscany, made a league together against the Emperor_ 402 § 20.--_How the Emperor Henry took the city of Brescia by siege_ 403 § 22.--_How Pope Clement sent legates to crown the Emperor Henry_ 405 § 26.--_How the ambassadors from the Emperor came to Florence, and were driven thence_ 406 § 28.--_How the Empress died in Genoa_ 407 § 29.--_How the Emperor put the Florentines under the ban of the Empire_ 407 § 32.--_How the city of Brescia rebelled against the Emperor_ 407 § 34.--_How the city of Cremona rebelled against the Emperor_ 408 § 35.--_How the marshal of the Emperor came to Pisa, and began war with the Florentines_ 408 § 36.--_How the Paduans rebelled against the lordship of the Emperor_ 409 § 39.--_Of the gathering together made by King Robert and the league of Tuscany at Rome to oppose the coronation of the Emperor Henry_ 409 § 40.--_How the Emperor Henry departed from Pisa and came to Rome_ 410 § 43.--_How Henry of Luxemburg was crowned Emperor at Rome_ 411 § 44.--_How the Emperor departed from Rome to go into Tuscany_ 413 § 45.--_How the Emperor came to the city of Arezzo, and afterwards how he came towards the city of Florence_ 414 § 46.--_How the Florentines were well-nigh discomfited at the fortress of Ancisa by the army of the Emperor_ 415 § 47.--_How the Emperor Henry encamped with his host before the city of Florence_ 416 § 48.--_How the Emperor abandoned the siege, and departed from San Salvi, and came to San Casciano, and then to Poggibonizzi_ 419 § 49.--_How the Emperor departed from Poggibonizzi, and returned to Pisa, and issued many bans against the Florentines_ 421 § 50.--_How the Emperor condemned King Robert_ 422 § 51.--_How the Emperor made ready to enter into the Kingdom against King Robert, and departed from Pisa_ 423 § 52.--_How the Emperor Henry died at Bonconvento, in the country of Siena_ 424 § 53.--_Relates how, when the Emperor was dead, his host was divided, and the barons carried his body to the city of Pisa_ 425 § 56.--_How the Florentines gave the lordship of Florence to King Robert for five years_ 426 § 59.--_Of the death of Pope Clement_ 427 § 63.--_How the Paduans were discomfited at Vicenza by M. Cane della Scala_ 428 § 66.--_Of the death of Philip, king of France, and of his sons_ 428 § 70.--_How Uguccione, lord of Lucca and of Pisa, laid siege to the castle of Montecatini_ 430 § 71.--_How, when the prince of Taranto was come to Florence, the Florentines sallied forth with their army to succour Montecatini, and were defeated by Uguccione della Faggiuola_ 431 § 72.--_More about the said battle and defeat of the Florentines and of the prince_ 432 § 81.--_Of the election of Pope John XXII._ 434 § 86.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola sought to re-enter Pisa, and what came of it in Pisa, and of the Marquis Spinetta_ 436 § 87.--_How the Ghibelline party left Genoa_ 437 § 89.--_How M. Cane della Scala led an army against the Paduans, and took many castles from them_ 438 § 90.--_How the exiles from Genoa with the force of the Ghibellines of Lombardy besieged Genoa_ 438 § 92.--_How the exiles from Genoa took the suburbs of Prea_ 439 § 93.--_How King Robert came by sea to succour Genoa_ 440 § 94.--_How the Genoese gave the lordship of Genoa to King Robert_ 441 § 95.--_Of the active war which the exiles of Genoa with the Lombards made against King Robert_ 442 § 97.--_How King Robert's followers discomfited the exiles from Genoa at the village of Sesto, and how they departed from the siege of the city_ 443 § 99.--_How the exiles from Genoa with the Lombards returned to the siege of Genoa_ 444 § 100.--_How M. Cane della Scala took the suburbs of Padua_ 445 § 121.--_How M. Cane della Scala, being at the siege of Padua, was defeated by the Paduans and by the count of Görtz_ 446 § 136.--_Concerning the poet Dante Alighieri of Florence_ 448 INTRODUCTION § 1. _The Text._ This book of selections is not intended as a contribution to the study of Villani, but as an aid to the study of Dante. The text of Villani is well known to be in a very unsatisfactory condition, and no attempt at a critical treatment of it has been made. The Florence edition of 1823, in eight volumes, has been almost invariably followed. Here and there the Editor has silently adopted an emendation that obviously gives the sense intended, and on p. 277 has inserted in brackets an acute suggestion made by Mr. A.J. Butler. In a few cases, by far the most important of which occurs on p. 450, passages which appear in some but not in all of the MSS. and editions of Villani are inserted in square brackets. § 2. _The References._ It is probable that many more references to Dante's works might advantageously have been inserted in the margin had they occurred to our minds; and we shall be glad to have our attention called to any important omissions. As a rule we have aimed at giving a reference to any passage in Dante's works on which the text has a direct bearing, or towards the discussion of which it furnishes materials, without intending thereby necessarily to commit ourselves to any special interpretation of the passage in Dante referred to. But in some instances such a reference would, in our opinion, distinctly tend to the perpetuation of error. In such cases we have purposely abstained from appearing to bring a passage of Villani into relation with a passage of Dante with which we believe it to have no connection. For instance, to have given a reference to the _Vita Nuova_ § 41, 1-11, on p. 320 would have appeared to us so distinct and dangerous a _suggestio falsi_ that we have felt compelled to abstain from it even at the risk of being charged with a _suppressio veri_ by those who do not agree with us. § 3. _The Principle of Selection._ Our aim has been to translate all the passages from the first nine books of Villani's Chronicles which are likely to be of direct interest and value to the student of Dante.[1] A few chapters have been inserted not for their own sakes but because they are necessary for the understanding of other chapters that bear directly on Dante. When a chapter contains anything to our purpose, we have usually translated the whole of it. Where this is not the case the omissions are invariably indicated by stars * * * * * *. We have given the headings of all the chapters we have not translated, so that the reader may have in his hand the continuous thread of Villani's narrative, and may have some idea of the character of the omitted portions. By these means we hope we have minimised, though we do not flatter ourselves that we have removed, the objections which are legitimately urged against volumes of selections. [Footnote 1: The complex and miserable history of Ugolino and Nino we have given only in its most essential portions. Even its connection with one of the most terrible and widely known passages in the _Inferno_ cannot make it other than dreary, sordid, and unilluminating.] * * * * * The nature of the interest which the Dante student will find in these selections will vary as he goes through the volume. The early portions, up to the end of Book III., are interesting not so much for the direct elucidation of special passages in Dante as for the assistance they give us in realizing the atmosphere through which he and his contemporaries regarded their own past; and their habitual confusion of legend and history. From Book IV. on into Book VIII. our interest centres more and more on the specific contents of Villani's Chronicle. Here he becomes the best of all commentators upon one phase of Dante's many-sided genius; for he gives us the material upon which Dante's judgments are passed, and enables us to know the men and see the events he judges as he himself knew and saw them. Chapter after chapter reads like a continuous commentary on _Purg._ vi. 127-151; and there is hardly a sentence that does not lighten and is not lightened by some passage in the _Comedy_. Readers who have been accustomed to weary themselves in attempts to digest and remember historical notes (into which extracts from Villani, torn from their native haunts, have been driven up for instant slaughter, as in battue shooting) will find it a relief to have the story of the battles and revolutions of Florence, as Dante saw and felt it, continuously set before them--even though it be, for the present, in the partial and therefore mutilated form of "selections." When we come to the later portions of Book VIII. and the first part of Book IX. the interest again changes. To the events after 1300 Dante's chief work contains comparatively few and scattered allusions; but as the direct connection with his writings becomes less marked the connection with his biography becomes more intimate. As we study the tangled period of Florentine politics that coincides with Dante's active political life (about 1300 A.D.), the ill-concerted and feeble attempts of the exiles to regain a footing in their city, and later on the splendid but futile enterprise of Henry, we seem to find the very fibres of Dante's life woven into the texture of the history. The dream of the _De Monarchia_ was dreamed by Henry as well as by Dante; but as we read the detail of his failure it is borne in upon us that he not only did fail but must fail, for his ideal was incapable of realization. Italy was not ready for him, and had she been ready she would not have needed him. Finally, the last pages of our volume, which cover selections from the portion of Book IX., extending from the death of Henry to the death of Dante himself, are for the most part inserted for a very special reason, as to which some little detail is necessary. Strangely enough they derive their importance not from any interest Dante may have taken in the events they record, but from the fact that he did not take enough interest in them to satisfy one of his most ardent admirers. The editions of Dante's collected works include a correspondence in Latin hexameters between Johannes de Virgilio and Dante. Now in the poem that opens this correspondence Johannes refers to Statius and to Lethe in a manner that proves beyond all doubt that the whole of the _Purgatorio_ as well as the _Inferno_ was in his hands. But he alludes to the _Paradiso_--the poem of the "super-solar" realms which is to complete the record of the "lower" ones--as not yet having appeared. It therefore becomes a matter of extreme interest to the Dante student to learn the date of this poem. Now one of the considerations that led Johannes to address Dante was the hope of inducing him to choose a contemporary subject for a Latin poem and so write something worthy of himself and of studious readers! With this object he suggests a number of subjects:-- "Dic age quo petiit Jovis armiger astra volatu: Dic age quos flores, quæ lilia fregit arator: Dic Phrygias damas laceratos dente molosso: Dic Ligurum montes, et classes Parthenopæas." "Come! tell thou of the flight by which Jove's armour-bearer (the Imperial Eagle = Henry VII.) sought the stars. Come! tell thou of the flowers and lilies (of Florence) crushed by the ploughman (Uguccione da Faggiuola). Tell of the Phrygian does (the Paduans) torn by the mastiff's (Can Grande's) tooth. Tell of the Ligurian mountains (the Genoese) and the Parthenopæan fleets (of Robert of Naples)." The correctness and security of the interpretation of this passage will not be doubted by any one accustomed to the pedantic allusiveness of the age; and it is moreover guaranteed by the annotator of the Laurentian MS., thought by many to be Boccaccio himself. It will be seen, therefore, from the study of the concluding pages of this volume, that when Johannes addressed Dante (after the appearance of the _Inferno_ and the _Purgatorio_, but before that of the _Paradiso_) Henry VII. had died (A.D. 1313), Can Grande had defeated the Paduans (A.D. 1314 and 1317), Uguccione had defeated the Florentines (A.D. 1315), and Robert had collected his fleet to relieve Genoa (February, 1319). It also seems highly probable that Can Grande had not yet suffered his reverses at the siege of Padua (August, 1320). This is perhaps the one unassailable datum for the chronology of Dante's works, and we have therefore included in our selections so much as was needed to establish it. Our readers will perhaps forgive us for having then left the fate of Genoa hanging in the balance, for as Villani says: "Who could write the unbroken history of the dire siege of Genoa, and the marvellous exploits achieved by the exiles and their allies? Verily, it is the opinion of the wise that the siege of Troy itself, in comparison therewith, shewed no greater and more continuous battling, both by sea and land." § 4. _The Historical Value of Villani's Chronicle._ An adequate edition of Villani would have to examine his statements in detail, and, where necessary, to correct them. Such a task, however, would be alike beyond our powers, and foreign to our immediate purpose. These selections are intended to illustrate the text of Dante; and for that purpose it is of more consequence to know what were the "horrible crimes" of which Dante supposed Manfred to be guilty, than to enquire whether or no he was really guilty of them. To know whether Constance was fifty-two, or only thirty, when she married Henry VI., and whether he took her from a convent or a palace is of less immediate consequence to the student of Dante than to be acquainted with the Guelf tradition as to these circumstances. At the same time, the reader may reasonably ask for some guidance as to the point at which the authentic history of Florence disengages itself from the legend, and, further, as to the general degree of reliance he is justified in placing on the details supplied by Villani. On the first point very few words will suffice. There was probably a Fiesolan mart on the site now occupied by Florence from very remote times; but the form of the "ancient circle" carries us back to a Roman camp and a military colony as the origin of the regular city. Beyond this meagre basis the whole story of "Troy, and of Fiesole and Rome," in connection with Florence must be pronounced a myth. The notices of Florence before the opening of the twelfth century are few and meagre, but they suffice to prove that the story of its destruction by Totila, and rebuilding by Charlemagne, is without foundation; and of all the reported conquests of Fiesole that of 1125 is the first that we can regard as historical. The history of Florence is almost a blank until about 1115 A.D., the date of the death of the Countess Matilda. With respect to the second point, it is impossible to give so brief or conclusive an answer. Villani is as valuable to the historian as he is delightful to the general reader. He is a keen observer, and has a quick eye for the salient and essential features of what he observes. When dealing with his own times, and with events immediately connected with Florence, he is a trustworthy witness, but minute accuracy is never his strong point; and in dealing with distant times and places he is hopelessly unreliable. The English reader will readily detect his confusions in Book VII., § 39, where at one time Richard of Cornwall, and at another Henry III., is called king of England; and Henry of Cornwall and Edward I. are regarded indifferently as sons of Richard or sons of Henry III., but are always said to be brothers instead of cousins. Here there is little danger of the reader being misled, but it is otherwise in such a case as that of Robert Guiscard and the house of Tancred in Book IV., § 19. By way of putting the reader on his guard, we will go into this exceptionally bad, but by no means solitary, instance of Villani's inaccuracies. Tancred, of the castle of Hauteville (near Coutances, in Normandy), had twelve sons, ten of whom sought their fortunes in southern Italy and Sicily. Four of these were successively Counts of Apulia, the last of the four being Robert Guiscard. He was followed by his son Roger, and his grandson William, who died childless. Another of the sons of Tancred was Roger, who became Count of Sicily. He was succeeded by his son Roger II., who possessed himself of the Apulian domains of his relative William, on the decease of the latter. Roger now had himself proclaimed King of Sicily by the anti-pope Anaclete, and united Sicily and Naples under his sway. He was followed by his son William (the Bad), and his grandson William (the Good), on whose death, without issue, Henry VI., who married Roger's daughter Constance, claimed the succession in the right of his wife. (_L'Art de Vérifier les Dates._) The most important of these relations may be set forth thus: TANCRED OF HAUTEVILLE | +-------------------+ | | Robert Guiscard Roger I. Count of Apulia Count of Sicily | | Roger Roger II. | King of Sicily William | +-----------------+ | | William Constance = Henry VI. the Bad | William the Good Let the reader construct the family tree from the data in Villani, and compare it with the one given above. He will find that Villani, to begin with, makes Robert Guiscard a younger son of the Duke of Normandy, then makes his younger brother, Roger I., into his son (occasionally confounding him with Roger II.); and, finally, ignores William the Bad, and makes William the Good the brother of Constance. His details as to the pretender Tancred are equally inaccurate. These must suffice as specimens; but they are specimens not only of a special class of mistake, but of a style of work against which the reader must be constantly on his guard if he intends to make use of any detailed dates or relations, or even if he wishes to make sure that the Pope or other actor named in any connection is really the right one. So, too, even well within historical times, Villani is prone to the epic simplification of events. His account of the negociations of Farinata with Manfred, and of the battle of Montaperti for instance, represents the Florentine legend or tradition rather than the history of the events. These events are conceived with the vividness, simplicity and picturesque preponderance of personality which make them easy to see, but impossible to reconstruct in a rationally convincing form. To enter into further detail under this head would be to transgress the limits we have set ourselves. § 5. _The Rationale of the Revolutions of Florence._[2] [Footnote 2: The substance of this § is entirely drawn from Prof. Villari's recent work on Early Florentine History. "I Primi due Secoli della Storia di Firenze, Ricerche di Pasquale Villari." 2 vols., Florence, 1893, 1894. Price 8 fr. English translation by Madame Villari. "The Two First Centuries of Florentine History." Fisher Unwin. Price 2_s._ 6_d._ This work should be carefully studied in its entirety by all who desire to understand the constitutional history of Florence. N.B.--Some of our readers may be glad of the information that the modern scholar is Pasquale Vill[)a]ri (with short [)a]), and the mediæval chronicler Giovanni Vill[=a]ni (with a long [=a]).] The settled conviction of both Villani and Dante that a difference of race underlay the civil wars of Florence, rests upon a truth obscurely though powerfully felt by them. We have seen that the legend of Fiesole and Florence, upon which they rest their case, is without historical foundation; but the conflict of races was there none the less. And as it is here that modern historians find the key to the history of Florence, our readers will probably be glad to have set before them a brief account of the general conceptions in the light of which modern scholars would have us read the naive and ingenuous records of Villani. The numerous Teutonic invasions and incursions which had swept over northern and central Italy, from Odoacer to Charlemagne, had established a powerful territorial nobility. They constituted a dominating class, military in their habits, accustomed to the exercise and the abuse of the simpler functions of government, accepting certain feudal traditions, but owning no practical allegiance to any power that was not in a position instantly to enforce it. Their effective organization was based on the clan system, and the informal family council was omnipotent within the limits of the clan. They were without capacity or desire for any large and enduring social organization. Their combinations were temporary, and for military purposes; and internecine family feuds were a permanent factor in their lives. Their laws were based on the "Barbarian" codes, but the influence of Roman law was increasingly felt by them. In the cities it is probable that the old municipal organization had never wholly died out, though it had no formal recognition. The citizens were sometimes allowed to live "under their own law," and sometimes not; but the tradition of the Roman law was never lost. Nominally the cities were under the jurisdiction of some territorial magnate, or a nominee of the Emperor, but practically they enjoyed various degrees of independence. Their effective organization would depend upon their special circumstances, but in such a case as that of Florence would be based on the trade guilds. In Florence a number of the Teutonic nobles had settled in the city; but it owed its importance to its trade. The city-dwelling nobles kept up their clan life, and fortified their houses; but in other respects they had become partially assimilated in feeling, and even in habits and occupations, to the mercantile community in which they lived. They filled the posts of military and civil administration, and were conscious of a strong unity of interest with the people. Under the vigorous and beneficent rule in Tuscany of the great Countess Matilda (1076-1115) Florence was able quietly to consolidate and extend her power without raising any thorny questions of formal jurisdiction. But on the death of Matilda, when the Church and the Empire equally claimed the succession and were equally unable efficiently to assert their claims, it was inevitable that an attempt should be made to establish the _de facto_ supremacy of Florence over Fiesole and the whole outlying district upon a firmer and more formal basis. It was equally inevitable that the attempt should be resisted. Within Florence, as we have seen, there was a heterogeneous, but as yet fairly united citizenship. The germs of organization consisted on the side of the nobles in the clans and the Tower-clubs, and on the side of the people in the Trade-guilds. The Tower-clubs were associations each of which possessed a fortified tower in the city, which was maintained at the common expense of the associates, and with which their houses communicated. Of the Trade-guilds we shall speak briefly hereafter. In the surrounding country the territorial nobility watched the growing power and prosperity of Florence with jealousy, stoutly resisted her claims to jurisdiction over them and their demesnes, and made use of their command of the great commercial highways to exact regular or irregular tolls, even when they did not frankly plunder the merchants. Obviously two struggles must result from this situation. The city as a whole was vitally concerned in clearing the commercial routes and rendering the territorial nobility harmless; but within the city two parties, who may almost be regarded as two nations, contended for the mastery. With respect to the collective struggle of Florence against her foes, which entered on its active phase early in the twelfth century, on the death of Matilda in 1115, it may be said in brief that it was carried on with a vigour and success, subject only to brief and few reverses, during the whole period with which we are concerned. But this very success in external enterprises emphasized and embittered the internal factions. These had been serious from the first. The Uberti and other ruling families resisted the growing influence of the people; and the vicissitudes of the struggle may be traced at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries in the alternation of the various forms of the supreme magistracy. But it was part of the policy of the victorious Florentines to compel the nobles they had reduced to submission to live at least for a part of the year in the city; and thus while the merchant people of Florence was increasing in wealth and power, the nobles in the city were in their turn constantly recruited by rich and turbulent members of their own caste, who were ready to support them in their attempt to retain the government in their hands. Thus the more successful Florence was in her external undertakings the greater was the tension within. The forces arrayed against each other gradually assumed a provisional organization in ever-increasing independence of each other. The old senate or council and the popular assembly of all the citizens were transformed or sank into the background, and the Podestà, or foreign magistrate appointed for a year, with his lesser and greater council of citizens, was the supreme authority from 1207 onwards. This marked a momentary triumph of the nobles. But the people asserted themselves once again, and elected a Captain of the People, also a foreigner, with a lesser and greater council of citizens, who did not dispute the formal and representative supremacy of the Podestà, but was in reality coordinate with him. On this the Podestà naturally became the head of the nobles as the Captain was head of the people; and there rose that spectacle, so strange to us but so familiar to mediæval Italy, of two bodies of citizens, each with its own constitution and magistracy, encamped within the same walls. The Podestà was the head of the "Commonwealth," and the Captain the head of the "People." There was, it is true, for the most part a show of some central and coordinating power, nominally supreme over these independent and often hostile magistrates, such as the body of Ancients. But this central government had little effective power. To understand the course of Florentine history, however, we must turn back for a moment to the informal internal organization of the two bodies thus opposed to each other. The struggle is between the military and territorial aristocracy on the one hand, and the mercantile democracy of the city on the other; and we have seen that the clan system and the Tower-clubs were the germ cells of the one order, and the Craft-guilds those of the other. Now the Craft-guilds were obviously capable of supporting a higher form of political development than could ever come out of the rival system. The officers of the Florentine Crafts were compelled to exercise all the higher functions of government. They preserved a strict discipline within their own jurisdiction--(and the aggregation of the trades in certain streets and districts made that jurisdiction roughly correspond to local divisions)--they had to coordinate their industries one with another, and regulate their complicated relations one with another, and they sent their representatives to all the great trading cities of the world, where they had to conduct such delicate and important negociations that they became the most skilful diplomatists in Italy. Indeed, the training of ambassadors may almost be considered as a Florentine industry! Add to this the vast financial concerns which they had to conduct, and it will readily be seen that as statesmen the merchants of Florence must eventually prove more than a match for their military rivals and opponents. The merchant people was the progressive and constructive element in Florentine society. Accordingly the constitutional history of Florence resolves itself into a progressive, though chequered, advance of the people against the nobles (or, as they were afterwards called, the magnates) along two lines. In the first place, they had to make the _de facto_ trade organization of the city into its _de jure_ constitution--a movement which culminated in 1282 in the formal recognition of the Priors of the Crafts as the supreme magistrates of Florence. And, in the second place, they must attempt to bring the magnates effectively within the control of the laws and constitution of the mercantile community, which they systematically and recklessly defied as long as they were in a position to do so. The magnates behaved like brigands, and the people replied by practically making them outlaws. They gradually excluded them from all share of the government, they endeavoured to make the Podestà personally responsible for keeping them in order, they organized a militia of trade bands that could fly to arms and barricade the streets, or lay siege to the fortified houses of the magnates at a moment's notice; and finally, in 1293, they passed the celebrated "Ordinances of Justice" connected with the name of Giano della Bella, by which when a magnate murdered a popolano his whole clan was held directly responsible (the presumption being that the murder had been ordered in a family council), and "public report" vouched for by two witnesses was sufficient evidence for a conviction. It is this struggle for the supremacy of the mercantile democracy and the Roman Law over the military aristocracy with its "barbarian" traditions, that lies at the back of the Guelf and Ghibelline troubles of the thirteenth century. The papal and imperial principles that are usually associated with the names enter only in a very secondary way into the conflict. In truth neither the popes nor the emperors had any sympathy with the real objects of either party, though they were ready enough to seek their advantage in alliances with them. And in their turn the magnates and merchants of Florence were equally determined to be practically independent of Pope and Emperor alike. Nevertheless the magnates could look nowhere else than to the Emperor when they wanted material support or moral sanction for their claims to power; and it was only in the magnates that the Emperor in his turn could hope to find instruments or allies in his attempt to assert his power over the cities. In like manner the Pope, naturally jealous of a strong territorial power, encouraged and fostered the cities in their resistance to imperial pretensions, while he and the merchant bankers of Florence were indispensable to each other in the way of business. We have now some insight into the essential motives of Florentine history in the thirteenth century. But another step is needed before we can understand the form which the factions took. It would be a fatal error to suppose that the Ghibellines were soldiers and the Guelfs merchants, and that as each faction triumphed in turn Florence expelled her merchants and became a military encampment, or expelled her soldiers and became a commercial emporium. Such a course of events would be absolutely impossible. The truth is, that the main part of the faction fighting and banishing was done on both sides by the magnates themselves. The industrial community went on its way, sometimes under grievous exactions, sometimes under a friendly Government, always subject to the insolence and violence of the magnates, though in varying degree, but always there, and always pursuing its business occupations. It came about thus. We have seen that in the twelfth century the nobles within Florence were on the whole fairly conscious of having common cause with the merchants, but that the very success of her external undertakings brought into the city a more turbulent and hostile order of nobility. On the other side, rich and powerful merchants pushed their way up into recognition as magnates, while retaining their pecuniary interest in commerce. Thus in the thirteenth century the body of magnates itself became divided, not only into clans, but into factions. It always seemed worth while for some of them to strengthen their alliances with the territorial magnates, the open foes of the city, in order to strengthen their hold on the city itself; and it always seemed worth while for others to identify themselves more or less sincerely with the demands of the people in order to have their support in wrenching from their fellow magnates a larger share of the common spoil. It was here that the absence of any uniting principle or constructive purpose amongst the magnates told with fatal effect. Indeed their house was so divided against itself that the people would probably have had little difficulty in getting rid of them altogether, had they not been conscious of requiring a body of fighting men for service in their constant wars. The knights were at a certain disadvantage in a street fight in Florence, but the merchant statesmen knew well enough that they could not do without them on a battle-field. We can now understand the Guelf and Ghibelline struggles of the thirteenth century. The Buondelmonte incident of 1215, which both Dante and Villani regard as the cause of these conflicts, was of course only their occasion. The conclusive victory of one party could only mean the reappearance within its ranks of the old factions under new names. For if the faction opposed to the people won a temporary victory, they would be unable to hold their own permanently against the superior discipline, wealth, and constructive genius of their subjects; whereas if it was the champions of the people who had expelled their rivals and seized the plunder, they would be in no hurry to give up to the merchants the power they had won in their name. They would regard themselves as entitled to a gratitude not distinguishable from submission, and would have their own definition of the degree of influence and power which was now their due. Thus what had been the people's party among the magnates would aspire, when victorious, to be the masters of the people, and gradually another people's party would form itself within their ranks. The wonder is not that no reconciliations were permanent, but that Cardinal Latino's reconciliation of 1279 lasted, at least ostensibly, so long as till 1300. Obviously, if no new forces came upon the field, the only issue from this general situation must be in the conclusive triumph, not of the people's faction amongst the magnates, but of the attempt to break down the opposition of all the magnates to the citizen law, and the successful absorption of them into the commercial community. In the "Ordinances of Justice" and the further measures contemplated by Giano della Bella the requirements of this solution were formulated. Had they been successfully carried out, the magnates as an independent order would have been extinguished. Accordingly from 1293 onwards the fight raged round the Ordinances of Justice. No party, even among the magnates, dared openly to seek their repeal; but while some supported them in their integrity with more or less loyalty, others desired to modify them, or attempted to disembowel them by manipulating the elections and securing magistrates who would not carry them out. This was the origin of the Black and White factions. The Blacks were for circumventing the Ordinances, while the Whites were for carrying them out and extending their principles. It will be seen at once how false an impression is given when it is said that the Whites were moderate Guelfs, inclining to Ghibellinism, and the Blacks extreme Guelfs. The truth is that the terms of Ghibelline and Guelf had by this time lost all real political meaning, but in so far as Guelfism in Florence had ever represented a principle it was the Whites and not the Blacks that were its heirs. But the magnates of Florence at the beginning of the fourteenth century administered large funds that had accrued from the confiscation of Ghibelline estates; they had fought against the Ghibellines at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289, and they made a boast of being Guelf of the Guelfs. Whatever party of them was in the supremacy, therefore, was prone to accuse those in opposition of Ghibellinism simply because they were in opposition. This was what the victorious Blacks did. Their alliance with Pope Boniface VIII., who wished to make use of them for his ambitious purposes, lent some colour to their claim. Moreover, the remnants of the old Ghibelline party in the city or its territory naturally sought the alliance of the Whites as soon as they were in pronounced hostility to the ruling Guelfs. Thus arose the confusion that has perpetuated itself in the current conception of the Whites as "moderates," or Ghibellinizing Guelfs, a conception which stands in plain contradiction with the most significant facts of the case. During the closing period of Dante's life the politics of Florence became more tangled than ever. Every vestige of principle seems to disappear, and personal ambitions and hatreds to become more unbridled than ever. The active interference of the Pope and the Royal house of France, followed by the withdrawal of the Papal Court to Avignon, the invasion of Italy by Henry VII., and the rise of such leaders as Can Grande, Uguccione da Faggiuola, and Castruccio, introduced new forces. We dimly perceive, too, that the mercantile democracy of Florence is becoming a mercantile aristocracy with elements of disturbance beneath it in the excluded or oppressed minor arts. In a word, just before the movement that has been steadily proceeding from 1115 to 1300 reaches its natural goal, the conditions of the problem change, the history enters upon a new phase, the far-off preparation for the Medici begins, and the problem ceases to have any direct and intimate connection with the study of Dante. § 6. _Dante's Politics._ Enough has been said to show the reader how very imperfect an idea is given of Dante's politics when it is said that he was at first a Guelf but became a Ghibelline. We have seen that the political party, for his connection with which he was exiled, was heir to the best Guelf traditions. His own writings show that the maintenance of peace was his idea of the supreme function of Government. The extreme severity of his judgments upon thieving and upon false coining is characteristic of the citizen of the greatest commercial city of the world. In all this, if we must use the misleading words, he is more Guelf than Ghibelline. It is true that he constantly opposed the influence of Boniface VIII. in the affairs of Florence, but Boniface was a disturbing and reactionary force that opposed the legitimate development of the Guelf policy of the Florentine democracy. It is true that he is a passionate advocate of an ideal Empire, and that he looks to the Emperor to heal the wounds of Italy, but the more carefully his writings are studied the more clear does it become that what he seeks in the Emperor is not a champion of Teutonic feudalism and supporter of the territorial nobility, but a power that will make Roman Law run all through Italy, and will hold the turbulent nobles in check. The Empire and the Emperor mean to Dante justice and peace secured by the enforcement of Roman Law. Whatever this is, it is not the Ghibellinism of Farinata or the Ubaldini. It is true, however--and here if anywhere Dante is open to the charge of temporary desertion of his principles--that after his exile he, together with other Whites, entered into a league with the Ubaldini, the most obstinate of the traditional foes of the commercial community of Florence. This was a desperate act, which, however reprehensible or deplorable, cannot be taken as indicating the deliberate adoption of a policy in contradiction to the whole tenor of his life and thought. We may well suppose that the sense of the hollow and indeed dishonourable nature of such an alliance was one of the considerations that induced him to sever himself from the exiles and "make a party for himself." Lastly, he was an enthusiastic admirer of Henry VII., and he even goaded him on to the attack of Florence. But Henry himself, who came to Italy with the sanction of the Pope, came with the earnest desire to heal and soothe. The Ghibellines proper felt that they had more to fear than to hope from him. We cannot say, then, that Dante's politics changed. Nor can we define his position by calling him a Guelf or a Ghibelline, or both. His political ideals were his own. They were the outcome of his life and thought, intensely personal, as was all else about him. They cannot be labelled, but must be studied in his life and in his works. If we are to use the current terms at all, we shall perhaps come nearest to the truth by saying that Dante was a Guelf in his aims, but that he approximated to the traditions if not to the practices of the Ghibellines in the means by which he hoped to see them realized. SELECTIONS FROM THE CHRONICLES OF VILLANI NOTES AND WARNINGS The marginal references are to the divisions and lines of Moore's "Oxford Dante." * * * * indicates a passage omitted in the translation; . . . indicates a hiatus in the Italian text. Villani makes the year begin on March 25th. Thus 1300 is still running till March 25th, 1301. For instance, Bk. VII., § 9, gives the last day of February, 1265, as the date of the Battle of Benevento. By our reckoning this is the February of 1266. So too the Reconciliation of the Florentines by the Cardinal Latino, Bk. VII., § 56, took place by our reckoning in February, 1279, and the death of Charles of Anjou, Bk. VII., § 95, on January 7th, 1285, etc. The Kingdom = The Kingdom of Apulia. The Duchy = The Duchy of Spoleto. The March = The March of Ancona. The Principality = [?] The Principality of Tarento. San Miniato = San Miniato al Tedesco, in the Arno Valley, West of Empoli. Nocera = Nocera of the Saracens near Naples, not the Nocera of _Paradiso_ xi. 48. The Duomo or Cathedral = What is now known as the Baptistery. Master, M., Messer, all represent the Italian Messer. "Popolo" is translated "people" except where it means "the Democracy" as a form of government. It is there given untranslated. [[V] If this rule is ever departed from, it is through inadvertency.] The "popolari" or "popolani" are members of the "popolo" or people, sometimes opposed to the "Nobili," or old Nobility of birth, and sometimes to the "Grandi," or Magnates, the new nobility of wealth and status. To be "placed under bounds" appears to mean banishment or confinement, under the form of a prohibition to cross certain stated "bounds." The "Black" Cerchi are merely a branch of the Cerchi family: they were "Whites" politically. Villani was well acquainted with Dante's works, and evidently regarded him as an authority. Therefore it must not be taken for granted, without further thought, that in every case of agreement Villani's testimony is an _independent_ confirmation of Dante. CHRONICLE OF JOHN VILLANI BOOK I. _This book is called the New Chronicle, in which many past things are treated of, and especially the root and origins of the city of Florence; then all the changes through which it has passed and shall pass in the course of time: begun to be compiled in the year of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, 1300. Here begins the preface and the First Book._ § 1.--Forasmuch as among our Florentine ancestors, few and ill-arranged memorials are to be found of the past doings of our city of Florence, either by the fault of their negligence or by reason that at the time that Totila, the scourge of God, destroyed it, their writings were lost, I, John, citizen of Florence, considering the nobility and greatness of our city at our present times, hold it meet to recount and make memorial of the root and origins of so famous a city, and of its adverse and happy changes and of past happenings; not because I feel myself sufficient for such a work, but to give occasion to our successors not to be negligent in preserving records of the notable things which shall happen in the times after us, and to give example to those who shall come after, of changes, and things come to pass, and their reasons and causes; to the end that they may exercise themselves in practising virtues, and shunning vices, and enduring adversities with a strong soul, to the good and stability of our republic. And, therefore, I will furnish a faithful narrative in this book in plain vernacular, in order that the ignorant and unlettered may draw thence profit and delight; and if in any part there should be defect, I leave it to the correction of the wiser. And first we will say whence were the origins of our said city, following on for as long a time as God shall grant us grace; and not without much toil shall I labour to extract and recover from the most ancient and diverse books, and chronicles, and authors, the acts and doings of the Florentines, compiling them herein; and first the origin of the ancient city of Fiesole, the destruction whereof was the cause and beginning of our city of Florence. And because our origin starts from very long ago, it seems to us necessary to our treatise to recount briefly other ancient stories; and it will be delightful and useful to our citizens now and to come, and will encourage them in virtue and in great actions to consider how they are descended from noble ancestors and from folk of worth, such as were the ancient and worthy Trojans, and valiant and noble Romans. And to the end our work may be more praiseworthy and good, I beseech the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name every work has a good beginning, continuance and end. § 2.--_How through the confusion of the Tower of Babel the world began to be inhabited._ [Sidenote: Inf. xxxi. 12-18, 46-81. Par. xxvi. 124-126. De Vulg. El. i. 6: 49-61 and i. 7. Purg. xii. 34-36.] [Sidenote: Inf. v. 52-60. De Mon. ii. 9: 22 sqq.] We find in the Bible histories, and in those of the Assyrians, that Nimrod the giant was the first king, or ruler, and assembler of the gatherings of the peoples, that he by his power and success ruled over all the families of the sons of Noah, which were seventy-two in number, to wit, twenty-seven of the issue of Shem the first-born son of Noah, and thirty of Ham the second son of Noah, and fifteen of Japhet the third son of Noah. This Nimrod was the son of Cush, which was the son of Ham, the second son of Noah, and of his pride and strength he thought to rival God, saying that God was Lord of Heaven, and he of Earth; and to the end that God might no longer be able to hurt him by a flood of water, as He had done in the first age, he ordained the building of the marvellous work of the Tower of Babel; wherefore God, to confound the said pride, suddenly sent confusion upon all mankind, which were at work upon the said tower; and where all were speaking one language (to wit, Hebrew), it was changed into seventy-two divers languages, so that they could not understand one another's speech. And by reason of this, the work of the said tower had of necessity to be abandoned, which was so large that it measured eighty miles round, and it was already 4,000 paces high, and 1,000 paces thick, and each pace is three of our feet. And afterwards this tower remained for the walls of the great city of Babylon, which is in Chaldæa, and the name Babylon is as much as to say "confusion"; and therein by the said Nimrod and his descendants, were first adored the idols of the false gods. The said tower, or wall of Babylon, was begun 700 years after the Flood, and there were 2,354 years from the beginning of the world to the confusion of the Tower of Babel. And we find that they were 107 years working at it; and men lived long in those times. And note, that during this long life, having many wives, they had many sons and descendants, and multiplied into a great people, albeit disordered and without law. Of the said city of Babylon the first king which began to make wars was Ninus, son of Belus, descended from Asshur, son of Shem, which Ninus built the great city of Nineveh; and then after him reigned Semiramis, his wife, in Babylon, which was the most cruel and dissolute woman in the world, and she was in the time of Abraham. § 3.--_How the world was divided into three parts, and of the first called Asia._ § 4.--_Of the second part of the world called Africa, and its boundaries._ § 5.--_Of the third part of the world called Europe, and its boundaries._ * * * * This Europe was first inhabited by the descendants of Japhet, the third son of Noah, as we shall make mention hereafter in our treatise; and also according to Escodio, master in history, Noah in person, with Janus his son, which he begat after the Flood, came into this part of Europe into the region of Italy, and there ended his life; and Janus abode there, and from him were descended great lords and peoples, and he did many things in Italy. § 6.--_How King Atlas, born in the fifth degree from Japhet, son of Noah, first came into Europe._ § 7.--_How King Atlas first built the city of Fiesole._ [Sidenote: De Vulg. El. i. 8: 11-13.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 61-63. Par. xv. 126.] * * * * This Atlas, with Electra his wife, and many followers, by omens and the counsel of Apollinus his astrologer and master, arrived in Italy in the country of Tuscany, which was entirely uninhabited by human beings, and searching by the aid of astronomy through all the confines of Europe for the most healthy and best situated place which could be chosen by him, he took up his abode on the mount of Fiesole, which seemed to him strong in position and well situated. And upon that rock he began and built the city of Fiesole, by the counsel of the said Apollinus, who found out by astronomical arts that Fiesole was in the best and most healthy place that there was in the said third part of the world called Europe. Since it is well-nigh midway between the two seas which encircle Italy, to wit, the sea of Rome and Pisa, which Scripture calls the Mediterranean, and the Adriatic Sea or Gulf, which to-day is called the Gulf of Venice, and, by reason of the said seas, and by the mountains which surround it, better and more healthy winds prevail there than in other places, and also by reason of the stars which rule over that place. And the said city was founded during the ascendant of such a sign and planet, that it gives more sprightliness and strength to all its inhabitants than any other part of Europe; and the nearer one ascends to the summit of the mountain, the more healthy and better it is. And in the said city there was a bath, which was called the Royal Bath, and which cured many sicknesses; and into the said city there came by a marvellous conduit from the mountains above Fiesole, the finest and most wholesome spring waters, of which the city had great abundance. And Atlas had the said city walled with strongest walls, wondrous in their masonry and their thickness, and with great and strong towers; and there was a fortress upon the summit of the mountain, of the greatest beauty and strength, where dwelt the said king, as is still shown and may be seen by the foundations of the said walls, and by the strong and healthy site. The said city of Fiesole multiplied and increased in inhabitants in a short time, so that it ruled over the surrounding country to a great distance. And note that it was the first city built in the said third division of the world called Europe, and therefore it was named "_Fia Sola_" [it shall be alone], to wit, _first_, with no other inhabited city in that said division. § 8.--_How Atlas had three sons, Italus and Dardanus and Sicanus._ [Sidenote: De Mon. ii. 3: 67, 68.] [Sidenote: De Vulg. El. i. 10: 39-85.] Atlas, king of Fiesole, after that he had built the said city, begat by Electra his wife three sons: the first was called Italus, and from his name the kingdom of Italy was named, and he was lord and king thereof; the second son was named Dardanus, which was the first rider to ride a horse with saddle and bridle. Some have written that Dardanus was son to Jove, king of Crete, and son to Saturn, as has been afore mentioned; but this was not true, forasmuch as Jove abode in Greece, and his descendants were kings and lords thereof, and were always the enemies of the Trojans; but Dardanus came from Italy, and was son to Atlas, as the history will make mention. And Virgil the poet confirms it in his book of the _Æneid_, when the gods said to Æneas that he should seek the country of Italy, whence had come his forefathers which had built Troy; and this was true. The third son of Atlas was named Sicanus, that is in our parlance Sezzaio [last], which had a most beautiful daughter called Candanzia. This Sicanus went into the island of Sicily, and was the first inhabitant thereof, and from his name the island was at the first called Sicania, and by diversity of vernacular of the inhabitants it is now called by them Sicilia, and by us Italians Cicilia. This Sicanus built in Sicily the city of Saragosa, and made it chief of the realm whereof he was king, and his descendants after him for a very long time, as is told in the history of the Sicilians, and by Virgil in the _Æneid_. § 9.--_How Italus and Dardanus came to agree which should succeed to the city of Fiesole and the kingdom of Italy._ When King Atlas had died in the city of Fiesole, Italus and Dardanus his sons were left rulers after him; and each of them being a lord of great courage, and both being worthy in themselves to reign over the kingdom of Italy, they came to this agreement together, to go with their sacrifices to sacrifice to their great god Mars, whom they worshipped; and when they had offered sacrifice they asked whether of them twain ought to abide lord in Fiesole, and whether ought to go and conquer other countries and realms. From the which idol they received answer, either by divine revelation or by device of the devil, that Dardanus should go and conquer other lands and countries, and Italus should remain in Fiesole and in the country of Italy. To which commandment and answer they gave such effect that Italus abode as ruler, and he begat great rulers which after him governed not only the city of Fiesole and the country round about, but well-nigh all Italy, and they built many cities there; and the said city of Fiesole rose into great power and lordship, until the great city of Rome reached her state and lordship. And thereafter, for all the great power of Rome, yet was the city of Fiesole continually at war with and rebelling against it, until at last it was destroyed by the Romans, as this faithful history shall hereafter record. At present we will cease speaking of the Fiesolans and will return to their history in due time and place, and we will now go on to tell how Dardanus departed from Fiesole, and was the first builder of the great city of Troy, and the ancestor of the kings of the Trojans and also of the Romans. § 10.--_How Dardanus came to Phrygia and built the city of Dardania, which was afterwards the great Troy._ Dardanus, as he was commanded by the answer of their god, departed from Fiesole with Apollinus, master and astrologer of his father, and with Candanzia his niece, and with a great following of his people, and came into the parts of Asia to the province which was called Phrygia [Frigia], from the name of Friga, of the descendants of Japhet, which was the first inhabitant thereof; which province of Phrygia is beyond Greece, after the islands of Archipelago are passed, on the mainland, which to-day is ruled by the Turks and is called Turkey. In that country the said Dardanus by the counsel and arts of the said Apollinus began to build, and made a city upon the shores of the said Grecian sea, which he called after his own name Dardania, and this was 3,200 years from the creation of the world. And it was called Dardania so long as Dardanus lived, or his sons. § 11.--_How Dardanus had a son which was named Tritamus, which was the father of Trojus, after whose name the city of Troy was so called._ Now this Dardanus had a son which was called Tritamus, and Tritamus begat Trojus and Torajus; but Trojus was the wiser and the more valorous, and because of his excellence he became lord and king of the said city and of the country round about; and he had great war with Tantalus, king of Greece, son of Saturn, king of Crete, of whom we made mention. And then, after the death of the said Trojus, by reason of the goodness and wisdom and worth which had reigned in him, it pleased his son and the men of his city that the said city should always be called Troy after his name; and the chief and principal gate of the city, in memory of Dardanus, retained the name which the city had at the first, to wit Dardania. [Sidenote: Cf. Convivio iv. 14: 131-154. Purg. xii. 61-63. Inf. xxx. 13-15, 98, 113, 114.] § 12.--_Of the kings which were in Troy; and how Troy was destroyed the first time in the time of the King Laomedon._ § 13.--_How the good King Priam rebuilt the city of Troy._ § 14.--_How Troy was destroyed by the Greeks._ § 15.--_How the Greeks which departed from the siege of Troy well-nigh all came to ill._ § 16.--_How Helenus, son of King Priam, with the sons of Hector, departed from Troy._ § 17.--_How Antenor and the young Priam, having departed from Troy, built the city of Venice, and that of Padua._ [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 88. Purg. v. 75.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 88.] [Sidenote: Purg. v. 75.] Another band departed from the said destruction, to wit Antenor, who was one of the greatest lords of Troy, and was brother of Priam, and son of the King Laomedon, who was much accused of betraying Troy, and Æneas was privy to it, according to Dares; but Virgil makes him quite innocent of this. This Antenor, with Priam the younger, son of King Priam, a little child, escaped from the destruction of Troy with a great following of people to the number of 12,000, and faring over the sea with a great fleet arrived in the country where to-day is Venice, the great city, and they settled themselves in those little surrounding islands, to the end they might be free and beyond reach of any other jurisdiction and government, and became the first inhabitants of those rocks; whence increasing later, the great city of Venice was founded, which at first was called Antenora, from the said Antenor. And afterwards the said Antenor departed thence and came to dwell on the mainland, where to-day is Padua, the great city, and he was its first inhabitant and builder, and he gave it the name of Padua, because it was among paduli [marshes], and by reason of the river Po, which flowed hard by and was called Pado. The said Antenor remained and died in Padua, and within our own times his body has been discovered there, and his tomb engraved with letters which bear witness that it is the body of Antenor, and this his tomb has been renewed by the Paduans and may be seen to-day in Padua. § 18.--_How Priam III. was king in Germany, and his descendants kings of France._ § 19.--_How Pharamond was the first king of France, and his descendants after him._ § 20.--_How the second Pepin, father of Charles the Great, was king of France._ § 21.--_How Æneas departed from Troy and came to Carthage in Africa._ [Sidenote: Inf. iv. 122. Inf. i. 73-75. De Mon. ii. 3; Convivio iv. 5: 48.] [Sidenote: De Mon. ii. 3: 62.] [Sidenote: De Mon. ii. 3: 77-84.] [Sidenote: Epist. vii. (3) 62, 63.] [Sidenote: Par. xix. 131, 132.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 9.] [Sidenote: Inf. v. 61, 62. Par. ix. 97, 98. Cf. De Monarchia ii. 3: 102-108. Convivio iv. 26: 59-70. Canzon. xii. 35, 36.] Æneas again departed from the said destruction of Troy with Anchises, his father, and with Ascanius, his son, born of Creusa, daughter of the great King Priam, with a following of 3,300 men of the best people of Troy, and they embarked upon twenty-two ships. This Æneas was of the royal race of the Trojans, in this wise: for Ansaracus, son of Trojus and brother of Ilius, of whom mention was made in the beginning, begat Danaus, and Danaus begat Anchises, and Anchises begat Æneas. This Æneas was a lord of great worth, wise and of great prowess, and very beautiful in person. When he departed from Troy with his following, with great lamentation, having lost Creusa, his wife, in the assault of the Greeks, he went first to the island of Ortygia, and made sacrifice to Apollo, the god of the sun, or rather idol, asking him for counsel and answer whither he should go; from the which he had answer and commandment to go into the land and country of Italy (whence at the first had come Dardanus and his forefathers to Troy), and to enter into Italy by the harbour or mouth of the river of Albola; and he said to him by the said oracle, that after many travails by sea, and battles in the said land of Italy, he should gain a wife and great lordship, and from his race should arise mighty kings and emperors, which should do very great and notable things. When Æneas heard this he was much encouraged by the fair response and promise, and straightway he put to sea with his following and ships, and voyaging long time he met with many adventures, and came to many countries, and first to the country of Macedonia, where already were Helenus and the wife and son of Hector; and after their sorrowful meeting, remembering the ruin of Troy, they departed. And sailing over divers seas, now forwards, now backwards, now crossways, as being ignorant of the country of Italy, not having with them any great masters or pilots of the sea which could guide them, so that they sailed almost whithersoever fortune or the sea winds might lead them, at last they came to the island of Sicily which the poets called Trinacria, and landed where to-day is the city of Trapali, in which Anchises, his father, by reason of his great toils and his old age, passed from this life, and in the said place was buried after their manner with great solemnities. And after the great mourning made by Æneas over his dear father, they departed thence to go into Italy; and by stress of storm the said ships were divided, and part held one way, and part another. And one of the said ships, with all on board, was lost in the sea, and the others came to the shores of Africa (neither knowing ought of the other), where the noble city of Carthage was a-building by the powerful and beautiful Queen Dido which had come thither from Sidonia, which is now called Suri [Tyre]; and the said Æneas and Ascanius, his son, and all his following in the twenty-one ships which came to that port, were received by the said queen with great honour; above all, because the said queen was taken with great love for Æneas so soon as she beheld him, in such wise that Æneas for her sake abode there long time in such delight that he did not remember the commandment of the gods that he should go into Italy; and by a dream or vision, it was told him by the said gods that he should no longer abide in Africa. For the which thing suddenly with his following and ships he departed from Carthage; and therefore the said Queen Dido by reason of her passionate love slew herself with the sword of the said Æneas. And those who desire to know this story more fully may read it in the First and Second Books of the _Æneid_, written by the great poet Virgil. § 22.--_How Æneas came into Italy._ [Sidenote: Conv. iv. 26: 96.] [Sidenote: Inf. ii. 13-15.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 25-30.] [Sidenote: Inf. ii. 13-27.] When Æneas had departed from Africa, he again landed in Sicily, where he had buried his father Anchises, and in that place celebrated the anniversary of his father with great games and sacrifices; and they received great honour from Acestes, then king of Sicily, by reason of the ancient kinship with the Trojans, who were descendants of Sicanus of Fiesole. Then he departed from Sicily, and came into Italy, to the Gulf of Baiæ, which to-day is called Mare Morto, to the headland of Miseno, very near where to-day is Naples; in which country there were many and great woods and forests, and Æneas, going through them, was led by the appointed guide, the Erythræan Sibyl, to behold Hell and the pains that are therein, and afterwards Limbo; and, according to what is related by Virgil in the Sixth Book of the _Æneid_, he there found and recognised the shades, or soul-images of his father, Anchises, and of Dido, and of many other departed souls. And by his said father were shown to him, or signified in a vision, all his descendants and their lordship, and they which were to build the great city of Rome. And it is said by many, that the place where he was led by the wise Sibyl was through the weird caverns of Monte Barbaro, which is above Pozzuolo, and which still to-day are strange and fearful to behold; and others believe and hold that, either by divine power or by magic arts, this was shown to Æneas in a vision of the spirit, to signify to him the great things which were to issue and come forth from his descendants. But however that may be, when he issued forth from Hell, he departed, and entered into a ship, and, following the shores until he came to the mouth of the river Tiber or Albola, he entered it, and came to shore, and by signs and auguries perceived that he had arrived in the country of Italy, which had been promised him by the gods; and with great festival and rejoicing they brought their labours by sea to an end, and began to build for themselves habitations, and to fortify themselves with ditches and palisades of the wood of their ships. And this place afterwards became the city of Ostia; and these fortifications they built for fear of the country people, who, fearing them as strange folk and unused to their customs, held them as foes, and fought many battles against the Trojans to drive them from the country, in all of which the Trojans were victorious. § 23.--_How the King Latinus ruled over Italy, and how Æneas had his daughter to wife, and all his kingdom._ [Sidenote: Inf. xiv. 94-96. Par. xxii. 145, 146.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xxi. 25-27.] [Sidenote: Inf. iv. 125, 126. Purg. xvii. 34-39.] [Sidenote: Par. vi. 35, 36.] [Sidenote: Inf. i. 107, iv. 124.] [Sidenote: Purg. xvii. 34-39. Inf. i. 108. Par. vi. 3. De Monarchia ii. 3: 108-117.] In this country (whereof the capital was Laurentia, the remains of which may still be traced near to where Terracina now stands), the King Latinus reigned, which was of the seed of King Saturn, who came from Crete when he was driven thence by Jove his son, as we made mention afore. And this Saturn came into the country of Rome, which was then ruled by Janus of the seed of Noah; but the inhabitants were then very ignorant, and lived like beasts on fruits and acorns, and dwelt in caves of the earth. This Saturn, wise in learning and in manners, by his wisdom and counsel led the people to live like men, and caused them to cultivate lands, and plant vineyards, and build houses, and enclose towns and cities; and the said Saturn was the first to build the city of Sutri, called Saturna, and it was so called after his name; and in that country, by his care, grain was first sown, wherefore the dwellers therein held him for a god; and Janus himself, which was lord thereof, made him his partner, and gave him a share in the kingdom. This Saturn reigned thirty-four years in Italy, and after him reigned Picus his son thirty-one years; and after Picus reigned Faunus his son twenty-nine years, and was slain by his people. The two sons of Faunus were Lavinus and Latinus. This Lavinus built the city of Lavina. And Lavinus reigned but a short time; and when he was dead the kingdom was left to Latinus, which changed the name of the city of Lavina to Laurentia, because on the chief tower thereof there grew a great laurel tree. The said Latinus reigned thirty-two years, and was very wise; and he much bettered the Latin tongue. This King Latinus had only one most beautiful daughter called Lavinia, who by her mother had been promised in marriage to a king of Tuscany, named Turnus, of the city of Ardea, now Cortona. Tuscany was the name of the country and province, because there were the first sacrifices offered to the gods, with the fumes of incense called _tuscio_. Æneas having arrived in the country, sought peace with the King Latinus, and that he might dwell there; by the said Latinus he was received graciously, and not only had leave of him to inhabit the country, but also had the promise of his daughter Lavinia to wife, since the command of the gods was that they should marry her to a stranger, and not to a man of the country. For which cause, and to secure the heritage of King Latinus, great battles arose, for a long time, between Æneas and Turnus and them of Laurentia, and the said Turnus slew in battle the great and strong giant, Pallas, son of Evander, king of the seven hills, where to-day is Rome, who had come in aid of Æneas; and on the same account died, by the hand of Æneas, the virgin Camilla, who was marvellous in arms. In the end, Æneas, being victor in the last battle, and Turnus being slain by his hand, took Lavinia to wife, who loved Æneas much, and Æneas her; and he had the half of the kingdom of King Latinus. And, after the death of King Latinus, who lived but a short time longer, Æneas was lord over all. [Sidenote: Inf. ii. 13.] [Sidenote: Par. vi. 40-42. Convivio iv. 5: 80-97.] § 24.--_How Julius Ascanius, son of Æneas, was king after him, and of the kings and lords who descended from him._ § 25.--_How Silvius, second son of Æneas, was king after Ascanius, and how from him descended the kings of the Latins, of Alba, and of Rome._ § 26.--_How Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome._ § 27.--_How Numa Pompilius was king of the Romans after the death of Romulus._ § 28.--_How there were in Rome seven kings one after the other down to Tarquin, and how in his time they lost the lordship._ § 29.--_How Rome was ruled for a long time by the government of the consuls and senators, until Julius Cæsar became Emperor._ [Sidenote: Par. vi. 79-81. Convivio iv. 5: 16-29. De Monarchia ii. 9: 99-105; and ii. 12. Epist. vii. (3) 64-73.] After that the kings had been driven out, and the government of Rome was left to the consuls and senators, the said King Tarquin and his son, with the aid of King Porsenna of Tuscany, who reigned in the city of Chiusi [Clusium], made great war upon the Romans, but in the end the victory remained with the Romans. And afterwards the Republic of Rome was ruled and governed for 450 years by consuls and senators, and at times by dictators, whose authority endured for five years; and they were, so to speak, emperors, for that which they commanded must of necessity be done; and other divers offices, such as tribunes of the people, and prætors, and censors, and chiliarchs. And in this time there were in Rome many changes, and wars, and battles, not only with their neighbours, but with all the nations of the world; the which Romans by force of arms, and virtue and the wisdom of good citizens, ruled over well-nigh all the provinces and realms and dominions in the world, and gained sovereignty over them, and made them tributary, with the greatest battles, and with slaughter of many nations of the world, and of the Romans themselves, in divers times, well-nigh innumerable to relate. And also among the citizens themselves, by reason of envy against the rulers, and strifes between magnates and them of the people; and on the cessation of foreign wars, there arose much fighting and slaughter ofttimes among the citizens; and, in addition to this, from time to time intolerable pestilences arose among the Romans. And this government endured until the great battles of Julius Cæsar against Pompey, and then against his sons, in which Cæsar was victorious; then the said Cæsar did away with the office of consuls and of dictators, and he first was called Emperor. And after him Octavianus Augustus, who ruled in peace, after many battles, over the whole world, at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, 700 years after the foundation of Rome; and thus it is seen that Rome was governed by kings for 254 years, and by consuls 450 years, as we have aforesaid, and it is told more at length by Titus Livius and many other authors. But note that the great power of the Romans was not alone in themselves, save in so far that they were at the head and leaders; but first all the Tuscans and then all the Italians followed them in their wars and in their battles, and were all called Romans. But we will now leave the order of the history of the Romans and of the Emperors, save in so far as it shall pertain to our matter, returning to our subject of the building of Florence, which we promised to narrate. And we have made this long exordium, forasmuch as it was necessary to show how the origin of the Roman builders of Florence (as hereafter will be narrated) was derived from the noble Trojans; and the origin and beginning of the Trojans was from Dardanus, son of Atlas, of the city of Fiesole, as we have briefly recounted; and afterwards from the descendants of the noble Romans, and of the Fiesolans, by the force of the Romans a people was founded called Florentines. § 30.--_How a conspiracy was formed in Rome by Catiline and his followers._ [Sidenote: 680 A.U.C.] [Sidenote: Convivio iv. 5: 172-176.] At the time when Rome was still ruled by the government of consuls, in the year 680 from the foundation of the said city, Mark Tully Cicero and Caius Antony being consuls, and Rome in great and happy state and lordship, Catiline, a very noble citizen, descended by birth from the royal house of Tarquin, being a man of dissolute life but brave and daring in arms and a fine orator, but not wise, being envious of the good and rich and wise men who ruled the city, their lordship not being pleasing to him, formed a conspiracy with many other nobles and other followers disposed to evil-doing, and purposed to slay the consuls and part of the senators, and to destroy their office, and to overrun the city, robbing and setting fire to many parts thereof, and to make himself ruler thereof; and this he would have done had it not been warded off by the wit and foresight of the wise consul, Mark Tully. So he defended the city from such ruin, and found out the said conspiracy and treason; but because of the greatness and power of the said Catiline, and because Tully was a new citizen in Rome, his father having come from Capua or from some other town of the Campagna, he did not dare to have Catiline seized or to bring him to justice, as his misdeeds required; but by his great wit and fine speech he caused him to depart from the city; but many of his fellow-conspirators and companions, from among the greatest citizens, and even of the order of senators, who abode still in Rome after Catiline's departure, he caused to be seized, and to be strangled in prison, so that they died, as the great scholar, Sallust, relates in due order. § 31.--_How Catiline caused the city of Fiesole to rebel against the city of Rome._ Catiline having departed from Rome, with part of his followers came into Tuscany, where Manlius, one of his principal fellow-conspirators, who was captain, had gathered his people in the ancient city of Fiesole, and Catiline being come thither, he caused the said city to rebel against the lordship of the Romans, assembling all the rebels and exiles from Rome and from many other provinces, with lewd folk disposed for war and for ill-doing, and he began fierce war with the Romans. The Romans, hearing this, decreed that Caius Antony, the consul, and Publius Petreius, with an army of horse and many foot, should march into Tuscany against the city of Fiesole and against Catiline; and they sent by them letters and messengers to Quintus Metellus, who was returning from France with a great host of the Romans, that he should likewise come with his force from the other side to the siege of Fiesole, and to pursue Catiline and his followers. § 32.--_How Catiline and his followers were discomfited by the Romans in the plain of Piceno._ Now when Catiline heard that the Romans were coming to besiege him in the city of Fiesole, and that Antony and Petreius were already with their host in the plain of Fiesole, upon the bank of the river Arno, and how that Metellus was already in Lombardy with his host of three legions which were coming from France, and the succour which he was expecting from his allies which had remained in Rome had failed him, he took counsel not to shut himself up in the city of Fiesole, but to go into France; and therefore he departed from that city with his people and with a lord of Fiesole who was called Fiesolanus, and he had his horses' shoes reversed, to the end that when they departed the hoofprints of the horses might show as if folk had entered into Fiesole, and not sallied forth thence, to cause the Romans to tarry near the city, that he might depart thence the more safely. And having departed by night, to avoid Metellus, he did not hold the direct road through the mountains which we call the Alps of Bologna, but took the plain by the side of the mountains, and came where to-day is the city of Pistoia, in the place called Campo Piceno, that was below where to-day is the fortress of Piteccio, purposing to cross the Apennine mountains by that way, and descend thence into Lombardy; but Antony and Petreius, hearing of his departure, straightway followed after him with their host along the plain, so that they overtook him in the said place, and Metellus, on the other side, set guards at the passes of the mountains, to the end he might not pass thereby. Catiline, seeing himself to be thus straitened, and that he could not avoid the battle, gave himself and his followers to the chances of combat with great courage and boldness, in the which battle there was great slaughter of Romans from the city and of rebel Romans and of Fiesolans; at the end of which fierce battle Catiline was defeated and slain in that place of Piceno with all his followers; and the field remained to the Romans, but with such dolorous victory that the said two consuls, with twenty horse, who alone escaped, did not care to return to Rome. The which thing could not gain credence with the Romans till the senators sent thither to learn the truth; and, this known, there was the greatest sorrow thereat in Rome. And he who desires to see this history more fully, let him read the book of Sallust called _Catilinarius_. The injured and wounded of Catiline's people who had escaped death in the battle, albeit they were but few, withdrew where is to-day the city of Pistoia, and there in vile habitations became the first inhabitants thereof, whilst their wounds were healing. And afterwards, by reason of the good situation and fruitful soil, the inhabitants thereof increased, which afterwards built the city of Pistoia, and by reason of the great mortality and pestilence which was near that place, both of their people and of the Romans, they gave it the name of Pistoia; and therefore it is not to be marvelled at if the Pistoians have been and are a fierce and cruel people in war among themselves and against others, being descended from the race of Catiline and from the remnants of such people as his, discomfited and wounded in battle. § 33.--_How Metellus with his troops made war upon the Fiesolans._ After that Metellus, who was in Lombardy near the mountains of the Apennine Alps in the country of Modena, heard of the defeat and death of Catiline, straightway he came with his host to the place where the battle had been, and having seen the slain, through amazement at the strange and great mortality he was afeared, marvelling within himself as at a thing impossible. But afterwards he and his followers equally despoiled the camp of the Romans from the city and that of the enemy, seizing that which they found there; and this done he came towards Fiesole to besiege the city. The Fiesolans vigorously took to arms, and sallied forth from the city to the plain, fighting with Metellus and with his host, and by force thrust him back, and drove him to the other side of the Arno with great hurt to his people, who with his followers encamped upon the hills, or upon the banks of the river; the Fiesolans with their host drew off from the other bank of the river Arno towards Fiesole. § 34.--_How Metellus and Fiorinus discomfited the Fiesolans._ The night following, Metellus ordered and commanded that part of his host should pass the river Arno, at a distance from the host of the Fiesolans, and should place themselves in ambush between the city of Fiesole and the host of the Fiesolans, and of that company he made captain Fiorinus, a noble citizen of Rome of the race of the Fracchi or Floracchi, who was his prætor, which is as much as to say marshal of his host; and Fiorinus, as he was commanded by the consul, so he did. In the morning, at the break of day, Metellus armed with all his people passing over the river Arno, began the battle against the Fiesolans, and the Fiesolans, vigorously defending the ford of the river, sustained the battle in the river Arno. Fiorinus, who was with his people in ambush, when he saw the battle begun, sallied forth boldly in the rear of the Fiesolans, who were fighting in the river against Metellus. The Fiesolans, surprised by the ambush, seeing themselves suddenly assailed by Fiorinus in the rear and by Metellus in front, put to confusion, threw down their arms and fled discomfited towards the city of Fiesole, wherefore many of them were slain and taken. § 35.--_How the Romans besieged Fiesole the first time, and how Fiorinus was slain._ The Fiesolans being discomfited and driven back from the shores of Arno, Fiorinus the prætor, with the host of the Romans, encamped beyond the river Arno towards Fiesole, where were two little villages, one of which was called Villa Arnina, and the other Camarte [Casa Martis], that is campo or _Domus Martis_, where the Fiesolans on a certain day in the week held a market in all commodities for their towns and the region round about. The consul made a decree with Fiorinus that no one should sell or buy bread or wine or other things which might be of use to the troops save in the field where Fiorinus was stationed. After this the consul Quintus Metellus sent incontinent to Rome that they should send him men-at-arms to besiege the city of Fiesole, for the which cause the senators made a decree that Julius Cæsar, and Cicero, and Macrinus, with several legions of soldiers, should come to the siege and destruction of Fiesole; which, being come, besieged the said city. Cæsar encamped on the hill which rose above the city; Macrinus on the next hill or mountain, and Cicero on the other side; and thus they remained for six years besieging the said city, having through long siege and through hunger almost destroyed it. And likewise those in the host, by reason of the long sojourn and their many privations being diminished and enfeebled, departed from the siege, and returned to Rome, save Fiorinus, who remained at the siege with his followers in the plain where he had at first encamped, and surrounded himself with moats and palisades, after the manner of ramparts, or fortifications, and kept the Fiesolans in great straits; and thus he warred upon them long time, till his folk felt secure, and held their foes for nought. Then the Fiesolans having recovered breath somewhat, and mindful of the ill which Fiorinus had done and was doing to them, suddenly, and as if in despair, advanced by night with ladders and with engines to attack the camp or fortification of Fiorinus, and he and his people with but few guards and while they slept, not being on their guard against the Fiesolans, were surprised; and Fiorinus and his wife and his children were slain, and all his host in that place well-nigh destroyed, for few thereof escaped; and the said fortress and ramparts were destroyed, and burnt and done away with by the Fiesolans. § 36.--_How, because of the death of Fiorinus, the Romans returned to the siege of Fiesole._ When the news was known at Rome, the consuls and senators and all the commonwealth being grieved at the misadventure which had befallen the good leader Fiorinus, straightway took counsel that this should be avenged, and that a very great host should return once more to destroy the city of Fiesole, for the which were chosen these leaders: Count Rainaldus, Cicero, Teberinus Macrinus, Albinus, Gneus Pompey, Cæsar, and Camertino Sezio, Conte Tudedino, that is Count of Todi, which was with Julius Cæsar, and of his chivalry. This man pitched his camp near to Camarti, nearly where to-day is Florence; Cæsar pitched his camp upon the hill which rose above the city, which is to-day called Mount Cecero, but formerly was called Mount Cæsar, after his name, or after the name of Cicero; but rather it is held to be after Cæsar, inasmuch as he was the greatest leader in the host. Rainaldus pitched his camp upon the hill over against the city on the other side of the Mugnone, and after his name it is so called until this day; Macrinus encamped on the hill still called after him; Camertinus in the region which is still called Camerata after his name. And all the other aforesaid lords, each one for himself pitched his camp around the city, some on the hills and some in the plain; but no other than these aforesaid have left their names to be a memorial of them. These lords, with their followers in great numbers, both horse and foot, besieging the city, arrayed and prepared themselves to make yet greater war upon the city than at the first; but by reason of the strength of the city the Romans wrought in vain, and many of them being dead by reason of the long siege and excessive toil, those great lords and consuls and senators well-nigh all returned to Rome; only Cæsar with his followers abode still at the siege. And during that sojourn he commanded his soldiers to go to the village of Camarti, nigh to the river Arno, and there to build a council house wherein he might hold his council, and might leave it for a memorial of himself. This building in our vernacular we have named Parlagio [Parliament house]. And it was round and was right marvellously vaulted, and had an open space in the midst; and then began seats in steps all around; and from step to step, built upon, vaulting, they rose, widening up to the very top, and the height thereof was more than sixty cubits, and it had two doors; and therein assembled the people to hold council, and from grade to grade the folk were seated, the most noble above, and then descending according to the dignity of the people; and it was so fashioned that all in the Parliament might see one another by face, and that all might hear distinctly that which one was saying; and it held commodiously an infinite multitude of people, and its name, rightly speaking, was Parlatorio [speaking place]. This was afterwards destroyed in the time of Totila, but in our days the foundations may yet be seen, and part of the vaulting near to the church of S. Simone in Florence, and reaching to the beginning of the square of Santa Croce; and part of the palaces of the Peruzzi are built thereupon, and the street which is called Anguillaia, which goes to Santa Croce, goes almost through the midst of the said Parliament house. § 37.--_How the city of Fiesole surrendered itself to the Romans and was destroyed and laid waste._ [Sidenote: Circ. 72 B.C.] [Sidenote: Par. vi. 53, 54. xv. 124-126.] Fiesole having been besieged as aforesaid the second time, and the city being much wasted and afflicted both by reason of hunger and also because their aqueducts had been cut off and destroyed, the city surrendered to Cæsar and to the Romans at the end of two years and four months and six days (for so long had the siege lasted), on condition that any which desired to leave the city might go in safety. The city was taken by the Romans, and despoiled of all its wealth, and was destroyed by Cæsar, and laid waste to the foundations; and this was about seventy-two years before the birth of Christ. § 38.--_How the city of Florence was first built._ After the city of Fiesole was destroyed, Cæsar with his armies descended to the plain on the banks of the river Arno, where Fiorinus and his followers had been slain by the Fiesolans, and in this place began to build a city, in order that Fiesole should never be rebuilt; and he dismissed the Latin horseman whom he had with him, enriched with the spoils of Fiesole; and these Latins were called Tudertines. Cæsar, then, having fixed the boundaries of the city, and included two places called Camarti and Villa Arnina [of the Arno], purposed to call it Cæsaræa from his own name. But when the Roman senate heard this, they would not suffer Cæsar to call it after his name, but they made a decree and order that the other chief noble Romans who had taken part in the siege of Fiesole should go and build the new city together with Cæsar, and afterwards populate it; and that whichever of the builders had first completed his share of the work should call it after his own name, or howso else it pleased him. [Sidenote: Inf. xxiii. 107, 108.] [Sidenote: 70 B.C.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 73-78. Par. xv. 124-126.] Then Macrinus, Albinus, Gneus Pompey, and Marcius, furnished with materials and workmen, came from Rome to the city which Cæsar was building, and agreed with Cæsar to divide the work after this manner: that Albinus undertook to pave all the city, which was a noble work and gave beauty and charm to the city, and to this day fragments of the work are found, in digging, especially in the sesto of Santo Piero Scheraggio, and in Porta San Piero, and in Porta del Duomo, where it shows that the ancient city was. Macrinus caused the water to be brought in conduits and aqueducts, bringing it from a distance of seven miles from the city, to the end the city might have abundance of good water to drink and to cleanse the city; and this conduit was carried from the river called Marina at the foot of Montemorello, gathering to itself all the springs above Sesto and Quinto and Colonnata. And in Florence the said springs came to a head at a great palace which was called "caput aquæ," but afterwards in our speech it was called Capaccia, and the remains can be seen in the Terma until this day. And note that the ancients, for health's sake, used to drink spring waters brought in by conduits, forasmuch as they were purer and more wholesome than water from wells; seeing that few, indeed very few, drank wine, but the most part water from conduits, but not from wells; and as yet there were very few vines. Gneus Pompey caused the walls of the city to be built of burnt bricks, and upon the walls of the city he built many round towers, and the space between one tower and the other was twenty cubits, and it was so that the towers were of great beauty and strength. Concerning the size and circuit of the city we can find no chronicle which makes mention thereof; save that when Totila, the scourge of God, destroyed it, history records that it was very great. Marcius, the other Roman lord, caused the Capitol to be built after the fashion of Rome, that is to say the palace, or master fortress of the city, and this was of marvellous beauty; into which the water of the river Arno came by a hollowed and vaulted passage, and returned into the Arno underground; and the city, at every festival, was cleansed by the outpouring of this duct. This Capitol stood where to-day is the piazza which is called the Mercato Vecchio, over against the church which is called S. Maria, in Campidoglio. This seems to be the best supported opinion; but some say that it was where the place is now called the Guardingo [citadel]; beside the Piazza di Popolo (so called from the Priors' Palace), which was another fortress. Guardingo was the name afterwards given to the remains of the walls and arches after the destruction by Totila, where the bad quarter was. And the said lords each strove to be in advance of the work of the others. And at one same time the whole was completed, so that to none of them was the favour granted of naming the city according to his desire, but by many it was at first called "Little Rome." Others called it Floria, because Fiorinus, who was the first builder in that spot, had there died, he being the _fiore_ [flower] of warlike deeds and of chivalry, and because in the country and fields around where the city was built there always grew flowers and lilies. Afterwards the greater part of the inhabitants consented to call it Floria, as being built among flowers, that is, amongst many delights. And of a surety it was, inasmuch as it was peopled by the best of Rome, and the most capable, sent by the senate in due proportion from each division of Rome, chosen by lot from the inhabitants; and they admitted among their number those Fiesolans which desired there to dwell and abide. But afterwards it was, through long use of the vulgar tongue, called Fiorenza, that is "flowery sword." And we find that it was built in the year 682, after the building of Rome and seventy years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And note that it is not to be wondered at that the Florentines are always at war and strife among themselves, being born and descended from two peoples so contrary and hostile and different in habits as were the noble Romans in their virtue and the rude Fiesolans fierce in war. § 39.--_How Cæsar departed from Florence, and went to Rome, and was made consul to go against the French._ [Sidenote: Par. vi. 65. Epist. v. (3) 47-49.] [Sidenote: Par. vi. 73-81. Convivio iv. 5: 16-79. De Mon. ii. 9: 99-105; and ii. 12. Epist. vii. (3) 64-73.] After that the city of Florence was built and peopled, Julius Cæsar being angered because he, having been the first builder thereof, and having had the victory over the city of Fiesole, had nevertheless not been permitted to call the city after his name, departed therefrom and returned to Rome, and for his zeal and valour was elected consul and sent against the French, where he abode ten years whilst he was conquering France and England and Germany; and when he returned victorious to Rome his triumph was refused him, because he had transgressed the decree (made by Pompey the consul, and by the senate, through envy, under colour of virtue), that no one was to continue in any command for more than five years. The which Cæsar returning with his army of French and Germans from beyond the Alps, Italians, Pisans, Pirates, Pistoians, and also Florentines, his fellow-citizens, brought footmen and horsemen and slingers with him to begin a civil war, because his triumph had been refused him, but moreover that he might be lord of Rome as he had desired long time. So he fought against Pompey and the senate of Rome. And after the great battle between Cæsar and Pompey, well-nigh all the combatants were slain in Emathia, to wit Thessaly in Greece, as may fully be read in Lucan the poet, by whoso desires to know the history. And after that Cæsar had gained the victory over Pompey, and over many kings and peoples who were helping those Romans who were his enemies, he returned to Rome, and so became the first Emperor of Rome, which is as much as to say commander over all. And after him came Octavianus Augustus, his nephew and adopted son, who was reigning when Christ was born, and after many victories ruled over all the world in peace; and thenceforward Rome was under imperial government, and held under its jurisdiction and that of the Empire all the whole world. § 40.--_Of the ensign of the Romans and of the Emperors, and how from them it came to the city of Florence and other cities._ [Sidenote: De Mon. ii. 4: 30-41.] [Sidenote: Par. xix. 101, 102.] [Sidenote: De Mon. ii. 11: 23. Purg. x. 80. Par. vi. 32, 100.] [Sidenote: Par. xx. 8, 31, 32. Inf. iv. 95, 96. Purg. ix. 30.] [Sidenote: Ep. vi. (3) 79-85.] In the time of Numa Pompilius by a divine miracle there fell from heaven into Rome a vermilion-coloured shield, for the which cause and augury the Romans took that ensign for their arms, and afterwards added S.P.Q.R. in letters of gold, signifying Senate of the People of Rome; the same ensign they gave to all the cities which they built, to wit, vermilion. Thus did they to Perugia, and to Florence, and to Pisa; but the Florentines, because of the name of Fiorinus and of the city, charged it with the white lily; and the Perugians sometimes with the white griffin; and Viterbo kept the red field, and the Orvietans charged it with the white eagle. It is true that the Roman lords, consuls and dictators, after that the eagle appeared as an augury over the Tarpeian rock, to wit, over the treasure chamber of the Capitol, as Titus Livius makes mention, added the eagle to their arms on the ensign; and we find that the consul Marius in the battle of the Cimbri had on his ensigns the silver eagle, and a similar ensign was borne by Catiline when he was defeated by Antonius in the parts about Pistoia, as Sallust relates. And the great Pompey bore the azure field and silver eagle, and Julius Cæsar bore the vermilion field and golden eagle, as Lucan makes mention in verse, saying, Signa pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis. But afterwards Octavianus Augustus, his nephew and successor, changed it, and bore the golden field and the eagle natural, to wit, in black colour, signifying the supremacy of the Empire, for like as the eagle surpasses every other bird, and sees more clearly than any other creature, and flies as high as the heaven of the hemisphere of fire, so the Empire ought to be above every other temporal sovereignty. And after Octavianus all the Roman emperors have borne it in like manner; but Constantine, and after him all the other Greek emperors, retained the ensign of Julius Cæsar, to wit, the vermilion field and golden eagle, but with two heads. We will leave speaking of the ensigns of the Roman commonwealth and of the Emperors, and we will return to our subject concerning the doings of the city of Florence. § 41.--_How the city of Florence became the Treasure-House of the Romans and the Empire._ § 42.--_How the Temple of Mars, which is now called the Duomo of S. Giovanni, was built in Florence._ After that Cæsar and Pompey, and Macrinus and Albinus and Marcius, Roman nobles and builders of the new city of Florence, had returned to Rome, their labours being completed, the city began to increase and multiply both in Romans and Fiesolans who had settled as its inhabitants, and in a short time it became a fine city for those times; for the emperors and senate of Rome advanced it to the best of their power, much like another little Rome. Its citizens, being in prosperous state, determined to build in the said city a marvellous temple in honour of the god Mars, by reason of the victory which the Romans had had over the city of Fiesole; and they sent to the senate of Rome to send them the best and most skilful masters that were in Rome, and this was done. And they caused to be brought white and black marbles and columns from many distant places by sea, and then by the Arno; they brought stone and columns from Fiesole, and founded and built the said temple in the place anciently called Camarti, and where the Fiesolans held their market. Very noble and beautiful they built it with eight sides, and when it had been built with great diligence, they dedicated it to the god Mars, who was the god of the Romans, and they had his effigy carved in marble in the likeness of an armed cavalier on horseback; they placed him on a marble pillar in the midst of that temple, and held him in great reverence, and adored him as their god so long as paganism continued in Florence. And we find that the said temple was begun during the reign of Octavianus Augustus, and that it was built under the ascendant of such a constellation that it will continue almost to eternity; and this we find written in a certain place engraved within the space of the said temple. § 43.--_Tells how the province of Tuscany lies._ § 44.--_Concerning the might and lordship possessed by the province of Tuscany before Rome came into power._ § 45.--_These are the bishoprics of the cities of Tuscany._ § 46.--_Of the city of Perugia._ § 47.--_Of the city of Arezzo._ § 48.--_Of the city of Pisa._ § 49.--_Of the city of Lucca._ § 50.--_Of the city of Luni._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 73.] [Sidenote: Purg. xiii. 152.] [Sidenote: Vita Nuova § 2. Convivio ii. 15.] The city of Luni, which is now destroyed, was very ancient, and we find from the stones of Troy, that from the city of Luni there went a fleet and soldiers in aid of the Greeks against the Trojans; afterwards it was destroyed by soldiers from beyond the mountains, by reason of a lady, the wife of a lord, who, when on the way to Rome, was adulterously seduced in this city of Luni, wherefore, as the said lord returned, he destroyed the city by force, and to-day the country is desert and unhealthy. And note that of old the coasts were much inhabited, and albeit inland there were few cities, and few inhabitants, yet in Maremma and Maretima, towards Rome on the coast of the Campagna, there were many cities and many inhabitants, which to-day are consumed and brought to nought by reason of the corruption of the air: for there was the great city of Populonia, and Soana, and Talamone, and Grosseto, and Civitaveglia, and Mascona, and Lansedonia, which were with their troops at the siege of Troy; and in Campagna, Baia, Pompeia, Cumina, and Laurenza, and Albania. And the cause why to-day these cities of the coast are almost without inhabitants and unhealthy, and also why Rome is less healthy, is said by the great masters of astronomy to be because of the movement of the eighth sphere of heaven, which in every hundred years moves one degree towards the North Pole, and thus it will move 15° in 1,500 years, and afterwards will turn back in like manner, if it be the pleasure of God that the world shall endure so long; and by the said change of the heaven is changed the quality of the earth and of the air, and where it was inhabited and healthy, it now is without inhabitants and unhealthy, and also the converse. And furthermore, we see that in the course of nature all things in the world change, and rise and diminish, as Christ said with His mouth that nothing here abides. §§ 51-56.--_Of Viterbo, Orvieto, Cortona, Chiusi, Volterra, and Siena._ § 57.--_The story returns to the doings of the city of Florence, and how S. Miniato there suffered martyrdom under Decius, the Emperor._ [Sidenote: 270 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1013 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xii. 100-105.] Now that we have briefly made some mention of our neighbouring cities in Tuscany, we will return to our subject and tell of our city of Florence. As we recounted before, the said city was ruled long time under the government and lordship of the emperors of Rome, and ofttimes the emperors came to sojourn in Florence when they were journeying into Lombardy, and into Germany, and into France to conquer provinces. And we find that Decius, the Emperor, in the first year of his reign, which was in the year of Christ 270, was in Florence, the treasure-house and chancelry of the Empire, sojourning there for his pleasure; and the said Decius cruelly persecuted the Christians wheresoever he could hear of them or find them, and he heard tell how the blessed Saint Miniato was living as a hermit near to Florence, with his disciples and companions, in a wood which was called Arisbotto of Florence, behind the place where now stands his church, above the city of Florence. This blessed Miniato was first-born son to the king of Armenia, and having left his kingdom for the faith of Christ, to do penance and to be far away from his kingdom, he went over seas to gain pardon at Rome, and then betook himself to the said wood, which was in those days wild and solitary, forasmuch as the city of Florence did not extend and was not settled beyond Arno, but was all on this side; save only there was one bridge across the Arno, not however where the bridges now are. And it is said by many that it was the ancient bridge of the Fiesolans which led from Girone to Candegghi, and this was the ancient and direct road and way from Rome to Fiesole, and to go into Lombardy and across the mountains. The said Emperor Decius caused the said blessed Miniato to be taken, as his story narrates. Great gifts and rewards were offered him as to a king's son, to the end he should deny Christ; and he, constant and firm in the faith, would have none of his gifts, but endured divers martyrdoms: in the end the said Decius caused him to be beheaded where now stands the church of Santa Candida alla Croce al Gorgo; and many faithful followers of Christ received martyrdom at that place. And when the head of the blessed Miniato had been cut off, by a miracle of Christ, with his hands he set it again upon his trunk, and on his feet passed over Arno, and went up to the hill where now stands his church, where at that time was a little oratory in the name of the blessed Peter the Apostle, where many bodies of holy martyrs were buried; and when S. Miniato was come to that place, he gave up soul to Christ, and his body was there secretly buried by the Christians; the which place, by reason of the merits of the blessed S. Miniato, was devoutly venerated by the Florentines after that they were become Christians, and a little church was built there in his honour. But the great and noble church of marble which is there now in our times, we find to have been built later by the zeal of the venerable Father Alibrando, bishop and citizen of Florence, in the year of Christ 1013, begun on the 26th day of the month of April by the commandment and authority of the catholic and holy Emperor Henry II. of Bavaria, and of his wife the holy Empress Gunegonda, which was reigning in those times; and they presented and endowed the said church with many rich possessions in Florence and in the country, for the good of their souls, and caused the said church to be repaired and rebuilt of marbles, as it is now; and they caused the body of the blessed Miniato to be translated to the altar which is beneath the vaulting of the said church, with much reverence and solemnity by the said bishop and the clergy of Florence, with all the people, both men and women, of the city of Florence; but afterwards the said church was completed by the commonwealth of Florence, and the stone steps were made which lead down by the hill; and the consuls of the art of the Calimala were put in charge of the said work of S. Miniato, and were to protect it. § 58.--_How S. Crescius and his companions suffered martyrdom in the district of Florence._ § 59.--_Of Constantine the Emperor, and his descendants, and the changes which came thereof in Italy._ [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 115-117.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 94, 95.] [Sidenote: 320 A.D.] [Sidenote: De Mon. iii. 10. Par. vi. 1-3; xx. 55-57.] We find that our city of Florence remained under the government of the Roman Empire for about 350 years after its first foundation, observing pagan ways, and worshipping idols, albeit there were many Christians, after the fashion whereof I have spoken, but they remained concealed in divers hermitages and caverns without the city, and they which were within did not declare themselves as Christians for fear of the persecutions which the emperors of Rome and their vicars and ministers brought upon the Christians, until the time of the great Constantine, son of Constantine the Emperor, and of Helena his wife, daughter of the king of Britain, which was the first Christian emperor, and endowed the Church with all the possessions of Rome, and gave liberty to the Christians in the time of the blessed Pope Sylvester, who baptized him and made him a Christian, cleansing him from leprosy by the power of Christ, and this was in the year of Christ about 320. The said Constantine caused many churches to be built in Rome to the honour of Christ, and having destroyed all the temples of paganism and of the idols, and established Holy Church in her liberty and lordship, and having brought the temporal affairs of the Church under due system and order, he departed to Constantinople, which he caused to be thus named, after his own name (for before this it was called Byzantium), and he raised it to great state and lordship, and there he made his seat, leaving here in command of Rome his patricians or censors, that is, vicars, which defended Rome, and fought for her, and for the Empire. After the said Constantine, which reigned more than thirty years, first in command of Rome, and then in command of Constantinople, there were left three sons, Constantine, and Constantius, and Constans, which had war and contentions among themselves, and one of them, to wit, Constantine, was a Christian, and the next, Constantius, was a heretic, and persecuted the Christians by reason of his heresy, which was begun in Constantinople by one named Arius, and this heresy was called Arian, after his name, which spread much error throughout all the world, and throughout the Church of God. These sons of Constantine by their dissensions greatly laid waste the Empire of Rome, and in a sense abandoned it, and henceforward it always seemed as if it were declining, and its sovereignty becoming less; and there began to be two and three emperors at one time, and one would be reigning in Constantinople, and another in the Empire of Rome, and one would be Christian, and another an Arian heretic, persecuting the Christians and the Church, and this endured long time, so that all Italy was infected thereby. Of the other emperors before and after, we shall make no ordered record, save of those which pertain to our subject; but he who desires to find them in order should read the Martinian Chronicle, and therein he will find the emperors and the popes which were in those times set forth in order. § 60.--_How the Christian faith first came to Florence._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 47, 145, 146.] [Sidenote: Inf. xiii. 143-150.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 25, 47.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 42.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 17-20. Par. xv. 134, 135.] At the time that the said great Constantine became a Christian, and gave freedom and sovereignty to the Church, and S. Sylvester, the Pope, was openly established in the papacy in Rome, there spread through Tuscany, and throughout Italy, and afterwards through all the world, the true faith and belief of Jesus Christ. And in our city of Florence, the true faith began to be adopted, and paganism to be abolished, in the time of * * * * who was made bishop of Florence by Pope Sylvester; and from the noble and beautiful temple of the Florentines, of which mention has been made above, the Florentines removed their idol, which they called the god Mars, and placed it upon a high tower, by the river Arno, and would not break or destroy it, because in their ancient records they found that the said idol of Mars had been consecrated under the ascendant of such a planet, that if it were broken or set aside in a place of contempt, the city would suffer peril and injury, and undergo great changes. And although the Florentines had lately become Christians, they still observed many pagan customs, and long continued to observe them, and they still stood in awe of their ancient idol of Mars, so little were they perfected as yet in the holy faith; and this done, they consecrated their said temple in honour of God and of the blessed S. John the Baptist, and called it the Duomo of S. Giovanni; and they decreed that the feast on the day of his nativity should be celebrated with solemn sacrifices, and that a race should be run for a samite cloak, and this custom has been always observed by the Florentines on that day. And they had baptismal fonts erected in the middle of the temple, where people and children were and still are baptized; and on Holy Saturday, when in the said fonts the baptismal water and fire were blessed, they ordered that the said holy fire should be carried through the city after the custom of Jerusalem, so that some one should enter into every house with a lighted torch, for them to kindle their fires from. And from this solemnity came the privilege of the "great torch," which pertained to the house of the Pazzi, from some hundred and seventy years before 1300; because one of their ancestors, named Pazzo, strong and tall in person, bore a larger torch than any other, and was the first to take the sacred fire, and then the others received it from him. The said duomo, after that it had been consecrated to Christ, was enlarged by the space where to-day is the choir, and the altar of the blessed John; but at the time that the said duomo was the temple of Mars, this addition had not been made thereto, nor the turret and ball at the summit; and indeed it was open above after the fashion of Santa Maria Ritonda of Rome, to the intent their idol, the god Mars, which was in the midst of the temple, might be open to the sky. But after the second rebuilding of Florence, in the year of Christ 1150, the cupola was built upon columns, and the ball, and the golden cross which is at the top, by the consuls of the Art of Calimala, to which the commonwealth of Florence had committed the charge of the building of the said work in honour of S. John. And by many people which have journeyed through the world it is said to be the most beautiful temple or duomo of any that may be found; and in our times has been completed the work of the histories depicted within in mosaic. And we find, from ancient records, that the figure of the sun carved in mosaic, which says: "_En giro torte sol ciclos, et rotor igne_," was done by astronomy, and when the sun enters into the sign of Cancer, it shines at mid-day on that place through the opening above, where is the turret. § 61.--_Of the coming of the Goths and Vandals into Italy, and how they destroyed the country and besieged the city of Florence in the time of S. Zenobius, bishop of Florence._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK I. BOOK II. _Here begins the Second Book: how the city of Florence was destroyed by Totila, the scourge of God, king of the Goths and Vandals._ [Sidenote: 440 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 67.] [Sidenote: 450 A.D.] § 1.--In the year of Christ 440, in the time of S. Leo the Pope, and of Theodosius and Valentinian emperors, in the northern parts there was a king of the Vandals and of the Goths, which was called Bela, and surnamed Totila. This man was a barbarian and had no religion, and was cruel in customs and in all things, born of the province of Gothland and Sweden, and in his cruelty he slew his brother and subdued many divers nations of peoples by his might and lordship; and afterwards he was minded to destroy and take away the Empire of the Romans, and lay Rome waste; and thus by his sovereignty he gathered together innumerable people from his own country, and from Sweden and from Gothland, and afterwards from Pannonia, which is Hungary, and from Denmark, to enter into Italy. And when he desired to pass into Italy, he was opposed by the Romans and Burgundians and French, and a great battle was fought against him in the district of Lunina, that is to say of Friuli and Aquilea, with the greatest number of slain that had ever been in any battle, both on one side and on the other; and the king of Burgundy was slain. And Totila, being discomfited, returned to his own country with the followers which were left to him. But afterwards, desiring to carry out his purpose of destroying the Empire of Rome, he gathered a larger army than before, and came into Italy. And first he laid siege to the city of Aquilea; so it continued three years, and then he took it, and burnt and destroyed it with all the inhabitants; and when he had entered into Italy, after the same manner he destroyed Vicenza, and Brescia, and Bergamo, and Milan, and Ticino, and well-nigh all the cities of Lombardy, save Modena, for the merits of S. Gemignano, which was bishop thereof; for when he was passing through this city with his people, by a divine miracle he did not see it save when he was without the city, and by reason of the miracle he passed it by, and did not destroy it: and he destroyed Bologna and put to martyrdom S. Proculus, bishop of Bologna, and thus he destroyed well-nigh all the cities of Romagna. And afterwards passing through Tuscany he found the city of Florence strong and powerful. Hearing the fame thereof, and how it had been built by the noblest Romans, and was the treasure-house of the Empire and of Rome, and how in this country had been slain Radagasius, king of the Goths, his predecessor, with so great a multitude of Goths, as before has been narrated, he commanded that it should be besieged, and long time he sat before it in vain. And seeing that he could not obtain it by siege, inasmuch as it was very strong in towers and in walls and in many good soldiers, he set about to gain it by deceit and by flattery and by treachery. Now the Florentines had continual war with the city of Pistoia; and Totila ceased laying waste the country around the city, and sent to the Florentines that he desired to be their friend, and in their service would destroy the city of Pistoia, promising and making show of great love, and to give them privileges with very generous covenants. The imprudent Florentines (and for this cause they were ever afterwards called _blind_ in the proverb) believed his false flatteries and vain promises; they opened the gates to him, and admitted him and his followers into the city, and lodged him in the Capitol. And when the cruel tyrant was within the city with all his forces, under false seeming he showed love to the citizens, and one day he invited to his council the greatest and most powerful chiefs of the city in great numbers; and when they came to the Capitol, as they passed one by one through an entry, he caused them to be slain and massacred, none perceiving ought of the fate of the other; and afterwards he had them thrown into the ducts of the Capitol, to wit, the conduit of the Arno which flows underground by the Capitol, to the end that no man might know thereof. And thus he put them to death in great numbers, and nought was perceived thereof in the city of Florence save that at the exit from the city where the said aqueduct or conduit issued forth and flowed back into the Arno, the water was seen to be all red and bloody. Then the people perceived the deceit and treachery; but it was in vain and too late, seeing that Totila had armed all his followers; and when he perceived that his cruelty was discovered, he commanded them to overrun the city and slay both great and small, men and women, and from this there was no escape, forasmuch as the city was unarmed and unprepared, and we find that at that time there were in the city of Florence 22,000 men-at-arms, beside the aged and children. When the people of the city perceived that they were come to such sorrow and destruction, they escaped who could, fleeing into the country and hiding themselves in strongholds, and in woods and in caves; but the most part of the citizens were slain, or wounded, or taken, and the city was all despoiled of substance and riches by the said Goths, Vandals, and Hungarians. And after that Totila had thus wasted it of inhabitants and of goods, he commanded that it should be destroyed and burnt, and laid waste, and that there should not remain one stone upon another, and this was done; save that in the west there remained one of the towers which Gneus Pompey had built, and on the north and on the south one of the gates, and within the city near to the gate the "casa" or "domo," which we take to be the duomo of S. Giovanni, called of yore the "casa" [house] of Mars. And verily it never was entirely destroyed, nor shall be destroyed to eternity, save at the day of judgment, even as is written on the cement of the said duomo. And there were also left standing certain lofty towers or temples, indicated in the ancient chronicles by letters of the alphabet, the which we cannot interpret, to wit S, and casa P, and casa F. The city had four gates and six posterns, and there were towers marvellous strong over the gates. And the idol of the god Mars which the Florentines took from the temple and set upon a pillar, then fell into the Arno, and abode there as long as the city remained in ruins. And thus was destroyed the noble city of Florence by the infamous Totila on the 28th day of June, in the year of Christ 450, to wit 520 years after its foundation; and in the said city the blessed Maurice, bishop of Florence, was put to death with great torments by the followers of Totila, and his body lies in Santa Reparata. § 2.--_How Totila caused the city of Fiesole to be rebuilt._ After that the city of Florence was destroyed, Totila went into the hill where had been the ancient city of Fiesole, and encamped there with his banners and tents and booths, and commanded that the said city should be rebuilt, and issued a proclamation that whosoever desired to return and dwell there, swearing to him to oppose the Romans, should abide in safety and freedom, and this in order that the city of Florence should never be rebuilt. For the which thing many which were descended from of old from Fiesole, returned to dwell thither, and of the Florentines themselves which had escaped, which did not know where to dwell or whither to go; and thus in a short time the city of Fiesole was restored and rebuilt, and made strong by walls and by inhabitants, and afterwards, as before so now, it continually rebelled against Rome. § 3.--_How Totila departed from Fiesole to go towards Rome, and destroyed many cities, and died an evil death._ § 4.--_How the Goths remained lords of Italy after the death of Totila._ [Sidenote: Circ. 470 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxxii. 62. De Vulg. El. i. 10: 18, 19.] * * * * And the King Theodoric held the Empire of Rome for the said Zeno, the Emperor, doing him homage therefor and paying him tribute. In these times, about the year of Christ 470, while Leo, Emperor of Rome, was reigning in Constantinople, was born in Great Britain, which is now called England, Merlin the prophet (of a virgin, they say, by conception or machination of a devil), which wrought in that country many marvels by necromancy, and ordained the Round Table of Knights Errant in the time when Uther Pendragon reigned in Britain, which was descended from Brutus, grandson of Æneas, the first inhabitant of that land, as afore we made mention; and afterwards the Round Table was restored by the good King Arthur, his son, which was a lord of great power and valour, and more gracious and knightly than all other lords, and he reigned long time in happy state, as the Romances of the Britons make mention, and whereof the Martinian Chronicle is not silent when treating of those times. § 5.--_How the Goths were driven the first time out of Italy, and how they recovered their sovereignty by means of the young Theodoric, their king._ § 6.--_How the Goths were entirely driven out of Italy by Belisarius, patrician of the Romans._ § 7.--_Of the coming of the Lombards into Italy._ § 8.--_Of the beginning of the religion and sect of the Saracens, instituted by Mahomet._ § 9.--_Of the successors of Rotharis, king of the Lombards._ § 10.--_How Charles Martel came from France to Italy at the summons of the Church against the Lombards; and of the origin of the city of Siena._ [Sidenote: 735 A.D.] [Sidenote: 740 A.D.] In the time of the said Eliprando [Liutprand], albeit he was a Christian, yet by reason of avarice, and of desire to usurp the rights of Holy Church, and by the counsel of the emperor of Constantinople, he began war against the Romans and against Pope Gregory III., and came with all his forces to besiege the said Pope in Rome, he by way of Lombardy, and Grimoald, king of the Samnites and of the Apulians, with his troops from Apulia, in the year of Christ 735. For the which thing, after a council had been held in Rome, the Church with the Romans sent to France for aid from Charles Martel, which Charles was son to Pepin, a great baron of France, and was of the Twelve Peers, and governed all the realm and the king himself; and the said Charles Martel did likewise, forasmuch as the king which then was, called Chilperic, had the name only, but Charles had the strength and lordship; and he was the son of the sister of Dodon, king of Aquitania, and afterwards was father of the good King Pepin, which was father of Charles the Great, and he had the surname of Martel, because he bore a hammer as his arms. And in truth he was a hammer, forasmuch as by his prowess he struck at all Germany, Saxony, Suabia, Bavaria, and Denmark as far as Norway, at England, Aquitania, and Navarre and Spain, and Burgundy and Provence, and became ruler over them all, and they became his tributaries. Then, at the summons of the said Pope, he passed into Italy as far as Apulia, and freed Rome and the Church from the encroachments of the Lombards. And it is said that at that time, about the year of Christ 740, was the place first inhabited where is now the city of Siena, by the aged and sick [non sana] people which came in with Charles Martel, and remained in that place as has been told afore concerning the building of Siena. § 11.--_How Eraco [Rachis], the Lombard king of Apulia, returned to obedience to Holy Church._ § 12.--_How Telofre [Astolf], king of the Lombards, persecuted Holy Church, and how King Pepin at the summons of Pope Stephen came from France and defeated him, and took him prisoner._ [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xx. 53 and the Commentators.] [Sidenote: 755 A.D.] After King Rachis there succeeded to the realm of Lombardy, and to that of Apulia, Astolf, called in Latin Telofre, brother of the said Rachis. He was a lord of great power, and cruel, and an enemy of Holy Church and of the Romans; and by the counsel of evil and rebellious Romans, he took Tuscany and the valley of Spoleto, and devastated them, and claimed tribute on every man's head; and made a conspiracy with Leo, and Constantine, his son, emperors of Constantinople, and at his request they came to Rome, and together with Telofre they took it, and sacked it, and burnt the churches and holy places, and carried to Constantinople the riches of Rome, and all the images from the churches in Rome, and in contempt of the Pope and of the Church and to the shame of the Christians he burnt them all with fire, and many faithful Christians they destroyed and consumed in Rome and in all Italy. For which thing Pope Stephen II. excommunicated them, and as a punishment for the misdeed took away from the emperor the kingdom of Apulia and of Sicily, and established by a decree that it should pertain to Holy Church for ever. And afterwards, not being able to resist the force of the said tyrants and so much affliction, he went in person into France to Pepin, prince and governor of the French, to require and pray him to come into Italy to defend Holy Church against Telofre, king of the Lombards, and he gave to the said Pepin many privileges and graces, and made and confirmed him king of France, and deposed Childeric, the king which was of the first race, forasmuch as he was a man of no account, and he became a monk. Which Pepin, a faithful and loving son of Holy Church, received him with great honour, and afterwards with all his forces with the said Pope Stephen came into Italy, in the year of Christ 755, and fought great battles with the said Telofre, king of the Lombards. In the end, by force of arms and of his folk, the said Telofre was overcome and defeated by the good King Pepin, and he obeyed the command of the Pope and of Holy Church, and made all amends, just as he and his cardinals chose to devise; and he left to the Church by compact and privilege the realm of Apulia and of Sicily, and the patrimony of S. Peter. And when the said Pepin was come to Rome with the said Pope, they were received with great honour by the Romans; and the said Pepin was made patrician, that is, vicar of Rome, and father of the Roman Republic. And when Rome and Holy Church were restored to their liberty and good estate, he returned into France, and ended his life with great honour, and Charles the Great, his son, succeeded him as king of France. § 13.--_How Desiderius, son of Telofre, began war again with Holy Church, for the which thing Charles the Great passed into Italy, and defeated him, and took away and destroyed the lordship of the Lombards._ [Sidenote: De Mon. iii. (11) 1-6.] [Sidenote: 775 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. vi. 94-96.] [Sidenote: Ep. v. (4).] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xv. 110, 111.] [Sidenote: De Mon. iii. 11: 6. Par. xviii. 43.] When King Pepin was departed from Italy and was returned to France, the Church of Rome and the country was in repose and tranquillity for a time, by reason of the covenant which Pepin had made with Telofre, king of Lombardy, and the victory which he had gained over him; but when Telofre was dead, Desiderius, his son, succeeded to him, which was a worse enemy and persecutor of Holy Church than his father, and broke the peace, and leagued himself with Constantine, which was the son of Leo, the emperor of Constantinople, and with his forces began to make war in Apulia, and Desiderius on his side in Tuscany more than ever his father had done at the first. For the which thing Pope Adrian, which was then governing Holy Church, sent into France for Charles the Great, son of Pepin, to come into Italy to defend the Church from the said Desiderius and from his following, the which Charles, king of France, passed into Lombardy in the year of Christ 775, and after many battles and victories gained against Desiderius, he besieged him in the city of Pavia, and when he had won the city by siege, he took the said Desiderius captive, and his wife and his sons; save that the eldest son, which was called Algise [Adelchis], fled into Constantinople to the Emperor Constantine, and continued the war. After he had taken Desiderius and his wife and his sons, Charles the Great caused him to swear fealty to Holy Church, and did the like to all the barons and cities of Italy; and when this was done, he sent the said Desiderius and his wife and his sons prisoners into France, and there they all died in prison. And thus was destroyed, by the power of the Franks and of the good Charles the Great, the sovereignty of the kings of the Lombards, formerly called Longobards, which had endured two hundred and five years in Italy; for never afterwards was there a king in Lombardy. Of a truth there remained the families of the lords and barons and great citizens descended from the Lombards, both in Lombardy and in Apulia; and still to-day there are certain gentlemen of ancient lineage whom in common speech we call Lombard Cattani, descended from the said Lombards which had been lords of Italy. Charles the Great, after the said victory, came to Rome, and by the said Adrian and by the Romans was received with great triumph and honour; and as Charles the Great drew nigh to Rome, and beheld the holy city from Montemalo, he alighted from his horse, and reverently entered Rome on foot; and when he came thither, he kissed the gates of the city and of all the churches, and gave rich offerings to every Church. And when he came to Rome he was made patrician of Rome, and he restored the affairs of Holy Church, and of the Romans, and of all Italy, and he restored them to privileges and liberty, having subdued in all parts the forces of the emperor of Constantinople, and of the king of the Lombards, and of their followers, and confirmed the Church in the donation which Pepin, his father, had given to her, and beyond that he endowed the Church with the duchy of Spoleto and of Benevento. And in the kingdom of Apulia he fought many battles against the Lombards and the rebels against Holy Church, and besieged and destroyed the city of Lacedonia, which is in Abruzzi between Aquila and Sermona, and besieged and conquered Tuliverno, the strong fortress at the entrance of Terra di Lavoro. And many other cities of the Kingdom [Apulia] which were held by the rebels against Holy Church, he entirely subdued to his governance. And when he had done this, leaving Rome and all Italy in peaceful condition under his lordship, in happy hour he was minded to attack the Saracens which had taken possession of Provence, and of Navarre, and of Spain, and with the troops of his twelve barons and peers of France, called Paladins, he entirely conquered and destroyed them; and he passed beyond seas at the request of the Emperor Michael of Constantinople and of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and conquered the Holy Land and Jerusalem, which were occupied by the Saracens, and gained for the emperor of Constantinople all the empire of the East which had been occupied by the Saracens and the Turks. And when he returned to Constantinople, albeit the Emperor Michael desired to give him many very great treasures, yet would he take nothing, save the wood of the holy cross and the nail of Christ, which he brought back into France, and which is in Paris to this day. And when he had returned to France, he ruled by his prowess and virtue not only over the realm of France, but all Germany, Provence, Navarre, and Spain, and all Italy. § 14.--_Of the progeny of Charles the Great, and of his successors._ § 15.--_How Charles the Great, king of France, was made Emperor of Rome._ [Sidenote: Par. vi. 94. De Monarchia iii. 11.] [Sidenote: 801 A.D.] When Charles the Great had returned from over seas into France, as we have said, and had subdued Germany, Italy, and Spain, and Provence, the wicked Romans, with the powerful Lombards and Tuscans, rebelled against the Church, and seized Pope Leo III., which was then reigning, at Rome, as he was going to the procession of the Litanies (S. Mark's Day, April 25th), and put out his eyes and slit his tongue, and drave him out of Rome. And as it pleased God, by divine miracle, and because he was innocent and holy, he recovered the sight of his eyes and the power of speech, and went into France to Charles the Great, praying him to come to Rome to restore the Church to her liberty; which Charles, at the request of the said Pope Leo, came together with him to Rome and restored the Pope and the Church to their state and liberty, and took great vengeance against all the rebels and enemies of Holy Church throughout all Italy. For the which thing the said Pope Leo, with his cardinals and general council, with the consent of the Romans, by reason of the virtuous and holy deeds done by the said Charles the Great on behalf of Holy Church and of all Christendom, took away the Roman Empire from the Greeks by a decree, and elected the said Charles the Great Emperor of the Romans, as being most worthy of the Empire; and by the said Pope Leo he was consecrated and crowned in Rome, in the year of Christ 801, with great solemnity and honour, on Easter Day. The said Charles reigned with great good fortune fourteen years one month and four days, ruling over all the empire of the West, and the provinces afore named, and also the emperor of Constantinople was under his obedience; and he caused as many abbeys to be built as there are letters in the alphabet, and the name of each one began with a different letter. And he caused his son Louis to be crowned lord over the Empire and the kingdom of France, giving all his treasure to the poor in God's name after this manner; for he left the third part of his treasure (which was infinite) to all the poor Christians seeking alms, and the other two parts he left to all his archbishops of his empire and realm, that they might distribute them amongst their bishops and all the churches and monasteries and hospitals. * * * * * [Sidenote: 814 A.D.] And this done, he commended his spirit in holiness to Christ, in the city of Aquisgrana, in Germany, and was there buried with great honour, to wit, at Aix-la-Chapelle. This was in the year of Christ 814, and he lived seventy-two years, and many signs appeared before his death, as we read in the chronicles of the doings of France. This Charles much extended Holy Church, and Christendom both far and near, and was a man of great virtue. § 16.--_How, after Charles the Great, Louis, his son, became Emperor._ § 17.--_How the Saracens of Barbary crossed to Italy, and were defeated, and all slain._ § 18.--_Further, how the Saracens crossed to Calabria and to Normandy in France._ § 19.--_How and in whose person the empire and realm of France fell from the progeny of Pepin._ § 20.--_Of the same matter, and of how the lineage of Hugh Capet reigned thereafter._ § 21.--_How the city of Florence lay waste and in ruins for 350 years._ After the destruction of the city of Florence, wrought by Totila, the scourge of God, as has afore been mentioned, it lay thus ruined and deserted about 350 years by reason of the evil state of Rome and of the Empire, which, at first by Goths and Vandals, and afterwards by Lombards and Greeks and Saracens and Hungarians, was persecuted and brought low, as has afore been related. Truly there were, where Florence had been, certain dwellings and inhabitants round about the duomo of S. Giovanni, forasmuch as the Fiesolans held market there one day in the week, and it was called the Campo Marti, as of old, for it had always been the market-place of the Fiesolans, and had borne this name before Florence was built. It came to pass ofttimes, during the years when the city lay waste and in ruins, that the said inhabitants of the borough and of the market-place, with the aid of certain nobles of the country which of old were descended from the first citizens of Florence and of the inhabitants of the villages round about, sought ofttimes to enclose within moats and palisades some part of the city around the Duomo; but they of the city of Fiesole, and their allies, the counts of Mangone, and of Montecarelli, and of Capraia, and of Certaldo, which were all of one lineage with the counts of Santafiore, which were descended from the Lombards, hindered and opposed them, and would not allow them to rebuild; but whatsoever was being built they came in force, and under arms, and caused it to be violently beaten down and destroyed, so that, for this cause and by reason of the adversities which the Romans were enduring, as has afore been related, and because the Fiesolans always held with the Goths, and afterwards with the Lombards, and with all the rebels and enemies of the Empire of Rome and Holy Church, and were so great and powerful in strength that none of their neighbours durst oppose them, they would not suffer the city of Florence to be rebuilt; and in this wise it abode long time, until God put an end to the adversity of the city of Florence, and brought her to the blessing of her restoration, as by us shall be narrated in the following chapter and Third Book. END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK II. BOOK III. _Goes back somewhat to tell how the city of Florence was rebuilt by the power of Charles the Great and the Romans._ [Sidenote: 801 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xiii. 146-150. Par. xvi. 145, 146.] [Sidenote: Purg. xvi. 65-78.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xv. 73-78.] § 1.--It came to pass, as it pleased God, that in the time of the good Charles the Great, Emperor of Rome and king of France, of whom above we have made a long record, after that he had beaten down the tyrannical pride of the Lombards and Saracens, and of the infidels against Holy Church, and had established Rome and the Empire in good state and in its liberty, as afore we have made mention, certain gentlemen and nobles of the region round about Florence (whereof it is reported that the Giovanni, the Guineldi and the Ridolfi, descended from the ancient noble citizens of the former Florence, were the heads) assembled themselves together with all the inhabitants of the place where Florence had been, and with all other their followers dwelling in the country around Florence, and they ordained to send to Rome ambassadors from the best among them to Charles the Emperor, and to Pope Leo, and to the Romans; and this was done, praying them to remember their daughter, the city of Florence (the which was ruined and destroyed by Goths and Vandals in despite of the Romans), to the end it might be rebuilt, and that it might please them to give a force of men-at-arms to ward off the men of Fiesole and their followers, the enemies of the Romans, who would not let the city of Florence be rebuilt. The which ambassadors were received with honour by the Emperor Charles, and by the Pope, and by the Romans, and their petition accepted graciously and willingly; and straightway the Emperor Charles the Great sent thither his forces of men-at-arms on foot and on horse in great numbers; and the Romans made a decree and command that, as their forefathers had built and peopled of old the city of Florence, so those of the best families in Rome, both of nobles and of people, should go thither to rebuild and to inhabit it; and this was done. With that host of the Emperor Charles the Great and of the Romans there came whatsoever master-craftsmen there were in Rome, the more speedily to build the walls of the city and to strengthen it, and after them there followed much people; and all they who dwelt in the country around Florence, and her exiled citizens in every place, hearing the tidings, gathered themselves to the host of the Romans and of the Emperor to rebuild the city; and when they were come where to-day is our city, they encamped among ancient remains and ruins in booths and in tents. The Fiesolans and their followers, seeing the host of the Emperor and of the Romans so great and powerful, did not venture to fight against them, but keeping within the fortress of their city of Fiesole and in their fortified places around, gave what hindrance they might to the said rebuilding. But their power was nothing against the strength of the Romans, and of the host of the Emperor, and of the assembled descendants of the Florentines; and thus they began to rebuild the city of Florence, not, however, of the size that it had been at the first, but of lesser extent, as hereafter shall be mentioned, to the end it might more speedily be walled and fortified, and there might be a defence like a rampart against the city of Fiesole; and this was the year of Christ 801, in the beginning of the month of April. And it is said that the ancients were of opinion that it would not be possible to rebuild it, if first there were not found and drawn from the Arno the marble image, dedicated by the first pagan builders by necromancy to Mars, the which had been in the river Arno from the destruction of Florence unto that time; and being found, it was placed on a pillar by the side of the said river, where now is the head of the Ponte Vecchio. This we do not affirm nor believe, forasmuch as it seems to us the opinion of pagans and soothsayers, and not to be reasonable, but very foolish, that such a stone should have such effect; but it was commonly said by the ancients, that, if it was disturbed, the city must needs have great disturbances. And it was said also by the ancients, that the Romans, by the counsel of the wise astrologers, at the beginning of the rebuilding of Florence, took the third degree of Aries as the ascendant, the sun being at his meridian altitude, and the planet Mercury in conjunction with the sun, and the planet Mars in favourable aspect to the ascendant, to the end the city might multiply in power of arms and of chivalry, and in folk eager and enterprising in arts and in riches and in merchandise, and should bring forth many children and a great people. And in those times, so they say, the ancient Romans and all the Tuscans and Italians, albeit they were baptized Christians, still preserved certain remains of the fashions of pagans, and began their undertakings according to the constellations; albeit, this we do not affirm of ourselves, forasmuch as constellations are not of necessity, nor can they constrain the free will of man or the judgment of God, save according to the merits or sins of folk. And yet, in some effects, meseems the influence of the said constellation is revealed, for the city of Florence is ever in great disturbances and plottings and in war, and now victorious and now the contrary, and prone to merchandise and to arts. But our opinion is that the discords and changes of the Florentines are as we said at the beginning of this treatise--our city was populated by two peoples, divers in every habit of life, as were the noble Romans and the cruel and fierce Fiesolans; for the which thing it is no marvel if our city is always subject to wars and changes and dissensions and treacheries. § 2.--_Of the form and size in which the city of Florence was rebuilt._ [Sidenote: Par. xv. 112.] [Sidenote: Inf. xvi. 37. Par. xvi. 97-99.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 123.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 124-126.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xv. 97-99.] The rebuilding of the new city of Florence was begun by the Romans, as aforesaid, on a small site and circuit, after the same fashion as Rome, allowing for the smallness of the undertaking; and it began on the side of the sunrise at the gate of S. Piero, which was where were after the houses of M. Bellincione Berti, of the Rovignani, a noble and powerful citizen, albeit to-day they have disappeared; the which houses by inheritance of the Countess Gualdrada, his daughter, and wife to the first Count Guido, passed to the Counts Guidi, her descendants, when they became citizens of Florence, and afterwards they sold them to the Black Cerchi, a Florentine family; and from the said gate ran a borgo as far as S. Piero Maggiore, after the fashion of Rome, and from that gate the walls proceeded as far as the Duomo, on the site where now runs the great road leading to San Giovanni, as far as the Bishop's Palace. And here was another gate, which was called the gate of the Duomo, but there were who called it the Bishop's Gate; and without this gate was built the church of S. Lorenzo, just as in Rome there is S. Lorenzo without the walls; and within that gate is S. Giovanni, like as in Rome, S. Giovanni Laterano. And then proceeding, as at Rome, on that side they made Santa Maria Maggiore; and then from S. Michele Berteldi, as far as the third gate of S. Brancazio [S. Pancras], where are now the houses of the Tornaquinci, and S. Brancazio was without the city and near S. Paolo, just as in Rome, on the other side of the city over against S. Piero, as at Rome. And then from the said gate of S. Brancazio, they followed on where now is the church of Santa Trinita, which was without the walls; and hard by was a postern gate called the Porta Rossa, and down to our own times the road has retained the name. And afterward the walls turned where are now the houses of the Scali along the Via di Terma as far as the gate of Santa Maria, some way past the Mercato Nuovo, and that was the fourth principal gate, the which was over against the houses which now pertain to the Infangati, on one side; and above the said gate was the church of Santa Maria, called Sopra Porta; and afterwards when the said gate was pulled down, the city having increased, the said church was transported to where it now is. And the Borgo di Santo Apostolo was without the city, and also S. Stefano, after the fashion of Rome; and beyond S. Stefano, at the end of the master street of Porta Santa Maria, they made and built a bridge founded on piles of stone in the Arno, which afterwards was called the Ponte Vecchio, and it exists to this day; and was much more narrow than it now is, and was the first bridge which was made in Florence. And from S. Mary's Gate the walls went on as far as the turret of Altafonte, which was at the extremity of a projection of the city, running out to the river Arno, then running on behind the church of S. Piero Scheraggio, which was so called from a ditch or conduit called the Scheraggio, which received almost all the rain-water of the city that flowed into the Arno. And behind the church of S. Piero Scheraggio was a postern gate, which was called the Peruzza Gate, and from there the walls went on by the great street as far as the Via del Garbo, where was another postern, and then behind the Badia of Florence the walls returned to Porta S. Piero. And within so small a space the new Florence was rebuilt with good walls and frequent towers, with four master gates, to wit, the Porta San Piero, the Porta del Duomo, the Porta San Brancazio, and the Porta Santa Maria, the which were in the form of a cross; and in the midst of the city were S. Andrea, after the fashion of Rome, and Santa Maria in Campidoglio; and what now is the Mercato Vecchio was the Mercato di Campidoglio [Mart of the Capitol], after the fashion of Rome. And the city was divided into quarters, according to the said four gates; but afterwards, when the city increased, it was divided into six sestos, as being a perfect number, for the sesto of Oltrarno was added thereto, as soon as it was inhabited; and when the Porta di Santa Maria was pulled down, the name was dropped, and it was divided by the course of the main street, and on one side was made the sesto of San Piero Scheraggio, and on the other side that of the Borgo; and the three first gates continued to give their name to sestos, as they have done even to our own times. And they gave the sesto of Oltrarno the lead, to go forth with the host with the ensign of the bridge; and then San Piero Scheraggio with the ensign of the carroccio [chariot of war], the which marble carroccio was brought from Fiesole, and stands before the said church of S. Piero; and then Borgo with the ensign of the goat [becco], forasmuch as in that sesto abode all the butchers [beccari], and those of their calling, and they were in those times very prominent in the city; S. Brancazio next with the ensign of the lion's paw [branca], with reference to the name; and the Porta del Duomo next, with the ensign of the cathedral; Porta San Piero last, with the ensign of the keys, and seeing it was the first sesto inhabited in Florence, in the going forth of the host it was placed in the rear guard, forasmuch as in olden time there were always the best knights and men-at-arms of the city in that sesto. § 3.--_How Charles the Great came to Florence, and granted privileges to the city, and caused Santo Apostolo to be built._ [Sidenote: 805 A.D.] After that the new city of Florence had been rebuilt in the small circuit and form, and at the time aforesaid, the captains which were there in the name of the emperor and the commonwealth of Rome ordained that it should be peopled; and as of old at the first building the order went forth at Rome that of the best families of Rome, both of the nobles and the people, some should dwell as citizens in Florence, so was it at the second restoration; and to each one was given rich possessions. And we find in the Chronicles of France, that after the city of Florence was rebuilt after the manner aforesaid, the Emperor Charles the Great, king of France, when he was departed from Rome, and was returning North, abode at Florence, and caused great festival and solemnity to be held on Easter Day of the Resurrection, in the year of Christ 805, and made many knights in Florence, and founded the church of Santo Apostolo in the Borgo, and this he richly endowed to the honour of God and of the Holy Apostles; and on his departure from Florence he granted privileges to the city, and declared the commonwealth and citizens of Florence to be free and independent, and for three miles around, without paying any tax or impost, save twenty-six pence yearly per hearth [_i.e._ per family]. And in like manner he enfranchised all the citizens around which desired to return and dwell within the city, and also strangers; for which thing many returned to dwell therein; and in a short time, by reason of the good situation and convenient spot, by reason of the river and of the plain, the said little Florence was well peopled and strong in walls, and in moats full of water. And they ordained that the said city should be ruled and governed after the manner of Rome, to wit, by two Consuls and by a council of 100 senators, and thus it was ruled long time, as hereafter shall be narrated. Verily, the citizens of Florence had for a long time much trouble and war, first from the Fiesolans, which were foes so nigh at hand, and they were ever jealous one of another, and were continually at war together; and afterwards from the coming of the Saracens into Italy in the time of the French emperors, as before has been narrated, which much afflicted the country; and last of all, from the divers disturbances which befell Rome and all Italy alike, from the discords of the Popes and of the Italian emperors, which were continually at war with the Church. For the which thing, the fame of the city of Florence and its power abode by the space of 200 years, without being able to expand or increase beyond its narrow boundaries. But notwithstanding all the war and trouble, it was continually multiplying in inhabitants and in forces, nor did they much regard the war with Fiesole, or the other adversities in Tuscany; for albeit their power and authority extended but little way beyond the city, forasmuch as the country was all full of fortresses, and occupied by nobles and powerful lords which were not under obedience to the city, and some of them held with the city of Fiesole, nevertheless, within the city the citizens were united, and it was strong in position and in walls, and in moats full of water; and within the little city there were in a short time more than 150 towers pertaining to citizens, and each one 120 cubits high, without counting those pertaining to the city; and by reason of the height of the many towers which then were in Florence, it is said, that it showed forth from afar as the most beautiful and proudest city of its small size which could be found; and in this space of time it was very well peopled, and full of palaces and of houses, and great number of inhabitants, as times went. We will now leave for a time the doings of Florence, and will briefly relate concerning the Italian emperors, which were reigning in those times after the French ceased to be emperors; for this is of necessity, seeing that by reason of their lordship many disturbances came to pass in Italy; and afterwards we shall return to our subject. [Sidenote: 901 A.D.] § 4.--_How and why the Empire of Rome passed to the Italians._ § 5.--_How Otho I. of Saxony came into Italy at the request of the Church, and did away with the government of the Italian emperors._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK III. BOOK IV. [Sidenote: 955 A.D.] § 1.--_How the election to the Empire of Rome fell to the Germans, and how Otho I. of Saxony was consecrated Emperor._ § 2.--_Of the Emperor Otho III., and the Marquis Hugh, which built the Badia at Florence._ [Sidenote: 979 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 127-132.] After the death of Otho II., his son, Otho III., was elected Emperor, and crowned by Pope Gregory V., in the year of Christ 979, and this Otho reigned twenty-four years. After that he was crowned, he went into Apulia on pilgrimage to Mount S. Angelo, and afterwards returned by way of France into Germany, leaving Italy in good and peaceful estate. But when he was returned to Germany, Crescentius, the consul and lord of Rome, drave away the said Gregory from the papacy, and set a Greek therein, which was bishop of Piacenza, and very wise; but when the Emperor Otho heard this he was very wrath, and with his army returned to Italy, and besieged in Rome the said Crescentius and his Pope in the castle of S. Angelo, for therein had they taken refuge; and he took the said castle by siege, and caused Crescentius to be beheaded, and Pope John XVI. to have his eyes put out, and his hands cut off; and he restored his Pope Gregory to his chair, which was his kinsman by race; and leaving Rome and Italy in good estate, he returned to his country of Germany, and there died in prosperity. With the said Otho III. there came into Italy the Marquis Hugh; I take it this must have been the marquis of Brandenburg, forasmuch as there is no other marquisate in Germany. His sojourn in Tuscany liked him so well, and especially our city of Florence, that he caused his wife to come thither, and took up his abode in Florence, as vicar of Otho, the Emperor. It came to pass, as it pleased God, that when he was riding to the chase in the country of Bonsollazzo, he lost sight, in the wood, of all his followers, and came out, as he supposed, at a workshop where iron was wont to be wrought. Here he found men, black and deformed, who, in place of iron, seemed to be tormenting men with fire and with hammer, and he asked what this might be: and they answered and said that these were damned souls, and that to similar pains was condemned the soul of the Marquis Hugh by reason of his worldly life, unless he should repent: who, with great fear, commended himself to the Virgin Mary, and when the vision was ended, he remained so pricked in the spirit, that after his return to Florence, he sold all his patrimony in Germany, and commanded that seven monasteries should be founded: the first was the Badia of Florence, to the honour of S. Mary; the second, that of Bonsollazzo, where he beheld the vision; the third was founded at Arezzo; the fourth at Poggibonizzi; the fifth at the Verruca of Pisa; the sixth at the city of Castello; the last was the one at Settimo; and all these abbeys he richly endowed, and lived afterwards with his wife in holy life, and had no son, and died in the city of Florence, on S. Thomas' Day, in the year of Christ 1006, and was buried with great honour in the Badia of Florence. And whilst the said Hugh was living, he made in Florence many knights of the family of the Giandonati, of the Pulci, of the Nerli, of the counts of Gangalandi, and of the family della Bella, which all for love of him, retained and bore his arms, barry, white and red, with divers charges. § 3.--_Of the Seven Princes of Germany which have to elect the Emperor._ § 4.--_Of the progeny of the Kings of France, which descended from Hugh Capet._ [Sidenote: 987 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 49-60.] Hugh Capet, as we before made mention, the lineage of Charles the Great having failed, was made king of France in the year of Christ 987. This Hugh was duke of Orleans (and by some it is held that his ancestors were all dukes and of high lineage), son of Hugh the Great, and his mother was sister to Otho I. of Germany; but by the more part it is said that his father was a great and rich burgher of Paris, a butcher, or trader in beasts by birth; but by reason of his great riches and possessions, when the duchy of Orleans was vacant, and only a daughter was left, he had her to wife, whence was born the said Hugh Capet, which was very wise and of great possessions, and the kingdom of France was wholly governed by him; and when the lineage of Charles the Great failed, as was aforesaid, he was made king, and reigned twenty years. * * * * * [Sidenote: 1003 A.D.] § 5.--_How Henry I. was made Emperor._ § 6.--_How in the time of the said Henry, the Florentines took the city of Fiesole, and destroyed it._ [Sidenote: 1010 A.D.] In the said times, when the Emperor Henry I. was reigning, the city of Florence was much increased in inhabitants and in power, considering its small circuit, especially by the aid and favour of the Emperor Otho I., and of the second and third Otho, his son and grandson, which always favoured the city of Florence; and as the city of Florence increased, the city of Fiesole continually decreased, they being always at war and enmity together; but by reason of the strong position, and the strength in walls and in towers which the city of Fiesole possessed, in vain did the Florentines labour to overcome it; and albeit they had more inhabitants, and a greater number of friends and allies, yet the Fiesolans were continually warring against them. But when the Florentines perceived that they could not gain it by force, they made a truce with the Fiesolans, and abandoned the war between them; and making one truce after another, they began to grow friendly, and the citizens of one city to sojourn in the other, and to marry together, and to keep but little watch and guard one against the other. The Florentines perceiving that their city of Florence had no power to rise much, whilst they had overhead so strong a fortress as the city of Fiesole, one night secretly and subtly set an ambush of armed men in divers parts of Fiesole. The Fiesolans feeling secure as to the Florentines, and not being on their guard against them, on the morning of their chief festival of S. Romolo, when the gates were open, and the Fiesolans unarmed, the Florentines entered into the city under cover of coming to the festival; and when a good number were within, the other armed Florentines which were in ambush secured the gates of the city; and on a signal made to Florence, as had been arranged, all the host and power of the Florentines came on horse and on foot to the hill, and entered into the city of Fiesole, and traversed it, slaying scarce any man, nor doing any harm, save to those which opposed them. And when the Fiesolans saw themselves to be suddenly and unexpectedly surprised by the Florentines, part of them which were able fled to the fortress, which was very strong, and long time maintained themselves there. The city at the foot of the fortress having been taken and overrun by the Florentines, and the strongholds and they which opposed themselves being likewise taken, the common people surrendered themselves on condition that they should not be slain nor robbed of their goods; the Florentines working their will to destroy the city, and keeping possession of the bishop's palace. Then the Florentines made a covenant, that whosoever desired to leave the city of Fiesole, and come and dwell in Florence, might come safe and sound with all his goods and possessions, or might go to any place which pleased him; for the which thing they came down in great numbers to dwell in Florence, whereof there were and are great families in Florence. Others went to dwell in the region round about where they had farms and possessions. And when this was done, and the city was devoid of inhabitants and goods, the Florentines caused it to be all pulled down and destroyed, all save the bishop's palace and certain other churches, and the fortress, which still held out, and did not surrender under the said conditions. And this was in the year of Christ 1010, and the Florentines and the Fiesolans which became citizens of Florence, took thence all the ornaments and pillars, and all the marble carvings which were there, and the marble war chariot which is in San Piero Scheraggio in Florence. § 7.--_How that many Fiesolans came to dwell in Florence, and made one people with the Florentines._ [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 46-48.] [Sidenote: Cf. Convivio ii. 14: 171-174.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 61-78.] The city of Fiesole being destroyed save the fortress of the citadel, as has been aforesaid, many Fiesolans came thence to dwell in Florence and made one people with the Florentines, and by reason of their coming it behoved to increase the walls and the circuit of the city of Florence, as hereafter shall be narrated. And to the end the Fiesolans which were come to dwell in Florence might be more faithful and loving with the Florentines, they caused the arms of the said two commonwealths to be borne in common, and made the arms to be dimidiated red and white, as still to our times they are borne upon the Carroccio and in the host of the Florentines. The red was the ancient field which the Florentines had from the Romans, as we afore made mention, and they were wont to bear thereupon the white lily; and the white was the ancient field of the Fiesolans, bearing an azure moon: but from the said common arms they took away the white lily and the moon, and so had them dimidiated and uncharged; and they made common laws and statutes, living under one government of two citizen consuls, and with the council of the senate, to wit of 100 men, the best of the city, as was the custom given by the Romans to the Florentines. And they increased greatly the city of Florence both in inhabitants and in power through the destruction of the city of Fiesole, and through the Fiesolans which came to dwell in Florence. Nevertheless, they were not a great people in comparison with what they are in our times; forasmuch as the city of Florence was of small extent, as has been narrated, and as may still be seen by tracing the first circuit, and there were hardly the fourth of the inhabitants which there are to-day. The Fiesolans were much diminished, and at the destruction of Fiesole they were much scattered, and some went one way, and some another; but the most part thereof came to Florence. Yet it was a large city for those times; but, from what we find, all the Fiesolans together were not the half which there are now in our days. And note that the Florentines are always in schism, and in factions and in divisions among themselves, which is not to be marvelled at. One cause is by reason of the city being rebuilt, as was told in the chapter concerning its rebuilding, under the lordship and influence of the planet of Mars, which always inspires wars and divisions. The other cause is more certain and natural, that the Florentines are to-day descended from two peoples so diverse in manners, and who ever of old had been enemies, as the Roman people and the people of Fiesole; and this we can see by true experience, and by the divers changes and parties and factions which after the said two peoples had been united into one, came to pass in Florence from time to time, as in this book henceforward more fully shall be narrated. § 8.--_How the city of Florence increased its circuit, first by moats and palisades, and then by walls._ [Sidenote: 1078 A.D.] After that the Fiesolans were come in great part to dwell in Florence, as aforesaid, the city multiplied in inhabitants and population; and as it increased in suburbs and dwellings, outside the small old city, after a little while it behoved of necessity that the city should increase its circuit, first with moats and palisades; and then in the time of Henry the Emperor they made the walls, to the end the suburbs and outgrowths, by reason of the wars which arose in Tuscany about the matter of the said Henry, might not be taken nor destroyed, and the city more readily besieged by its enemies. Wherefore, at that time, in the year of Christ 1078, as hereafter, in narrating the story of Henry III., shall be mentioned, the Florentines began the new walls, beginning from the east side at the gate of S. Piero Maggiore, the which was somewhat behind the church so called, enclosing the suburb of S. Piero Maggiore and the said church within the new walls, and afterwards, drawing them nearer in on the north side, a little distance from the said suburb, they made an angle at a postern which was called the Albertinelli Gate from a family which dwelt in that place, which was so called; then they drew them on as far as the gate of the Borgo S. Lorenzo [suburb of S. Lawrence] enclosing the said church within the walls; and after this were two posterns, one at the forked way of the Campo Corbolini, and the other the one afterwards called the Porta del Baschiera. Then they ran on as far as the Porta S. Paolo, and then continued as far as the Carraia Gate, where the wall ended, by the Arno; and there afterwards they began and built a bridge which is called the Carraia Bridge from the name of that gate; and then the walls continuing, not however very high, along the bank of the Arno, included what had been without the old walls, to wit the suburb of San Brancazio [S. Pancras], and that of Parione, and that of Santo Apostolo, and of the Porte Sante Marie as far as the Ponte Vecchio; and then afterwards along the bank of Arno as far as the fortress of Altafonte. From this point the walls withdrew somewhat from the bank of Arno, so that there remained a road between, and two postern gates whereby to come at the river; then they went on the same, and took a turn where now are the supports of the Rubaconte Bridge, and there at the turn was a gate called the Oxen Gate, because there without was held the cattle market, and afterwards it was named the gate of Master Ruggieri da Quona, forasmuch as the family of da Quona, when they came to dwell in the city, established themselves near the said gate. Then the walls went on behind S. Jacopo tra le Fosse (so called because it stood on fosses), as far as where to-day is the end of the piazza before the church of the Minor Friars called Santa Croce; and there was a postern which led to the island of Arno; then the walls went on in a straight line without any gate or postern, returning to S. Piero Maggiore whence they began. And thus the new city of Florence on this side the Arno had five gates for the five sesti, one gate to each sesto, and divers posterns, as has been mentioned. In the Oltrarno [district beyond the Arno] were three roads, all three of which started from the Ponte Vecchio on the side beyond Arno. One was and still is called the Borgo Pidiglioso, seeing that it was inhabited by the baser sort. At the head of this was a gate called the Roman Gate, where now are the houses of the Bardi near S. Lucia de' Magnoli across the Ponte Vecchio, and this was the road to Rome, by Fegghine and Arezzo. There were no other walls to the suburb about the road save the backs of the houses against the hill. The second road was that of Santa Felicita, called the Borgo di Piazza, which had a gate where now is the piazza of San Felice, where runs the road to Siena; and the third road was called after S. Jacopo, and had a gate where now are the houses of the Frescobaldi, where ran the road to Pisa. None of the three suburbs lying around these roads of the sesto of Oltrarno had other walls save the said gates, and the backs of the outside houses, which enclosed the suburbs with orchards and gardens within. But after that the Emperor Henry III. marched upon Florence, the Florentines enclosed Oltrarno within walls, beginning at the said gate to Rome, ascending behind the Borgo alla Costa below San Giorgio, and then coming out behind Santa Felicita, enclosing the Borgo di Piazza and the Borgo di San Jacopo, and roughly following the said Borghi. But afterwards the walls of Oltrarno on the hill were made higher as they are now, in the time when the Ghibellines first ruled the city of Florence, as we will make mention in due place and time. We will now leave for a time the doings of Florence, and we will treat of the emperors which were after Henry I., for it is necessary that we should tell of them here in order to continue our history. § 9.--_How Conrad I. was made Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1015 A.D.] After the death of the Emperor Henry I., Conrad I. was elected and consecrated by Pope Benedict VIII., in the year of Christ 1015. He was of Suabia, and reigned twenty years as emperor, and when he came into Italy, not being able to obtain the lordship of Milan, he laid siege to it, right in the suburbs of the city itself; but as he was assuming the iron crown outside of Milan in a church, while Mass was being sung, there came great thunder and lightning into the church, and some died therefrom; and the Archbishop which was singing Mass at the altar, rose and said to the Emperor Conrad, that he had visibly seen S. Ambrose, which sternly menaced him except he abandoned the siege of Milan; and he, thus admonished, withdrew his host, and made peace with the Milanese. He was a just man, and made many laws, and kept the Empire in peace long time. Yea, and he went into Calabria against the Saracens which were come to lay waste the country, and fought against them, and, with great shedding of Christian blood, he drove them away and overcame them. This Conrad took much delight in sojourning at Florence when he was in Tuscany, and he advanced it greatly, and many citizens of Florence received knighthood from his hand, and were in his service. And to the intent it may be known who were the noble and powerful citizens in those times in the city of Florence, we will briefly make mention thereof. § 10.--_Of the nobles which were in the city of Florence in the time of the said Emperor Conrad, and first of those about the Duomo._ [Sidenote: 1015 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 25, xxv. 5.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 104.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 108.] [Sidenote: 112-114.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xv. 137, 138.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 100.] As before has been narrated, the first rebuilding of the smaller Florence was according to the division of four quarters, after the four gates; and to the end we may the better describe the noble families and houses which in the said times, after Fiesole had been destroyed, were great and powerful in Florence, we will recount them according to the quarters where they dwelt. And first, they of the Porta del Duomo, which was the first fold and abiding place of the rebuilt Florence, and where all the noble citizens of Florence on Sundays gathered and held civil converse around the Duomo, and where were celebrated all the marriages, and peacemakings, and every festival and solemnity of the commonwealth; and next, the Porta San Piero, and then Porta San Brancazio, and Porta Sante Marie. And the Porta del Duomo was inhabited by the family of the Giovanni, and of the Guineldi which were the first to rebuild the city of Florence, whence afterwards were descended many families of nobles in Mugello, and in Valdarno, and in many cities, which now are popolari and almost come to an end. There were the Barucci which dwelt near Santa Maria Maggiore, which are now extinct; the Scali and Palermini were of their lineage. There were also in the said quarter Arrigucci, and Sizi, and the family della Tosa: these della Tosa were of one lineage with the Bisdomini, and were patrons and defenders of the bishopric; but one of them departed from his kin of the Porta San Piero, and took to wife a lady called la Tosa, which was the heiress of her family, and hence was derived the name. Also there were the della Pressa, which abode among the Chiavaiuoli, gentlemen. § 11.--_Concerning the houses of the nobles in the quarter of the Porta San Piero._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 89.] [Sidenote: 94-99. 65. Inf. xvi. 37. Par. xv. 112-114. Par. xvi. 101. Purg. xii. 104, 105. Par. xvi. 105, 93, 104.] [Sidenote: Cf. 40-42.] [Sidenote: 121, 122.] [Sidenote: 106, 107.] [Sidenote: 131, 132.] [Sidenote: 115-120.] In the quarter of Porta San Piero were the Bisdomini, which, as aforesaid, were the patrons of the bishopric, and the Alberighi, and theirs was the church of Santa Maria Alberighi towards the house of the Donati, and now, nought remains of them; the Rovignani were very great, and dwelt on Porta San Piero (their houses afterwards belonged to the Counts Guidi, and afterwards to the Cerchi), and from them were born all the Counts Guidi, as has afore been told, of the daughter of the good Messer Bellincione Berti; in our days all that family have disappeared; the Galligari, and Chiarmontesi, and Ardinghi, which dwelt in Orto San Michele, were very ancient; and likewise the Giuochi, which now are popolani, which dwelt by Santa Margherita; the Elisei, which likewise are now popolani, who dwell near the Mercato Vecchio; and in that place dwelt the Caponsacchi, which were Fiesolan magnates; the Donati or Calfucci, which were all one family; but the Calfucci have come to nought; and the della Bella of San Martino have also become popolani; and the family of the Adimari, which were descended from the house of the Cosi, which now dwell in Porta Rossa, and they built Santa Maria Nipotecosa; and albeit they are now the chief family of that sesto, and of Florence, nevertheless, they were not of the most ancient in those days. § 12.--_Of them of the quarter of Porta San Brancazio._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 100, 111. Inf. vi. 80, xxviii. 103-111. Par. xvi. 88.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 103. Par. xvi. 93; Inf. 121-123; Par. xv. 115, 116, xvi. 92.] In the quarter of the Porta San Brancazio were very great and potent the house of the Lamberti, descended from German forefathers. The Ughi were most ancient, which built Santa Maria Ughi, and all the hill of Montughi was theirs, but now they are extinct. The Catellini were most ancient, and now there is no record of them. It is said that the family Tieri were of their lineage, descended from a bastard. The Pigli were gentlemen and magnates in those times, and the Soldanieri, and the Vecchietti; very ancient were the dell' Arca, and now they are extinct; and the Migliorelli, which now are nought; and the Trinciavelli of Mosciano were very ancient. § 13.--_Concerning them of the great quarter of Porta Santa Maria and of San Piero Scheraggio._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 109, 110; Convivio iv. 20; 38-41. Par. xvi. 104. 105. 89.] [Sidenote: 89.] [Sidenote: 89.] [Sidenote: 124-126.] [Sidenote: 104.] [Sidenote: 92, 127, 93.] [Sidenote: 123.] [Sidenote: 133.] [Sidenote: 136-144.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 115, xvi. 127-132, xv. 97, 98.] In the quarter of Porta Santa Maria, which is now included in the sesto of San Piero Scheraggio and in that of Borgo, there were many powerful and ancient families. The chief were the Uberti, whose ancestor was born in Germany and came thence, which dwelt where is now the Piazza of the Priors, and the Palace of the People; the Fifanti, called Bogolesi, dwelt at the side of Porta Santa Maria; and the Galli, Cappiardi, Guidi; and the Filippi, which now have come to nought, were then great and powerful, and dwelt in the Mercato Nuovo. And likewise the Greci, whereto pertained all the Borgo dei Greci, are now come to an end and extinct, save that there are in Bologna of their lineage; the Ormanni which dwelt where is now the said Palace of the People, and who are now called Foraboschi. And behind San Piero Scheraggio where are now the houses of the family of the Petri, dwelt they of Pera or Peruzza; and from their name the postern which was there was called the Peruzza Gate. Some say that the Peruzzi of to-day were descended from this lineage, but this I do not affirm. The Sacchetti which dwell in the Garbo were very ancient; around the New Market the Bostichi were of note, and the della Sannella, and the Giandonati, and the Infangati. In the Borgo Santo Apostolo the Gualterotti, and the Importuni, which are now popolani, were then magnates. The Bondelmonti were noble and ancient citizens in the country, and Montebuoni was their fortress, and many others in Valdigrieve; first they settled in Oltrarno, and then they betook themselves to the Borgo. The Pulci, and the Counts of Gangalandi, Ciuffagni, and Nerli of Oltrarno, were at one time great and powerful, together with the Giandonati, and the della Bella named above; and from the Marquis Hugh which built the Badia of Florence, they took their arms and knighthood, for they were of great account with him. [Sidenote: 1040 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1056 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1073 A.D.] § 14.--_How in those times Oltrarno was but little inhabited._ § 15.--_How Henry II. called III. was made Emperor, and the events which were in his time._ § 16.--_How Henry III. was made Emperor, and the events which were in Italy in his time, and how the Court of Rome was in Florence._ § 17.--_How S. John Gualberti, citizen of Florence, and father of the order of Vallombrosa, was canonized._ § 18.--_Narration of many things that were in those times._ [Sidenote: 1070 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxviii. 13, 14. Par. xviii. 48.] [Sidenote: iii. 118-120.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xxxiii. 119.] In those times, the year of Christ 1070, there passed into Italy Robert Guiscard, duke of the Normans, the which by his prowess and wit did great things, and wrought in the service of Holy Church against the Emperor Henry III., who was persecuting it, and against the Emperor Alexis, and against the Venetians, as we shall make mention hereafter: for the which thing he was made lord over Sicily and Apulia, with the confirmation of Holy Church; and his descendants after him, down to the time of Henry of Suabia, father of Frederick II., were kings and lords thereof. And also in those same times was the worthy and wise Countess Matilda, the which reigned in Tuscany and in Lombardy, and was well-nigh sovereign lady over all, and did many great things in her time for Holy Church, so that it seems to me reasonable and fitting to speak of their beginning and of their state, in this our treatise, forasmuch as they were much mixed up with the doings of our city of Florence through the consequences which followed their doings in Tuscany. And first we will tell of Robert Guiscard, and then of the Countess Matilda, and their beginnings and their doings briefly, returning afterwards to our subject and the deeds of our city of Florence, the which by the increase and the doings of the Florentines began to multiply and to extend the fame of Florence throughout the whole world, more than it had been heretofore; and therefore almost by necessity it behoves us in our treatise to narrate more universally henceforward of the Popes and of the Emperors and of the kings, and of many provinces of the world, the events and things which happened in those times, forasmuch as they have much to do with our subject, and because the aforesaid Emperor Henry III. was the beginner of the scandal between the Church and the Empire, and afterwards the Guelfs and Ghibellines, whence arose the parties of the Empire and of the Church in Italy, the which so grew that all Italy was infected thereby and almost all Europe, and many ills and perils, and destructions and changes have followed thereupon to our city and to the whole world, such as following on with our treatise we shall mention in their times. And we will begin now, at the head of every page to mark the year of our Lord, following on in order of time, to the end that the events of past times may be the more easily looked out in our treatise. § 19.--_Of Robert Guiscard and his descendants, which were kings of Sicily and of Apulia._ [Sidenote: 880-1110 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1078 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. vii. 133-136.] [Sidenote: 1110 A.D.] Well, then, as was afore made mention, in the time of the Emperor Charles, which is called Charles the Fat, which reigned in the years of our Lord 880 unto 892, the pagan Northmen being come from Norway, passed into Germany and into France, pressing and tormenting the Gauls and the Germans. Charles, with a powerful hand, came against the Northmen, and peace being made and confirmed by matrimony, the king of the Normans was baptised, and received at the sacred font by the said Charles, and in the end, Charles not being able to drive the Normans out of France, granted them a region on the further side of the Seine, called Lada Serena, the which unto this day is called Normandy, because of the said Normans, in the which land, from that time forward, the duke has reigned as king. The first duke, then, was Robert, to whom succeeded his son William, which begat Richard, and Richard begat the second Richard. This Richard begat Richard and Robert Guiscard, the which Robert Guiscard was not duke of Normandy, but brother of Duke Richard. He, according to their usage, forasmuch as he was a younger son, had not the lordship of the duchy, and therefore desiring to make trial of his powers, he came, poor and needy, into Apulia, where at that time one Robert, a native of the country, was duke, to whom Robert Guiscard, coming, was first made his squire and was then knighted by him. Robert Guiscard having come then to this Duke Robert, won many victories with prowess against his enemies, for he was at war with the prince of Salerno; and carrying with him magnificent rewards, he returned into Normandy, bringing back report of the delights and riches of Apulia, having adorned his horses with golden bridles and shod them with silver, in witness of the facts he alleged; by the which thing, having roused many knights, following this emprise through desire of riches and of glory, returning incontinent into Apulia, he took them with him, and gave faithful aid to the duke of Apulia against Godfrey, duke of the Normans; and, not long time after, Robert, duke of Apulia, being nigh unto death, by the will of his barons made him his successor in the duchy, and as he had promised him, he took his daughter to wife the year of Christ 1078. And a little time after, he conquered Alexis, emperor of Constantinople, who had taken possession of Sicily and of part of Calabria, and he conquered the Venetians, and took all the kingdom of Apulia and of Sicily; and albeit he did this in violation of the Roman Church, to which the kingdom of Apulia belonged, and albeit the Countess Matilda made war against Robert Guiscard in the service of Holy Church; nevertheless, in the end, Robert being, of his own will, reconciled with Holy Church, was made lord of the said kingdom; and not long after, Gregory VII., with his cardinals, being besieged by the Emperor Henry IV. in the castle of S. Angelo, Robert came to Rome and drave away by force the said Henry with his Anti-pope which he had made by force, and he freed the Pope and the cardinals from the siege, and replaced the Pope in the Lateran Palace, having severely punished the Romans, who had shown favour to the Emperor Henry and to the Pope whom he had made against Pope Gregory. This Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, was once on a hunting excursion, and he followed the quarry into the depth of a wood, his companions not knowing what had become of him, or where he was, or what he was doing; and then Robert, seeing the night approaching, leaving the beast which he was pursuing, sought to return home; and turning, he found in the wood a leper, who importunately asked alms of him; and when he had said I know not what in reply, the leper said again that the anguish he endured availed him nought, yet him were liefer carry any weight or any burden; and when he asked of the leper what he would have, he said, "I desire that you will put me behind you on your horse"; lest abandoned in the wood, peradventure the beasts might devour him. Then Robert cheerfully received him behind him on his horse; and as they rode forward, the leper said to Robert--great baron as he was:--"My hands are so icy cold, that unless I may cherish them against thy flesh, I cannot keep myself on horseback." Then Robert granted the leper to put his hands boldly under his clothing, and comfort his flesh and his members without any fear; and when yet a third time the leper bespoke his pity, he put him upon his saddle, and he, sitting behind him, embraced the leper, and led him to his own chamber and put him into his own bed, and set him in it with right good care to the end he might repose; no one of his household perceiving ought thereof. And when the banquet of supper was spread, having told his wife that he had lodged the leper in his bed, his wife incontinent went to the chamber to know if the poor sufferer would sup. The chamber, albeit there were no perfumes therein, she found as fragrant as if it had been full of sweet-smelling things, such that neither Robert nor his wife had ever known so sweet scents, and the leper, whom they had come thither to seek, they did not find, whereat the husband and the wife marvelled beyond measure at so great a wonder; but with reverence and with fear, both one and the other asked God to reveal to them what this might be. And the following day Christ appeared in a vision to Robert, saying, that it was Himself that He had revealed to him in the form of a leper, to make trial of his piety; and He announced to him that by his wife he should have sons, whereof one should be emperor, the next king, and the third duke. Encouraged by this promise Robert subdued the rebels of Apulia and of Sicily, and acquired lordship over all; and he had five sons: William, who took to wife the daughter of Alexis, the emperor of the Greeks, and was lord and possessor of his empire, but died without children (some say that this was the William which was called Longsword, but many say that this Longsword was not of the lineage of Robert Guiscard, but of the race of the marquises of Montferrat); and the second son of Robert Guiscard was Boagdinos [Boemond], who was at the first duke of Tarentum; the third was Roger, duke of Apulia, which, after the death of his father, was crowned king of Sicily by Pope Honorius II.; the fourth son of Robert Guiscard was Henry, duke of the Normans; the fifth son, Richard Count Cicerat, that is, I suppose, count of Acerra. This Robert Guiscard, after having done many and noble things in Apulia, purposed and desired, by way of devotion, to go to Jerusalem on pilgrimage; and it was told him in a vision that he would die in Jerusalem. Therefore, having commended his kingdom to Roger, his son, he embarked by sea for the voyage to Jerusalem, and arriving in Greece, at the port which was afterwards called after him Port Guiscard, he began to sicken of his malady; and trusting in the revelation which had been made to him, he in no wise feared to die. There was over against the said port an island, to the which, that he might repose and recover his strength, he caused himself to be carried, and after being carried there he grew no better, but rather grievously worse. Then he asked what this island was called, and the mariners answered that of old it was called Jerusalem. Which thing having heard, straightway certified of his death, devoutly he fulfilled all those things which appertain to the salvation of the soul, and died in the grace of God the year of Christ 1110, having reigned in Apulia thirty-three years. These things concerning Robert Guiscard may in part be read in chronicles, and in part I heard them narrated by those who fully knew the history of the kingdom of Apulia. § 20.--_Concerning the successors of Robert Guiscard which were kings of Sicily and of Apulia._ [Sidenote: Par. iii. 109-120. Purg. iii. 112, 113. Par. xx. 62.] [Sidenote: Par. iii. 112-120.] [Sidenote: 1197 A.D.] Afterwards, Roger, son of Duke Robert Guiscard, begat the second Roger; and this Roger, after the death of his father, was made king of Sicily, and he begat William, and Constance his sister. This William honourably and magnificently ruled the kingdom of Sicily, and he took to wife the daughter of the king of England, and by her he had neither son nor daughter; and when his father Roger was dead, and the sovereignty of the kingdom had passed to William, a prophecy was made known, that Constance, his sister, should rule over the realm of Sicily in destruction and ruin; wherefore King William, having called his friends and wise men, asked counsel of them what he should do with his sister Constance; and it was counselled him by the greater part of them that if he desired the royal sovereignty should be secure, he should cause her to be put to death. But among the others was one named Tancred, duke of Tarentum, which had been nephew to Robert Guiscard through the sister who is thought to have been wife to Bagnamonte [Boemond], prince of Antioch; this man, opposing the counsel of the others, appeased King William, that he should not cause the innocent lady to be put to death; and so it came to pass that the said Constance was preserved from death, and she, not of her own will, but through fear of death, lived in the guise of a nun in a certain convent of nuns. William being dead, the aforesaid Tancred succeeded him in the kingdom, having taken it to himself against the will of the Church of Rome to which pertained the right and property of that kingdom. This Tancred, instructed by natural wit, was very full of learning, and he had a wife more beautiful than the Sibyl, but as many think without breasts, by whom he begat two sons and three daughters: the first was called Roger, which in his father's lifetime was made king, and he died; the second was William the younger, which in his father's lifetime was made king, and after his father was dead he held the kingdom for a time. During these things, Tancred being alive and on the throne, Constance, sister to King William, already perhaps fifty years old, was a nun in her body but not in her mind in the city of Palermo. Discord then having arisen between King Tancred and the archbishop of Palermo, perhaps for this cause, that Tancred was usurping the rights of the Church, the archbishop then thought how he might transfer the kingdom of Sicily to other lordship, and made a secret treaty with the Pope, that Constance should be married to Henry, duke of Suabia, son of the great Frederick; and Henry having taken to wife her to whom the kingdom seemed to pertain by right, was crowned emperor by Pope Celestine. This Henry, when Tancred was dead, entered into the kingdom of Apulia, and punished many of them which had held with Tancred, and had shown him favour, and which had done injury to Queen Constance, and had done shame to the nobility of her honour. This Constance was the mother--we shall not say of Frederick II. who was long king of the Roman Empire,--but rather of Frederick who brought the said Empire to destruction, as will appear fully in his deeds. When Tancred was dead then, the kingdom passed to his son William, young in years and in wisdom; but Henry having entered the kingdom with his army the year of Christ 1197, made a false truce with the young King William, and having taken him by fraud and secretly into Suabia, few knowing thereof, he sent him into banishment with his sister, and having caused his eyes to be put out, he there kept him under ward till his death. With this William son of Tancred were taken his three sisters, to wit, Alberia, Constance, and Ernadama. When the Emperor Henry was dead, and the young William who had been castrated and whose eyes had been put out was dead also, Philip, duke of Suabia, through the prayers of his wife, which was daughter of the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople, delivered these three daughters of King Tancred from exile and from prison, and let them go free. And Alberia or Aceria had three husbands: the first was Count Walter of Brienne, brother of King John, from whom was born Walteran, count of Joppa, to whom the king of Cyprus gave his daughter in marriage. After Count Walter had been slain by Count Trebaldo [Diephold], the German, Alberia was wedded to Count James of Tricarico, by whom she had Count Simon and the Lady Adalitta; and he being dead, Pope Honorius gave Alberia to wife to Count Tigrimo, count palatine in Tuscany; and for dowry he gave her the region of Lizia and of Mount Scaglioso in the kingdom of Apulia. Constance was the wife of Marchesono [Ziani], doge of Venice. The third sister, who was named Ernadama, had no husband. These were the fortunes of the successors of Robert Guiscard in the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia, down to Constance, mother of the Emperor Frederick the son of King Henry; and thus it may be seen that Robert Guiscard and his successors ruled over the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia 120 years. We will now leave the kings of Sicily and of Apulia; and we will relate concerning the wise Countess Matilda. § 21.--_Of the Countess Matilda._ [Sidenote: 1115 A.D.] The mother of Countess Matilda is said to have been the daughter of one who reigned as emperor in Constantinople, in whose court was an Italian of distinguished manners and of great race and well nurtured, skilled in arms, expert and endowed with every gift, such as they are in whom noble blood is wont to declare itself illustriously. Now all these things made him to be loved of all men and gave grace to his ways. And he began to turn his eyes upon the emperor's daughter, and was secretly united to her in marriage, and they took such jewels and moneys as they might, and she fled with him into Italy. And they came first to the bishopric of Reggio, in Lombardy. From this lady, then, and from her husband, was born the doughty Countess Matilda. But the father of the lady aforesaid, that is to say the emperor of Constantinople, who had no other daughter, caused great searching to be made, if by any means he might find her; and found she was, by them that were seeking, in the said place; and when they begged of her that she would return to her father, who would marry her again to any prince she might choose, she gave answer that she had chosen to have him she now had above all other, and it were a thing impossible to abandon him and ever be united to another man. And when all this was told again to the emperor, straightway he sent letters and confirmed the marriage, and money without end, with orders to buy fortresses and villages at any price and erect new castles. And they bought in the said place three fortresses, very nigh together, and because of this close neighbourhood, they are commonly called the Tre Castella at Reggio. And not far from the said three fortresses the lady had such a castle built upon a mountain as might never be taken, the which castle was called Canossa, and there the countess afterward founded and endowed a noble convent of nuns. This was in the mountains; but on the plain she built Guastalla and Sulzariani, and she bought land along the Po and built divers monasteries, and divers noble bridges did she make across the rivers of Lombardy. And moreover Garfagnana and the greater part of the Erignano, and parts of the see of Modena, are said to have been her possessions, and in the Bolognese district the great and spacious towns of Arzellata and Medicina were of her patrimony; and she had many others in Lombardy. And in Tuscany she established fortresses and the turret at Polugiana, within her jurisdiction, and she liberally endowed many noblemen, under fee, and made them her vassals. In divers places she built many monasteries, and endowed many cathedral churches and others. And in the end, when the Countess Matilda's father and mother were dead, and she was their heir, she thought to marry, and having heard of the fame and the person and the other qualities of a native of Suabia, whose name was Guelf, she sent formal messages to him and authorised agents who should establish a contract of marriage between him and her, albeit they were not present in person together, and who should arrange the place where the wedding should take place. The ring was given at the noble castle of the Conti Ginensi, which is now, however, destroyed. And as Guelf approached the said castle, the Countess Matilda went to meet him with a great cavalcade, and there was held the festival of the wedding right joyously. But soon did sadness follow gladness in that the marriage bond was not consummated, by failure of conception, which is expressly declared to be the purpose of marriage. * * * * * The countess then, in silence, fearing deception and being averse to the other burdens of matrimony, passed her life in chastity even to her death, and giving herself to works of piety she built and endowed many churches and monasteries and hospitals. And once and again she came with a great army and mightily interposed in service of Holy Church and succoured her. Once was against the Normans, who had taken away the duchy of Apulia from the Church by violence, and were laying waste the confines of Campagna. Them did the Countess Matilda, devout daughter of S. Peter that she was, together with Godfrey, duke of Spoleto, drive off as far as to Aquino in the time of Alexander II., Pope of Rome. The second time she fought against the Emperor Henry III. of Bavaria, and overcame him. And yet once again she fought for the Church in Lombardy against Henry IV., his son, and overcame him, in the time of Pope Calixtus II. And she made a will and offered up all her patrimony on the altar of S. Peter, and made the Church of Rome heir of it all. And not long after she died in God, and she is buried in the church of Pisa, which she had largely endowed. It was in the 1115th year of the Nativity that the countess died. We will leave to speak of the Countess Matilda, and will turn back to follow the history of the Emperor Henry III. of Bavaria. [Sidenote: 1080 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1089 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1107 A.D.] § 22.--_Again how Henry III. of Bavaria renewed war against the Church._ § 23.--_How the said Emperor Henry besieged the city of Florence._ § 24.--_How in these times was the great crusade over seas._ § 25.--_How the Florentines began to increase their territory._ § 26.--_How the Florentines conquered and destroyed the fortress of Prato._ § 27.--_How Henry IV. of Bavaria was elected Emperor, and how he persecuted the Church._ § 28.--_How at last the said Emperor Henry IV. returned to obedience to Holy Church._ § 29.--_How the Florentines defeated the Vicar of the Emperor Henry IV._ [Sidenote: 1113 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1113 the Florentines marched against Montecasciolo, which was making war upon the city, having been stirred to rebellion by M. Ruberto Tedesco, vicar of the Emperor Henry in Tuscany, who was stationed with his troops in Samminiato del Tedesco, so called because the vicars of the Emperors with their troops of Tedeschi [Germans] were stationed in the said fortress to harry the cities and castles of Tuscany that would not obey the Emperors. And this M. Ruberto was routed and slain by the Florentines, and the fortress taken and destroyed. § 30.--_How the city of Florence took fire twice, whence a great part of the city was burnt._ [Sidenote: 1115 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1117 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 13-15.] [Sidenote: Par. xi. 35-123. Par. xii. 31-111.] In the year of Christ 1115, in the month of May, fire broke out in the Borgo Santo Apostolo, and was so great and impetuous that a good part of the city was burnt, to the great hurt of the Florentines. And in that selfsame year died the good Countess Matilda. And after, in the year 1117, fire again broke out in Florence, and of a truth that which was not burnt in the first fire was burnt in the second, whence great hurt befell the Florentines, and not without cause and judgment of God, forasmuch as the city was evilly corrupted by heresy, among others by the sect of the epicureans, through the vice of licentiousness and gluttony, and this over so large a part, that the citizens were fighting among themselves for the faith with arms in their hands in many parts of Florence, and this plague endured long time in Florence till the coming of the holy Religions of St. Francis and of St. Dominic, the which Religions through their holy brothers, the charge of this sin of heresy having been committed to them by the Pope, greatly exterminated it in Florence, and in Milan, and in many other cities of Tuscany and of Lombardy in the time of the blessed Peter Martyr, who was martyred by the Paterines in Milan; and afterwards the other inquisitors wrought the like. And in the flames of the said fires in Florence were burnt many books and chronicles which would more fully have preserved the record of past things in our city of Florence, wherefore few are left remaining; for the which thing it has behoved us to collect from other veracious chronicles of divers cities and countries, great part of those things whereof mention has been made in this treatise. § 31.--_How the Pisans took Majorca, and the Florentines protected the city of Pisa._ [Sidenote: 1117 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1117 the Pisans made a great expedition of galleys and ships against the island of Majorca, which the Saracens held, and when the said armada had departed from Pisa and was already assembled at Vada for the voyage, the commonwealth of Lucca marched upon Pisa to seize the city. Hearing this, the Pisans dared not go forward with their expedition for fear that the Lucchese should take possession of their city; and to draw back from their emprise did not seem for their honour in view of the great outlay and preparation which they had made. Wherefore they took counsel to send their ambassadors to the Florentines, for the two commonwealths in those times were close friends. And they begged them that they would be pleased to protect the city, trusting them as their inmost friends and dear brothers. And on this the Florentines undertook to serve them and to protect their city against the Lucchese and all other. Wherefore the commonwealth of Florence sent thither armed folk in abundance, horse and foot, and encamped two miles outside the city, and in respect for their women they would not enter Pisa, and made a proclamation that whosoever should enter the city should answer for it with his person; and one who did enter was accordingly condemned to be hung. And when the old men who had been left in Pisa prayed the Florentines for love of them to pardon him, they would not. But the Pisans still opposed, and begged that at least they would not put him to death in their territory; whereupon the Florentine army secretly purchased a field from a peasant in the name of the commonwealth of Florence, and thereon they raised the gallows and did the execution to maintain their decree. And when the host of the Pisans returned from the conquest of Majorca they gave great thanks to the Florentines, and asked them what memorial they would have of the conquest--the metal gates, or two columns of porphyry which they had taken and brought from Majorca. The Florentines chose the columns, and the Pisans sent them to Florence covered with scarlet cloth, and some said that before they sent them they put them in the fire for envy. And the said columns are those which stand in front of San Giovanni. § 32.--_How the Florentines took and destroyed the fortress of Fiesole._ [Sidenote: 1125 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1125, the Florentines came with an army to the fortress of Fiesole, which was still standing and very strong, and it was held by certain gentlemen Cattani, which had been of the city of Fiesole, and thither resorted highwaymen and refugees and evil men, which sometimes infested the roads and country of Florence; and the Florentines carried on the siege so long that for lack of victuals the fortress surrendered, albeit they would never have taken it by storm, and they caused it to be all cast down and destroyed to the foundations, and they made a decree that none should ever dare to build a fortress again at Fiesole. [Sidenote: 1125 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1147 A.D.] § 33.--_From where the miles are measured in the territory of Florence._ § 34.--_How Roger, duke of Apulia, was at war with the Church, and afterwards was reconciled with the Pope, and how after that there were two Popes in Rome at one time._ § 35.--_Tells of the second crusade over seas._ § 36.--_How the Florentines destroyed the fortress of Montebuono._ [Sidenote: 1135 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 66.] In the year of Christ 1135 the fortress of Montebuono was standing, which was very strong and pertained to the house of the Bondelmonti, which were Cattani and ancient gentlemen of the country, and from the name of this their castle the house of Bondelmonti took their name; and by reason of its strength, and because the road ran at the foot thereof, therefore they took toll, for the which thing the Florentines did not desire, nor would they have, such a fortress hard by the city; and they went thither with an army in the month of June and took it, on condition that the fortress should be destroyed, and the rest of the possessions should still pertain to the said Cattani, and that they should come and dwell in Florence. And thus the commonwealth of Florence began to grow, and by force, rather than by right, their territory increased, and they subdued to their jurisdiction every noble of the district, and destroyed the fortresses. [Sidenote: 1147 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1154 A.D.] § 37.--_How the Florentines were discomfited at Montedicroce by the Counts Guidi._ § 38.--_How they of Prato were discomfited by the Pistoians at Carmignano._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK IV. BOOK V. [Sidenote: 1154 A.D.] _Here begins the Fifth Book: How Frederick I. of Staufen of Suabia was Emperor of Rome, and of his descendants, and concerning the doings of Florence which were in their times, and of all Italy._ [Sidenote: Epist. vi. (5) 135, 136. Purg. xviii. 119, 120. Cf. Par. iii. 119.] [Sidenote: 1154 A.D.] [Sidenote: Epist. vi. (5) 137.] [Sidenote: 1159 A.D.] [Sidenote: Epist. vi. (5) 136.] [Sidenote: 1157 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xviii. 119-120. Epist. vi. (5) 135, 136.] [Sidenote: 1167 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xix. 70.] § 1.--After the death of Conrad of Saxony, king of the Romans, Frederick Barbarossa was elected Emperor, called Frederick the Great, or the First, of the house of Suabia, and surnamed of Staufen. This Frederick, when he had received the votes of the electors, proclaimed himself, and then came into Italy, and was crowned at Rome by Pope Adrian IV., in the year of Christ 1154, and reigned 37 years between king of the Romans and Emperor. He was liberal and a man of worth, eloquent and noble, and glorious in all his deeds. At the first he was friendly to Holy Church in the time of the said Pope Adrian, and rebuilt Tivoli, which had been destroyed; but the same day that he was crowned there was a great scuffle and fight between the Romans and his followers in Nero's meadow, where they were waiting for the said Emperor, to the great loss of the Romans; and again within the portico of St. Peter's; and it was all burnt and destroyed, to wit, the part of Rome which is around St. Peter's. And when he returned to Lombardy in the first year of his reign, because the city of Spoleto would not obey him, forasmuch as it pertained to the Church, he brought an army against it, and overcame it, and destroyed it utterly; and through his desire to usurp the rights of the Church, he soon became her enemy: for after the death of Pope Adrian, in the year of Christ 1159, Alexander III., of Siena, was made Pope, who reigned 22 years; and he, to maintain the rights of Holy Church, had great war with the said Emperor Frederick for long time; which Emperor raised up against him four schismatical anti-popes at divers times, one after the other, and three thereof were cardinals. The first was Octavianus, which took the name of Victor; the second, Guy of Cremona, which took the name of Pascal; the third was John of Struma, which took the name of Calixtus; the fourth was called Landone, which took the name of Innocent; whence came great schism and affliction to the Church of God, forasmuch as these Popes by the power of the Emperor Frederick held all the patrimony of St. Peter and the Duchy, so that the said Pope Alexander had no authority. But the said Pope Alexander fought valiantly against them all, and excommunicated them: the which all, one after the other, during his reign, died an evil death. But whilst they were reigning by the power of Frederick, the said true Pope, Alexander, not being able to abide in Rome, went to the French court to King Louis the Pious, which received him graciously. And it is said in France that when the said Pope was coming to Paris secretly with a small company in the guise of a lesser prelate, immediately that he came to St. Maure, near to Paris, albeit they had not had news of the Pope, yet by Divine miracle there rose a voice: "Behold the Pope! behold the Pope!" and the bells began to ring, and the king, with the clergy and the people of Paris, went out to meet him, whence the Pope marvelled greatly, forasmuch as none knew of his coming; and he thanked God, and made himself known to the king and to the people, and began to give the benediction. And afterwards in France the said Pope called a general council in the city of Tours in Touraine, in the which he excommunicated the said Frederick, and deposed him from the Empire, and absolved all his barons from their oaths, and deposed them of the house of Colonna in Rome, that neither they nor their successors should ever be allowed to hold any office in Holy Church, seeing that they all held to the aid and favour of the said Frederick against the Church. And in that council all the kings and lords of the West promised and leagued themselves with Louis, king of France, in aid of the said Pope Alexander and of Holy Church, against the said Frederick, and likewise many cities of Lombardy rebelled against the said Frederick, to wit, Milan, and Cremona, and Piacenza, and held with the Pope and with the Church; for the which thing, when the said Frederick was passing through Lombardy to go into France against King Louis, who was supporting Pope Alexander, and found that the city of Milan had rebelled against him, he laid siege thereto, and, after long siege, he took it, in the year of Christ 1157, in the month of March, and destroyed the walls thereof and burnt all the city, and caused the ground to be ploughed and sown with salt; and the bodies of the Three Kings or Magi which came to adore Christ by the guiding of the star, which were in the city of Milan, in three tombs hewn out of porphyry, he caused to be taken from Milan and sent to Cologne, whence all the Lombards were very wrathful. And afterwards, crossing the mountains to destroy the realm of France, with the aid of the king of Bohemia and the king of Dacia--that is, Denmark--he entered into Burgundy; but King Louis of France, with the aid of Henry, king of England, his son-in-law, and with many lords and barons, was ready to oppose him, so that by the grace of God he had no power, nor gained any land there, but through lack of victuals those kings returned to their own countries and Frederick to Italy. And he made war against the Romans, forasmuch as they had come over to the side of the Church and of Pope Alexander; and when the said Romans with their host were in the region of Tusculum, they were defeated by the chancellor of the said Frederick and his German troops in the place called Monte del Porco, and many Romans were taken and slain in such great numbers that cartloads of dead bodies were taken to Rome to be buried, and this defeat is said to have been by reason of the treachery of the Colonnas, which were always with the Emperor and against the Church; wherefore they were by the Pope deprived of all temporal and spiritual benefit; and because of the said defeat the Romans drove the Colonnas away from Rome, and destroyed an ancient and very beautiful fortress pertaining to them, which was called La Gosta, which is said to have been built by Cæsar Augustus, and this was in the year of Christ 1167. And after this the Emperor came to Rome to besiege it and to destroy it, and brought it into great straits. The Romans caused the clergy of Rome to take the heads of St. Peter and of St. Paul and to carry them in procession all through Rome, for the which thing the Romans all took the cross against the Emperor, and the first which took it was M. Matteo Rosso the Elder, of the Orsini family, grandfather to Pope Nicholas III., and by reason of old age he had abandoned arms, and taken the habit of a penitent; and for this cause he put off the said habit and took his arms again, for which he was much commended, and by reason of this he and his came into favour with the Church, and increased greatly. After the said M. Matteo, Gianni Buovo, a great citizen of Rome, took the cross, and afterwards all the others with great zeal and desire; for the which thing, when the Emperor heard thereof, either through fear, or rather through a miracle of the blessed Apostles, straightway he departed from the siege of Rome with his followers, and returned to Viterbo, and the city of Rome was set free. § 2.--_How Pope Alexander returned from France to Venice, and the Emperor returned to obedience._ [Sidenote: 1168 A.D.] Then, after the said Pope Alexander had been long time in France, by the aid of the kings of France and of England he returned with his court into Italy by sea, and, landing in Sicily, he was devoutly received and favoured by King William, which then was king thereof, and which declared himself faithful to Holy Church, and that he held the island from him; for the which thing the said Pope confirmed him king of Sicily, and gave him Apulia, wherefore the said King William with his fleet bore him company by sea as far as the city of Venice, whither the Pope desired to go for more security, that the Emperor Frederick might not hurt him; and to show favour to the faithful believers in Holy Church in Lombardy, he sojourned in the said city of Venice, and by the Venetians was reverently received and honoured; and by his favour the Milanese rebuilt the city of Milan in the year of Christ 1168. Then, a little while after, the Milanese, with the aid of Piacenza and Cremona, and of the other cities of Lombardy which obeyed Holy Church, built a city in Lombardy, to be a rampart and defence against the city of Pavia, which always was against Milan, and held with the Empire; and since this city was built, to the honour of the said Pope Alexander, and to the end it might be more famous, they called it Alessandria; and afterwards it was surnamed City della Paglia [of Straw], in contempt, by the Pavians; and at the prayer of the Lombards the Pope gave it a bishop, and deposed the bishop of Pavia, and took away from him the dignity of the Pallium and of the Cross, forasmuch as he had always held with the Emperor Frederick against the Church. § 3.--_How the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was reconciled with the Church, and went over seas, and there died._ [Sidenote: Inf. iv. 129.] [Sidenote: 1188 A.D.] The Emperor Frederick, seeing himself much cast down from his state and sovereignty, and that many cities of Lombardy and of Tuscany were rebelling against him and holding with the Church and with Pope Alexander, which had greatly increased in estate by the favour of the kings of France and of England, and of William, king of Sicily, sought to reconcile himself with the Church and with the Pope, to the end he might not wholly lose the honour of the Empire, and he sent a solemn embassy to Venice to Pope Alexander to ask for peace, promising to make all amends to Holy Church, and the Pope graciously hearkened to him, wherefore the said Frederick went to Venice and threw himself at the feet of the said Pope, and asked for mercy. Then the said Pope set his foot upon his neck, and said the verse of the psalter: "_Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem_" [Ps. xci. 13]; and the Emperor answered, "_Non tibi sed Petro_" [Not to you, but to Peter, was it said], and the Pope answered, "_Ego sum vicarius Petri_" [I am in the place of Peter]; and then he forgave him every offence which he had committed against Holy Church, causing him to restore that which he held from Holy Church; and this he promised and did, under compact that whatsoever should be found held in possession by the Church on that day throughout the Kingdom, should pertain for ever to Holy Church; and it was found that Benivento was so held; and this was the cause why the Church holds as hers the city of Benivento. And this done, he reconciled him with the Romans, and with Manuel, emperor of Constantinople, and with William, king of Sicily, and with the Lombards; and as amends and penance he imposed upon him, and he promised, to go over seas to the succour of the Holy Land, forasmuch as Saladin, the soldan of Babylon, had retaken Jerusalem and many other fortresses held by the Christians; and this he did. Then the said Frederick, having taken the cross in the year of Christ 1188, departed from Germany with an immense host, and went by land through Hungary to Constantinople as far as Armenia [Pisidia]; but when the said Frederick was come into Armenia, it being summer and very hot, as he was bathing for his solace in a little river called the river of Ferro [Iron], he was miserably drowned. And this, it is believed, was the judgment of God by reason of the many persecutions which he had brought upon Holy Church: and he left a son, which was named Henry, whom he had caused to be elected king of the Romans before he passed over seas in the year of Christ 1186; and when the said Frederick was dead, his wife, with her son and with their followers, albeit many of them died on this voyage, returned from Syria to the West without having gained anything. We will now return to our subject of the doings of Florence and of other things which were in the time when the said Frederick was reigning; but first we will tell of King Philip of France and of King Richard of England, which went over seas to the succour of the Holy Land in this same time. [Sidenote: 1170 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1174 A.D.] § 4.--_How the king of France and the king of England went over seas._ § 5.--_How the Florentines defeated the Aretines._ § 6.--_How the first war of the Florentines against the Sienese began._ § 7.--_How the noble and strong castle of Poggibonizzi was first built, and that of Colle of Valdelsa._ § 8.--_Of the great fires which were in the city of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1177 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1177, fire broke out in the city of Florence on the 5th day of August, and spread from the foot of the Ponte Vecchio as far as the Mercato Vecchio. And afterwards, in the same year, fire broke out at San Martino del Vescovo, and spread as far as Santa Maria Ughi and to the Duomo of S. Giovanni, with great hurt to the city, and not without the judgment of God, forasmuch as the Florentines had become very proud by reason of the victories they had gotten over their neighbours; and some among them were very ungrateful towards God, and full of other wicked sins. And in this year, because of a great flood of the river Arno, the Ponte Vecchio fell, which also was a sign of future adversities to our city. § 9.--_How civil war began in Florence between the Uberti and the government of the Consuls._ [Sidenote: 1177 A.D.] Wherefore in the selfsame year there began in Florence dissension and great war among the citizens, the worst that had ever been in Florence; and this was by reason of too great prosperity and repose, together with pride and ingratitude; forasmuch as the house of the Uberti, which were the most powerful and the greatest citizens of Florence, with their allies, both magnates and popolari, began war against the Consuls (which were the lords and rulers of the commonwealth for a certain time and under certain ordinances), from envy of the Government, which was not to their mind; and the war was so fierce and unnatural that well-nigh every day, or every other day, the citizens fought against one another in divers parts of the city, from district to district, according as the factions were, and as they had fortified their towers, whereof there was great number in the city, in height 100 or 120 cubits. And in those times, by reason of the said war, many towers were newly fortified by the communities of the districts, from the common funds of the neighbourhood, which were called Towers of the Fellowships, and upon them were set engines to shoot forth one at another, and the city was barricaded in many places; and this plague endured more than two years, and many died by reason thereof, and much peril and hurt was brought upon the city; but this war among the citizens became so much of use and wont that one day they would be fighting, and the next day they would be eating and drinking together, and telling tales of one another's valour and prowess in these battles; and at last they ceased fighting, in that it irked them for very weariness, and they made peace, and the Consuls remained in their government; albeit, in the end they begot and then brought forth the accursed factions, which were afterwards in Florence, as hereafter in due time we will make mention. [Sidenote: 1182 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1184 A.D.] § 10.--_How the Florentines took the castle of Montegrossoli._ § 11.--_How the Florentines took the castle of Pogna._ § 12.--_How the Emperor Frederick I. took their territory from the city of Florence, and many other cities of Tuscany._ [Sidenote: 1184 A.D.] In the said year of Christ 1184, the Emperor Frederick I., as he went from Lombardy into Apulia, passed through our city of Florence on the 31st day of July in the said year, and abode there some days; and receiving a complaint from the nobles of the country that the commonwealth of Florence had taken by force and occupied many of their castles and strongholds against the honour of the Empire, he took from the commonwealth of Florence all the whole territory and the lordship thereof up to the walls, and in the territory he set vicars of his own throughout the villages to administer the law and execute justice; and he did the like to all the other cities of Tuscany which had held with the Church when he was at war with Pope Alexander, save that he did not take the territory from the cities of Pisa and of Pistoia, which held with him. And in this year the said Frederick besieged the city of Siena, but did not take it. And these things he did to the said cities of Tuscany, forasmuch as they had not been on his side; so that, albeit he was at peace with the Church and had cried the said Pope mercy, as afore has been narrated, nevertheless, he did not cease from manifesting ill-will against the cities which had obeyed the Church; and thus the city of Florence was left without any territory for four years, until the said Frederick set forth on his voyage over seas, when he was drowned, as afore we have narrated. § 13.--_How the Florentines took the cross, and went over seas to conquer Damietta, and therefore recovered their territory._ [Sidenote: 1188 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1188, all Christendom being moved to go to the succour of the Holy Land, there came to Florence the archbishop of Ravenna, the Pope's Legate, to preach the cross for the said expedition; and many good people of Florence took the cross from the said archbishop at S. Donato tra le Torri, or at S. Donato a Torri, beyond Rifredi, or the Monastery delle Donne, forasmuch as the said archbishop was of the Order of Citeaux [the Cistercian Order]; and this was on the 2nd day of the month of February in the said year, and the Florentines were in such great numbers that they made up an army in themselves over seas, and they were at the conquest of the city of Damietta, and among the first which took the city, and for an ensign they brought back thence a crimson standard which is still in the church of S. Giovanni; and because of the said devotion and aid given by the Florentines to Holy Church and to Christendom, the jurisdiction over the territory around was restored to the city of Florence by Pope Gregory and by the said Emperor Frederick, to the distance of ten miles around the city of Florence. [Sidenote: 1188 A.D.] § 14.--_How the Florentines got the arm of the blessed apostle S. Philip._ § 15.--_How the Pope brought the Pisans and the Genoese to peace, thereby to strengthen the expedition over seas._ § 16.--_How Henry of Suabia was made Emperor by the Church, and how Constance, queen of Sicily, was given him to wife._ [Sidenote: 1192 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. iii. 109-120.] Henry of Suabia, son of the great Frederick, as we said before, whilst his father was alive, had been elected king of the Romans; and when he returned from over seas, and had ordered his government in Germany, he passed into Italy and came to Rome at the request of Pope Clement, and was received with honour by the Romans, forasmuch as he restored to them the city of Tusculum and its territory, which had rebelled against the Romans; which city was all destroyed and laid waste by the Romans, and was never afterwards rebuilt. And when the said Henry was come to Rome he found that the said Pope Clement was dead, which had sent for him; and Pope Celestine, a native of Rome, had been elected by the cardinals, so that the said Henry was present at his consecration, which took place on Easter Day of the Resurrection, in April, in the year of Christ 1192; and he lived as Pope six years and eight months and eleven days. And when Celestine had become Pope, on the second day after his consecration, he crowned the said Henry emperor. And before the said Henry departed from Germany, the Church was at variance with Tancred, king of Sicily and of Apulia (son to the other Tancred, which was sister's son to Robert Guiscard, as we made mention in the chapter wherein we treated of the said Robert), by reason that he did not, as he should, faithfully pay tribute to the Church, and that he presented bishops and archbishops to benefices at his pleasure to the shame of the Pope and of the Church; wherefore the said Pope Clement treated with the archbishop of Palermo to take away the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia from the said Tancred, and gave order to the said archbishop that Constance, sister of King William and rightful heiress of the realm of Sicily, which was a nun in Palermo, as we afore made mention, and was already more than fifty years old, should leave the convent, and he gave her dispensation that she might return to the world and enter into matrimony; and the said archbishop caused her secretly to depart from Sicily and come to Rome, and the Church gave her to wife to the said Emperor Henry, whence a little while after was born the Emperor Frederick II., which brought such persecutions upon the Church, as we will tell hereafter in treating of him. And it was not without Divine occasioning and judgment that such a baneful heir must needs be the issue, being born of a holy nun, and she more than fifty-two years old, when it is almost impossible for a woman to bear a child; so that he was born of two contradictions--against spiritual laws, and, in a sense, against natural laws. And we find, when the Empress Constance was pregnant with Frederick, there was doubt in Sicily and throughout all the realm of Apulia whether, by reason of her advanced age, she could be pregnant; for the which thing, when the time came for her to be delivered, a pavilion was erected on the piazza at Palermo, and a proclamation was put forth that any lady who desired might go and see her, and many went thither and saw her, and therefore the doubt came to an end. [Sidenote: 1196 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1200 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1203 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1192 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1197 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1198 A.D.] § 17.--_How the Emperor Henry conquered the kingdom of Apulia._ § 18.--_How the Emperor Henry rebelled against the Church, and persecuted it, and how he died._ § 19.--_How Otho IV. of Saxony was elected Emperor._ § 20.--_How the whole orb of the sun was eclipsed._ § 21.--_How they of Samminiato destroyed their whole city by their discords._ § 22.--_How the Florentines bought Montegrossoli._ § 23.--_How Innocent III. was made Pope._ § 24.--_How the Order of the Minor Friars began._ [Sidenote: Par. xi. 43-117.] In the time of the said Pope Innocent began the holy Order of the Minor Friars, the founder whereof was the blessed Francis, born in the city of Assisi in the Duchy, and by this Pope the said Order was accepted and approved with privilege, forasmuch as it was altogether founded on humility, and love, and poverty, following in all things the holy gospel of Christ, and shunning all human delights. And the said Pope saw in a vision S. Francis supporting the Church of the Lateran upon his shoulders, as he afterwards, after the same manner, beheld S. Dominic, the which vision was a figure and prophecy how by them should be supported Holy Church and the faith of Christ. § 25.--_How the Order of the Preaching Friars began._ [Sidenote: Par. xi. 118-123; xii. 46-105.] [Sidenote: 1216 A.D.] And still in the time of the said Pope, after the same manner began the Order of the Preaching Friars, the founder whereof was the blessed Dominic, born in Spain. But in this Pope's time it was not confirmed, albeit in a vision it seemed to the said Pope that the Church of the Lateran was falling upon him, and the blessed Dominic sustained it on his shoulders. And by reason of this vision he purposed to confirm it, but death overtook him, and his successor, Pope Honorius, afterwards confirmed it the year of Christ 1216. The visions of the aforesaid Innocent, concerning S. Francis and S. Dominic, were true, for the Church of God was falling through many errors and many licentious sins, not fearing God; and the said blessed Dominic, through his holy learning and preaching, corrected it, and was the first exterminator of heretics therefrom; and the blessed Francis, through his humility and apostolic life and penitence, corrected the wanton life, and brought back Christians to penitence and to the life of salvation. And truly the Erythræan Sibyl, tracing out these times, prophesied of these two holy Orders, saying that two stars would arise to illuminate the world. § 26.--_How the Florentines destroyed the castle of Frondigliano._ [Sidenote: 1199 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 62, 63.] In the year of Christ 1199, Count Henry della Tosa and his colleagues, being consuls of the city of Florence, the Florentines laid siege to the fortress of Frondigliano, which had rebelled and was making war upon the commonwealth of Florence, and they took it and destroyed it to the very foundations, and it was never built again. And in the same year the Florentines marched against Simifonte, which was a very strong place and did not obey the city. § 27.--_How they of Samminiato destroyed Sanginiegio, and went back to live on the hill._ § 28.--_How the French and Venetians took Constantinople._ § 29.--_How the Tartars descended from the mountains of Gog and Magog._ § 30.--_How the Florentines destroyed the strongholds of Simifonti and of Combiata._ [Sidenote: 1202 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 62, 63.] In the year of Christ 1202, when Aldobrandino, of the Barucci of Santa Maria Maggiore (a very ancient family), and his colleagues were consuls in Florence, the Florentines took the stronghold of Simifonti, and destroyed it, and took the hill into possession of the commonwealth, forasmuch as it had been long time at war with the Florentines. And the Florentines gained it by the treachery of a certain man of Sandonato in Poci, which surrendered a tower, and claimed for this cause that he and his descendants should be free in Florence from all taxes; and this was granted, albeit the said traitor was first slain, in the said tower, by the inhabitants, as it was being attacked. And in the said year the Florentines went with their army against the fortress of Combiata, which was very strong, at the head of the river Marina, towards Mugello, which pertained to Cattani of the country which would not obey the commonwealth and made war against it. And when the said strongholds were destroyed, they made a decree that they should never be rebuilt. § 31.--_Destruction of Montelupo, and how the Florentines gained Montemurlo._ [Sidenote: 1203 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1207 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 64.] [Sidenote: 1209 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1203, when Brunellino Brunelli de' Razzanti was consul in Florence with his colleagues, the Florentines destroyed the fortress of Montelupo because it would not obey the commonwealth. And in this same year the Pistoians took the castle of Montemurlo from the Counts Guidi; but a little while after, in September, the Florentines went thither with an army on behalf of the Counts Guidi, and retook it, and gave it back to the Counts Guidi. And afterwards, in 1207, the Florentines made peace between the Pistoians and the Counts Guidi, but afterwards the counts not being well able to defend Montemurlo from the Pistoians, forasmuch as it was too near to them, and they had built over against it the fortress of Montale, the Counts Guidi sold it to the commonwealth of Florence for 5,000 lbs. of small florins, which would now be worth 5,000 golden florins; and this was in the year of Christ 1209, but the Counts of Porciano never would give their word for their share in the sale. § 32.--_How the Florentines elected their first Podestà._ [Sidenote: 1207 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxiii. 105-107.] In the year of Christ 1207, the Florentines chose for the first time a foreign magistrate, for until that time the city had been ruled by the government of citizen consuls, of the greatest and best of the city, with the council of the senate, to wit, of 100 good men; and these consuls, after the manner of Rome, entirely guided and governed the city, and administered law and executed justice; and they remained in office for one year. And there were four consuls so long as the city was divided into quarters, one to each gate; and afterwards there were six, when the city was divided into sesti. But our forefathers did not make mention of the names of all, but of one of them of greatest estate and fame, saying: 'In the time of such a consul and of his colleagues'; but afterwards when the city was increased in inhabitants and in vices, and there came to be more ill-deeds, it was agreed for the good of the commonwealth, to the end the citizens might not have so great a burden of government, and that justice might not miscarry by reason of prayers, or fear, or private malice, or any other cause, that they should invite a gentleman from some other city, who might be their Podestà for a year, and administer civil justice with his assessors and judges, and carry into execution sentences and penalties on the person. And the first Podestà in Florence was Gualfredotto of Milan, in the said year; and he dwelt in the Bishop's Palace, forasmuch as there was as yet no palace of the commonwealth in Florence. Yet the government of the consuls did not therefore cease, but they reserved to themselves the administration of all other things in the commonwealth. And by the said government the city was ruled until the time of the Primo Popolo in Florence, as hereafter we shall make mention, and then was created the office of the Ancients. [Sidenote: 1208 A.D.] § 33.--_How the Florentines defeated the Sienese at Montalto._ § 34.--_How the Sienese sued for peace to the Florentines and obtained it._ § 35.--_How Otho IV. was crowned Emperor; and how he became the enemy and persecutor of Holy Church._ § 36.--_How during Otho's lifetime Frederick II. of Suabia was elected Emperor by the desire of the Church of Rome._ The said Otho being the enemy of the Church, and being deposed by the general council of the Empire, the Church arranged with the electors of Germany that they should elect to be king of the Romans, Frederick, the young king of Sicily, who was in Germany, and he won a great victory against the said Otho; and afterwards the said Otho, returning to his duty, went on crusade to Damietta over seas, and there died, and the election was left to Frederick; and afterwards, in the time of Pope Honorius III., who succeeded to the aforesaid Innocent, the said Frederick of Germany came to Venice, and then by sea into his kingdom of Apulia, and then to Rome; and by the said Pope Honorius and by the Romans he was received with great honour, and crowned Emperor, as hereafter in treating of him we will make mention. We will leave speaking of the Emperor for a time, and will tell of the doings of the Florentines up to the time of his coronation. § 37.--_Concerning the death of the old Count Guido, and of his progeny._ [Sidenote: 1213 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 64, 98.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 112, xvi. 99.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 94-99. Inf. xvi. 37.] [Sidenote: Cf. Epistolæ Dant. Allig. adscriptæ, i.-iii.] [Sidenote: Inf. xvi. 34-39. Inf. xxx. 73-78. Cf. Epist. ii. Cf. Purg. xiv. 43-45.] In the year of Christ 1213, there died the Count Guido Vecchio, which left behind him five sons; but one died, leaving those who had Poppi as the heirs of his portion, forasmuch as he left no children; and from the other four sons were descended all the Counts Guidi. As to this Count Guido, it is said that in ancient times his forbears were great barons in Germany, which came over with the Emperor Otho I., who gave them the territory of Modigliana in Romagna, and there they remained; and afterwards their descendants, by reason of their power, were lords over almost all Romagna, and made their headquarters in Ravenna, but because of the outrages they wrought on the citizens concerning their wives, and other tyrannies, in a popular tumult they were driven out of Ravenna, pursued, and slain in one day, so that none escaped either small or great, save one young child which was named Guido, the which was at Modigliana at nurse, which was surnamed Guido Besangue [drink-blood], through the disaster of his family, as in the story of the Emperor Otho we before made mention. This Guido was the father of the said Count Guido Vecchio, whence all the Counts Guidi are descended. This Count Guido Vecchio took to wife the daughter of M. Bellincione Berti of the Rovignani, which was the greatest and the most honoured knight in Florence, and his houses which were at Porta San Piero above the Old Gate descended by heritage to the Counts. This lady was named Gualdrada, and he took her for her beauty and her fair speech, beholding her in S. Reparata, with the other ladies and maidens of Florence. For when the Emperor Otho IV. came to Florence, and saw the fair ladies of the city assembled in Santa Reparata, in his honour, this maiden most pleased the Emperor; and her father saying to the Emperor that he had it in his power to bid her kiss him, the maiden made answer that there was no man living which should kiss her, save he were her husband, for the which speech, the Emperor much commended her; and the said Count Guido being taken with love of her by reason of her graciousness, and by the counsel of the said Otho, the Emperor, took her to wife, not regarding that she was of less noble lineage than he, nor regarding her dowry; whence all the Counts Guidi are born from the said Count and the said lady after this fashion; for, as aforesaid, there were left four sons which were the heirs: the first was named William, from whom was born Count Guido Novello and Count Simon, who were Ghibellines; but by reason of wrongs which Count Simon endured of Guido Novello, his brother, concerning his heritage, he became a Guelf and entered into league with the Guelfs of Florence; and from this Simon was born Count Guido of Battifolle; the second son was named Roger, from whom were born Count Guido Guerra and Count Salvatico, and these held the side of the Guelfs; the third was named Guido of Romena, whence are descended the family of Romena, which have been both Guelfs and Ghibellines; the fourth was Count Tegrimo, whence are the family of Porciano, which were always Ghibellines. The aforesaid Emperor Otho gave said Count Guido the lordship of Casentino. We have spoken at such length of the said Count Guido (albeit in another place we have treated of the beginning of his race), forasmuch as he was a man of worth, and from him are descended all the Counts Guidi, and because his descendants were afterwards much mixed up with the doings of the Florentines, as in due time we will make mention. § 38.--_How the parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines arose in Florence._ [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 136-144.] [Sidenote: 1215 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxviii. 103-111. Par. xvi. 136-138.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 145-147.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 128.] In the year of Christ 1215, M. Gherardo Orlandi being Podestà in Florence, one M. Bondelmonte dei Bondelmonti, a noble citizen of Florence, had promised to take to wife a maiden of the house of the Amidei, honourable and noble citizens; and afterwards as the said M. Bondelmonte, who was very charming and a good horseman, was riding through the city, a lady of the house of the Donati called to him, reproaching him as to the lady to whom he was betrothed, that she was not beautiful or worthy of him, and saying: "I have kept this my daughter for you;" whom she showed to him, and she was most beautiful; and immediately by the inspiration of the devil he was so taken by her, that he was betrothed and wedded to her, for which thing the kinsfolk of the first betrothed lady, being assembled together, and grieving over the shame which M. Bondelmonte had done to them, were filled with the accursed indignation, whereby the city of Florence was destroyed and divided. For many houses of the nobles swore together to bring shame upon the said M. Bondelmonte, in revenge for these wrongs. And being in council among themselves, after what fashion they should punish him, whether by beating or killing, Mosca de' Lamberti said the evil word: 'Thing done has an end'; to wit, that he should be slain; and so it was done; for on the morning of Easter of the Resurrection the Amidei of San Stefano assembled in their house, and the said M. Bondelmonte coming from Oltrarno, nobly arrayed in new white apparel, and upon a white palfrey, arriving at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio on this side, just at the foot of the pillar where was the statue of Mars, the said M. Bondelmonte was dragged from his horse by Schiatta degli Uberti, and by Mosca Lamberti and Lambertuccio degli Amidei assaulted and smitten, and by Oderigo Fifanti his veins were opened and he was brought to his end; and there was with them one of the counts of Gangalandi. For the which thing the city rose in arms and tumult; and this death of M. Bondelmonte was the cause and beginning of the accursed parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence, albeit long before there were factions among the noble citizens and the said parties existed by reason of the strifes and questions between the Church and the Empire; but by reason of the death of the said M. Bondelmonte all the families of the nobles and the other citizens of Florence were divided, and some held with the Bondelmonti, who took the side of the Guelfs, and were its leaders, and some with the Uberti, who were the leaders of the Ghibellines, whence followed much evil and disaster to our city, as hereafter shall be told; and it is believed that it will never have an end, if God do not cut it short. And surely it shows that the enemy of the human race, for the sins of the Florentines, had power in that idol of Mars, which the pagan Florentines of old were wont to worship, that at the foot of his statue such a murder was committed, whence so much evil followed to the city of Florence. The accursed names of the Guelf and Ghibelline parties are said to have arisen first in Germany by reason that two great barons of that country were at war together, and had each a strong castle the one over against the other, and the one had the name of Guelf, and the other of Ghibelline, and the war lasted so long, that all the Germans were divided, and one held to one side, and the other to the other; and the strife even came as far as to the court of Rome, and all the court took part in it, and the one side was called that of Guelf, and the other that of Ghibelline; and so the said names continued in Italy. § 39.--_Of the families and the nobles which became Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence._ [Sidenote: 1215 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 115.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 128. Inf. xvii. 62, 63. Par. xvi. 127. 104.] [Sidenote: Purg. xii. 105. Par. xvi. 105. Convivio iv. 20: 38-41. Par. xvi. 104. 123. 136-139. Cf. 109. 110.] [Sidenote: 66, 135.] [Sidenote: 127. Inf. xvii. 59, 60.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 133. 105. 93. xv. 115. xvi. 110. 111. 93. 103.] [Sidenote: 108.] [Sidenote: 104.] [Sidenote: 115-117. 112-114. 130, 131. 93.] [Sidenote: 65, 94-96.] [Sidenote: 121.] [Sidenote: 104. 101.] By reason of the said division these were the families of the nobles which were at that time and became Guelfs in Florence, counting from sesto to sesto, and likewise the Ghibellines. In the sesto of Oltrarno, of the Guelfs were the Nerli, gentlemen, who dwelt at first in the Mercato Vecchio; the family of the Giacoppi, called Rossi, not however of great antiquity of descent, but they were already beginning to be powerful; the Frescobaldi, the Bardi, the Mozzi, but of small beginnings; of the Ghibellines in the sesto of Oltrarno, among the nobles, the counts of Gangalandi, Obriachi, and Mannelli. In the sesto of San Piero Scheraggio, the nobles which were Guelfs were, the house of the Pulci, the Gherardini, the Foraboschi, the Bagnesi, the Guidalotti, the Sacchetti, the Manieri, and they of Quona, fellows to them of Volognano, the Lucardesi, the Chiaramontesi, the Compiobbesi, the Cavalcanti, but these were descended recently from merchants. In the said sesto of the Ghibellines were, the family of the Uberti, which was the head of the party, the Fifanti, the Infangati, and Amidei, and they of Volognano, and the Malespini, albeit afterwards by reason of the outrages of the Uberti their neighbours, they and many other families of San Piero Scheraggio became Guelfs. In the sesto of the Borgo of the Guelfs were the family of the Bondelmonti, and they were the leaders of the party; the family of the Giandonati, the Gianfigliazzi, the family of the Scali, of the Gualterotti and of the Importuni. Of the Ghibellines of the said sesto, the house of the Scolari which were by origin fellows to the Bondelmonti, the house of the Guidi, of the Galli and of the Cappiardi. In the sesto of San Brancazio of the Guelfs were the Bostichi, the Tornaquinci, the Vecchietti. Of the Ghibellines of the said sesto were the Lamberti, the Soldanieri, the Cipriani, the Toschi, and the Amieri, and Palermini, and Migliorelli, and Pigli, albeit afterwards some of them became Guelfs. In the sesto of the Porte del Duomo, of the Guelf party in those times were the Tosinghi, the Arrigucci, the Agli, the Sizii. Of the Ghibellines of the said sesto were the Barucci, the Cattani of Castiglione and of Cersino, the Agolanti and the Brunelleschi; and afterwards some of them became Guelfs. In the sesto of the Porte San Piero of the Guelf nobles were the Adimari, the Visdomini, the Donati, the Pazzi, the della Bella, the Ardinghi, and the Tedaldi which were called della Vitella, and already the Cerchi began to rise in condition, albeit they were merchants; of the Ghibellines of the said sesto were the Caponsacchi, the Lisei, the Abati, the Tedaldini, the Giuochi, the Galigari. And many other families of honourable citizens and popolani held some with one side, and some with the other, and they changed with the times in mind and in party, which would be too long a matter to relate. And for the said cause the accursed parties first began in Florence, albeit before that there had been a division secretly among the noble citizens, whereof some loved the rule of the Church and some that of the Empire; nevertheless they were all agreed as to the state and well-being of the commonwealth. § 40.--_How the city of Damietta was taken by the Christians, and afterwards lost._ § 41.--_How the Florentines caused the dwellers in the country around to swear fealty to the city, and how the new Carraia Bridge was begun._ [Sidenote: 1218 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 56, 57.] In the year of Christ 1218, when Otto da Mandella of Milan was Podestà of Florence, the Florentines caused all the dwellers in the country around to swear fealty to the commonwealth, seeing that before that time the greater part had obeyed the rule of the Counts Guidi, and of them of Mangone, and of them of Capraia, and of Certaldo, and of many Cattani which had taken possession of the lands by privileges and some by force of the emperors. And in this year the building of the bastions of the Carraia Bridge was begun. [Sidenote: 1220 A.D.] § 42.--_How the Florentines took Mortennana, and completed the new bridge called Carraia._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK V. BOOK VI. [Sidenote: 1220 A.D.] _How Frederick II. was consecrated and made Emperor, and the great things which came to pass._ [Sidenote: Inf. x. 119; xiii. 59, 68, 75; xxiii. 66. Purg. xvi. 117. Par. iii. 120. Convivio iv. Canzone, ver. 21; also cap. 3: 37-44; 10: 6-12. De Vulg. El. i. 12: 20-35. Epist. vi. (5) 126-135. Par. iii. 118-120.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 119.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xvi. 115-117.] § 1.--In the year of Christ 1220, on the day of St. Cecilia in November, there was crowned and consecrated Emperor at Rome Frederick II., king of Sicily, son of the Emperor Henry of Suabia, and of the Empress Constance, by Pope Honorius III., with great honour. In the beginning he was a friend of the Church, and well might he be, so many benefits and favours had he received from the Church, for through the Church his father Henry had for wife Constance, queen of Sicily, and for dowry the said realm, and the kingdom of Apulia; and when his father was dead, he being left a little child, was cared for and guarded by the Church as by a mother, and also his kingdom was defended, and he was elected king of the Romans against the Emperor Otho IV., and he was afterwards crowned Emperor, as aforesaid. But he, son of ingratitude that he was, not acknowledging Holy Church as a mother, but as a hostile stepmother, in all things was her enemy and persecutor, he and his sons, almost more than his precursors, as hereafter we shall make mention. This Frederick reigned thirty years as Emperor, and was a man of great capacity and of great valour, wise in books, and of natural intelligence, universal in all things; was acquainted with the Latin tongue, and with our vernacular, with German and French, Greek and Arabic, of abounding talents, liberal and courteous in giving, courageous and prudent in arms, and was much feared. And he was dissolute and licentious after divers fashions, and had many concubines and catamites, after the manner of the Saracens, and he sought indulgence in all bodily pleasures, and led an epicurean life, not taking account that there were ever another life; and this was one chief cause why he became the enemy of the clergy and of Holy Church. And the other was his greed in taking and sequestrating the revenues of Holy Church, to squander them evilly. And many monasteries and churches he destroyed in his kingdom of Sicily and Apulia, and throughout all Italy, and this, either through his own vices and defects, or by reason of the rulers of Holy Church who could not or would not deal with him, nor be content that he should have the Imperial rights, wherefore he subdued and smote Holy Church; or because that God permitted it as a Divine judgment, because the rulers of the Church had been the means through whom he became the child of the holy nun, Constance, they not remembering the persecutions which Henry, his father, and Frederick, his grandfather, had caused Holy Church to endure. This Frederick did many noteworthy things in his time, and raised in all the chief cities of Sicily and of Apulia, strong and rich fortresses which are still standing, and built the fortress of Capovana, in Naples, and the towers and gate upon the bridge over the river of Volturno at Capua, the which are very marvellous; and he made the park for sport on the marsh of Foggia in Apulia, and made the hunting park near Gravina and Amalfi in the mountains. In winter he abode at Foggia, and in summer in the mountains, for the delights of the chase. And many other noteworthy things he caused to be made, as the castle of Prato, and the fortress of Samminiato, and many other things, as we shall make mention hereafter. And he had two sons by his first wife, Henry and Conrad, whom he caused each one during his lifetime to be elected king of the Romans; and by the daughter of King John of Jerusalem he had King Giordano, and by others he had King Frederick (from whom are descended the lineage of those who are called of Antioch), King Enzo and King Manfred, who were great enemies to Holy Church; and during his life he and his sons lived and ruled with much earthly splendour; but in the end he and his sons because of their sins came to an ill end, and their line was extinguished, as we shall make mention hereafter. [Sidenote: 1222 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1224 A.D.] § 2.--_Of the cause why war broke out between the Florentines and the Pisans._ § 3.--_How the Pisans were routed by the Florentines at Casteldelbosco._ § 4.--_How the Florentines marched against Fegghine, and built l'Ancisa._ § 5.--_How the Florentines led an army against Pistoia, and laid waste the country round about._ [Sidenote: 1228 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxv. 1-3.] In the year of Christ 1228, when M. Andrea of Perugia was Podestà of Florence, the Florentines led an army against Pistoia with the Carroccio, and this was because the Pistoians were making war against Montemurlo, and ill-treating it; and the said host laid waste the country round about the city up to the suburbs, and destroyed the towers of Montefiore which were very strong; and the fortress of Carmignano surrendered to the commonwealth of Florence. And note that upon the rock of Carmignano there was a tower seventy cubits high, and thereupon two arms in marble, whereof the hands were 'making the figs' at Florence; wherefore the artificers of Florence, to express contempt for money or ought else offered to them, were wont to say: "I can't see it, for the fortress of Carmignano is in the way." And the Pistoians hereupon agreed to whatever terms the Florentines might devise, and caused the said fortress of Carmignano to be destroyed. [Sidenote: 1229 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1232 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1233 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1234 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1235 A.D.] § 6.--_How the Sienese renewed the war with the Florentines on account of Montepulciano._ § 7.--_Of a great miracle that came to pass in S. Ambrogio in Florence, concerning the body of Christ._ § 8.--_Yet again of the war of the Florentines with the Sienese._ § 9.--_Of the conflagration in Florence._ § 10.--_Yet again of the war with Siena._ § 11.--_The same._ § 12.--_Of the conflagration in Florence._ § 13.--_How peace was made between the Florentines and the Sienese._ § 14.--_How the Emperor Frederick came to enmity with the Church._ [Sidenote: 1220 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1226 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. De Vulg. El. i. 10: 50, 63. i. 11: 20. i. 13: 31. Par. xi. 53.] [Sidenote: 1230 A.D.] After that Frederick II. was crowned by Pope Honorius, as we have aforesaid, in the beginning he was the friend of the Church, but a little time after, through his pride and avarice, he began to usurp the rights of the Church throughout all his Empire, and in the realm of Sicily and Apulia, appointing bishops and archbishops and other prelates, and driving away those sent by the Pope, and raising imposts and taxes from the clergy, doing shame to Holy Church; for the which thing by the said Pope Honorius, which had crowned him, he was cited, and admonished that he should leave to Holy Church her rights, and render the dues. But the Emperor perceived himself to be great in power and estate, alike through the force of the Germans and through that of the realm of Sicily, and that he was lord over sea and land, and was feared by all the rulers of Christendom, and also by the Saracens, and was buttressed around by the sons which he had of his first wife, daughter of the landgrave of Germany, to wit Henry and Conrad, the which Henry he had caused to be crowned in Germany king of the Romans, and Conrad was duke of Suabia, and Frederick of Antioch, his first natural son, he made king, and Enzo, his natural son, was king of Sardinia, and Manfred prince of Taranto; wherefore he would not yield obedience to the Church, but rather was he obstinate, living after the fashion of the world, in all bodily delights. For the which thing by the said Pope Honorius he was excommunicated the year of Christ 1220, and did not for that reason cease from persecuting the Church, but so much the more usurped its rights, and so remained the enemy of the Church and of the Pope Honorius as long as he lived. The which Pope passed from this life the year of Christ 1226, and after him was made Pope Gregory IX., born at Alagna in the Campagna, the which reigned as pope fourteen years; the which Pope Gregory had a great war with the Emperor Frederick, forasmuch as the Emperor would in no wise relinquish the rights and jurisdiction of Holy Church, but rather the more usurped them; and many churches of the kingdom he caused to be pulled down and deserted, laying heavy imposts upon the clergy and the churches; and whereas there were certain Saracens in the mountains of Trapali in Sicily, the Emperor, that he might be the more secure in the island, and might keep them at a distance from the Saracens of Barbary, and also to the end that by them he might keep in fear his subjects in Apulia, by wit and promises drew them from those mountains, and put them in Apulia in an ancient deserted city, which of old was in league with the Romans, and was destroyed by the Samnites, to wit by those of Benivento, the which city was then called Licera, and now is called Nocera, and they were more than 20,000 men-at-arms; and that city they rebuilt very strong; the which ofttimes overran the places of Apulia to lay them waste. And when the said Emperor Frederick was at war with the Church, he caused them to come into the duchy of Spoleto, and besieged at that time the city of Assisi, and did great harm to Holy Church; for the which thing the said Pope Gregory confirmed against him the sentence given by Pope Honorius his predecessor, and again gave sentence of excommunication against him, the year of Christ 1230. [Sidenote: 1233 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1234 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1236 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1237 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1239 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1240 A.D.] § 15.--_How peace was made between Pope Gregory and the Emperor Frederick._ § 16.--_How the Church ordered a crusade over seas, whereof the Emperor Frederick was captain, and how, after the expedition had set forth, he turned back._ § 17.--_How the Emperor Frederick passed over seas, and made peace with the Soldan, and recovered Jerusalem, against the will of the Church._ § 18.--_How the Emperor returned from over seas because the Kingdom had rebelled against him, and how he began war again with the Church._ § 19.--_How the Emperor Frederick caused the Pisans to capture at sea the prelates of the Church which were coming to the council._ § 20.--_How the Milanese were discomfited by the Emperor._ § 21.--_How the Emperor Frederick besieged and took the city of Faenza._ § 22.--_How the Emperor laid hold of King Henry, his son._ [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 121.] [Sidenote: 1236 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xiii. 31-108.] In these same times (albeit it had begun before) Henry Sciancato [the Lame], the first-born of the said Emperor Frederick, who had had him chosen king of the Romans by the electors of Germany as aforesaid, perceiving that the Emperor his father was doing all he might against Holy Church, and feeling the same heavy upon his conscience, time and again reproved his father, for that he was doing ill; whereat the Emperor set himself against him, and neither loving him nor dealing with him as with a son, raised up false accusers who testified that the said Henry had it in his mind to rebel against him as concerning his Empire, at the request of the Church. On the which plea (were it true or false) he seized his said son, King Henry, and two sons of his, little lads, and sent them into Apulia, into prison severally; and there he put him to death by starvation in great torment, and afterward Manfred put his sons to death. The Emperor sent to Germany, and again had Conrad, his second son, elected king of the Romans in succession to himself; and this was the year of Christ 1236. Then after a certain time the Emperor put out the eyes of that wise man Master Piero dalle Vigne, the famous poet, accusing him of treason, but this came about through envy of his great estate. And thereon the said M. Piero soon suffered himself to die of grief in prison, and there were who said that he himself took away his own life. § 23.--_How the war began between Pope Innocent IV. and the Emperor Frederick._ [Sidenote: 1241 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xix. 100-102.] It came to pass afterwards, as it pleased God, that there was elected Pope Messer Ottobuono dal Fiesco, of the counts of Lavagna of Genoa, the which was cardinal, and was made Pope as being the greatest friend and confidant whom the Emperor Frederick had in Holy Church, to the end there might be peace between the Church and him; and he was called Pope Innocent IV., and this was the year of Christ 1241, and he reigned as Pope eleven years, and added to the Church many cardinals from divers countries of Christendom. And when he was elected Pope, the tidings were brought to the Emperor Frederick with great rejoicing, knowing that he was his great friend and protector. But the Emperor, when he heard it, was greatly disturbed, whence his barons marvelled much, and he said: "Marvel not; for this election will be of much hurt to us; for he was our friend when cardinal, and now he will be our enemy as Pope;" and so it came to pass, for when the said Pope was consecrated, he demanded back from the Emperor the lands and jurisdictions which he held of the Church, as to which request the Emperor held him some time in treaty as to an agreement, but all was vanity and deception. In the end, the said Pope seeing himself to have been led about by deceitful words, to the hurt and shame of himself and of Holy Church, became more an enemy of the Emperor Frederick than his predecessors had been; and seeing that the power of the Emperor was so great that he ruled tyrannously over almost the whole of Italy, and that the roads were all taken and guarded by his guards, so that none could come to the court of Rome without his will and license, the said Pope seeing himself in the said manner thus besieged, sent secret orders to his kinsfolk at Genoa, and caused twenty galleys to be armed, and straightway caused them to come to Rome, and thereupon embarked with all his cardinals and with all his court, and immediately caused himself to be conveyed to his city of Genoa without any opposition; and having tarried some time in Genoa, he came to Lyons on the Rhone, by the way of Provence; and this was the year of Christ 1241. § 24.--_Of the sentence which Pope Innocent pronounced at the council of Lyons-on-Rhone, upon the Emperor Frederick._ [Sidenote: 1245 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xiii. 55-78.] When Pope Innocent was at Lyons, he called a general council in the said place, and invited from throughout the whole world bishops and archbishops and other prelates, who all came thither; and there came to see him as far as the monastery of Crugni [Clugny] in Burgundy the good King Louis of France, and afterwards he came as far as to the council at Lyons, where he offered himself and his realm to the service of the said Pope and of Holy Church against the Emperor Frederick, and against all the enemies of Holy Church; and then he took the cross to go over seas. And when King Louis was gone the Pope enacted sundry things in the said council to the good of Christendom, and canonized sundry saints, as the Martinian Chronicle makes mention where it treats of him. And this done, the Pope summoned the said Frederick to the said council, as to a neutral place, to excuse himself of thirteen articles proved against him of things done against the faith of Christ, and against Holy Church; the which Emperor would not there appear, but sent thither his ambassadors and representatives--the bishop of Freneborgo [Freiburg] in Germany, and Brother Hugh, master of the mansion of S. Mary of the Germans, and the wise clerk and master Piero dalle Vigne of the Kingdom, who, making excuses for the Emperor that he was not able to come by reason of sickness and suffering in his person, prayed the said Pope and his brethren to pardon him, and averred that he would cry the Pope mercy, and would restore that which he had seized of the Church; and they offered, if the Pope would pardon him, that he would bind himself so to frame it that within one year the soldan of the Saracens should render up to his command the Holy Land over seas. And the said Pope, hearing the endless excuses and vain offers of the Emperor, demanded of the said ambassadors if they had an authentic mandate for this, whereon they produced a full authorization, under the golden seal of the said Emperor, to promise and undertake it all. And when the Pope had it in his hand, in full council, the said ambassadors being present, he denounced Frederick on all the said thirteen criminal articles, and to confirm it said: "Judge, faithful Christians, whether Frederick betrays Holy Church and all Christendom or no: for according to his mandate he offers within one year to make the soldan restore the Holy Land, very clearly showing that the soldan holds it through him, to the shame of all Christians." And this said and declared, he caused the process against the said Emperor to be published; and condemned him and excommunicated him as a heretic and persecutor of Holy Church, laying to his charge many foul crimes proved against him; and he deprived him of the lordship of the Empire, and of the realm of Sicily, and of that of Jerusalem, absolving from all fealty and oaths all his barons and subjects, excommunicating whoever should obey him, or should give him aid or favour, or further should call him Emperor or king. And the said sentence was passed at the said council at Lyons on the Rhone, the year of Christ 1245, the 17th of July. The principal causes why Frederick was condemned were four: first, forasmuch as when the Church invested him with the realm of Sicily and of Apulia, and afterwards with the Empire, he swore to the Church before his barons, and before the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople, and before all the court of Rome, to defend Holy Church in all her honours and rights against all men, and to pay the rightful tribute, and to restore all the possessions and jurisdictions of Holy Church, of the which things he had done the contrary, and was perjured, and treacherous, and had vilely and wrongfully defamed Pope Gregory IX. and his cardinals by his letters throughout the whole world. The second thing was, that he broke the peace made by him with the Church, not remembering the pardons granted to him by withdrawal of the excommunications, and with respect to all the misdeeds done by him against Holy Church; and in that peace he had sworn and promised never to injure those who had been with the Church against him; but he had done quite the contrary, seeing that he had scattered them all, either by death or by exile, them and their families, taking away their possessions, and had not restored either to the Templars or to the Hospitallers their mansions which he had occupied, the which by the articles of the peace he had promised to restore and give back; and by force he had kept vacant eleven archbishoprics, with many bishoprics and abbeys in the Empire and in the Kingdom, not suffering those who were duly elected by the Pope to hold or to till them; doing violence and extortions on sacred persons, constraining them to appear and plead before his bailiffs and secular lords. The third cause was the sacrilege he had done, when by the galleys of Pisa, and by his son King Enzo, he had taken the cardinals and many prelates at sea, as we afore told, and caused some to be drowned in the sea, and kept some dying in cruel and harsh prisons. The fourth cause was, because he was found and convicted in many articles of heresy in the faith; and certainly he was no Christian Catholic, living always more after his delight and pleasure than according to reason or just law; and in fellowship with the Saracens. Likewise he used the Church and her offices but little or not at all, and did no alms; so that not without great and evident causes he was deposed and condemned; and albeit he did much injury and persecution to Holy Church after that he was condemned, yet in a short time every honour and state and power and greatness God took from him, and showed him His wrath, as we shall make mention hereafter. And because many have made question, who was to blame in the quarrel, whether the Church or the Emperor, hearing his excuses in his letters, therefore to this I make answer and say, that manifestly not by one divine miracle but by many was it shown that the Emperor was to blame, as God showed by open and visible judgments in His wrath upon Frederick and his seed. § 25.--_How the Pope and the Church caused a new Emperor to be elected in place of Frederick, the deposed Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1245 A.D.] The said Frederick being deposed and condemned, as has been afore said, the Pope sent word to the electors of Germany who elect the king of the Romans, that they should without delay make a new choice for the Empire; and this was done, for they elected William, count of Holland and landgrave, a valiant lord, to whom the Church gave her support, causing a great part of Germany to rebel, and gave indulgence and pardon as if they were going over seas, to whoever should be against the said Frederick; whence in Germany there was great war between the said elected King William of Holland and King Conrad, son of the said Frederick; but the war endured but a short time, for the said King William died, the year of Christ . . . and the said Conrad reigned in Germany, whom his father Frederick the Emperor had caused to be elected king, as we shall make mention. From this sentence Frederick appealed to the successor of Pope Innocent, and sent his letters and messengers throughout all Christendom, complaining of the said sentence, and setting forth how iniquitous it was, as appears by his epistle written by the said Messer Piero dalle Vigne, which begins, after the salutation: "Although we believe, that words of the already current tidings, etc." But considering the real facts as to the process, and as to the deeds of Frederick against the Church, and as to his dissolute and uncatholic life, he was guilty and deserving of the deposition, for the reasons set forth in the said process; and afterwards for the deeds done by the said Frederick after his deposition; for if before he was and had been cruel and persecuting to Holy Church and to the believers in Tuscany and in Lombardy, afterwards he was much more so, as long as he lived, as hereafter we shall make mention. We will now leave for a time the story of the doings of Frederick, and turn back to where we left off telling of the doings of Florence and of the other noteworthy events which came to pass in those days throughout the whole world; returning afterwards to the doings and to the end of the said Frederick and of his sons. § 26.--_We will tell an incident in the affairs of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1237 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xii. 102.] The year of Christ 1237, Messer Rubaconte da Mandello of Milan being Podestà of Florence, the new bridge was made in Florence, and he laid the first stone with his own hand, and threw the first trowelful of mortar, and from the name of the said Podestà the bridge was named Rubaconte. And during his government all the roads in Florence were paved; for before there was but little paving, save in certain particular places, master streets being paved with bricks; and through this convenience and work the city of Florence became more clean, and more beautiful, and more healthy. [Sidenote: 1238 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1240 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1248 A.D.] § 27.--_How and when there was a total eclipse of the sun._ § 28.--_Of the coming of the Tartars into the parts of Europe, as far as Germany._ § 29.--_Of a great miracle of an earthquake in Burgundy._ § 30.--_Of a great miracle that took place in Spain._ § 31.--_How the town of Sanginiegio was rebuilt and then destroyed._ § 32.--_How the Tartars routed the Turks._ § 33.--_How the Guelf party was first driven from Florence by the Ghibellines and the forces of the Emperor Frederick._ [Sidenote: 1248 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 109, 110.] [Sidenote: 127.] [Sidenote: 121, 104, 101, 112-114, 115-117.] [Sidenote: 108.] [Sidenote: 110, 111.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 151-154.] [Sidenote: 93, 66, 140-144, 127, 93.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 115.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 48.] In the said times when Frederick was in Lombardy, having been deposed from the title of Emperor by Pope Innocent, as we have said, in so far as he could he sought to destroy in Tuscany and in Lombardy the faithful followers of Holy Church, in all the cities where he had power. And first he began to demand hostages from all the cities of Tuscany, and took them from both Ghibellines and Guelfs, and sent them to Samminiato del Tedesco; but when this was done, he released the Ghibellines and retained the Guelfs, which were afterwards abandoned as poor prisoners, and abode long time in Samminiato as beggars. And forasmuch as our city of Florence in those times was not among the least notable and powerful of Italy, he desired especially to vent his spleen against it, and to increase the accursed parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, which had begun long time before through the death of M. Bondelmonte, and before, as we have already shown. But albeit ever since this the said parties had continued among the nobles of Florence (who were also ever and again at war among themselves by reason of their private enmities), and albeit they were divided into the said parties, each holding with his own, they which were called the Guelfs loving the side of the Pope and of Holy Church, and they which were called the Ghibellines loving and favouring the Emperor and his allies, nevertheless, the people and commonwealth had been maintained in unity to the well-being and honour, and good estate of the republic. But now the said Emperor sent ambassadors and letters to the family of the Uberti, which were heads of his party, and their allies which were called Ghibellines, inviting them to drive their enemies, which were called Guelfs, from the city, and offering them aid of his horsemen; and this caused the Uberti to begin dissension and civil strife in Florence, whence the city began to be disordered, and the nobles and all the people to be divided, some holding to one party, and some to the other; and in divers parts of the city there was fighting long time. Among the other places, the chief was at the houses of the Uberti, which were where the great palace of the people now is. They gathered there with their allies, and fought against the Guelfs of the sesto of San Piero Scheraggio, whereof were leaders the family dal Bagno, called Bagnesi, and the Pulci, and the Guidalotti, and all the allies of the Guelfs of that sesto; and also the Guelfs of Oltrarno passing over the mill-dams, came to succour them when they were attacked by the Uberti. The second place of combat was in the Porte San Piero, where the leaders of the Ghibellines were the Tedaldini, forasmuch as they had the strongest dwellings in palaces and towers, and with them held the Caponsacchi, the Lisei, the Giuochi and Abati, and Galigari, and the fighting was against the house of the Donati, and the Visdomini, and Pazzi, and Adimari. And the third place of combat was in Porte del Duomo, at the tower of Messer Lancia of the Cattani of Castiglione, and of Cersino, to whom belonged the heads of the Ghibellines, with the Agolanti and Brunelleschi, and many popolari of their party, against the Tosinghi, Agli and Arrigucci. And the fourth combat and battle was in San Brancazio, whereof the leaders for the Ghibellines were the Lamberti, and Toschi, Amieri, Cipriani, and Migliorelli, with many followers of the Popolo, against the Tornaquinci, and Vecchietti, and Pigli, albeit part of the Pigli were Ghibellines. And the Ghibellines drew up in San Brancazio at the tower of the Scarafaggio [Scarabæus] of the Soldanieri, and from that tower an arrow struck M. Rustico Marignolli in the face (who was bearing the Guelf standard, to wit, a crimson lily on a white field), whence he died; and the very day that the Guelfs were expelled, and before they departed, they came in arms to bury him in San Lorenzo; and when the Guelfs were departed, the canons of San Lorenzo carried away the body, to the end that the Ghibellines might not unbury it and do it outrage, forasmuch as he was a great leader of the Guelf party. And the next force of the Ghibellines was in the Borgo, whereof the leaders were the Scolari, and Soldanieri, and Guidi, against the Bondelmonti, Giandonati, Bostichi and Cavalcanti, Scali and Gianfigliazzi. In Oltrarno it was the Ubbriachi and the Mannelli (and there were no other nobles of renown, but families of the popolari) against the Rossi and the Nerli. Thus it came to pass that the said frays endured long time, and there was fighting at barricades from street to street, and from one tower to another (for there were many in Florence in these times, 100 cubits and more in height), and with mangonels and other engines they fought together by day and by night. And in the midst of this strife and fighting the Emperor Frederick sent into Florence King Frederick, his bastard son, with 1,600 horsemen of his German followers. When the Ghibellines heard that they were nigh unto Florence, they took courage fighting with more force and boldness against the Guelfs, which had no allies, nor were expecting any succour, forasmuch as the Church was at Lyons on the Rhone beyond the mountains, and the power of Frederick was beyond measure great in all parts of Italy. And on this occasion the Ghibellines used a device of war; for at the house of the Uberti the greater part of the Ghibelline forces assembled, and when the fight began at the places of battle set forth above, they went in a mass to oppose the Guelfs, and in this wise they overcame them well nigh in every part of the city, save in their own neighbourhood against the barricades of the Guidalotti and the Bagnesi, which endured more stoutly; and to that place the Guelfs repaired, and all the forces of the Ghibellines against them. At last, the Guelfs saw themselves to be hard pressed, and heard that Frederick's knights were already in Florence (King Frederick having already entered with his followers on Sunday morning), yet they held out until the following Wednesday. Then, not being able longer to resist the forces of the Ghibellines, they abandoned the defence, and departed from the city on the night of S. Mary Candlemas in the year of Christ 1248. When the Guelf party were driven from Florence, the nobles of that party withdrew, some of them to the fortress of Montevarchi in Valdarno, and some to the fortress of Capraia; and Pelago, and Ristonchio, and Magnale, up to Cascia, were held by the Guelfs, and were called the League; and therein they made war against the city and the territory around Florence. Other popolani of that party repaired to their farms and to their friends in the country. The Ghibellines which remained masters in Florence, with the forces and the horsemen of the Emperor Frederick, changed the ruling of the city after their mind, and caused thirty-six fortresses of the Guelfs to be destroyed, palaces and great towers, among the which the most noble was that of the Tosinghi upon the Mercato Vecchio, called the Palace, 90 cubits high, built with marble columns, and a tower thereto 130 cubits. Also the Ghibellines attempted a yet more impious deed, forasmuch as the Guelfs resorted much to the church of S. Giovanni, and all the good people assembled there on Sunday morning, and there they solemnized marriages; and when the Ghibellines came to destroy the towers of the Guelfs, there was one among them very great and beautiful, which was upon the piazza of S. Giovanni, at the entrance of the street of the Adimari, and it was called the tower of the Guardamorto, forasmuch as of old all the good folk which died were buried at S. Giovanni; and the Ghibellines, purposing to rase to the ground the said tower, caused it to be propped up in such wise that when the fire was applied to the props it should fall upon the church of S. Giovanni; and this was done. But as it pleased God, by reverence and miracle of the blessed John, the tower, which was 120 cubits high, showed manifestly, when it came to fall, that it would avoid the holy church, and turned and fell directly upon the piazza, wherefore all the Florentines marvelled and the popolo rejoiced greatly. And note, that since the city of Florence had been rebuilt, not one house had been destroyed, and the said accursed destruction thereof was then begun by the Ghibellines. And they ordained that of the Emperor Frederick's followers there should remain 1,800 German horsemen in their pay, whereof Count Giordano was captain. It came to pass that in the same year when the Guelfs were driven from Florence, they which were at Montevarchi were attacked by the German troops which were in garrison in the fortress of Gangareta in the market place of the said Montevarchi, and there was a fierce battle of but few people, as far as the Arno, between the Guelf refugees from Florence, and the Germans. In the end the Germans were discomfited, and a great part thereof slain and taken prisoners, and this was in the year of Christ 1248. § 34.--_How the host of the Emperor Frederick was defeated by the Parmesans, and by the Pope's legate._ [Sidenote: Epist. vi. (5) 127-135.] [Sidenote: 1248 A.D.] At this time the Emperor Frederick was laying siege to the city of Parma in Lombardy, because they had rebelled against his lordship and held with the Church; and within Parma was the Pope's legate with mounted men-at-arms sent by the Church to aid them. Frederick was without the city, with all his forces and with the Lombards, and abode there many months, and had sworn never to depart thence until he should have taken it; and for this reason he had made a camp over against the said city of Parma, after the manner of another town, with moats and palisades and towers, and houses roofed and walled, to which he gave the name of Vittoria; and by the said siege he had much straitened the city of Parma, and it was so poorly furnished with victuals, that they could hold out but a short while longer, and this the Emperor knew well by his spies; and for the said cause he held them for folk well-nigh vanquished, and troubled himself little about them. It came to pass, as it pleased God, that one day the Emperor was taking his pleasure in the chase, with birds and with dogs, going forth from Vittoria with certain of his barons and servants; and the citizens of Parma, having learnt this from their spies, as folk reckless, or rather desperate, all sallied forth from Parma in arms, foot and horse together, and vigorously attacked the said camp of Vittoria in divers parts. The Emperor's soldiers, unprepared and in disorder, with insufficient guards (as they who took little thought of their enemies), seeing themselves thus suddenly and fiercely attacked, and being unable to defend themselves in the absence of their lord, were all put to flight and discomfiture, albeit there were three times as many horse and foot as there were in Parma; in which defeat many of them were taken or slain, and the Emperor himself, when he heard the news, fled with great shame to Cremona; and the Parmesans took the said camp, wherein they found great store of muniments of war, and victual, and vessels of silver, and all the treasure which the Emperor had in Lombardy, and the crown of the said Emperor, which the Parmesans still have in the sacristy of their bishop's palace; whereby they were all enriched. And when they had spoiled the said place of its booty, they set fire thereto, and destroyed it utterly, to the end there might be no trace of it, whether as city or as camp, for ever. And this was the first Tuesday in February, in the year of Christ 1248. § 35.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence were taken in the fortress of Capraia._ [Sidenote: 1248 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1249 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1248 A.D.] A short time afterwards the Emperor departed from Lombardy, leaving there his natural son Enzo, king of Sardinia, with many horsemen, as his vicar-general over the Lombard League, and came into Tuscany, and found that the Ghibelline party which was ruling the city of Florence had laid siege in the month of March to the fortress of Capraia, wherein were the leaders of the chief families of Guelf nobles exiled from Florence. And when the Emperor came into Tuscany, he would not enter into the city of Florence, nor ever had entered therein, but was ware of it, for by soothsayers or by the saying of some demon or prophecy, he had discovered that he should die in Firenze, wherefore he feared greatly. Nevertheless, he came to the army, and went to sojourn in the castle of Fucecchio, and left the greater part of his followers at the siege of Capraia, which stronghold being straitly besieged, and having scanty provisions, was not able to hold out longer; and the besieged held counsel about coming to parley, and they would have been granted any liberal terms which they desired; but a certain shoemaker, an exile from Florence, which had been a leading Ancient, not being invited to the said council, came to the gate very wrathful, and cried to the host that the town could hold out no longer, for the which thing the host would not consent to treat, wherefore they within, as dead men, surrendered themselves to the mercy of the Emperor. And this was in the month of May, in the year of Christ 1249. And the captains of the said Guelfs were Count Ridolfo of Capraia, and M. Rinieri Zingane of the Bondelmonti. And when they came to Fucecchio to the Emperor, he took them all with him prisoners to Apulia; and afterwards, by reason of letters and ambassadors sent to him by the Ghibellines of Florence, he put out the eyes of all which belonged to the great noble families in Florence, and then drowned them in the sea, save M. Rinieri Zingane, because he found him so wise and great of soul that he would not put him to death, but he put out his eyes, who afterwards ended his life as a monk in the island of Montecristo. And the aforesaid shoemaker was spared by the besiegers; and when the Guelfs had returned to Florence, he also returned thither, and being recognised in the parliament, at the outcry of the people he was stoned, and vilely dragged along the ground by the children, and thrown into the moats. [Sidenote: 1250 A.D.] § 36.--_How King Louis of France was routed and taken prisoner by the Saracens at la Monsura in Egypt._ § 37.--_How King Enzo, son of the Emperor Frederick, was routed and taken prisoner by the Bolognese._ § 38.--_How certain Ghibellines of Florence were discomfited in the village of Fegghine by the Guelf refugees._ § 39.--_How the Primo Popolo was formed in Florence to be a defence against the violence and attacks of the Ghibellines._ [Sidenote: 1250 A.D.] When the said host came back to Florence there was great contention amongst the citizens, inasmuch as the Ghibellines, who ruled the land, crushed the people with insupportable burdens, taxes, and imposts; and with little to show for it, for the Guelfs were already established up and down in the territory of Florence, holding many fortresses and making war upon the city. And besides all this, they of the house of the Uberti and all the other Ghibelline nobles tyrannized over the people with ruthless extortion and violence and outrage. Wherefore the good citizens of Florence, tumultuously gathering together, assembled themselves at the church of San Firenze; but not daring to remain there, because of the power of the Uberti, they went and took their stand at the church of the Minor Friars at Santa Croce, and remaining there under arms they dared not to return to their homes, lest when they had laid down their arms they should be broken by the Uberti and the other nobles and condemned by the magistrates. So they went under arms to the houses of the Anchioni of San Lorenzo, which were very strong, and there, still under arms, they forcibly elected thirty-six corporals of the people, and took away the rule from the Podestà, which was then in Florence, and removed all the officials. And this done, with no further conflict they ordained and created a popular government with certain new ordinances and statutes. They elected captain of the people M. Uberto da Lucca, and he was the first captain of Florence, and they elected twelve Ancients of the people, two for each sesto, to guide the people and counsel the said captain, and they were to meet in the houses of the Badia over the gate which goes to Santa Margherita, and to return to their own homes to eat and sleep; and this was done on the twentieth day of October, the year of Christ 1250. And on this day the said captain distributed twenty standards amongst the people, giving them to certain corporals divided according to companies of arms and districts, including sundry parishes, in order that when need were every man should arm himself and draw to the standard of his company, and then with the said standards draw to the said captain of the people. And they had a bell made which the said captain kept in the Lion's Tower. And the chief standard of the people, which was the captain's, was dimidiated white and red. * * * * * § 40.--_Of the ensigns of war which were borne by the commonwealth of Florence._ § 41.--_How the Emperor Frederick died at Firenzuola in Apulia._ [Sidenote: 1250 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. iii. 121.] In the said year 1250, the Emperor Frederick being in Apulia, in the city of Firenzuola, at the entrance to the Abruzzi, fell grievously sick, and for all his augury he knew not how to take heed; for he had learned that he must die in Firenze, wherefore, as aforesaid, never would he set foot in Firenze, neither in Faenza; yet ill did he interpret the lying word of the demon, for he was bidden beware lest he should die in Firenze, and he took no heed of Firenzuola. It came to pass that, his malady increasing upon him, there being with him one of his bastard sons, named Manfred, which was desirous of having the treasure of Frederick, his father, and the lordship of the kingdom and of Sicily, and fearing that Frederick might recover him of that sickness, or leave a testament, the said Manfred made a league with his private chamberlain, and promising him many gifts and great lordship, covered the mouth of Frederick with a bolster and so stifled him, and after the said manner the said Frederick died, deposed from the Empire, and excommunicated by Holy Church, without repentance or sacrament of Holy Church. And by this may we note the word which Christ said in the Gospel: "Ye shall die in your sins," for so it came to pass with Frederick, which was such an enemy to Holy Church, who brought his wife and King Henry, his son, to death, and saw himself discomfited, and his son Enzo taken, and himself, by his son Manfred, vilely slain, and without repentance; and this was the day of S. Lucy in December, the said year 1250. And him dead, the said Manfred became guardian of the realm and of all the treasure, and caused the body of Frederick to be brought and buried with honour in the church of Monreale above the city of Palermo in Sicily, and at his burying he desired to write many words of his greatness and power and the mighty deeds done by him; but one Trottano, a clerk, made these brief verses, the which were very pleasing to Manfred and to the other barons, and he caused them to be engraven on the said sepulchre, the which said:-- Si probitas, sensus, virtutum gratia, census Nobilitas orti, possent resistere morti, Non foret extinctus Federicus, qui jacet intus.[3] [Footnote 3: If sense or frankness bold, if virtues' grace or gold, If birth from noble source, could stay death in his course, Frederick who here doth lie, would ne'er have come to die.] And note, that at the time when the Emperor Frederick died, he had sent into Tuscany for all the hostages of the Guelfs to cause them to be put to death; and on the way to Apulia, when they were in Maremma, they heard news of the death of Frederick, and the guards, for fear, abandoned them, who escaped to Campiglia, and thence returned to Florence and to the other cities of Tuscany, very poor and in great need. § 42.--_How the Popolo of Florence peaceably restored the Guelfs to Florence._ [Sidenote: 1250 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 49, 50.] The same night that the Emperor Frederick died, the Podestà who ruled for him in Florence, died also, who was named Messer Rinieri di Montemerlo; for, as he slept in his bed, there fell upon him of the vaulting from the roof of the chamber, which was in the house of the Abati. And this was a sure sign that in the city of Florence his lordship was to be ended, and this came to pass very soon; for the common people having risen in Florence against the violence and outrages of the Ghibelline nobles, as we have said, and tidings coming to Florence of the death of the said Frederick, a few days after, the people of Florence recalled and restored to Florence the party of the Guelfs who had been banished thence, causing them to make peace with the Ghibellines, and this was the seventh day of January, year of Christ 1250. § 43.--_How at the time of the said Popolo the Florentines discomfited the men of Pistoia, and afterwards banished certain families of the Ghibellines from Florence._ [Sidenote: 1251 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 151-154.] Greatly did the party for the Church and the Guelf party rejoice throughout all Italy at the death of the Emperor; and the party for the Empire, and the Ghibellines were brought low, inasmuch as Pope Innocent returned from beyond the mountains with his court to Rome, bringing aid to the faithful followers of the Church. It came to pass that in the month of July, in the year of Christ 1251, the people and commonwealth of Florence gathered a host against the city of Pistoia, which had rebelled against them, and fought with the said inhabitants of Pistoia, and discomfited them at Mount Robolini with great loss in slain and prisoners of the men of Pistoia. And at that time Messer Uberto da Mandella of Milan was Podestà of Florence. And because the government of the Popolo was not pleasing to the greater part of the Ghibelline families in Florence, forasmuch as it seemed to them that they favoured the Guelfs more than was pleasing to them, and as in past times they were used to do violence, and to be tyrannical, relying on the Emperor, therefore they were even now unwilling to follow the people and the commonwealth on the said expedition against Pistoia, rather did they both in word and in deed oppose it through factious hatred; forasmuch as Pistoia was ruled in those days by the Ghibelline party; whereby was caused so great mistrust, that when the host returned victorious from Pistoia, the said Ghibelline families in Florence were banished and sent forth from the city by the people of Florence, the said month of July, 1251. And the heads of the Ghibellines in Florence being banished, the people and the Guelfs who remained in the lordship of Florence, changed the arms of the commonwealth of Florence; and whereas of old they bore the field red and the lily white, they now made on the contrary the field white and the lily red; and the Ghibellines retained the former standard, but the ancient standard of the commonwealth dimidiated white and red, to wit, the standard that went with the host upon the carroccio, never was changed. We will leave for a while the doings of the Florentines, and we will tell somewhat of the coming of King Conrad, son of the Emperor Frederick. § 44.--_How King Conrad, son of Frederick the Emperor, came from Germany into Apulia, and had the lordship over the realm of Sicily, and how he died._ [Sidenote: 1251 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1252 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. iii. 121.] When King Conrad of Germany heard of the death of the Emperor Frederick, his father, he prepared with a great company to pass into Apulia and Sicily, to take possession of the said Kingdom, of the which Manfred, his bastard brother, had become vicar-general, and was ruling it altogether, save only the cities of Naples and of Capua, the which had rebelled after the death of Frederick, and were returned to obedience to the Church; as also many cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, on occasion of the death of the said Frederick, had changed their government and returned to the obedience of the Church. The said Conrad would not adventure himself to come by land, but being arrived in the Trevisan March, he caused a great fleet to be equipped by the Venetians, and from thence by sea with all his people came to Apulia the year of Christ 1251. And albeit Manfred was wrath at his coming, forasmuch as he had purposed to be lord of the said kingdom, he made a great welcome to Conrad, his brother, rendering him much honour and reverence, and when he was in Apulia he led a host against the city of Naples, the which before had been five times attacked and besieged by Manfred, prince of Salerno, and he had not been able to conquer it; but Conrad, with his great host after a long siege, gained the city by surrender, on condition that he should neither slay the defenders nor dismantle the place. But Conrad did not abide by the pact, but so soon as he was in Naples he caused the walls and all the fortresses of Naples to be destroyed; and the like did he to the city of Capua, which had rebelled; and in a short space he had restored all the Kingdom to his lordship, casting down every rebel, or whosoever was a friend or follower of Holy Church; and not only the laity but the monks and holy persons he caused to die by torments, robbing the churches, and subduing whosoever was not in obedience to him, and appointing to benefices, as if he were Pope; so that if Frederick, his father, was a persecutor of Holy Church, this Conrad, if he had lived longer, would have been worse; but as it pleased God, a little time after, he was smitten with a grievous sickness, but not mortal, and as he was being tended by leeches and physicians, Manfred, his brother, to remain in power, caused the said leeches for money and great promises to poison him by a clyster. By such a judgment of God, by his brother's deed, of such a death did he die without repentance and excommunicated, the year of Christ 1252. And he left behind him in Germany a young son who was named Conradino, whose mother was daughter to the duke of Bavaria. § 45.--_How Manfred, natural son of Frederick, took the lordship of the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia, and caused himself to be crowned._ [Sidenote: 1252 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1254 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 121.] [Sidenote: 1255 A.D.] Conrad, called king of Germany, being dead, Manfred remained lord and governor of Sicily and of the Kingdom, albeit through the death of Conrad, some cities of the Kingdom rebelled, and Pope Innocent IV., with a great host of the Church, entered into the Kingdom to regain the lands which Manfred was holding against the will of the Church, and under sentence of excommunication; and when the said host of the Church had entered into the Kingdom, all the cities and villages as far as Naples surrendered themselves to the said Pope; but he had sojourned but a short time in Naples ere he fell sick, and passed from this life the year of Christ 1252, and was buried in the city of Naples. Wherefore by the death of the said Pope, and by the vacancy which the Church had after him, which for more than two years abode without pastors, Manfred regained all the Kingdom, and his strength increased greatly both far and near; and with great care he allied himself with all the cities of Italy which were Ghibelline and faithful to the Empire, and aided them by his German knights, making a league and alliance with them in Tuscany and in Lombardy. And when the said Manfred saw himself in glory and state, he thought to have himself made king of Sicily and of Apulia, and to the end this might come to pass, he sought for the friendship of the greatest barons of the Kingdom, with monies and gifts and promises and offices. And knowing that King Conrad, his brother, had left a son named Conradino, the which was by law the rightful heir to the realm of Sicily, and was in Germany under the guardianship of his mother, he devised guileful practices whereby to become king; wherefore he gathered together all the barons of the Kingdom, and took counsel with them what should be done with the lordship, forasmuch as he had received tidings that his nephew Conradino was grievously sick, and could never rule over a realm; wherefore it was counselled by his barons that he should send his ambassadors into Germany to learn of the state of Conradino, and if he were dead or ill; and meanwhile they counselled that Manfred should be made king. To this Manfred agreed, seeing it was he which had falsely arranged it all, and he sent the said ambassadors to Conradino and to his mother with rich presents and great offers. The which ambassadors being come to Suabia, found the boy whom his mother guarded most carefully, and with him she kept many other boys of gentle birth clothed in his garments; and when the said ambassadors asked for Conradino, his mother being in dread of Manfred, showed to them one of the said children, and they with rich presents, offered him gifts and reverence, among the which gifts were poisoned comfits from Apulia, and the boy having eaten of them, straightway died. They, believing Conradino to be dead by poison, departed from Germany, and when they had returned to Venice, they caused sails of black cloth to be made to their galley and all the rigging to be black, and they were attired in black, and when they were come into Apulia, they made a show of great grief, as they had been instructed by Manfred. And having reported to Manfred, and to the German barons, and to those of the Kingdom how Conradino was dead, and Manfred having made show of deep affliction, by the call of his friends and of all the people (as he had arranged), he was elected king of Sicily and of Apulia, and at Monreale, in Sicily, caused himself to be crowned, the year of Christ 1255. § 46.--_Of the war between Pope Alexander and King Manfred._ [Sidenote: 1255 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1256 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 107.] [Sidenote: Cf. De V.E. i. 12, 21 sqq.] After the death of Pope Innocent, and the vacancy which followed, there was elected Pope Alexander IV., born in the city of Alagna, in Campagna, the year of Christ 1255, and he sat on the papal throne seven years, and certain months and days. The which Pope Alexander, hearing how Manfred had caused himself to be crowned king of Sicily against the will of Holy Church, by the said Pope Manfred was required to abandon the lordship of the Kingdom and of Sicily, the which he would neither hearken to, nor obey; for the which thing the said Pope first excommunicated and deprived him, and then sent against him Otho, the cardinal legate, with a great host of the Church, and he took many places on the coasts of Apulia; to wit, the city of Sipanto, and Mount Santagnolo, and Barletta and Bari, as far as Otranto in Calabria; but afterwards the said host, by reason of the death of the said legate, returned with labour lost, and Manfred took back and regained all, and this was the year of Christ 1256. The said King Manfred was son of a beautiful lady, of the family of the Marquises of Lancia in Lombardy, of whom the Emperor Frederick was enamoured, and he was beautiful in person, and, like his father, but even more, dissolute in every fashion; a musician he was, and singer, and loved to see around him buffoons and minstrels, and beautiful concubines, and was always clad in green raiment; very liberal was he, and courteous, and gracious, so that he was much loved and in great favour; but all his way of life was epicurean, caring neither for God nor the saints, but only for bodily delights. An enemy he was to Holy Church, and to priests and monks, occupying the churches as his father had done, and was a very rich lord, alike from the treasure bequeathed to him by the Emperor and by King Conrad, his brother, and from his kingdom, which was rich and fruitful; and, for all the wars that he had with the Church, he kept it in good state so long as he lived, so that he increased much in riches and in power by sea and by land. For wife he took the daughter of the despot of Romagna, by whom he had sons and daughters. The arms which he took and bore were those of the Empire, save where the Emperor, his father, bore the gold field and the black eagle, he bore the silver field and the black eagle. This Manfred caused the city of Sipanto in Apulia to be destroyed, forasmuch as through the marshes around it was not healthy, and it had no harbour; and by its citizens, at two miles distance upon the rock, and in a place where there might be a good harbour, he caused a city to be founded, which after his name was called Manfredonia, the which has now the best harbour that there is between Venice and Brindisi. And of that city was Manfred Bonetta, count chamberlain of the said King Manfred, a delightsome man, a musician and singer, who caused the great bell of Manfredonia to be made in his memory, the which is the largest that can be found for size, and because of its size cannot be rung. We will now leave speaking of Manfred until fit place and time, and will return where we left off in our subject, namely to the doings of Florence and of Tuscany and of Lombardy, albeit they were much mixed up with the doings of the said King Manfred in many things. [Sidenote: 1251 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1252 A.D.] § 47.--_How the Florentines discomfited the Ubaldini in Mugello._ § 48.--_How the Florentines took Montaia and routed the troops of the Sienese and the Pisans._ § 49.--_How the Florentines took Tizzano and then routed the Pisans at Pontadera, the Pisans having routed the Lucchese._ § 50.--_How the bridge Santa Trinita was built._ In this time, the city of Florence being in happy state under the rule of the Popolo, a bridge was built over the Arno from Santa Trinita to the house of the Frescobaldi in Oltrarno, and in this the zeal of Lamberto Frescobaldi helped much, which was a noted Ancient in the Popolo, and he and his had come to great state and riches. [Sidenote: 1252 A.D. Cf. Par. xvi. 50.] § 51.--_How the Florentines took the fortress of Fegghine._ § 52.--_How the Sienese were routed by the Florentines at Montalcino._ § 53.--_How the golden florins were first made in Florence._ [Sidenote: 1252 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xviii. 133-136.] The host of the Florentines having returned, and being at rest after the victories aforesaid, the city increased greatly in state and in riches and lordship and in great quietness; for the which thing the merchants of Florence, for the honour of the commonwealth, ordained with the people and commonwealth that golden coins should be struck at Florence; and they promised to furnish the gold, for before the custom was to strike silver coins of 12 pence the piece. And then began the good coins of gold, 24 carats fine, the which are called golden florins, and each was worth 20 soldi. And this was in the time of the said M. Filippo degli Ugoni of Brescia, in the month of November, the year of Christ 1252. The which florins weighed eight to the ounce, and on one side was the stamp of the lily and on the other of S. John. By reason of the said new money of the golden florin there fell out a pretty story, and worth narrating. The said new florins having begun to circulate through the world, they were carried to Tunis in Barbary; and being brought before the king of Tunis, which was a worthy and wise lord, they pleased him much, and he caused them to be tried; and finding them to be of fine gold, he much commended them, and having caused his interpreters to interpret the imprint and legend on the florin, he found that it said: S. John the Baptist, and on the side of the lily, Florence. Perceiving it to be Christian money, he sent to the Pisan merchants who were then free of the city and were much with the king (and even the Florentines traded in Tunis through the Pisans), and asked them what manner of city among Christians was this Florence which made the said florins. The Pisans answered spitefully through envy, saying: "They are our inland Arabs": which is to say, "our mountain rustics." Then answered the king wisely: "It does not seem to me the money of Arabs. O you Pisans, what manner of golden money is yours?" Then were they confused, and knew not how to answer. He asked if there were among them any one from Florence, and there was found there a merchant from Oltrarno, by name Pera Balducci, discreet and wise. The king asked him of the state and condition of Florence, whom the Pisans called their Arabs; the which answered wisely, showing the power and magnificence of Florence, and how Pisa in comparison was neither in power nor in inhabitants the half of Florence, and that they had no golden money, and that the florin was the fruit of many victories gained by the Florentines over them. For the which cause the Pisans were shamed, and the king, by reason of the florin and by the words of our wise fellow-citizen, made the Florentines free of the city, and allowed them a place of habitation and a church in Tunis, and he gave them the same privileges as the Pisans. And this we knew to be true from the said Pera, a man worthy of faith, for we were among his colleagues in the office of prior. [Sidenote: 1253 A.D.] § 54.--_How the Florentines marched upon Pistoia and took it, and then upon Siena and took many of their fortresses._ § 55.--_How the Florentines marched against Siena, and the Sienese came to terms with them, and there was peace between them._ [Sidenote: 1254 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxxi. 40, 41.] The next year, 1254, Messer Guiscardo da Pietrasanta, of Milan, being Podestà of Florence, the Florentines marched against the city of Siena and encamped against the castle of Montereggioni and laid siege to it, and of a surety they would have taken it, for the German garrison was in treaty to surrender it for 50,000 lire of 20 soldi to the gold florin; and in one single night the Ancients found twenty citizens each of whom offered a thousand of them, without counting smaller sums, so well disposed for the good of the commonwealth were the citizens of those days. But the Sienese, for fear of losing Montereggioni, agreed to the terms of the Florentines, and peace was made between them and the Sienese, and they completely surrendered the castle of Montalcino to the Florentines. [Sidenote: 1254 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1256 A.D.] § 56.--_How the Florentines seized the fortress of Poggibonizzi and that of Mortennana._ § 57.--_How the Florentines routed them of Volterra and took their city in the fight._ § 58.--_How the Florentines marched against Pisa, and the Pisans submitted to their terms._ § 59.--_How the great Khan of the Tartars became a Christian, and sent his army, under his own brother, against the Saracens of Syria._ § 60.--_How the first war arose between the Genoese and the Venetians._ § 61.--_How the Count Guido Guerra expelled the Ghibelline party from Arezzo, and how the Florentines reinstated it._ § 62.--_How the Pisans broke the peace, and how the Florentines routed them at the bridge over the Serchio._ § 63.--_How the Florentines destroyed the castle of Poggibonizzi the first time._ § 64.--_Incident telling of a great miracle concerning the body of Christ which came to pass in the city of Paris._ § 65.--_How the Popolo of Florence drave out the Ghibellines for the first time from Florence, and the reason why._ [Sidenote: 1258 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 118, 119.] In the year of Christ 1258, when Messer Jacopo Bernardi di Porco was Podestà of Florence, at the end of the month of July they of the house of the Uberti, with their Ghibelline allies, incited thereto by Manfred, purposed to break up the Popolo of Florence, forasmuch as it seemed to them to lean towards the Guelf party. When the said plot was discovered by the Popolo, and they who had made it were summoned and cited to appear before the magistrates, they would not appear nor come before them, but the staff of the Podestà were grievously wounded and smitten by them; for the which thing the people ran to arms, and ran in fury to the houses of the Uberti, where is now the piazza of the palace of the people and of the priors, and there they slew Schiattuzzo degli Uberti and many of the followers and retainers of the Uberti, and they took Uberto Caini degli Uberti and Mangia degli Infangati, which when they had confessed the conspiracy in parliament were beheaded in Orto San Michele; and the rest of the family of the Uberti, with many other Ghibelline families, left Florence. The names of the Ghibelline families of renown which left Florence were these: the Uberti, the Fifanti, the Guidi, the Amidei, the Lamberti, the Scolari, and part of the Abati, Caponsacchi, Migliorelli, Soldanieri, Infangati, Ubriachi, Tedaldini, Galigari, the della Pressa, Amieri, they of Cersino, the Razzanti, and many other houses and families of the popolari and of decayed magnates, which cannot all be named, and other families of nobles in the country; and they went to Siena, which was governed in the Ghibelline interest, and was hostile to the Florentines; and their palaces and strongholds were destroyed, whereof there were many, and with the stones thereof they built the walls of San Giorgio Oltrarno, which the Popolo of Florence caused to be begun in those times by reason of the war with the Sienese. And afterwards, in the following September of the said year, the Popolo of Florence seized the abbot of Vallombrosa, which was a gentleman of the lords of Beccheria of Pavia in Lombardy, for they had been told that at the petition of the Ghibelline refugees from Florence he was plotting treason; and this by torture they made him confess, and wickedly in the piazza of Santo Apollinare by the outcry of the people they beheaded him, not regarding his dignity nor his holy orders; for the which thing the commonwealth of Florence and the Florentines were excommunicated by the Pope; and from the commonwealth of Pavia, whence came the said abbot, and from his kinsfolk, the Florentines which passed through Lombardy received much hurt and molestation. And truly it was said that the holy man was not guilty, albeit by his lineage he was a distinguished Ghibelline. For the which sin, and for many other deeds done by the wicked people, it was said by many wise men that God by Divine judgment permitted vengeance to come upon the said people in the battle and defeat of Montaperti, as hereafter we shall make mention. The said Popolo of Florence which ruled the city in these times was very proud and of high and great enterprises, and in many things was very arrogant; but one thing their rulers had, they were very loyal and true to the commonwealth, and when one which was an Ancient took and sent to his villa a grating which had belonged to the lion's den, and was now lying about in the mud of the piazza of S. Giovanni, he was condemned therefor to a fine of 1,000 lire for embezzling the goods of the commonwealth. [Sidenote: 1259 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxii. 40-60.] § 66.--_How the Aretines took and destroyed Cortona._ § 67.--_How the Florentines took and destroyed the castle of Gressa._ § 68.--_How the people of Florence took the castles of Vernia and of Mangona._ § 69.--_Incidents of the doings that were in Florence at the time of the Popolo._ [Sidenote: Par. xv. 97-99.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 112, 113.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 101.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 102, 103.] [Sidenote: Par. xv. 103-105.] In the time of the said Popolo in Florence it came to pass that there was presented to the commonwealth a very fine and strong lion, the which was in a den in the piazza of San Giovanni. It came to pass that by lack of care on the part of the keeper, the said lion escaped from its den, running through the streets, whence all the city was moved with fear. It came to a stand at Orto San Michele, and there caught hold of a boy and held him between its paws. The mother, whose only child he was, and not born till after his father's death, on hearing what had chanced, ran up to the lion in desperation, shrieking aloud and with dishevelled hair, and snatched the child from between its paws, and the lion did no hurt either to the woman or to the child, but only gazed steadfastly and kept still. Now the question was what was the cause of this, whether the nobility of the nature of the lion, or that fortune preserved the life of the said child, to the end he might avenge his father, the which he did, and was afterwards called Orlanduccio of the lion, of Calfette. And note, that at the time of the said Popolo, and before and afterwards for a long time, the citizens of Florence lived soberly, and on coarse food, and with little spending, and in manners and graces were in many respects coarse and rude; and both they and their wives were clad in coarse garments, and many wore skins without lining, and caps on their heads, and all wore leather boots on their feet, and the Florentine ladies wore boots without ornaments, and the greatest were contented with one close-fitting gown of scarlet serge or camlet, girt with a leathern girdle after the ancient fashion, with a hooded cloak lined with miniver, which hood they wore on their head; and the common women were clad in coarse green cambric after the same fashion; and 100 lire was the common dowry for wives, and 200 or 300 lire was, in those times, held to be excessive; and the most of the maidens were twenty or more years old before they were wedded. After such habits and plain customs then lived the Florentines, but they were true and trustworthy to one another and to their commonwealth, and with their simple life and poverty they did greater and more virtuous things than are done in our times with more luxury and with more riches. [Sidenote: 1259 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] § 70.--_How Paleologus, emperor of the Greeks, took Constantinople from the French and the Venetians._ § 71.--_Of a very sore battle which was between the king of Hungary and the king of Bohemia._ § 72.--_How the great tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano, was defeated by the Cremonese and died in prison._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xii. 109, 110. Par. ix. 25-30.] In the said year 1260, Ezzelino of Romano, which is a Trevisan castle, was defeated and wounded and taken prisoner by the Marquis Pallavicino, and by the Cremonese in the country around Milan, near to the bridge of Casciano over the river Adda, as he was on his way to seize Milan, having with him more than 1,500 horsemen; from the which wounds he died in prison, and was buried with honour in the village of Solcino. He knew by augury that he should die in a village of the country of Padua, which was called Basciano, and he would not enter therein; and when he felt himself wounded he asked what the place was called, and they answered, "Casciano"; then he said, "Casciano and Basciano are all the same," and he gave himself up for dead. This Ezzelino was the most cruel and redoubtable tyrant that ever was among Christians, and ruled by his force and tyranny (being by birth a gentleman of the house of Romano), long time the Trevisan March and the city of Padua, and a great part of Lombardy; and he brought to an end a very great part of the citizens of Padua, and blinded great numbers of the best and most noble, taking their possessions, and sending them begging through the world, and many others he put to death by divers sufferings and torments, and burnt at one time 11,000 Paduans; and by reason of their innocent blood, by miracle, no grass grew there again for evermore. And under semblance of a rugged and cruel justice he did much evil, and was a great scourge in his time in the Trevisan March and in Lombardy, to punish them for the sin of ingratitude. At last, as it pleased God, by less powerful men than his own he was vilely defeated and slain, and all his followers were dispersed and his family and his rule came to nought. § 73.--_How both the king of Castille and Richard, earl of Cornwall, were elected king of the Romans._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 23-120.] Now some time before the said year, by reason of discord among the electors of the Empire, two Emperors had been elected; one party (that is to say, three of the electors) choosing Alfonso, king of Spain, and the other party of the electors choosing Richard, earl of Cornwall, and brother to the king of England; and because the realm of Bohemia was in discord, and there were two which claimed to be king thereof, each one gave his voice to his own party. And for many years there had been this discord between the two pretenders, but the Church of Rome gave more favour to Alfonso of Spain, to the end that he might, with his forces, come and beat down the pride and lordship of Manfred; for the which cause the Guelfs of Florence sent him ambassadors, to encourage his coming, promising him great succour, to the end he might favour the Guelf party. And the ambassador was Ser Brunetto Latini, a man of great wisdom and authority; but before the embassage was ended the Florentines were defeated at Montaperti, and King Manfred gained great vigour and state throughout Italy, and the power of the Church was much abased, for the which thing Alfonso of Spain abandoned the enterprise of the Empire, and neither did Richard of England follow it up. § 74.--_How the Ghibelline refugees from Florence, sent into Apulia to King Manfred for succour._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 32.] In these times the Ghibelline refugees from Florence (who being in the city of Siena were ill-supported against the Florentines by the Sienese, forasmuch as they had no forces to bring against their host) took counsel amongst themselves to send their ambassadors into Apulia, to King Manfred, for succour. And when they were come thither, albeit they were of the best and chiefest of the band, much time elapsed, and Manfred did not dispatch their affair, nor give audience to their request, by reason of the manifold businesses he had to do. And when at last they had a mind to depart, and took their leave of him very ill-content, Manfred promised them 100 German horsemen for their aid. Whereon the said ambassadors were troubled at this his first offer, and were minded to make their reply in the way of refusing so sorry an aid, for they were ashamed to return to Siena, inasmuch as they had hoped for more than 1,500 horsemen. But hereon Messer Farinata degli Uberti said, "Be not dismayed, neither refuse any aid of his, be it never so small. Let us have grace of him to send his standard with them, and when it be come to Siena we will set it in such a place that he must needs send us further succour." And so it came to pass; and following the wise counsel of the knight, they accepted Manfred's offer, praying him as a grace to give his own standard to their captain, and so he did. And when they returned to Siena with so poor an aid, great scorn was made thereof by the Sienese, and great dismay came upon the Florentine refugees, which had looked for aid and support from Manfred beyond measure greater. § 75.--_How the commonwealth and people of Florence led a great host up to the gates of Siena with the carroccio._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] It happened in the year of Christ 1260, in the month of May, that the people and commonwealth of Florence gathered a general host against the city of Siena and led thither the carroccio. And note, that the carroccio, which was led by the commonwealth and people of Florence, was a chariot on four wheels, all painted red, and two tall red masts stood up together thereupon, whereon was fastened and waved the great standard of the arms of the commune, which was dimidiated white and red, and still may be seen to-day in S. Giovanni. And it was drawn by a great pair of oxen covered with red cloth, which were set apart solely for this, and belonged to the Hospitallers of Pinti, and he who drove them was a freeman of the commonwealth. This carroccio was used by our forefathers in triumphs and solemnities, and when they went out with the host, the neighbouring counts and knights brought it from the armoury of S. Giovanni and conducted it to the piazza of the Mercato Nuovo, and having halted by a landmark, which is still there, in the form of a stone carved like a chariot, they committed it to the keeping of the people, and it was led by popolani in the expeditions of war, and to guard it were chosen the best and strongest and most virtuous among the foot soldiers of the popolani, and round it gathered all the force of the people. And when the host was to be assembled, a month before the time when they were to set forth, a bell was hung upon the arch of Porte Sante Marie, which was at the head of the Mercato Nuovo, and there was rung by day and by night without ceasing. And this they did in their pride, to give opportunity to the enemy, against whom the host should go forth, to prepare themselves. And some called it Martinella, and some the Asses' Bell. And when the Florentine host went forth, they took down the bell from the arch and put it into a wooden tower upon a car, and the sound thereof guided the host. By these two pomps of the carroccio and of the bell was maintained the lordly pride of the people of old and of our forefathers in their expeditions. We will leave this and will turn to the Florentines, how they made war against the Sienese, and took the castle of Vicchio, and that of Mezzano, and Casciole, which pertained to the Sienese, and encamped themselves against Siena, hard by the entrance gate by the monastery of S. Petronella; and there they had brought to them, upon a knoll which could be seen from the city, a tower wherein they kept their bell; and in contempt of the Sienese, and as a record of their victory, they filled it with earth and planted an olive tree in it, the which, until our own days, was still there. It fell out at that siege that one day the Florentine refugees gave a feast to Manfred's German soldiers, and having plied them with wine till they were drunk, in the uproar they incited them to arm themselves and mount on horseback to assail the host of the Florentines, promising them large gifts and double pay; and this was done craftily by the wise, in pursuance of the counsel of Farinata degli Uberti which he had given in Apulia. The Germans, beside themselves and hot with wine, sallied forth from Siena and vigorously assailed the camp of the Florentines, and because they were unprepared and off their guard, holding as nought the force of the enemy, the Germans, albeit they were but few folk, did great hurt to the host in that assault, and many of the people and of the horsemen made a sorry show in that sudden assault, and fled in terror, supposing that the assailants were more in number. But in the end, perceiving their error, they took to arms, and defended themselves against the Germans, and of all those who sallied forth from Siena not one escaped alive, for they were all slain and beaten down, and the standard was taken and dragged through the camp and carried to Florence; and this done, shortly afterwards the Florentine host returned to Florence. § 76.--_How King Manfred sent Count Giordano with 800 Germans to succour the Sienese and the Ghibelline refugees from Florence._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] The Sienese and the Florentine refugees, perceiving how ill the Florentines had fared in the assault of so small a number of German horsemen, considered that if they had a greater number thereof, they would be victorious in the war. Immediately they provided themselves with money, procuring from the company of the Salimbeni, which were merchants of those days, 20,000 florins of gold, and gave them in pledge the fortress of Tentennana and several more castles of the commonwealth, and sent their ambassadors again into Apulia with the said money to King Manfred, saying how his few German followers by their great vigour and valour had undertaken to assail the whole host of the Florentines, and had turned a great part thereof to flight; but if they had been more, they would have had the victory; but by reason of their small number, they had all been left upon the field, and his standard had been dragged about and insulted in the camp and in Florence and round about. And beside this they plied the best reasons they knew to move Manfred, who, having heard the tidings, was wrath, and with the money of the Sienese, who paid half the charges for three months, and at his own cost, sent into Tuscany Count Giordano, his marshal, with 800 German horsemen, to go with the said ambassadors; who reached Siena in the end of July, the year of Christ 1260, and by the Sienese were received with great rejoicing, and they and all the Ghibellines of Tuscany drew thence great vigour and courage. And when they were come to Siena, immediately the Sienese sent forth their host against the castle of Montalcino, which was under the commands of the commonwealth of Florence, and sent for aid to the Pisans and to all the Ghibellines of Tuscany, so that, what with the horsemen of Siena and the Florentine refugees, and the Germans and their allies, there were found 1,800 horsemen in Siena, whereof the greater part were Germans. § 77.--_How the Ghibelline refugees from Florence prepared to deceive the commonwealth and people of Florence, and cause them to be betrayed._ [Sidenote: Purg. xi. 109-142.] [Sidenote: Inf. vi. 79. xvi. 40-42.] The Florentine refugees, by whose embassy and deed King Manfred had sent Count Giordano with 800 German horsemen, thought within themselves that they had done nothing if they could not draw the Florentines out into the field, inasmuch as the aforesaid Germans were not paid save for three months, and already more than one month and a half of this had passed, since their coming, nor had they more money wherewith to pay them, nor did they look for any from Manfred; and should the time for which they had been paid pass by without having done aught, they would return into Apulia, to the great peril of the state. They reasoned that this could not be contrived without skill and subtlety of war, which business was committed to M. Farinata degli Uberti and M. Gherardo Ciccia de' Lamberti. These subtly chose out two wise minor friars as their messengers to the people of Florence, and first caused them to confer with nine of the most powerful men of Siena, who made endless show to the said friars that the government of Messer Provenzano Salvani was displeasing to them, who was the greatest of the citizens of Siena, and that they would willingly yield up the city to the Florentines in return for 10,000 florins of gold, and that they were to come with a great host, under guise of fortifying Montalcino, as far as the river Arbia; and then they with their own forces, and with those of their followers, would give up to the Florentines the gate of Santo Vito, which is on the road to Arezzo. The friars, under this deceit and treachery, came to Florence with letters and seals from the aforesaid, and were brought before the Ancients of the people, and proposed to them means whereby they might do great things for the honour of the people and commonwealth of Florence; but the thing was so secret that it must under oath be revealed to but few. Then the Ancients chose from among themselves Spedito di Porte San Piero, a man of great vigour and boldness, and one of the principal leaders of the people, and with him Messer Gianni Calcagni, of Vacchereccia; and when they had sworn upon the altar, the friars unfolded the said plot, and showed the said letters. The said two Ancients, who showed more eagerness than judgment, gave faith to the plot; and immediately the said 10,000 golden florins were procured, and were deposited, and a council was assembled of magnates and people, and they represented that of necessity it behoved to send a host to Siena to strengthen Montalcino, greater than the one sent in May last to Santa Petronella. The nobles of the great Guelf houses of Florence, and Count Guido Guerra, which was with them, not knowing of the pretended plot, and knowing more of war than the popolani did, being aware of the new body of German troops which was come to Siena, and of the sorry show which the people made at Santa Petronella when the hundred Germans attacked them, considered the enterprise not to be without great peril. And also esteeming the citizens to be divided in mind, and ill disposed to raise another host, they gave wise counsel, that it were best that the host should not go forth at present, for the reasons aforesaid; and also they showed how for little cost Montalcino could be fortified, and how the men of Orvieto were prepared to fortify it, and alleged that the said Germans had pay only for three months, and had already served for half the time, and by giving them play enough, without raising a host, shortly they would be scattered, and would return into Apulia; and the Sienese and the Florentine refugees would be left in worse plight than they were before. And the spokesman for them all was M. Tegghiaio Aldobrandi degli Adimari, a wise knight and valiant in arms, and of great authority, and he counselled the better course in full. His counsel ended, the aforesaid Spedito, the Ancient, a very presumptuous man, rudely replied, bidding him to look to his breeches if he was afraid; and M. Tegghiaio replied that at the pinch he would not dare to follow him into the battle where he would lead; and these words ended, next uprose M. Cece de Gherardini to say the same that Messer Tegghiaio had said. The Ancients commanded him not to speak, and the penalty was 100 pounds if any one held forth contrary to the command of the Ancients. The knight was willing to pay it, so that he might oppose the going; but the Ancients would not have it, rather they made the penalty double; again he desired to pay, and so it reached 300 pounds; and when he yet wanted to speak and to pay, the command was that his head should be forfeit; and there it stopped. But, through the proud and heedless people, the worse counsel won the day, that the said host should proceed immediately and without delay. § 78.--_How the Florentines raised an army to fortify Montalcino, and were discomfited by Count Giordano and by the Sienese at Montaperti._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] The people of Florence having taken the ill resolve to raise an army, craved assistance from their friends, which came with foot soldiers and with horse, from Lucca, and Bologna, and Pistoia, and Prato, and Volterra, and Samminiato, and Sangimignano, and from Colle di Valdelsa, which were in league with the commonwealth and people of Florence; and in Florence there were 800 horsemen of the citizens and more than 500 mercenaries. And the said people being assembled in Florence, the host set forth in the end of August, and for pomp and display they led out the carroccio, and a bell, which they called Martinella, on a car with a wooden tower on wheels, and there went out nearly all the people with the banners of the guilds, and there did not remain a house or a family in Florence which went not forth on foot or on horseback, at least one for each house, and for some two or more, according to their power. And when they found themselves in the territory of Siena, at the place agreed upon, on the river Arbia, at the place called Montaperti, with the men of Perugia and of Orvieto, which there joined with the Florentines, there were gathered together more than 3,000 horse and more than 30,000 foot. And whilst the host of the Florentines was thus preparing, the aforesaid framers of the plot, which were in Siena, in order that it might be the more fully accomplished, sent to Florence certain other friars to hatch treason with certain Ghibelline magnates and popolani which had not been exiled from Florence, and would therefore have to join the general muster of the army. With these, then, they plotted that when they were drawn up for battle, they should from divers quarters flee from their companies, and repair to their own party, to confound the Florentine army. And this plot they made because they seemed to themselves to be but few in comparison with the Florentines; and so it was done. [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 78-111.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 85-87.] Now it happened that when the said host was on the hills of Montaperti, those sage Ancients who were leading the host, and had managed the negotiations, were awaiting the opening of the promised gate by the traitors from within. A magnate from among the people, a Florentine from the gate of S. Piero, which was a Ghibelline, and was named Razzante, having heard something of the expectation of the Florentine host, was commissioned by consent of the Ghibellines in the camp which were meditating the treason, to enter Siena; whereupon he fled on horseback from the camp to make known to the Florentine refugees how the city of Siena was to be betrayed, and how the Florentines were well equipped, and with great strength of horse and foot, and to urge those within not to advise battle. And when he was come unto Siena, and these things had been disclosed to the said M. Farinata and M. Gherardo, the plotters, they said thus to him: "Thou wilt slay us, if thou spreadest this news throughout Siena, inasmuch as fear will fall upon every man, but we desire that thou shouldest say the contrary; for if we do not fight while we have these Germans we are dead men, and shall never return to Florence, and for us death and defeat would be better than to crawl about the world any longer:" and their counsel was to try the fortune of battle. Razzante, instructed by these two aforesaid, determined and promised to speak thus; and with a garland on his head, on horseback with the said two, showing great gladness, he came to the parliament to the palace where were all the people of Siena and the Germans and other allies; and then, with a joyful countenance, he told great news from the Ghibelline party and the traitors in camp, how the host was ill-ordered and ill-led, and disunited, and that if they attacked them boldly, they would certainly be discomfited. And Razzante having made his false report, at the cry of the people they all moved to arms, calling out: "Battle, battle." The Germans demanded a promise of double pay, and this was given them; and their troop led the attack from the gate of San Vito, which was to have been given over to the Florentines; and the other horse and foot sallied out after them. When those among the host which were expecting that the gate should be given to them saw the Germans and the other horse and foot sally forth towards them from Siena in battle array, they marvelled greatly, and were sore dismayed, seeing their sudden approach and unlooked-for attack; and they were the more dismayed that many Ghibellines who were in the host, both on horse and foot, beholding the enemy's troops approaching, fled from divers quarters, as the treason had been ordered; and among them were the della Pressa and they of the Abati, and many others. But the Florentines and their allies did not on this account neglect to array their troops, and await the battle; and when the German troop violently charged the troop of Florentine horse (where was the standard of the cavalry of the commonwealth, which was borne by M. Jacopo del Nacca, a man of great valour, of the house of the Pazzi in Florence), that traitor of a M. Bocca degli Abati, which was in his troop and near to him, struck the said M. Jacopo with his sword, and cut off the hand with which he held the standard, and immediately he died. And this done, the horsemen and people, beholding the standard fallen, and that there were traitors among them, and that they were so strongly assailed by the Germans, in a short time were put to flight. But because the horsemen of Florence first perceived the treason, there were but thirty-six men of name of the cavalry slain and taken. But the great mortality and capture was of the foot soldiers of Florence, and of Lucca, and of Orvieto, because they shut themselves up in the castle of Montaperti, and were all taken; but more than 2,500 of them were left dead upon the field, and more than 1,500 were taken captive of the best of the people of Florence, from every house, and of Lucca, and of the other allies which were in the said battle. And thus was abased the arrogance of the ungrateful and proud people of Florence. And this was on a Tuesday, the 4th day of September, in the year of Christ 1260; and there was left the carroccio and the bell called Martinella, with an untold amount of booty, of the baggage pertaining to the Florentines and their allies. And thus was routed and destroyed the ancient Popolo of Florence, which had continued in so many victories and in great lordship and state for ten years. § 79.--_How the Guelfs of Florence, after the said discomfiture, departed from Florence and went to Lucca._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 48.] The news of the grievous discomfiture being come to Florence, and the miserable fugitives returning therefrom, there arose so great a lamentation both of men and of women in Florence that it reached unto the heavens, forasmuch as there was not a house in Florence, small or great, whereof there was not one slain or taken; and from Lucca, and from the territory there were a great number, and from Orvieto. For the which thing the heads of the Guelfs, both nobles and popolari, which had returned from the defeat, and those which were in Florence, were dismayed and fearful, and feared lest the exiles should come from Siena with the German troops, perceiving that the rebel Ghibellines and those under bounds which were absent from the city were beginning to return thereto. Wherefore the Guelfs, without being banished or driven out, went forth with their families, weeping, from Florence, and betook themselves to Lucca on Thursday, the 13th day of September, in the year of Christ 1260. These were the chief families of the Guelf refugees from Florence: of the sesto of Oltrarno, the Rossi, and the Nerli, and part of the Mannelli, the Bardi, and the Mozzi, and the Frescobaldi; the notable popolani of the said sesto were the Canigiani, Magli, and Macchiavelli, the Belfredelli and the Orciolini, Aglioni, Rinucci, Barbadori, and the Battincenni, and Soderini, and Malduri and Ammirati. Of San Piero Scheraggio, the nobles: Gherardini, Lucardesi, Cavalcanti, Bagnesi, Pulci, Guidalotti, Malispini, Foraboschi, Manieri, they of Quona, Sacchetti, Compiobbesi; the popolani, Magalotti, Mancini, Bucelli, and they of the Antella. Of the sesto of Borgo, the nobles: the Bondelmonti, Scali, Spini, Gianfigliazzi, Giandonati, Bostichi, Altoviti, the Ciampoli, Baldovinetti and others. Of the sesto of San Brancazio, the nobles: Tornaquinci, Vecchietti, and part of the Pigli, Minerbetti, Becchenugi, and Bordoni and others. Of the Porte del Duomo: the Tosinghi, Arrigucci, Agli, Sizii, Marignolli, and Ser Brunetto Latini and his family, and many others. Of the Porte San Piero: Adimari, Pazzi, Visdomini, and part of the Donati. Of the branch of the Scolari there were left della Bella, the Carci, the Ghiberti, the Guidalotti di Balla, the Mazzochi, the Uccellini, Boccatonde; and beside these magnates and popolani of each sesto were put under bounds. And for this departure the Guelfs were much to be blamed, inasmuch as the city of Florence was very strong, and with walls, and with moats full of water, and could well have been defended and held; but the judgment of God in punishing sins must needs hold on its course without hindrance; and to whomsoever God intends ill, from him He takes away wisdom and knowledge. And the Guelfs having departed on Thursday, the Sunday after being the 16th of September, the exiles from Florence which had been at the battle of Montaperti, with Count Giordano and with his German troops, and with the other soldiers of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, enriched by the spoil of the Florentines and of the other Guelfs of Tuscany, entered into the city of Florence without hindrance, and immediately they made Guido Novello of the Counts Guidi, Podestà of Florence for King Manfred, from the first day of the coming January for two years, and his judgment hall was the old palace of the people at Santo Apollinari, the stair of which was on the outer wall. And a little while after he caused the Ghibelline gate to be made, and the road out to be opened; to the intent that by that way, which corresponds with the palace, there might be entrance and exit at need, and he might bring his retainers from Casentino into Florence to guard him and the city. And because it was done in the time of the Ghibellines, the gate and the road took the name of Ghibelline. This Count Guido caused all the citizens which remained in Florence to swear fealty to King Manfred, and by reason of promises made to the Sienese he caused five castles of the territory of Florence which were on their frontier to be destroyed; and there remained in Florence as captain of the host, and vicar-general for King Manfred, the said Count Giordano, with the German troops in the pay of the Florentines, who greatly persecuted the Guelfs in many parts of Tuscany, as we shall make mention hereafter; and took all their goods, and destroyed many palaces and towers pertaining to the Guelfs, and took their goods for the benefit of the commonwealth. The said Count Giordano was a gentleman of Piedmont in Lombardy, and kinsman of the mother of Manfred, and by his prowess, and because he was very faithful to Manfred, and in life and customs as worldly-minded as he, he made him a count, and gave him lands in Apulia, and from small estate raised him to great lordship. § 80.--_How the news of the defeat of the Florentines came to the court of the Pope, and the prophecy which was made thereupon by Cardinal Bianco._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 120.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xx. and xxvii. 100-107.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 51.] When the news of the aforesaid defeat came to the court of Rome, the Pope and the cardinals who loved the state of Holy Church felt much grief and compassion thereat, alike for the Florentines, and also because thereby the state and power of Manfred, the enemy of the Church, would increase; but Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, which was a Ghibelline, rejoiced greatly thereat; wherefore Cardinal Bianco, which was a great astrologer and master of necromancy, seeing this, said: if Cardinal Ottaviano knew the future of this war of the Florentines, he would not be rejoicing thus. The college of cardinals prayed him that he would declare himself more openly. Cardinal Bianco would not speak, because to speak of the future seemed to him to be unlawful to his office, but the cardinals so prayed the Pope that he commanded him on his obedience to speak. Having received the said command, he said in brief words: the conquered shall conquer victoriously, and shall not be conquered for ever. This was interpreted to mean that the Guelfs, conquered and driven out of Florence, should victoriously return to power, and should never again lose their state and lordship in Florence. § 81.--_How the Ghibellines of Tuscany purposed to destroy the city of Florence, and how M. Farinata degli Uberti defended it._ [Sidenote: 1260 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxx. 148.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 111.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 91-93.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 83, 84.] After the same fashion that the Guelfs of Florence departed, so did those of Prato and of Pistoia, and of Volterra, and of Samminiato, and of San Gimignano, and of many other cities and villages of Tuscany, which all returned to the party of the Ghibellines save the city of Lucca, the which held to the party of the Guelfs for a time, and was a refuge for the Guelfs of Florence, and for the other exiles of Tuscany, the which Guelfs of Florence took their stand in Lucca in the quarter around San Friano; and the loggia in front of San Friano was made by the Florentines. And when the Florentines found themselves in this place, Messer Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, seeing Spedito who had insulted him in the council and bade him look to his breeches, drew himself up and took from his pouch five hundred florins of gold that he had, and showed them to Spedito (who had fled from Florence in great poverty), and said to him reproachfully, "Just look at the state of my breeches! This is what you have brought yourself and me and the rest to, by your rash and overbearing lordship." And Spedito answered, "Then why did you trust us?" We have made mention of these paltry and base altercations as a warning, that no citizen, especially if he be a popolano and of small account, when he chances to be in office, should be too bold or presumptuous. At this time the Pisans, the Sienese, and they of Arezzo, with the said Count Giordano, and with the other Ghibelline leaders, caused a council to be held at Empoli, to establish the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, and to form a league; and so it was done. And forasmuch as Count Giordano must needs return into Apulia, to King Manfred, by command of the said Manfred there was proclaimed as his vicar-general and captain of the host in Tuscany, Count Guido Novello of the Counts Guidi of Casentino and of Modigliana, who factiously forsook Count Simone his brother, and Count Guido Guerra his fellow, and all those of his branch of the family which held to the Guelf party; and he was desirous to drive out of Tuscany every Guelf. And at the said council all the neighbouring cities, and the Counts Guidi, and the Counts Alberti, and they of Santafiore, and the Ubaldini, and all the barons around took counsel, and were all of one mind how for the good of the Ghibelline party the city of Florence should be utterly destroyed and reduced to open villages, to the intent there might remain neither renown, nor fame, nor power of its might. To withstand which proposal uprose the valiant and wise knight, Messer Farinata degli Uberti, and in his saying he introduced two ancient proverbs of the street which say: "As the ass has wit, so he munches his rape" [_i.e._, every one does his business according to his capacity, such as it is], and "Lame goats can go if they meet no wolf" [_i.e._, any one can get on if there are no difficulties]; and these two proverbs he wove together, saying: "As the ass has wit, lame goats can go; so he munches his rape if they meet no wolf," adroitly turning the vulgar proverbs to examples and comparisons to show the folly of thus speaking, and the great peril and hurt that might follow thereupon; and saying that if there were none other than he, whilst he had life in his body he would defend the city with sword in hand. Count Giordano perceiving this, and what manner of man and of what authority was Messer Farinata, and his great following, and how the Ghibelline party might be broken up and come to discord, abandoned the idea, and took other counsel, so that by one good man and citizen our city of Florence was saved from so great fury, destruction, and ruin. But afterwards the said people of Florence were ungrateful and forgetful towards the said Messer Farinata, and his progeny and descendants, as hereafter we shall make mention. But in despite of the forgetfulness of the ungrateful people, nevertheless we ought to commend and keep in notable memory the good and virtuous citizen, who acted after the fashion of the good Roman Camillus of old, as we are told by Valerius and Titus Livius. [Sidenote: 1261 A.D.] § 82.--_How Count Guido, the vicar, with the league of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, went against Lucca, and took S. Maria a Monte and many fortresses._ § 83.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence sent their ambassadors into Germany to stir up Conradino against Manfred._ In those times the Guelf refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany, perceiving themselves to be thus persecuted by the forces of Manfred and of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, and seeing that no lord was rising against the forces of Manfred, and also that the Church had but little power against him, thought within themselves to send their ambassadors into Germany to stir up the little Conradino, offering him much aid and favour, against Manfred, his uncle, who was falsely holding the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia; and this was done, for from among the chief of the Florentine exiles there went as ambassadors, with those of the commonwealth of Lucca. And the Guelf exiles from Florence were represented by M. Bonaccorso Bellincioni of the Adimari, and M. Simone Donati. And they found Conradino so young a boy that his mother would in no wise consent to let him go from her, albeit with will and with mind she was greatly against Manfred and held him as an enemy and rebel against Conradino. And the said ambassadors, when they returned from Germany, as a token and earnest of the coming of Conradino, caused him to give them his mantle lined with miniver, which being brought to Lucca caused great rejoicing among the Guelfs, and it was shown in S. Friano of Lucca, as if it had been a relic. But the Guelfs of Tuscany did not know the future destiny, how the said Conradino should become their enemy. [Sidenote: 1262 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 56.] § 84.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence took Signa, but held it only a short space._ § 85.--_How Count Guido, the vicar, with the Tuscan league and the forces of the Pisans, marched upon Lucca, whereon the Lucchese made their peace, and drave out the Guelf refugees from Lucca._ § 86.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence, and the other exiles of Tuscany, drave out the Ghibellines from Modena and afterwards from Reggio._ [Sidenote: 1263 A.D.] After the miserable Guelfs which had been driven from Florence and from all the cities of Tuscany (whereof none held with the Guelf party) were come into the city of Bologna, they abode there long time in great want and poverty, some receiving pay to serve on foot, and some on horse, and some without pay. It came to pass in those times that the inhabitants of the city of Modena, Guelfs and Ghibellines, came to dissension and civic strife among themselves, as it is the custom of the cities of Lombardy to assemble and fight on the piazza of the commonwealth; and many days they were opposed the one to the other without either side being able to win the victory. It came to pass that the Guelfs sent for succour to Bologna, and especially to the Guelf refugees from Florence, which straightway, as needy folk, and making war for their own behoof, went thither on horse and on foot, as each best could. And when they came to Modena a gate was opened to them by the Guelfs, and they were admitted; and straightway when they were come upon the piazza of Modena, as brave men and used to arms and to war, they attacked the Ghibellines, which could not long endure, but were defeated and slain and driven out of the city, and their houses and their goods spoiled; by reason of which booty the said Guelf refugees from Florence and from the rest of Tuscany were much enriched, and furnished themselves with horses and with arms, whereof they were in great need, and this was in the year of Christ 1263. And whilst they were in Modena, a little while after, in the same manner as in Modena, fighting began in the city of Reggio in Lombardy, between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines; and when the Guelfs of Reggio sent for aid to the Guelf refugees from Florence, which were in Modena, straightway they went thither, and they chose as their captain Messer Forese degli Adimari. And when they were come to Reggio they joined in the battle on the piazza, which endured long time, forasmuch as the Ghibellines of Reggio were very powerful, and among them was one called Caca of Reggio, on whose name wit is spilled in gibes even yet. This man was well-nigh as tall as a giant, and of marvellous strength, and he had an iron club in his hand, and none dared to approach him whom he did not fell to the earth, either slain or maimed, and by him the battle was well-nigh wholly sustained. When the gentlemen in banishment from Florence perceived this, they chose among them twelve of the most valiant, and called them the twelve paladins, which, with daggers in hand, all set upon that valiant man, which, after very brave defence, and beating down many of his enemies, was struck down to the earth and slain upon the piazza; and so soon as the Ghibellines saw their champion on the ground, they took to flight and were discomfited and driven out of Reggio; and if the Guelf refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany were enriched by the spoil of the Ghibellines of Modena, much more were they enriched by that of the Ghibellines of Reggio; and they all provided themselves with horses, so that in a short time, while they abode in Reggio and in Modena, they numbered more than 400 horsemen, good men-at-arms well mounted, and they came at great need to the succour of Charles, count of Anjou and of Provence, when he came into Apulia against Manfred, as we shall hereafter relate. We will now leave the doings of Florence, and of the Guelf refugees, and turn to the things which came to pass in those times between the Church of Rome and Manfred. § 87.--_How Manfred persecuted Pope Urban and the Church with his Saracens of Nocera, and how a crusade was proclaimed against them._ [Sidenote: 1261 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xxii. 16-18.] By reason of the discomfiture of the Florentines, and of the other Guelfs of Tuscany at Montaperti, as we have afore said, King Manfred rose to great lordship and state, and all the imperial party in Tuscany and in Lombardy greatly increased in power, and the Church and its devout and faithful followers were much abased in all places. It came to pass that a very little while after, in the said year 1260, Pope Alexander passed from this life in the city of Viterbo, and the Church was vacant without a pastor for five months through the disputings among the cardinals; afterwards they elected Pope Urban IV., of the city of Troyes, of Champagne in France, the which was of low origin, being son of a cobbler, but was a man of worth, and wise. But his election was in this fashion: he was a poor clerk which came to the court of Rome to plead a cause about his Church, which had been taken from him, which brought in twenty pounds tournois a year. The cardinals, by reason of their disputes, locked the doors when they were shut up, and made among themselves a secret decree that the first clerk which knocked at the door should be Pope. As it pleased God this Urban was the first, and where he came to plead for the poor church of twenty pounds tournois revenue, he received the Universal Church, after the ordinances of God, as fixed in the election of the blessed Nicholas. Because the election was miraculous, therefore have we made mention and record thereof. And he was consecrated the year of Christ 1261. Finding the Church much beaten down by the power of Manfred, which was occupying the greater part of Italy, and had stationed the host of his Saracens of Nocera in the lands of the patrimony of S. Peter, the said Urban preached a crusade against them; wherefore many faithful people took the cross and marched in the army against them. For the which cause, the Saracens fled into Apulia, but Manfred did not therefore cease to molest the Pope and the Church in their followers and troops, and he abode now in Sicily and now in Apulia, in great luxury and in great delights, following a worldly and epicurean life, and for his pleasure keeping many concubines, living lasciviously, and it seemed that he cared neither for God nor for the saints. But God, the just Lord, which, through grace, delays His judgments upon sinners to the intent they may bethink them, but in the end does not pardon those who do not turn to Him, presently sent forth His curse and ruin upon Manfred, when he believed himself to be in the height of his state and lordship, as hereafter we shall make mention. § 88.--_How the Church of Rome elected Charles of France to be king of Sicily and of Apulia._ [Sidenote: 1263 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 113, 124-129; xx. 67-69.] The said Pope Urban and the Church being thus brought down by the power of Manfred, and the two Emperors-elect (to wit, the Spaniard and the Englishman) not being in concord nor having power to come into Italy, and Conradino, son of King Conrad, to whom pertained by inheritance the kingdom of Sicily and of Apulia, being so young a boy that he could not as yet come against Manfred, the said Pope, by reason of the importunity of many faithful followers of the Church, the which by Manfred's violence had been driven from their lands, and especially by reason of the Guelf exiles from Florence and from Tuscany who were continually pursuing the court, complaining of their woes at the feet of the Pope, the said Pope Urban called a great council of his cardinals and of many prelates, and made this proposal: seeing the Church was subjugated by Manfred, and since those of his house and lineage had always been enemies and persecutors of Holy Church, not being grateful for many benefits received, if it seemed well to them, he had thought to release Holy Church from bondage and restore her to her state and liberty, and this might be done by summoning Charles, count of Anjou and of Provence, son of the king of France, and brother of the good King Louis, the which was the most capable prince in prowess of arms and in every virtue that there was in his time, and of so powerful a house as that of France, and who might be the champion of Holy Church and king of Sicily and of Apulia, regaining it by force from King Manfred, which was holding it unjustly by force, and was excommunicated and condemned, and was against the will of Holy Church, and as it were a rebel against her; and he trusted so much in the prowess of the said Charles, and of the barons of France, which would follow him, that he did not doubt but that he would oppose Manfred and take from him the lands and all the Kingdom in short time, and would put the Church in great state. To the which counsel all the cardinals and prelates agreed, and they elected the said Charles to be king of Sicily and of Apulia, him and his descendants down to the fourth generation after him, and the election being confirmed, they sent forth the decree; and this was the year of Christ 1263. § 89.--_How Charles, count of Anjou and of Provence, accepted the election offered him by the Church of Rome to Sicily and to Apulia._ [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 128.] [Sidenote: 1263 A.D.] When the said invitation was carried to France by the Cardinal Simon of Tours to the said Charles, he took counsel thereupon with King Louis of France and with the count of Artois, and with the count of Alençon, his brother, and with the other great barons of France, and by all he was counselled that in the name of God he should undertake the said emprise in the service of Holy Church, and to bear the dignity of crown and Kingdom. And the King Louis of France, his elder brother, proffered him aid in men and in money, and likewise offers were made to him by all the barons of France. And his lady, which was youngest daughter to the good Count Raymond Berenger, of Provence, through whom he had the heritage of the county of Provence, when she heard of the election of the Count Charles, her husband, to the intent that she might become queen, pledged all her jewels and invited all the bachelors-at-arms of France and of Provence to rally round her standard and to make her queen. And this was largely by reason of the contempt and disdain which a little while before had been shown to her by her three elder sisters, which were all queens, making her sit a degree lower than they, for which cause, with great grief, she had made complaint thereof to Charles, her husband, which answered her: "Be at peace, for I will shortly make thee a greater queen than them;" for which cause she sought after and obtained the best barons of France for her service, and those who did most in the emprise. And thus Charles wrought in his preparations with all solicitude and power, and made answer to the Pope and to the cardinals, by the said cardinal legate, how he had accepted their election, and how, without loss of time, he would come into Italy with a strong arm and great force to defend Holy Church, and against Manfred, to drive him from the lands of Sicily and of Apulia; by the which news the Church and all her followers, and whosoever was on the side of the Guelfs, were much comforted and took great courage. When Manfred heard the news, he furnished himself for defence with men and money, and with the force of the Ghibelline party in Lombardy and in Tuscany, which were of his league and alliance, he enlisted and equipped many more folk than he had before, and caused them to come from Germany for his defence, to the intent the said Charles and his French following might not be able to enter into Italy or to proceed to Rome; and with money and with promises he gathered a great part of the lords and of the cities of Italy under his lordship, and in Lombardy he made vicar the Marquis Pallavicino of Piedmont, his kinsman, which much resembled him in person and in habits. And likewise he caused great defences to be prepared at sea, of armed galleys of his Sicilians and Apulians, and of the Pisans which were in league with him, and they feared but little the coming of the said Charles, whom they called, in contempt, Little Charles. And forasmuch as Manfred thought himself, and was, lord over sea and land, and his Ghibelline party was uppermost and ruled over Tuscany and Lombardy, he held his coming for nought. § 90.--_Incident relating to the good Count Raymond of Provence._ [Sidenote: Par. vi. 127-142. Vita Nuova, § xli. 34-52.] Since in the chapter above we have told of the worthy lady, wife of King Charles and daughter of the good Count Raymond Berenger, of Provence, it is fitting that something should briefly be said of the said count, to whom King Charles was heir. Count Raymond was a lord of gentle lineage, and kin to them of the house of Aragon, and to the family of the count of Toulouse. By inheritance Provence, this side of the Rhone, was his; a wise and courteous lord was he, and of noble state and virtuous, and in his time did honourable deeds, and to his court came all gentle persons of Provence and of France and of Catalonia, by reason of his courtesy and noble estate, and he made many Provençal coblas and canzoni of great worth. There came to his court a certain Romeo [pilgrim], who was returning from S. James', and hearing the goodness of Count Raymond, abode in his court, and was so wise and valorous, and came so much into favour with the count, that he made him master and steward of all that he had; who always continued in virtuous and religious living, and in a short time, by his industry and prudence, increased his master's revenue threefold, maintaining always a great and honourable court. And being at war with the count of Toulouse on the borders of their lands (and the count of Toulouse was the greatest count in the world, and under him he had fourteen counts), by the courtesy of Count Raymond, and by the wisdom of the good Romeo, and by the treasure which he had gathered, he had so many barons and knights that he was victorious in the war, and that with honour. Four daughters had the count, and no male child. By prudence and care the good Romeo first married the eldest for him to the good King Louis of France by giving money with her, saying to the count, "Leave it to me, and do not grudge the cost, for if thou marryest the first well, thou wilt marry all the others the better for the sake of her kinship, and at less cost." And so it came to pass; for straightway the king of England, to be of kin to the king of France, took the second with little money; afterwards his carnal brother, being the king elect of the Romans, after the same manner took the third; the fourth being still to marry, the good Romeo said, "For this one I desire that thou should'st have a brave man for thy son, who may be thine heir,"--and so he did. Finding Charles, count of Anjou, brother of King Louis of France, he said, "Give her to him, for he is like to be the best man in the world," prophesying of him; and this was done. And it came to pass afterwards, through envy, which destroys all good, that the barons of Provence accused the good Romeo that he had managed the count's treasure ill, and they called upon him to give an account; the worthy Romeo said, "Count, I have served thee long while, and raised thy estate from small to great, and for this, through the false counsel of thy people, thou art little grateful: I came to thy court a poor pilgrim, and I have lived virtuously here; give me back my mule, my staff, and my scrip, as I came here, and I renounce thy service." The count would not that he should depart; but for nought that he could do would he remain; and as he came, so he departed, and no one knew whence he came or whither he went. But many held that he was a sainted soul. [Sidenote: 1264 A.D.] § 91.--_How in these times there appeared a great comet, and what it signified._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK VI. BOOK VII. [Sidenote: 1264 A.D.] _Here begins the Seventh Book, which treats of the coming of King Charles, and of many changes and events which followed thereupon._ [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 99. Purg. vii. 113, 124, 128, 129; xi. 137; xx. 67-69.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 61-63.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 113, 124.] [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 126.] § 1.--Charles was the second son of Louis le Debonnaire, king of France, and grandson of the good King Philip, the blear-eyed, his grandfather, whereof we before made mention, and brother of the good King Louis of France, and of Robert, count of Artois, and of Alfonso, count of Poitou; all these four brothers were the children of Queen Bianca, daughter of the King Alfonso of Spain. The said Charles, count of Anjou, by inheritance from his father, and count of Provence, this side the Rhone, by inheritance through his wife, the daughter of the good Count Raymond Berenger, so soon as he was elected king of Sicily and of Apulia by the Pope and by the Church, made preparation of knights and barons to furnish means for his enterprise and expedition into Italy, as we before narrated. But in order that those who come after may have fuller knowledge how this Charles was the first of the kings of Sicily and of Apulia descended from the house of France, we will tell somewhat of his virtues and conditions; and it is very fitting that we should preserve a record of so great a lord, and so great a friend and protector and defender of Holy Church, and of our city of Florence, as we shall make mention hereafter. This Charles was wise, prudent in counsel and valiant in arms, and harsh, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings of the earth, great-hearted and of high purposes, steadfast in carrying out every great undertaking, firm in every adversity, faithful to every promise, speaking little and acting much, scarcely smiling, chaste as a monk, catholic, harsh in judgment, and of a fierce countenance, tall and stalwart in person, olive-coloured, large-nosed, and in kingly majesty he exceeded any other lord, and slept little and woke long, and was wont to say that all the time of sleep was so much lost; liberal was he to knights in arms, but greedy in acquiring land and lordship and money, from whencesoever it came, to furnish means for his enterprises and wars; in jongleurs, minstrels or jesters he never took delight; his arms were those of France, that is an azure field charged with the golden lily, barred with vermilion above; so far they were diverse from the arms of France. This Charles, when he passed into Italy, was forty-six years of age, and he reigned nineteen years in Sicily and Apulia, as we shall make mention hereafter. He had by his wife two sons and several daughters; the first was named Charles II., and was somewhat crippled, and was prince of Capua; and after the first Charles, his father, he became king of Sicily and of Apulia, as we shall make mention hereafter. The second was Philip, who was prince of the Morea in his wife's right; but he died young and without issue, for he ruptured himself in straining a crossbow. We will now leave for a while to speak of the progeny of the good King Charles, and will continue our story of his passing into Italy, and of other things which followed thereupon. § 2.--_How the Guelf refugees from Florence took the arms of Pope Clement, and how they joined the French army of Count Charles._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] In those times the Guelf refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany, who were much advantaged by the booty they had made of the cities of Modena and Reggio, whereof we before made mention, hearing that Count Charles was preparing to pass into Italy, gathered all their strength in arms and in horses, each one doing all in his power; and they numbered more than 400 good horsemen of gentle lineage and proved in arms, and they sent their ambassadors to Pope Clement, to the end he might recommend them to Count Charles, King elect of Sicily, and to proffer themselves for the service of Holy Church; which were graciously received by the said Pope, and provided with money and other benefactions; and the said Pope required that for love of him the Guelf party from Florence should always bear his proper arms on their standard and seal, which was, and is, a white field with a vermilion eagle above a green serpent, which they bore and kept henceforward, and down to our present times, though it is true that the Guelfs added afterwards a small vermilion lily above the head of the eagle; and with this banner they departed from Lombardy in company with the French horsemen of Count Charles when they journeyed to Rome, as we shall make mention hereafter; and they were among the best warriors and the most skilled in arms, of all those which King Charles had at the battle against Manfred. We will now leave for the present to speak of the Guelf refugees from Florence, and will tell of the coming of Count Charles and of his followers. § 3.--_How Count Charles departed from France, and passed by sea from Provence to Rome._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1265, Charles, count of Anjou and of Provence, having collected his barons and knights of France, and money to furnish means for his expedition, and having mustered his troops, left Count Guy of Montfort, captain and leader of 1,500 French horsemen, which were to journey to Rome by way of Lombardy; and having kept the feast of Easter, of the Resurrection of Christ, with King Louis of France and with his other brothers and friends, he straightway departed from Paris with a small company. Without delay he came to Marseilles in Provence, where he had had prepared thirty armed galleys, upon which he embarked with certain barons whom he had brought with him from France, and with certain of his Provençal barons and knights, and put out to sea on his way to Rome in great peril, inasmuch as King Manfred with his forces had armed in Genoa, and in Pisa, and in the Kingdom, more than eighty galleys, which were at sea on guard, to the intent that the said Charles might not be able to pass. But the said Charles, like a bold and courageous lord, prepared to pass without any regard to the lying-in-wait of his enemies, repeating a proverb, or perhaps the saying of a philosopher, that runs: Good care frustrates ill fortune. And this happened to the said Charles at his need; for being with his galleys on the Pisan seas, by tempest of the sea they were dispersed, and Charles with three of his galleys, utterly forespent, arrived at the Pisan port. Hearing this, Count Guido Novello, then vicar in Pisa for King Manfred, armed himself with his German troops to ride to the port and take Count Charles; the Pisans seized their moment, and closed the doors of the city, and ran to arms, and raised a dispute with the vicar, demanding back the fortress of Mutrone, which he was holding for the Lucchese, which was very dear and necessary to them; and this had to be granted before he was able to depart. And on account of the said interval and delay, when Count Guido had departed from Pisa and reached the port, Count Charles, the storm being somewhat abated, had with great care refitted his galleys and put out to sea, having departed but a little time before from the port, so great peril and misfortune being past; and thus, as it pleased God, passing afterwards hard by the fleet of King Manfred, sailing over the high seas, he arrived with his armada safe and sound at the mouth of the Roman Tiber, in the month of May of the said year, the which coming was held to be very marvellous and sudden, and by King Manfred and his people could scarce be believed. Charles having arrived in Rome, was received by the Romans with great honour, inasmuch as they loved not the lordship of Manfred; and immediately he was made senator of Rome by the will of the Pope and the people of Rome. Albeit Pope Clement was in Viterbo, yet he gave him all aid and countenance against Manfred, both spiritual and temporal; but by reason of his mounted troops, which were coming from France by land, and which through the many hindrances prepared by the followers of Manfred in Lombardy, had much difficulty in reaching Rome, as we shall make mention, it behoved Count Charles to abide in Rome, and in Campagna, and in Viterbo throughout that summer, during which sojourn he took counsel and ordered how he might enter the Kingdom with his host. § 4.--_How Count Guy of Montfort, with the horse of Count Charles, passed through Lombardy._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. vii. 133-136. Conv. iv. 11: 125-127.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 115, 116.] Count Guy of Montfort, with the horsemen which Count Charles had left him to lead, and with the countess, wife to the said Charles, and with her knights, departed from France in the month of June of the said year. * * * * * * And they took the way of Burgundy and of Savoy, and crossed the mountains of Monsanese [M. Cenis]; and when they came into the country about Turin and Asti, they were received with honour by the marquis of Monferrato, which was lord over that country, forasmuch as the marquis held with the Church, and was against Manfred; and by his conduct, and with the aid of the Milanese, they set out to pass through Lombardy, from Piedmont as far as Parma, all in arms, and riding in troops, with much difficulty, forasmuch as the Marquis Pallavicino, kinsman of Manfred, with the forces of the Cremonese, and of the other Ghibelline cities of Lombardy which were in league with Manfred, was guarding the passes with more than 3,000 horsemen, some Germans and some Lombards. At last, as it pleased God, albeit the two hosts came very nigh one another at the place called . . . the French passed through without any battle being fought and arrived at the city of Parma. Truly it is said that one Master Buoso, of the house of da Duera, of Cremona, for money which he received from the French, gave counsel in such wise that the host of Manfred was not there to contest the pass, as had been arranged, wherefor the people of Cremona afterwards destroyed the said family of da Duera in fury. When the French came to the city of Parma they were graciously received, and the Guelf refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany, with more than 400 horsemen (whereof they had made captain Count Guido Guerra of the Counts Guidi) went out to meet them as far as the city of Mantua. And when the French met with the Guelf refugees from Florence and from Tuscany, they seemed to them such fine men, and so rich in horses and in arms, that they marvelled greatly, that being in banishment from their cities they could be so nobly accoutred, and their company highly esteemed our exiles. And afterwards they took them round by Lombardy to Bologna, and by Romagna and by the March, and by the Duchy, for they could not pass through Tuscany, forasmuch as it all pertained to the Ghibelline party, and was under the lordship of Manfred; for the which thing they spent long time in their journeying, so that it was not till the beginning of the month of December, in the said year 1265, that they arrived in Rome; and when they were come to the city of Rome, Count Charles was very joyful, and received them with great gladness and honour. § 5.--_How King Charles was crowned in Rome king of Sicily, and how he straightway departed with his host to go against King Manfred._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxviii. 16.] When the mounted troops of Count Charles had reached Rome, he purposed to assume his crown; and on the day of the Epiphany in the said year 1265, by two cardinal legates, despatched by the Pope to Rome, he was consecrated and crowned over the realm of Sicily and Apulia, he and his lady with great honour; and so soon as the festival of his coronation was ended, without any delay he set out with his host by way of the Campagna, towards the kingdom of Apulia, and Campagna; and very soon he had a large part thereof at his command without dispute. King Manfred hearing of their coming, to wit, first of the said Charles, and then of his people, and how through failure of his great host, which was in Lombardy, they had passed onward, was much angered. Immediately he gave all his care to defend the passes of the Kingdom, and at the pass at the bridge at Cepperano he placed the Count Giordano and the count of Caserta, the which were of the house of da Quona, with many followers, both foot and horse; and in San Germano he placed a great part of his German and Apulian barons, and all the Saracens of Nocera with bows and crossbows, and great store of arrows, trusting more in this defence than in any other, by reason of the strong place and the position, which has on the one side high mountains, and on the other marshes and stagnant waters, and was furnished with victuals and with all things necessary for more than two years. King Manfred having fortified the passes, as we have said, sent his ambassadors to King Charles to treat with him concerning a truce or peace; and their embassage being delivered, it was King Charles's will to make answer with his own mouth; and he said in his language, in French: "Allez, et ditez pour moi au sultan de Nocere, aujourdhui je mettrai lui en enfer, ou il mettra moi en paradis;" which was as much as to say: I will have nothing but battle, and in that battle, either he shall slay me, or I him; and this done without delay he set out on his road. It chanced that King Charles having arrived with his host at Fresolone in Campagna, as he was descending towards Cepperano, the said Count Giordano, which was defending that pass, seeing the king's followers coming to pass through, desired to defend the pass; the count of Caserta said that it was better to let some of them pass first so that they might seize them on the other side of the pass without stroke of sword. Count Giordano, when he saw the people increase, again desired to assail them in battle; then the count of Caserta, who was in the plot, said that the battle would be a great risk, seeing that too many of them had passed. Then Count Giordano, seeing the king's followers to be so powerful, abandoned the place and bridge, some say from fear, but more say on account of the pact made by the king with the count of Caserta, inasmuch as he loved not Manfred, who, of his inordinate lust, had forcibly ravished the count of Caserta's wife. Wherefore he held himself to be greatly shamed by him, and sought to avenge himself by this treachery. And to this we give faith, because he and his were among the first who gave themselves up to King Charles; and having left Cepperano, they did not return to the host of King Manfred at San Germano, but abode in their castles. § 6.--_How, after King Charles had taken the pass of Cepperano, he stormed the city of San Germano._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] When King Charles and his host had taken the pass of Cepperano, they took Aquino without opposition, and they stormed the stronghold of Arci, which is among the strongest in that country; and this done, they encamped the host before San Germano. The inhabitants of the city, by reason of the strength of the place, and because it was well furnished with men and with all things, held the followers of King Charles for nought, and in contempt they insulted the servants which were leading the horses to water, saying vile and shameful things, calling out: "Where is your little Charles?" For which reason the servants of the French began to skirmish, and to fight with those of the city, whereat all the host of the French rose in uproar, and fearing that the camp would be attacked, the French were all suddenly in arms, running towards the city; they within, not being on their guard, were not so quickly all in arms. The French with great fury assailed the city, fighting against it in many places; and those who could find no better protection, dismounting from their horses, took off their saddles, and with them on their heads went along under the walls and towers of the town. The count of Vendôme, with M. John, his brother, and with their standard, which were among the first to arm themselves, followed the grooms of the besieged which had sallied forth to skirmish, and pursuing them, entered the town together with them by a postern which was open to receive them; and this was not without great peril, forasmuch as the gate was well guarded by many armed folk, and of those which followed the count of Vendôme and his brother, some were there slain and wounded, but they by their great courage and strength nevertheless were victorious in the combat around the gate by force of arms, and entered in, and straightway set their standard upon the walls. And among the first which followed them were the Guelf refugees from Florence, whereof Count Guido Guerra was captain, and the ensign was borne by Messer Stoldo Giacoppi de' Rossi; the which Guelfs at the taking of San Germano bore themselves marvellously and like good men, for the which thing the besiegers took heart and courage, and each one entered the city as he best could. The besieged, when they saw the standards of their enemies upon the walls, and the gate taken, fled in great numbers, and few of them remained to defend the town; wherefore King Charles's followers took the town of San Germano by assault, on the 10th day of February, 1265, and it was held to be a very great marvel, by reason of the strength of the town, and rather the work of God than of human strength, forasmuch as there were more than 1,000 horsemen within, and more than 5,000 footmen, among which there were many Saracen archers from Nocera; but by reason of a scuffle which arose the night before, as it pleased God, between the Christians and the Saracens, in the which the Saracens were vanquished, the next day they were not faithful in the defence of the city, and this among others was truly one of the causes why they lost the town of San Germano. Of Manfred's troops many were slain and taken, and the city was all overrun and robbed by the French; and there the king and his host abode some time to take repose and to learn the movements of Manfred. § 7.--_How King Manfred went to Benivento, and how he arrayed his troops to fight against King Charles._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] King Manfred, having heard the news of the loss of San Germano, and his discomfited troops having returned thence, he was much dismayed, and took counsel what he should do, and he was counselled by the Count Calvagno, and by the Count Giordano, and by the Count Bartolommeo, and by the Count Chamberlain, and by his other barons, to withdraw with all his forces to the city of Benivento, as a stronghold, in order that he might give battle on his own ground, and to the end he might withdraw towards Apulia if need were, and also to oppose the passage of King Charles, forasmuch as by no other way could he enter into the Principality and into Naples, or pass into Apulia save by the way of Benivento; and thus it was done. King Charles, hearing of the going of Manfred to Benivento, immediately departed from San Germano, to pursue him with his host; and he did not take the direct way of Capua, and by Terra di Lavoro, inasmuch as they could not have passed the bridge of Capua by reason of the strength of the towers of the bridge over the river, and the width of the river. But he determined to cross the river Volturno near Tuliverno, where it may be forded, whence he held on by the country of Alifi, and by the rough mountain paths of Beniventana, and without halting, and in great straits for money and victual, he arrived at the hour of noon at the foot of Benivento in the valley over against the city, distant by the space of two miles from the bank of the river Calore which flows at the foot of Benivento. King Manfred seeing the host of King Charles appear, having taken counsel, determined to fight and to sally forth to the field with his mounted troops, to attack the army of King Charles before they should be rested; but in this he did ill, for had he tarried one or two days, King Charles and his host would have perished or been captive without stroke of sword, through lack of provisions for them and for their horses; for the day before they arrived at the foot of Benivento, through want of victual, many of the troops had to feed on cabbages, and their horses on the stalks, without any other bread, or grain for the horses; and they had no more money to spend. Also the people and forces of King Manfred were much dispersed, for M. Conrad of Antioch was in Abruzzi with a following, Count Frederick was in Calabria, the count of Ventimiglia was in Sicily; so that, if he had tarried a while, his forces would have increased; but to whom God intends ill, him He deprives of wisdom. Manfred having sallied forth from Benivento with his followers, passed over the bridge which crosses the said river of Calore into the plain which is called S. Maria della Grandella, to a place called the Pietra a Roseto; here he formed three lines of battle or troops, the first was of Germans, in whom he had much confidence, who numbered fully 1,200 horse, of whom Count Calvagno was the captain; the second was of Tuscans and Lombards, and also of Germans, to the number of 1,000 horse, which was led by Count Giordano; the third, which Manfred led, was of Apulians with the Saracens of Nocera, which was of 1,400 horse, without the foot soldiers and the Saracen bowmen which were in great numbers. § 8.--_How King Charles arrayed his troops to fight against King Manfred._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xvi. 34-39.] King Charles, seeing Manfred and his troops in the open field, and ranged for combat, took counsel whether he should offer battle on that day or should delay it. The most of his barons counselled him to abide till the coming morning, to repose the horses from the fatigue of the hard travel, and M. Giles le Brun, constable of France, said the contrary, and that by reason of delay the enemy would pluck up heart and courage, and that the means of living might fail them utterly, and that if others of the host did not desire to give battle, he alone, with his lord Robert of Flanders and with his followers, would adventure the chances of the combat, having confidence in God that they should win the victory against the enemies of Holy Church. Seeing this, King Charles gave heed to and accepted his counsel, and through the great desire which he had for the combat, he said with a loud voice to his knights, "Venu est le jour que nous avons tant desiré," and he caused the trumpets to be sounded, and commanded that every man should arm and prepare himself to go forth to battle; and thus in a little time it was done. And he ordered, after the fashion of his enemies, over against them, three principal bands: the first band was of Frenchmen to the number of 1,000 horse, whereof were captains Philip of Montfort and the marshal of Mirapoix; of the second King Charles with Count Guy of Montfort, and with many of his barons and of the queen's knights, and with barons and knights of Provence, and Romans, and of the Campagna, which were about 900 horse; and the royal banners were borne by William, the standard-bearer, a man of great valour; the third was led by Robert, count of Flanders, with his Prefect of the camp, Marshal Giles of France, with Flemings, and men of Brabant, and of Aisne, and Picards, to the number of 700 horse. And besides these troops were the Guelf refugees from Florence, with all the Italians, and they were more than 400 horse, whereof many of the greater houses in Florence received knighthood from the hand of King Charles upon the commencement of the battle; and of these Guelfs of Florence and of Tuscany Guido Guerra was captain, and their banner was borne in that battle by Conrad of Montemagno of Pistoia. And King Manfred seeing the bands formed, asked what folk were in the fourth band, which made a goodly show in arms and in horses and in ornaments and accoutrements: answer was made him that they were the Guelf refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany. Then did Manfred grieve, saying: "Where is the help that I receive from the Ghibelline party whom I have served so well, and on whom I have expended so much treasure?" And he said: "Those people (that is, the band of Guelfs) cannot lose to-day"; and that was as much as to say that if he gained the victory he would be the friend of the Florentine Guelfs, seeing them to be so faithful to their leader and to their party, and the foe of the Ghibellines. § 9.--_Concerning the battle between King Charles and King Manfred, and how King Manfred was discomfited and slain._ [Sidenote: 1265 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxviii. 16.] [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 118, 119.] [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 124-132.] The troops of the two kings being set in order on the plain of Grandella, after the aforesaid fashion, and each one of the said leaders having admonished his people to do well, and King Charles having given to his followers the cry, "Ho Knights, Monjoie!" and King Manfred to his, "Ho, Knights, for Suabia!" the bishop of Alzurro as papal legate absolved and blessed all the host of King Charles, remitting sin and penalty, forasmuch as they were fighting in the service of Holy Church. And this done, there began the fierce battle between the two first troops of the Germans and of the French, and the assault of the Germans was so strong that they evilly entreated the French troop, and forced them to give much ground and they themselves took ground. The good King Charles seeing his followers so ill-bestead, did not keep to the order of the battle to defend himself with the second troop, considering that if the first troop of the French, in which he had full confidence, were routed, little hope of safety was there from the others; but immediately with his troop he went to succour the French troop, against that of the Germans, and when the Florentine refugees and their troop beheld King Charles strike into the battle, they followed boldly, and performed marvellous feats of arms that day, always following the person of King Charles; and the same did the good Giles le Brun, constable of France, with Robert of Flanders and his troop; and on the other side Count Giordano fought with his troop, wherefore the battle was fierce and hard, and endured for a long space, no one knowing who was getting the advantage, because the Germans by their valour and strength, smiting with their swords, did much hurt to the French. But suddenly there arose a great cry among the French troops, whosoever it was who began it, saying: "To your daggers! To your daggers! Strike at the horses!" And this was done, by the which thing in a short time the Germans were evilly entreated and much beaten down, and well-nigh turned to flight. King Manfred, who with his troop of Apulians remained ready to succour the host, beholding his followers not able to abide the conflict, exhorted the people of his troop that they should follow him into the battle, but they gave little heed to his word, for the greater part of the barons of Apulia and of the Kingdom, among others the Count Chamberlain, and him of Acerra and him of Caserta, and others, either through cowardice of heart, or seeing that they were coming by the worse, and there are those who say through treachery, as faithless folk, and desirous of a new lord, failed Manfred, abandoning him and fleeing, some towards Abruzzi and some towards the city of Benivento. Manfred, being left with few followers, did as a valiant lord, who would rather die in battle as king than flee with shame; and whilst he was putting on his helmet, a silver eagle which he wore as crest fell down before him on his saddle bow; and he seeing this, was much dismayed, and said to the barons, which were beside him, in Latin: "_Hoc est signum Dei_, for I fastened this crest with my own hand after such a fashion that it should not have been possible for it to fall"; yet for all this he did not give up, but as a valiant lord he took heart, and immediately entered into the battle, without the royal insignia, so as not to be recognised as king, but like any other noble, striking bravely into the thickest of the fight; nevertheless, his followers endured but a little while, for they were already turning; and straightway they were routed and King Manfred slain in the midst of his enemies, it was said by a French esquire, but it was not known for certain. In that battle there was great mortality both on the one side and on the other, but much more among the followers of Manfred; and whilst they were fleeing from the field towards Benivento, they were pursued by the army of King Charles, which followed them as far as the city (for night was already falling), and took the city of Benivento and those who were fleeing. Many chief barons of King Manfred were taken; among the others were taken Count Giordano, and Messer Piero Asino degli Uberti; which two King Charles sent captive to Provence, and there he caused them to die a cruel death in prison. The other Apulian and German barons he kept in prison in divers places in the Kingdom; and a few days after, the wife of the said Manfred, and his children and his sister, who were in Nocera of the Saracens in Apulia, were delivered as prisoners to King Charles, and they afterwards died in his prison. And without doubt there came upon Manfred and his heirs the malediction of God, and right clearly was shown the judgment of God upon him because he was excommunicated, and the enemy and persecutor of Holy Church. At his end, search was made for Manfred for more than three days, and he could not be found, and it was not known if he was slain, or taken, or escaped, because he had not borne royal insignia in the battle; at last he was recognised by one of his own camp-followers by sundry marks on his person, in the midst of the battle-field; and his body being found by the said camp-follower, he threw it across an ass he had and went his way crying, "Who buys Manfred? Who buys Manfred?" And one of the king's barons chastised this fellow and brought the body of Manfred before the king, who caused all the barons which had been taken prisoners to come together, and having asked each one if it was Manfred, they all timidly said Yes. When Count Giordano came, he smote his hands against his face, weeping and crying: "Alas, alas, my lord," wherefor he was commended by the French; and some of the barons prayed the king that he would give Manfred the honour of sepulture; but the king made answer: "_Je le fairois volontiers, s'il ne fût excommunié_"; but forasmuch as he was excommunicated, King Charles would not have him laid in a holy place; but at the foot of the bridge of Benivento he was buried, and upon his grave each one of the host threw a stone; whence there arose a great heap of stones. But by some it was said that afterwards, by command of the Pope, the bishop of Cosenza had him taken from that sepulchre, and sent him forth from the Kingdom which was Church land, and he was buried beside the river of Verde [Garigliano], on the borders of the Kingdom and Campagna; this, however, we do not affirm. This battle and defeat was on a Friday, the last day of February, in the year of Christ 1265. [Sidenote: 1266 A.D.] § 10.--_How King Charles had the lordship of the Kingdom and of Sicily, and how Don Henry of Spain came to him._ § 11.--_How the Saracens of Berber passed into Spain, and how they were there routed._ § 12.--_How the Florentine Ghibellines laid siege to Castelnuovo in Valdarno, and how they departed thence worsted._ § 13.--_How the Thirty-six were established in Florence, and how the Guilds of Arts were formed and standards given thereto._ [Sidenote: 1266 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxiii. 103-108.] When the news came to Florence and to Tuscany of the discomfiture of Manfred, the Ghibellines and the Germans began to be discouraged and to fear in all places; and the Guelf refugees from Florence, which were in rebellion, and those who were under bounds in the territory, and in many places, began to be strengthened and to take heart and courage, and coming nearer to the city, plotted changes and mutations within the city, by compacts with their friends within, which had understanding with them, and they came as far as to the Servi of S. Maria to take counsel, having hope from their people which had been at the victory with King Charles, from whom with his French folk they were expecting aid; wherefore the people of Florence, which were at heart more Guelf than Ghibelline, through the losses they had received, one of his father, another of his son, a third of his brothers, at the defeat of Montaperti, likewise began to take courage, and to murmur and to talk through the city, complaining of the spendings and the outrageous burdens which they endured from Count Guido Novello, and from the others which were ruling the city; whence those which were ruling the city of Florence for the Ghibelline party, hearing in the city the said tumult and murmuring, and fearing lest the people should rebel against them, by a sort of half measure, and to content the people, chose two knights of the Jovial Friars of Bologna as Podestàs of Florence, of which one was named M. Catalano of the Malavolti, and the other M. Roderigo of Landolo, one held to be of the party of the Guelfs, to wit, M. Catalano, and the other of the party of the Ghibellines. And note that Jovial Friars was the name of the Knights of S. Mary, and they became knights when they took that habit, for they wore a white gown and a grey mantle; and for arms, a white field with a red cross and two stars; and they were bound to defend widows, and children under ward, and to be peace makers; and other ordinances they had, as religious persons. And the said M. Roderigo was the beginner of this Order; but it endured but a short while, for the fact followed the name, to wit, they gave themselves more to joviality than to aught else. These two friars were brought thither by the people of Florence, and they put them in the People's Palace over against the Badia, believing that by virtue of their habit they would be impartial, and would guard the commonwealth from extravagant spendings; the which, albeit in heart they were of diverse parties, under cover of false hypocrisy were at one, more for their own gain than for the public weal; and they ordained thirty-six good men, merchants and artificers of the greatest and best which there were in the city, the which were to give counsel to the said two Podestàs, and were to provide for the spendings of the commonwealth; and of this number were both Guelfs and Ghibellines, popolani and magnates which were to be trusted, which had remained in Florence at the banishment of the Guelfs. And the said thirty-six met together every day to take counsel as to the common well-being of the city, in the shop and court of the consuls of Calimala, which was at the foot of the house of the Cavalcanti in the Mercato Nuovo; the which made many good ordinances for the common weal of the city, among which they decreed that each one of the seven principal Arts in Florence should have a college of consuls, and each should have its ensign and standard, to the intent that, if any one in the city rose with force of arms, they might under their ensigns stand for the defence of the people and of the commonwealth. And the ensigns of the seven greater Arts were these: the judges and notaries, an azure field charged with a large golden star; the merchants of Calimala, to wit, of French cloths, a red field with a golden eagle on a white globe; money changers, a red field sewn with golden florins; wool merchants, a red field charged with a white sheep; physicians and apothecaries, a red field, thereupon S. Mary with her son Christ in her arms; silk merchants and mercers, a white field charged with a red gate, from the title of Porta Sante Marie; furriers, arms vair, and in one corner an Agnus Dei upon an azure field. The next five, following upon the greater arts, were regulated afterwards when the office of Priors of the Arts was created, as in time hereafter we shall make mention; and they had assigned to them after a similar fashion to the seven Arts, standards and arms: to wit, the Baldrigari (that is, retail merchants of Florentine cloths, of stockings, of linen cloths, and hucksters), white and red standard; butchers, a yellow field with a black goat; shoemakers, the transverse stripes, white and black, known as the pezza gagliarda [gallant piece]; workers in stone and in timber, a red field charged with the saw, and the axe, and the hatchet, and the pick-axe; smiths and iron workers, a white field charged with large black pincers. § 14.--_How the second Popolo rose in Florence, for the which cause Count Guido Novello, with the Ghibelline leaders, left Florence._ [Sidenote: 1266 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 121.] By reason of the said doings in Florence by the said two Podestàs and the Thirty-six, the Ghibelline magnates in Florence, such as the Uberti, the Fifanti, and Lamberti, and Scolari, and the others of the great Ghibelline houses, began to have their factious fears raised, for it seemed to them that the said Thirty-six supported and favoured the Guelf popolani which had remained in Florence, and that every change was against their party. Through this jealousy, and because of the news of the victory of King Charles, Count Guido Novello sent for help to all the neighbouring allies, such as were the Pisans, Sienese, Aretines, Pistoians, and them of Prato, of Volterra, Colle, and Sangimignano, so that with 600 Germans which he had, his horsemen in Florence numbered 1,500. It came to pass that in order to pay the German troops, which were with Count Guido Novello, captain of the league, he required that an impost of 10 per cent. should be levied; and the said Thirty-six sought some other method of finding the money, less burdensome to the people. For this cause, when they delayed some days longer than appeared fitting to the Count and to the other great Ghibellines of Florence, by reason of the suspicion which they felt concerning the ordinances made by the Popolo, the said nobles determined to put the town in an uproar, and destroy the office of the said Thirty-six, with the help of the great body of horse which the vicar had in Florence; and when they were armed, the first that began were the Lamberti, which with their armed troops sallied forth from their houses in Calimala, saying, "Where are these thieving Thirty-six, that we may cut them all in pieces?" which Thirty-six were then taking counsel together in the shop where the consuls of Calimala administered justice, under the house of the Cavalcanti in the Mercato Nuovo. When the Thirty-six heard this they broke up the council, and straightway the town rose in uproar, and the shops were closed, and every man flew to arms. The people all gathered in the wide street of Santa Trinita, and Messer Gianni de' Soldanieri made himself head of the people to the end he might rise in estate, not considering the end, that it must bring about loss to the Ghibelline party, and damage to himself, which seems always to have happened in Florence to whomsoever becomes head of the people; and thus armed, at the foot of the house of the Soldanieri, the popolani gathered in very great numbers and put up barricades at the foot of the tower of the Girolami. Count Guido Novello, with all the horsemen and with the Ghibelline magnates of Florence, was in arms and mounted in the piazza of S. Giovanni; and they advanced against the people, and drew up before the barricade on the ruins of the houses of the Tornaquinci, and made some show and attempt at fighting, and some mounted Germans passed within the barricade; the people defended it boldly with crossbows and by hurling missiles from the towers and houses. When the Count saw that they could not dislodge the people, he reversed the banners and returned with all the horsemen to the piazza of S. Giovanni, and then came to the palace on the piazza of S. Apollinari, where were the two Podestàs, M. Catalano and M. Roderigo, the Jovial Friars; the horsemen meanwhile having command of the city from Porte San Piero as far as San Firenze. The Count demanded the keys of the gates of the city to depart from the town; and for fear missiles should be hurled at him from the houses, he had for his safety on one side of him Uberto de' Pucci, and on the other Cerchio dei Cerchi, and behind him Guidingo Savorigi, which were of the said Thirty-six, and among the greatest in the town. The said two friars were crying from the palace, demanding with loud voices that the said Uberto and Cerchio should come to them, to the end they might pray the Count to return to his house and not depart; and they themselves would quiet the people, and see that the soldiers were paid. The Count being in greater suspicion and fear of the people than was called for, would not wait, but would only have the keys of the gate; and this showed that it was more the work of God than any other cause; for that great and puissant body of horse had not been opposed nor driven out, nor dismissed, nor was there any force of enemies against them; for albeit the people were armed and gathered together, this was more from fear than to oppose the Count and his horsemen, and they would soon have been quieted, and have returned to their houses, and laid down their arms. But when the judgment of God is ripe, the occasion is ever at hand. When the Count had gotten the keys, during a great silence, he caused a cry to be made whether all the Germans were there; he was told that they were. Then the same was asked concerning the Pisans, and likewise concerning all the cities of the league; and when he knew that all were there, he gave orders to his standard-bearer to advance with banners, and this was done; and they took the wide road of San Firenze, and behind San Pietro Scheraggio and San Romeo to the old Ox Gate, and when this was opened, the Count, with all his horsemen, sallied forth, and held on by the moats behind San Jacopo, and by the piazza of Santa Croce, where as yet there were no houses, and along the Borgo di Pinti; and there stones were cast upon them; and they turned by Cafaggio, and in the evening went to Prato; and this was on S. Martin's Day, the 11th day of November, in the year of Christ 1266. § 15.--_How the Popolo restored the Guelfs to Florence, and how they afterwards drave out the Ghibellines._ [Sidenote: 1266 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 58-69, 110, 111. Purg. xi. 97-99.] [Sidenote: Vita Nuova iii. 96-104; xxiv. 18, 19; xxv. 111-113; xxxi. 21-24; xxxiii. 2-4. Sonnet xxxiii. 1. De Vulg. El. i. 13: 36; ii. 6: 68, 69; ii. 12: 16, 17, 62, 63.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 51.] When Count Guido Novello, with all his horsemen and with many Ghibelline leaders of Florence, reached Prato, they perceived that they had done very foolishly in departing from the city of Florence, without stroke of sword and not driven thence, and they perceived that they had done ill, and took counsel to return to Florence the following morning; and this they did; and they came all armed and in battle array at the hour of tierce to the gate of the Carraia Bridge, where is now the borough of Ognissanti, but there were no houses then; and they demanded that the gate should be opened to them. The people of Florence were in arms, and for fear lest the Count, returning with his horsemen into Florence, might take vengeance upon them and devastate the city, agreed together not to open the gate, but to defend the city, which was very strong, with walls and with moats full of water around the second circle; and when they would have made a dash for the gate, they were shot at and wounded; and there they abode until after noon, and neither by persuasions nor by threats were they allowed to enter in. They returned to Prato gloomy and shamed, and as they were returning, being angry, they attacked the fortress of Capalle, but did not take it. And when they came to Prato they bitterly reproached each other; but after a thing ill-judged, and worse carried out, repentance is in vain. The Florentines which were left reorganized the town, and dismissed the said two Podestàs, the Jovial Friars of Bologna, and sent to Orvieto for aid in soldiers, and for a Podestà and Captain, which Orvietans sent 100 horsemen to guard the city, and M. Ormanno Monaldeschi was Podestà, and another gentleman of Orvieto was the Captain of the People. And by a treaty of peace, the following January the Popolo restored to Florence both Guelfs and Ghibellines, and caused many marriages and alliances to be made between them, among the which these were the chief: that M. Bonaccorso Bellincioni degli Adimari gave for wife to M. Forese, his son, the daughter of Count Guido Novello, and M. Bindo, his brother, took one of the Ubaldini; and M. Cavalcante, of the Cavalcanti, gave for wife to his son Guido the daughter of M. Farinata degli Uberti; and M. Simone Donati gave his daughter to M. Azzolino, son of M. Farinata degli Uberti; for the which alliances the other Guelfs of Florence distrusted their loyalty to the party; and for the said reason the said peace endured but a little while; for when the said Guelfs had returned to Florence, feeling themselves stronger and emboldened by the victory which they had gained over Manfred, with King Charles, they sent secretly into Apulia to the said King Charles for soldiers, and for a captain, and he sent Count Guy of Montfort, with 800 French horsemen, and he came to Florence on Easter Day of the Resurrection in the year of Christ 1267. And when the Ghibellines heard of his coming, the night before they departed from Florence without stroke of sword, and some went to Siena, and some to Pisa, and to other places. The Florentine Guelfs gave the lordship over the city to King Charles for ten years, and when they sent him their free and full election by solemn embassy, with authority over life and death and in lesser judgments, the king answered that he desired from the Florentines their love and good-will and no other jurisdiction; nevertheless, at the prayer of the commonwealth he accepted it simply, and sent thither year by year his vicars; and he appointed twelve good citizens to rule the city with the vicar. And it may be noted concerning this banishment of the Ghibellines, that it was on the same day, Easter Day of the Resurrection, whereon they had committed the murder of M. Bondelmonte de' Bondelmonti, whence the factions in Florence broke out, and the city was laid waste; and it seemed like a judgment from God, for never afterwards did they return to their estate. § 16.--_How, after the Ghibellines had been driven from Florence, the ordinances and councils of the city were reorganized._ [Sidenote: 1267 A.D.] When the Guelf party had returned to Florence, and the vicar or Podestà was come from King Charles (the first of them being M. . . .), and after twelve good men had been appointed, as of old the Ancients, to rule the republic, the council was re-made of 100 good men of the people, without whose deliberation no great thing or cost could be carried out; and after any measure had been passed in this council, it was put to the vote in the council of the colleges of consuls of the greater Arts, and the council of the credenza [privy council of the Captain of the People] of eighty. These councillors, which, when united with the general council, numbered 300, were all popolani and Guelfs. After measures had been passed in the said councils, the following day the same proposals were brought before the councils of the Podestà, first before the council of ninety, including both magnates and popolani (and with them associated yet again the colleges of consuls of the Arts), and then before the general council, which was of 300 men of every condition; and these were called the occasional councils; and they had in their gift governorships of fortresses, and dignities, and small and great offices. And this ordered, they appointed revisors, and corrected all statutes and ordinances, and ordered that they should be issued each year. In this manner was ordered the state and course of the commonwealth and of the people of Florence at the return of the Guelfs; and the chancellors of finance were the monks of Settimo and of Ognissanti on alternate half-years. § 17.--_How the Guelfs of Florence instituted the Ordinances of the Party._ [Sidenote: 1267 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 120.] In these times, when the Ghibellines had been driven out from Florence, the Guelfs which had returned thither being at strife concerning the goods of the Ghibelline rebels, sent their ambassadors to the court, to Pope Urban and to King Charles, to order their affairs, which Pope Urban and King Charles for their estate and peace ordered them in this manner, that the goods should be divided into three parts--one part to be given to the commonwealth, the second to be awarded in compensation to the Guelfs which had been ruined and exiled, the third to be awarded for a certain time to the "Guelf Party"; but afterwards all the said goods fell to the Party, whence they formed a fund, and increased it every day, as a reserve against the day of need of the Party; concerning which fund, when the Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini heard thereof, he said, "Since the Guelfs of Florence are funding a reserve, the Ghibellines will never return thither." And by the command of the Pope and the king, the said Guelfs made three knights heads of the Party, and called them at first consuls of the knights, and afterwards they called them Captains of the Party, and they held office for two months, the sesti electing them alternately, three and three; and they gathered to their councils in the new church of Santa Maria Sopra Porta, being the most central place in the city, and where there are most Guelf houses around; and their privy council consisted of fourteen, and their larger council of sixty magnates and popolani, by whose vote were elected the Captains of the Party and other officers. And they called three magnates and three popolani Priors of the Party, to whom were committed the order and care of the money of the Party; and also one to hold the seal, and a syndic to prosecute the Ghibellines. And all their secret documents they deposited in the church of the Servi Sancte Marie. After like manner the Ghibelline refugees made ordinances and captains. We have said enough of the Ordinances of the Party, and we will return to the general events, and to other things. § 18.--_How the soldan of the Saracens took Antioch._ § 19.--_How the Guelfs of Florence took the castle of Santellero, with many Ghibelline rebels._ § 20.--_How many cities and towns of Tuscany went over to the Guelf party._ § 21.--_How King Charles's marshal advanced upon Siena with the Florentines, and how the king came to Florence and took Poggibonizzi._ § 22.--_How King Charles with the Florentines marched upon the city of Pisa._ § 23.--_How the young Conradino, son of King Conrad, came from Germany into Italy against King Charles._ [Sidenote: 1267 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] King Charles being in Tuscany, the Ghibelline refugees from Florence formed themselves into a league and company with the Pisans and Sienese, and came to an agreement with Don Henry of Spain, which was Roman senator, and already at enmity with King Charles, his cousin. Therefore, with certain barons of Apulia and Sicily, he made oath and conspiracy to make certain towns in Sicily and in Apulia to rebel, and to send into Germany, and to stir up Conradino, which was the son of Conrad, the son of the Emperor Frederick, to cross into Italy to take away Sicily and the Kingdom from King Charles. And so it was done; for immediately in Apulia there rose in rebellion Nocera of the Saracens, and Aversa in Terra di Lavoro, and many places in Calabria, and almost all in Abruzzi, if we except Aquila, and in Sicily almost all, or a great part of the island of Sicily, if we except Messina and Palermo; and Don Henry caused Rome to rebel, and all Campagna and the country around; and the Pisans and the Sienese and the other Ghibelline cities sent of their money 100,000 golden florins to stir up the said Conradino, who being very young, sixteen years old, set forth from Germany, against his mother's will, who was daughter of the duke of Austria, and who was not willing for him to depart because of his youth. And he came to Verona in the month of February, in the year of Christ 1267, with many barons and good men-at-arms from Germany in his train; and it is said that there followed him as far as Verona nigh upon 10,000 men on horses or ponies, but through lack of means a great part returned to Germany, yet there remained of the best 3,500 German cavalry. And from Verona he passed through Lombardy, and by the way of Pavia he came to the coast of Genoa, and arrived beyond Saona at the shores of Varagine, and there put out to sea, and by means of the forces of the Genoese, with their fleet of twenty-five galleys, came by sea to Pisa, and arrived there in May in 1268, and by the Pisans and by all the Ghibellines of Italy was received with great honour, almost as if he had been Emperor. His cavalry came by land, crossing the mountains of Pontremoli, and arrived at Serrazzano, which was held by the Pisans, and then took the way of the seacoast with an escort as far as Pisa. King Charles, hearing how Conradino was come into Italy, and hearing of the rebellion of his cities in Sicily and Apulia, caused by the treacherous barons of the Kingdom (the most of whom he had released from prison), and by Don Henry of Spain, immediately departed from Tuscany, and by hasty marches came into Apulia, and left in Tuscany M. William di Belselve, his marshal, and with him M. William, the standard-bearer, with 800 French and Provençal horsemen to keep the cities of Tuscany for his party, and to oppose Conradino so that he should not be able to pass. And Pope Clement, hearing of the coming of Conradino, sent to him his messengers and legates, commanding him, under pain of excommunication, not to go forward, nor to oppose King Charles, the champion and vicar of Holy Church. But Conradino did not by reason of this abandon his enterprise, nor would he obey the commands of the Pope, forasmuch as he believed that his cause was just, and that the Kingdom and Sicily were his, and of his patrimony, and therefore he fell under sentence of excommunication from the Church, which he despised and cared little for; but being in Pisa, he collected money and people, and all the Ghibellines and whosoever belonged to the imperial party, gathered themselves to him, whence his force grew greatly. And being in Pisa, his host marched against the city of Lucca, which was held for the party of Holy Church, and within it were the marshal of King Charles with his people, and the legate of the Pope and of the Church, with the forces of the Florentines and of the other Guelfs of Tuscany, and with many who had taken the cross, and through proclamations and indulgences and pardons given by the Pope and by his legates, had come against Conradino; and he remained over against Lucca ten days with his host; and the two hosts met together to fight at Ponterotto, two miles distant from Lucca, but they did not fight, but each one shunned the battle, and they remained one on each side of the Guiscianella; so they returned, the one part to Pisa, and the other to Lucca. § 24.--_How the marshal of King Charles was defeated at Ponte a Valle by Conradino's army._ [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] Then Conradino departed with his followers from Pisa, and came to Poggibonizzi, and when the inhabitants thereof heard how Conradino was come to Pisa, they rebelled against King Charles and against the commonwealth of Florence, and sent the keys to Pisa to Conradino. And then from Poggibonizzi he went to Siena, and by the Sienese was received with great honour; and whilst he sojourned in Siena, the marshal of King Charles, which was called, as we have said, M. William di Belselve, with his people, departed from Florence on S. John's Day in June to go to Arezzo to hinder the movements of Conradino; and by the Florentines they were escorted and accompanied as far as Montevarchi; and they desired to accompany him till he should be nigh unto Arezzo, hearing that the journey was like to be disputed, and fearing an ambush in the region round about Arezzo. The said marshal, being beyond measure confident in his people, would have the Florentines accompany him no further, and in front of the cavalcade he set M. William, the standard-bearer, with 300 horsemen well armed and in readiness, and he passed on safe and sound. The marshal, with 500 of his horsemen, not on their guard nor keeping their ranks, and for the most part unarmed, prepared to advance, and when they came to the bridge at Valle which crosses the Arno nigh to Laterino, there sallied forth upon their rear an ambush of the followers of Conradino, which, hearing of the march of the said marshal, had departed from Siena under conduct of the Ubertini and other Ghibelline refugees from Florence; and being come to the said bridge, the French, not being prepared, and without much defence, were defeated and slain, and the greater part were taken, and those which fled towards Valdarno to the region round about Florence were taken and spoiled as if they had been enemies; and the said M. William, the marshal, and M. Amelio di Corbano, and many other barons and knights were taken and brought to Siena to Conradino, and this was the day after the Feast of S. John, the 25th day of the month of June, in the year of Christ 1268. At which defeat and capture the followers of King Charles and all those of the Guelf party were much dismayed, and Conradino and his people increased thereupon in great pride and courage, and held the French almost for naught. And this being heard in the Kingdom, many cities rebelled against King Charles. And at this time King Charles was at the siege of the city of Nocera of the Saracens in Apulia, which had rebelled, to the end that the others on the coast of Apulia, which were all subject to him, might not rebel against him. § 25.--_How Conradino entered into Rome, and afterwards with his host passed into the kingdom of Apulia._ [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] Conradino, having sojourned somewhat in Siena, departed to Rome, and by the Romans and by Don Henry, the senator, was received with great honour, as if he had been Emperor, and in Rome he gathered together people and money, and despoiled the treasures of S. Peter and the other churches of Rome to raise monies; and he had in Rome more than 5,000 horsemen, what with Germans and Italians, together with those of the senator, Don Henry, brother of the king of Spain, which had with him full 800 good Spanish horsemen. And Conradino, hearing that King Charles was with his host in Apulia at the city of Nocera, and that many of the cities and barons of the Kingdom had rebelled, and that others were suspected, it seemed to him a convenient time to enter into the Kingdom, and he departed from Rome the 10th day of August, in the year of Christ 1268, with the said Don Henry, and with his company and his barons, and with many Romans; and he did not take the way of Campagna, forasmuch as he knew that the pass of Cepperano was furnished and guarded; wherefore he did not desire to contest it, but took the way of the mountains between the Abruzzi and the Campagna by Valle di Celle, where there was no guard nor garrison; and without any hindrance he passed on and came into the plain of San Valentino in the country of Tagliacozzo. § 26.--_How the host of Conradino and that of King Charles met in battle at Tagliacozzo._ [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxviii. 17, 18.] King Charles, hearing how Conradino was departed from Rome with his followers to enter into the Kingdom, broke up his camp at Nocera, and with all his people came against Conradino by hasty marches, and at the city of Aquila in Abruzzi awaited his followers. And being at Aquila, he took counsel with the men of the city, exhorting them to be leal and true, and to make provision for the host; whereupon a wise and ancient inhabitant rose and said: "King Charles, take no further counsel, and do not avoid a little toil, to the end thou mayest have continual repose. Delay no longer, but go against the enemy, and let him not gain ground, and we will be leal and true to thee." The king, hearing such sage counsel, without any delay or further parley, departed by the road crossing the mountains, and came close to the host of Conradino in the place and plain of San Valentino, and there was nought between them save the river of . . . King Charles had of his people, between Frenchmen and Provençals and Italians, less than 3,000 cavaliers, and seeing that Conradino had many more people than he, he took the counsel of the good M. Alardo di Valleri, a French knight of great wisdom and prowess, which at that time had arrived in Apulia from over seas from the Holy Land, who said to King Charles, if he desired to be victorious it behoved him to use stratagems of war rather than force. King Charles, trusting much in the wisdom of the said M. Alardo, committed to him the entire direction of the host and of the battle, who drew up the king's followers in three troops, and of one he made captain M. Henry of Cosance, tall in person, and a good knight at arms; he was armed with royal insignia in place of the king's person, and led Provençals and Tuscans and Lombards, and men of the Campagna. The second troop was of Frenchmen, whereof were captains M. Jean de Cléry, and M. William, the standard-bearer; and he put the Provençals to guard the bridge over the said river, to the end the host of Conradino might not pass without the disadvantage of combat. King Charles, with the flower of his chivalry and barons, to the number of 800 cavaliers, he placed in ambush behind a little hill in a valley, and with King Charles there remained the said M. Alardo di Valleri, with M. William de Ville, and Arduino, prince of the Morea, a right valiant knight. Conradino, on the other side, formed his followers in three troops, one of Germans, whereof he was captain with the duke of Austria, and with many counts and barons; the second of Italians, whereof he made captain Count Calvagno, with certain Germans; the third was of Spaniards, whereof was captain Don Henry of Spain, their lord. In this array, one host over against the other, the rebel barons of the Kingdom guilefully, in order to cause dismay to King Charles and his followers, caused false ambassadors to come into the camp of Conradino, in full pomp, with keys in their hands, and with large presents, saying that they were sent from the commonwealth of Aquila to give him the keys and the lordship of the city, as his men and faithful subjects, to the end he might deliver them from the tyranny of King Charles. For which cause the host of Conradino and he himself, deeming it to be true, rejoiced greatly; and this being heard in the host of King Charles caused great dismay, forasmuch as they feared to lose the victual which came to them from that side, and also the aid of the men of Aquila. The king himself, hearing this, was seized with so great pangs that in the night season he set forth with a few of the host in his company, and came to Aquila that same night, and causing the guards at the gates to be asked for whom they held the city, they answered, For King Charles: who, having entered in without dismounting from his horse, having exhorted them to good watch, immediately returned to the host, and was there early in the morning: and because of the weariness of going and returning by night from Aquila, King Charles laid him down and slept. § 27.--_How Conradino and his people were defeated by King Charles._ [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxviii. 17, 18.] Now Conradino and his host were puffed up with the vain hope that Aquila had rebelled against King Charles, and therefore, all drawn up in battle array, they raised their battle cry, and made a vigorous rush to force the passages of the river and engage with King Charles. King Charles, albeit he was reposing, as we have said, hearing the din of the enemy, and how they were in arms and ready for battle, immediately caused his followers to arm and array themselves after the order and fashion whereof we before made mention. And the troop of the Provençals, which was led by M. Henry of Cosance, being at guard on the bridge to hinder the passing of Don Henry of Spain and his people, the Spaniards set themselves to ford the river, which was not very great, and began to enclose the troop of Provençals which were defending the bridge. Conradino and the rest of his host, seeing the Spaniards had crossed, began to pass the river, and with great fury assailed the followers of King Charles, and in a short time had routed and defeated the Provençal troop; and the said M. Henry of Cosance; and the standard of King Charles was beaten down, and M. Henry himself was slain. Don Henry and the Germans, believing they had got King Charles in person, inasmuch as he wore the royal insignia, all fell upon him at once. And the said Provençal troop being routed, they dealt in like fashion with the French and the Italian troop, which was led by M. Jean de Cléry and M. William, the standard-bearer, because the followers of Conradino were two to one against those of King Charles, and very fierce and violent in battle; and the followers of King Charles, seeing themselves thus sore bestead, took to flight, and abandoned the field. The Germans believed themselves victorious, not knowing of King Charles's ambush, and began to scatter themselves over the field, giving their minds to plunder and booty. King Charles was upon the little hill above the valley, where was his troop, with M. Alardo di Valleri, and with Count Guy of Montfort, beholding the battle; and when he saw his people thus routed, first one troop and then the other thus put to flight, he was deadly grieved, and longed even to put in motion his own troop to go to the succour of the others. M. Alardo, which was commander of the host, and wise in war, with great temperance and with wise words much restrained the king, saying that for God's sake he should suffer it a while, if he desired the honour of the victory, because he knew the cupidity of the Germans, and how greedy they were for booty; and he must let them break up more from their troops; and when he saw them well scattered, he said to the king: "Let the banners set forth, for now it is time;" and so it was done. And when the said troop sallied forth from the valley, neither Conradino nor his followers believed that they were enemies, but that they were of their own party; and they were not upon their guard; and the king, coming with his followers in close ranks, came straight to where was the troop of Conradino, with the chief among his barons, and there began fierce and violent combat, albeit it endured not long, seeing that the followers of Conradino were faint and weary with fighting, and had not near so many horsemen in battle array as those of the king, forasmuch as the greater part were wandering out of the ranks, some pursuing the enemy and some scattered over the field in search of booty and prisoners; and the troop of Conradino, by reason of the unexpected assault of the enemy, was continually diminishing, and that of King Charles continually increasing, because his first troops, which had been put to flight through the first defeat, recognising the royal standard, joined on to his company, insomuch that in a little while Conradino and his followers were discomfited. And when Conradino perceived that the fortunes of war were against him, by the counsel of his greater barons he took to flight, together with the duke of Austria, and Count Calvagno, and Count Gualferano, and Count Gherardo da Pisa, and many more. M. Alardo di Valleri, seeing the enemy put to flight, cried aloud, praying and entreating the king and the captains of the troop not to set forth either in pursuit of the enemy or other prey, fearing lest the followers of Conradino should gather together, or should sally forth from some ambush, but to abide firm and in order on the field; and so was it done. And this was very fortunate, for Don Henry, with his Spaniards, and other Germans, which had pursued into a valley the Provençals and Italians whom they had first discomfited, and which had not seen King Charles offer battle nor the discomfiture of Conradino, had now gathered his men together, and was returning to the field; and seeing King Charles' troop, he believed them to be Conradino and his following, so that he came down from the hill where he had assembled his men, to come to his allies; and when he drew nigh unto them, he recognised the standards of the enemy, and how much deceived he had been; and he was sore dismayed; but, like the valiant lord he was, he rallied and closed up his troop after such a fashion that King Charles and his followers, which were spent by the toils of the combat, did not venture to strike into Don Henry's troop, and to the end they might not risk the game already won, they abode in array over against one another a good space. The good M. Alardo, seeing this, said to the king that they must needs make the enemy break their ranks in order to rout them; whereon the king bade him act after his mind. Then he took of the best barons of the king's troop from twenty to thirty, and they set forth from the troop, as though they fled for fear, as he had instructed them. The Spaniards, seeing how the standard-bearers of sundry of these lords were wheeling round as though in act to flee, with vain hope began to cry: "They are put to flight," and began to leave their own ranks, desiring to pursue them. King Charles, seeing gaps and openings in the troop of Spaniards, and others on the German side, began boldly to strike among them, and M. Alardo with his men wisely gathered themselves together and returned to the troop. Then was the battle fierce and hard; but the Spaniards were well armed, and by stroke of sword might not be struck to the ground, and continually after their fashion they drew close together. Then began the French to cry out wrathfully, and to take hold of them by the arms and drag them from their horses after the manner of tournaments; and this was done to such good purpose that in a short time they were routed, and defeated, and put to flight, and many of them lay dead on the field. Don Henry, with many of his followers, fled to Monte Cascino, and said that King Charles was defeated. The abbot, which was lord of those lands, knew Don Henry, and judging by divers signs that they were fugitives, caused him and great part of his people to be seized. King Charles, with all his followers, remained upon the field, armed and on horseback, until the night, to the end he might gather together his men, and to be sure of full victory over the enemy; and this defeat was on the vigil of S. Bartholomew, on the 23rd day of August, in the year of Christ 1268. And in that place King Charles afterwards caused a rich abbey to be built for the souls of his men which had been slain; which is called S. Mary of the Victory, in the plain of Tagliacozzo. § 28.--_Of the vision that came to Pope Clement concerning the discomfiture of Conradino._ § 29.--_How Conradino and certain of his barons were taken by King Charles, and how he caused their heads to be cut off._ [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 68.] Conradino, with the duke of Austria and with many others, which were fled from the field with him, arrived at the beach towards Rome upon the seashore hard by a place which is called Asturi, which pertained to the Infragnipani, noblemen of Rome; and when they were come thither, they had a pinnace furnished to pass into Sicily, hoping to escape from King Charles; and in Sicily, which had almost all rebelled against the king, to recover state and lordship. They having already embarked unrecognised on the said vessel, one of the said Infragnipani which was in Asturi, seeing that they were in great part Germans, and fine men and of noble aspect, and knowing of the defeat, was minded to gain riches for himself, and therefore he took the said lords prisoners; and having learnt of their conditions, and how Conradino was among them, he led them captive to King Charles, for which cause the king gave him land and lordship at Pilosa, between Naples and Benivento. And when the king had Conradino and those lords in his hands, he took counsel what he should do. At last he was minded to put them to death, and he caused by way of process an inquisition to be made against them, as against traitors to the Crown and enemies of Holy Church, and this was carried out; for on the . . . day were beheaded Conradino, and the duke of Austria, and Count Calvagno, and Count Gualferano, and Count Bartolommeo and two of his sons, and Count Gherardo of the counts of Doneratico of Pisa, on the market place at Naples, beside the stream of water which runs over against the church of the Carmelite friars; and the king would not suffer them to be buried in a sacred place, but under the sand of the market place, forasmuch as they were excommunicate. And thus with Conradino ended the line of the house of Suabia, which was so powerful both in emperors and in kings, as before we have made mention. But certainly we may see, both by reason and by experience, that whosoever rises against Holy Church, and is excommunicate, his end must needs be evil for soul and for body; and therefore the sentence of excommunication of Holy Church, just or unjust, is always to be feared, for very open miracles have come to pass confirming this, as whoso will may read in ancient chronicles; as also by this present chronicle it may be seen with regard to the emperors and lords of past times, which were rebels and persecutors of Holy Church. Yet because of the said judgment King Charles was much blamed by the Pope and by his cardinals, and by all wise men, forasmuch as he had taken Conradino and his followers by chance of battle, and not by treachery, and it would have been better to keep him prisoner than to put him to death. And some said that the Pope assented thereto; but we do not give faith to this, forasmuch as he was held to be a holy man. And it seems that by reason of Conradino's innocence, which was of such tender age to be adjudged to death, God showed forth a miracle against King Charles, for not many years after God sent him great adversities when he thought himself to be in highest state, as hereafter in his history we shall make mention. To the judge which condemned Conradino, Robert, son of the count of Flanders, the king's son-in-law, when he had read the condemnation, gave a sword-thrust, saying that it was not lawful for him to sentence to death so great and noble a man, from which blow the judge died; and it was in the king's presence, and there was never a word said thereof, forasmuch as Robert was very high in the favour of the king, and it seemed to the king and to all the barons that he had acted like a worthy lord. Now Don Henry of Spain was likewise in the king's prison, but forasmuch as he was his cousin by blood, and because the abbot of Monte Cascino, which had brought him prisoner to the king, to the end he might not break his rule, had made a compact with him that he should not be put to death, the king would not condemn him to death, but to perpetual imprisonment, and sent him prisoner to the fortress in the hill Sanctæ Mariæ in Apulia; and many other barons of Apulia and of Abruzzi, which had opposed King Charles and been rebellious against him, he put to death with divers torments. [Sidenote: 1268 A.D.] § 30.--_How King Charles recovered all the lands in Sicily and in Apulia which had rebelled against him._ § 31.--_How the Florentines defeated the Sienese at the foot of Colle di Valdelsa._ [Sidenote: 1269 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xiii. 115-119.] [Sidenote: Purg. xi. 109-114, 120-123.] In the year of Christ 1269, in the month of June, the Sienese, whereof M. Provenzano Salvani, of Siena, was governor, with Count Guido Novello, with the German and Spanish troops, and with the Ghibelline refugees from Florence and from the other cities of Tuscany, and with the forces of the Pisans, to the number of 1,400 horse and 8,000 foot, marched upon the stronghold of Colle di Valdelsa, which was under the lordship of the Florentines; and this they did because the Florentines had come in May with an army to destroy Poggibonizzi. And when they had encamped at the abbey of Spugnole, and the news was come to Florence on Friday evening, on Saturday morning M. Giambertaldo, vicar of King Charles for the league of Tuscany, departed from Florence with his troops which he then had with him in Florence to wit 400 French horse; and sounding the bell, and being followed by the Guelfs of Florence on horse and on foot, he came with his cavalry to Colle on Sunday evening, and there were about 800 horsemen or less with but few of the people, forasmuch as they could not reach Colle so speedily as the horsemen. It came to pass that on the following Monday morning, the day of S. Barnabas, in June, the Sienese, hearing that the horsemen had come from Florence, broke up their camp near the said abbey and withdrew to a safer place. M. Giambertaldo, seeing the camp in motion, without awaiting more men passed the bridge with his horse and marshalled his troops with the cavalry of Florence and such of the people as had arrived together with them of Colle (who by reason of the sudden coming of the Florentines were not duly arrayed either with captains of the host or with the standard of the commonwealth); and M. Giambertaldo took the standard of the commonwealth of Florence and requested of the horsemen of Florence, amongst whom were representatives of all the Guelf houses, that one of them should take it; but none advanced to take it, whether through cowardice or through jealousy, one of the other; and after they had been a long time in suspense, M. Aldobrandini, of the house of Pazzi, boldly stepped forward and said: "I take it to the honour of God and of the victory of our commonwealth;" wherefore he was much commended for his boldness; and straightway he advanced, and all the horsemen followed him, and struck boldly into the ranks of the Sienese; and albeit it was not held to be very wise and prudent leadership, yet as it pleased God these bold and courageous folk with good success broke up and defeated the Sienese and their allies, which numbered well-nigh twice as many horse and a great number of foot, whereof many were slain and taken; and if on the Florentine side the foot had arrived and had been at the battle, scarce one of the Sienese would have escaped. Count Guido Novello fled, and M. Provenzano Salvani, lord and commander of the host of the Sienese, was taken prisoner; and they cut off his head and carried it through all the camp fixed on a lance. And truly thus was fulfilled the prophecy and revelation made to him by the devil by means of incantation, though he did not understand it; for having invoked him to learn how he would fare in that expedition, he made a lying answer and said, "Thou wilt go and fight; thou goest to conquer not to die in the battle, and thy head shall be the highest in the field;" and he, thinking to have the victory from these words, and thinking he would remain lord over all, did not put the stop in the right place and detect the fraud, where he said, "Thou goest to conquer not, to die," etc. And therefore it is great folly to believe in such counsel as is that of the devil. This M. Provenzano was a great man in Siena in his day after the victory which he gained at Montaperti, and he ruled all the city; and all the Ghibelline party in Tuscany made him their head, and he was very presumptuous in will. In this battle the said M. Giambertaldo bore himself like a valiant lord in fighting against his enemies, and likewise did his followers and all the Guelfs of Florence, making great slaughter of their enemies to avenge their kinsfolk and friends which were slain at the defeat of Montaperti; and none, or scarce any, did they lead to prison, but put them all to death and to the sword; wherefore the city of Siena, in comparison with the number of its inhabitants, suffered greater loss of its citizens in this defeat than Florence did on the day of Montaperti; and they left on the field all their belongings. For the which thing a little while after, the Florentines restored the Guelf refugees to Siena and drave out the Ghibellines and made peace between one commonwealth and the other, remaining ever after friends and allies. And in this manner ended the war between the Florentines and the Sienese which had endured so long. [Sidenote: 1269 A.D.] § 32.--_How the Florentines took the castle of Ostina in Valdarno._ § 33.--_How the Florentines, serving for the Lucchese, marched upon Pisa._ § 34.--_How there was a great flood of waters which carried away the Santa Trinita Bridge and the Carraia Bridge._ [Sidenote: 1269 A.D.] In the said year 1269, on the night of the first of October, there was so great a flood of rain and waters from heaven, raining down continually for two nights and one day, that all the rivers of Italy increased more than had ever been known before; and the river of Arno overflowed its borders so beyond measure that a great part of the city of Florence became a lake, and this was by reason of much wood which the rivers brought down, which was caught and lay across at the foot of the Santa Trinita Bridge in such wise, that the water of the river was so stopped up that it spread through the city, whence many persons were drowned and many houses ruined. At last so great was the force of the river that it tore down the said bridge of Santa Trinita, and again by the disgorging thereof the rush of the water and of the timber struck and destroyed the Carraia Bridge; and when they were destroyed and cast down the height of the river, which had been kept up by the said retention and damming of the river, went down, and the fulness of the water ceased which had spread through the city. § 35.--_How certain rebel nobles in Florence were beheaded._ § 36.--_How the Florentines took the stronghold of Piandimezzo in Valdarno, and how they destroyed Poggibonizzi._ § 37.--_-How King Louis of France made an expedition to Tunis, wherein he died._ [Sidenote: 1270 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1270 the good King Louis of France, which was a most Christian man, and of good life and works, not only as becomes a man of the world, being king over so great a realm and dominion, but also as becomes a man of religion, ever working for the good of Holy Church and of Christianity, not fearing the great toil and cost which he endured in the expedition over seas when he and his brothers were taken prisoners at Monsura by the Saracens, as we made mention before; set his heart, as it pleased God, on going once more against the Saracens and the enemies of the Christians; and this he carried out with great zeal and preparation, taking the cross and gathering treasure, and calling upon all his barons and knights and good men of his realm. And this done, he set forth from Paris and came into Provence, and from there with a great fleet he set sail from his port of Aigues Mortes in Provence with his three sons, Philip and John and Louis, and with the king of Navarre, his son-in-law, and with all his chief men, counts and dukes and barons of the realm of France, and his friends from without the realm. And on his expedition there afterwards followed him Edward, son of the king of England, with many Englishmen and Scots and Frisians and Germans, more than 5,000 horse; the which army and crusade was an almost innumerable company on horse and on foot, and were reckoned 200,000 fighting men. And believing it to be the better course they determined to go against the kingdom of Tunis, thinking that if it could be taken by the Christians they would be in a very central place whence they could more easily afterwards take the kingdom of Egypt, and could cut off and wholly impede the force of the Saracens in the realm of Ceuta, and also that of Granada. And the said host with their fleet passed over safe and sound and came to the port of the ancient city of Carthage, which is distant from Tunis fifteen miles; the which Carthage, whereof some part had been rebuilt and fortified by the Saracens in defence of the port, was very soon stormed by the Christians. And when the Christians would have entered into the city of Tunis, as it pleased God, by reason of the sins of the Christians, the air of those shores began to be greatly corrupted, and above all in the camp of the Christians, by reason that they were not accustomed to the air, and by reason of their hardships and the excessive crowding of men and of animals, for the which thing there died first John, son of the said King Louis, and then the cardinal of Albano, which was there for the Pope, and afterwards there fell sick and died the said good King Louis with a very great number of counts and of barons; and an innumerable company of the common folk died there. Wherefore Christendom suffered very great loss, and the said host was well-nigh all dispersed, and came well-nigh to naught without stroke of the enemy. And albeit the said King Louis had not had good success in his enterprises against the Saracens, yet in his death he had good success for his soul; and the king of Navarre, which was there present, wrote in his letters to the cardinal of Tusculum that in his infirmity he did not cease to praise God, continually saying this prayer: "Cause us, Lord, to hate the prosperity of the world, and to fear no adversity." Then he prayed for the people which he had brought with him, saying, "Lord, be Thou the Sanctifier and Guardian of Thy people," and the other words which follow in the said prayer. And at last, when he came to die, he lift up his eyes to heaven and said: "Introibo in domum tuam, adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo" [see Ps. v. 7]. And this said he died in Christ. And when his host heard of his death they were greatly troubled, and the Saracens greatly rejoiced; but in this sorrow Philip, his son, was made king of France, and King Charles, brother of the said King Louis, which had sent for him before he died, came from Sicily and arrived in Carthage with a great fleet and with many followers and reinforcements, whence the Christian host regained great vigour, and the Saracens were afraid. And albeit the Saracen host was increased by an innumerable company, for from every place the Arabs were come to succour them, and there were many more of them than of the Christians, yet they never dared to come to a pitched battle with the Christians; but they came with ambushes and with artifices, and did them much hurt; and this was one among others, that the said country is very sandy, and when it is dry there is very much dust; wherefore the Saracens, when the wind was blowing against the Christian host, stationed themselves in great numbers upon the hills where was the said sand, and stirring it up with their horses and with their feet, set it all in motion, and caused much annoyance and vexation to the host; but when water rained down from heaven the said plague ceased, and King Charles with the Christians, having prepared engines of divers fashions both for sea and land, set himself to attack the city of Tunis; and of a truth it is said, if they had gone on, in a short time they would have taken the city by force, or the king of Tunis with his Turks and Arabs would have abandoned it. § 38.--_How King Charles concluded a treaty with the king of Tunis, and how the host departed._ [Sidenote: 1270 A.D.] The king of Tunis with his Saracens seeing themselves in evil case, and fearing to lose the city and the country round about, sought to make peace with King Charles and with the other lords by free and liberal covenants, to which peace King Charles consented and concluded it in the following manner: first, that all the Christians which were prisoners in Tunis, or in all that realm, should be freed, and that monasteries and churches might be built by the Christians, and therein the sacred office might be celebrated; and that the gospel of Christ might be freely preached by the minor friars and the preaching friars and by other ecclesiastical persons; and whatsoever Saracen should desire to be baptized, and turn to the faith of Christ, might freely be allowed so to do; and all the expenses which the said kings had incurred were to be fully restored to them; and beyond that the king of Tunis was to pay tribute every year to Charles, king of Sicily, of 20,000 golden pistoles; and there were many other articles which it were long to tell. Concerning this peace some said that King Charles and the other lords did for the best, considering their evil state from the pestilential air and the mortality among the Christians; for the king of Navarre, when King Louis was dead, fell sick and departed from the host and died in Sicily, and the cardinal legate of the Pope died; and the Church of Rome in those times had no pastor which could provide for all things, and Philip, the new king of France, desired to depart from the host and return to France with his father's body. Others blamed King Charles, saying that he did it through avarice, to the end he might henceforward, by reason of the said peace, always receive tribute from the king of Tunis for his own special benefit; for if the kingdom of Tunis had been conquered by all the host of the Christians, it would have afterwards pertained in part to the king of France, and to the king of England, and to the king of Navarre, and to the king of Sicily, and to the Church of Rome, and to divers other lords which were at the conquest. And it may have been, both one cause and the other; but however that may have been, when the said treaty was concluded the said host departed from Tunis, and when they came with their fleet to the port of Trapali in Sicily, as it pleased God, so great a storm overtook them while the fleet was in the said port that without any redemption the greater part perished, and one vessel broke the other, and all the belongings of that host were lost, which were of untold worth, and many folk perished there. And it was said by many that this came to pass by reason of the sins of the Christians, and because they had made a covenant with the Saracens through greed of money when they could have overcome and conquered Tunis and the country. § 39.--_How Gregory X. was made pope at Viterbo, and how Henry, son of the king of England, there died._ [Sidenote: 1272 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xii. 118-120.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 130-132.] [Sidenote: Inf. xii. 120.] When the said Christian host was come to Sicily, they abode there sometime to recover the sick, and to be refreshed, and to repair their fleet; and those kings and lords were held in much honour by Charles, king of Sicily; and afterwards they departed from Sicily, and King Charles with them, and came into the kingdom of Apulia, and by Calabria to Viterbo, where was the papal court without a Pope, and at Viterbo there tarried the said kings Philip of France, and Charles of Sicily, and Edward, and Henry his brother, sons of the king of England, to see that the cardinals, which were in disunion, should elect a good pastor to reform the papal chair. And since they were not able to agree upon any one of those there present, they elected Pope Gregory X., of Piacenza, which was cardinal legate of Syria in the Holy Land; and when he was elected, and had returned from beyond seas, he was consecrated Pope in the year of Christ 1272. Whilst the aforesaid lords were in Viterbo, there came to pass a scandalous and abominable thing, under the government of King Charles; for Henry, brother of Edward, son of King Richard of England, being in a church at Mass, at the hour when the sacrifice of the body of Christ was being celebrated, Guy, count of Montfort, which was vicar for King Charles in Tuscany, having no regard for reverence towards God, nor towards King Charles his lord, stabbed and slew with his own hand the said Henry in revenge for Count Simon of Montfort, his father, slain, through his own fault, by the king of England. And of this it is well to preserve a notable record. When Henry, father of the good Edward, was reigning in England, he was a man of simple life, so that the barons held him for nought, wherefore he sent for the said Count Simon, his kinsman, to guide the realm for him, seeing that Edward was but young. This Simon was much feared and dreaded; and when he saw the government of the realm in his hands, as a felon and traitor, he falsely averred that the king had passed certain iniquitous laws against the people, and he put him and Edward in prison in the castle of Dover, and held the realm himself. The queen, . . . Edward's maternal aunt, was desirous of saving him, and knew that Count Simon came every Easter to Dover, and took Edward out of the castle, and made him ride with him; and when he departed he caused him to be again imprisoned with strong and strict guard, that he might not so much as have letters. So the wise queen sent to Dover a wise and beautiful damsel, which knew how to work in jewels, purses, and pouches. And when Edward saw her he loved her, and so wrought with his guards that they brought him the said damsel, and when he would have touched her, she said to him: "I am here for other matters," and she drew forth letters sent him by the queen, advising him as to his deliverance and welfare; and therein she advised him that she was sending him one of our Florentine horse-dealers, which was named Persona Fulberti, with fine steeds, and a small ship equipped with many oars, and advising him what he was to do. Now, after his wont, at Easter, Count Simon came to Dover, and took Edward out of the castle, and while they were trying the steeds of the said dealer, Edward, with the count's permission, mounted the best of them, and galloping round in a wide sweep, at last took to the field and made off, and came to the port and found the bark prepared. Then he left the horse, and embarked, and came to France, and then with aid from the king of France, and Flanders, and Brabant, and Germany, with a great host he passed into England, and fought against Count Simon, and discomfited him, and seized him by the scalp, and had him dragged along the ground, and then hung. Then he set his father free; and when he was dead, then was Edward crowned king of England with great honour. And now we return to our chief subject--how was slain Count Henry, earl of Cornwall, brother of King Edward, in revenge for this, as we said before. The court was greatly disturbed, giving much blame therefor to King Charles, who ought not to have suffered this if he knew thereof, and if he did not know it he ought not to have let it go unavenged. But the said Count Guy, being provided with a company of men-at-arms on horse and on foot, was not content only with having done the said murder; forasmuch as a cavalier asked him what he had done, and he replied, "J'ai fait ma vangeance," and that cavalier said, "Comment? Votre père fût trainé;" and immediately he returned to the church, and took Henry by the hair, and dead as he was, he dragged him vilely without the church; and when he had done the said sacrilege and homicide, he departed from Viterbo, and came safe and sound into Maremma to the lands of Count Rosso, his father-in-law. By reason of the death of the said Henry, Edward, his brother, very wrathful and indignant against King Charles, departed from Viterbo, and came with his followers through Tuscany, and abode in Florence, and knighted many citizens, giving them horses and all knightly accoutrements very nobly, and then he came into England, and set the heart of his said brother in a golden cup upon a pillar at the head of London Bridge over the river Thames, to keep the English in mind of the outrage sustained. For the which thing, Edward, after he became king, was never friendly towards King Charles, nor to his folk. After like manner, Philip, king of France, departed with his folk, and came and dwelt many days in Florence; and when he was come into France, he buried the body of the good King Louis, his father, with great honour, and had himself crowned with great solemnity at Rheims. [Sidenote: 1270 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1271 A.D.] § 40.--_How the Tartars came down into Turkey, and drave thence the Saracens._ § 41.--_How King Enzo, son of the Emperor Frederick, died in prison at Bologna._ § 42.--_How Pope Gregory came with his court to Florence, and caused peace to be made between the Guelfs and Ghibellines._ [Sidenote: 1272 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 103-105; vii. 91-96; Convivio iv. 3: 37-42.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 97-117.] [Sidenote: 1273 A.D.] In the year 1272, Gregory X., of Piacenza, having returned from his mission over seas, was consecrated and crowned Pope, and because of the great affection and desire which he had to succour the Holy Land, and that a general crusade should set forth over seas, therefore so soon as he was made Pope, he called a general council at Lyons-on-Rhone in Burgundy, and by his mandate caused the electors of the empire of Germany to elect as king of the Romans, Rudolf, count of Friburg, which was a valiant man-at-arms, albeit he was of small possessions; but by his prowess he conquered Suabia and Austria; and the duchy of Austria being vacant, since the duke had been slain with Conradino by King Charles, he made Albert, his son, to be duke. The aforesaid Pope, the year after his coronation, set forth with his court from Rome to go to Lyons-on-Rhone to the council which he had summoned, and he entered into Florence with his cardinals, and with King Charles, and with the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople, which was of the lineage of the chief house of Flanders. This Baldwin was son of Henry, the brother of the first Baldwin, which conquered Constantinople with the Venetians, as we before made mention. And with the Pope, and with King Charles, there came to Florence many other lords and barons, on the 18th day of June, in the year of Christ 1273, and were received with honour by the Florentines. And the situation of Florence being pleasing to the Pope, by reason of the convenience of the water, and the pure air, and that the court found much comfort there, he purposed to abide there, and pass the summer in Florence. And finding that this good city of Florence was being destroyed by reason of the parties (the Ghibellines being now in exile), he determined that they should return to Florence, and should make peace with the Guelfs; and so it came about, and on the 2nd day of July in the said year, the said Pope, with his cardinals, and with King Charles, and with the said Emperor Baldwin, and with all the barons and gentlemen of the court (the people of Florence being assembled on the sands of the Arno hard by the head of the Rubaconte Bridge, great scaffolds of wood having been erected in that place whereon stood the said lords), gave sentence, under pain of excommunication if it were disobeyed, upon the differences between the Guelf and Ghibelline parties, causing the representatives of either party to kiss one another on the mouth, and to make peace, and to give sureties and hostages; and all the castles which the Ghibellines held they gave back into the hands of King Charles, and the Ghibelline hostages went into Maremma under charge of Count Rosso. The which peace endured but a short time, as hereafter we shall make mention. And on that day the said Pope founded the church of San Gregorio, and called it after his own name, which church was built by them of the house of Mozzi, which were merchants for the Pope and for the Church, and in a little time were come to great riches and state; and the said Pope dwelt in their palaces at the head of the Rubaconte Bridge on the further side of Arno, whilst he abode in Florence; and King Charles abode in the garden of the Frescobaldi, and the Emperor Baldwin at the Bishop's Palace. But on the fourth day thereafter, the Pope departed from Florence, and went to sojourn in Mugello with Cardinal Ottaviano, which was of the house of the Ubaldini, who were his hosts, and who did him great honour. At the end of the summer, the Pope departed, and his cardinals and King Charles, and went over the mountains to Lyons-on-Rhone in Burgundy. And the reason why the Pope departed suddenly from Florence was that when he had caused the representatives of the Ghibelline party to come to Florence, and to kiss the representatives of the Guelfs on the mouth in token of peace, and to remain in Florence to complete the treaty of peace, and they returned to the place of their sojourn in the house of the Tebalducci in Orto San Michele, it was told them, whether it were true or false, that King Charles' marshal, on the petition of the great Guelfs would cause them to be hewn in pieces if they did not depart from Florence. And that this was the cause we believe by reason of the virulence of the factions. And straightway they left Florence and departed, and the said peace was broken; wherefore the Pope was sorely disturbed, and departed from Florence, leaving the city under an interdict, and went, as we have said, to Mugello; and for this cause he continued in great wrath against King Charles. [Sidenote: 1274 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1275 A.D.] § 43.--_How Pope Gregory held a council at Lyons on the Rhone._ § 44.--_How the Ghibelline party were expelled from Bologna._ § 45.--_How the judge of Gallura with certain Guelfs was driven out of Pisa._ § 46.--_Of a great miracle which came to pass in Baldacca and Mansul [Bagdad and Mosul] over seas._ § 47.--_How Count Ugolino with all the remaining Guelfs was driven out of Pisa._ § 48.--_How the Bolognese were discomfited at the bridge of San Brocolo by the Count of Montefeltro and by the Romagnuoli._ § 49.--_How the Pisans were discomfited by the Lucchese at the stronghold of Asciano._ § 50.--_Of the death of Pope Gregory, and of three other Popes after him._ [Sidenote: 1275 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1276 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xix. 98-145.] [Sidenote: Par. xii. 134, 135.] [Sidenote: 1277 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 69-87.] [Sidenote: 1280 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1275, on the eighteenth day of the month of December, when Pope Gregory X. was returning from the council at Lyons-on-Rhone, he arrived in the country of Florence; and forasmuch as the city of Florence was under interdict, and her inhabitants excommunicate, because they had not observed the treaty of peace which he had made between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, as was aforesaid, he was not minded to enter into Florence, but by cunning he was led past the old walls, and some said that he could have done no other, because the river Arno was so swollen by rain that he could not cross the ford, but needs must cross over the Rubaconte Bridge, so that unwittingly, and not being able to do otherwise, he entered into Florence; and whilst he was passing over the bridge, and through the Borgo San Nicolò, he took off the interdict, and passed on, blessing the folk; but so soon as he was without he renewed the interdict, and excommunicated the city afresh, with a wrathful mind repeating that verse of the Psalter which says: "In camo et fræno maxillas eorum constringe" [Ps. xxxiii. 9]; wherefore the Guelfs which were governing Florence were in great doubt and fear. And the said Pope departing from Florence, went to the abbey at Ripole, and from there straightway he departed to Arezzo; and being come to Arezzo, he fell sick, and as it pleased God, he passed from this life on the tenth day of the following month of January, and was buried in Arezzo with great honour; at whose death the Guelfs of Florence rejoiced greatly, by reason of the evil will which the said Pope had towards them. And when the Pope was dead, straightway the cardinals were shut up, and on the twentieth day of the said month of January they proclaimed as Pope, Innocent V. a Burgundian, which had been a preaching friar and then a cardinal; and he lived as Pope until the following June, so that he did little, and died in the city of Viterbo, and was there buried honourably. And after him, on the twelfth day of July, Cardinal Ottobuono dal Fiesco, of the city of Genoa, was elected, which lived as Pope but twenty-nine days, and was called Pope Adrian V., and was buried in Rome. And after him, in the month of September following, Cardinal Piero Spagnuolo was elected Pope, which was called Pope John XXI., and lived as Pope but eight months and some days; for as he was sleeping in his room at Viterbo the ceiling fell down upon him and he died; and he was buried at Viterbo on the twentieth day of May, 1277; and the chair was vacant six months. And in that same year there was great scarcity of all victuals, and the bushel of wheat was sold for fifteen shillings, of thirty shillings to the florin. And a great and true vision should be noted concerning the death of the said Pope, which was seen by one of our Florentine merchants of the Company of Apothecaries, which was called Berto Forzetti, and it is well that this should be told. The said merchant had a natural infirmity of a wandering fancy, so that often when sleeping he would rise and sit upon his bed, and speak of strange wonders; and there is yet more, for being questioned by those around him as to what he was saying, he would answer rationally, and all the time he was sleeping. It came to pass, on the night when the said Pope died, the said man being in a ship on the high seas, journeying to Acre, rose and cried out, "Alas, alas!" His companions awoke, and asked him what ailed him; he replied: "I see a gigantic man in black with a great club in his hand, and he is about to break down a pillar, above which is a ceiling." And after a little he cried out again, and said: "He has broken it down, and he is dead." He was asked: "Who?" He replied: "The Pope." The said companions wrote down the words, and the night; and when they were come to Acre, a short time after there came to them the news of the death of the said Pope, which came to pass in that same night. And I, the writer, had testimony of this from those merchants which were present with the said man upon the said ship, and heard the said Berto, which were men of great authority, and worthy of belief; and the fame of this spread throughout all our city. Afterwards was elected Pope Nicholas III., of the house of the Orsini of Rome, which was called by his proper name, Cardinal Gianni Guatani, which lived as Pope two years and nine months and a half. We have spoken of the aforesaid Popes because four Popes died in sixteen months. We will say no more, at this present time, of the aforesaid Popes, and we will speak of those things which came to pass in their days in Florence and throughout the world. [Sidenote: 1275 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1276 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1277 A.D.] § 51.--_How the Florentines and Lucchese defeated the Pisans at the moat called Arnonico._ § 52.--_How the Della Torre of Milan were defeated._ § 53.--_How King Philip of France caused all the Italian money-lenders to be seized._ § 54.--_How Nicholas III., of the Orsini, was made Pope, and concerning that which he did in his time._ [Sidenote: 1277 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 52-84.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 98, 99.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xix. 81.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 67.] In the said year, whereof we related somewhat before, M. Gianni Guatani was made Pope, a cardinal, of the house of the Orsini of Rome, which, whilst he was young, as priest and then cardinal, was virtuous and of good life, and it is said that he was virgin in his body; but after he was called Pope Nicholas III. he had great schemes, and through warmth towards his kinsfolk, he undertook many things to make them great, and was among the first, if not the first, of the Popes in whose court simony was openly practised on behalf of his kindred, by the which thing he increased them much in possessions, and in castles, and in treasure beyond all the Romans, during the short time that he lived. This Pope made seven Roman cardinals, whereof the most part were his kinsfolk; among others, at the prayer of M. Gianni, head of the house of Colonna, his cousin, he made M. Jacopo della Colonna a cardinal, to the end the Colonnesi might not lend aid to the Annibaldeschi, enemies of the Orsini, but might rather aid these latter; and this was held a great thing; because the Church had deprived all the Colonnesi, and those of their kindred, of any ecclesiastical benefice, since the time of Pope Alexander III., forasmuch as they had held with the Emperor Frederick I. against the Church. Afterwards the said Pope caused the noble and great papal palaces to be built at S. Peter's; then he entered into strife with King Charles by reason that the said Pope had requested King Charles to form an alliance with him by marriage, desiring to give one of his nieces as wife to a nephew of the King's, to which alliance King Charles would not consent, saying, "Albeit he wears red hose, yet is not his lineage worthy to mate with ours; and his lordship will not be hereditary." For the which thing the Pope's wrath was kindled against him, and he was no longer his friend, but opposed him secretly in all things, and openly made him renounce the office of Roman senator, and of vicar of the Empire, which he held from the Church during the imperial vacancy; and he was much against him in all his undertakings, and for money which it was said he received from Paleologus, he consented, and gave aid and favour to the plot and rebellion in the island of Sicily, as hereafter we shall narrate; and he took from the Church the castle Santangiolo, and gave it to M. Orso, his nephew. Again the said Pope made Rudolf, king of the Romans, invest him, on behalf of the Church, with the county of Romagna, and the city of Bologna, by reason that he was debtor to the Church for the fulfilment of the promise which he had made to Pope Gregory at the council of Lyons-on-Rhone, when he confirmed his election, to wit that he would pass into Italy, and equip the expedition over seas, as we before made mention; which thing he had not done by reason of his other undertakings and wars in Germany. Now this gift to the Church of the privileges of the country of Romagna and the city of Bologna, neither could nor ought to have been made by right; among other reasons, because the said Rudolf had not yet attained to the imperial benediction; but that which the clergy take, they are slow in giving back. So soon as the said Pope held privilege over Romagna, he made Bertoldo degli Orsini, his nephew, count thereof, in the Church's name, and sent him into Romagna with a company of horsemen and men-at-arms, and with him as legate Brother Latino, of Rome, cardinal of Ostia, his nephew, his sister's son, of the family of the Brancaleoni, of which was the chancellor of Rome by inheritance; and this he did to take the lordship out of the hand of Guido di Montefeltro, which held it and ruled there tyrannically; and this was done in such wise, that in a short time almost all Romagna came under the Church's rule, but not without war and great cost to the Church, as hereafter we will tell in due place and time. [Sidenote: 1277 A.D.] § 55.--_How King Rudolf of Germany defeated and slew the king of Bohemia._ § 56.--_How the Cardinal Latino, by the Pope's command, made peace between the Guelfs and Ghibellines of Florence, and composed all the other feuds in the city._ [Sidenote: 1278 A.D.] In these times the Guelf magnates of Florence--having rest from their wars without, with victory and honour, and fattening upon the goods of the exiled Ghibellines, and through other gains--by reason of pride and envy began to strive among themselves; whence arose in Florence many quarrels and enmities between the citizens, with death and wounds. Among the greater of these was the contest between the house of the Adimari on the one side, which were very great and powerful, and on the other side the Tosinghi, and the house of the Donati, and the Pazzi, all leagued together against the Adimari in such sort that almost all the city was divided, and one held with one side, and one with the other; wherefore the city and the Guelf party were in great peril. For the which thing the commonwealth and the Captains of the Guelf party sent their solemn ambassadors to the court to Pope Nicholas, that he should take counsel, and give aid in making peace among the Guelfs of Florence; if not, the Guelf party would be broken up, and one side would drive out the other. And in like guise the Ghibelline refugees from Florence sent their ambassadors to the said Pope, to pray and entreat him to put into execution the treaty of peace which Pope Gregory IX. had commanded between them and the Guelfs of Florence. For the foregoing reasons the said Pope put forth and confirmed the said treaty, and ordained a mediator and legate, and committed the said questions to the Cardinal Frate Latino which represented the Church in Romagna; a man of great authority and learning, and highly considered by the Pope, who, by command of the Pope, departed from Romagna, and came to Florence with 300 horsemen, in service of the Church, on the eighth day of the month of October, in the year of Christ 1278, and by the Florentines and the clergy was received with great honour and with a procession, the carroccio coming out to meet him, with many jousters; and afterwards the said legate on the day of S. Luke the Evangelist in that same year and month, founded and blest the first stone of the new church of Santa Maria Novella, which pertained to the Order of Preaching Friars, whereof he was a friar; and in that place of the friars he dealt with and ordained generally the treaties of peace between all the Guelf citizens, and between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. And the first was between the Uberti and the Bondelmonti (and it was the third peace between them), save only that the sons of M. Rinieri Zingane de' Bondelmonte would not consent thereto, and were excommunicated by the legate and banished by the commonwealth. But the peace was not set aside on their account; for afterwards the legate very happily concluded it in the month of February following, when the people of Florence were assembled in parliament on the old piazza of the said church, which was all covered with cloths and with great wooden scaffolds, whereon were the said cardinal, and many bishops, and prelates, and clergy, and monks, and the Podestà, and the Captain, and all the counsellors, and the orders of Florence. And at that time a very noble speech was made by the said legate with citation of great and very fine authorities, as behoved the matter, seeing that he was a very dexterous and beautiful preacher; and this done, he caused the representatives ordained by the Guelfs and Ghibellines to kiss one another on the mouth, making peace with great joy among all the citizens, and there were 150 on either side. And in that place, and at that same time, he gave judgment as to the terms and agreements and conditions which were to be observed, both on one side and on the other, confirming the said peace with solemn and authentic documents, and with all due sureties. And from that time forward the Ghibellines and their families were to be allowed to return to Florence; and they did return, and they were free from all sentence of banishment and condemnation; and all the books of condemnation and banishment which were in the chamber were burnt; and the said Ghibellines recovered their goods and possessions, save that to some of the chief leaders, it was commanded for more security of the city that for a certain time they should be under bounds. And when the cardinal legate had done this, he made contracts of peace between single citizens; and the first was that one where had been greatest discord, to wit, between the Adimari, and the Tosinghi, and Donati, and Pazzi, bringing about several marriages between them, and in like manner were all the agreements made in Florence and in the country round about, some willingly, and some by command of the commonwealth, the cardinal having pronounced sentence, with good securities and sureties; by which contracts of peace the said legate won much honour, and well-nigh all of them were observed, and the city of Florence abode thereafter long time in peaceful and good and tranquil state. And the said legate gave and ordained, for the general government of the city, fourteen good men, magnates and popolani, whereof eight were Guelfs and six Ghibellines, and their term of office endured for two months, and there was a certain order in their election; and they assembled in the house of the Badia of Florence, over the gate which goes to Santa Margherita, and returned to their homes to eat and to sleep. And this done, the said Cardinal Latino returned to Romagna to his legation with great honour. We will now leave the affairs of Florence for a while, and we will tell of other things which came to pass in those times, and especially of the revolt of the island of Sicily against King Charles, which was notable and great, and whence afterwards grew much ill; and it was a thing well-nigh marvellous and impossible, and therefore we will treat of it more at large. [Sidenote: 1279 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1281 A.D.] § 57.--_How there was a treacherous plot to cause the island of Sicily to rebel against King Charles._ § 58.--_How Pope Nicholas III., of the Orsini, died, and how Martin of Tours, in France, was made Pope._ § 59.--_How Peter, king of Aragon, promised and vowed to Paleologus and to the Sicilians, to come into Sicily and take the lordship thereof._ § 60.--_How the said king of Aragon set about preparing his armada, and how the Pope sent to him and forbade him._ § 61.--_How and after what manner the island of Sicily rebelled against King Charles._ [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 75.] In the year of Christ 1282, on Easter Monday of the Resurrection, which was the 30th day of March, as had been purposed by M. John of Procita, all the barons and chiefs which had a hand in the plot were in the city of Palermo for Easter, and the inhabitants of Palermo, men and women, going in a body, on horse and on foot, to the festival at Monreale, three miles outside the city (and as those of Palermo went, so also went the Frenchmen, and the captain of King Charles, for their disport), it came to pass, as was purposed by the enemy of God, that a Frenchman in his insolence laid hold of a woman of Palermo to do her villainy; she beginning to cry out, and the people being already sore and all moved with indignation against the French, the retainers of the barons of the island began to defend the woman, whence arose a great battle between the French and the Sicilians, and many were wounded and slain on either side; but those of Palermo came off worst. Straightway, all the people returned in flight to the city, and the men flew to arms, crying, "Death to the French." They gathered together in the market place, as had been ordained by the leaders of the plot; and the justiciary, which was for the king, fighting at the castle, was taken and slain, and as many Frenchmen as were in the city were slain in the houses and in the churches, without any mercy. And this done, the said barons departed from Palermo, and each one in his own city and country did the like, slaying all the Frenchmen which were in the island, save that in Messina they delayed some days before rebelling; but through tidings from those in Palermo giving account of their miseries in a fair epistle, and exhorting them to love liberty and freedom and fraternity with them, the men of Messina were so moved to rebellion that they afterwards did the like of what they of Palermo had done against the French, and yet more. And there were slain in Sicily more than 4,000 of them, and no one could save another though he were never so much his friend, no not if he would lay down his life for him; and if he had concealed him, he must needs yield him up or slay him. This plague spread through all the island, whence King Charles and his people received great hurt both in person and in goods. These adverse and evil tidings the Archbishop of Monreale straightway made known to the Pope and to King Charles by his messengers. [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 112, 114-116, 125, 129.] [Sidenote: 1281 A.D.] § 62.--_How King Charles complained to the Church, and to the king of France, and to all his friends, and the aid which he received from them._ § 63.--_How they of Palermo, and the other Sicilians, sent their ambassadors to Pope Martin._ § 64.--_Of the aid which the commonwealth of Florence sent to King Charles._ § 65.--_How King Charles led an expedition against Messina by sea and by land._ § 66.--_How the king's forces took Melazzo, and how the Messinese sent for the legate to treat for peace with King Charles._ § 67.--_How the treaty of peace was broken which the legate had arranged between King Charles and the Messinese._ § 68.--_How Messina was attacked by King Charles' forces, and how it was defended._ § 69.--_How Peter, king of Aragon, departed from Catalonia and came to Sicily, and how he was made and crowned king by the Sicilians._ § 70.--_Of the parliament which the king of Aragon held in Palermo, to succour the city of Messina._ § 71.--_The letter that the king of Aragon sent to King Charles._ § 72.--_How King Charles called his council and answered the king of Aragon by his letter._ § 73.--_What was King Charles' answer in his letter to the king of Aragon._ § 74.--_How the king of Aragon sent his admiral to capture the fleet of King Charles._ § 75.--_How King Charles must needs depart from the siege of Messina, and how he returned into the Kingdom._ § 76.--_Who was the first Christian king of Aragon._ § 77.--_How the Lucchese burnt and destroyed the city of Pescia._ § 78.--_How Rudolf, Emperor elect, sent his vicar into Tuscany._ § 79.--_How the Office of Priors was first created in Florence._ [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] In the year of Christ 1282, the city of Florence being under government of the order of the fourteen good men as the Cardinal Latino had left it, to wit eight Guelfs and six Ghibellines, as we afore made mention, it seemed to the citizens that this government of fourteen was too numerous and confused; and to the end so many divided hearts might be at one, and, above all, because it was not pleasing to the Guelfs to have the Ghibellines as partners in the government by reason of the events which were come to pass (such as the loss which King Charles had already sustained of the island of Sicily, and the coming into Tuscany of the imperial vicar, and likewise the wars begun in Romagna by the count of Montefeltro on the Ghibelline side), for the safety and welfare of the city of Florence they annulled the said office of the fourteen and created and made a new office and lordship for the government of the said city of Florence, to wit, the Priors of the Arts; the which name, Priors of the Arts, means to say "the first," chosen over the others; and it was taken from the Holy Gospel, where Christ says to His disciples, "Vos estis priores." And this invention and movement began among the consuls and council of the art of Calimala, to which pertained the wisest and most powerful citizens of Florence, and the most numerous following, both magnates and popolani, of those which pursued the calling of merchants, seeing the most part of them greatly loved the Guelf party and Holy Church. And the first priors of the Arts were three, whereof the names were these: Bartolo di M. Jacopo de' Bardi, for the sesto of Oltrarno and for the art of Calimala; Rosso Bacherelli, for the sesto of San Piero Scheraggio, for the art of the exchangers; Salvi del Chiaro Girolami, for the sesto of San Brancazio and for the woollen art. And their office began in the middle of June of the said year, and lasted for two months, unto the middle of August, and thus three priors were to succeed every two months, for the three greater Arts. And they were shut up to give audience (sleeping and eating at the charges of the commonwealth), in the house of the Badia where formerly, as we have aforesaid, the Ancients were wont to assemble in the time of the old Popolo, and afterwards the fourteen. And there were assigned to the said priors six constables and six messengers to summon the citizens; and these priors, with the Captain of the Popolo, had to determine the great and weighty matters of the commonwealth, and to summon and conduct councils and make regulations. And when the office had endured the two months, it was pleasing to the citizens; and for the following two months they proclaimed six, one for each sesto, and added to the said three greater Arts the art of the doctors and apothecaries, and the art of the Porta Santæ Mariæ, and that of the furriers and skin-dressers; and afterwards from time to time all the others were added thereto, to the number of the twelve greater Arts; and there were among them magnates, as well as popolani, great men of good repute and works, and which were artificers or merchants. And thus it went on until the second Popolo was formed in Florence, as hereafter, in due time, we shall relate. From thenceforward there were no magnates among them, but there was added thereto the gonfalonier of justice. And sometimes there were twelve priors, according to the changes in the condition of the city and special occasions that arose; and they were chosen from the number of all the twenty-one Arts, and of those which were not themselves artificers, albeit their forefathers had been artificers. The election to the said office was made by the old priors with the colleges of consuls of the twelve greater Arts, and with certain others which elected the priors for each sesto, by secret votes; and whosoever had most votes the same was made prior; and this election took place in the church of San Piero Scheraggio; and the Captain of the Popolo was stationed over against the said church in the houses which pertained to the Tizzoni. We have said so much of the beginning of this office of the priors, forasmuch as many and great changes followed therefrom to the city of Florence, as hereafter, in due place and time, we shall relate. At present we will leave telling, for a time, of the doings of Florence, and we will tell of other events which came to pass in those times. [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] § 80.--_How Pope Martin sent M. Jean d'Appia into Romagna, and how he took the city of Faenza and besieged Forlì._ § 81.--_How M. Jean d'Appia, count of Romagna, was defeated at Forlì by the count of Montefeltro._ [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 76-78.] [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xx. 118.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 44.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxii. 122.] In the said time, when the said M. Jean d'Appia, count of Romagna, was in Faenza, and was making war against the city of Forlì, he dabbled in practices whereby he might gain the said city by treachery; the which practices Count Guido of Montefeltro himself, which was lord of the city, had set in motion and floated, as one that was master both of plots and of war, and who knew the folly of the French. At last, on the first day of May, in the year of Christ 1282, the said M. Jean came with his forces in the morning very early before day to the city of Forlì, thinking to have it; and as it was ordered by the count of Montefeltro, the entrance to one gate was granted him, which he entered with part of his followers, and part he left without with the orders, if need arose, to succour those within, and if things went against them, to assemble all his forces in a field under a great oak. The French which entered into Forlì rode through the city without meeting any opposition; and the count of Montefeltro, which knew all the plot, had gone forth from the city with his followers; and it was said that this same count of Montefeltro was guided by the augury and counsel of one Guido Bonatti, a roof-maker, who had turned astrologer or the like, and that it was he who prompted his actions; and for this emprise he gave him the standard and said, "Thou hast it at such a pitch, that so long as a rag of it hold, wheresoever thou bearest it thou shalt be victorious." But I more believe that his victories were won by his own wit and mastery of war. And according as he had planned, he charged those without under the tree, and put them to rout. They which had entered in, thinking the city was theirs, had given themselves to plunder and gone into the houses; and as was ordered by the count of Montefeltro, the citizens had taken off the bridles and saddles from the most of their horses; and suddenly the said count, with part of his followers, entered again into Forlì by one of the gates, and overran the city; and part of his horse and foot he left in troops drawn up under the oak, as the French had been. M. Jean d'Appia and his men, seeing themselves thus handled, when they thought they had conquered the city, held themselves for dead and betrayed, and whosoever could recover his horse fled from the city, and came to the tree without, thinking to find friends there; and when they came thither they were taken or slain by their enemies, and likewise they which had remained within the city; wherefore the French and the followers of the Church suffered great discomfiture and loss, and there died there many good French knights, and of the Latin leaders, among others, Count Taddeo da Montefeltro, cousin to Count Guido, which by reason of disputes concerning his inheritance held with the Church against the said Count Guido; and there died there Tribaldello de' Manfredi, which had betrayed Faenza, and many others; albeit the count of Romagna, M. Jean d'Appia, escaped with certain others from the said discomfiture, and returned to Faenza. [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1283 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1282 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1283 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1284 A.D.] § 82.--_How Forlì surrendered to the Church, and how there was peace in Romagna._ § 83.--_How the king of Armenia with a great company of Tartars was defeated at Cammella [Emesa] in Syria by the soldan of Egypt._ § 84.--_How the war between the Genoese and Pisans began._ § 85.--_How the prince, son of King Charles, with many barons of France and of Provence, came to Florence to march against the Sicilians._ § 86.--_How King Charles and King Peter of Aragon engaged to fight in single combat at Bordeaux, in Gascony, for the possession of Sicily._ § 87.--_How on the appointed day, King Peter, of Aragon, failed to appear at Bordeaux, wherefore he was excommunicated and deposed by the Pope._ § 88.--_How there was in Florence a flood of waters and great scarcity of victuals._ § 89.--_How a noble court and festival was held in the city of Florence, whereat all were arrayed in white._ § 90.--_How the Genoese did great hurt to the Pisans returning from Sardinia._ § 91.--_Still of the doings of the Pisans and the Genoese._ § 92.--_How the Genoese discomfited the Pisans at Meloria._ § 93.--_How Charles, prince of Salerno, was defeated and taken prisoner at sea, by Ruggeri di Loria, with the fleet of the Sicilians._ § 94.--_How King Charles arrived at Naples with his fleet, and then made ready to pass to Sicily._ § 95.--_How the good King Charles passed from this life at the city of Foggia in Apulia._ [Sidenote: 1284 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 113, 124, 128.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 31, 49-72; ix. 1.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. viii. 82, 83; Purg. xx. 79-84.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 76-84.] When King Charles had returned with his host to Brindisi, he disbanded them and returned to Naples to make his arrangements, and to furnish himself with money and with men to go again to Sicily the coming spring. And like one whose anxious mind could not rest, when mid-December was past, he returned into Apulia, to be at Brindisi to hasten on his fleet. When he was at Foggia, in Apulia, as it pleased God, he fell sick of a grievous sickness, and passed from this life on the day following the Epiphany, on the 7th day of January, in the year of Christ 1284. But before he died, with great contrition taking the Body of Christ, he said with great reverence these words: "Sire Dieu, comme je crois vraiment que vous étes mon Sauveur, ainsi je vous prie, que vous ayez merci de mon ame; ainsi comme je fis la prise du royaume de Cicile plus pour servir sainte Eglise que pour mon profit ou autre convoitise, ainsi vous me pardonniez mes péchés;" and a short time after he passed from this life, and his body was brought to Naples; and after great lamentation had been made over his death, he was buried at the archbishop's at Naples with great honour. Concerning this death of King Charles there was a great marvel, for the same day whereon he died, the tidings of his death were published by one Brother Arlotto, a minister of the Minor Friars, and by M. Giardino da Carmignanola, a teacher in the University; and when this came to the notice of the king of France he sent for them to learn whence they knew it. They said that they knew his nativity, which was under the lordship of Saturn, and by its influence had resulted his exaltations and his adversities; and some said that they knew it by revelation of some spirit, for each of them was a great astrologer and necromancer. This Charles was the most feared and redoubted lord, and the most valiant in arms, and of the most lofty designs, of all the kings of the house of France from Charles the Great to his own day, and the one which most exalted the Church of Rome; and he would have done more if, at the end of his life, fortune had not turned against him. Afterwards there came as guardian and defender of the kingdom, Robert, count of Artois, cousin of the said king, with many French knights, and with the princess, and with the prince's son, grandson to King Charles, which was called after him Charles Martel, and which was some twelve or thirteen years old. Of King Charles there remained no other heir than Charles II., prince of Salerno, of whom we have made mention. And this Charles was comely in person, and gracious and liberal, and whilst his father was living and afterwards he had many children by the princess, his wife, daughter and heiress of the king of Hungary. The first was the said Charles Martel, which was afterwards king of Hungary; the second was Louis, which became a Minor Friar, and afterwards was bishop of Toulouse; the third was Robert, duke of Calabria; the fourth was Philip, prince of Taranto; the fifth was Raymond Berenger (count that was to be of Provence); the sixth was John, prince of Morea; the seventh was Peter, count of Eboli. [Sidenote: 1284 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1285 A.D.] § 96.--_How the prince, son to King Charles, was condemned to death by the Sicilians, and afterwards was sent prisoner into Catalonia by Queen Constance._ § 97.--_How there was a great flood of waters in Florence, which overwhelmed part of the Poggio de' Magnoli._ § 98.--_How the Florentines, with the Genoese and with the Tuscans, made a league against the Pisans, whereby the Ghibellines were driven out of Pisa._ § 99.--_How the Florentines began the foundation of the gates, to build the new walls of the city._ § 100.--_Of the great events that came to pass among the Tartars of Turigio._ § 101.--_How the Saracens took and destroyed Margatto in Syria._ § 102.--_How King Philip of France went with a great army against the king of Aragon._ § 103.--_How the king of Aragon was discomfited and wounded by the French, of the which wound he afterwards died._ § 104.--_How the king of France took the city of Gerona, and how his fleet was discomfited at sea._ § 105.--_How the king of France departed from Aragon, and died at Perpignan._ [Sidenote: 1285 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 105.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. vii. 109.] [Sidenote: Par. xix. 143-148.] King Philip of France, seeing his fortune so changed and adverse, and his fleet, which was bringing victuals to his host, taken and burnt, was overcome with grief and melancholy in such wise that he fell grievously sick with fever and a flux, wherefore his barons took counsel to depart and return to Toulouse, and of necessity they were forced thereto by lack of victuals, and by reason of the adverse season of autumn, and because of the sickness of their king. And thus they departed about the first day of October, carrying their sick king in a litter, and they dispersed with but little order, each one getting away as best he could and most quickly; wherefore, when they were crossing the difficult pass of the Schiuse through the great mountains of Pirris [? the defiles of the great mountains of Pertus], the Aragonese and Catalans which were at the pass, sought to hinder the passing of the litter wherein the king of France lay sick. And when the French saw this, they gave battle in despair to them which were at the pass, to the end they might not take the body of the king, and by force of arms they broke them up and discomfited them, and drave them from the pass; but many of the French common people on foot were taken and slain, and many mules and horses and much baggage destroyed and taken by the Catalans and Aragonese. And a little while after the departure of the king of France and of his host, the king of Aragon received Gerona back on conditions. And when the host of the king of France in guise as if defeated came to Perpignan, as it pleased God, King Philip of France passed from this life on the 6th day of October, in the year of Christ 1285; and in Perpignan the queen of Morea, his wife, with her company made great lamentation and sorrow. And afterwards Philip and Charles, his sons, caused the body to be brought to Paris, and he was buried at S. Denys with his predecessors, with great honour. This enterprise against Aragon was attended with greater loss of men and more cost in horses and money, than the realm of France had almost ever suffered in times past; for afterwards the king which succeeded the said Philip, and the greater part of the barons, were always in debt and ill provided with money. And after the death of King Philip of France, King Philip the Fair, his eldest son, was made king of France, and crowned king in the city of Rheims, with the Queen Joanna of Navarre, his wife, on the day of the Epiphany next following. And note, that in one year or little more, as it pleased God, there died four such great lords of Christendom, as were Pope Martin, and the good Charles, king of Sicily and of Apulia, and the valiant King Peter of Aragon, and the powerful King Philip of France, of whom we have made mention. This King Philip was a lord of a great heart, and in his life did high emprises; first, when he went against the king of Spain, and then against the count of Foix, and then against the king of Aragon, with greater forces than ever his predecessor had gathered. We will leave now speaking of the doings beyond the mountains, whereof we have said enough for this time, and we will go back to speak of the doings of our Italy which came to pass in the said time. [Sidenote: 1285 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xxiv. 20-24.] [Sidenote: 1286 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1287 A.D.] § 106.--_Of the death of Pope Martin IV., and how Honorius de' Savelli of Rome was made Pope._ § 107.--_How a certain Genoese flotilla was taken by the Pisans._ § 108.--_How Count Guido of Montefeltro, lord of Romagna, surrendered to the Church of Rome._ § 109.--_How Pope Honorius changed the habit of the Carmelite Friars._ § 110.--_How the bishop of Arezzo caused Poggio a Santa Cecilia, in the territory of Siena, to rebel, and how it was recovered._ § 111.--_How there was great scarcity of victual in Italy._ § 112.--_How M. Prezzivalle dal Fiesco came into Tuscany as Imperial Vicar._ § 113.--_How Pope Honorius de' Savelli died._ § 114.--_Of a notable thing which came to pass in Florence at this time._ [Sidenote: 1287 A.D.] In the said year, M. Matteo da Fogliano di Reggio, being Podestà of Florence, had taken and condemned to be beheaded for murder one Totto de' Mazzinghi da Campi, which was a great warrior and leader; and as he was on his way to execution, M. Corso dei Donati with his following would have rescued him from the officers by force; for the which thing the said Podestà caused the great bell to be sounded: wherefore all the good people of Florence armed themselves and assembled at the palace, some on horse and some on foot, crying: "Justice, justice." For the which thing the said Podestà carried out his sentence, but whereas the said Totto should have been beheaded, he caused him to be dragged along the ground, and then hung by the neck, and he condemned to a fine those who had begun the uproar and impeded justice. [Sidenote: 1288 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xiii. 120, 121.] § 115.--_How the Guelfs were driven out of Arezzo, whence war arose between the Florentines and the Aretines._ § 116.--_Of a great fire which broke out in Florence._ § 117.--_How the armada of Charles Martel took the city of Agosta in Sicily, and how their armada was defeated at sea by Ruggeri di Loria._ § 118.--_How a great fire broke out in Florence at the houses of the Cerchi._ § 119.--_Of the calling of Pope Nicholas IV., of Ascoli._ § 120.--_Of a great expedition which the commonwealth of Florence made against the city of Arezzo, and how as they departed the Sienese were defeated at the Pieve [parish church] al Toppo._ § 121.--_How the judge of Gallura and the Guelf party were driven from Pisa, and the Count Ugolino taken prisoner._ [Sidenote: 1288 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. viii. 53.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxiii. 31-33.] [Sidenote: Purg. xvi. 46.] In the year of Christ 1288, in the month of July, great divisions and factions having arisen in Pisa concerning the government, for of one party Judge Nino di Gallura de' Visconti was head with certain Guelfs, and of another Count Ugolino dei Gherardeschi with another party of the Guelfs, and of a third the Archbishop Ruggeri degli Ubaldini with the Lanfranchi, and Gualandi, and Sismondi, with the other Ghibelline houses. And the said Ugolino, in order to gain power, sided with the archbishop and his party, and betrayed Judge Nino, not considering that he was his grandson, his daughter's son; and they ordained that he should be driven out of Pisa with his followers, or taken prisoner. Judge Nino hearing this, and seeing that he was not well able to defend himself, left the city and went to his castle of Calci, and allied himself with the Florentines and Lucchese to make war against Pisa. Count Ugolino, before the departure of Judge Nino, to the end he might hide his treachery when he had planned the banishment of the judge, departed from Pisa, and went to one of his manors in the country, which was called Settimo. When he heard of the departure of Judge Nino, he returned to Pisa with great rejoicing; and the Pisans made him their lord with great rejoicings and festivities; but he abode only a short time in the government, for Fortune turned against him, as it pleased God, because of his treacheries and crimes; for of a truth it was said that he caused Count Anselm of Capraia, his nephew, his sister's son, to be poisoned, from envy, and because he was beloved in Pisa, and he feared lest he might rob him of his state. And that happened to Count Ugolino, which a little while before had been foretold him by a wise and valiant man of affairs, named Marco Lombardo; for when the count was called by all lord of Pisa, and when he was in greatest state and happiness, he prepared a rich feast on his birthday, and invited thereto his sons and grandsons, and all his lineage and kinsfolk, both men and women, with great pomp in dress and ornaments, and preparations for a great festival. The count taking the said Marco, showed him all his grandeur and possessions, and the preparations for his feast; and this done, he asked him: "Marco, what thinkest thou of all this?" The sage answered and said unto him at once: "You are better prepared for evil fortune than any nobleman of Italy." And the count fearing these words of Marco's, said: "Why?" and Marco answered: "Because the wrath of God is the only thing lacking to you." And of a truth the wrath of God soon came upon him, as it pleased God, because of his treacheries and crimes; for when the archbishop of Pisa and his followers had succeeded in driving out Nino and his party, by the counsel and treachery of Count Ugolino, the forces of the Guelfs were diminished; and then the archbishop took counsel how to betray Count Ugolino, and in a sudden uproar of the people, he was attacked and assaulted at the palace, the archbishop giving the people to understand that he had betrayed Pisa, and given up their fortresses to the Florentines and the Lucchese; and being without any defence, the people having turned against him, he surrendered himself prisoner, and at the said assault one of his bastard sons and one of his grandsons were slain, and Count Ugolino was taken, and two of his sons, and three grandsons, his son's children, and they were put in prison; and his household and followers, and the Visconti and Ubizinghi, Guatani, and all the other Guelf houses were driven out of Pisa. And thus was the traitor betrayed by the traitor; wherefore the Guelf party in Tuscany was greatly cast down, and the Ghibellines greatly exalted because of the said revolution in Pisa, and because of the force of the Ghibellines of Arezzo, and because of the power and victories of Don James of Aragon, and of the Sicilians against the heirs of King Charles. [Sidenote: 1288 A.D.] § 122.--_How the Lucchese took the castle of Asciano from the Pisans._ § 123.--_How the Pisan mercenaries, coming from Campagna, were routed by the Florentine mercenaries in Maremma._ § 124.--_Of the dash on Latterina made by the Florentines as an attack on Arezzo._ § 125.--_How Prince Charles was released from the prison of the king of Aragon._ § 126.--_Of a great flood of water that was in Florence._ § 127.--_How the Aretines came and laid waste the territory of Florence as far as San Donato in Collina._ § 128.--_How the Pisans chose for captain the count of Montefeltro, and how they starved to death Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons._ [Sidenote: 1288 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxxiii. 1-90.] In the said year 1288, in the said month of March, the wars in Tuscany between the Guelfs and Ghibellines becoming hot again (by reason of the war begun by the Florentines and Sienese against the Aretines, and by the Florentines and Lucchese against the Pisans), the Pisans chose for their captain of war Count Guido of Montefeltro, giving him wide jurisdiction and lordship; and he passed the boundaries of Piedmont, within which he was confined by his terms of surrender to the Church, and came to Pisa; for the which thing he and his sons and family, and all the commonwealth of Pisa, were excommunicated by the Church of Rome, as rebels and enemies against Holy Church. And when the said count was come to Pisa in the said month of March, the Pisans which had put in prison Count Ugolino and his two sons, and two sons of Count Guelfo, his son, as we before made mention, in a tower on the Piazza degli Anziani, caused the door of the said tower to be locked, and the keys thrown into the Arno, and refused to the said prisoners any food, which in a few days died there of hunger. And albeit first the said count demanded with cries to be shriven; yet did they not grant him a friar or priest to confess him. And when all the five dead bodies were taken out of the tower, they were buried without honour; and thenceforward the said prison was called the Tower of Hunger, and will be always. For this cruelty were the Pisans greatly blamed throughout the whole world wherever it was known, not so much by reason of the count, which because of his crimes and treacheries was peradventure worthy of such a death, but by reason of his sons and grandsons which were young and innocent boys; and this sin committed by the Pisans did not go unpunished, as in due time hereafter may be found. We will leave speaking, for a while, of the affairs of Florence and of Tuscany, and will tell of other events which took place in the said times and came to pass through the whole world. § 129.--_How the Saracens took Tripoli in Syria._ § 130.--_Of the coronation of King Charles II., and how he passed through Florence, and left Messer Amerigo di Nerbona as captain of war for the Florentines._ [Sidenote: 1289 A.D.] In the said year, on the 2nd day of May, there came to Florence Prince Charles, son of the great King Charles, which was returning from France after he had been loosed from prison, and was going to the court at Rieti where was the Pope; and he was received by the Florentines with great rejoicing, and the Florentines did him much honour and made him many presents; and having sojourned three days in Florence, he departed on his journey towards Siena. And when he was departed, tidings came to Florence that the troops of Arezzo were making ready to go into the country of Siena to hinder or bring shame upon the said Prince Charles, which had but a small company of men-at-arms. Straightway the Florentines caused the horsemen of the cavalry to ride forth, wherein were all the flower of the best families of Florence, together with mercenaries which were in Florence, and they were in number 800 horse, and 3,000 foot, to accompany the prince; wherefore the prince took in very good part such honourable service, and speedy and unasked succour of so many good men, though it came not to the pinch of need withal; for the Aretines having heard of the riding forth of the Florentines, did not venture to go out against them; but nevertheless the Florentines accompanied the said prince beyond Bricola to the borders of the territory of Siena and of Orvieto. And when the commonwealth of Florence asked of the prince to appoint them a captain of war, and also that he would grant them to carry forth the royal standard with the host, the prince allowed it, and knighted Amerigo di Nerbona, a man very noble, and brave and wise in war, and gave him to them for captain; which M. Amerigo with his company, about 100 mounted men, came to Florence with the said horse; and the prince came to the court, and was honourably received by Pope Nicolas IV. and by his cardinals; and the day of Pentecost following, on the 29th day of May, 1289, in the city of Rome the said Charles was crowned by the said Pope, king of Sicily and of Apulia, with great honour, solemnity and rejoicing, and many favours and grand presents of jewels and of money were made to him by the Church, with subsidies of tithes to aid him in his war in Sicily. And this done, King Charles departed from the court, and went into the Kingdom. § 131.--_How the Florentines defeated the Aretines at Certomondo in Casentino._ [Sidenote: 1289 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 49-51. Purg. xiv. 118, 119.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 65, 94-96.] [Sidenote: Purg. xxiv. 82. Cf. Par. iii. 106, 107.] [Sidenote: Purg. v. 88-129. Inf. xxvii. 68-129.] In the said year, and month of May, the horsemen of Florence being returned from escorting Prince Charles, with their captain, M. Amerigo di Nerbona, a host was straightway gathered against the city of Arezzo, by reason of outrages received from the Aretines, and the banners of war were given out on the 13th day of May, and the royal standard was borne by M. Gherardo Ventraia de' Tornaquinci; and so soon as they were given to them, they bore them to the abbey at Ripoli, as was their wont, and there they left them under guard, making as though they would march by that road upon the city of Arezzo. And the allies being come and the host being ordered, by secret counsel they purposed to depart by the way of Casentino, and suddenly, the 2nd day of June, the bells sounding a toll, the ever-prosperous host of the Florentines set forth, and they bore the banners which were at Ripoli across the Arno, and held the way of Pontassieve, and encamped to await the gathering of forces on Monte al Pruno; and there were assembled 1,600 horse and 10,000 foot, whereof 600 were citizens with their horses, the best armed and mounted which ever sallied forth from Florence; and 400 mercenaries, together with the following of the Captain, M. Amerigo, in the pay of the Florentines; and of Lucca there were 150 horsemen; and of Prato, 40 horsemen and foot soldiers; of Pistoia, 60 horse and foot; and of Siena, 120 horse; and of Volterra, 40 horse; and of Bologna, their ambassadors with their company; and of Samminiato, and of Sangimignano, and of Colle, men mounted and on foot from each place; and Maghinardo of Susinana, a good and wise captain in war, with his Romagnoli. And the said host being assembled, they descended into the plain of Casentino, devastating the places of Count Guido Novello, who was Podestà of Arezzo. Hearing this, the bishop of Arezzo, with the other captains of the Ghibelline party (for there were many men of name amongst them), determined to come with all their host to Bibbiena, to the end it might not be destroyed; and they were 800 horse and 8,000 foot, very fine men; and many wise captains of war were among them, for they were the flower of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, of the March, and of the Duchy, and of Romagna; and all were men experienced in arms and in war; and they desired to give battle to the Florentines, having no fear, albeit the Florentines were two horsemen to one against them; but they despised them, saying that they adorned themselves like women, and combed their tresses; and they derided them and held them for nought. Truly there was further cause why the Aretines should declare battle against the Florentines, albeit their horsemen were two to one against them; for they were in fear of a plot which the bishop of Arezzo had set on foot with the Florentines, and conducted by M. Marsilio de' Vecchietti, to give over to the Florentines Bibbiena, Civitella, and all the castles of his see, and he to have 5,000 golden florins each year of his life, on the security of the company of the Cerchi. The progress of this plot was interrupted by M. Guiglielmino Pazzo, his nephew, to the end the bishop might not be slain by the Ghibelline leaders; and therefore they hastened the battle, and took thither the said bishop, where he was left dead, together with the rest; and thus was the bishop punished for his treason, who at the same time sought to betray both the Florentines and his own Aretines. And the Florentines, having joyfully received the gage of battle, arrayed themselves; and the two hosts stood over against one another, after more ordered fashion, both on one side and on the other, than ever in any battle before in Italy, in the plain at the foot of Poppi, in the region called Certomondo, for such is the name of the place, and of a church of the Franciscans, which is near there, and in a plain which is called Campaldino; and this was a Saturday morning, the 11th day of June, the day of S. Barnabas the Apostle. M. Amerigo and the other Florentine captains drew up in well-ordered troops, and enrolled 150 forefighters of the best of the host, among the which were twenty new-made knights, who then received their spurs; and M. Vieri de' Cerchi being among the captains, and being lame in his leg, would not therefore desist from being among the forefighters; and since it fell to him to make the selection for his sesto, he would not lay this service upon any who did not desire to be chosen, but chose himself, and his son and nephews; the which thing was counted to him as of great merit; and for his good example and for shame many other noble citizens offered themselves as forefighters. And this done, they flanked them on either side by troops of light-armed infantry, and crossbowmen, and unmounted lancers. Then, behind the forefighters, came the main body, flanked in its turn by footmen, and, behind all, the baggage, so collected as to close up the rear of the main body, outside of which were stationed two hundred horse and foot of the Lucchese and Pistoians and other foreigners, whereof was captain M. Corso Donati, which then was Podestà of Pistoia; and their orders were to take the enemy in flank, should occasion rise. The Aretines on their part ordered their troops wisely, inasmuch as there were, as we have said, good captains of war amongst them; and they appointed many forefighters, to the number of 300, among the which were chosen twelve of the chief leaders, who were called the Twelve Paladins. And each side having given a war-cry to their host, the Florentines, "Ho, knights, Nerbona," and the Aretines, "Ho, knights, San Donato," the forefighters of the Aretines advanced with great courage, and struck spur to smite into the Florentine host; and the rest of their troop followed after, save that Count Guido Novello, which was with a troop of 150 horse to charge in flank, did not adventure himself into the battle, but drew back, and then fled to his castle. And the movement and assault made upon the Florentines by the Aretines, who esteemed themselves to be valiant men-at-arms, was to the end that by their bold attack they might break up the Florentines at the first onset, and put them to flight; and the shock was so great that most of the Florentine forefighters were unhorsed, and the main body was driven back a good space, but they were not therefore confounded nor broken up, but received the enemy with constancy and fortitude; and the wings of infantry on either side, keeping their ranks well, enclosed the enemy, and there was hard fighting for a good space. And M. Corso Donati, who was apart with the men of Lucca and Pistoia, and had been commanded to stand firm, and not to strike under pain of death, when he saw the battle begun, said, like a valiant man: "If we lose, I will die in the battle with my fellow-citizens; and if we conquer, let him that will, come to us at Pistoia to exact the penalty"; and he boldly set his troop in motion, and struck the enemy in flank, and was a great cause of their rout. And this done, as it pleased God, the Florentines had the victory, and the Aretines were routed and discomfited, and between horse and foot more than 1,700 were slain, and more than 2,000 taken, whereof many of the best were smuggled away, some for friendship, some in return for ransom; but there came of them bound to Florence more than 740. Among the dead left on the field were M. Guiglielmino of the Ubertini, bishop of Arezzo, the which was a great warrior, and M. Guiglielmino de' Pazzi of Valdarno and his nephews, the which was the best and the most experienced captain of war that there was in Italy in his time; and there died there Bonconte, son of Count Guido of Montefeltro, and three of the Uberti, and one of the Abati, and two of the Griffoni of Fegghine, and many other Florentine refugees, and Guiderello d'Alessandro of Orvieto, a renowned captain, who bore the imperial standard, and many others. On the side of the Florentines was slain no man of renown save M. Guiglielmo Berardi, bailiff of M. Amerigo da Nerbona, and M. Bindo del Baschiera de' Tosinghi, and Ticci de' Visdomini; but many other citizens and foreigners were wounded. The news of the said victory came to Florence the same day, at the same hour that it took place, for after their meal, the Priors being gone to sleep and repose, after the care and wakefulness of the past night, suddenly there was a knocking on the chamber door, with the cry: "Arise, for the Aretines are discomfited"; and having risen and opened the door, they found no one, and their servants without had heard nothing, wherefore it was held to be a great and notable marvel, inasmuch as no person came from the host with tidings before the hour of vespers. And this was the truth, for I heard it and saw it; and all the Florentines marvelled whence this could be, and awaited the issue in suspense. But when they arrived which came from the host, and reported the tidings in Florence, there was great gladness and rejoicing; and there was good cause, for at the said discomfiture were slain many captains and valiant men of the Ghibelline party, and enemies of the commonwealth of Florence, and there were brought low the arrogance and pride not only of the Aretines, but of the whole Ghibelline party and of the Empire. § 132.--_How the Florentines besieged the city of Arezzo, and laid waste the region round about._ [Sidenote: 1289 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxii. 4, 5.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 42.] After the said victory of the commonwealth over the Aretines, the trumpet was sounded for the return from pursuing the fugitives, and the Florentine host was marshalled upon the field; and this done, they departed to Bibbiena, and took it without any resistance; and having plundered and despoiled it of all its wealth and much booty, they caused the walls and the fortified houses to be destroyed to the foundations, and many other villages round about, and they abode there eight days. Whereas, if on the day following, the Florentine host had ridden upon Arezzo, without doubt they would have taken the city; but during that sojourn they that had escaped from the battle returned thither, and the peasants round about took refuge there, and order was taken for the defence and guard of the city. The host of the Florentines came thither after some days, and laid siege to the city, continually laying waste the region round about, and taking their fortresses, so that they gained them nearly all, some by force, and some on conditions; and the Florentines caused many thereof to be destroyed, but they kept possession of Castiglione of Arezzo, and Montecchio, and Rondine, and Civitella, and Laterina, and Montesansavino. And with the host there went two of the Priors of Florence as inspectors; and the Sienese came in a body, with much force of horse and foot, after the defeat, to regain their lands taken by the Aretines, and they took Lucignano of Arezzo, and Chiusura of Valdichiane, on conditions. And the said Florentine host being at Arezzo, in the old palace of the bishops, for twenty days, they laid waste all round about them, and they ran their races there on the feast of S. Giovanni, and erected there many engines, and hurled into the city asses with mitres on their heads, in contempt and reproach of their bishop, and raised many wooden towers and other works to attack the city; and a fierce battle ensuing, a great part of the palisade (for there was not then any other wall in that part) was burnt and laid low; and if the captains of the host had made the besiegers fight lustily, they would have taken the city by storm; but where they should have fought, they caused the retreat to be sounded, wherefore they were held in abomination, forasmuch as this was done through greed of gain; for the which cause the people and the combatants, losing heart, were slack in skirmishing and on guard; wherefore the night following they of Arezzo issued forth and set fire to many wooden towers, and burnt them, with many other works. And this done, the Florentines lost hope of taking the city by battle, and the better part of the host departed, leaving the aforesaid strongholds guarded, to the end they might continually harry the city; and the host returned to Florence on the 23rd day of July with great rejoicing and triumph, and there came to meet them the clergy in procession, the men of birth jousting, and the populace with the standards and ensigns of each of the Arts, with its company; and they set a canopy of cloth of gold over the head of M. Amerigo di Nerbona, borne upon pikes by many knights, and likewise over M. Ugolino de' Rossi of Parma, which was then Podestà of Florence. And note that all the expenses of the said host were furnished by our commonwealth by a tax of six and a quarter per cent., which raised more than 36,000 golden florins, so well ordered were then the registers of the city and country; and the other affairs and revenues of the commonwealth were equally well ordered. True it is that after the return of the said host the popolani began to suspect that the magnates, through pride of the said victory, might lay burdens on them beyond accustomed usage; and for this cause the seven greater Arts drew to themselves the five lesser Arts, and made ready among themselves arms, and shields, and certain standards, and this was in a sense a beginning of the Popolo, which afterwards took the form of the Popolo of 1292, as hereafter we shall narrate. From the aforesaid victory the city of Florence was much exalted, and rose to good and happy state, the best which it had seen until these times, and it increased greatly in people and in wealth, for every one was gaining by some merchandise, art, or trade; and it continued in peaceful and tranquil state for many years after, rising every day. And by reason of gladness and well-being, every year, on the first day of May, they formed bands and companies of gentle youths, clad in new raiment, and raised pavilions covered with cloth and silk and with wooden walls, in divers parts of the city; and likewise there were bands of women and of maidens going through the city dancing in ordered fashion, and ladies, by two and two, with instruments, and with garlands of flowers on their heads, continuing in pastimes and joyance, and at feasts and banquets. [Sidenote: 1289 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 64-66.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 136. Convivio iv. 11: 126.] § 133.--_Of a fierce and violent battle between the duke of Brabant and the count of Luxemburg._ § 134.--_How Don James came from Sicily into Calabria with his armada, and there received some loss, and afterwards laid siege to Gaeta._ § 135.--_How Charles Martel was crowned king of Hungary._ § 136.--_How they of Chiusi were routed, and the Guelf refugees restored._ § 137.--_How the Lucchese, with the forces of Florence, marched upon the city of Pisa._ § 138.--_Of an expedition that the Florentines made wherein they should have had Arezzo yielded up to them._ § 139.--_Of a great fire that broke out in Florence in the house of the Pegolotti._ § 140.--_How the Florentines and their allies made a third expedition against Arezzo._ § 141.--_How Porto Pisano was taken and laid waste by the Florentines and Genoese and Lucchese._ § 142.--_How the marquis of Montferrat was taken prisoner by them of Alexandria._ § 143.--_Of a great miracle that came to pass in Paris concerning the body of Christ._ § 144.--_How they of Ravenna seized the count of Romagna, who was there to represent the Church._ § 145.--_How the soldan of Babylon conquered by force the city of Acre, to the great hurt of the Christians._ [Sidenote: 1291 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxvii. 89.] In the year of Christ 1291, in the month of April, the soldan of Babylon [Cairo] of Egypt having first garrisoned and provisioned Syria, traversed the desert and came into the said Syria with his host, and laid siege to the city of Acre, which of old was called in the Scriptures Ptolemais, and now is called Acon in Latin; and the soldan had with him so much people, both foot and horse, that his host stretched over more than twelve miles. But before we tell more of the loss of Acre, we will tell the reason why the soldan came to besiege it, and took it, as it was related to us by trustworthy fellow-citizens of our own, and merchants which were in Acre at that time. It is true that, because the Saracens had in foregoing times taken from the Christians the city of Antioch, and of Tripoli, and of Tyre, and many other towns which the Christians held on the seashore, the city of Acre had greatly increased, both in folk and in power, forasmuch as no other city was held by the Christians in Syria; so that the kings of Jerusalem, and of Cyprus, and the princes of Antioch, and of Tyre, and of Tripoli, and the Orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers, and other Orders, and the Pope's legates, and they which had gone over seas from the kings of France and of England, all gathered at Acre, and there were there seventeen hereditary lordships, which was a great confusion. And at that time there was truce between the Christians and the Saracens, and there were there more than 18,000 pilgrims who had taken the cross; and their pay not being forthcoming, and because they could not get it from the lords and states which had sent them forth, part of them, which were wild and lawless men, scrupled not to break the truce, and to rob and to slay all the Saracens which were in Acre, under the security of the truce, with their merchandise and victuals; and in like manner they went through many villages round about Acre, robbing and slaying the Saracens. For the which thing, the soldan holding himself much aggrieved, sent his ambassadors to Acre to those lords, demanding compensation for the wrongs that had been committed, and that for his honour and the satisfaction of his people, there should be sent to him as prisoners some of the chiefs and leaders of them which had broken the truce, to the end that he might execute justice upon them, the which requests were denied him. Wherefore he came with his army, as we have said, and because of the multitude of his people, by force they filled up part of the moats, which were very deep, and took the outer circle of the walls; and the next circle they caused in part to fall by the aid of mines and engines; and they took the great tower, which was called Accursed, because it had been foretold that by it Acre should be lost. But with all this they could not take the city, for albeit the Saracens broke down the walls by day, by night they were repaired and stopped up with planks, or with sacks of wool and of cotton, and vigorously defended on the day following, by the wise and valiant brother, Guillaume de Beaujeu, master of the Temple, which was captain-general of the war and of the defence of the city, and had, with much prowess and foresight and care, vigorously defended the city. But as it pleased God, and to punish the sins of the inhabitants of Acre, the said master of the Temple, lifting up his right arm in the combat, was shot by a Saracen with a poisoned arrow, which entered into the joints of his cuirass, by the which wound he shortly after died; and because of his death the whole city was moved and put in fear; and by reason of the confusion of so many lords and captains, as we before said, all fell into disorder, and there was discord in the guard and defence of the city; and each one who could gave heed to his own safety, taking refuge in ships and in other vessels which were in the port. For the which cause the Saracens, continuing the attacks by day and by night, entered the city by force and traversed it, robbing everywhere and slaying all who came in their way, and the young men and maidens they carried off as slaves; and there were of slain and prisoners, men, women and children, more than 60,000; and the loss of goods and booty was infinite. And having collected the booty and treasures, and carried away the prisoners out of the city, they broke down the walls and strongholds, and set fire to them, and destroyed all the city, whereby Christendom sustained very great hurt, for by the loss of Acre there remained in the Holy Land no city pertaining to the Christians; and never again was any one of the good trading cities, which are on our sea-shores and borders, worth one-half of its former profit in merchandise and arts; because of the loss of the city and port of Acre, by reason of its good situation right on the brow of our sea, and in the midst of Syria, and well-nigh in the midst of the inhabited world, seventy miles distant from Jerusalem, a magazine and port for all merchandise, both from the East and from the West; and all races of men in the world met there to barter merchandise; and there were interpreters there of all the languages of the world, so that it was like one of the elements of the world. And this disaster was not without the great and just judgment of God, for that city was more full of sinful men and of women of every kind of abandoned vice than any other Christian city. When the sorrowful tidings came to the West, the Pope proclaimed great indulgences and pardons to whosoever should give aid and succour to the Holy Land, sending word to all Christian lords that he purposed a general crusade; and he forbade, under pain of severe judgments and excommunications, that any Christian should go to Alexandria or the land of Egypt with merchandise, or victuals, or wood, or iron, or should give aid and favour there in any wise. § 146.--_Of the death of King Rudolf of Germany._ [Sidenote: 1291 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 103-105.] In the said year 1291, King Rudolf of Germany died, but he never attained to the honours of the Empire, because he was always intent upon increasing his state and lordship in Germany, leaving the enterprises of Italy that he might increase land and possessions for his sons; who, by his energy and valour, from a small count rose to be Emperor, and gained for himself the duchy of Austria, and a great part of the duchy of Suabia. § 147.--_How King Philip of France caused all the Italians to be taken prisoner, and then ransomed._ § 148.--_How the Pisans recaptured the fortress of Pontadera._ § 149.--_How the city of Forlì in Romagna was taken by Maghinardo da Susinana._ [Sidenote: 1291 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxvii. 49-51.] In the said year all the county of Romagna, being obedient to Holy Church, and under the care of the bishop of Arezzo, which was count thereof for the Pope, Maghinardo da Susinana, with certain nobles and great men of Romagna, took the city of Forlì by theft, and in it they took the Count Aghinolfo of Romena with his sons, which was brother to the said count bishop of Arezzo; and they besieged the said count bishop in Cesena; whence arose great war in Romagna. The said Maghinardo was a great and wise tyrant, holding many castles between Casentino and Romagna, and having many followers; and he was wise in war and very fortunate in many battles, and in his time did great things. He was a Ghibelline by race and by his works, but with the Florentines he was a Guelf and the enemy of all their enemies, whether they were Guelfs or Ghibellines; and in every expedition and battle which the Florentines undertook, whilst he was alive, he was with his people in their service as a captain; and this was because, when his father died, which was called Piero Pagano, a great nobleman, leaving the said Maghinardo, a young child and with many enemies, to wit, the Counts Guidi and the Ubaldini and other lords of Romagna, this said father left him to the care and tutelage of the people and commonwealth of Florence, him and his lands; by the which commonwealth his patrimony was benignly increased and guarded and improved, and for this cause he was grateful and very faithful to the commonwealth of Florence in all its needs. [Sidenote: 1292 A.D.] § 150.--_How the Florentines took the castle of Ampinana._ § 151.--_How Pope Nicholas, of Ascoli, died._ § 152.--_How the whole city of Noyon, in France, was burnt._ § 153.--_How Adolf was elected king of the Romans._ § 154.--_How the Florentines marched upon the city of Pisa._ § 155.--_Of the miracles which were manifested in Florence by S. Maria d'Orto San Michele._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK VII. BOOK VIII. _Here begins the Eighth Book. It tells how the second Popolo arose in the city of Florence, and of many great changes which by reason thereof came afterwards to pass in Florence, following on with the other events of those times._ [Sidenote: 1292 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvi. 131, 132.] § 1.--In the year of Christ 1292, on the 1st day of February, the city of Florence being in great and powerful state, and prosperous in all things, and the citizens thereof waxing fat and rich, and by reason of excessive tranquillity, which naturally engenders pride and novelties, being envious and arrogant among themselves, many murders, and wounds, and outrages were done by one citizen upon another; and above all the nobles known as magnates and potentates, alike in the country and in the city, wrought upon the people who might not resist them, force and violence both against person and goods, taking possession thereof. For the which thing certain good men, artificers and merchants of Florence, which desired good life, considered how to set a remedy and defence against the said plague, and one of the leaders therein, among others, was a man of worth, an ancient and noble citizen, being one of the popolani, rich and powerful, whose name was Giano della Bella, of the people of S. Martin, with the following and counsel of other wise and powerful popolani. And instituting in Florence an order of judges to correct the statutes and our laws, as by our ordinances the custom was of old to do, they ordained certain laws and statutes, very strong and weighty, against such magnates and men of power as should do wrong or violence against the people; increasing the common penalties in divers ways, and enacting that one member of a family of magnates should be held answerable for the others; and two bearing witness to public fame and report should be held to prove such crimes; and the public accounts should be revised. And these laws they called the Ordinances of Justice. And to the intent they might be maintained and put into execution, it was decreed that beyond the number of six Priors which governed the city, there should be a gonfalonier of justice appointed by the several sesti in succession, changing every two months, as do the Priors. And when the bells were set tolling, the people were to rally to the church of San Piero Scheraggio and give out the banner of justice, which before was not the custom. And they decreed that not one of the Priors should be of the noble houses called magnates; for before this good and true merchants had often been made Priors, albeit they chanced to be of some great and noble house. And the ensign and standard of the said Popolo was decreed to be a white field with a red cross; and there were chosen 1000 citizens, divided according to the sesti, with certain standard-bearers for each region, with fifty footmen to each standard, which were to be armed, each one with hauberk and shield marked with the cross; and they were to assemble at every tumult or summons of the gonfalonier, at the house or at the palace of the Priors, to do execution against the magnates; and afterwards the number of the chosen footmen increased to 2,000, and then to 4,000. And a like order of men-at-arms for the people, with the said ensign, was enrolled in each country and district of Florence, and they were called the Leagues of the People. And the first of the said gonfaloniers was one Baldo de' Ruffoli of the Porte del Duomo; and in his time the standard sallied forth with armed men to destroy the goods of a family named Galli of Porta S. Marie, by reason of a murder which one of them had committed in the kingdom of France on the person of a popolano. This new decree of the people, and change in the State was of much importance to the city of Florence, and had afterwards many and divers consequences both ill and good to our commonwealth, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention. And in this new thing and beginning of the Popolo, the popolani would have been hindered by the power of the magnates but that in those times the said magnates of Florence were in greater broils and discords among themselves than ever before since the Guelfs returned to Florence; and there was great war between the Adimari and the Tosinghi, and between the Rossi and the Tornaquinci, and between the Bardi and the Mozzi, and between the Gherardini and the Manieri, and between the Cavalcanti and the Bondelmonti, and between certain of the Bondelmonti and the Giandonati, and between the Visdomini and the Falconieri, and between the Bostichi and the Foraboschi, and between the Foraboschi and the Malispini, and among the Frescobaldi themselves, and among the family of the Donati themselves, and many other noble houses. [And therefore let not the reader marvel because we have put this event at the head of our book, forasmuch as the most strange events arose from this beginning, and not only to our city of Florence, but to all the region of Italy.] [Sidenote: 1293 A.D.] § 2.--_How the people of Florence made peace with the Pisans, and many other notable things._ § 3.--_Of a great fire which broke out in Florence in the district of Torcicoda._ § 4.--_How the war began between the king of France and the king of England._ § 5.--_How Celestine V. was elected and made Pope, and how he renounced the papacy._ [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. iii. 58-60; xxvii. 104, 105.] [Sidenote: Par. xxvii. 41.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. iii. 59, 60.] In the year of Christ 1294, in the month of July, the Church of Rome had been vacant after the death of Pope Nicholas d'Ascoli for more than two years, by reason of the discord of the cardinals, which were divided, each party desiring to make one of themselves Pope. And the cardinals being in Perugia and straitly constrained by the Perugians to elect a Pope, as it pleased God they were agreed not to name one of their own college, and they elected a holy man which was called Brother Peter of Morrone in Abruzzi. This man was a hermit, and of austere life and penitence, and in order to abandon the vanity of the world, after he had ordained many holy monasteries of his Order, he departed as a penitent into the mountain of Morrone, which is above Sermona. He, being elected and brought and crowned Pope, made in the following September, for the reformation of the Church, twelve cardinals, for the most part from beyond the mountains, by the petition and after the counsel of King Charles, king of Sicily and of Apulia. And this done, he departed with the court to Naples, and by King Charles was graciously received and with great honour; but because he was simple and knew no letters, and did not occupy himself willingly with the pomps of the world, the cardinals held him in small esteem, and it seemed to them that they had made an ill choice for the well-being and estate of the Church. The said holy father perceiving this, and not feeling himself sufficient for the government of the Church, as one who more loved the service of God and the weal of his soul than worldly honour, sought every way how he might renounce the papacy. Now, among the other cardinals of the court was one M. Benedetto Guatani d'Alagna, very learned in books, and in the things of the world much practised and sagacious, which had a great desire to attain to the papal dignity; and he had laid plans seeking and striving to obtain it by the aid of King Charles and the cardinals, and already had the promise from them, which afterwards was fulfilled to him. He put it before the holy father, hearing that he was desirous to renounce the papacy, that he should make a new decretal, that for the good of his soul any Pope might renounce the papacy, showing him the example of S. Clement, whom, when S. Peter came to die, he desired should be Pope after him; but he, for the good of his soul, would not have it so, and in his room first S. Linus and then S. Cletus was Pope. And even as the said cardinal gave counsel, Pope Celestine made the said decretal; and this done, the day of S. Lucy in the following December, in a consistory of all the cardinals, in their presence he took off the crown and papal mantle, and renounced the papacy, and departed from the court, and returned to his hermit life, and to do his penance. And thus Pope Celestine reigned in the papacy five months and nine days. But afterwards it is said, and was true, that his successor, M. Benedetto Guatani aforesaid (who was afterwards Pope Boniface), caused him to be taken prisoner in the mountains of S. Angiolo in Apulia above Bastia, whither he had withdrawn to do penance; and some say that he would fain have gone into Slavonia, but the other secretly held him in the fortress of Fummone in Campagna in honourable confinement, to the intent that so long as he lived none should be set up as a rival to his own election, forasmuch as many Christians held Celestine to be the right and true Pope, notwithstanding his renunciation, maintaining that such a dignity as was the papacy by no decretal could be renounced; and albeit S. Clement refused the papacy at the first, the faithful nevertheless held him to be father, and it behoved him to be Pope after S. Cletus. But Celestine being held prisoner, as we have said, in Fummone, lived but a short time in the said place; and dying there, he was buried poorly in a little church without Fummone pertaining to the order of his brethren, and put underground more than ten cubits deep, to the end his body might not be found. But during his life, and after his death, God wrought many miracles by him, whence many people held him in great reverence; and a certain time afterwards by the Church of Rome, and by Pope John XXII., he was canonised, and called S. Peter of Morrone, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention. § 6.--_How Boniface VIII. was elected and made Pope._ [Sidenote: Inf. vi. 69. xix. 52-57, 76-81. xxvii. 70, 85-111.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 86-90. Par. ix. 136-142. xii. 90. xvii. 49-51. xviii. 118-136. xxvii. 22-27. xxx. 148.] [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] In the said year 1294, Cardinal Benedetto Guatani, having by his wit and sagacity so wrought that Pope Celestine had renounced the papacy, as before in the last chapter we have made mention, followed up his enterprise, and wrought upon the cardinals and the support of King Charles, which had the friendship of many cardinals, specially of the twelve newly elected by Celestine. And while he was pursuing this quest, one evening by night he went secretly with but few companions to King Charles, and said to him: "King, thy Pope Celestine had the will and the means to serve thee in thy Sicilian war, but he had not the knowledge. Now, if thou wilt work with thy friends the cardinals that I may be elected Pope, I shall know, and I shall will, and I shall be able," promising him by his faith and oath to put thereto all the power of the Church. Then the king, trusting in him, promised him and agreed with his twelve cardinals that they should give him their votes; and there being at the election M. Matteo Rosso and M. Jacopo della Colonna, which were the heads of factions among the cardinals, they perceived what was toward, and straightway they too gave him their votes, but the first to do it was M. Matteo Rosso Orsini. And on this wise he was elected Pope in the city of Naples, the vigil of the Nativity of Christ in the said year; and immediately when he was elected, he willed to depart from Naples with his court, and came to Rome, and there caused himself to be crowned with great solemnity and honour in the middle of January. And this done, the first act which he did, hearing that great war was begun between King Philip of France and King Edward of England on the question of Gascony, was to send beyond the mountains two cardinal legates, to the end they might reconcile them together; but they availed little, for the said lords continued in greater war than before. This Pope Boniface was of the city of Alagna, a very noble man of his city, son of M. Lifredi Guatani, a Ghibelline by race, and whilst he was cardinal he was their protector, specially of the Todini; but after he was made Pope he became a strong Guelf, and did much for King Charles in the war in Sicily, albeit it is said by many wise men that he broke up the Guelf party, under cover of showing himself a strong Guelf, as hereafter in his actions may be manifestly seen by him who observes closely. A man of large schemes was he and lordly, and sought for much honour, and well knew how to maintain and advance the rights of the Church, and by reason of his knowledge and power he was much redoubted and feared; he was very rich through making the Church great and his kinsfolk; making no scruple of gain, for he said all was lawfully his which was the Church's. And when he was made Pope he annulled all the assignments of the revenues of vacant benefices made by Pope Celestine, except where one was in possession; and he had his nephew made count of Caserta by King Charles, and two sons of the said nephew, the one count of Fondi, and the other count of Palazzo. He bought the military fortress at Rome, which was the palace of Octavianus the emperor, and caused it to be enlarged and rebuilt at great cost, and other strong and fine castles in Campagna and in Maremma. And always he abode in winter in Rome, and in summer and spring in Rieti or Orvieto, but afterwards the most in Alagna, to make his city great. We will now leave speaking of the said Pope, following from time to time the things which came to pass in other parts of the world, and above all those in Florence, whereof the matter increases much. [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] § 7.--_When the foundation of the new church of Santa Croce was begun in Florence._ § 8.--_How the great man of the people, Giano della Bella, was driven out of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] In the said year 1294, in the month of January, when M. Giovanni da Lucino da Como had lately entered upon the office of Podestà of Florence, a cause came for trial before him accusing M. Corso de' Donati, a noble and powerful citizen among the best in Florence, of having slain a popolano, a retainer of his associate M. Simone Galastrone, in a scuffle and fray which they had together, and wherein that retainer was slain; for which M. Corso Donati refused to pay the fine and bade justice take its course, trusting in the favour of the said Podestà, to be granted at the prayers of friends and of the lords; whereas the people of Florence looked that the said Podestà should condemn him; and already the standard of justice had been brought forth to carry the sentence into execution; but he absolved him; for the which thing, when the said declaration of innocence was read from the palace of the Podestà, and M. Simone Galastrone was condemned for having inflicted wounds, the common people cried out: "Death to the Podestà," and sallied forth in haste from the palace, crying, "To arms! to arms! long live the people!" and a great number of the people flew to arms, and especially of the common people, and rushed to the house of Giano della Bella, their chief; and he, it is said, sent them with his brother to the palace of the Priors to follow the gonfalonier of justice; but this they did not do, but came only to the palace of the Podestà, and furiously assaulted the said palace with arms and crossbows, and set fire to the gates and burnt them, and entered in, and seized and scornfully robbed the said Podestà and his staff. But M. Corso in fear of his life fled from the palace over the roofs, for then was it not so walled as it is now. And the tumult displeased the Priors which were very near to the palace of the Podestà, but by reason of the unbridled populace, they were not able to hinder it. But some days after, when the uproar had been quieted, the great men could not rest, in their desire to abase Giano della Bella, forasmuch as he had been among the chiefs and beginners of the Ordinances of Justice, and was moreover desirous further to abase the magnates by taking from the Captains of the Guelf Party the seal and the common fund of the Party (which fund was very great), and to give them to the commonwealth; not that he was not a Guelf and of Guelf stock, but he would fain diminish the power of the magnates. Wherefore the magnates, seeing themselves thus treated, created a faction together with the Council of the College of Judges and of Notaries, which held themselves to be oppressed by him, as we before made mention, and with other popolani grassi, friends and kinsmen of the magnates, which loved not that Giano della Bella should be greater in the commonwealth than they. And they determined to elect a body of stalwart Priors. And this was done, and they were proclaimed earlier than the wonted time. And this done, when they were in office they conferred with the Captain of the People, and set forth a proclamation and inquisition against the said Giano della Bella and his other confederates and followers and those which had been leaders in setting fire to the gates of the Palace, charging them with having set the city in an uproar, and disturbed the peace of the State, and assaulted the Podestà, against the Ordinances of Justice; for the which thing the common people was much disturbed, and went to the house of Giano della Bella, and offered to surround him with arms, to defend him or to attack the city. And his brother bore to Orto San Michele a standard with the arms of the people; but Giano was a wise man, albeit somewhat presumptuous, and when he saw himself betrayed and deceived by the very men which had been with him in making the Popolo, and saw that their force together with that of the magnates was very great, and that the Priors were already assembled under arms at their house, he would not hazard the chances of civil war; and to the end the city might not be ravaged, and for fear of his person, he would not face the court, but withdrew, and departed from Florence on the 5th day of March, hoping that the people might yet restore him to his state; wherefore by the said accusation or notification he was for contumacy condemned in person and banished, and he died in exile in France (for he had affairs to attend to there, and was a partner of the Pazzi); and all his goods were destroyed; and certain other popolani were accused with him; and he was a great loss to our city, and above all to the people, forasmuch as he was the most leal and upright popolano, and lover of the common good, of any man in Florence, and one who gave to the commonwealth and took nothing therefrom. He was presumptuous and desired to avenge his wrongs, and this he did somewhat against the Abati, his neighbours, with the arm of the commonwealth, and, perhaps for the said sins, he was by his own laws, wrongfully and without guilt, judged by the unjust. And note that this is a great example to those citizens which are to come, to beware of desiring to be lords over their fellow-citizens or too ambitious; but to be content with the common citizenship. For the very men which had aided him to rise, through envy betrayed him and plotted to abase him; and it has been seen and experienced truly in Florence in ancient and modern times, that whosoever has become leader of the people and of the masses has been cast down; forasmuch as the ungrateful people never give men their due reward. From this event arose great disturbance and change amongst the people and in the city of Florence, and from that time forward the artificers and common people possessed little power in the commonwealth, but the government remained in the hands of the powerful popolani grassi. [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] § 9.--_When the building of the great church of Santa Reparata was begun._ § 10.--_How M. Gianni di Celona came into Tuscany as Imperial Vicar._ * * * * * [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 23-120.] [Sidenote: Inf. xv. 119, 120.] In the said year 1294 there died in Florence a worthy citizen whose name was M. Brunetto Latini, who was a great philosopher, and was a perfect master in rhetoric, understanding both how to speak well and how to write well. And he it was which commented upon the rhetoric of Tully, and made the good and useful book called "The Treasure," and "The Little Treasure," and "The Key to the Treasure," and many other books in philosophy, and concerning vices and virtues. And he was secretary of our commonwealth. He was a worldly man, but we have made mention of him because it was he who was the beginner and master in refining the Florentines and in teaching them how to speak well, and how to guide and rule our republic according to policy. [Sidenote: 1294 A.D.] § 11.--_How S. Louis, king that was of France, was canonised._ § 12.--_How the magnates of Florence raised a tumult in the city to break up the Popolo._ [Sidenote: 1295 A.D.] On the 6th day of the month of July of the year 1295, the magnates and great men of the city of Florence, seeing themselves mightily oppressed by the new Ordinances of Justice made by the people--and especially by that ordinance which declares that one kinsman is to be held to account for another, and that two witnesses establish public report--having their own friends in the priorate, gave themselves to breaking down the ordinances of the people. And first they made up their great quarrels amongst themselves, especially between the Adimari and Tosinghi, and between the Mozzi and the Bardi. And this done, on an appointed day, they made a great gathering of folk, and petitioned the Priors to have the said articles amended; whereupon all the people in the city of Florence rose in tumult and rushed to arms; the magnates, on armoured horses themselves, and with their retainers from the country and other troops on foot in great numbers; and one set of them drew up in the piazza of S. Giovanni, over whom M. Forese degli Adimari held the royal ensign; another set assembled at the Piazza a Ponte, whose ensign was held by M. Vanni Mozzi; and a third set in the Mercato Nuovo, whose standard M. Geri Spini held; with intent to overrun the city. The popolani were all in arms, in their ranks, with ensigns and banners, in great numbers; and they barricaded the streets of the city at sundry points to hinder the horsemen from overrunning the place, and they gathered at the palace of the Podestà, and at the house of the Priors, who at that time abode at the house of the Cerchi behind San Brocolo. And the people found themselves in great power and well ordered, with force of arms and folk, and they associated with the Priors, whom they did not trust, a number of the greatest and most powerful and discreet of the popolani of Florence, one for each sesto. Wherefore the magnates had no strength nor power against them, and the people might have overthrown them; but consulting for the best, and to avoid civil battle, by the mediation of certain friars between the better sort of either side, each party disarmed; and the city returned to peace and quiet without any change; the Popolo being left in its state and lordship; save that whereas before the proof of public report was established by two witnesses, it was now laid down that there must be three; and even this was conceded by the Priors against the will of the popolani, and shortly afterwards it was revoked and the old order re-established. But for all that this disturbance was the root and beginning of the dismal and ill estate of the city of Florence which thereafter followed, for thenceforth the magnates never ceased to search for means to beat down the people, to their utmost power; and the leaders of the people sought every way of strengthening the people and abasing the magnates by reinforcing the Ordinances of Justice, and they had the great crossbows taken from the magnates and bought up by the commonwealth; and many families which were not tyrannical nor of any great power they removed from the number of the magnates and added them to the people, to weaken the power of the magnates and increase that of the people; and when the said Priors went out of office they were struck with cudgels behind and had stones flung at them, because they had consented to favour the magnates; and by reason of these disturbances and changes there was a fresh ordering of the people in Florence, whereof the heads were Mancini and Magalotti, Altoviti, Peruzzi, Acciaiuoli, Cerretani and many others. § 13.--_How King Charles made peace with King James of Aragon._ [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 115-120, iii. 116.] [Sidenote: 1295 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. viii. 49-75.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 55.] [Sidenote: Purg. iii. 116, vii. 115-120. Par. xix. 130-135, xx. 61-63; Convivio iv. 6: 180-190. De Vulg. Eloquio i. 12: 15-38.] In the year of Christ 1295 the King Alfonso of Aragon died; by the which death Don James, his brother, which had been crowned king of Sicily and held the island, sought to make peace with the Church and with King Charles; and by the hand of Pope Boniface it was done after this manner: that the said Don James should take to wife the daughter of King Charles, and should resign the lordship of Sicily, and should set the hostages free which King Charles had left in Aragon, to wit Robert and Raymond and John, his sons, with other barons and knights of Provence. And the Pope, with King Charles, promised that they would cause Charles of Valois, brother of the king of France, to renounce the claim which Pope Martin IV. had granted him to the kingdom of Aragon; and to the end he might consent thereto, King Charles gave him the county of Anjou, and his daughter to wife. And to order this matter King Charles went into France in person, and when he returned with the compact made, and with his sons whom he had set free from prison, he came to the city of Florence, whither was already come to meet him Charles Martel, his son, king of Hungary, with his company of 200 knights with golden spurs, French and Provençal and from the Kingdom, all young men, invested by the king with habits of scarlet and dark green, and all with saddles of one device, with their palfreys adorned with silver and gold, with arms quarterly, bearing golden lilies and surrounded by a bordure of red and silver, which are the arms of Hungary. And they appeared the noblest and richest company a young king ever had with him. And in Florence he abode more than twenty days, awaiting his father, King Charles, and his brothers; and the Florentines did him great honour, and he showed great love to the Florentines, wherefore he was in high favour with them all. And when King Charles was come into Florence, and Robert and Raymond and John, his sons, with the marquis of Montferrat, which was to have for wife the daughter of the king, he made many knights in Florence and received much honour and many presents from the Florentines; and then the king with all his sons returned to the papal court and afterwards to Naples. And this done, and after all the articles of the treaty of peace had been fulfilled by the Pope and by King Charles, Don James departed from Sicily and came into Aragon, and was crowned king over the realm; but whosoever may have been in fault, whether the Pope or Don James, King Charles found himself deceived, for when King Charles thought to have the island of Sicily again in quiet, after Don James had departed, Frederick, his next brother, became lord thereof, and caused himself to be crowned king by the Sicilians against the will of the Church by the bishop of Cephalonia; wherefore the Pope was much angered with the king of Aragon, as well as with Frederick his brother, and caused him to be summoned to court, which King James came thither the following year, as hereafter we shall make mention. [Sidenote: 1296 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 49-51.] [Sidenote: 1297 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1298 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 97.] § 14.--_How the Guelf party were driven by force out of Genoa._ § 15.--_The doings of the Tartars of Persia._ § 16.--_How Maghinardo da Susinana defeated the Bolognese and took the city of Imola._ § 17.--_How the people of Florence built the cities and strongholds of Sangiovanni and Castelfranco in Valdarno._ § 18.--_How King James of Aragon came to Rome, and Pope Boniface granted him the island of Sardinia._ § 19.--_How the counts of Flanders and of Bar rebelled against the king of France._ § 20.--_How the count of Artois defeated the Flemings at Furnes, and how the king of England passed into Flanders._ § 21.--_How Pope Boniface deposed from the cardinalate M. Jacopo and M. Piero della Colonna._ § 22.--_How Albert of Austria defeated and slew Adolf, king of Germany, and how he was elected king of the Romans._ § 23.--_How the Colonnesi came to ask pardon of the Pope, and afterwards rebelled a second time._ [Sidenote: 1298 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxvii. 67-111.] In the said year, in the month of September, negociations having taken place between Pope Boniface and the Colonnesi, the said Colonnesi, both laymen and clergy, came to Rieti, where the court was, and threw themselves at the feet of the said Pope, asking pardon, who forgave them and absolved them from excommunication, and desired them to surrender the city of Palestrina; and this they did, and he promised to restore them to their state and dignity, which promise he did not fulfil, but caused the said city of Palestrina to be destroyed from the hill and stronghold where it was, and a new city to be built on the plain, to which the name of the Civita Papale was given; and all this false and fraudulent treaty the Pope made by the counsel of the count of Montefeltro, then a minor friar, when he said the evil word "ample promise and scant fulfilment." The said Colonnesi, finding themselves deceived in that which had been promised to them, and the noble fortress of Palestrina destroyed by the said deceit, before the year was ended rebelled against the Pope and the Church; and the Pope excommunicated them again with heavy sentence; wherefore, fearing lest they should be taken or slain through the persecution of the said Pope, they departed from the city of Rome and were dispersed, some to Sicily, some to France and to other places, concealing themselves in one place after another so as not to be recognised, and to the end no certain abiding-place of theirs might be known, especially M. Jacopo and M. Piero, which had been cardinals; and thus they continued in exile so long as the said Pope lived. § 24.--_How the Genoese defeated the Venetians at sea._ § 25.--_Of the great earthquakes that befell in certain cities in Italy._ § 26.--_When the palace of the people of Florence was begun, where dwell the Priors._ [Sidenote: 1298 A.D.] In the said year 1298, the commonwealth and people of Florence began to build the Palace of the Priors, by reason of the differences between the people and the magnates, forasmuch as the city was always in jealousy and commotion, at the election of the Priors afresh every two months, by reason of the factions which had already begun; and the Priors which ruled the city and all the republic, did not feel themselves secure in their former habitation, which was the house of the White Cerchi behind the church of San Brocolo. And they built the said palace where had formerly been the houses of the Uberti, rebels against Florence, and Ghibellines; and on the site of those houses they made a piazza, so that they might never be rebuilt. And they bought other houses from citizens, such as the Foraboschi, and there built the said palace and the tower of the priors, which was raised upon a tower which was more than fifty cubits high, pertaining to the Foraboschi, and called the Torre della Vacca. And to the end the said palace might not stand upon the ground of the said Uberti, they which had the building of it set it up obliquely; but for all that it was a grave loss not to build it four-square, and further removed from the church of San Piero Scheraggio. [Sidenote: 1299 A.D.] § 27.--_How peace was made between the commonwealth of Genoa and that of Venice._ § 28.--_How peace was made between the commonwealth of Bologna and the marquis of Este and Maghinardo da Sussinana by the Florentines._ § 29.--_How King James of Aragon with Ruggeri di Loria and with the armada of King Charles defeated the Sicilians off Cape Orlando._ § 30.--_How peace was made between the Genoese and Pisans._ § 31.--_When the new walls of the city of Florence were begun again._ § 32.--_How the king of France by his practices got hold of all Flanders, and had the count and his sons in prison._ § 33.--_How the king of France allied himself with King Albert of Germany._ § 34.--_How the prince of Taranto was defeated in Sicily._ § 35.--_How Ghazan, lord of the Tartars, defeated the soldan of the Saracens, and took the Holy Land in Syria._ § 36.--_How Pope Boniface VIII. gave pardons to all Christians which should go to Rome, in the year of the jubilee, 1300._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. ii. 98, 99.] [Sidenote: Par. xxxi. 104-108.] [Sidenote: Inf. xviii. 28-33.] In the year of Christ 1300, according to the birth of Christ, inasmuch as it was held by many that after every hundred years from the nativity of Christ, the Pope which was reigning at the time granted great indulgences, Pope Boniface VIII., which then occupied the apostolic chair, in reverence for the nativity of Christ, granted supreme and great indulgence after this manner; that within the whole course of this said year, to whatsoever Roman should visit continuously for thirty days the churches of the Blessed Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul, and to all other people which were not Romans which should do likewise for fifteen days, there should be granted full and entire remission of all their sins, both the guilt and the punishment thereof, they having made or to make confession of the same. And for consolation of the Christian pilgrims, every Friday and every solemn feast day, was shown in S. Peter's the Veronica, the true image of Christ, on the napkin. For the which thing, a great part of the Christians which were living at that time, women as well as men, made the said pilgrimage from distant and divers countries, both from far and near. And it was the most marvellous thing that was ever seen, for throughout the year, without break, there were in Rome, besides the inhabitants of the city, 200,000 pilgrims, not counting those who were coming and going on their journeys; and all were suitably supplied and satisfied with provisions, horses as well as persons, and all was well ordered, and without tumult or strife; and I can bear witness to this, for I was present and saw it. And from the offerings made by the pilgrims much treasure was added to the Church, and all the Romans were enriched by the trade. And I, finding myself on that blessed pilgrimage in the holy city of Rome, beholding the great and ancient things therein, and reading the stories and the great doings of the Romans, written by Virgil, and by Sallust, and by Lucan, and Titus Livius, and Valerius, and Paulus Orosius, and other masters of history, which wrote alike of small things as of great, of the deeds and actions of the Romans, and also of foreign nations throughout the world, myself to preserve memorials and give examples to those which should come after took up their style and design, although as a disciple I was not worthy of such a work. But considering that our city of Florence, the daughter and creature of Rome, was rising, and had great things before her, whilst Rome was declining, it seemed to me fitting to collect in this volume and new chronicle all the deeds and beginnings of the city of Florence, in so far as it has been possible for me to find and gather them together, and to follow the doings of the Florentines in detail, and the other notable things of the universe in brief, as long as it shall be God's pleasure; in hope of which, rather than in my own poor learning, I undertook, by his grace, the said enterprise; and thus in the year 1300, having returned from Rome, I began to compile this book, in reverence to God and the blessed John, and in commendation of our city of Florence. [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] § 37.--_How Count Guido of Flanders and two sons of his surrendered to the king of France, and how they were deceived and cast into prison._ § 38.--_How the parties of the Blacks and Whites first began in the city of Pistoia._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] In these times the city of Pistoia being in happy and great and good estate, among the other citizens there was one family very noble and puissant, not however of very ancient lineage, which was called the Cancellieri, born of one Ser Cancelliere, which was a merchant, and gained much wealth, and by his two wives had many sons, which by reason of their riches all became knights, and men of worth and substance, and from them were born many sons and grandsons, so that at this time they numbered more than 100 men in arms, rich and puissant and of many affairs, so that not only were they the leading citizens of Pistoia, but they were among the most puissant families of Tuscany. There arose among them through their exceeding prosperity, and through the suggestion of the devil, contempt and enmity, between them which were born of one wife against them which were born of the other; and the one part took the name of the Black Cancellieri, and the other of the Whites, and this grew until they fought together, but it was not any very great affair. And one of those on the side of the White Cancellieri having been wounded, they on the side of the Black Cancellieri, to the end they might be at peace and concord with them, sent him which had done the injury and handed him over to the mercy of them which had received it, that they should take amends and vengeance for it at their will; they on the side of the White Cancellieri, ungrateful and proud, having neither pity nor love, cut off the hand of him which had been commended to their mercy on a horse manger. By which sinful beginning, not only was the house of the Cancellieri divided, but many violent deaths arose therefrom, and all the city of Pistoia was divided, for some held with one part and some with the other, and they called themselves the Whites and the Blacks, forgetting among themselves the Guelf and Ghibelline parties; and many civil strifes and much peril and loss of life arose therefrom in Pistoia; and not only in Pistoia, but afterwards the city of Florence and all Italy was contaminated by the said parties, as hereafter we shall be able to understand and know. The Florentines, fearing lest the said factions should stir up rebellion in the city to the hurt of the Guelf party, interposed to bring about an atonement between them, and took the lordship of the city, and brought both parties of the Cancellieri from Pistoia, and set them under bounds at Florence. The Black party were kept in the house of the Frescobaldi in Oltrarno, and the White party in the house of the Cerchi in Garbo, through kinship which there was between them. But like as one sick sheep infects all the flock, thus this accursed seed which came from Pistoia, being in Florence corrupted all the Florentines, and first divided all the races and families of the nobles, one part thereof holding to and favouring one side, and the other the other, and afterwards all the popolari. For the which cause and beginning of strife not only were the Cancellieri not reconciled together by the Florentines, but the Florentines by them were divided and broken up, increasing from bad to worse, as our treatise will hereafter make manifest. § 39.--_How the city of Florence was divided and brought to shame by the said White and Black parties._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xxiv. 22.] [Sidenote: Par. xv., xvi.] [Sidenote: 1299 A.D.] In the said time, our city of Florence was in the greatest and happiest state which had ever been since it was rebuilt, or before, alike in greatness and power and in number of people, forasmuch as there were more than 30,000 citizens in the city, and more than 70,000 men capable of arms in the country within her territory; and she was great in nobility of good knights, and in free populace, and in riches, ruling over the greater part of Tuscany; whereupon the sin of ingratitude, with the instigation of the enemy of the human race, brought forth from the said prosperity pride and corruption, which put an end to the feasts and joyaunce of the Florentines. For hitherto they had been living in many delights and dainties, and in tranquillity and with continual banquets; and every year throughout almost all the city on the first day of May, there were bands and companies of men and of women, with sports and dances. But now it came to pass that through envy there arose factions among the citizens; and one of the chief and greatest began in the sesto of offence, to wit of Porte San Piero, between the house of the Cerchi, and the Donati; on the one side through envy, and on the other through rude ungraciousness. The head of the family of the Cerchi was one M. Vieri dei Cerchi, and he and those of his house were of great affairs, and powerful, and with great kinsfolk, and were very rich merchants, so that their company was among the largest in the world; these were luxurious, inoffensive, uncultured and ungracious, like folk come in a short time to great estate and power. The head of the family of the Donati was M. Corso Donati, and he and those of his house were gentlemen and warriors, and of no superabundant riches, but were called by a gibe the Malefami. Neighbours they were in Florence and in the country, and while the one set was envious the other stood on their boorish dignity, so that there arose from the clash a fierce scorn between them, which was greatly inflamed by the ill seed of the White and Black parties from Pistoia, as we made mention in the last chapter. And the said Cerchi were the heads of the White party in Florence, and with them held almost all the house of the Adimari, save the branch of the Cavicciuli; all the house of the Abati, which was then very powerful, and part of them were Guelf and part were Ghibelline; a great part of the Tosinghi, specially the branch of Baschiera; part of the house of the Bardi, and part of the Rossi, and likewise some of the Frescobaldi, and part of the Nerli and of the Mannelli, and all the Mozzi, which then were very powerful in riches and in estate; all those of the house of the Scali, and the greater part of the Gherardini, all the Malispini, and a great part of the Bostichi and Giandonati, of the Pigli, and of the Vecchietti and Arrigucci, and almost all the Cavalcanti, which were a great and powerful house, and all the Falconieri which were a powerful house of the people. And with them took part many houses and families of popolani, and lesser craftsmen, and all the Ghibelline magnates and popolani; and by reason of the great following which the Cerchi had, the government of the city was almost all in their power. On the side of the Blacks were all they of the house of the Pazzi, who may be counted with the Donati as the chiefs, and all the Visdomini and all the Manieri and Bagnesi, and all the Tornaquinci, and the Spini and the Bondelmonti, and the Gianfigliazzi, Agli, and Brunelleschi, and Cavicciuli, and the other part of the Tosinghi; all the part that was left of all the Guelf houses named above, for those which were not with the Whites held on the contrary with the Blacks. And thus from the said two parties all the city of Florence and its territory was divided and contaminated. For the which cause, the Guelf party, fearing lest the said parties should be turned to account by the Ghibellines, sent to the court to Pope Boniface, that he might use some remedy. For the which thing the said Pope sent for M. Vieri de' Cerchi, and when he came before him, he prayed him to make peace with M. Corso Donati and with his party, referring their differences to him; and he promised him to put him and his followers into great and good estate, and to grant him such spiritual favours as he might ask of him. M. Vieri, albeit he was in other things a sage knight, in this was but little sage, and was too obstinate and capricious, insomuch that he would grant nought of the Pope's request; saying that he was at war with no man; wherefore he returned to Florence, and the Pope was moved with indignation against him and against his party. It came to pass a little while after that certain both of one party and of the other were riding through the city armed and on their guard, and with the party of the young Cerchi was Baldinaccio of the Adimari, and Baschiera of the Tosinghi, and Naldo of the Gherardini, and Giovanni Giacotti Malispini, with their followers, more than thirty on horseback; and with the young Donati were certain of the Pazzi and of the Spini, and others of their company. On the evening of the first of May, in the year 1300, while they were watching a dance of ladies which was going forward on the piazza of Santa Trinita, one party began to scoff at the other, and to urge their horses one against the other, whence arose a great conflict and confusion, and many were wounded, and, as ill-luck would have it, Ricoverino, son of M. Ricovero of the Cerchi, had his nose cut off his face; and through the said scuffle that evening all the city was moved with apprehension and flew to arms. This was the beginning of the dissensions and divisions in the city of Florence and in the Guelf party, whence many ills and perils followed on afterwards, as in due time we shall make mention. And for this cause we have narrated thus extensively the origin of this beginning of the accursed White and Black parties, for the great and evil consequences which followed to the Guelf party, and to the Ghibellines, and to all the city of Florence, and also to all Italy; and like as the death of M. Bondelmonte the elder was the beginning of the Guelf and Ghibelline parties, so this was the beginning of the great ruin of the Guelf party and of our city. And note, that the year before these things came to pass, the houses of the commonwealth were built, which began at the foot of the old bridge over the Arno, and extended towards the fortress of Altafronte, and to do this they raised the piles at the foot of the bridge, and they had of necessity to move the statue of Mars; and whereas at the first it looked towards the east, it was turned towards the north, wherefore, because of the augury of old, folk said: "May it please God that there come not great changes therefrom to our city." § 40.--_How the Cardinal d'Acquasparta came as legate from the Pope to make peace in Florence, and could not do it._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xii. 124.] By reason of the aforesaid events and the factions of the White and Black parties, the captains of the Guelf party and their council were fearful lest through the said divisions and strifes the Ghibelline party might rise to more power in Florence, which under the plea of good government already seemed likely; and many Ghibellines held to be good men were beginning to be set in office; and moreover those which held with the Black party, to recover their estate, sent ambassadors to the court to Pope Boniface to pray him, for the good of the city and for the party of the Church, to take some action. For the which thing straightway the Pope appointed as legate to follow up this matter Brother Matteo d'Acquasparta, his cardinal bishop of Porto, of the Order of the Minor Friars, and sent him to Florence, which came there in the month of June following, in the said year 1300, and was received with great honour by the Florentines. And when he had taken some repose in Florence, he craved jurisdiction from the commonwealth to reconcile the Florentines together; and to the end he might take away the said White and Black parties he desired to reform the city, and to throw the offices open again; and those which were of one part and of the other which were worthy to be priors, their names were to be put into a bag together, in each of the sesti, and were to be drawn thence every two months, as chance would have it; forasmuch as through the ill-will which had arisen from the factions and divisions, there was never an election of priors by the colleges of Consuls of the Arts but that almost all the city was moved to uproar, and at times with great preparation of arms. They of the White party which were at the head of the government of the city, through fear of losing their estate, and of being deceived by the Pope and the legate by means of the said reformation, took the worse counsel, and would not yield obedience; for the which thing the said legate was offended, and returned to court, and left the city of Florence excommunicate and under interdict. § 41.--_Concerning the evils and dangers which followed afterwards to our city._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] [Sidenote: Sonnet xxxii. 1. Vita Nuova 3: 97-100; 24: 19, 45; 25: 111-113; 31: 21-24; 33: 4; De Vulg. El. i. 13: 37; ii. 6: 68; 12: 16, 62.] When the legate was departed from Florence the city remained in great turmoil and in evil state. It came to pass in the month of December following that M. Corso Donati went with his followers, and they of the house of the Cerchi with their followers, to the burial of a lady of the house of Frescobaldi; and when the two parties came face to face, they were minded to assault one another, wherefore all the folk which were at the burial rose in uproar; and thus every one returned in flight to his own house, and all the city flew to arms, and each of the parties gathered a great assembly at their house. M. Gentile dei Cerchi, Guido Cavalcanti, Baldinaccio and Corso of the Adimari, Baschiera della Tosa, and Naldo of the Gherardini, with their companions and followers on horse and on foot, went in haste to Porte San Piero to the house of the Donati, and not finding them at Porte San Piero, hastened to San Piero Maggiore, where was M. Corso with his companions and assembly, and by them they were stoutly resisted and driven back and wounded, to the shame and dishonour of the Cerchi and of their followers; and for this they were condemned, both the one party and the other, by the commonwealth. A little while after, certain of the Cerchi were in the country at Nepozzano and Pugliano at their country homes and farms; and as they were returning to Florence, they of the house of the Donati, being assembled with their friends at Remole, opposed their path, and there were wounds and assaults both on one side and on the other; for the which cause both one side and the other were accused and condemned for the assemblage and assaults; and the greater part of those of the house of the Donati, not being able to pay their fine, chose imprisonment, and were put under confinement. The Cerchi desired to follow their example, for M. Torrigiano dei Cerchi had said: "They shall not overcome us in this wise, as they did the Tedaldini, eating them up by fines"; so he induced his companions to choose imprisonment, against the will of M. Vieri dei Cerchi and of the other wise men of his house, which knew the disposition and wantonness of their youths; and it came to pass that a certain accursed Ser Neri degli Abati, overseer of that prison, eating with them, set before them a present of a poisoned black-pudding, whereof they ate; whence in a little while, after two days, two of the White and two of the Black Cerchi died, and Pigello Portinari and Ferraino dei Bronci, and for this no vengeance was taken. § 42.--_Of the same._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. x. 58-69, 110, 111.] The city of Florence, being in such heat and dangers from strifes and enmities, whence very often the city was in uproar and at arms, M. Corso Donati, the Spini, the Pazzi, and some of the Tosinghi and Cavicciuli, and their followers, both magnates and popolani of their faction of the Black party, with the captains of the Guelf party, which were then of their mind and purpose, assembled in the church of Santa Trinita, and there took counsel and oath together to send ambassadors to the court to Pope Boniface, to the end he might invite some prince of the house of France, which should restore them to their estate, and abase the Popolo and the White party, and for this end to spend to their utmost power; and thus they did, wherefore the news spreading through the city through some report, the commonwealth and the people were much troubled, and inquisition was made by the magistrates; wherefore M. Corso Donati, which was leader in the matter, was condemned in goods and in person; and the other leaders thereof, in more than 20,000 pounds; and they paid them. And this done, there were banished and set under bounds Sinibaldi, brother of M. Corso, and some of his family, and M. Rosso, and M. Rossellino della Tosa, and others their companions; and M. Giacchinotto and M. Pazzino dei Pazzi, and some of the younger members of their families, and M. Geri Spini and some of his family, to the village of the Pieve. And to still all anxiety the people sent the chiefs of the other party out of the city and placed them under bounds at Serrezzano; to wit, M. Gentile, and M. Torrigiano and Carbone of the Cerchi, and some of their companions, Baschiera della Tosa and some of his family, Baldinaccio degli Adimari and some of his family, Naldo dei Gherardini and some of his family, Guido Cavalcanti and some of his family, and Giovanni Giacotti Malespini. But this party abode less time under bounds, forasmuch as they were recalled by reason of the unhealthiness of the place, and Guido Cavalcanti returned thence sick, whence he died; and he was a great loss, seeing that he was a philosopher and a man accomplished in many things, save only that he was too sensitive and passionate. In such fashion was our city guided in the storm. § 43.--_How Pope Boniface sent into France for M. Charles of Valois._ [Sidenote: 1300 A.D.] When the legate, Brother Matteo d'Acquasparta, had returned to the papal court, he informed Pope Boniface of the evil and uncertain condition of the city of Florence; and afterwards, by reason of the things which came to pass after the departure of the legate, as we have said, and by reason of the importunity and free expenditure of the captains of the Guelf party, and of the aforesaid exiles which were at the village of the Pieve hard by the court, and of M. Geri Spini (for he and his company were merchants for Pope Boniface and his general advisers), it came to pass that by their zeal and industry, and by that of M. Corso Donati, who followed the court wheresoever it went, the said Pope Boniface took counsel to send for M. Charles of Valois, brother of the king of France, with a double purpose; principally for the aid of King Charles in his Sicilian war, giving the king of France and the said M. Charles to understand that he would cause him to be elected Emperor of the Romans, and confirm the election, or at the least by the authority of the Pope and of Holy Church would make him imperial lieutenant for the Church in virtue of the rights of the Church when the Empire is vacant; and beyond this he gave him the title of Peacemaker in Tuscany, to the end he might use all his force to bring Florence to his purpose. And when he sent his legate into France for the said M. Charles, the said M. Charles by the will of the king, his brother, came, as we shall hereafter make mention, in the hope of being Emperor, because of the promises of the Pope, as we have said. [Sidenote: 1301 A.D.] § 44.--_How the Guelfs were driven from Agobbio, and how they afterwards recovered the city and drove the Ghibellines thence._ § 45.--_How the Black party were driven out of Pistoia._ [Sidenote: 1301 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxiv. 143.] In the year of Christ 1301, in the month of May, the White party in Pistoia, with the aid and favour of the Whites which were governing the city of Florence, drove thence the Black party and destroyed their houses, palaces and possessions, and among others a strong and rich possession of palaces and towers which pertained to the Black Cancellieri, which was called Damiata. [Sidenote: 1301 A.D.] § 46.--_How the Interminelli and their followers were driven out of Lucca._ § 47.--_How the Guelf refugees from Genoa were peaceably restored._ § 48.--_How a comet appeared in the heavens._ § 49.--_How M. Charles of Valois of France came to Pope Boniface, and afterwards came to Florence and drove out the White party._ [Sidenote: 1301 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 70-78.] [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] In the said year 1301, in the month of September, there came to the city of Alagna, in Campagna, where was Pope Boniface with his court, Charles, count of Valois, brother of the king of France, with many counts and barons, and with 500 French horsemen in his company, having taken the way from Lucca to Alagna without entering into Florence for lack of trust therein; which M. Charles was received with honour by the Pope and his cardinals; and there came to Alagna King Charles and his sons to speak with him and to do him honour; and the Pope made him count of Romagna. And after they had taken counsel and he had arranged with the Pope and with King Charles the expedition into Sicily in the following spring, which was the chief reason why he was come from France, the Pope, not forgetting the anger he had felt against the White party in Florence, and desirous that Charles should not pass the winter in vain, gave him the title of Peacemaker in Florence for the annoyance of the Guelfs in Florence, and ordained that he should return to the city of Florence. And thus he did, with his followers and with many others, Florentines, Tuscans, and Romagnese, refugees, and under bounds from their cities, because they were of the party of the Black Guelfs. And when he was come to Siena, and then to Staggia, they which governed the city of Florence, being fearful of his coming, held long counsel whether to allow him to enter the city or no. And they sent ambassadors to him, and he made answer with fair and friendly words, saying that he was come for their good and well-being, and to make peace among them; for the which thing they which ruled the city (who, albeit they were of the White party, called themselves and desired to remain Guelf) determined to allow him to enter. And thus, on the day of All Saints, 1301, M. Charles entered into Florence with his followers unarmed, and the Florentines did him great honour, coming to meet him in procession with many jousters bearing standards, and horses draped in silk. And when he had reposed himself and sojourned some days in Florence, he craved from the commonwealth the lordship and charge of the city, and authority to make peace among the Guelfs. And this was assented to by the commonwealth, on the 5th day of November, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, where were assembled the Podestà, and captain, and priors, and all the councillors and the bishop, and all the good people of Florence; and when his demand had been made, counsel and deliberation were held thereupon, and the lordship and charge of the city was remitted to him. And M. Charles, after his secretary had set the matter forth, with his own mouth accepted it and swore to it, and, as the king's son, promised to preserve the city in peaceful and good state; and I, the writer, was present at these things. And straightway the contrary was done by him and by his followers, for, by the counsel of M. Musciatto Franzesi, which was come from France as his guide, and by agreement with the Black Guelfs, he caused his followers to take arms, even before he had returned to his house; for he abode in the house of the Frescobaldi, in Oltrarno. Wherefore, when the citizens saw this new sight of his horsemen in arms, the city was all thrown into suspicion and alarm, and both magnates and popolani took arms, each one in the house of his friends as best he might, barricading the city in divers parts. But in the house of the Priors but few assembled, and the people was as good as without a head, for the priors and they which ruled the commonwealth saw that they were betrayed and deceived. In the midst of this tumult, M. Corso de' Donati, which was banished as a rebel, came that same day from Peretola to Florence by agreement, with some following of certain of his friends and foot-soldiers; and when the priors and the Cerchi, his enemies, heard of his coming, M. Schiatta de' Cancellieri, which was captain of 300 mercenary horsemen for the commonwealth of Florence, came to them and offered to go against the said M. Corso to take him and to punish him; but M. Vieri, head of the Cerchi, would not consent thereto, saying, "Let him come," confiding in the vain hope that the people would punish him. Wherefore the said M. Corso entered into the suburbs of the city, and finding the gates of the old circle shut, and not being able to enter, he came to the postern of the Pinti, which was by the side of San Piero Maggiore, between his houses and those of the Uccellini, and finding that shut, he began to beat it down, and in like manner did his friends within, so that without difficulty it was broken down. And when he had entered in he stood in array upon the piazza of San Piero Maggiore, and folk were added to him, with following of his friends, crying, "Long live M. Corso!" and "Long live the baron!" to wit, M. Corso himself, for so they named him; and he, seeing his forces and followers to have increased, the first thing that he did was to go to the prisons of the commonwealth, which were in the houses of the Bastari, in the street of the palace, and these he opened by force, and set the prisoners free; and this done, he did the like at the palace of the Podestà, and then went on to the Priors, causing them for fear to lay down the government and return to their homes. And during all this destruction of the city M. Charles of Valois and his people gave no counsel nor help, nor did he keep the oath and promise made by him. Wherefore the tyrants and malefactors and banished men which were in the city took courage, and the city being unguarded and without government, they began to rob the shops and places of merchandise and the houses which pertained to the White party, or to any one that had not the power to resist, slaying and wounding many persons, good men of the White party. And this plague endured in the city for five days continually, to the great ruin of the city. And afterwards it continued in the country, the troopers going on robbing and burning houses for more than eight days, whereby a great number of beautiful and rich possessions were destroyed and burned. And when the said destruction and burning was ended, M. Charles and his council reconstituted the city and elected a government of Priors of the popolani of the Black party. And in that same month of November there came to Florence the aforesaid legate of the Pope, Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, to make peace among the citizens; and he reconciled the houses of the Cerchi and Adimari and their followers of the White party, and the Donati and Pazzi and their followers of the Black party, arranging marriages between them; and when he desired to divide the offices among them, they of the Black party with the forces of M. Charles would not allow it, wherefore the legate was troubled, and returned to court, leaving the city under an interdict. And the said peace endured but little, for it came to pass on the ensuing day of the feast of the Nativity, when M. Niccola, of the White Cerchi, was on his way to his farm and mills with his company on horseback, as they were passing through the piazza of Santa Croce, where preaching was going on, Simone, son of M. Corso Donati, which was sister's son to the said M. Niccola, urged and prompted to evil-doing, followed the said M. Niccola with his companions and troopers on horseback; and when he came up with him at the Ponte ad Affrico, he assailed him in combat; wherefore the said M. Niccola, without fault or cause, not being on his guard against his said nephew Simone, was slain and dragged from his horse. But, as it pleased God, the punishment was prepared for the sin, for the said Simone being struck in the side by the said M. Niccola, died that same night; wherefore, albeit it was a just judgment, yet it was held as a great loss, forasmuch as the said Simone was the most finished and accomplished youth of Florence, and would have come to greater honour and state, and was all the hope of his father, M. Corso; which, after his joyous return and victory, had, in brief space, a sorrowful beginning of his future downfall. And shortly after this time the city of Florence, not being able to rest by reason of its being big with the poison of the factions of White and Black, must needs bring forth a woeful catastrophe; wherefore it came to pass in the following April, by the scheming and plotting of the Blacks, one of M. Charles' barons, which was called Pierre Ferrand of Languedoc, fostered a plot with them of the house of Cerchi, and with Baldinaccio of the Adimari, and Baschiera of the Tosinghi, and Naldo Gherardini, and others of their followers of the White party, as though, under great promise of moneys, he should go about, with his retinue and friends, to restore them to their estate and betray M. Charles; concerning which letters were written or forged with their seals, which, by the said M. Pierre Ferrand, as had been arranged, were then carried to M. Charles. For which thing the said leaders of the White party, to wit, all of the house of the White Cerchi of Porte San Piero, Baldinaccio and Corso of the Adimari, with almost all the Bellincioni branch, Naldo of the Gherardini, with his branch of the house, Baschiera of the Tosinghi, with his branch of the said house, some of the house of the Cavalcanti, Giovanni Giacotto Malispini and his allies, were cited; but they did not appear, either for fear of the wrong deed they had committed, or for fear of losing their persons by reason of the said treachery; but they departed from the city, in company with their [Ghibelline] adversaries; some going to Pisa, and some to Arezzo and Pistoia, consorting with the Ghibellines and the enemies of the Florentines. For the which thing they were condemned by M. Charles as rebels, and their palaces and goods in the city and in the country destroyed; and the like with many of their followers, both magnates and popolani. And after this fashion was abased and driven away the ungrateful and proud party of the Whites, in company of many Ghibellines of Florence, by M. Charles of Valois of France, by commission of Pope Boniface, on the 4th day of April, 1302, whence there came to our city of Florence much ruin and many perils, as hereafter, in due time, we shall, as we read on, be able to understand. [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] § 50.--_How M. Charles of Valois passed into Sicily to make war for King Charles, and made a shameful peace._ § 51.--_How the band of Roumania was formed._ § 52.--_How the Florentines and Lucchese marched upon the city of Pistoia, and how they took the castle of Serravalle by siege._ § 53.--_How the Florentines took the castle of Piantrevigne and many other castles that the Whites had caused to rebel._ § 54.--_How the island of Ischia belched out a marvellous fire._ § 55.--_How the common people of Bruges rebelled against the king of France and slew the French._ § 56.--_Of the great and disastrous rout of the French by the Flemings at Courtray._ § 57.--_Of what lineage were the present counts and lords of Flanders._ § 58.--_How the king of France reassembled his host, and with all his forces attacked the Flemings, and returned to France with little honour._ § 59.--_How Folcieri da Calvoli, Podestà of Florence, caused certain citizens of the White party to be beheaded._ [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xiv. 58-66.] In the said year 1302, Folcieri da Calvoli of Romagna, a fierce and cruel man, had been made Podestà of Florence, by the influence of the leaders of the Black party. Now the said leaders lived in great trepidation, forasmuch as the White and Ghibelline party was very powerful in Florence, and the exiles were plotting every day in treaty with their friends which had remained in Florence. Wherefore the said Folcieri suddenly caused certain citizens of the White party and Ghibellines to be taken; which were, M. Betto Gherardini, and Masino de' Cavalcanti, and Donato and Tegghia his brother, of the Finiguerra da Sammartino, and Nuccio Coderini de' Galigai, which was but half-witted, and Tignoso de' Macci; and at the petition of M. Musciatto Franzesi, which was among the lords of the city, there were to have been taken certain heads of the house of the Abati his enemies, but hearing this they fled and departed from Florence, and never afterwards were citizens thereof. And a certain sexton of the Calze was among the prisoners. They were charged with plotting treachery in the city with the exiled Whites; and whether guilty or not, were made to confess under torture that they were going to betray the city, and to give up certain gates to the Whites and Ghibellines; but the said Tignoso de' Macci, through weight of flesh, died under the cord. All the other aforesaid prisoners he judged, and caused them to be beheaded, and all of the house of the Abati he condemned as rebels, and destroyed their goods, whence the city was greatly disturbed, and there followed many evils and scandals. And in the said year there was much scarcity of victuals, and grain was sold in Florence at twenty-two shillings the bushel, reckoning fifty-one shillings to a golden florin. § 60.--_How the White party and the Ghibelline refugees from Florence came to Puliciano and departed thence in discomfiture._ [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] In the said year, in the month of March, the Ghibelline and White refugees from Florence, with the forces of the Bolognese whose government was of the White party, and with the aid of the Ghibellines of Romagna and of the Ubaldini, came to Mugello with 800 horse and 6,000 foot, whereof Scarpetta degli Ordilaffi of Forlì was captain. And they took the village and stronghold of Puliciano without opposition, and besieged a fortress which was there held by the Florentines, thinking there to make a great head, and gather Mugello under their rule, and afterwards to extend their forces as far as the city of Florence. When the tidings come to Florence, immediately they rode to Mugello, gentle and simple, with all the forces of the city; and when they were come to the village, and the Lucchese and other friends were come also, they sallied forth in array and order against the enemy; and when the horsemen of Bologna heard of the sudden coming of the Florentines, and found themselves deceived by the White refugees from Florence, which had given them to understand that the Florentines for fear of their friends which remained within the city would not venture to sally forth from the city, they held themselves to be betrayed, and in great fear without any order they departed from Puliciano of Mugello, and came to Bologna; wherefore the White and Ghibelline refugees were routed and dispersed, and departed by night without stroke of sword as if defeated, leaving all their harness, and many of them threw away their arms, and some of the best of them were slain, or taken by certain scouts which were sent on in advance. Among the other notable and honourable citizens and ancient Guelfs which had become Whites, there was taken M. Donato Alberti, the judge, and Nanni de' Ruffoli of the Porte del Vescovo. After Nanni had been taken, he was slain by one of the Tosinghi; and Donato Alberti had his head cut off, by that same law which he had made and introduced into the Ordinances of Justice, when he was ruling and was prior. And with the said M. Donato Alberti were taken prisoner and beheaded two of the Caponsacchi, and one of the Scogliari, and Lapo di Cipriani, and Nerlo degli Adimari, and about ten others of little account; by reason of which rout the White and the Ghibelline refugees were much cast down. § 61.--_Incident, relating how M. Maffeo Visconti was driven from Milan._ [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. viii. 73-75.] In the said year 1302, on the 16th day of June, M. Maffeo Visconti, captain of Milan, was driven from his lordship; and this was the cause: he and his sons desired to govern Milan entirely, and to give no share of honour to M. Piero Visconti, and to others his kinsmen, and to other cattani and feudatories. For the which cause scandal arose in Milan, and the lords della Torre, with the forces of the patriarch of Aquilea, came with a great host against Milan, and with them M. Alberto Scotti da Piacenza, and Count Filippone da Pavia, and M. Antonio da Foseraco of Lodi. M. Maffeo sallied forth against them, but because of the strife which he had with his kinsmen, he was ill-supported, and had not sufficient power against his enemies; wherefore M. Alberto Scotti undertook the office of mediator to make peace, and deceived and betrayed M. Maffeo, who trusted himself to him; for he deposed him from the office of captain, wherefore M. Maffeo for shame would not return to Milan; but the lords della Torre were restored to Milan without a battle, and M. Mosca and M. Guidetto di M. Nappo della Torre remained lords of Milan. And M. Mosca dying a little while after, the said M. Guidetto caused himself to be proclaimed captain of Milan, and ruled harshly, and was much dreaded and feared, and so persecuted the said M. Maffeo and his sons that he brought them well nigh to nought, and they were fain to go begging through many places and countries; and in the end for their security they took refuge in a little castle in the territory of Ferrara, which pertained to the marquises of Este, their kinsfolk, inasmuch as Galeasso, son to Maffeo, had for wife the sister of the marquis. And when M. Guidetto della Torre, which was captain of Milan, and his enemy heard this, he desired news of him and of his state, and said to a wise and clever jongleur: "If thou desirest to gain a palfrey and a mantle of vair, go to the place where M. Maffeo Visconti abides, and spy out his state." And in mockery of him he said: "When thou takest leave of him, ask him two questions: first, ask him how he fares and what manner of life is his; secondly, when he thinks to return to Milan." The minstrel departed and came to M. Maffeo, and found him very meanly furnished, compared with his former state; and on departing from him, he asked his aid in getting a palfrey and a mantle of vair; and he answered, he would aid him gladly, but he might not have them from him, for he had none such. Then he said: "It is not from you that I would have them, but answer me two questions which I shall put to you"; and he told the two questions wherewith he had been charged. The wise man understood from whom they came, and straightway made answer very wisely. To the first he said: "Methinks I fare well, forasmuch as I know how to live after the times"; to the second he answered and said: "Thou shalt say to thy lord, M. Guidetto, that when the measure of his sins is greater than mine, I will return to Milan." And when the jongleur was come back to M. Guidetto, and had brought the answer, he said: "Aye, thou hast earned the palfrey and the mantle, for those are the words of none other than the wise M. Maffeo." § 62.--_How there arose strife and enmity between Pope Boniface and King Philip of France._ [Sidenote: 1302 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xxxii. 148-160.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. vi. 97-117.] In the said time, albeit some while before the defeat of Courtray, the king of France had become angered against Pope Boniface, by reason of the promise which the said Pope had made to the king, and to M. Charles of Valois, his brother, to make him Emperor, when he sent for him, as afore we made mention; which thing he did not fulfil, be the cause what it might. Nay, rather in the same year he had confirmed as king of the Romans Albert of Austria, son of King Rudolf, for the which thing the king of France held himself to be greatly deceived and betrayed by him, and in his wrath he entertained and did honour to Stefano della Colonna, his enemy, which was come to France on hearing of the discord which had arisen; and the king to the best of his power favoured him and his followers. And beyond this, the king caused the bishop of Pamiers, in the district of Carcassone, to be taken prisoner on charge of being a Paterine; and he spent the revenues of every vacant bishopric, and would confer the investitures himself. Wherefore Pope Boniface, which was proud and disdainful, and bold in doing all great things, of high purposes and powerful, as he was and as he held himself to be, beholding these outrages on the part of the king, added indignation to ill-will, and became wholly an enemy to the king of France. And at first, to establish his rights, he caused all the great prelates of France to be invited to his court; but the king of France opposed them, and would not let them go, wherefore the Pope was the more greatly incensed against the king, and would have it, according to his privilege and decrees, that the king of France, like other Christian princes, ought to acknowledge the temporal as well as the spiritual sovereignty of the Apostolic Chair; and for this he sent into France as his legate a Roman priest, archdeacon of Narbonne, that he might protest against and admonish the king under pain of excommunication to comply thereto, and acknowledge him; and if he would not do this, he was to excommunicate him and leave him under an interdict. And when the said legate came to the city of Paris, the king would not allow him to publish his letters and privileges, nay rather they were taken from him by the king's people, and he himself was dismissed from the realm. And when the said papal letters came before the king and his barons in the temple, the Count d'Artois, which was then living, threw them into the fire and burnt them in despite, whence great judgment came upon him; and the king ordered that all the entrances to his kingdom should be guarded, so that no message nor letter from the Pope should enter into France. When Pope Boniface heard this, he pronounced sentence of excommunication against the said Philip, king of France; and the king of France to justify himself, and to make his appeal, summoned in Paris a great council of clerics and prelates and of all his barons, excusing himself, and bringing many charges against Pope Boniface of heresy, and simony, and murders, and other base crimes, by reason whereof he ought to be deposed from the papacy. But the abbot of Citeaux would not consent to the appeal, rather he departed, and returned into Burgundy in despite of the king of France. In such wise began the strife between Pope Boniface and the king of France, which had afterwards so ill an end; whence afterwards arose great strife between them, and much evil followed thereupon, as hereafter we shall make mention. In these times there came to pass a very notable thing in Florence, for Pope Boniface having presented to the commonwealth of Florence a fine young lion, which was confined by a chain in the court of the palace of the Priors, there came in thither an ass laden with wood, which when it saw the said lion, either through the fear he had of him or through a miracle, straightway attacked the lion fiercely, and so struck him with his hoofs that he died, notwithstanding the help of many men which were there present. This was held for a sign of great changes to come, and such like, which certainly came to pass to our city in these times. But certain of the learned said that the prophecy of the Sibyl was fulfilled where she said: "When the tame beast shall slay the king of beasts, then will begin the destruction of the Church"; and this was shortly made manifest in Pope Boniface himself, as will be found in the chapter following. § 63.--_How the king of France caused Pope Boniface to be seized in Anagna by Sciarra della Colonna, whence the said Pope died a few days afterwards._ [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 85-90.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 52-57.] After the said strife had arisen between Pope Boniface and King Philip of France, each one sought to abase the other by every method and guise that was possible: the Pope sought to oppress the king of France with excommunications and by other means to deprive him of the kingdom; and with this he favoured the Flemings, his rebellious subjects, and entered into negotiations with King Albert of Germany, encouraging him to come to Rome for the Imperial benediction, and to cause the Kingdom to be taken from King Charles, his kinsman, and to stir up war against the king of France on the borders of his realm on the side of Germany. The king of France, on the other hand, was not asleep, but with great caution, and by the counsel of Stefano della Colonna and of other sage Italians, and men of his own realm, sent one M. William of Nogaret of Provence, a wise and crafty cleric, with M. Musciatto Franzesi, into Tuscany, furnished with much ready money, and with drafts on the company of the Peruzzi (which were then his merchants) for as much money as might be needed; the Peruzzi not knowing wherefore. And when they were come to the fortress of Staggia, which pertained to the said M. Musciatto, they abode there long time, sending ambassadors and messages and letters; and they caused people to come to them in secret, giving out openly that they were there to treat concerning peace between the Pope and the king of France, and that for this cause they had brought the said money; and under this colour they conducted secret negotiations to take Pope Boniface prisoner in Anagna, spending thereupon much money, corrupting the barons of the country and the citizens of Anagna; and as it had been purposed, so it came to pass; for Pope Boniface being with his cardinals, and with all the court, in the city of Anagna, in Campagna, where he had been born, and was at home, not thinking or knowing of this plot, nor being on his guard, or if he heard anything of it, through his great courage not heeding it, or perhaps, as it pleased God, by reason of his great sins,--in the month of September, 1303, Sciarra della Colonna, with his mounted followers, to the number of 300, and many of his friends on foot, paid by money of the French king, with troops of the lords of Ceccano and of Supino, and of other barons of the Campagna, and of the sons of M. Maffio d'Anagna, and, it is said, with the consent of some of the cardinals which were in the plot, one morning early entered into Anagna, with the ensigns and standards of the king of France, crying: "Death to Pope Boniface! Long life to the king of France!" And they rode through the city without any hindrance, or rather, well-nigh all the ungrateful people of Anagna followed the standards and the rebellion; and when they came to the Papal Palace, they entered without opposition and took the palace, forasmuch as the present assault was not expected by the Pope and his retainers, and they were not upon their guard. Pope Boniface--hearing the uproar, and seeing himself forsaken by all his cardinals, which were fled and in hiding (whether through fear or through set malice), and by the most part of his servants, and seeing that his enemies had taken the city and the palace where he was--gave himself up for lost, but like the high-spirited and valorous man he was, he said: "Since, like Jesus Christ, I am willing to be taken and needs must die by treachery, at the least I desire to die as Pope"; and straightway he caused himself to be robed in the mantle of S. Peter, and with the crown of Constantine on his head, and with the keys and the cross in his hand, he seated himself upon the papal chair. And when Sciarra and the others, his enemies, came to him, they mocked at him with vile words, and arrested him and his household which had remained with him; among the others, M. William of Nogaret scorned him, which had conducted the negotiations for the king of France, whereby he had been taken, and threatened him, saying that he would take him bound to Lyons on the Rhone, and there in a general council would cause him to be deposed and condemned. The high-spirited Pope answered him, that he was well pleased to be condemned and deposed by Paterines such as he, whose father and mother had been burnt as Paterines; whereat M. William was confounded and put to shame. But afterwards, as it pleased God, to preserve the holy dignity of the Popes, no man dared to touch him, nor were they pleased to lay hands on him, but they left him robed under gentle ward, and were minded to rob the treasure of the Pope and of the Church. In this pain, shame and torment the great Pope Boniface abode prisoner among his enemies for three days; but, like as Christ rose on the third day, so it pleased Him that Pope Boniface should be set free; for without entreaty or other effort, save the Divine aid, the people of Anagna beholding their error, and issuing from their blind ingratitude, suddenly rose in arms, crying: "Long live the Pope and his household, and death to the traitors"; and running through the city they drove out Sciarra della Colonna and his followers, with loss to them of prisoners and slain, and freed the Pope and his household. Pope Boniface, seeing himself free, and his enemies driven away, did not therefore rejoice in any wise, forasmuch as the pain of his adversity had so entered into his heart and clotted there; wherefore he departed straightway from Anagna with all his court, and came to Rome to S. Peter's to hold a council, purposing to take the heaviest vengeance for his injury and that of Holy Church against the king of France, and whosoever had offended him; but, as it pleased God, the grief which had hardened in the heart of Pope Boniface, by reason of the injury which he had received, produced in him, after he was come to Rome, a strange malady so that he gnawed at himself as if he were mad, and in this state he passed from this life on the 12th day of October in the year of Christ 1303, and in the church of S. Peter, near the entrance of the doors, in a rich chapel which was built in his lifetime, he was honourably buried. § 64.--_We will further tell of the ways of Pope Boniface._ [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xxx. 148.] This Pope Boniface was very wise both in learning and in natural wit, and a man very cautious and experienced, and of great knowledge and memory; very haughty he was, and proud, and cruel towards his enemies and adversaries, and was of a great heart, and much feared by all people; and he exalted and increased greatly the estate and the rights of Holy Church, and he commissioned M. Guglielmo da Bergamo and M. Ricciardi of Siena, who were cardinals, and M. Dino Rosoni of Mugello, all of them supreme masters in laws and in decretals, together with himself, for he too was a great master in divinity and in decretals, to draw up the Sixth Book of the Decretals, which is as it were the light of all the laws and the decretals. A man of large schemes was he, and liberal to folk which pleased him, and which were worthy, very desirous of worldly pomp according to his estate, and very desirous of wealth, not scrupulous, nor having very great or strict conscience about every gain, to enrich the Church and his nephews. He made many of his friends and confidants cardinals in his time, among others two very young nephews, and his uncle, his mother's brother; and twenty of his relations and friends of the little city of Anagna, bishops and archbishops of rich benefices; and to another of his nephews and his sons, which were counts, as we afore made mention, to them he left almost unbounded riches; and after the death of Pope Boniface, their uncle, they were bold and valiant in war, doing vengeance upon all their neighbours and enemies, which had betrayed and injured Pope Boniface, spending largely, and keeping at their own cost 300 good Catalan horsemen, by force of which they subdued almost all the Campagna and the district of Rome. And if Pope Boniface, while he was alive, had believed that they could be thus bold in arms and valorous in war, certainly he would have made them kings or great lords. And note, that when Pope Boniface was taken prisoner, tidings thereof were sent to the king of France by many couriers in a few days, through great joy; and when the first couriers arrived at Sion, beyond the mountain of Brieg [Sion under Brieg], the bishop of Sion, which then was a man of pure and holy life, when he heard the news was, as it were, amazed, and abode some while in silent contemplation, by reason of the wonderment which took him at the capture of the Pope; and coming to himself he said aloud, in the presence of many good folk: "The king of France will rejoice greatly on hearing these tidings, but I have it by Divine inspiration, that for this sin he is judged by God, and that great and strange perils and adversities, with shame to him and his lineage, will overtake him very swiftly, and he and his sons will be cast out from the inheritance of the realm." And this we learned a little while after, when we passed by Sion, from persons worthy of belief, which were present to hear. Which sentence was a prophecy in all its parts, as afterwards the truth will show, in due time, when we narrate the doings of the said king of France and of his sons. And the judgment of God is not to be marvelled at; for, albeit Pope Boniface was more worldly than was fitting to his dignity, and had done many things displeasing to God, God caused him to be punished after the fashion that we have said, and afterwards He punished the offender against him, not so much for the injury against the person of Pope Boniface, as for the sin committed against the Divine Majesty, whose countenance he represented on earth. We will leave this matter, which is now ended, and will turn back somewhat to relate of the doings of Florence and of Tuscany, which were very great in those times. [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] § 65.--_How the Florentines had the castle of Montale, and how they marched upon Pistoia together with the Lucchese._ § 66.--_How Benedict XI. was elected Pope._ § 67.--_How King Edward of England recovered Gascony and defeated the Scots._ [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xix. 121-123.] In this year Edward, king of England, made peace with King Philip of France, and recovered Gascony, doing homage to him therefor; and to this the king of France consented, by reason of the contest which he had with the Church after the capture which he had made of Pope Boniface, and by reason of the war in Flanders, to the intent the said king of England might not be against him. And in this same year, the said King Edward being ill, the Scots marched into England, for which cause the king had himself borne in a litter, and went out with the host against the Scots, and defeated them, and became lord over all the lands of Scotland, save only the marshes and rugged mountains, wherein the rebel Scots had taken refuge with their king, which was named Robert Bruce, which, from lowly birth, had risen to be king. § 68.--_How there were in Florence great changes and civic battles through desire that the accounts of the commonwealth should be examined._ [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] In the said year 1303, in the month of February, the Florentines were in great discord among themselves, by reason that M. Corso Donati did not consider that he was so great in the commonwealth as he desired, and thought himself worthy to be; and the other magnates and powerful popolani of his Black party had gotten more authority in the commonwealth than seemed to him good; and being already at enmity with them, either through pride, or through envy, or through desire of lordship, he made a new faction, leaguing himself with the Cavalcanti, whereof the most part were Whites, saying that he desired that the public accounts of those which had held office, and had administered the monies of the commonwealth, should be examined; and they made their head M. Lottieri, bishop of Florence, which was of the family of the Tosa of the White branch, with certain magnates, against the priors and the people; and there was fighting in the city in many places and for many days, and they set engines in many towers and strongholds of the city after the ancient manner, which should hurl missiles and shoot at each other; and upon the towers of the Bishop's Palace they raised a mangonel directed against his enemies hard by. The priors strengthened themselves with people and men-at-arms of the city and of the country, and boldly defended the palace, for many assaults and attacks were made upon them; and the house of the Gherardini held with the people, with a great following of their friends from the country; and likewise the house of the Pazzi, and of the Spini and M. Tegghiaio Frescobaldi with his branch of the family, which were a great aid to the people; and M. Lotteringo de' Gherardini was slain by an arrow in a battle which was fought in Porte Sante Marie. Other houses of the magnates did not hold with the people, but some were with the bishop and with M. Corso, and some which liked him not stood apart from the strife. For the which dissension and civil fighting much evil was committed in the city and in the country, of murders, and burnings, and robberies, as in a city ungoverned and disordered, without any rule from the government, save that each should do all possible harm to the other; and the city was all full of refugees, and strangers, and folk from the country, each house with its own following; and the city would have utterly destroyed itself had not the Lucchese come to Florence at the request of the commonwealth, with great number of foot and horse; who took in hand the matter, and the guardianship of the city, and general authority was of necessity given to them, so that for sixteen days they freely ruled the city, issuing a proclamation on their own authority. And when the proclamation was made throughout the city in the name of the commonwealth of Lucca, it seemed evil to many Florentines, and a great outrage and wrong; wherefore one Ponciardo de' Ponci di Vacchereccia struck the herald from Lucca in the face with his sword while he was reading the proclamation, for which cause afterwards they sent forth no more proclamations in their own name; but so wrought that at last they quieted the uproar and caused each party to lay down arms, and restored the city to quiet, calling for new priors to promote peace, the people remaining in its estate and liberty; and they inflicted no punishment for misdeeds committed, but whoever had suffered wrong had to bear his loss. And in addition to the said plague there was great famine that year, and grain was worth more than twenty-six shillings the bushel, level measure, of fifty-two shillings to the golden florin; and if it had not been that the commonwealth and the rulers in the city had made provision beforehand, and had caused to be brought by the hand of the Genoese from Sicily and from Apulia full 26,000 bushels of grain, the citizens and the country people could not have escaped from famine: and this traffic in grain was, with others, one of the causes why they desired to examine the accounts of the commonwealth, by reason of all the money which was passing; and certain, whether rightly or wrongly, were spoken evil of and blamed thereanent. And this adversity and peril of our city was not without the judgment of God, by reason of many sins committed through the pride and envy and avarice of our then living citizens, which were then ruling the city, and alike of the rebels therein, as of those which were governing, for they were great sinners, nor was this the end thereof, as hereafter in due time may be seen. § 69.--_How the Pope sent into Florence as legate the Cardinal da Prato to make peace, and how he departed thence in shame and confusion._ [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Epistola i.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. x. 79-81.] During the said discord among the Florentines, Pope Benedict, with good intent, sent to Florence the Cardinal da Prato as legate to set the Florentines at peace one with another, and likewise with their exiles and all the province of Tuscany; and he came to Florence, on the tenth day of the month of March, 1303, and was received by the Florentines with great honour and with great reverence, as by men who felt themselves to be divided and in evil state; and those which had the disposition and desire to live rightly, loved peace and concord, and it was the contrary with the others. This Cardinal Niccolo, of the city of Prato, was a preaching friar, very wise in learning, and of natural intelligence, subtle and sagacious, and cautious, and very experienced; and by descent he was of the Ghibellines, and it was afterwards seen that he favoured them greatly; albeit at the first he showed good and impartial intentions. When he was in Florence, in a public sermon and discourse in the piazza of San Giovanni, he showed forth his privileges as legate, and made manifest his intention, by command of the Pope, of setting the Florentines at peace one with another. The good popolani which ruled the city, seeing themselves in evil estate by reason of the disturbances and riots and strifes, brought about in those times by the magnates against the people to abase and undo them, took part with the cardinal in the desire for peace; and by way of reconstruction of the Occasional Councils, they gave him full and free right to set the citizens at peace one with another within the city, and with their exiles without, and to appoint the priors and gonfaloniers and rulers of the city at his pleasure. And this done, he gave his mind to making peace among the citizens, and renewed the order of the nineteen gonfaloniers of the companies after the fashion of the ancient Popolo of old, and he summoned the gonfaloniers and gave them the banners after the fashion and devices that still are, save that they bore not the label of the arms of the king in chief. And by reason of these reforms of the cardinal the people were much heartened and strengthened, and the magnates were brought low, so that they never ceased trying to bring about changes and to hinder the cardinal to the end they might disturb the peace, that the Whites and the Ghibellines might not have state nor power to return to Florence, and that they themselves might enjoy their goods which had been confiscated as of rebels, both in the city and in the country. For all this the cardinal did not cease from pursuing peace, with the aid and favour of the people, and he caused twelve plenipotentiaries of the exiles to come into Florence, two for each sesto, one from amongst the chief Whites and one Ghibelline; and he had them to sojourn in the Borgo di San Niccolo, and the legate sojourned in the palaces of the Mozzi of S. Gregorio, and often he had them to take counsel with the leaders of the Guelfs and of the Blacks in Florence to find out means and security of peace, and to order alliances between the exiles, and the nobles within. In these negotiations it seemed to the powerful Guelfs and Blacks that the cardinal was too much supporting the side of the Whites and of the Ghibellines, and they took counsel subtly to the end they might disturb the negotiations, to send a counterfeit letter, with the seal of the cardinal, to Bologna and into Romagna, to his friends the Ghibellines and the Whites, that they should, without any hindrance or delay, come to Florence with men in arms on horse and on foot to his aid; and some say withal that it was true that the cardinal sent it; wherefore some of those people came as far as Trespiano and some to Mugello. By which coming there arose in Florence great murmuring and ill-feeling, and the legate was much blamed and reproached therefor; and he, whether he were guilty or no, denied it to the people. Through which ill-feeling, and also through fear of suffering harm, the twelve White and Ghibelline plenipotentiaries departed from Florence and came to Arezzo, and the people which had come to the legate, by his command returned to Bologna and to Romagna, and the ill-will was somewhat quieted in Florence. Those which were ruling the city counselled the cardinal that, to avoid suspicion, he should go to Prato, and should reconcile the citizens thereof among themselves, and likewise the Pistoians, and in the meanwhile in Florence a way might be found of making general peace with the exiles. The cardinal, not being able to do otherwise, did this, and, whether in good faith or no, went to Prato and requested the inhabitants to trust in him, and he would reconcile them. Now the leaders of the Black party and of the Guelfs of Florence marked the ways of the cardinal, how that he greatly favoured the Ghibellines and Whites and would fain restore them to Florence, and saw likewise that the people followed him; wherefore they feared it might turn out perilous to the Guelf party, and ordained with the Guazzalotti of Prato, a powerful house of the Black party, and strong Guelfs, to bring to pass in Prato a schism and riot against the cardinal, and to raise a tumult in the city; wherefore the cardinal, seeing the inhabitants of Prato to be ill-disposed, and fearing for his person, departed from Prato, and excommunicated the inhabitants, and laid the city under interdict, and came to Florence, and proclaimed war against Prato, and offered remission of sins and of penalties to whosoever would march against Prato; and many citizens prepared to go thither on horse and on foot, folk that were, in faith, more Ghibelline than Guelf, and they went as far as Campi. In this assembling of the host much folk gathered in Florence of folk from the country and foreigners, and the fear and jealousy of the Guelfs began to increase; wherefore many which at the first had held with the cardinal, changed their purpose through the turbulence which they observed; and the magnates of the Black party, and likewise they which were temporising with the cardinal, furnished themselves with arms and with men, and the city was all in disorder, and they were ready to fight one another. The cardinal legate, seeing that he could not carry out his purpose of leading an army against Prato, and that the city of Florence was disposed to civil strife, and that of those which had held with him, some were now against him, became fearful and uneasy, and suddenly departed from Florence on the 4th day of June, 1304, saying to the Florentines: "Seeing that ye desire to be at war and under a curse, and do not desire to hear or to obey the messenger of the vicar of God, or to have rest or peace among yourselves, abide with the curse of God and of Holy Church"; thus he excommunicated the citizens, and left the city under an interdict, whence it was held, that by this curse, whether just or unjust, there fell judgment and great peril on our city through the adversities and perils which came to pass therein but a short time after, as hereafter we shall make mention. § 70.--_How the bridge of Carraia fell, and how many people died there._ [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. vi. 36.] In this same time that the Cardinal da Prato was in Florence, and was beloved by the people and by the citizens, who hoped that he might set them at peace one with another, on the first day of May, 1304, just as in the good old times of the tranquil and good estate of Florence, it had been the custom for companies and bands of pleasure-makers to go through the city rejoicing and making merry, so now again they assembled and met in divers parts of the city; and one district vied with the other which could invent and do the best. Among others, as of old was the custom, they of Borgo San Friano were wont to devise the newest and most varied pastimes; and they sent forth a proclamation that whosoever desired news of the other world should come on the 1st day of May upon the Carraia Bridge, and beside the Arno; and they erected upon the Arno a stage upon boats and vessels, and thereupon they made the similitude and figure of hell, with fires and other pains and sufferings, with men disguised as demons, horrible to behold, and others which had the appearance of naked souls, which seemed to be persons, and they were putting them to the said divers torments, with loud cries, and shrieks, and tumult, which seemed hateful and fearful to hear and to see; and by reason of this new pastime there came many citizens to look on, and the Carraia Bridge, which then was of wood from pile to pile, was so burdened with people that it gave way in many places, and fell with the people which were upon it, wherefore many were killed and drowned, and many were maimed; so that the pastime from sport became earnest, and, as the proclamation had said, many by death went to learn news of the other world, with great lamentation and sorrow to all the city, for each one believed he must have lost his son or his brother there; and this was a sign of future ill, which in a short time should come to our city through the exceeding wickedness of the citizens, as hereafter we shall make mention. § 71.--_How Florence was set on fire, and a great part of the city burnt._ [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 121, 122.] When the Cardinal da Prato had departed from Florence after the manner aforesaid, the city was left in evil state and in great confusion; for there was the party which held with the cardinal, whereof were leaders the Cavalcanti and the Gherardini, the Pulci and the White Cerchi of the Garbo, which were merchants of Pope Benedict, with a following of many houses of the people, (which feared the magnates might break up the Popolo if they got the government), from among the leading houses and families of the popolani of Florence, such as the Magalotti, and Mancini, Peruzzi, Antellesi, and Baroncelli, and Acciaiuoli, and Alberti, Strozzi, Ricci, and Albizzi, and many others; and they were well provided with foot-soldiers and with men-at-arms. On the contrary part, to wit, the Blacks, the leaders were M. Rosso della Tosa, with his branch of Blacks, M. Pazzino de' Pazzi, with all his family, the part of the Adimari which were called the Cavicciuli, and M. Geri Spini, with his kin, and M. Betto Brunelleschi; M. Corso Donati stood neutral, forasmuch as he was ill with the gout, and because he was angered with these leaders of the Black party; and almost all the other magnates held aloof, and the popolani also, save the Medici and the Giugni, which held strongly with the Blacks. And the fighting began between the White Cerchi and the Giugni at their houses at the Garbo, and they fought there by day and by night. In the end, the Cerchi defended themselves with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Antellesi, and the force of the Cavalcanti and Gherardini so increased that with their followers they rode through the city as far as the Mercato Vecchio, and from Orto San Michele as far as the piazza of S. Giovanni, without any opposition or hindrance whatever, because their forces increased both in the city and in the country; forasmuch as the greater part of the people followed them, and the Ghibellines sided with them; and they of Volognano and their friends were coming to their aid with more than 1,000 foot-soldiers; and were already at Bisarno; and certainly on that day they would have conquered the city and driven out thence the aforesaid leaders of the Blacks and Guelfs, whom they held as their enemies (forasmuch as it was said that they had caused M. Betto Gherardini to be beheaded, and Masino Cavalcanti and the others, as we before made mention), save that when they were flourishing and victorious in several parts of the city where they were fighting against their enemies, it came to pass, as it pleased God, either to avoid worse ill, or that He permitted it to punish the sins of the Florentines, that one, Ser Neri Abati, a clerk and prior of San Piero Scheraggio, a worldly and dissolute man, and a rebel against and enemy of his associates, of purpose set fire first to the house of his associates in Orto San Michele, and then to the Florentine Calimala at the house of the Caponsacchi, near to the entrance of the Mercato Vecchio. And the accursed fire was so furious and impetuous, fanned by the north wind, which was blowing strongly, that on that day were burnt the houses of the Abati, and of the Macci, and all the loggia of Orto San Michele, and the houses of the Amieri, and Toschi, and Cipriani, and Lamberti, and Bachini, and Buiamonti, and all Calimala, and the houses of the Cavalcanti, and all around the Mercato Nuovo and S. Cecilia, and all the street of Porte Sante Marie as far as the Ponte Vecchio, and Vacchereccia, and behind San Piero Scheraggio, and the houses of the Gherardini, and of the Pulci and Amidei and Lucardesi, and all the neighbourhood of the said places, almost to the Arno; and, in short, all the marrow and yolk and the most precious places of the city of Florence were burnt, and the number of the palaces and towers and houses was more than 1,700. The loss of stores, and of treasure, and of merchandise was infinite, forasmuch as in those places were almost all the merchandise and precious things of Florence, and that which was not burnt was robbed by highwaymen as it was being carried away, the city being continually at war in divers places, wherefore many companies, and clans, and families were ruined and brought to poverty by the said fires and robberies. This plague came upon our city of Florence on the 10th day of June, in the year of Christ 1304; and for this cause the leaders of that faction the Cavalcanti, which were among the most powerful houses in Florence, both in retainers, and in possessions, and in goods, and the Gherardini, among the greatest in the country, their houses and those of their followers being burnt down, lost their vigour and estate, and were driven out of Florence as rebels, and their enemies recovered their estate, and became lords over the city. And then it was verily believed that the magnates would set aside the Ordinances of Justice of the Popolo, and this they would have done if it had not been that through their factions they were themselves at variance one with another, and each party sided with the people to the end they might not lose their estate. We must now go on to tell of the other events which were in many parts in these times, forasmuch as there arose thence further adverse fortune to our city of Florence. § 72.--_How the Whites and Ghibellines came to the gates of Florence, and departed thence in discomfiture._ [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] When the Cardinal da Prato had returned to the Pope, which was at Perugia with his court, he made many complaints against them which were ruling the city of Florence, and accused them before the Pope and the college of cardinals of many crimes and faults, showing them to be sinful men and enemies of God and of Holy Church, and recounting the dishonour and treachery which they had done to Holy Church when he had desired to restore them to good and peaceful estate; for the which thing the Pope and his cardinals were greatly moved with anger against the Florentines, and by the counsel of the said Cardinal da Prato the Pope cited twelve of the chief leaders of the Guelf party and of the Blacks which were in Florence, which were directing all the state of the city, the names whereof were these: M. Corso Donati, M. Rosso della Tosa, M. Pazzino de' Pazzi, M. Geri Spini, M. Betto Brunelleschi. And they were to appear before him under pain of excommunication and deprivation of all their goods; which straightway came obediently thither with a great company of their friends and followers in great state, for they were more than 150 on horseback, to defend themselves before the Pope against the charges which the Cardinal da Prato had made against them. And in this summons and citation of so many leaders of Florence, the Cardinal da Prato cunningly planned a great treachery against the Florentines, straightway sending letters to Pisa, and to Bologna, and to Romagna, to Arezzo, to Pistoia, and to all the leaders of the Ghibelline and White party in Tuscany and in Romagna, that they should assemble with all their forces and those of their friends on foot and on horse, and on a day named should come in arms to the city of Florence, and take the city, and drive out thence the Blacks and those which had been against him, saying that this was by the knowledge and will of the Pope (the which thing was a great falsehood and lie, forasmuch as the Pope knew nothing thereof), and encouraging each one to come securely, forasmuch as the city was weak, and open in many places; and saying that he of his zeal had summoned and caused to appear at the court all the leaders of the Black party, and that within the city there was a large party which would welcome them and would surrender the city to them; and that they should gather together and come secretly and quickly. And when they had received these letters, they rejoiced greatly, and, being encouraged by the favour of the Pope, each one furnished himself according to his power, and moved towards Florence on the day appointed. And two days before, through their great eagerness, the Pisans, with their troops and with all the Florentines which were in Pisa, to the number of 400 horsemen, whereof Count Fazio was captain, came as far as the stronghold of Marti; and all the other assembly of Whites and Ghibellines came towards Florence after so secret a fashion that they were at Lastra above Montughi, to the number of 1,600 horse and 9,000 foot, ere the most could believe it in Florence, forasmuch as they had not allowed any messenger which should announce their coming to find his way to Florence; and if they had descended upon the city one day sooner, without doubt they would have had the city, forasmuch as there was no preparation, nor store of arms, nor defence. But they abode that night at Lastra and at Trespiano, extending as far as Fontebuona, awaiting M. Tolosata degli Uberti, captain of Pistoia, which was taking the way across the mountains with 300 horse, Pistoian and mercenary, and with many on foot; and in the morning, seeing that he did not come, the Florentine refugees determined to come to the city, thinking to have it without stroke of sword, and this they did, leaving the Bolognese at Lastra, which, by reason of their cowardice, or perhaps because of the Guelfs which were among them, were not in favour of the enterprise; so the rest came on, and entered into the suburb of San Gallo without any hindrance, for at that time the city had not the circles of the new walls, nor the moats, and the old walls were open and broken down in many places. And when they had entered into the suburbs, they broke down a wooden palisade with a gate leading into the suburb, which was abandoned by our citizens without defence; and the Aretines carried off the bolt of the said gate, and in contempt of the Florentines took it to Arezzo, and set it in their chief church of San Donato. And when the said enemies were come down through the suburbs towards the city, they assembled at Cafaggio, by the side of the Servi, and they were more than 1,200 horsemen, and common folks in numbers, with many folk from the country following them, and with Ghibellines and Whites from within, which had come out to their aid. Now this was ill advised on their part, as we shall tell hereafter, for they had stationed themselves in a place without water; for if they had taken up their stand on the piazza of Santa Croce, they would have had the river and water for themselves and for their horses, and the Città Rossa round about, without the old walls, all which was so built with houses as to accommodate an army in safety were it never so large; but to whom God wills ill, from him He takes all wit and judgment. When, on the evening before, the tidings were brought to Florence, there was great fear and suspicion of treachery, and the city was on guard all night; but by reason of fear some went this way, some that, all at random, each one removing his goods. And of a truth it was said that the greatest and best houses in Florence, of magnates, and popolani, and Guelfs, knew of this purpose, and had promised to surrender the city; but hearing of the great force of the Ghibellines of Tuscany and the enemies of our commonwealth which were come with our exiles, they feared greatly for themselves, and that they should be driven away and robbed, and so they changed their purpose, and looked to defend the city together with the rest. Certain of our exiled leaders, with part of their followers, departed from Cafaggio from the army, and came to the gate of the Spadari, and this they attacked and conquered, and entered in together with their banners as far as the piazza of S. Giovanni; and if the larger force which was in Cafaggio had then come towards the city, and attacked some other gate, they would certainly not have been resisted. In the piazza of S. Giovanni were assembled all the valiant men and Guelfs which were giving themselves to the defence of the city, not, however, in great numbers (perhaps 200 horse and 500 foot), and with the aid of large crossbows they drove back the enemy without the gate, with the loss of some taken and slain. The news went to Lastra to the Bolognese by their spies, reporting that their side had been routed and discomfited, and straightway, without learning the certainty thereof, for it was not true, they departed in flight as best they could, and when they met M. Tolosato with his followers in Mugello, which was advancing with full knowledge of the truth, he would have retained them and caused them to turn back; but this he could not bring about, neither through entreaties nor threats. They of the main body in Cafaggio, when they heard the news from Lastra how the Bolognese had departed in confusion, as it pleased God, straightway took fear, and through the discomfort of continuing in array until after noon in the burning sun,--the heat being great, and not having sufficiency of water for themselves and for their horses,--began to disperse and to depart in flight, throwing away their arms without assault or pursuit of the citizens, forasmuch as they scarce followed after them at all, save certain troopers of their own free will. And thus many of the enemy died, either by the sword or from exhaustion, and were robbed of arms and of horses; and certain of the prisoners were hanged in the piazza of San Gallo and along the road, on the trees. But verily it was said that, notwithstanding the departure of the Bolognese, if they had stood firm until the coming of M. Tolosato, which they could assuredly have done by reason of the small number of horse which were defending Florence, they would yet have gained the city. But it seemed to be the work and will of God that they should be bewitched, to the end our city of Florence might not be wholly laid waste, sacked, and destroyed. This unforeseen victory and escape of the city of Florence was on S. Margaret's Day, the 20th of the month of July, the year of Christ 1304. We have made such an extensive record, forasmuch as we were there present, and by reason of the great risk and peril from which God saved the city of Florence, and to the end our descendants may take therefrom example and warning. [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1303 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] § 73.--_How the Aretines recovered the castle of Laterino which the Florentines held._ § 74.--_Of certain further things which came to pass in Florence in the said times._ § 75.--_How the Florentines went out against and took the strongholds of the Stinche and Montecalvi which were held by the Whites._ § 76.--_Returns back somewhat to tell of the story of the Flemings._ § 77.--_How Guy of Flanders was routed and seized, with his armada, by the admiral of the king of France._ § 78.--_How the king of France defeated the Flemings at Mons-en-Puelle._ § 79.--_How, shortly after the defeat of Mons-en-Puelle, the Flemings returned to the conflict with the king of France and gained a favourable peace._ § 80.--_How Pope Benedict died; and of the new election of Pope Clement V._ [Sidenote: 1304 A.D.] [Sidenote: Epistola viii.] [Sidenote: 1305 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 82-87. Par. xvii. 82. xxvii. 58, 9. xxx. 142-148.] In the year of Christ 1304, on the 27th day of the month July, Pope Benedict died in the city of Perugia, it was said by poison; for when he was eating at his table, there came to him a young man veiled and attired in the garb of a woman, as a serving sister of the nuns of S. Petronella, in Perugia, with a silver basin wherein were many fine ripe figs, and he presented them to the Pope from his devout servant, the abbess of that nunnery. The Pope received them with great pleasure, and forasmuch as he was fond of them, and without any one tasting thereof beforehand, seeing that they were presented by a woman, he ate many thereof, whereat he straightway fell ill, and in a few days died, and was buried with great honour at the Preaching Friars (for he was of that Order), in San Ercolano, of Perugia. This was a good man, and virtuous and just, and of holy and religious life, and desirous to do right in all things; and through the envy of certain of his brother cardinals, it was said, they compassed his death after the said manner; wherefore God recompensed them, if they were guilty thereof, in a short time, by a very just and open vengeance, as will be shown hereafter. For after the death of the said Pope there arose a schism and a great discord among the college of cardinals in electing the Pope; and by reason of their differences they were divided into two almost equal parties; the head of the one was M. Matteo Rosso, of the Orsini, with M. Francesco Guatani, nephew that was of Pope Boniface; and the leaders of the other were M. Napoleone, of the Orsini dal Monte, and the Cardinal da Prato, which hoped to restore their kinsfolk and friends, the Colonnesi, to their estate, and were friends of the king of France, and leaned towards the Ghibelline side. And when they had been shut up for a period of more than nine months, and were pressed by the Perugians to nominate a Pope, and could not come to an agreement, at last the Cardinal da Prato, finding himself in a secret place with the Cardinal Francesco, of the Guatani, said to him, "We are doing great harm and injury to the Church by not choosing a Pope." And M. Francesco said, "It does not lie with me." And the other replied, "If I could find a good way of escape, wouldst thou be content?" He made answer that he would; and thus conversing together they came to this agreement, by the industry and sagacity of the Cardinal da Prato, who, treating with the said M. Francesco Guatani, gave him his choice; for it was determined that the one party, to avoid all suspicion, should choose three men from beyond the Alps suitable for the papacy, whomsoever it pleased them, and the other party, within forty days, should take one of the three, whichever they pleased, and that he should be Pope. The party of M. Francesco Guatani preferred to make the first choice, thinking thus to have the advantage, and he elected three archbishops from beyond the Alps, made and created by Pope Boniface, his uncle, which were his great friends and confidants, and enemies of the king of France, their adversary, trusting that whichever the other party might take they would have a Pope after their mind, and a friend. Among these three the archbishop of Bordeaux was the one in whom they most trusted. The wise and far-seeing Cardinal da Prato thought that their purpose would be better carried out by taking M. Raimond de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, than by taking either of the others; albeit he had been appointed by Pope Boniface, and was no friend of the king of France, by reason of injuries done to his kinsfolk in the war of Gascony by M. Charles of Valois; but knowing him to be a man desirous of honour and lordship, and that he was a Gascon, who are by nature covetous, and that he might easily make peace with the king of France, they secretly took counsel, and he and his party in the college took an oath, and having confirmed with the other part of the college the documents and papers concerning the said agreements and pacts, by his letters, and those of the other cardinals of his party, they wrote to the king of France, and enclosed under their seals the pacts and agreements and commissions between themselves and the other part of the college, and by faithful and good couriers ordered by means of their merchants (the other party knowing nothing of this), they sent from Perugia to Paris in eleven days, admonishing and praying the king of France by the tenor of their letters, that if he wished to recover his estate in Holy Church and relieve his friends, the Colonnesi, he should turn his foe into a friend, to wit M. Raimond de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, one of the three chosen and most trusted by the other party; seeking and stipulating with him for liberal terms for himself and for his friends, forasmuch as to his hands was committed the election of the one of those three, whichever he pleased. The king of France having received the said letters and commissions, rejoiced greatly, and was eager for the undertaking. First of all he sent friendly letters by messengers into Gascony to M. Raimond de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, that he should come to meet him, for he desired to speak with him; and within the next six days the king came in person with a small company, to a secret conference with the said archbishop of Bordeaux in a forest, at an abbey in the district of S. Jean d'Angelus, and when they had heard mass together and sworn faith upon the altar, the king parleyed with him with good words to reconcile him with M. Charles; and then he said thus to him, "Behold, archbishop, I have in my hand the power to make thee Pope if I will, and for this cause am come to thee; and, therefore, if thou wilt promise to grant me six favours which I shall ask of thee, I will do thee this honour, and to the end thou mayest be assured that I have this power,"--he drew forth and showed him the letters and commissions from both one part of the college and the other. The Gascon, coveting the papal dignity, and seeing thus suddenly how with the king lay the power of making him Pope, as it were stupefied with joy, threw himself at his feet, and said, "My lord, now I know that thou lovest me more than any other man, and wouldst return me good for evil; thou hast to command and I to obey, and always it shall be so ordered." The king lifted him up and kissed him on the mouth, and then said to him, "The six special graces that I ask of thee are these: the first, that thou wilt reconcile me perfectly with the Church, and procure my pardon for my misdeed which I committed in the capture of Pope Boniface. The second, that thou wilt recommunicate me and my followers. The third article, that thou wilt grant me all the tithes of the realm for five years, in aid of my expenses which I have incurred for the war in Flanders. The fourth, that thou wilt promise to destroy and annul the memory of Pope Boniface. The fifth, that thou wilt restore the honour of the cardinalate to M. Jacopo and M. Piero della Colonna, and restore them to their estate, and together with them wilt make certain of my friends cardinals. The sixth grace and promise I reserve till due time and place, for it is secret and great." The archbishop promised everything on oath upon the body of Christ, and, furthermore, gave him as hostages his brother and two of his nephews; and the king swore to him and promised that he should be elected Pope. And this done, with great love and joy they parted, and the king returned to Paris, taking with him the said hostages under cover of love and of reconciling them with M. Charles; and straightway he wrote in answer to the Cardinal da Prato and to the others of his party, telling what he had done, and that they might safely elect as Pope M. Raimond de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, as a trustworthy and sure friend. And as it pleased God, the matter was so urgently pressed that in thirty-five days the answer to the said mandate was come back to Perugia with great secrecy. And when the Cardinal da Prato had received the said answer, he showed it secretly to his party, and craftily summoned the other party, when it should please them to assemble together, forasmuch as they desired to observe the agreement, and so it was immediately done. And when the said parties were gathered together, and it was necessary to ratify and confirm the order of the said compacts with authenticated papers and oaths, it was solemnly done. And then the said Cardinal da Prato wisely cited an authority from Holy Scripture which was fitting to the occasion, and by the authority committed to him after the said manner, he elected as Pope the aforesaid M. Raimond de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux; and this was accepted and confirmed with great joy by both parties, and they sang with a loud voice "Te Deum Laudamus," etc., the party of Pope Boniface not knowing of the deceit and fraud which had been carried out, rather believing that they had as Pope that man in whom they most trusted; and when the announcements of the election came abroad, there was great strife and disturbance between their families, forasmuch as each said that he was the friend of their party. And this done, and the cardinals being come forth from their confinement, it was straightway determined to send him the election and decree across the mountains where he was. This election took place on the 5th day of June in the year of Christ 1305, when the apostolic chair had been vacant ten months and twenty-eight days. We have made so long a record of this election of the Pope, by reason of the subtle and fine deceit which took place, and for its bearing on the future, forasmuch as great things followed thereupon, as hereafter we shall relate, during the time of his papacy and of his successor. And this election was the cause whereby the papacy reverted to foreigners, and the court went beyond the mountains, so that for the sin committed by the Italian cardinals in the death of Pope Benedict, if they were guilty thereof, and in the fraudulent election, they were well punished by the Gascons, as we shall tell hereafter. [Sidenote: 1305 A.D.] § 81.--_Of the coronation of Pope Clement V. and of the cardinals which he made._ § 82.--_How the Florentines and the Lucchese besieged and took the city of Pistoia._ § 83.--_How the cities of Modena and of Reggio rebelled against the marquis of Este, and how the Whites and the Ghibellines were driven out of Bologna._ § 84.--_How there arose in Lombardy one Fra Dolcino with a great company of heretics, and how they were burnt._ [Sidenote: 1305 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xxviii. 55-60.] In the said year 1305, in the territory of Novara in Lombardy, there was one Frate Dolcino, which was not a brother of any regular Order, but as it were a monk outside the Orders, and he rose up and led astray a great company of heretics, men and women of the country and of the mountains, of small account; and the said Fra Dolcino taught and preached that he was a true apostle of Christ, and that everything ought to be held lovingly in common, and women also were to be in common, and there was no sin in so using them. And many other foul articles of heresy he preached, and maintained that the Pope and cardinals and the other rulers of Holy Church did not observe their duty nor the evangelic life; and that he ought to be made Pope. And he, with a following of more than 3,000 men and women, abode in the mountains, living in common after the manner of beasts; and when they wanted victuals they took and robbed wherever they could find any; and thus he reigned for two years. At last those which followed the said dissolute life, becoming weary of it, his sect diminished much, and through want of victuals and by reason of the snow he was taken by the Navarese and burnt, with Margaret his companion, and with many other men and women which with him had been led astray. [Sidenote: 1306 A.D.] § 85.--_How Pope Clement sent as legate into Italy Cardinal Napoleone of the Orsini, and how he was ill received._ § 86.--_How the Florentines besieged and took the strong castle of Montaccianico and dismantled it, and caused Scarperia to be built._ § 87.--_How the Florentines strengthened the Popolo, and chose the first executor of the Ordinances of Justice._ § 88.--_Of the great war which was begun against the marquis of Ferrara, and how he died._ [Sidenote: Inf. xii. 112; xviii. 55-57. Purg. v. 73-78. xx. 79-81. De Vulg. El. I. 12: 38; II. 6: 42-44.] [Sidenote: 1306 A.D.] In the said year 1306, the Veronese, Mantuans, and Brescians made a league together, and declared a great war against the Marquis Azzo of Este, which was lord of Ferrara, because they feared that he was desirous to be lord over Lombardy, forasmuch as he had taken to wife a daughter of King Charles; and they overran his places and took from him some of his strongholds. But the year after, when he had gathered his forces, with the aid of the Piedmontese and of King Charles, he made a great expedition against them, and overran their places and did them much hurt. But a little time after the said marquis fell sick, and died in great pain and misery; and he had been the gayest and most redoubted and powerful tyrant in Lombardy, and he left no son of lawful wedlock, and his lands and lordship became a cause of great strife between his brothers and nephews, and one of his bastard sons, which was named Francis, whom the Venetians greatly favoured because he was born in Venice; and much strife and war followed therefrom with hurt to the Venetians, as hereafter in due time we shall make mention. [Sidenote: 1306 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1307 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 132.] § 89.--_How M. Napoleone Orsini, the legate, came to Arezzo; and of the expedition which the Florentines made against Gargosa._ § 90.--_How the good King Edward of England died._ § 91.--_How the king of France went to Poitiers to Pope Clement, to cause the memory of Pope Boniface to be condemned._ § 92.--_How and after what fashion was destroyed the Order and mansion of the Temple of Jerusalem by the machinations of the king of France._ [Sidenote: 1307 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xx. 91-93.] [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] In the said year 1307, before the king of France departed from the court of Poitiers, he accused and denounced to the Pope, incited thereto by his officers and by desire of gain, the master and the Order of the Temple, charging them with certain crimes and errors, whereof as the king had been informed the Templars were guilty. The first movement came from a prior of the said Order, of Monfaucon in the region of Toulouse, a man of evil life and a heretic, and for his faults condemned to perpetual imprisonment in Paris by the grand master. And finding himself in prison with one Noffo Dei, of our city of Florence, a man full of all vices, these two men, despairing of any salvation, evilly and maliciously invented the said false accusation in hope of gain, and of being set free from prison by aid of the king. But each of them a little while after came to a bad end; forasmuch as Noffo was hanged and the prior stabbed. To the end they might move the king to seek his gain, they brought the accusation before his officers, and the officers brought it before the king; wherefore the king was moved by his avarice, and made secret arrangements with the Pope and caused him to promise to destroy the Order of the Templars, laying to their charge many articles of heresy; but it is said that it was more in hope of extracting great sums of money from them, and by reason of offence taken against the master of the Temple and the Order. The Pope, to be rid of the king of France, by reason of the request which he had made that he would condemn Pope Boniface, as we have before said, whether rightly or wrongly, to please the king promised that he would do this; and when the king had departed, on a day named in his letters, he caused all the Templars to be seized throughout the whole world, and all their churches and mansions and possessions, which were almost innumerable in power and in riches, to be sequestered; and all those in the realm of France the king caused to be occupied by his court, and at Paris the master of the Temple was taken, which was named Jacques of the lords of Molay in Burgundy, with sixty knights, friars and gentlemen; and they were charged with certain articles of heresy, and certain vile sins against nature which they were said to practise among themselves; and that at their profession they swore to support the Order right or wrong, and that their worship was idolatrous, and that they spat upon the cross, and that when their master was consecrated it was secretly and in private, and none knew the manner; and alleging that their predecessors had caused the Holy Land to be lost by treachery, and King Louis and his followers to be taken at Monsura. And when sundry proofs had been given by the king of the truth of these charges, he had them tortured with divers tortures that they might confess, and it was found that they would not confess nor acknowledge anything. And after keeping them a long time in prison in great misery, and not knowing how to put an end to their trial, at last outside Paris at S. Antoine (and the like was also done at Senlis in France) in a great park enclosed by wood, fifty-six of the said Templars were bound each one to a stake, and they began to set fire to their feet and legs little by little, admonishing them one after the other that whosoever of them would acknowledge the error and sins wherewith they were charged might escape; and during this martyrdom, exhorted by their kinsfolk and friends to confess, and not to allow themselves to be thus vilely slain and destroyed, yet would not one of them confess, but with weeping and cries they defended themselves as being innocent and faithful Christians, calling upon Christ and S. Mary and the other saints; and by the said martyrdom all burning to ashes they ended their lives. And the master was reserved, and the brother of the dauphin of Auvergne, and Brother Hugh of Peraud, and another of the leaders of the Order, which had been officers and treasurers of the king of France, and they were brought to Poitiers before the Pope, the king of France being present, and they were promised forgiveness if they would acknowledge their error and sin, and it is said that they confessed something thereof; and when they had returned to Paris there came thither two cardinal legates to give sentence and condemn the Order upon the said confession, and to impose some discipline upon the said master and his companions; and when they had mounted a great scaffold, opposite the church of Nôtre Dame, and had read the indictment, the said master of the Temple rose to his feet, demanding to be heard; and when silence was proclaimed, he denied that ever such heresies and sins as they had been charged with had been true, and maintained that the rule of their Order had been holy and just and catholic, but that he certainly was worthy of death, and would endure it in peace, forasmuch as through fear of torture and by the persuasions of the Pope and of the king, he had by deceit been persuaded to confess some part thereof. And the discourse having been broken off, and the sentence not having been fully delivered, the cardinals and the other prelates departed from that place. And having held counsel with the king, the said master and his companions, in the Isle de Paris and before the hall of the king, were put to martyrdom after the same manner as the rest of their brethren, the master burning slowly to death and continually repeating that the Order and their religion was catholic and righteous, and commending himself to God and S. Mary; and likewise did the brother of the dauphin. Brother Hugh of Peraud, and the other, through fear of martyrdom, confessed and confirmed that which they had said before the Pope and the king, and they escaped, but afterwards they died miserably. And by many it was said that they were slain and destroyed wrongly and wickedly, and to the end their property might be seized, which afterwards was granted in privilege by the Pope to the Order of the Hospitallers, but they were required to recover and redeem it from the king of France and the other princes and lords, and that with so great a sum that, with the interest to be paid thereupon, the Order of the Hospitallers was, and is, poorer than it was before in its property; or perhaps God brought this about by miracle to show how things were. And the king of France and his sons had afterwards much shame and adversity, both because of this sin and of the capture of Pope Boniface, as hereafter shall be related. And note, that the night after the said master and his companion had been martyred, their ashes and bones were collected as sacred relics by friars and other religious persons, and carried away to holy places. In this manner was destroyed and brought to nought the rich and powerful Order of the Temple at Jerusalem, in the year of Christ 1310. We will now leave the doings in France and return to our doings in Italy. [Sidenote: 1307 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1308 A.D.] § 93.--_Of events and defeats which came to pass in Romagna and in Lombardy._ § 94.--_Of the death of King Albert of Germany._ § 95.--_How the Podestà of Florence fled with the Hercules seal of the commonwealth._ § 96.--_How Corso Donati, the great and noble citizen of Florence, died._ [Sidenote: 1308 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. xxiv. 81-87.] In the said year 1308, there being in the city of Florence increasing strife between the nobles and the powerful popolani of the Black party which were ruling the city, by reason of rivalry for state and lordship, which began at the time of the tumult when they demanded to see the accounts, as we have before made mention; this jealous disposition must needs bring forth sorrowful consequences, because from the sins of pride and envy and avarice, and other vices which reigned among them, they were divided into factions; and the leader of one faction was M. Corso de' Donati, with a following of some nobles, and of certain popolani, among others them of the house of Bordoni; and of the other party were leaders M. Rosso della Tosa, M. Geri Spini, and M. Pazzino dei Pazzi, and M. Betto Brunelleschi, with their allies, and with the Cavicciuli, and with many houses of magnates and popolani, and the greater part of the good people of the city, which had the offices and the government of the city, and of the people. M. Corso and his followers believed themselves to have been ill-treated with regard to offices and honours, whereof they held themselves to be more worthy, forasmuch as they had been the principal restorers of the Blacks to their estate, and had driven out the Whites; but by the other party it was said that M. Corso desired to be lord over the city with no equal. But whatever may have been the truth or the cause, his aforesaid opponents and they which ruled the city had hated and greatly feared him, ever since he had allied himself by marriage to Uguccione della Faggiuola, a Ghibelline, and hostile to the Florentines; and also they feared him because of his ambition and power and following, being uncertain whether he would not take their state from them, and drive them from the city, and above all, because they found that the said M. Corso had made a league and covenant with the said Uguccione della Faggiuola, his father-in-law, and had sent for him and his aid. For the which thing, in great jealousy, the city suddenly rose in an uproar, and the priors caused the bells to be sounded, and the people and the nobles, on horse and on foot, flew to arms, and the Catalan troops with the king's marshal, which were at the service of them which ruled the city. And straightway, as had been ordained by the aforesaid leaders, an inquisition or accusation was given to the Podestà, to wit, to M. Piero della Branca d'Agobbio, against the said M. Corso, charging him with wishing to betray the people, and to overturn the city, by bringing thither Uguccione della Faggiuola with the Ghibellines and enemies of the commonwealth. And he was first cited to appear, and then proclamation was made against him, and then he was condemned; in less than an hour, without giving any longer time for his trial, M. Corso was condemned as a rebel and traitor to his commonwealth, and straightway the priors set forth with the standard of justice, and the Podestà, captain and executioner, with their retainers and with the standard-bearers of the companies, with the people in arms, and the troops on horse, amid the acclamations of the people, to go to the house where dwelt M. Corso at San Piero Maggiore, to carry out the sentence. When M. Corso, having heard of the attack against him (or, as some said, in order to strengthen himself to carry out his purpose, for he was expecting Uguccione della Faggiuola with a great following which was already come to Remole), had barricaded himself in the road of San Piero Maggiore, at the foot of the towers of Cicino, and in Torcicoda, and at the entrance of the way which goes towards the Stinche, and at the way of San Brocolo, with strong barricades, and with much folk, his kinsmen and friends, in arms and with crossbows, enclosed within the barricade, and at his service. The people began to attack the said barricades in divers places, and M. Corso and his friends to defend them boldly; and the battle endured the greater part of the day, and was so strong that, with all the power of the people, if the reinforcements of Uguccione's followers and the other friends from the country invited by M. Corso had joined him in time, the people of Florence would have had enough to do that day; because, albeit they were many, yet were they ill-ordered and not well agreed, forasmuch as to part of them the attack was not pleasing. But when Uguccione's followers heard how M. Corso was attacked by the people, they turned back, and the citizens which were within the barricade began to depart, so that he remained very scant of followers, and certain of the people broke down the wall of the orchard over against the Stinche, and entered in with a great company of men in arms. When M. Corso and his followers saw this, and that the aid of Uguccione and of his other friends was belated and had failed them, he abandoned the houses, and fled out of the city, the which houses were straightway plundered and destroyed by the people, and M. Corso and his followers were pursued by certain citizens on horse and by certain Catalans, sent expressly to take him. And Gherardo Bordoni was overtaken by Boccaccio Cavicciuli, at the Affrico, and slain, and his hand was cut off and taken to the street of the Adimari, and nailed to the door of M. Tedici degli Adimari, his associate, by reason of enmity between them. M. Corso, departing quite alone, was overtaken and captured near Rovezzano by certain Catalans on horse, and as they were taking him prisoner to Florence, when they were hard by San Salvi, he prayed them to let him go free, promising them much money if they would let him escape, but they held to their purpose of taking him to Florence, as had been commanded them by their lords; then M. Corso, in fear of coming into the hands of his enemies, and of being brought to justice by the people, being much afflicted with gout in his hands and feet, let himself fall from his horse. The said Catalans seeing him on the ground, one of them gave him a thrust with his lance in the throat, which was a mortal blow, and then left him there for dead; the monks of the said convent carried him into the abbey, and some said that before he died he gave himself into their hands as a penitent, and some said that they found him dead; and the next morning he was buried in San Salvi with little honour and but few present, for fear of the commonwealth. This M. Corso Donati was among the most sage, and was a valiant cavalier, and the finest speaker, and most skilled, and of the greatest renown and of the greatest courage and enterprise of any one of his time in Italy, and a handsome and gracious cavalier in his person; but he was very worldly, and in his time caused many conspiracies and scandals in Florence to gain state and lordship; and for this cause have we made so long a treatise concerning his end, forasmuch as it was of great moment to our city, and after his death many things followed thereupon, as may be understood by the intelligent, to the end he may be an example to those which come after. [Sidenote: 1308 A.D.] § 97.--_How the church of the Lateran at Rome was burned._ § 98.--_How the magnates of Samminiato destroyed their Popolo._ § 99.--_How the Tarlati were expelled from Arezzo, and the Guelfs restored._ § 100.--_How the Ubaldini returned to submission to the commonwealth of Florence._ § 101.--_After what manner Henry, count of Luxemburg, was elected emperor of Rome._ [Sidenote: 1308 A.D.] In the said year 1308, the King Albert of Germany being dead, as we afore said, by the which death the Empire was left vacant, the electors of Germany were at great discord among themselves concerning the election; and when the king of France heard of the said vacancy, he thought within himself that now his purpose would be carried out with little difficulty, by reason of the sixth promise which Pope Clement had secretly made to him when he promised to make him Pope, as we afore made mention; and he assembled his secret council with M. Charles of Valois, his brother, and there he revealed his intention, and the long desire which he had had that the Church of Rome should elect as king of the Romans M. Charles of Valois, even while Albert, king of Germany, was living, by means of his forces and power and money, and with the aid of the Pope and the Church; for at other times of old the election had passed from the Greeks to the French, and from the French to the Italians, and from the Italians to the Germans. And now much more ought it to come to pass, seeing the Empire was vacant, and especially by reason of the said promise and oath, which Pope Clement had made to him when he had made him Pope. And he revealed all the secret covenant with him, and this done, he asked their counsel and made them swear secrecy. To this enterprise the king was encouraged by all his counsellors, and that to this end he should use all the power of the crown and of his realm, so that it might be brought about, alike for the honour of M. Charles of Valois, who was worthy thereof, and that the honour and dignity of the Empire might return to the French, as it had of old pertained long time to their forefathers, Charles the Great and his successors. And when the king and M. Charles heard the encouragement and good-will of his council, they rejoiced greatly, and took counsel that without delay the king and M. Charles, with a great force of barons and knights in arms, should go to Avignon to the Pope, before the Germans should have made any other election, showing and giving out that his going was concerning the petition against the memory of Pope Boniface; and that when the king came to the court, he should require from the Pope the sixth and secret promise,--to wit, the election and confirmation as Emperor of Rome of M. Charles of Valois; and he being so strong in followers, no cardinal nor any one else, not even the Pope, would dare to refuse him. And this ordered, the barons and knights were commanded to provide themselves with arms and with horses to bear the king company on his journey to Avignon; and they of the signiory of Provence were to make ready, and should number more than 6,000 knights in arms. But as it pleased God, who willed not that the Church of Rome should be wholly subject to the house of France, these preparations of the king and his purpose were secretly made known to the Pope by one of the privy council of the king of France. The Pope, fearing the coming of the king with so great a force, remembering the promise he had made, and perceiving that it was most contrary to the liberty of the Church, held secret counsel with M. d'Ostia, Cardinal da Prato alone, forasmuch as they were already indignant with the king of France, by reason of his inordinate demands, and because, if the Church had condemned the memory of Pope Boniface, that which he had done would have been made null and void, and the Cardinal da Prato had been made cardinal by Boniface with certain others, as we have said in another place. The said cardinal, hearing that which the Pope had learned of the purpose and of the coming of the king of France, spake thus: "Holy Father, here there is but one remedy, to wit, before the king makes his request of thee, thou must secretly and carefully arrange with the princes of Germany that they complete the election to the Empire." This counsel pleased the Pope, but he said: "Whom do we will to be Emperor?" Then the cardinal, with much foresight, not only to secure the liberty of the Church, but to advance his own interests and those of his Ghibelline party, which he would fain exalt in Italy, said: "I hear that the count of Luxemburg is to-day the best man in Germany, and the most loyal and bold, and the most catholic; and I do not doubt, if by thy means he comes to this dignity, that he will be faithful and obedient to thee and to Holy Church, and a man who will come to great things." The Pope was pleased with the good report which he heard of him, and said: "How can this election be brought about by us secretly, sending letters under our seal, unknown to the college of our brother cardinals?" The cardinal made answer: "Write thy letters to him and to the electors under a small and secret seal, and I will write to them in my letters more fully concerning thy purpose, and I will send them by my servant"; and so it was done. And as it pleased God, when the messengers were come into Germany, and had presented the letters, in eight days the princes of Germany were assembled at Middleburg, and there without dissent they elected as king of the Romans Henry, count of Luxemburg; and this was from the industry and activity of the said cardinal which wrote these words among others to the princes: "See that ye are united in this matter, and without delay; if not, I believe that the election and the lordship of the Empire will return to the French." This done, the election was straightway made public in France and at the papal court; and the king of France, not knowing the manner thereof, and making preparations to go to the court, held himself deceived, and was never afterwards a friend of the said Pope. § 102.--_How Henry the Emperor was confirmed by the Pope._ [Sidenote: 1308 A.D.] In the said year, after Henry of Luxemburg had been elected king of the Romans, he sent for his confirmation to Avignon to the court of Pope Clement the count of Savoy, his kinsman, and M. Guy of Namûrs, brother of the count of Flanders, his cousin, which were honourably received by the Pope and by the cardinals; and in the month of April, 1308, the said Henry was confirmed as Emperor by the Pope, and it was ordained that the Cardinal dal Fiesco and the Cardinal da Prato should be legates in Italy, and should bear him company when he should have crossed the mountains, commanding in the Church's name that he should be obeyed by all. Immediately when his ambassadors had returned with the Pope's confirmation, he went to Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany with all the barons and prelates of Germany, and there were there the duke of Brabant, and the count of Flanders, and the count of Hainault, and more barons of France; and at Aix, by the archbishop of Cologne, he was with honour and without any opposition crowned with the first crown, on the day of the Epiphany, 1308, as king of the Romans. § 103.--_How the Venetians took the city of Ferrara and then lost it again._ § 104.--_How the master of the Hospital took the island of Rhodes._ § 105.--_How the king of Aragon prepared an expedition against Sardinia._ § 106.--_How the Guelfs were expelled from Prato, and then were reinstated._ § 107.--_How the Tarlati returned to Arezzo and expelled the Guelfs therefrom._ § 108.--_How King Charles II. died._ § 109.--_Of the signs that appeared in the air._ § 110.--_How the Florentines renewed war with Arezzo._ § 111.--_How the Lucchese would have destroyed Pistoia, and the Florentines opposed them._ § 112.--_How Robert was crowned king over the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia._ [Sidenote: 1309 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. viii. 76-84.] In the month of June of the year 1309, Duke Robert, now King Charles' eldest son, went by sea from Naples to Provence, to the court, with a great fleet of galleys, and a great company, and was crowned king of Sicily and of Apulia by Pope Clement, on S. Mary's Day in September of the said year, and was entirely acquitted of the loan which the Church had made to his father and grandfather for the war in Sicily, which is said to have been more than 300,000 ounces of gold. In the said year and month the Guelfs were driven out of Amelia by the forces of the Colonnesi. § 113.--_How they of Ancona were discomfited by Count Frederick._ § 114.--_How M. Ubizzino Spinoli was driven out of Genoa and defeated._ § 115.--_How the Venetians were defeated at Ferrara._ § 116.--_Of the war between them of Volterra and them of Sangimignano._ § 117.--_How the Orsini of Rome were defeated by the Colonnesi._ § 118.--_How the folk of Arezzo were defeated by the marshal of the Florentines._ § 119.--_How the Florentines marched upon Arezzo._ § 120.--_How the ambassadors of Henry, king of the Romans, came to Florence._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] In the said year, on the 3rd day of July, there came to Florence M. Louis of Savoy, senator elect of Rome, with two clerics, prelates of Germany, and M. Simone Filippi of Pistoia, ambassadors from the Emperor, requiring the commonwealth of Florence to prepare to do honour to his coronation, and to send their ambassadors to him to Lausanne; and they required and commanded that the expedition which had been sent against Arezzo should be withdrawn. A great and fine council was held by the Florentines, wherein the ambassadors discreetly set forth their embassy. M. Betto Brunelleschi was called upon to respond for the commonwealth, which at the first made answer with proud and unfitting words, wherefor he was afterwards blamed by the wise; then answer was discreetly made, and courteously, by M. Ugolino Tornaquinci, whereon they departed, well content, on the 12th day of July, and went to the host of the Florentines to Arezzo, and made the like command that the host should depart, which did not therefore depart. The said ambassadors abode in Arezzo, very wrathful against the Florentines. [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] § 121.--_Of wondrous folk that went their way through Italy beating themselves._ END OF SELECTIONS FROM BOOK VIII. BOOK IX. _Here begins the Ninth Book. How Henry, count of Luxemburg, was made Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvii. 82, xxx. 133-138. Epistolæ v. vi. vii.] § 1.--Henry, count of Luxemburg, reigned four years and seven months and eighteen days from his first coronation to his end. He was wise and just and gracious, valiant and firm in arms, virtuous and catholic; and albeit of low estate according to his lineage, he was great-hearted, feared and redoubted; and if he had lived longer he would have done the greatest things. This man was elected emperor after the manner aforesaid, and immediately when he had received confirmation from the Pope he caused himself to be crowned king in Germany; and afterwards he pacified all the disputes between the barons of Germany, and purposed earnestly to come to Rome for the imperial crown, and to pacify Italy from the divers discords and wars which were therein, and then to carry out the expedition over seas to recover the Holy Land, if God had granted it to him. Whilst he abode in Germany to pacify the barons, and to provide himself with money and with followers before crossing the mountains, Wenceslas, king of Bohemia, died, and left no male heir, but only two daughters, the one already wife of the duke of Carinthia, and the other, by the counsel of his barons, Henry gave to wife to John, his son, whom he crowned king of Bohemia, and left him in his place in Germany. [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] § 2.--_How the Guelf party was expelled from Venice._ § 3.--_Of the prophecies of M. Arnaldo da Villanuova._ § 4.--_How there was a conspiracy in Ferrara to make the place rebel against the Church._ § 5.--_How they of Todi were routed by them of Perugia._ § 6.--_How the Guelfs were expelled from Spoleto._ § 7.--_How the Emperor Henry departed from Germany to go into Italy._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xxx. 133-141.] [Sidenote: Epistola v.] In the said year 1310, the Emperor came to Lausanne with few followers, awaiting his forces, and the embassies from the cities of Italy, and there abode many months. When the Florentines heard this they took counsel to send him a rich embassage, and likewise the Lucchese, and the Sienese, and the other cities of the Tuscan league; and the ambassadors were actually chosen, and the stuffs for their robes prepared, that they might be honourably arrayed. Yet this journey was abandoned by reason of certain Guelf magnates of Florence, which feared lest under pretence of peace the Emperor might restore the banished Ghibellines to Florence, and make them lords thereof; wherefore suspicion arose, and afterwards indignation, whence followed great peril to all Italy, forasmuch as when the ambassadors from Rome, and they of Pisa and of the other cities were come to Lausanne in Savoy, the Emperor asked why the Florentines were not there. Then answer was made to the lord by the ambassadors of the refugees from Florence, that it was because they were afraid of him. Then said the Emperor: "They have done ill, forasmuch as our desire was to have all the Florentines, and not only a faction, for our faithful subjects, and to make that city our treasure and archive house, and the loftiest of our empire." And it was known of a surety by folk which were near to him, that up to that time he had purposed with pure intent to maintain them which were ruling Florence in their estate, which intent the refugees greatly dreaded. But henceforth, by reason of this anger, or through evil report of his ambassadors which came to Florence, and of the Ghibellines and Pisans, he gave his mind the other way. Wherefore, in the following August, the Florentines, being alarmed, raised 1,000 citizen cavalry, and began to provide themselves with soldiers and with money, and to make a league with King Robert, and with many cities of Tuscany and of Lombardy, to oppose the coming and the coronation of the Emperor; and the Pisans, to the end that he might cross the Alps, sent him 70,000 golden florins, and promised him as many more when he should be come to Pisa; and with this aid he set forth from Lausanne, forasmuch as he was not himself a lord rich in money. § 8.--_How King Robert came to Florence as he returned from his coronation._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] In the said year 1310, on the 30th day of September, King Robert came to Florence on his way back from his coronation at Avignon, where was the Pope's court; he abode in the house of the Peruzzi dal Parlagio [of the Forum], and the Florentines did him much honour, and held jousts, and gave him large presents of money, and he abode in Florence until the 24th day of October, to reconcile the Guelfs together, which were divided into factions among themselves, and to treat of warding off the Emperor. He could do but little in reconciling them; so much had error increased among them, as before has been narrated. § 9.--_How the Emperor Henry passed into Italy and gained the city of Milan._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] [Sidenote: Johannes de Virgilio. Carmen _v._ 26.] In the year 1310, at the end of September, the Emperor departed from Lausanne with his followers, and crossed the mountains of M. Cenis, and at the beginning of October he came to Turin in Piedmont: afterwards he came to the city of Asti, the 10th day of October. By the people of Asti he was peaceably received as lord, and they went out to meet him, with rejoicing and a great procession, and he pacified all the disputes among the people of Asti. In Asti he awaited his followers, and before he departed he had nigh upon 2,000 horse from beyond the mountains. In Asti he abode more than two months, forasmuch as at that time M. Guidetto della Torre was ruler in Milan, a man of great wit and power, which had, between soldiers and citizens, more than 2,000 cavalry, and by his force and tyranny he kept out of Milan the Visconti and their Ghibelline party, and also his associate, the archbishop, with many other Guelfs. This M. Guidetto was in league with the Florentines and with the other Guelfs of Tuscany and of Lombardy, and opposed the coming of the Emperor, and would have succeeded if it had not been that his own associates with their following led the Emperor to make for Milan, by the counsel of the cardinal of Fiesco, the Pope's legate. M. Guidetto, not being able to provide against everything, consented to his coming, against his will; and thus the Emperor entered into Milan on the vigil of the Feast of the Nativity, and on the Day of the Epiphany, the 6th of January, he was crowned in S. Ambrogio by the archbishop of Milan, with the second crown of iron, with great honour, both he and his wife. [And the said crown is in Milan, and is of fine tempered steel as for a sword, made in the form of a wreath of laurel, wherein rich and precious stones were inlaid, after the fashion of the Cæsars which were crowned with laurel in their triumphs and victories; and it is made of steel by way of a figure and similitude, for like as steel and iron surpass all other metals, so the Cæsars, triumphing by the force of the Romans and Italians, which then were all called Romans, surpassed and subdued to the Empire of Rome all the nations of the earth.] And at the said coronation were ambassadors from well-nigh all the cities of Italy save Florence and those of their league. And whilst he abode in Milan he caused all the Milanese to be at peace one with another, and restored M. Maffeo Visconti and his party, and the archbishop and his party, and in general every man who was in banishment. And well-nigh all the cities and lords of Lombardy came to do his bidding, and to give him great quantity of money; and he sent his vicar into all the cities save into Bologna and Padua, which were against him, and were with the league of the Florentines. § 10.--_How the Florentines enclosed the new circle of the city with moats._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Epist. vi.] In the said year, on S. Andrew's Day, the Florentines, through fear of the coming of the Emperor, took counsel to enclose the city with moats from the Porta San Gallo as far as the Porta Santo Ambrogio, which is called La Croce a Gorgo, and then as far as the river Arno; and then from the Porta San Gallo to the Porta dal Prato d'Ognissanti, where the walls were already founded, they were raised eight cubits higher. And this work was done quickly and in short time, which thing was assuredly afterwards the salvation of the city of Florence, as hereafter shall be narrated; inasmuch as theretofore the city had been all exposed and the old walls in great measure pulled down and sold to the neighbouring inhabitants, to enlarge the old city, and to enclose the suburbs and the new additions. § 11.--_How the della Torre were driven out of Milan._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] In the said year, on the 11th day of the month of February, M. Guidetto della Torre, seeing himself cast out from the lordship of Milan, and Maffeo Visconti and his other enemies much in favour with the Emperor, thought to cause the city of Milan to rebel against the Emperor, seeing that he had with him but few horse, forasmuch as they were gone away and dispersed throughout the cities of Lombardy; and this would have come to pass, if it had not been that Matteo Visconti very wisely warned the Emperor thereof, and his marshal, and the count of Savoy. For the which thing the city rose in arms and uproar, and there was some fighting. Now there were who said that M. Maffeo Visconti by his wit and sagacity deceived him to the end he might bring him under the Emperor's suspicion, coming to him secretly, and complaining of the lordship of the Emperor and of the Germans, making as though he would better love the freedom of Milan than such lordship; and saying to him that he would rather have him for lord than the Emperor, and that he and his followers would give him all aid and assistance in driving out the Emperor. To which proposal M. Guidetto gave heed, trusting in his former enemy, through desire of recovering his state and lordship; or perhaps it was for his sins, of which he had many, and was the answer of Maffeo coming true, which he had made to him through the mouth of the jongleur, as we related before. M. Maffeo under the said promise betrayed him, and revealed all to the Emperor and to his council; and this we believe of a surety, because of what we heard thereof afterwards from wise Lombards which were then in Milan. And for this cause M. Guidetto della Torre was called upon to defend himself, who did not appear, but departed with his followers from Milan, asserting that he was not guilty of treachery, but that his enemies had charged him therewith to bring him to nought and drive him out of Milan. But the most believe that he was in fault, forasmuch as he was in league with the Florentines and the Bolognese, and with other Guelf cities, and it was said that he was to receive much money therefor from the Florentines and their league. But whatever might have been the cause, the said intrigues made the city of Cremona immediately rebel against the Emperor, on the 20th day of February, and this rebellion and others in Lombardy were of a surety brought about by the zeal and the spending of the Florentines, to give the Emperor so much to do in Lombardy that he would not be able to come into Tuscany. At this time the Ghibellines of Brescia drave out the Guelfs, and this likewise came to pass to those of Parma; for the which thing the Emperor sent his vicar and followers into Brescia, and caused peace to be made, and the Guelfs to return to the city, which a short time afterwards finding themselves strong in the city, and seeing that Cremona had rebelled, and being encouraged by the Florentines and the Bolognese with monies and large promises, drave out the Ghibellines from Brescia, and altogether rebelled against the Emperor, and prepared to make war against him. § 12.--_How there was great scarcity in Florence, and concerning other events._ [Sidenote: 1310 A.D.] In the said year 1310, from December to the following May, there was the greatest scarcity in Florence, for a bushel of grain cost half a golden florin, and was all mixed with buck-wheat. And the arts and trade had never been worse in Florence than during this time, and the expenses of the commonwealth were very great, and there was much ill-will and fear concerning the coming of the Emperor. At that time, at the end of February, the Donati slew M. Betto Brunelleschi, and a little while after the said Donati and their kinsfolk and friends assembled at San Salvi and disinterred M. Corso Donati, and made great lamentation, and held a service as if he were only just dead, showing that by the death of M. Betto vengeance had been done, and that he had been the counsellor of M. Corso's death, wherefore all the city was as it were moved to tumult. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 13.--_How the relics of St. Barnabas came to Florence._ § 14.--_How the Emperor besieged Cremona, and his people took Vicenza._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvii. 76-93. Epistola x. Quest. de Acqua et Terra. § 24.--Cf. Inf. i. 100-111. Purg. xxxiii. 40-45.] In the said year, the 12th day of the month of April, the Emperor was besieging Cremona with an host, and he sent the bishop of Geneva, his cousin, with 300 horsemen from beyond the mountains, and with the force of M. Cane della Scala of Verona, and suddenly took the city of Vicenza from the Paduans, and they which were of Padua in the fortress, through fear, without defending themselves, abandoned the fortress, the which loss caused great dismay to the Paduans, and to all their allies; for the which thing, a little while after, the Paduans were reconciled to the Emperor, and gave him the lordship of Padua, and 100,000 golden florins in divers payments, and they received his vicar. The said bishop of Geneva went afterwards to Venice, and craved aid for the Emperor of the Venetians. The Venetians did him great honour, and gave him to buy precious stones for his crown 1,000 pounds of Venetian grossi; and in Venice from these monies and with others was made the crown, and the imperial throne, very rich and magnificent, the throne of silver gilt, and the crown with many precious stones. § 15.--_How the Emperor took the city of Cremona._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In 1311, on the 20th of April, the Emperor being with his army at Cremona, the city being much straitened, forasmuch as they were ill-provided by reason of their sudden rebellion, they surrendered the city to the Emperor's mercy, through the negotiations of the archbishop of Ravenna; and he received them and pardoned them, and caused the walls and all the fortresses of the city to be destroyed, and laid a heavy fine upon them. And when he had taken Cremona, immediately he went with his army against the city of Brescia on the 14th day of May, and there he found himself with larger forces, and more numerous and better cavaliers than he had ever had, for of a truth there were there more than 6,000 good horsemen; 4,000 and more Germans, and Frenchmen, and Burgundians, and men of birth; and the rest Italians. For after he had taken Milan and then Cremona, many great lords of Germany and of France came into his service, some for pay, and many for love. And verily if he had abandoned the enterprise of the siege of Brescia, and had come into Tuscany, he would have quietly secured Bologna, Florence, and Lucca and Siena, and afterwards Rome, and the Kingdom of Apulia, and all the lands against him, forasmuch as they were not furnished nor provided, and the minds of the people were much at variance, forasmuch as the said Emperor was held to be the most just and benign sovereign. It pleased God that he should abide at Brescia, the which siege cost him much both in people and in power, by reason of the great destruction both by death and pestilence, as hereafter I shall make mention. § 16.--_How the Florentines, by reason of the Emperor's coming, recalled from banishment all the Guelfs._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year, on the 26th day of April, the Florentines having heard how Vicenza and Cremona had surrendered to the Emperor, and how he was going to the siege of Brescia, in order to strengthen themselves put forth express decree and ordinance, and recalled from banishment all the Guelf citizens and country people under what sentence soever they had been banished, on their paying a certain small toll; and they made many leagues both in the city and in the country, and with the other Guelf cities of Tuscany. § 17.--_How the Florentines, with all the Guelf cities of Tuscany, made a league together against the Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year 1311, on the 1st day of June, the Florentines, the Bolognese, the Lucchese, the Sienese, the Pistoians, and they of Volterra, and all the other Guelf cities of Tuscany held a parliament, and concluded a league together, and a union of knights, and swore together to defend one another and oppose the Emperor. And afterwards, on the 26th day of June, the Florentines sent the king's marshal with 400 Catalan soldiers which were in their pay, for the defence of Bologna, and to oppose the Emperor if he should advance from that quarter; and in like manner the Sienese and Lucchese sent troops, and they abode there many months in Bologna and in Romagna in the service of King Robert. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 18.--_How King Robert caused the Ghibellines of Romagna to be taken by craft._ § 19.--_How the Pope's marquis took Fano and Pesaro._ § 20.--_How the Emperor Henry took the city of Brescia by siege._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] [Sidenote: Epistola vii.] In the said year 1311, the Emperor being with his army before Brescia, there were many assaults made, wherein much people died both within and without the city, among which was slain in an assault, by an arrow from a large crossbow, M. Waleran of Luxemburg, brother in blood and marshal of the Emperor, and many other barons, good knights; whence came great fear to all the host. And encouraged by this, the Brescians sallied forth ofttimes to attack the host, and in the month of June some of them were routed and discomfited, and forty of them were taken prisoners of the chief of the city, and fully 200 slain, among which prisoners was M. Tebaldo Brusciati, which was leader of the people within the city, a man of great valour, which had been a friend of the Emperor, who had restored him to Brescia when the Guelfs had been driven out: wherefore the Emperor caused him to be drawn asunder by four horses as a traitor, and many others he caused to be beheaded, whereby the power of the Brescians was much enfeebled; but for all that they within the city did not abandon the defence of the city. In that siege the air was corrupted by the stench of the horses and the long sojourn of the camp, wherefore there arose much sickness both within and without, and a great part of them from beyond the mountains fell sick, and many great barons died there, and some departed by reason of sickness, and afterwards died thereof on the road. Among the others died there the valiant M. Guy of Namûrs, brother of the count of Flanders, which was leader of the Flemings at the rout of Courtray, a man of great worth and renown; for which cause most part of the host counselled the Emperor that he should depart. He holding the needs within the city to be yet greater, alike from sickness and death, and from lack of victuals, determined not to depart till he should have taken the city. They of Brescia, as food was failing them, by the hand of the cardinal of Fiesco surrendered themselves to the mercy of the Emperor, on the 16th day of September, in the said year. Who, when he had gotten the city, caused all the walls and strongholds to be destroyed, and exacted a fine of 70,000 golden florins. Thus with great difficulty, after much time, he gained the city by reason of their evil estate; and 100 of the best men of the city, both magnates and popolari, he sent into banishment, confining them within bounds in divers places. When he had departed from Brescia, with great loss and hurt, seeing that not a fourth part of his people were left to him, and of these a great part were sick, he held his parliament in Cremona. There, by the influence and encouragement of the Pisans and of the Ghibellines and Whites of Tuscany, he determined to come to Genoa, and there re-establish his state, and in Milan he left as vicar and captain M. Maffeo Visconti; and in Verona, M. Cane della Scala; and in Mantua, M. Passerino de' Bonaposi; and in Parma, M. Ghiberto da Correggia; and all the other cities of Lombardy in like manner he left under tyrants, not being able to do otherwise, through his evil estate, and from each one he received much money, and invested them with the privileges of the said lordships. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 21.--_How the Florentines and Lucchese strengthened the frontiers by reason of the Emperor's coming._ § 22.--_How Pope Clement sent legates to crown the Emperor Henry._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xvii. 82.] In the year of Christ 1311, Pope Clement, at the request of the Emperor, not being able to come in person to Rome to crown him, by reason of the council which had been summoned, sent the bishop of Ostia, Cardinal da Prato, as legate, with power to act as if he had been the Pope in person; and he was with him in Genoa in the month of October; and the said Pope sent as legate into Hungary Cardinal Gentile da Montefiore to crown Carlo Rimberto, son that was of Charles Martel and nephew of King Robert, as king over the realm of Hungary, and to give him the aid and favour of the Church. And this the said cardinal did, and abode long time in Hungary, until the said Carlo had conquered almost all the country, and he had crowned him in peace. And on the return of the said cardinal to Italy, he received commandment from the Pope to bring to him across the mountains all the Church treasure which was in Rome and in the other cities pertaining to the Holy See, and this he brought as far as the city of Lucca. Beyond that he could not bring it, neither by land nor by sea, because the coasts of Genoa, both land and sea, were all in commotion of war through the Guelf and Ghibelline parties, by reason of the Emperor's coming. He left it in Lucca in the sacristy of San Friano, which treasure was afterwards robbed by the Ghibellines; as hereafter we shall make mention. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 23.--_How Pope Clement summoned a council at Vienne in Burgundy, and canonised S. Louis, son of King Charles._ § 24.--_How the Emperor Henry came into the city of Genoa._ § 25.--_How an imperial vicar came to Arezzo._ § 26.--_How the ambassadors from the Emperor came to Florence, and were driven thence._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year, and month of October, there came to Florence M. Pandolfo Savelli, of Rome, and other clerks as ambassadors from the Emperor. When they were come to Lastra, above Montughi, the priors of Florence sent them word not to enter into Florence, but to depart. The said ambassadors, not being willing to depart, were robbed by Florentine highwaymen, with the secret consent of the priors; and fleeing in peril of their lives, they departed by the way of Mugello to Arezzo, and afterwards from Arezzo summoned all the nobles and lords and the commonwealths of Tuscany to prepare themselves to come to the Emperor's coronation at Rome. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 27.--_How the Florentines sent their troops to Lunigiana to oppose the passage of the Emperor._ § 28.--_How the empress died in Genoa._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year, in the month of November, there died in Genoa the empress, wife of the Emperor, which was held to be a holy and good woman, and was daughter of the duke of Brabant; and was buried in the Minor Friars with great honour. § 29.--_How the Emperor put the Florentines under the ban of the Empire._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year and month the Emperor issued a proclamation from Genoa against the Florentines that, if within forty days they did not send him twelve good men with a plenipotentiary and full promise to obey him, he would condemn their goods and persons to be forfeit, wherever found. The commonwealth of Florence did not send any messengers, but all the Florentine merchants which were in Genoa received orders to depart thence, and this they did; and after that, all merchandise which was found in Genoa in the name of the Florentines was seized by the court of the Emperor. [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] § 30.--_Of the scandal which was in Florence among the wool-workers._ § 31.--_How King Robert sent men to Florence to oppose the Emperor._ § 32.--_How the city of Brescia rebelled against the Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year, in the end of December, the Guelfs of Brescia re-entered the city to cause it to rebel against the Emperor. Thither rode M. Cane della Scala with his forces, and drave them out thence with great loss. And in the said month of December M. Ghiberto da Correggia, which was holding Parma, rebelled against the lordship of the Emperor, as likewise did they of Reggio; and the Florentines and the rest of the league of the Guelfs of Tuscany sent aid to them of man and horse. § 33.--_How there was great tumult in Florence by reason of the death of M. Pazzino de' Pazzi._ § 34.--_How the city of Cremona rebelled against the Emperor._ In the said year 1311, on the 10th day of the said month of January, the Cremonese rebelled against the lordship of the Emperor, and drave out his people and his vicar, and this was through the suggestion of the Florentines, which still had their ambassador there to treat of this, promising to the Cremonese much aid in money and in people; but the promise was ill fulfilled to them by the Florentines. § 35.--_How the marshal of the Emperor came to Pisa, and began war with the Florentines._ [Sidenote: 1311 A.D.] In the said year, on the 11th of January, Henry of Namûrs, brother of Count Robert of Flanders, marshal of the Emperor, came by sea to Pisa with but small following, and two days after sallied forth from Pisa with his men, and took station this side Pontadera, and all the goods of the Florentines which were coming from Pisa he caused to be captured and taken back to Pisa; whence the Florentines had great loss. For this cause the Florentines sent foot and horse to Samminiato and the frontier there. § 36.--_How the Paduans rebelled against the lordship of the Emperor._ In the said year, on the 15th of February, the Paduans, with the help of the Florentines and of the Bolognese, rebelled against the lordship of the Emperor, and drave out his vicar and his followers; and tumultuously slew M. Guglielmo Novello, their fellow-citizen and chief leader of the Ghibelline party in Padua. § 37.--_How the Emperor Henry came to the city of Pisa._ § 38.--_How they of Spoleto were defeated by the Perugians._ § 39.--_Of the gathering together made by King Robert and the league of Tuscany at Rome to oppose the coronation of the Emperor Henry._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. xvi. 42.] In the year 1312, in the month of April, when King Robert heard of the preparation which the king of Germany was making in Pisa, to come to Rome to be crowned, he sent forward to Rome, at the request and with the support of the Orsini, M. John, his brother, with 600 Catalan and Apulian horsemen, and they came to Rome the 16th day of April; and he sent to the Florentines and Lucchese and Sienese, and to the other cities of Tuscany which were in league with him, to send their forces there; wherefore there went forth from Florence on the 9th day of May, 1312, a troop of 200 horsemen of the best citizens, and the marshal of King Robert which was in their pay, with 300 Catalan horse and 1,000 foot, very fine soldiers; and the royal standard was borne by M. Berto di M. Pazzino dei Pazzi, a valiant and wise young knight, which died at Rome in the service of the king and of the commonwealth of Florence. And from Lucca there went 300 horse and 1,000 foot, and of Sienese 200 horse and 600 foot, and many other cities of Tuscany and of the Roman state sent men thither. Which all were in Rome on the 21st day of May, 1312, to oppose the coronation of the Emperor; and with the force of the said Orsini, of Rome, and of their followers they took the Capitol, and drave out thence by force M. Louis, of Savoy, the senator; and they took the towers and fortresses at the foot of the Capitol, above the market, and fortified Hadrian's Castle, called S. Angelo, and the church and palaces of S. Peter; and thus they had the lordship and rule over more than the half of Rome, and that, too, the most populous; and all the Transtiberine district. The Colonnesi and their following, which took the side of the Emperor, held the Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Coliseum, Santa Maria Ritonda, the Milizie, and Santa Savina; and thus each party was defended by bars and bolts in great strongholds. And as the people of Florence abode there, on S. John Baptist's Day, their principal feast, they ran the races in Rome for their cloth of crimson samite, as they were wont to do on the said day in Florence. § 40.--_How the Emperor Henry departed from Pisa and came to Rome._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. vi. 107.] [Sidenote Cf. Par. xv. 109-111.] In the said year, on the 23rd day of April, the king of Germany departed from Pisa with his people to the number of 2,000 horse and more, and took the way of the Maremma, and then by the country of Siena, and by that of Orvieto, without sojourning, and without any hindrance he came to Viterbo, and had it without opposition, forasmuch as it pertained to the lordship of the Colonnas. And as he passed through the territory of Orvieto, the Filippeschi of Orvieto, with their following of Ghibellines, began a strife within the city against the Monaldeschi and the other Guelfs of Orvieto, to give the city to the Emperor. The Guelfs, being strong and well-armed, fought vigorously before the Ghibellines could gain the aid of the Emperor's troops, and overcame them, and drave them out of the city with many slain and captured. Then the king of Germany abode many days at Viterbo, not being able to gain admittance by the gate of S. Piero of Rome; and the Emilian Bridge over the Tiber being fortified and guarded by the forces of the Orsini, at last he departed from Viterbo, and stayed at Monte Malo; and afterwards by the forces of his followers from without, and those of the Colonnesi and their party within, he assailed the fortresses and strongholds of the Emilian Bridge, and by strength overcame them, and thus he entered into Rome on the 7th day of May, and came to Santa Savina to sojourn. [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] § 41.--_How M. Galeasso Visconti of Milan took the city of Piacenza._ § 42.--_How the Florentines drave away the Pisans in discomfiture from Cerretello._ § 43.--_How Henry of Luxemburg was crowned Emperor at Rome._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] In the said year, whilst the king of the Romans abode long time in Rome, till he might come by force to the church of S. Peter to be crowned, his followers had many battles with the opposing forces of King Robert and the Tuscans, and overcame them by force and regained the Capitol, and the fortresses above the market, and the towers of S. Mark. And verily it seems as if he would have been victorious in large measure in the strife, save that on one day, the 26th day of May, when in a great battle, the bishop of Liège, with many barons of Germany, having forced the lines, was traversing the city well-nigh to the bridge of S. Angelo, King Robert's followers, with the Florentines, departed from the Campo di Fiore by crossways, and attacked the enemy in the flank, and pursued and broke them up; and more than 250 horsemen were either slain or taken prisoner, among which the said bishop of Liège was taken; and whilst a knight was bringing him behind him disarmed on his horse to M. John, brother of King Robert, a Catalan, whose brother had been slain in this pursuit, thrust at him in the back with his sword; wherefore, when he came to the castle of S. Angelo, in a short time he died; and this was a heavy loss, forasmuch as he was a lord of great valour and of great authority. By reason of the said loss and discomfiture, King Robert's followers and their men increased greatly in vigour and audacity, and those of the king of Germany the contrary. When he perceived that these conflicts did not make for his good, and that he was losing his men and his honour, having first sent to the Pope to ask that his cardinals might crown him in whatever church of Rome might please them, he determined to have himself crowned in S. John Lateran; and there was he crowned by the bishop of Ostia, Cardinal da Prato, and by M. Luca dal Fiesco, and M. Arnaldo Guasconi, cardinals, the day of S. Peter in Vincola, the 1st of August, 1312, with great honour from those people which were with him, and from those Romans which were on his side. And the Emperor Henry having been crowned, a few days after he departed to Tivoli to sojourn there, and left Rome barricaded and in evil state, and each party kept its streets and strongholds fortified and guarded. And when the coronation was over, there departed of his barons, the duke of Bavaria and his people, and other lords of Germany, which had served him, so that he remained with but few foreigners. § 44.--_How the Emperor departed from Rome to go into Tuscany._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] Then the Emperor departed from Tivoli, and came with his people to Todi, and was received honourably by the inhabitants, and as their lord, forasmuch as they took his part. The Florentines and the other Tuscans, hearing that the Emperor had departed from Rome and was taking his way towards Tuscany, straightway sent for their troops which were at Rome, to the end they might be stronger against his coming. And when the said troops had returned, the Florentines and the other cities of Tuscany garrisoned their fortresses with horsemen and with soldiers, to resist the coming of the Emperor, fearing greatly his forces, and confining more straitly the Ghibellines and others which were suspected; and the Florentines increased the number of their horsemen to 1,300, and of soldiers they had with the marshal and with others 700, so that they had about 2,000 horsemen; and every other town and city of Tuscany in the league of King Robert and of the Guelf party, had strengthened itself with soldiers for fear of the Emperor. § 45.--_How the Emperor came to the city of Arezzo, and afterwards how he came towards the city of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] In the said month of August, in 1312, the Emperor departed from Todi and passed through the region of Perugia, destroying and burning, and his people took by force Castiglione of Chiusi on the lake, and from there he came to Cortona, and then to Arezzo, and was received by the Aretines with great honour. And in Arezzo he assembled his army to come against the city of Florence, and suddenly he departed from Arezzo and entered into the territory of Florence on the 12th day of September, and there was straightway surrendered to him the fortress of Caposelvole upon the Ambra which pertained to the Florentines. And then he pitched his camp before the fortress of Montevarchi, which was well furnished with soldiers, both horse and foot, and with victuals; against it he ordered many assaults, and caused the moats to be emptied of water, and filled up with earth. They within the city, seeing that they were so hotly assailed, and that the city had low walls, and that the horsemen of the Emperor fighting on foot, and mounting the walls on ladders, did not fear the arrows nor the stones which were thrown down, were greatly dismayed, and believing that the Florentines would not succour them, surrendered themselves on the third day to the Emperor. And when he had taken Montevarchi, without delay he came with his host to the fortress of Sangiovanni, which in like manner surrendered itself to him, and he took there seventy Catalan horsemen, in the service of the Florentines: and thus without hindrance he came to the village of Fegghine. § 46.--_How the Florentines were well-nigh discomfited at the fortress of Ancisa by the army of the Emperor._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] When the Florentines heard that the Emperor had departed from Arezzo, immediately the people and horsemen of Florence, without awaiting other aid, rode to the fortress of Ancisa upon the Arno, and they were about 1,800 horse and many foot, and at Ancisa they encamped to hold the pass against the Emperor. And when he heard this, he came with his army to the plain of Ancisa upon the island of Arno which is called Il Mezzule, and challenged the Florentines to battle. The Florentines, knowing themselves to be in number of their horsemen not much superior to those of the Emperor, and being without a captain, did not desire to try the fortune of battle, believing that they could hinder the Emperor by reason of the difficult pass, so that he could not get through to Florence. The Emperor seeing that the Florentines were not willing to fight, by counsel of the wise men of war, refugees from Florence, took the way of the hill above Ancisa, and by narrow and difficult ways passed the fortress and came out on the side towards Florence. The host of the Florentines perceiving his movements, and fearing lest he should come to the city of Florence, some part of them with the king's marshal and his troops departed from Ancisa, to be before him in the way. The count of Savoy, and M. Henry of Flanders, which were come before to take the pass, vigorously attacked them which were at the frontier under Montelfi, and with the advantage which they had of the hill, they put them to flight and discomfiture, and some pursued them as far as the village of Ancisa. The rout of the Florentines was more through the dismay caused by the sudden assault, than by loss of men; for among them all there were not twenty-five horsemen slain, and less than one hundred footmen; and well-nigh all the foreigners which came in pursuit of them as far as the village were slain. Nevertheless, the followers of the Emperor remained victorious in the combat, and the Florentines were filled with fear; and the Emperor spent that night two miles this side of Ancisa on the way to Florence. The Florentines remained in the fortress of Ancisa, as it were besieged and with but little provision of victuals, so that, if the Emperor had been constant to the siege, the Florentines which were at Ancisa would have been well-nigh all slain or taken. But as it pleased God, the Emperor resolved that night to go direct to the city of Florence, believing that he should take it without opposition; and he left the host of the Florentines behind at Ancisa, seeing that they were in a state of siege, and in much fear, and in great disorder. § 47.--_How the Emperor Henry encamped with his host before the city of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vi. 111.] And thus the day following, the 19th day of September, 1312, the Emperor came with his host to the city of Florence, his followers setting fire to everything they came across; and thus he crossed the river Arno, over against where the Mensola enters it, and abode at the monastery of Santo Salvi, with perhaps 1,000 horsemen. The rest of his followers remained in Valdarno, and part at Todi, which came to him afterwards; and as they came through the region of Perugia, they were assailed by the Perugians, and defended themselves against them, and passed on with loss and shame to the Perugians. And the Emperor came thither so suddenly that the most part of the Florentines could not believe that he was there in person; and they were so dismayed and fearful about their horsemen which were left at Ancisa well-nigh discomfited, that if the Emperor and his followers, upon their sudden coming had advanced to the gates, they would have found them open and ill-guarded; and it is thought by most that the city would have been taken. The Florentines, however, beholding the burning of the houses along the way, called the people to arms by sound of bell, and with the standards of their companies they came to the piazza of the Priors, and the bishop of Florence armed himself, with the horses belonging to the clergy, and hastened to defend the Porta Santo Ambrogio and the moats; and all the people on foot were with him; and they barred the gates, and ordered the standard-bearers and their people, at their posts along the moats, to guard the city by day and by night. And within the city on that side they pitched a camp with pavilions, tents, and booths, to the intent the guard might be stronger, and made palisades along the moats of all kinds of wood, with portcullises, in a very short time. And thus abode the Florentines in great fear for two days, for their horsemen and their army were returning from Ancisa by divers ways by the vale of Robbiano, and from Santa Maria in Pianeta a Montebuoni [Impruneta] in the night season. When they came to Florence, the city was reassured; and the Lucchese sent thither in aid and defence of the city 600 horse and 3,000 foot, and the Sienese 600 horse and 2,000 foot, and they of Pistoia 100 horse and 500 foot, and they of Prato 50 horse and 400 foot, and they of Volterra 100 horse and 300 foot, and Colle and Sangimignagno and Samminiato each 50 horse and 200 foot, the Bolognese 400 horse and 1,000 foot; from Romagna there came, what with Rimini and Ravenna and Faenza and Cesena and the other Guelf cities, 300 horse and 1,500 foot, and from Agobbio 100 horse, and from the city of Castello 50 horse. From Perugia there came no aid, by reason of the war which they had with Todi and Spoleto. And thus within eight days of the siege being declared by the Emperor, the Florentines with their allies were more than 4,000 horse, and foot without number. The Emperor had 1,800 horsemen, whereof 800 were foreigners and 1,000 Italians, from Rome, from the March, from the Duchy, from Arezzo, and from Romagna, and from the Counts Guidi, and them of Santafiore, and the Florentine refugees; and much people on foot, forasmuch as the country people of the region which he was occupying, all followed his camp. And that year was the most fertile and fruitful in all food which had been for thirty years past. The Emperor abode at the siege until the last day of the month of October, laying the whole country waste towards the eastern side, and did great hurt to the Florentines without any attack upon the city, being in hopes of gaining it by agreement; and even if he had attacked it, it was so well furnished with horsemen, that there would have been two or more defending the city for every one without, and of foot four to one; and the Florentines were in such good heart that the most part went about unarmed, and they kept all the other gates open, save the one on that side; and the merchandise came in and went out as if there had been no war. As to the Florentines sallying forth to battle, either by reason of cowardice or of prudence in war, or because they had no leader, they would in no wise trust to the fortune of the combat, albeit they had greatly the advantage, had they but had a good captain, and been more united among themselves. Certainly they rode out to Cerretello, whither the Pisans had marched with their army, and they forced them to withdraw from it again, as though defeated, in the month of October. The Emperor lay sick many days at San Salvi, and perceiving that he could not gain the city by agreement, and that the Florentines would not give battle, he departed, not yet recovered. [And whilst he was still at San Salvi, the count of Savoy was discoursing with the abbot and certain monks of that place, concerning the Emperor, how he had heard from his astrologers or by some other revelation, that he was to conquer as far as to the world's end; then said the abbot smiling: "The prophecy is fulfilled, for hard by where you are dwelling, there is a road which has no exit, which is called the World's End"; wherefore the count and the other barons which heard this were confounded in their vain hope: and for this reason, wise men ought not to put faith in any prophecy or sayings of astrologers, for they are lies and have a double meaning.] § 48.--_How the Emperor abandoned the siege, and departed from San Salvi, and came to San Casciano, and then to Poggibonizzi._ [Sidenote: 1312 A.D.] The Emperor with his host departed on the night before All Saints, and having burnt his camp, he passed the Arno by the way which he came, and encamped on the plain of Ema, three miles from the city. On his going the Florentines did not sally forth from the city by night, but they sounded the bells and all men stood to arms; and for this cause, as was afterwards known, the followers of the Emperor were in great trepidation about their departure, lest they should be attacked by night either in front or in rear by the Florentines. The morning following, a part of the Florentines went to the hill of Santa Margherita above the camp of the Emperor, and by way of skirmishes they made many assaults upon them, in the which they had the worse; and having tarried there three days in shame, he departed and came with his host to the village of San Casciano, eight miles from the city; wherefore the Florentines caused a trench to be dug round the increase of the sesto of Oltrarno outside the ancient walls, on the first of December, 1312. And the Emperor being at San Casciano, the Pisans came thither to his aid with full 500 horse and 3,000 foot, and 1,000 archers of Genoa, and they arrived the 20th day of November. At San Casciano he abode until the 6th day of January, without making any attack upon the Florentines save incursions, and laying waste, and burning houses in the region; and he took many strongholds of the country; nor did the Florentines therefore sally forth to battle, save in incursions and skirmishes, wherein now one party and now the other suffered loss, not worthy of much mention, save that at one encounter, at Cerbaia in the Val di Pesa our troops were routed by the Germans, and one of the Spini was there slain, and one of the Bostichi, and one of the Guadagni, because of their boldness at that place; for they were of a company of volunteers, with a captain, their banner bearing a red stripe on a green field, and they called themselves the Cavaliers of the Stripe, of the most famous young men of Florence, and they did many feats of arms. But during this time, the Florentines parted from a great number of their allies and let them go; and the Emperor himself had not many followers; and by reason of his long sojourn and by the discomfort of the cold, there began in the camp at San Casciano to be great sickness and mortality among the people, which greatly infected the country, and reached as far as to Florence; for the which cause the Emperor departed with his host from San Casciano and came to Poggibonizzi, and took the strongholds of Barberino and of San Donato in Poggio, and many other fortresses; at Poggibonizzi he restored the fortress upon the hill, as of old it was wont to be, and gave it the name of the Imperial Fortress. There he abode until the 6th day of March, and during that sojourn he was in great need of provision, and suffered much want, he and all his host, forasmuch as the Sienese on the one side, and the Florentines on the other, between them had closed the roads, and 300 soldiers of King Robert were in Colle di Valdelsa, and harassed them continually; and 200 of the Emperor's horsemen, as they were returning from Casole, were defeated by the king's horsemen which were in Colle, on the 14th day of February, 1312. And on the other side, the marshal with the soldiers of Florence, harassed him in Sangimignagno, so that the state of the Emperor was much diminished, and there scarce remained to him 1,000 horse, forasmuch as M. Robert of Flanders had departed with his followers, and the Florentines took him in flank at Castelfiorentino, and a great part of his men were slain or taken, and he fled with a few, albeit he had held the field well, and had given them which attacked him much to do, which were four to his one, and were much shamed thereby. § 49.--_How the Emperor departed from Poggibonizzi and returned to Pisa, and issued many bans against the Florentines._ [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] Thus the Emperor perceived himself to be brought low in men and in victuals, and also in money, so that nought was left to him to spend, save only that ambassadors from King Frederick of Sicily, which landed at Pisa, and came to him to Poggibonizzi to make a league with him against King Robert, gave him 20,000 golden pistoles. When he had paid his debts with these, he departed from Poggibonizzi, and without halting came to Pisa, on the 9th day of March, 1312, in very evil plight, both he and his followers; but the Emperor Henry had this supreme virtue in him, that never in adversity was he as one cast down, nor in prosperity was he vainglorious. When the Emperor had returned to Pisa he proclaimed a great and weighty sentence against the Florentines, taking from them all jurisdiction and honours, disqualifying all the judges and notaries, and condemning the commonwealth of Florence to pay 100,000 marks of silver; and many citizens, both magnates and popolani who were in the government of Florence, he condemned in their money, and persons, and goods; and the Florentines were not to coin money in gold or in silver; and he granted to M. Ubizzino Spinoli of Genoa and to the marquis of Montferrat, the privilege of coining florins counterfeited after the impression of those of the Florentines; the which thing, by wise men, was charged against him as a great fault and sin, for however indignant and wrathful he might be against the Florentines, he ought never to have granted a privilege to coin false florins. § 50.--_How the Emperor condemned King Robert._ [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] Against King Robert he likewise proclaimed a heavy sentence, declaring his realm of Apulia and the county of Provence to be forfeit, and himself and his heirs to be condemned in their persons as traitors against the Empire; which sentence was afterwards declared null and void by Pope John XXII. And while the Emperor was in Pisa, M. Henry of Flanders, his marshal, rode to Versilia and Lunigiana with 800 horse and 6,000 foot, and took Pietrasanta by force on the 28th day of March, 1313. The Lucchese, which were at Camaiore with the forces of the Florentines, did not venture to oppose him, but returned to Lucca; and Serrezzano, which was held by the Lucchese, surrendered to the Marquises Malispini, who held with the Emperor. § 51.--_How the Emperor made ready to enter into the Kingdom against King Robert, and departed from Pisa._ [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] This done, the Emperor took counsel not to encounter the Florentines and the other Tuscans (whereby he had little bettered his state, but rather made it worse), but to bring matters to a head, and to march against King Robert with all his force and take the Kingdom from him; and if he had done this, it was believed that he would have been master of all Italy; and certainly this would have come to pass, if God had not averted it, as we shall make mention. He made a league with King Frederick, who held the island of Sicily, and with the Genoese, and ordained that each one, on the day named, should put to sea with a large fleet of armed galleys; he sent into Germany and into Lombardy for fresh troops, and made the like demands on all his subjects, and on the Ghibellines of Italy. During this sojourn in Pisa, he collected much money, and without sleeping, caused his marshal continually to make war against Lucca and Samminiato, though he made but little progress. In the summer of 1313, which he passed in Pisa, after his forces were come to him, he numbered more than 2,500 foreign horsemen, for the most part Germans, and of Italians fully 1,500 horsemen. The Genoese armed at his request seventy galleys, whereof M. Lamba d'Oria was admiral, and he came with the said navy to the port of Pisa, and parleyed with the Emperor; afterwards he departed towards the kingdom to the island of Ponzo. King Frederick armed fifty galleys, and on the day named, the 5th of August, 1313, the Emperor departed from Pisa; and the same day it came to pass that King Frederick departed from Messina with his army, and with 1,000 horse, encamped in Calabria, and took the city of Reggio, and many other cities. § 52.--_How the Emperor Henry died at Bonconvento, in the country of Siena._ [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] When the Emperor had departed from Pisa he crossed the Elsa, and attacked Castelfiorentino, and could not take it; he went on through Poggibonizzi and Colle, as far as Siena alongside the gates. In Siena there were many folk of war, and certain Florentine horsemen sallied forth from the Cammollia Gate to skirmish, and were worsted and driven back into the city; and Siena was in great fear; and the Emperor passed by the city and encamped at Montaperti upon the Arbia; there he began to be sick, albeit his sickness had made itself felt even from his departure from Pisa; but because he would not fail to depart on the day named, he set forth on his journey. Then he went to the plain of Filetta, to bathe in the baths of Macereto, and from there he went to the village of Bonconvento, twelve miles beyond Siena. There he grew rapidly worse, and, as it pleased God, he passed from this life on the day of S. Bartholomew, the 24th day of August, 1313. § 53.--_Relates how, when the Emperor was dead, his host was divided, and the barons carried his body to the city of Pisa._ [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xxx. 133-138.] When the Emperor Henry was dead, his host, and the Pisans, and all his friends were in great grief thereat, and the Florentines, Sienese and Lucchese and they of their league rejoiced greatly. And when he was dead, straightway the Aretines and the other Ghibellines from the March and from Romagna departed from the host at Bonconvento, wherein were great numbers of people, both on horse and on foot. His barons and the Pisan cavalry, with their followers, without delay passed through the Maremma with his body, and brought it to Pisa; there, with great sorrow and also with great honour, they buried it in their cathedral. This was the end of the Emperor Henry. And let not the reader marvel, that his story has been continued by us without recounting other things and events in Italy and in other provinces and realms; for two reasons, one, because all Christians and also Greeks and Saracens were intent upon his doings and fortunes, and therefore but few notable things came to pass in any other place; the other, that by reason of the divers and manifold great fortunes which he met withal in the short time that he lived, it is verily believed by the wise, that if death had not come so early to a lord of such valour and of such great undertakings as he was, he would have conquered the Kingdom, and taken it from King Robert, who had made but little preparation for its defence. Rather was it said by many, that King Robert would not have awaited him, but would have gone by sea to Provence; and after he had conquered the Kingdom as he purposed, it would have been very easy for him to conquer all Italy and many of the other provinces. § 54.--_How Frederick, the said king of Sicily, came by sea to the city of Pisa._ § 55.--_How the Count Filipponi of Pavia was defeated at Piacenza._ § 56.--_How the Florentines gave the lordship of Florence to King Robert for five years._ In the said year 1313, whilst the Emperor was yet alive, the Florentines finding themselves in evil case, alike from the forces of the Emperor and of their own exiles, and also having dissensions among themselves from the factions which had arisen as to the filling of the magistracies, they gave themselves to King Robert for five years, and then afterwards they renewed it for three, and thus for eight years King Robert had the lordship over them, sending them a vicar every six months, and the first was M. Giacomo di Cantelmo of Provence, who came to Florence in the month of June, 1313. And the Lucchese and the Pistoians and the men of Prato did the like, in giving the lordship to King Robert. And of a surety this was the salvation of the Florentines, for by reason of the great divisions among the Guelfs, if there had not been this device of the lordship of King Robert they would have been torn to pieces and destroyed by each other, and one side or the other cast out. [Sidenote: 1313 A.D.] § 57.--_How the Spinoli were expelled from Genoa._ § 58.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola, lord of Pisa, made great war against the Lucchese, so that they restored the Ghibelline refugees to Lucca under enforced terms of peace._ § 59.--_Of the death of Pope Clement._ [Sidenote: 1314 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. xix. 82-87. Par. xvii. 82, xxvii. 58-60, xxx. 142-148. Epist. v. 10: 167, 168.] In the year 1314, on the 20th day of April, Pope Clement died; he was on his way to Bordeaux, in Gascony, and when he had passed the Rhone at Roquemaure, in Provence, he fell sick and died. This was a man very greedy of money, and a simoniac, which sold in his court every benefice for money, and was licentious; for it was openly said that he had as mistress the countess of Perigord, a most beautiful lady, daughter of the count of Foix. And he bequeathed to his nephews and family immense and boundless treasure; and it was said that while the said Pope was yet alive, one of his nephews, a cardinal, died, whom he greatly loved; and he constrained a great master of necromancy to tell him what had become of his nephew's soul. The said master having wrought his arts, caused a chaplain of the Pope, a very courageous man, to be conducted by the demons, which had him to hell, and showed him visibly a palace wherein was a bed of glowing fire, and thereon was the soul of the said nephew which was dead, and they said to him that for his simony he was thus judged. And he saw in his vision another palace being raised over against the first, which they told him was being prepared for Pope Clement. And the said chaplain brought back these tidings to the Pope, which was never afterwards glad, and he lived but a short time longer; and when he was dead, and his body had been left for the night in a church with many lights, his coffin caught fire and was burnt, and his body from the middle downwards. § 60.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola with the Pisans took the city of Lucca and stole the treasure of the Church._ § 61.--_How M. Peter, brother of King Robert, came to Florence as lord._ § 62.--_How King Robert went with a great armament against Sicily, and besieged the city of Trapali._ § 63.--_How the Paduans were discomfited at Vicenza by M. Cane della Scala._ [Sidenote: Johannes de Virgilio. Carmen _v._ 28.] [Sidenote: Par. xvii. 76-93.] In the said year 1314, on the 18th day of September, the Paduans went in full force to Vicenza, and took the suburbs, and besieged the city; but M. Cane, lord of Verona, suddenly came to Vicenza, and with a few followers fought against the Paduans; and they being in disorder, trusting in themselves too much after having taken the suburbs, were discomfited, and many of them were slain and taken prisoner. § 64.--_How the Florentines made peace with the Aretines._ § 65.--_How a comet appeared in the heavens._ § 66.--_Of the death of Philip, king of France, and of his sons._ [Sidenote: Par. xix. 118-120.] [Sidenote: 1314 A.D.] [Sidenote: Purg. vii. 109, 110.] [Sidenote: Cf. Par. ix. 1.] In the said year 1314, in the month of November, the King Philip, king of France, which had reigned twenty-nine years, died by an ill-adventure; for, being at a chase, a wild boar ran between the legs of the horse whereupon he was riding, and caused him to fall, and shortly after he died. He was one of the most comely men in the world, and of the tallest in person, and well proportioned in every limb; he was a wise man in himself, and good, after layman's fashion, but by reason of pleasure-seeking, especially in the chase, he did not devote his powers to ruling his realm, but rather allowed them to be played upon by others, so that he was generally swayed by ill counsel, to which he lent a too ready credence; whence many perils came to his realm. He left three sons, Louis, king of Navarre; Philip, count of Poitou; and Charles, Count de la Marche. All these sons one after another in a short while became kings of France, one succeeding on the death of another. And a little while before King Philip, their father, died, there fell upon them great and shameful misfortune, for the wives of all three were found to be faithless; and each one of the husbands was among the most beauteous Christians in the world. The wife of King Louis was daughter of the duke of Burgundy. Louis, when he was king of France, caused her to be strangled with a towel, and then took to wife Queen Clemence, daughter, that was, of Charles Martel, the son of Charles II., king of Apulia. The wives of the second and third sons were sisters, daughters of the count of Burgundy, and heiresses of the countess of Artois. Philip, count of Poitou, on his wife's denial of the charge, and because he loved her much, took her again as being good and beautiful; Charles, Count de la Marche, never would take his wife back, but kept her in prison. This misfortune, it was said, befell them as a miracle by reason of the sin which prevailed in that house of taking their kinswomen to wife, not regarding degrees, or perchance because of the sin committed by their father in taking Pope Boniface, as the bishop of Sion prophesied, as we have before narrated. [Sidenote: 1314 A.D.] [Sidenote: 1315 A.D.] § 67.--_Of the election which was made in Germany of two Emperors, one the duke of Bavaria, and the other the duke of Austria._ § 68.--_How Uguccione, lord of Pisa, made great war against the neighbouring places._ § 69.--_How King Louis of France was crowned, and led an army against the Flemings, but gained nothing._ § 70.--_How Uguccione, lord of Lucca and of Pisa, laid siege to the castle of Montecatini._ In the said year, Uguccione da Faggiuola, with his forces of German troops, being lord of all Pisa and of Lucca, having triumphed throughout all Tuscany, brought his host and laid siege to Montecatini, in Valdinievole, which was held by the Florentines after the loss of Lucca; and, albeit it was well furnished with good men, yet by means of the siege works it was greatly straitened, and in sore want of provisions. The Florentines sent into the Kingdom for M. Philip of Taranto, brother to King Robert, to oppose the fury of Uguccione, and of the Pisans, and of the Germans; and he came to Florence on the 11th of July with 500 horsemen in the pay of the Florentines, and with his son Charles, against the will of King Robert, who knew his brother to be more headstrong than wise, and also not very fortunate in battle, but rather the contrary; and if the Florentines had been willing to tarry longer, King Robert would have sent to Florence his son, the duke, with more order and more preparation, and a better following: but the haste of the Florentines, and the device of hostile fortune, made them desire only the prince, whence came to them thereafter much harm and loss of renown. § 71.--_How, when the prince of Taranto was come to Florence, the Florentines sallied forth with their army to succour Montecatini, and were defeated by Uguccione della Faggiuola._ [Sidenote: 1315 A.D.] [Sidenote: Johannes de Virgilio. Carmen _v._ 27.] When the prince of Taranto and his son were come to Florence, Uguccione, with all his forces from Pisa and from Lucca, and those of the bishop of Arezzo, and of the counts of Santafiore, and of all the Ghibellines of Tuscany and the exiles of Florence, with aid of the Lombards, under M. Maffeo Visconti and his sons, to the number of 2,500 and more horse, and a great number of foot, came to besiege the stronghold of Montecatini. The Florentines, in order to succour it, assembled a great host, and since they invited all their friends, there were there Bolognese, Sienese, men of Perugia and of the city of Castello, of Agobbio, and of Romagna, and of Pistoia, of Volterra, and of Prato, and of all the other Guelf and friendly cities of Tuscany, to the number, with the followers of the prince and of M. Piero, of 3,200 horse and a very great number of foot; and they departed from Florence on the 6th day of August. And when the said host of the Florentines and of the prince was come to Valdinievole, over against that of Uguccione, many days they abode face to face with the torrent of the Nievole between them, and many assaults and skirmishes took place. The Florentines, with many captains and but little order, held their enemies for nought; Uguccione and his people held theirs in great fear, and for this cause they kept strict guard and wise generalship. Uguccione, receiving tidings that the Guelfs of the territory six miles around Lucca, at the instigation of the Florentines, were marching upon Lucca, and had already routed the escort and taken possession of the road whereby provisions were brought to his army, took counsel to withdraw from the siege; and by night he gathered his troops and burned his outworks, and came with his followers in battle array to the neutral ground on the plain commanded by both the two hosts, with the intention, if the prince and his host did not stretch out to intercept him, to march through and make for Pisa; and if they desired to fight, he would have the advantage of the field, and would risk the chances of battle. The prince and the Florentines and their host, perceiving this, when day broke left the camp, and moved their tents and baggage; and the prince being ill with ague, they showed but little foresight, nor kept good order in the troops, by reason of the sudden and unexpected breaking up of the camp, but they confronted the enemy, thinking to turn them to flight. Uguccione, perceiving that he could not avoid the battle, caused the outposts of the plain to be assailed (to wit, the Sienese and them of Colle and others,) by his forefighters, about 150 horse, whereof were captains with the imperial pennon, M. Giovanni Giacotti Malespini, a rebel against Florence, and Uguccione's son; and the Sienese and men of Colle were without resistance broken up and driven back as far as the troop of M. Piero, which was with the Florentine horse. There the said forefighters were checked and well-nigh all cut off and slain, and the said M. Giovanni was left there dead, and Uguccione's son, and their company; and the imperial pennon was cut down, with many good and brave folk. § 72.--_More about the said battle and defeat of the Florentines and of the prince._ [Sidenote: 1315 A.D.] When the attack was begun, and Uguccione perceived how sorry a figure was made by the Sienese and the men of Colle when they fled by reason of the assault of his forefighters, he straightway caused the German troop to strike in, which were 800 horse and more; and they furiously attacked the camp and the said ill-ordered host, whereof by reason of the sudden movement a great part of the horse was not fully armed, and the foot so ill ordered, that when the Germans attacked them in flank, the javelin men let their missiles fall upon our own horse, and then took to flight. And this, among others was one great cause of the rout of the Florentine host, forasmuch as the said German troop pricking forward turned them to flight with little resistance save from the troop of M. Piero and of the Florentines, which endured long, but in the end were discomfited. In this battle there died M. Piero, brother of King Robert, and his body was never found; and M. Carlo, son of the prince, died there, and Count Charles of Battifolle, and M. Caroccio, and M. Brasco of Aragon, constables of the Florentines, men of great valour; and of Florence were left on the field some from well-nigh all the great houses and many magnates of the people, to the number of 114 cavaliers, between slain and prisoners; and, in like manner, of the best of Siena and Perugia and Bologna, and the other cities of Tuscany and of Romagna; in which battle there were slain 2,000 men in all, of horse and foot, and there were 1,500 prisoners. The prince fled with all the rest of his followers, some towards Pistoia and some towards Fucecchio and some by the Cerbaia; wherefore, since numbers were lost in the marshes of the Guisciana, many of the aforesaid slain were drowned without stroke of sword. This lamentable discomfiture was on the day of the beheading of S. John, the 29th day of August, 1315. After the said discomfiture, the stronghold of Montecatini surrendered to Uguccione, and the stronghold of Montesommano, which the Florentines held; and they which were within were allowed to go out safe and sound under conditions. [Sidenote: 1316 A.D.] § 73.--_How Vinci and Cerretoguidi rebelled against the Florentines._ § 74.--_How King Robert sent Count Novello into Florence as captain._ § 75.--_How Uguccione beheaded Banduccio Bonconti and his son, magnates of Pisa._ § 76.--_How the Florentines were divided into factions among themselves, and elected a Bargello._ § 77.--_How a part of the walls of Florence was built, and how bad coins were struck._ § 78.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola was expelled from the lordship of Pisa and of Lucca, and how Castruccio at first had the lordship of Lucca._ § 79.--_How the count of Battifolle was vicar in Florence, and expelled the Bargello and changed the state of Florence._ § 80.--_Tells of a great famine and mortality beyond the mountains._ § 81.--_Of the election of Pope John XXII._ [Sidenote: 1317 A.D.] [Sidenote: Par. xxvii. 58. Epistola viii.] John XXII., born in Cahors, of base lineage, occupied the papal chair for 18 years 2 months and 26 days. He was elected on the 7th day of August, 1316, in Avignon by the cardinals, after a vacancy of two years, and after great discord among themselves, forasmuch as the Gascon cardinals, which were a large part of the college, desired the election of one of themselves, and the Italian and French and Provençal cardinals would not consent thereto, so much had they endured from the Gascon Pope. After long dispute, both one party and the other entrusted their votes to this Cahorsine, as a mediator, the Gascons believing that he would elect the cardinal of Bésiers, which was of their nation, or Cardinal Pelagrù. Who, with the consent of the other Italians and Provençals, and by the device of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, head of the faction against the Gascons, gave the chair to himself, electing himself Pope after the manner ordained according to the Decretals. This man was a poor clerk, and his father was a cobbler, and he was brought up by the bishop of Arles, chancellor to King Charles II.; and by reason of his goodness and industry he came into favour with King Charles, who caused him to be educated at his charges, and then the king made him bishop of Frejus; and on the death of his master, the archbishop of Arles, to wit M. Piero da Ferriera, the chancellor, King Robert made him chancellor in his stead; and afterwards, of his care and sagacity, he sent letters as from King Robert to Pope Clement recommending himself, whereof the king, it was said, knew nothing at all, by reason of which letters he, the said bishop of Frejus, was promoted to be bishop of Avignon, and afterwards cardinal by reason of his wit and industry; wherefore King Robert, before he was made cardinal, was wroth with him, and took away the seal from him, forasmuch as he had sealed the said letters in his own favour to the said Pope Clement without his knowledge. This Pope John was crowned in Avignon on S. Mary's Day, the 8th day of September, 1316. Afterwards he was a great friend to King Robert, and he to him; and by his means he did great things, as hereafter shall be narrated. This Pope caused the Seventh Book of the Decretals to be completed which Pope Clement had begun, and set in order the solemnity and festival of the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, with great indulgences and pardons to whoso should be at celebration of the sacred offices, each hour, and he gave a general pardon of forty days to all Christians for every time that they made reverence when the priest repeated the name of Jesus Christ; this he did afterwards in the year 1318. § 82.--_How King Robert and the Florentines made peace with the Pisans and Lucchese._ § 83.--_How the Florentines recalled the bad money and issued the good money of the "new Guelf" mintage._ § 84.--_How King Robert sent his fleet to Sicily and did great damage._ § 85.--_How Ferrara rebelled against the Church._ § 86.--_How Uguccione da Faggiuola sought to re-enter Pisa, and what came of it in Pisa, and of the Marquis Spinetta._ [Sidenote: 1317 A.D.] In the said year 1317, in the month of August, Uguccione da Faggiuola, with aid from M. Cane of Verona, came suddenly with much people, both horse and foot, into Lunigiana, supported by forces and letters of the Marquis Spinetta, who purposed to come to Pisa on the strength of certain negotiations which he had conducted in the city with men of his faction; which plot was discovered, and there was an outcry of the people, whereof Coscetto dal Colle of Pisa made himself the leader; and by the counsel of Count Gaddo they rushed in fury to the house of the Lanfranchi, which were in league with Uguccione, and slew four of the chief of the house; and others, together with their followers, they banished and set under bounds. When Uguccione perceived that he could not carry out his enterprise, he returned into Lombardy to Verona. Castruccio, lord of Lucca, and Uguccione's enemy, made a league with Count Gaddo and with the Pisans, and with aid of horsemen from them, he went with his host against the Marquis Spinetti, which had given Uguccione free passage, and took from him Fosdinuovo, a very strong castle, and Veruca and Buosi, and drave him from all his towns; and the said Spinetti fled with his family to M. Cane della Scala at Verona. § 87.--_How the Ghibelline party left Genoa._ [Sidenote: 1317 A.D.] In the said year 1317, on the 15th day of September, the city of Genoa being under popular government, but the Grimaldi and the Fiescadori and their Guelf party being stronger than the d'Oria and their Ghibellines (on the one hand because King Robert favoured the Guelfs, and on the other hand because the Spinoli, which were of the Ghibelline party, and in exile from Genoa, were enemies of the d'Oria), certain of the house of the Grimaldi, by reason of enmity against the d'Oria, reinstated the Spinoli in Genoa, under pretence that they would abide under their command and that of the commonwealth. When they of the house of d'Oria and their friends perceived this, they feared greatly to be betrayed by the Guelfs and by the Grimaldi; and the city was all in arms and uproar; and the d'Oria not finding themselves powerful, by reason of the opposition of the Guelfs, and also of the Ghibelline Spinoli their enemies, concealed themselves and their friends, and showed no force of arms; by the which thing the Guelfs were encouraged and took up arms, and chose as captains of Genoa, M. Carlo dal Fiesco and M. Guasparre Grimaldi, on the 10th day of November, 1317. And when the Spinoli which were returned to Genoa saw that the city was come altogether to the Guelf party, and knew that this was through the care and industry of King Robert, straightway they agreed with the d'Oria and with their Ghibelline friends, and they all departed from the city together, on no other compulsion; whence afterwards ensued great scandal and war, as hereafter will be told, forasmuch as the said two houses of the d'Oria and the Spinola were the most powerful families of Italy on the side of the Ghibellines and the empire. § 88.--_How the Ghibellines of Lombardy besieged Cremona._ § 89.--_How M. Cane della Scala led an army against the Paduans, and took many castles from them._ In the said year, in the month of December, the said M. Cane with his forces led his host against the Paduans, and took Monselici and Esti and a great part of their castles, and brought them so low that the following February, not being able to oppose him, they made peace according to M. Cane's pleasure, and promised to restore the Ghibellines to Padua; and this they did. § 90.--_How the exiles from Genoa with the force of the Ghibellines of Lombardy besieged Genoa._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Convivio iv. 20: 38-41.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. iv. 25. Purg. iii. 49.] In the year 1318, when they of the houses of d'Oria and of Spinola with their following were in banishment from Genoa, and by reason of their power maintained themselves on the Riviera of Genoa on their estates, they sent ambassadors into Lombardy and made a treaty and league with M. Maffeo Visconti, captain of Milan, and with his sons and with all the Lombard league which were Imperial and Ghibelline. For the which thing M. Marco Visconti, son of the said Maffeo, came from Lombardy with a great army of soldiers, Germans and Lombards, on horse and on foot, and with the said exiles from Genoa laid siege to the said city on the side of Co' di Fare and of the suburbs; and this was on the 25th day of March, 1318; and a few days after they of the house of d'Oria, with the aid of the others, led another army against the city of Albingano, on the Riviera of Genoa, and this they took, under conditions, in a few days. Afterwards, while the said host was still at Genoa, M. Edoardo d'Oria made a compact with the Abao [chief magistrate] of the people of Saona, and entered into the said city of Saona by night secretly, and straightway, with the aid of the Ghibellines of the city (for the greater part thereof were of the Imperial party), caused the said city to rebel against the commonwealth of Genoa in the month of April; for the which thing the forces of the exiles from Genoa increased greatly, so that well-nigh all the Western Riviera was under their lordship, save the strongholds of Monaco and Ventimiglia and the city of Noli; and in the Eastern Riviera they held Lerici. § 91.--_How the Ghibellines of Lombardy took Cremona._ § 92.--_How the exiles from Genoa took the suburbs of Prea._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] In the said year, at the end of May, the said exiles had besieged the city of Co' di Fare for two months, and it was bravely held by them within by means of a cunning device of ropes which kept the tower in communication with a vessel in the port of Genoa, and by this means they were supplied and provisioned in spite of all the host; wherefore the said exiles took counsel how they might dig and cut away the ground under the said tower. They within, fearing that it might fall, surrendered it on condition that their lives should be spared, and some said for money; and when they had returned into Genoa, they were condemned to death, and were cast down from a height. While the refugees were busied with the said siege, they continually attacked the suburbs of Prea, which are without the Oxen Gate; and fighting manfully, they took the place on the 25th day of June in the said year, whereby they advanced greatly, and the inhabitants of Genoa lost in like measure; for the host without increased, and gathered in the suburbs, and took the mountain of Peraldo and of S. Bernardo above Genoa, and surrounded the city; and above Bisagno they pitched another camp, so that the city was all besieged by land, and by sea it suffered great persecution from the galleys of Saona, and from the exiles, which had the lordship over the sea. § 93.--_How King Robert came by sea to succour Genoa._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] In the said year 1318, the Guelf party being thus besieged in Genoa by sea and by land, they sent their ambassadors to Naples to King Robert, who had been the cause of the whole disturbance in Genoa, that he should succour them and aid them without delay; and if he did not do this, they could not hold out, so straitened were they by the siege and by want of victuals. For the which thing King Robert straightway raised a great fleet of forty-seven transport vessels and twenty-five light galleys, and many other boats and craft laden with provisions; and he in person, with the prince of Taranto, and with M. John, prince of the Morea, his brothers, and with other barons and with horsemen to the number of 1,200, departed from Naples on the 10th day of July, and came by sea, and entered into Genoa on the 21st day of July, 1318, and was honourably received by the citizens as their lord, and heartened the city, which could scarce hold out for lack of victuals. Immediately when the king was come to Genoa, the exiles broke up the camp which they had in Bisagno, and withdrew to the mountains of San Bernardo and of Peraldo, and to the suburbs of Prea towards the west. § 94.--_How the Genoese gave the lordship of Genoa to King Robert._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] In the said year, on the 27th day of July, the captains of Genoa and the Abao of the people, and the Podestà, in full parliament, renounced their jurisdiction and lordship, and with the consent of the people gave the lordship and care of the city and of the Riviera to Pope John and to King Robert for ten years, according to the constitutions of Genoa; and King Robert took it for the Pope and for himself, as one who had long desired it, thinking when he should have got the lordship of Genoa quietly in his hands, to be able to recover the island of Sicily, and overcome all his enemies; and it was for this purpose that, long ere this, he had stirred up revolution in the city, so as to drive thence the Spinoli and the d'Oria, forasmuch as ofttimes whilst they were lords of Genoa, they had opposed King Robert and King Charles, his father, and had helped them of Aragon which held the island of Sicily, as before we have made mention. § 95.--_Of the active war which the exiles of Genoa with the Lombards made against King Robert._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Purg. xiii. 152.] The host without Genoa was not weakened by reason of King Robert's coming, but was largely increased by the aid of the lords of Lombardy, which held with the Imperial party; and they renewed their league with the emperor of Constantinople, and with King Frederick of Sicily, and with the marquis of Monferrat, and with Castruccio, lord of Lucca, and also secretly with the Pisans. And whilst they were at the siege, they were continually making strong and fierce assaults upon the city, hurling things against it from many engines, and attacking it in many places by day and by night--being men of great vigour--in such wise that King Robert with all his forces could gain nothing against them in any part. Rather by digging underground they undermined a great piece of the wall of Porta Santa Agnesa, and caused it to fall, and some of them entered by force into the city. Wherefore the king in person armed himself with all his followers, and they met one another with great vigour upon the ruined walls with swords in hand, but the great barons and knights of the king drove back their enemies with great loss both to one side and to the other, and they rebuilt the walls with great labour in a short time, working both day and night. The king and his followers being thus besieged and attacked in Genoa, sent for aid into Tuscany, and received it from many quarters: from the Florentines, 100 horse and 500 foot, all with lilies for their device, and the same number from Bologna, and likewise from Romagna, and from many other places, and they went to Genoa by sea by the way of Talamone; so that when his allies were come to him, the king was supported in Genoa on the first day of November of the said year by more than 2,500 horse, and by footmen without number. Without were more than 1,500 horse, and the captain of the host was M. Marco Visconti of Milan, and they held the hill fortresses round about in such wise that the king could not go afield; and thus abode the said hosts in close war and skirmishes, hurling and shooting at one another all the said summer, and also the winter, forasmuch as neither one side nor the other could get the advantage. And thus abiding, M. Marco Visconti was so presumptuous as to request King Robert to fight with him in single combat, and whichever was victorious should be lord, which put the king into great scorn. § 96.--_How in the city of Siena there was a conspiracy, and uproar, and great changes followed thereupon._ § 97.--_How King Robert's followers discomfited the exiles from Genoa at the village of Sesto, and how they departed from the siege of the city._ [Sidenote: 1318 A.D.] [Sidenote: Johannes de Virgilio. Carmen _v._ 29.] In the said year 1318, after that King Robert had been besieged in Genoa for more than six months, as already narrated, he bethought him that he could not crush his enemies without unless he could land his army between the suburbs and Saona; and he raised a fleet of sixty galleys and transport vessels, and assembled 850 horse, and of foot full 15,000; and together with them were some Florentines and other Tuscans, and Bolognese and Romagnese; and they departed from Genoa on the 4th day of February, to bring the said people into the country around Sesto. And when the exiles and those without heard this, straightway they sent thither of their people on horse and on foot in great numbers to dispute the shore with King Robert's host, to the end the king's people might not come to land. Which people arrived on the 5th day of February, and with great travail, pushing empty casks before them, fought hand to hand with the enemy, the chief of them being Florentines and other Tuscans, which first descended from the galleys under the protection of the bowmen of the galleys which were by the shore; and by force of arms they landed, and broke up and discomfited the forces of the exiles upon the shore of Sesto, and many thereof were slain and taken prisoners; and they which escaped fled into the suburbs and to Saona, and the night following all the host which were in the suburbs and in the mountains of Paraldo and of San Bernardo departed and went towards Lombardy, and left all their baggage without having been pursued, forasmuch as the king would not that his people should follow after them because of the dangers of those mountains. Afterwards they of the city of Genoa recovered the suburbs of Prea and Co' di Fare and all the forts outside the city. [Sidenote: 1319 A.D.] § 98.--_How King Robert departed from Genoa and went to the papal court in Provence._ § 99.--_How the exiles from Genoa with the Lombards returned to the siege of Genoa._ [Sidenote: 1319 A.D.] In the said year 1319, when the exiles from Genoa heard of the departure of King Robert, they equipped in Saona twenty-eight galleys, whereof M. Conrad d'Oria was admiral, and they sent into Lombardy for aid, and assembled 1,000 and more horse, whereof the greater part were Germans, and a great number of common folk; and on the 27th day of July of the said year they returned with their army to Genoa, and set up their camp in Ponzevera, and on the 3rd day of August following they drew nigh to the city, attacking the suburbs in many places by land from the side of Bisagno; and the said galleys entered the port and strongly attacked the city, but gained nothing. And on the 7th day of August following there was a great battle in the plain of Bisagno between the exiles and those within the city, with great loss both to the one side and to the other, without either party having the honour of the victory, for those without retreated to the hill, and those within returned into the city; and afterwards they fought continually by day and by night against the city by sea and by land. § 100.--_How M. Cane della Scala took the suburbs of Padua._ In the said year 1319, in August, M. Cane della Scala, with the exiles from Padua, whom the Paduans would not restore to the city according to the compact made by M. Cane, came with an army against Padua, with 2,000 horse and 10,000 foot, and took the suburbs, and set up there three camps in order the better to besiege it. [Sidenote: 1320 A.D.] § 101.--_How the Guelfs of Lombardy retook Cremona._ § 102.--_How M. Ugo dal Balzo was routed at Alessandria._ § 103.--_How the refugees from Genoa retook the suburbs of Genoa._ § 104.--_How the Ghibellines took Spoleto._ § 105.--_How the king of Tunis recovered his lordship._ § 106.--_How Castruccio, lord of Lucca, broke peace with the Florentines, and began war against them again._ § 107.--_How folk of the refugees from Genoa were routed at Lerici._ § 108.--_How the Genoese took Bingane._ § 109.--_How the Pope and the Church invited M. Philip of Valois to come into Lombardy._ § 110.--_How M. Philip of Valois returned into France with shame, having gained nothing._ § 111.--_How Castruccio marched upon the Genoese Riviera._ § 112.--_How Frederick of Sicily sent his fleet of galleys to besiege Genoa._ § 113.--_How King Robert equipped his fleet of galleys to oppose that of the Sicilians, and what it accomplished._ § 114.--_Of the same._ § 115.--_How the Florentines forced Castruccio to return from the siege of Genoa._ § 116.--_Of the assaults which the exiles from Genoa and the Sicilians made upon the city, wherein they were worsted._ § 117.--_How the exiles from Genoa laid waste Chiaveri._ § 118.--_How the exiles from Genoa took Noli, and did divers acts of war._ § 119.--_How the king of Spain's brother was routed by the Saracens of Granada._ § 120.--_How the brothers of the Hospital defeated the Turks with their fleet at Rhodes._ § 121.--_How M. Cane della Scala being at the siege of Padua, was defeated by the Paduans and by the count of Görtz._ [Sidenote: 1320 A.D.] In the said year 1320, M. Cane della Scala, lord of Verona, had besieged the city of Padua with all his forces continually for more than a year, and having taken from that city well-nigh all its territory and strongholds, and having defeated them many times, had so crushed the city that it could hold out no longer, forasmuch as he had surrounded it entirely with ramparts occupied by his men, so that no provisions could enter therein. The said Paduans, well-nigh despairing of any escape, turned to the duke of Austria, king elect of the Romans, which sent to their succour the count of Görtz and the lord of Vals, with 500 steel-capped horsemen, and they suddenly, and as it were in secret, entered into Padua with these their followers. The said M. Cane, by reason of his great confidence and pride in his victories, and the great number of horse and of foot which were in his army, cared little for the Paduans, and by reason of the long siege, being too secure, had his troops in ill order. It came to pass that on the 25th day of August, 1320, the said count of Görtz, with his Friolese and Germans, and with the Paduans, sallied forth suddenly from the city, and vigorously assailed the host. M. Cane, with some of his ill-ordered horse, thinking to beat them back, gave battle, and by the count of Görtz and the Paduans was discomfited and unhorsed and wounded, and scarce came off with his life by the help of his followers, and escaped on a horse to Monselice; and his host was all routed, and many of his followers were slain or taken prisoners, and all their belongings lost; and thus by want of foresight the good fortune of this victorious tyrant changed to bad. At this siege of Padua died Uguccione della Faggiuola at Cittadella [_al._ In the city of Verona] of sickness, being come to aid M. Cane. He was the other great tyrant, which so persecuted the Florentines and Lucchese, as before we made mention. [Sidenote: 1320 A.D.] § 122.--_How the count Gaddo, lord of Pisa, died; and how the count Nieri was made lord thereof._ § 123.--_How peace was made by the king of France with the Flemings._ § 124.--_How there was great dissension amongst them of the house of Flanders._ § 125.--_How the Ghibellines were expelled from Rieti._ § 126.--_How there was a great enrolling of armies by two emperors elect of Germany._ § 127.--_How the Marquis Spinetta allied himself with the Florentines against Castruccio, but it turned out to the shame of the Florentines._ § 128.--_How the offices were changed in Florence._ § 129.--_How the Marquis Cavalcabò, with the league of Tuscany, was routed in Lombardy._ § 130.--_How M. Galeasso of Milan had the city of Cremona._ § 131.--_How there was an eclipse of the sun, and the king of France died._ § 132.--_How the Bolognese expelled from Bologna Romeo de' Peppoli, the rich man, and his followers._ § 133.--_How the emperor of Constantinople had war with his sons._ § 134.--_How Frederick of Sicily was excommunicated, and how he had his son crowned over the kingdom._ § 135.--_How the Florentines sent to Frioli for horsemen._ § 136.--_Concerning the poet Dante Alighieri of Florence._ [Sidenote: 1321 A.D.] [Sidenote: Inf. i. 87.] [Sidenote: Epistola vii.] [Sidenote: viii.] [Sidenote: Cf. Canzone, 58-63.] In the said year 1321, in the month of July, Dante Alighieri, of Florence, died in the city of Ravenna, in Romagna, having returned from an embassy to Venice in the service of the lords of Polenta, with whom he was living; and in Ravenna, before the door of the chief church, he was buried with great honour, in the garb of a poet and of a great philosopher. He died in exile from the commonwealth of Florence, at the age of about fifty-six years. This Dante was a citizen of an honourable and ancient family in Florence, of the Porta San Piero, and our neighbour; and his exile from Florence was by reason that when M. Charles of Valois, of the House of France, came to Florence in the year 1301 and banished the White party, as has been afore mentioned at its due time, the said Dante was among the chief governors of our city, and pertained to that party, albeit he was a Guelf; and, therefore, for no other fault he was driven out and banished from Florence with the White party; and went to the university at Bologna, and afterwards at Paris, and in many parts of the world. This man was a great scholar in almost every branch of learning, albeit he was a layman; he was a great poet and philosopher, and a perfect rhetorician alike in prose and verse, a very noble orator in public speaking, supreme in rhyme, with the most polished and beautiful style which in our language ever was up to his time and beyond it. In his youth he wrote the book of The New Life, of Love; and afterwards, when he was in exile, he wrote about twenty very excellent odes, treating of moral questions and of love; and he wrote three noble letters among others; one he sent to the government of Florence complaining of his undeserved exile; the second he sent to the Emperor Henry when he was besieging Brescia, reproving him for his delay, almost in a prophetic strain; the third to the Italian cardinals, at the time of the vacancy after the death of Pope Clement, praying them to unite in the election of an Italian Pope; all these in Latin in a lofty style, and with excellent purport and authorities, and much commended by men of wisdom and insight. And he wrote the Comedy, wherein, in polished verse, and with great and subtle questions, moral, natural, astrological, philosophical, and theological, with new and beautiful illustrations, comparisons, and poetry, he dealt and treated in 100 chapters or songs, of the existence and condition of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise as loftily as it were possible to treat of them, as in his said treatise may be seen and understood by whoso has subtle intellect. It is true that he in this Comedy delighted to denounce and to cry out after the manner of poets, perhaps in certain places more than was fitting; but may be his exile was the cause of this. He wrote also The Monarchy, in which he treated of the office of Pope and of Emperor. [And he began a commentary upon fourteen of his afore-named moral odes in the vulgar tongue which, in consequence of his death, is only completed as to three of them; the which commentary, judging by what can be seen of it, was turning out a lofty, beautiful, subtle, and very great work, adorned by lofty style and fine philosophical and astrological reasonings. Also he wrote a little book entitled, De Vulgari Eloquentia, of which he promises to write four books, but of these only two exist, perhaps on account of his untimely death; and here, in strong and ornate Latin and with beautiful reasonings, he reproves all the vernaculars of Italy.] This Dante, because of his knowledge, was somewhat haughty and reserved and disdainful, and after the fashion of a philosopher, careless of graces and not easy in his converse with laymen; but because of the lofty virtues and knowledge and worth of so great a citizen, it seems fitting to confer lasting memory upon him in this our chronicle, although, indeed, his noble works, left to us in writing, are the true testimony to him, and are an honourable report to our city. END OF THE SELECTIONS FROM BOOK IX. _Grato e lontan digiuno Tratto leggendo nel magno volume_ * * * _Soluto hai._ INDEX Abati (family), 125. ---- Bocca degli, 180. Acre, 295-298. Acquasparta, Cardinal, 328, 331. Adimari (family), 81, 125. ---- Tegghiaio Aldobrandi degli, 176, 185. Adrian I., Pope, 52. ---- V., Pope, 259. Æneas, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Alberighi (family), 80. Albert, king of the Romans, 255, 317. Alexander III., Pope, 102-106. ---- IV., Pope, 158. Alibrando, bishop of Florence, 37. Alighieri, Dante, 449-450. Amidei (family), 121-122, 124. Anagna (town), 347-350. Anchises, 10-13. Antenor of Troy, 9, 10. Antenora, 10. Antony, Caius, 18-20. Apulia, 48-53, 85, 86, 90, 127, 128, 130-132, 151, 152, 154-158, 187, 192, 195, and _passim_. Arbia (river), 177. Ardinghi (family), 80, 125. Arezzo, 286-292. Arius, 39. Arno, _passim_. Arrigucci (family), 80, 124. Arthur, king of Britain, 48. Ascanius, 10, 12, 16. Atlas, 4, 5, 6, 7. Augustus, Octavianus, 17, 31-33. Babel, 2, 3. Babylon, 3, 4. Bardi, 123. Barucci (family), 124. Bella, della (family), 71, 82, 125. ---- Giano, 301, 309-312. Benedict XI., Pope, 352, 356, 369-370. Benivento (battle), 209-217. Berenger, Count Raymond, 195-197. Berti, Bellincione, 62, 80, 120. Bianco, Cardinal, 184. Blacks, party of, 322-331, 357-359, 361-362, and _passim_. Bonatti, Guido (astrologer), 273. Bondelmonti (family), 99, 124. ---- Bondelmonte dei, 121, 122. Boniface VIII., Pope, 305-308, 315-318, 320, 326, 344-352, _sqq._ Bostichi (family), 82, 124. Brunelleschi (family), 124. Cæsar, Julius, 17, 23-29, 32. Calvoli, Folcieri da, 339-340. Camilla, 16. Campaldino (battle), 286-291. Cancellieri of Pistoia, 322-323. Caponsacchi, 81, 125. Carraia (bridge), 76, 126, 246, 360-361. Carthage, 12. Catellini (family), 81. Catiline, 18-22. Cavalcanti, 124. ---- Guido Cavalcante dei, 224, 331. Celestine V., Pope, 304-306. Cepperano, pass of, 206-207. Cerchi (family), 62, 80, 324. ---- Vieri dei, 288, 324-326. Charles I. of Anjou, king of Sicily and Apulia, 192-195, 199, 200-217, 225, 228-242, 249-251, 268, 274-276. ---- II., 200, 276, 284-285, 315-316. ---- Martel (son of Charles II.), 276, 316. ---- of Valois, 332-339, 386-387. ---- Martel, 48-49. ---- the Great, 51-56, 59-60, 65-66. Chiaramontesi (family), 124. Clement V., Pope, 369-375, 386-390, 427. Colle di Valdelsa (battle), 243-245. Colonnesi, 103-104, 261, 317-318. Conrad, son of Frederick II., 129, 131, 133, 139, 154-156. ---- I., Emperor, 78, 79. Conradino, 156-158, 187, 192, 228-242. Constance, Empress, 89-90, 92, 113. Constantine, Emperor, 38-39. Constantinople, 38-39. Creusa, wife of Æneas, 10, 11. Dardanus (founder of Troy), 6, 7, 8, 9, 18. Desiderius, king of the Lombards, 51, 52. Dido, 12, 13. Dolcino, Frate, 375-376. Dominic, St., 96, 114, 115. Donati (family), 81, 121, 125, 324. ---- Corso, 279, 288-289, 309, 324, 329-331, 335-337, 353-354, 382-386, 400. Edward I. of England, 247, 251-254. Elisei (family), 81-125. Enzo, bastard son of Frederick II., 129, 131. Europe, 4-5. Ezzelino of Romano, 167-168. Faggiuola, Uguccione da, 383, 430-434, 436-437. Fiesole, 2, 4-8, 18-28, 47, 60-61, 71-73, 98. Fifanti (family), 82, 124. Filippi (family), 82. Fiorinus, 22-25, 27, 29. Firenzuola (city), 151. Florence (city), 27-30, 75-78, and _passim_. Foraboschi (family), 82, 124. Forlì (battle), 272-274. Francis, St., 96, 114-115. Frederick I., Barbarossa, Emperor, 101-108, 110-111. ---- II., Emperor, 83, 90-92, 113, 118-119, 126-141, 146-148, 151-152. ---- bastard son of Frederick II., 129, 131, 143-144. ---- of Aragon, king of Sicily, 315-317, 424. Galli (family), 82, 124. Gangalandi (family), 71, 82, 124. Gemignano, St., 44. Gherardeschi, Ugolino dei, 280-284. Ghibellines, 122, 123, 141-146, 153, 154, 282, and _passim_. ---- of Florence, 123-125, 164, 165, 169, 170, 173, 220-224, 263, and _passim_. ---- of Siena, 173, 174. Giandonati (family), 71, 82, 124. Gianfigliazzi (family), 124. Giordano, Count, 173, 174, 177, 182-183, 185, 206-207, 215. Giuochi (family), 80, 125. Gregory IX., Pope, 131, 132. ---- X., Pope, 252, 255 _sqq._ Gualandi of Pisa (family), 280. Gualdrada, wife of Count Guido, 62, 120. Gualterotti (family), 82, 124. Guelf, duke of Suabia, 93, 94. Guelfs, 122, 123, 141-146, 152-154, 402-403, and _passim_. ---- of Florence, 123-125, 187, 188, 189, 201, 263, and _passim._ Guidi, Counts, 62, 80, 82, 116-117, 119-121, 124. Guido Guerra, 120, 176, 205, 212. ---- Guido Novello, 120, 182-183, 185, 202-203, 220-224, 243, 244. Henry, earl of Cornwall, 251 _sqq._ ---- of Spain, 233-240, 242. ---- son of Frederick II., 129, 131, 133. ---- III. of England, 252. ---- VII. of Suabia, Emperor, 83, 90-91, 112-113. Hospitallers, Order of, 381. Hugh Capet, 71. ---- Marquis, 70-71, 82. Importuni (family), 82. Infangati (family), 82, 124. Innocent IV., Pope, 134-136, 139. Italus, 6, 7. James of Aragon, 315-317. Japhet, 3, 4, 8. John XXI., Pope, 259. ---- XXII., Pope, 434-435. Lamberti (family), 81, 124. ---- Mosca dei, 122. Landolo, Roderigo di, 218, 222. Lanfranchi of Pisa (family), 280. Latini, Brunetto, 169, 312-313. Latinus, king of Italy, 14-16. Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, 15-16. Leo III., Pope, 54, 55, 59-60. Lombardo, Marco, 281-282. Lombards, 48-54. Louis IX. of France, 192-193, 246 _sqq._ Lyons, Council at, 135-137. Malavolti, Catalano dei, 218, 222. Malespini (family), 124. Manfred, son of Frederick II., 129, 131, 151-152, 154-160, 169-170, 173, 187, 190, 191-195, 202-217. Mars (god), 7, 33, 40, 41, 46, 61, 122, 123, 327. ---- (planet), 75. Matilda, Countess, 83, 92-95, 96. Miniato, St., 35-37. Montaperti (battle), 177-180. Montefeltro, Guido di, 263, 272-273, 283, 318. ---- Bonconte di, 290. Montemurlo (castle), 116-117. Montfort, Guy of, 253-254. ---- Simon of, 252-254. Mozzi (family), 123. Nerbona, Amerigo di, 285 _sqq._ Nerli (family), 71, 123. Nicholas III., Pope, 260-263. ---- IV., Pope, 285. Nimrod, 3. Nineveh, 4. Ninus, 4. Otho III., Emperor, 69, 70. ---- IV., Emperor, 120-121, 127. Pallas, son of Evander, 15. Pazzi (family), 41, 125. Peruzzi (family), 82. Philip III. of France, 249-254, 277-279. ---- IV., the Fair, 278, 344-350, 377-381, 386-389. Pigli (family), 81, 124. Pisa, 280-284. Ponte Vecchio, 61, 63, 109, 122. Prato, Cardinal da, 356-359, 364, 370-374, 388-390. Pressa, della (family), 80. Pulci (family), 71, 82, 124. Robert, duke of Apulia, 85. ---- Guiscard, 83, 85-89. ---- king of Sicily and Apulia, 276, 390-391, 395-396, 409, 423, 426, 441-444. Roger I., king of Sicily, 88, 89. ---- II., king of Sicily, 89. Rome, 7, 16, 17, 29, 43, 54, 55, etc. Romeo (pilgrim), 195-197. Rubaconte (bridge), 140. Rudolf, king of the Romans, 255, 262, 298. Sacchetti (family), 82, 124. Saladin, 107. Salvani, Provenzano, of Siena, 175, 243-245. Saracens, 247-251, 295-298. Saturn, 14, 15. Scala, Cane della, 401, 405, 428, 438, 445, 446-447. Semiramis, 4. Sicanus, 6, 7. Sicily, 7, 12, 13, 86, 89, 90, 92, 127, 128, 130-132, 151, 152, 154-158, 187, 192-195. Sicily, Rebellion of, 267-268, 285, and _passim_. Siena, 171, 172, 177-179, 243-245, and _passim_. Sismondi of Pisa (family), 280. Sizii (family), 80, 124. Soldanieri (family), 81, 124. Susinana, Maghinardo da, 298-299. Sylvester, Pope, 38-40. Tagliacozzo (battle), 233-240. Tancred I., king of Sicily, 89-91. ---- II., 112-113. Telofre, king of the Lombards, 49-51. Templars, Order of, 377-381. Torre, Guidetto della, 342-343, 398-399. Totila, king of the Goths, 1, 43-46. Trinita, Santa (bridge), 160, 246. Trojans, 2, 11, 14, 18. Tunis, 247-251. Turnus, 15. Ubaldini, Cardinal Ottaviano degli, 184. ---- Ruggeri degli (Archbishop of Pisa), 280-282. Uberti (family), 82, 109, 124, 141, 142, 149, 319. ---- Farinata degli, 170, 174, 178, 186, 224. Ughi (family), 81. Urban IV., Pope, 190-192. Valleri, Alardo di, 234, 237-239. Verde (river), 217. Vigne, Piero dalle, 133, 136, 139. Virgil, 6-7, 9, 12-13. Visconti, Maffeo, 342-344, 397, 398-399. ---- Marco, 443. ---- Nino di Gallura dei, 280. Visdomini (family), 80, 125. Whites, party of, 322-331, 339-342, 357-359, 361-362, etc. William I., king of Sicily, 89-90, 105-107. INDEX TO DANTE REFERENCES _The figures within brackets ( ) refer to the pages of this work: all other figures refer to cantos, books, or lines in Dante's works._ DIVINA COMMEDIA. INFERNO. i. 73-75, (10), 87, (449), 100-111, (401), 107, (15), 108, (16). ii. 13-15, (13), 13, (16), 13-27, (13). iii. 58-60, (304), 59, 60, (305). iv. 95, 96, (32), 122, (10), 124, (15), 125, 126, (15). v. 52-60, (4), 61, 62, (12). vi. 36, (360), 69, (306), 79, (176), 80, (81). x. 13-15, (96), 32, (170), 48, (181), 48, (144), 49, 50, (153), 51, (184, 225), 58-69, (224, 331), 79-81, (359), 83, 84, (186), 85-87, (180), 91-93, (186), 110-111, (224, 331), 119, (127, 128), 120, (184, 227). xii. 109, 110, (168), 112, (377), 118-120, (252), 120, (254). xiii. 31-108, (133), 55-78, (136), 59, 68, 75, (127), 120, 121, (280), 143-150, (40), 146-150, (61). xiv. 94-96, (14). xv. 23-120, (169, 312), 61-63, (5), 61-78, (75), 67, (45), 73-78, (30, 62), 119-120, (312). xvi. 34-39, (121, 212), 37, (62, 80, 120), 40-42, (176). xvii. 59, 60, (124), 62, 63, (124), 100-107, (184). xviii. 28-33, (320), 55-57, (377). xix. 17-20, (40), 52-57, (306, 350), 52-84, (261), 69-87, (260), 70, (104), 76-81, (306), 81, (262), 82-87, (374, 375, 427), 98, 99, (261), 99, (199), 115-117, (38). xx. (184), 118, (273). xxii. 4, 5, (292). xxiii. 66, (127), 103-108, (218), 105-107, (118), 107, 108, (29). xxiv. 143, (333). xxv. 1-3, (130). xxvii. 44, (273), 49-51, (287, 299, 317), 67, (263), 67-111, (318), 67-129, (290), 70, 85-111, (306), 76-78, (272), 89, (294), 94, 95, (38), 100-107, (184), 104, 105, (304). xxviii. 13, 14, (83), 16, (206, 214), 17, 18, (234, 237), 55-60, (375), 103-111, (81, 122). xxx. 13-15, (9), 73-78, (121), 98, (9), 113, 114, (9), 148, (185). xxxi. 12-18, (3), 40, 41, (163), 46-81, (3). xxxii. 40-60, (166), 56, 57, (125), 62, (48), 78-111, (180), 88, (9, 10), 115, 116, (204), 118, 119, (165), 121, (221), 121-123, (81), 122, (273). xxxiii. 1-90, (283), 31-33, (280). PURGATORIO. ii. 98, 99, (320). iii. 49, (439), 107, (159), 112-113, (89), 116, (315, 316), 118-119, (215), 121, (133, 151, 156, 158), 124-132, (216). iv. 25, (439). v. 73-78, (377), 75, (9, 10), 88-129, (290). vi. 97, (317), 97-117, 103-105, (255), 103-105, (298), 107, (411), 111, (185, 418). vii. 91-96, (255), 105, 109, (278), 112, 114-116, 125, 129, (269), 113, 124, 128-129, (199, 275), 113, 124, 126, (200), 128, (193), 115-120, (315, 316), 130-132, (252), 132, (377), 133-136, (88, 204), 136, (294). viii. 53, (280), 73-75, (343). ix. 30, (32). x. 80, (32). xi. 97-99, (224), 109-114, 120-123, (245), 109-142, (175), 137, (199). xii. 34-36, (3), 61-63, (9), 100-105, (37), 102, (140), 104-105, (80), 105, (140). xiii. 115-119, (244), 152, (34, 443). xiv. 43-45, (121), 118-119, (287), 58-66, (339). xvi. 46, (281), 65-78, (62), 115-117, (128), 117, (127). xvii. 34-39, (15, 16). xviii. 119-120, (101, 103). xix. 98-145, (259), 100-102, (134). xx. 49-60, (71), 53, (50), 61-63, (199), 68, (241), 67-69, (192, 199), 70-78, (334), 79-81, (377), 79-84, (276), 86-90, (307). xxiv. 20-24, (279), 82, (288, 324), 81-87, (385). xxxii. 148-160, (344). xxxiii. 119, (83), 40-45, (401). PARADISO. iii. 106-107, (288), 109-120, (89, 113), 112-120, (90), 118-120, (83, 127), 119, (101). vi. 1-3, (38), 3, (16), 32, (32), 35-36, (15), 40-42, (16), 53-54, (27), 65, (30), 73-81, (31), 79-81, (17), 94, (55), 94-96, (52), 100, (32), 127-142, (195). viii. 9, (12), 31, 49-72, (276), 49-75, 55, (316), 64-66, (294), 75, (267), 76-84, (276, 391), 82, 83, (276). ix. 1, (276), 25-30 (168), 97-98, (12), 136-142, (307). xi. 35-123, (96), 43-117, 118-123, (114), 53, (132). xii. 31-111, (96), 46-105, (114), 90, (307), 124, (328), 134-135, (259). xv. (325), 25-30, (13), 97-98, (82), 97-99, 101-105, 112-113, (167), 109-111, (411), 110-111, (53), 112-114, (80), 112, (62, 120), 115, (82, 123, 143), 115-116, (81), 124-126, (27, 30), 126, (5), 134-135, (40), 137-138, (80). xvi. (164, 325), 25, (40), 40-42, (81), 42, (40, 292, 410), 46-48, (74), 47, (40), 50, (160), 56, (189), 62-63, (115, 116), 64, (117, 119), 65, (80, 125, 288), 66, (99, 124, 143), 73, (34), 88, (81), 89, (80, 82), 92, (83), 93, (80, 81, 82, 124, 125, 143), 94-96, (125, 288), 94-99, (80, 120), 97-99, (64), 100, (80), 101, (80, 125, 142), 103, (81, 124), 104, (80, 82, 124, 125, 142), 105, (80, 82, 124), 106-107, (81), 108, (80, 124, 142), 109-110, (82), 109-111, (124), 112-114, (80, 125, 142), 115-120, (81), 115-117, (125, 142), 121-122, (81, 363), 118-123, (154), 121, (125, 142), 123, (63, 82, 124), 124-126, (64, 82), 127-132, (71, 82), 127, (82, 124, 142), 128, (122, 124), 130-131, (125), 131-132, (81, 301), 133, (82, 124), 135, (124), 136-144, (82, 121), 136-138, (122), 136-139, (124), 140-144, (143), 145-146, (40, 61), 145-147, (122), 151-154, (143, 154). xvii. 49-51, (307), 76-93, (401), 82, (375, 393, 405, 427). xviii. 43, (53), 48, (83), 76-93, (438), 133-136, (161), 118-136, (307). xix. 101-102, (31), 121-123, (353), 130-135, (316), 131-132, (12), 143-148, (278). xx. 8, 31-32, (32), 55-57, (38), 62, (89), 61-63, (316). xxi. 25-27, (14). xxii. 16-18, (191), 145-146, (14). xxvi. 124-126, (3). xxvii. 22-27, (307), 41, (305), 58-60, (427), 58, 59, (375). xxx. 133-138, (393, 426), 133-141, (394), 142-148, (375, 427), 148, (307). xxxi. 104-108, (320). CANZONI. x. 58-63, (450). xii. 35-36, (12). SONNET. xxxii. 1, (329). VITA NUOVA. ii. (35). iii. 97-100, (329), 96-104, (225). xxiv. 18-19, (225), 19, (329). xxv. 111-113, (225, 329). xxxi. 21-24, (225, 329). xxxiii. 2-4, (225), 4, (329). xli. 34-52, (195). Sonnet xxxiii. 1, (225). CONVIVIO. BOOK II. iv. 171-174, (75). xv. (35). BOOK IV. Canzone iii. 21, iii. 37-44, (127), 37-43, (255). v. 16-79, (31), 16-29, (17), 48, (10), 80-97, (16), 172-176, (19). vi. 180-190, (316). x. 6-12, (127). xi. 125-127, (204), 126, (294). xiv. 131-154, (9). xx. 38-41, (82, 124, 439). xxvi. 59-70, (12), 96, (13). DE MONARCHIA. BOOK II. iii. (10), 62, (11), 67, 68, (6), 77-84, (11), 102-108, (12), 108-117, (16). iv. 30-41, (31). ix. 22 _sqq._, (4), 99-105, (17, 31). xi. 1-6, (52), 6, (53), 23, (32). xii. (17, 31). BOOK III. x. (38). xi. (55). DE VULGARI ELOQUIO. BOOK I. i. 1, 12, 21 _sqq._, (159). vi. 7, 49-61, (3). vii. (3). x. 18, 19, (48), 50, 63, (132). xi. 20, (132). xii. 20-35, (127), 15-38, (316), 38, (377). xiii. 31, (132), 36, (225), 37, (329). BOOK II. vi. 42-44, (377), 68, 69, (225, 329). xii. 16-17, 62-63, (225, 329). EPISTOLÆ. i. (357), i.-iii. (120). ii. (121). v. (393, 394), 3; 47-49, (30), 4, (52). vi. (393, 397), 3; 78-85, (31), 5; 126-135, (127), 127-135, (146), 135-136, (101, 103), 137, (101). vii. (393, 403, 449), 3; 62, 63, (11), 64-73, (17, 31). viii. (370, 434, 449). x. (401). QUÆSTIA DE AQUA ET TERRA. xxiv. (401). JOHANNES DE VIRGILIO. Carmen. v. 26 (396-425). v. 27 (431, 432). v. 28 (428). Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. * * * * * Transcriber's Note on Corrected Text On page 22 of the original edition used to prepare this e-book, the last four lines were erroneously duplicated from pages 1-2. The incorrect text, between "city of" and "he did," was as follows: myself sufficient for such a work, but to give occasion to our successors not to be negligent in preserving records of the notable things which shall happen in the times after us, and to give example to those who shall come The correct text is as follows: Fiesole and the host of the Fiesolans, and of that company he made captain Fiorinus, a noble citizen of Rome of the race of the Fracchi or Floracchi, who was his prætor, which is as much as to say marshal of his host; and Fiorinus, as he was commanded by the consul, so The correct text was acquired from an online edition at http://www.elfinspell.com/VillaniBook1b.html#sect34. 
2464	----	HISTORY OF FLORENCE AND OF THE AFFAIRS OF ITALY FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT By Niccolo Machiavelli With an Introduction by HUGO ALBERT RENNERT, Ph.D. Professor of Romanic Languages and Literature, University of Pennsylvania. PREPARER'S NOTE This text was typed up from a Universal Classics Library edition, published in 1901 by W. Walter Dunne, New York and London. The translator was not named. The book contains a "photogravure" of Niccolo Machiavelli from an engraving. INTRODUCTION Niccolo Machiavelli, the first great Italian historian, and one of the most eminent political writers of any age or country, was born at Florence, May 3, 1469. He was of an old though not wealthy Tuscan family, his father, who was a jurist, dying when Niccolo was sixteen years old. We know nothing of Machiavelli's youth and little about his studies. He does not seem to have received the usual humanistic education of his time, as he knew no Greek.[*] The first notice of Machiavelli is in 1498 when we find him holding the office of Secretary in the second Chancery of the Signoria, which office he retained till the downfall of the Florentine Republic in 1512. His unusual ability was soon recognized, and in 1500 he was sent on a mission to Louis XII. of France, and afterward on an embassy to Cæsar Borgia, the lord of Romagna, at Urbino. Machiavelli's report and description of this and subsequent embassies to this prince, shows his undisguised admiration for the courage and cunning of Cæsar, who was a master in the application of the principles afterwards exposed in such a skillful and uncompromising manner by Machiavelli in his _Prince_. The limits of this introduction will not permit us to follow with any detail the many important duties with which he was charged by his native state, all of which he fulfilled with the utmost fidelity and with consummate skill. When, after the battle of Ravenna in 1512 the holy league determined upon the downfall of Pier Soderini, Gonfaloniere of the Florentine Republic, and the restoration of the Medici, the efforts of Machiavelli, who was an ardent republican, were in vain; the troops he had helped to organize fled before the Spaniards and the Medici were returned to power. Machiavelli attempted to conciliate his new masters, but he was deprived of his office, and being accused in the following year of participation in the conspiracy of Boccoli and Capponi, he was imprisoned and tortured, though afterward set at liberty by Pope Leo X. He now retired to a small estate near San Casciano, seven miles from Florence. Here he devoted himself to political and historical studies, and though apparently retired from public life, his letters show the deep and passionate interest he took in the political vicissitudes through which Italy was then passing, and in all of which the singleness of purpose with which he continued to advance his native Florence, is clearly manifested. It was during his retirement upon his little estate at San Casciano that Machiavelli wrote _The Prince_, the most famous of all his writings, and here also he had begun a much more extensive work, his _Discourses on the Decades of Livy_, which continued to occupy him for several years. These _Discourses_, which do not form a continuous commentary on Livy, give Machiavelli an opportunity to express his own views on the government of the state, a task for which his long and varied political experience, and an assiduous study of the ancients rendered him eminently qualified. The _Discourses_ and _The Prince_, written at the same time, supplement each other and are really one work. Indeed, the treatise, _The Art of War_, though not written till 1520 should be mentioned here because of its intimate connection with these two treatises, it being, in fact, a further development of some of the thoughts expressed in the _Discorsi_. _The Prince_, a short work, divided into twenty-six books, is the best known of all Machiavelli's writings. Herein he expresses in his own masterly way his views on the founding of a new state, taking for his type and model Cæsar Borgia, although the latter had failed in his schemes for the consolidation of his power in the Romagna. The principles here laid down were the natural outgrowth of the confused political conditions of his time. And as in the _Principe_, as its name indicates, Machiavelli is concerned chiefly with the government of a Prince, so the _Discorsi_ treat principally of the Republic, and here Machiavelli's model republic was the Roman commonwealth, the most successful and most enduring example of popular government. Free Rome is the embodiment of his political idea of the state. Much that Machiavelli says in this treatise is as true to-day and holds as good as the day it was written. And to us there is much that is of especial importance. To select a chapter almost at random, let us take Book I., Chap. XV.: "Public affairs are easily managed in a city where the body of the people is not corrupt; and where equality exists, there no principality can be established; nor can a republic be established where there is no equality." No man has been more harshly judged than Machiavelli, especially in the two centuries following his death. But he has since found many able champions and the tide has turned. _The Prince_ has been termed a manual for tyrants, the effect of which has been most pernicious. But were Machiavelli's doctrines really new? Did he discover them? He merely had the candor and courage to write down what everybody was thinking and what everybody knew. He merely gives us the impressions he had received from a long and intimate intercourse with princes and the affairs of state. It was Lord Bacon, I believe, who said that Machiavelli tells us what princes do, not what they ought to do. When Machiavelli takes Cæsar Borgia as a model, he in nowise extols him as a hero, but merely as a prince who was capable of attaining the end in view. The life of the State was the primary object. It must be maintained. And Machiavelli has laid down the principles, based upon his study and wide experience, by which this may be accomplished. He wrote from the view-point of the politician,--not of the moralist. What is good politics may be bad morals, and in fact, by a strange fatality, where morals and politics clash, the latter generally gets the upper hand. And will anyone contend that the principles set forth by Machiavelli in his _Prince_ or his _Discourses_ have entirely perished from the earth? Has diplomacy been entirely stripped of fraud and duplicity? Let anyone read the famous eighteenth chapter of _The Prince_: "In what Manner Princes should keep their Faith," and he will be convinced that what was true nearly four hundred years ago, is quite as true to-day. Of the remaining works of Machiavelli the most important is the _History of Florence_ written between 1521 and 1525, and dedicated to Clement VII. The first book is merely a rapid review of the Middle Ages, the history of Florence beginning with Book II. Machiavelli's method has been censured for adhering at times too closely to the chroniclers like Villani, Cambi, and Giovanni Cavalcanti, and at others rejecting their testimony without apparent reason, while in its details the authority of his _History_ is often questionable. It is the straightforward, logical narrative, which always holds the interest of the reader that is the greatest charm of the _History_. Of the other works of Machiavelli we may mention here his comedies the _Mandragola_ and _Clizia_, and his novel _Belfagor_. After the downfall of the Republic and Machiavelli's release from prison in 1513, fortune seems never again to have favoured him. It is true that in 1520 Giuliano de' Medici commissioned him to write his _History of Florence_, and he afterwards held a number of offices, yet these latter were entirely beneath his merits. He had been married in 1502 to Marietta Corsini, who bore him four sons and a daughter. He died on June 22, 1527, leaving his family in the greatest poverty, a sterling tribute to his honesty, when one considers the many opportunities he doubtless had to enrich himself. Machiavelli's life was not without blemish--few lives are. We must bear in mind the atmosphere of craft, hypocrisy, and poison in which he lived,--his was the age of Cæsar Borgia and of Popes like the monster Alexander VI. and Julius II. Whatever his faults may have been, Machiavelli was always an ardent patriot and an earnest supporter of popular government. It is true that he was willing to accept a prince, if one could be found courageous enough and prudent enough to unite dismembered Italy, for in the unity of his native land he saw the only hope of its salvation. Machiavelli is buried in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, beside the tomb of Michael Angelo. His monument bears this inscription: "Tanto nomini nullum par eulogium." And though this praise is doubtless exaggerated, he is a son of whom his country may be justly proud. Hugo Albert Rennert. [*] Villari, _Niccolo Machiavelli e i suoi tempi_, 2d ed. Milan, 1895-97, the best work on the subject. The most complete bibliography of Machiavelli up to 1858 is to be found in Mohl, _Gesch. u. Liter. der Staatswissenshaften_, Erlangen, 1855, III., 521-91. See also _La Vita e gli scritti di Niccolo Machiavelli nella loro Relazione col Machiavellismo_, by O. Tommasini, Turin, 1883 (unfinished). The best English translation of Machiavelli with which I am acquainted is: The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, translated by Christian E. Detmold. Osgood & Co., Boston, 1882, 4 vols. 8vo. THE FLORENTINE HISTORY OF NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI BOOK I CHAPTER I Irruption of Northern people upon the Roman territories--Visigoths--Barbarians called in by Stilicho--Vandals in Africa--Franks and Burgundians give their names to France and Burgundy--The Huns--Angles give the name to England--Attila, king of the Huns, in Italy--Genseric takes Rome--The Lombards. The people who inhabit the northern parts beyond the Rhine and the Danube, living in a healthy and prolific region, frequently increase to such vast multitudes that part of them are compelled to abandon their native soil, and seek a habitation in other countries. The method adopted, when one of these provinces had to be relieved of its superabundant population, was to divide into three parts, each containing an equal number of nobles and of people, of rich and of poor. The third upon whom the lot fell, then went in search of new abodes, leaving the remaining two-thirds in possession of their native country. These migrating masses destroyed the Roman empire by the facilities for settlement which the country offered when the emperors abandoned Rome, the ancient seat of their dominion, and fixed their residence at Constantinople; for by this step they exposed the western empire to the rapine of both their ministers and their enemies, the remoteness of their position preventing them either from seeing or providing for its necessities. To suffer the overthrow of such an extensive empire, established by the blood of so many brave and virtuous men, showed no less folly in the princes themselves than infidelity in their ministers; for not one irruption alone, but many, contributed to its ruin; and these barbarians exhibited much ability and perseverance in accomplishing their object. The first of these northern nations that invaded the empire after the Cimbrians, who were conquered by Caius Marius, was the Visigoths--which name in our language signifies "Western Goths." These, after some battles fought along its confines, long held their seat of dominion upon the Danube, with consent of the emperors; and although, moved by various causes, they often attacked the Roman provinces, were always kept in subjection by the imperial forces. The emperor Theodosius conquered them with great glory; and, being wholly reduced to his power, they no longer selected a sovereign of their own, but, satisfied with the terms which he granted them, lived and fought under his ensigns, and authority. On the death of Theodosius, his sons Arcadius and Honorius, succeeded to the empire, but not to the talents and fortune of their father; and the times became changed with the princes. Theodosius had appointed a governor to each of the three divisions of the empire, Ruffinus to the eastern, to the western Stilicho, and Gildo to the African. Each of these, after the death of Theodosius, determined not to be governors merely, but to assume sovereign dominion over their respective provinces. Gildo and Ruffinus were suppressed at their outset; but Stilicho, concealing his design, ingratiated himself with the new emperors, and at the same time so disturbed their government, as to facilitate his occupation of it afterward. To make the Visigoths their enemies, he advised that the accustomed stipend allowed to this people should be withheld; and as he thought these enemies would not be sufficient alone to disturb the empire, he contrived that the Burgundians, Franks, Vandals, and Alans (a northern people in search of new habitations), should assail the Roman provinces. That they might be better able to avenge themselves for the injury they had sustained, the Visigoths, on being deprived of their subsidy, created Alaric their king; and having assailed the empire, succeeded, after many reverses, in overrunning Italy, and finally in pillaging Rome. After this victory, Alaric died, and his successor, Astolphus, having married Placidia, sister of the emperors, agreed with them to go to the relief of Gaul and Spain, which provinces had been assailed by the Vandals, Burgundians, Alans, and Franks, from the causes before mentioned. Hence it followed, that the Vandals, who had occupied that part of Spain called Betica (now Andalusia), being pressed by the Visigoths, and unable to resist them, were invited by Boniface, who governed Africa for the empire, to occupy that province; for, being in rebellion, he was afraid his error would become known to the emperor. For these reasons the Vandals gladly undertook the enterprise, and under Genseric, their king, became lords of Africa. At this time Theodosius, son of Arcadius, succeeded to the empire; and, bestowing little attention on the affairs of the west, caused those who had taken possession to think of securing their acquisitions. Thus the Vandals ruled Africa; the Alans and Visigoths, Spain; while the Franks and Burgundians not only took Gaul, but each gave their name to the part they occupied; hence one is called France, the other Burgundy. The good fortune of these brought fresh people to the destruction of the empire, one of which, the Huns, occupied the province of Pannonia, situated upon the nearer shore of the Danube, and which, from their name, is still called Hungary. To these disorders it must be added, that the emperor, seeing himself attacked on so many sides, to lessen the number of his enemies, began to treat first with the Vandals, then with the Franks; a course which diminished his own power, and increased that of the barbarians. Nor was the island of Britain, which is now called England, secure from them; for the Britons, being apprehensive of those who had occupied Gaul, called the Angli, a people of Germany, to their aid; and these under Vortigern their king, first defended, and then drove them from the island, of which they took possession, and after themselves named the country England. But the inhabitants, being robbed of their home, became desperate by necessity and resolved to take possession of some other country, although they had been unable to defend their own. They therefore crossed the sea with their families, and settled in the country nearest to the beach, which from themselves is called Brittany. The Huns, who were said above to have occupied Pannonia, joining with other nations, as the Zepidi, Eurili, Turingi, and Ostro, or eastern Goths, moved in search of new countries, and not being able to enter France, which was defended by the forces of the barbarians, came into Italy under Attila their king. He, a short time previously, in order to possess the entire monarchy, had murdered his brother Bleda; and having thus become very powerful, Andaric, king of the Zepidi, and Velamir, king of the Ostrogoths, became subject to him. Attila, having entered Italy, laid siege to Aquileia, where he remained without any obstacle for two years, wasting the country round, and dispersing the inhabitants. This, as will be related in its place, caused the origin of Venice. After the taking and ruin of Aquileia, he directed his course towards Rome, from the destruction of which he abstained at the entreaty of the pontiff, his respect for whom was so great that he left Italy and retired into Austria, where he died. After the death of Attila, Velamir, king of the Ostrogoths, and the heads of the other nations, took arms against his sons Henry and Uric, slew the one and compelled the other, with his Huns, to repass the Danube and return to their country; while the Ostrogoths and the Zepidi established themselves in Pannonia, and the Eruli and the Turingi upon the farther bank of the Danube. Attila having left Italy, Valentinian, emperor of the west, thought of restoring the country; and, that he might be more ready to defend it against the barbarians, abandoned Rome, and removed the seat of government to Ravenna. The misfortunes which befell the western empire caused the emperor, who resided at Constantinople, on many occasions to give up the possession of it to others, as a charge full of danger and expense; and sometimes, without his permission, the Romans, seeing themselves so abandoned, created an emperor for their defense, or suffered some one to usurp the dominion. This occurred at the period of which we now speak, when Maximus, a Roman, after the death of Valentinian, seized the government, and compelled Eudocia, widow of the late emperor, to take him for her husband; but she, being of imperial blood, scorned the connection of a private citizen; and being anxious to avenge herself for the insult, secretly persuaded Genseric, king of the Vandals and master of Africa to come to Italy, representing to him the advantage he would derive from the undertaking, and the facility with which it might be accomplished. Tempted by the hope of booty, he came immediately, and finding Rome abandoned, plundered the city during fourteen days. He also ravaged many other places in Italy, and then, loaded with wealth, withdrew to Africa. The Romans, having returned to their city, and Maximus being dead, elected Avitus, a Roman, as his successor. After this, several important events occurred both in Italy and in the countries beyond; and after the deaths of many emperors the empire of Constantinople devolved upon Zeno, and that of Rome upon Orestes and Augustulus his son, who obtained the sovereignty by fraud. While they were designing to hold by force what they had obtained by treachery, the Eruli and the Turingi, who, after the death of Attila, as before remarked, had established themselves upon the farther bank of the Danube, united in a league and invaded Italy under Odoacer their general. Into the districts which they left unoccupied, the Longobardi or Lombards, also a northern people, entered, led by Godogo their king. Odoacer conquered and slew Orestes near Pavia, but Augustulus escaped. After this victory, that Rome might, with her change of power, also change her title, Odoacer, instead of using the imperial name, caused himself to be declared king of Rome. He was the first of those leaders who at this period overran the world and thought of settling in Italy; for the others, either from fear that they should not be able to hold the country, knowing that it might easily be relieved by the eastern emperors, or from some unknown cause, after plundering her, sought other countries wherein to establish themselves. CHAPTER II State of the Roman empire under Zeno--Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths--Character of Theodoric--Changes in the Roman empire--New languages--New names--Theodoric dies--Belisarius in Italy--Totila takes Rome--Narses destroys the Goths--New form of Government in Italy--Narses invites the Lombards into Italy--The Lombards change the form of government. At this time the ancient Roman empire was governed by the following princes: Zeno, reigning in Constantinople, commanded the whole of the eastern empire; the Ostrogoths ruled Mesia and Pannonia; the Visigoths, Suavi, and Alans, held Gascony and Spain; the Vandals, Africa; the Franks and Burgundians, France; and the Eruli and Turingi, Italy. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths had descended to Theodoric, nephew of Velamir, who, being on terms of friendship with Zeno the eastern emperor, wrote to him that his Ostrogoths thought it an injustice that they, being superior in valor to the people thereabout, should be inferior to them in dominion, and that it was impossible for him to restrain them within the limits of Pannonia. So, seeing himself under the necessity of allowing them to take arms and go in search of new abodes, he wished first to acquaint Zeno with it, in order that he might provide for them, by granting some country in which they might establish themselves, by his good favor with greater propriety and convenience. Zeno, partly from fear and partly from a desire to drive Odoacer out of Italy, gave Theodoric permission to lead his people against him, and take possession of the country. Leaving his friends the Zepidi in Pannonia, Theodoric marched into Italy, slew Odoacer and his son, and, moved by the same reasons which had induced Valentinian to do so, established his court at Ravenna, and like Odoacer took the title of king of Italy. Theodoric possessed great talents both for war and peace; in the former he was always conqueror, and in the latter he conferred very great benefits upon the cities and people under him. He distributed the Ostrogoths over the country, each district under its leader, that he might more conveniently command them in war, and govern them in peace. He enlarged Ravenna, restored Rome, and, with the exception of military discipline, conferred upon the Romans every honor. He kept within their proper bounds, wholly by the influence of his character, all the barbarian kings who occupied the empire; he built towns and fortresses between the point of the Adriatic and the Alps, in order, with the greater facility, to impede the passage of any new hordes of barbarians who might design to assail Italy; and if, toward the latter end of his life, so many virtues had not been sullied by acts of cruelty, caused by various jealousies of his people, such as the death of Symmachus and Boethius, men of great holiness, every point of his character would have deserved the highest praise. By his virtue and goodness, not only Rome and Italy, but every part of the western empire, freed from the continual troubles which they had suffered from the frequent influx of barbarians, acquired new vigor, and began to live in an orderly and civilized manner. For surely if any times were truly miserable for Italy and the provinces overrun by the barbarians, they were those which occurred from Arcadius and Honorius to Theodoric. If we only consider the evils which arise to a republic or a kingdom by a change of prince or of government; not by foreign interference, but by civil discord (in which we may see how even slight variations suffice to ruin the most powerful kingdoms or states), we may then easily imagine how much Italy and the other Roman provinces suffered, when they not only changed their forms of government and their princes, but also their laws, customs, modes of living, religion, language, and name. Any one of such changes, by itself, without being united with others, might, with thinking of it, to say nothing of the seeing and suffering, infuse terror into the strongest minds. From these causes proceeded the ruin as well as the origin and extension of many cities. Among those which were ruined were Aquileia, Luni, Chiusi, Popolonia, Fiesole, and many others. The new cities were Venice, Sienna, Ferrara, Aquila, with many towns and castles which for brevity we omit. Those which became extended were Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Naples, and Bologna; to all of which may be added, the ruin and restoration of Rome, and of many other cities not previously mentioned. From this devastation and new population arose new languages, as we see in the different dialects of France, Spain and Italy; which, partaking of the native idiom of the new people and of the old Roman, formed a new manner of discourse. Besides, not only were the names of provinces changed, but also of lakes, rivers, seas, and men; for France, Spain, and Italy are full of fresh names, wholly different from the ancient; as, omitting many others, we see that the Po, the Garda, the Archipelago, are names quite different from those which the ancients used; while instead of Cæsar and Pompey we have Peter, Matthew, John, etc. Among so many variations, that of religion was not of little importance; for, while combating the customs of the ancient faith with the miracles of the new, very serious troubles and discords were created among men. And if the Christians had been united in one faith, fewer disorders would have followed; but the contentions among themselves, of the churches of Rome, Greece, and Ravenna, joined to those of the heretic sects with the Catholics, served in many ways to render the world miserable. Africa is a proof of this; having suffered more horrors from the Arian sect, whose doctrines were believed by the Vandals, than from any avarice or natural cruelty of the people themselves. Living amid so many persecutions, the countenances of men bore witness of the terrible impressions upon their minds; for besides the evils they suffered from the disordered state of the world, they scarcely could have recourse to the help of God, in whom the unhappy hope for relief; for the greater part of them, being uncertain what divinity they ought to address, died miserably, without help and without hope. Having been the first who put a stop to so many evils, Theodoric deserves the highest praise: for during the thirty-eight years he reigned in Italy, he brought the country to such a state of greatness that her previous sufferings were no longer recognizable. But at his death, the kingdom descending to Atalaric, son of Amalasontha, his daughter, and the malice of fortune not being yet exhausted, the old evils soon returned; for Atalaric died soon after his grandfather, and the kingdom coming into the possession of his mother, she was betrayed by Theodatus, whom she had called to assist her in the government. He put her to death and made himself king; and having thus become odious to the Ostrogoths, the emperor Justinian entertained the hope of driving him out of Italy. Justinian appointed Belisarius to the command of this expedition, as he had already conquered Africa, expelled the Vandals, and reduced the country to the imperial rule. Belisarius took possession of Sicily, and from thence passing into Italy, occupied Naples and Rome. The Goths, seeing this, slew Theodatus their king, whom they considered the cause of their misfortune, and elected Vitiges in his stead, who, after some skirmishes, was besieged and taken by Belisarius at Ravenna; but before he had time to secure the advantages of his victory, Belisarius was recalled by Justinian, and Joannes and Vitalis were appointed in his place. Their principles and practices were so different from those of Belisarius, that the Goths took courage and created Ildovadus, governor of Verona, their king. After Ildovadus, who was slain, came Totila, who routed the imperial forces, took Tuscany and Naples, and recovered nearly the whole of what Belisarius had taken from them. On this account Justinian determined to send him into Italy again; but, coming with only a small force, he lost the reputation which his former victories had won for him, in less time than he had taken to acquire it. Totila being at Ostia with his forces, took Rome before his eyes; but being unable to hold or to leave the city, he destroyed the greater part of it, drove out the citizens, and took the senators away from him. Thinking little of Belisarius, he led his people into Calabria, to attack the forces which had been sent from Greece. Belisarius, seeing the city abandoned, turned his mind to the performance of an honourable work. Viewing the ruins of Rome, he determined to rebuild her walls and recall her inhabitants with as little delay as possible. But fortune was opposed to this laudable enterprise; for Justinian, being at this time assailed by the Parthians, recalled him; and his duty to his sovereign compelled him to abandon Italy to Totila, who again took Rome, but did not treat her with such severity as upon the former occasion; for at the entreaty of St. Benedict, who in those days had great reputation for sanctity, he endeavored to restore her. In the meantime, Justinian having arranged matters with the Parthians, again thought of sending a force to the relief of Italy; but the Sclavi, another northern people, having crossed the Danube and attacked Illyria and Thrace, prevented him, so that Totila held almost the whole country. Having conquered the Slavonians, Justinian sent Narses, a eunuch, a man of great military talent, who, having arrived in Italy, routed and slew Totila. The Goths who escaped sought refuge in Pavia, where they created Teias their king. On the other hand, Narses after the victory took Rome, and coming to an engagement with Teias near Nocera, slew him and routed his army. By this victory, the power of the Goths in Italy was quite annihilated, after having existed for seventy years, from the coming of Theodoric to the death of Teias. No sooner was Italy delivered from the Goths than Justinian died, and was succeeded by Justin, his son, who, at the instigation of Sophia, his wife, recalled Narses, and sent Longinus in his stead. Like those who preceded him, he made his abode at Ravenna, and besides this, gave a new form to the government of Italy; for he did not appoint governors of provinces, as the Goths had done, but in every city and town of importance placed a ruler whom he called a duke. Neither in this arrangement did he respect Rome more than the other cities; for having set aside the consuls and senate, names which up to this time had been preserved, he placed her under a duke, who was sent every year from Ravenna, and called her the duchy of Rome; while to him who remained in Ravenna, and governed the whole of Italy for the emperor, was given the name of Exarch. This division of the country greatly facilitated the ruin of Italy, and gave the Lombards an early occasion of occupying it. Narses was greatly enraged with the emperor, for having recalled him from the government of the province, which he had won with his own valor and blood; while Sophia, not content with the injury done by withdrawing him, treated him in the most offensive manner, saying she wished him to come back that he might spin with the other eunuchs. Full of indignation, Narses persuaded Alboin, king of the Lombards, who then reigned in Pannonia, to invade and take possession of Italy. The Lombards, as was said before, occupied those places upon the Danube which had been vacated by the Eruli and Turingi, when Odoacer their king led them into Italy; where, having been established for some time, their dominions were held by Alboin, a man ferocious and bold, under whom they crossed the Danube, and coming to an engagement with Cunimund, king of the Zepidi, who held Pannonia, conquered and slew him. Alboin finding Rosamond, daughter of Cunimund, among the captives, took her to wife, and made himself sovereign of Pannonia; and, moved by his savage nature, caused the skull of Cunimund to be formed into a cup, from which, in memory of the victory, he drank. Being invited into Italy by Narses, with whom he had been in friendship during the war with the Goths, he left Pannonia to the Huns, who after the death of Attila had returned to their country. Finding, on his arrival, the province divided into so many parts, he presently occupied Pavia, Milan, Verona, Vicenza, the whole of Tuscany, and the greater part of Flamminia, which is now called Romagna. These great and rapid acquisitions made him think the conquest of Italy already secured; he therefore gave a great feast at Verona, and having become elevated with wine, ordered the skull of Cunimund to be filled, and caused it to be presented to the queen Rosamond, who sat opposite, saying loud enough for her to hear, that upon occasion of such great joy she should drink with her father. These words were like a dagger to the lady's bosom and she resolved to have revenge. Knowing that Helmichis, a noble Lombard, was in love with one of her maids, she arranged with the young woman, that Helmichis, without being acquainted with the fact, should sleep with her instead of his mistress. Having effected her design, Rosamond discovered herself to Helmichis, and gave him the choice either of killing Alboin, and taking herself and the kingdom as his reward, or of being put to death as the ravisher of the queen. Helmichis consented to destroy Alboin; but after the murder, finding they could not occupy the kingdom, and fearful that the Lombards would put them to death for the love they bore to Alboin, they seized the royal treasure, and fled with it to Longinus, at Ravenna, who received them favorably. During these troubles the emperor Justinus died, and was succeeded by Tiberius, who, occupied in the wars with the Parthians, could not attend to the affairs of Italy; and this seeming to Longinus to present an opportunity, by means of Rosamond and her wealth, of becoming king of the Lombards and of the whole of Italy, he communicated his design to her, persuaded her to destroy Helmichis, and so take him for her husband. To this end, having prepared poisoned wine, she with her own hand presented it to Helmichis, who complained of thirst as he came from the bath. Having drunk half of it, he suspected the truth, from the unusual sensation it occasioned and compelled her to drink the remainder; so that in a few hours both came to their end, and Longinus was deprived of the hope of becoming king. In the meantime the Lombards, having drawn themselves together in Pavia, which was become the principal seat of their empire, made Clefis their king. He rebuilt Imola, destroyed by Narses, and occupied Remini and almost every place up to Rome; but he died in the course of his victories. Clefis was cruel to such a degree, not only toward strangers, but to his own Lombards, that these people, sickened of royal power, did not create another king, but appointed among themselves thirty dukes to govern the rest. This prevented the Lombards from occupying the whole of Italy, or of extending their dominion further than Benevento; for, of the cities of Rome, Ravenna, Cremona, Mantua, Padua, Monselice, Parma, Bologna, Faenza, Forli, and Cesena, some defended themselves for a time, and others never fell under their dominion; since, not having a king, they became less prompt for war, and when they afterward appointed one, they were, by living in freedom, become less obedient, and more apt to quarrel among themselves; which from the first prevented a fortunate issue of their military expeditions, and was the ultimate cause of their being driven out of Italy. The affairs of the Lombards being in the state just described, the Romans and Longinus came to an agreement with them, that each should lay down their arms and enjoy what they already possessed. CHAPTER III Beginning of the greatness of the pontiffs in Italy--Abuse of censures and indulgences--The pope applies to Pepin, king of France, for assistance--Donation of Pepin to the pontiff--Charlemagne--End of the kingdom of the Lombards--The title of cardinal begins to be used--The empire passes to the Germans--Berengarius, duke of Fruili, created king of Italy--Pisa becomes great--Order and division of the states of Italy--Electors of the emperor created. In these times the popes began to acquire greater temporal authority than they had previously possessed; although the immediate successors of St. Peter were more reverenced for the holiness of their lives, and the miracles which they performed; and their example so greatly extended the Christian religion, that princes of other states embraced it, in order to obviate the confusion which prevailed at that period. The emperor having become a Christian and returned to Constantinople, it followed, as was remarked at the commencement of the book, that the Roman empire was the more easily ruined, and the church more rapidly increased her authority. Nevertheless, the whole of Italy, being subject either to the emperors or the kings till the coming of the Lombards, the popes never acquired any greater authority than what reverence for their habits and doctrine gave them. In other respects they obeyed the emperors or kings; officiated for them in their affairs, as ministers or agents, and were even sometimes put to death by them. He who caused them to become of more importance in the affairs of Italy, was Theodoric, king of the Goths, when he established the seat of his empire at Ravenna; for, Rome being without a prince, the Romans found it necessary, for their safety, to yield obedience to the pope; his authority, however, was not greatly increased thereby, the only advantage being, that the church of Rome was allowed to take precedence of that of Ravenna. But the Lombards having taken possession, and Italy being divided into many parts, the pope had an opportunity of greater exertion. Being as it were the head of Rome, both the emperor of Constantinople and the Lombards respected him; so that the Romans, by his means, entered into league with the Lombards, and with Longinus, not as subjects, but as equals. Thus the popes, at one time friends of the Greeks, and at another of the Lombards, increased their own power; but upon the ruin of the eastern empire, which occurred during the time of Heraclius, their influence was reduced; for the Sclavi, of whom we spoke before, again assailed Illyria, and having occupied the country, named it Sclavonia, after themselves; and the other parts were attacked by the Persians, then by the Saracens under Mohammed, and lastly by the Turks, who took Syria, Africa, and Egypt. These causes induced the reigning pope, in his distress, to seek new friends, and he applied to the king of France. Nearly all the wars which the northern barbarians carried on in Italy, it may be here remarked, were occasioned by the pontiffs; and the hordes, with which the country was inundated, were generally called in by them. The same mode of proceeding still continued, and kept Italy weak and unsettled. And, therefore, in relating the events which have taken place from those times to the present, the ruin of the empire will be no longer illustrated, but only the increase of the pontificate and of the other principalities which ruled Italy till the coming of Charles VIII. It will be seen how the popes, first with censures, and afterward with these and arms, mingled with indulgences, became both terrible and venerable; and how, from having abused both, they ceased to possess any influence, and were wholly dependent on the will of others for assistance in their wars. But to return to the order of our narration. Gregory III. occupied the papacy, and the kingdom of the Lombards was held by Astolphus, who, contrary to agreement, seized Ravenna, and made war upon the pope. On this account, Gregory no longer relying upon the emperor of Constantinople, since he, for the reasons above given, was unable to assist him, and unwilling to trust the Lombards, for they had frequently broken their faith, had recourse to Pepin II., who, from being lord of Austria and Brabant, had become king of France; not so much by his own valor as by that of Charles Martel, his father, and Pepin his grandfather; for Charles Martel, being governor of the kingdom, effected the memorable defeat of the Saracens near Tours, upon the Loire, in which two hundred thousand of them are said to have been left dead upon the field of battle. Hence, Pepin, by his father's reputation and his own abilities, became afterward king of France. To him Pope Gregory, as we have said, applied for assistance against the Lombards, which Pepin promised to grant, but desired first to see him and be honored with his presence. Gregory accordingly went to France, passing uninjured through the country of his enemies, so great was the respect they had for religion, and was treated honorably by Pepin, who sent an army into Italy, and besieged the Lombards in Pavia. King Astolphus, compelled by necessity, made proposals of peace to the French, who agreed to them at the entreaty of the pope--for he did not desire the death of his enemy, but that he should be converted and live. In this treaty, Astolphus promised to give to the church all the places he had taken from her; but the king's forces having returned to France, he did not fulfill the agreement, and the pope again had recourse to Pepin, who sent another army, conquered the Lombards, took Ravenna, and, contrary to the wishes of the Greek emperor, gave it to the pope, with all the places that belonged to the exarchate, and added to them Urbino and the Marca. But Astolphus, while fulfilling the terms of his agreement, died, and Desiderius, a Lombard, who was duke of Tuscany, took up arms to occupy the kingdom, and demanded assistance of the pope, promising him his friendship. The pope acceding to his request, the other princes assented. Desiderius kept faith at first, and proceeded to resign the districts to the pope, according to the agreement made with Pepin, so that an exarch was no longer sent from Constantinople to Ravenna, but it was governed according to the will of the pope. Pepin soon after died, and was succeeded by his son Charles, the same who, on account of the magnitude and success of his enterprises, was called Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. Theodore I. now succeeded to the papacy, and discord arising between him and Desiderius, the latter besieged him in Rome. The pope requested assistance of Charles, who, having crossed the Alps, besieged Desiderius in Pavai, where he took both him and his children, and sent them prisoners to France. He then went to visit the pontiff at Rome, where he declared, THAT THE POPE, BEING VICAR OF GOD, COULD NOT BE JUDGED BY MEN. The pope and the people of Rome made him emperor; and thus Rome began to have an emperor of the west. And whereas the popes used to be established by the emperors, the latter now began to have need of the popes at their elections; the empire continued to lose its powers, while the church acquired them; and, by these means, she constantly extended her authority over temporal princes. The Lombards, having now been two hundred and thirty-two years in the country, were strangers only in name, and Charles, wishing to reorganize the states of Italy, consented that they should occupy the places in which they had been brought up, and call the province after their own name, Lombardy. That they might be led to respect the Roman name, he ordered all that part of Italy adjoining to them, which had been under the exarchate of Ravenna, to be called Romagna. Besides this, he created his son Pepin, king of Italy, whose dominion extended to Benevento; all the rest being possessed by the Greek emperor, with whom Charles was in league. About this time Pascal I. occupied the pontificate, and the priests of the churches of Rome, from being near to the pope, and attending the elections of the pontiff, began to dignify their own power with a title, by calling themselves cardinals, and arrogated so great authority, that having excluded the people of Rome from the election of pontiff, the appointment of a new pope was scarcely ever made except from one of their own number: thus on the death of Pascal, the cardinal of St. Sabina was created pope by the title of Eugenius II. Italy having come into the hands of the French, a change of form and order took place, the popes acquiring greater temporal power, and the new authorities adopting the titles of count and marquis, as that of duke had been introduced by Longinus, exarch of Ravenna. After the deaths of some pontiffs, Osporco, a Roman, succeeded to the papacy; but on account of his unseemly appellation, he took the name of Sergius, and this was the origin of that change of names which the popes adopt upon their election to the pontificate. In the meantime, the Emperor Charles died and was succeeded by Lewis (the Pious), after whose death so many disputes arose among his sons, that at the time of his grandchildren, the house of France lost the empire, which then came to the Germans; the first German emperor being called Arnolfus. Nor did the Carlovingian family lose the empire only; their discords also occasioned them the loss of Italy; for the Lombards, gathering strength, offended the pope and the Romans, and Arnolfo, not knowing where to seek relief, was compelled to create Berengarius, duke of Fruili, king of Italy. These events induced the Huns, who occupied Pannonia, to assail Italy; but, in an engagement with Berengarius, they were compelled to return to Pannonia, which had from them been named Hungary. Romano was at this time emperor of Greece, having, while prefect of the army, dethroned Constantine; and as Puglia and Calabria, which, as before observed, were parts of the Greek empire, had revolted, he gave permission to the Saracans to occupy them; and they having taken possession of these provinces, besieged Rome. The Romans, Berengarius being then engaged in defending himself against the Huns, appointed Alberic, duke of Tuscany, their leader. By his valor Rome was saved from the Saracens, who, withdrawing from the siege, erected a fortress upon Mount Gargano, by means of which they governed Puglia and Calabria, and harassed the whole country. Thus Italy was in those times very grievously afflicted, being in constant warfare with the Huns in the direction of the Alps, and, on the Neapolitan side, suffering from the inroads of the Saracens. This state of things continued many years, occupying the reigns of three Berengarii, who succeeded each other; and during this time the pope and the church were greatly disturbed; the impotence of the eastern, and the disunion which prevailed among the western princes, leaving them without defense. The city of Genoa, with all her territory upon the rivers, having been overrun by the Saracens, an impulse was thus given to the rising greatness of Pisa, in which city multitudes took refuge who had been driven out of their own country. These events occurred in the year 931, when Otho, duke of Saxony, the son of Henry and Matilda, a man of great prudence and reputation, being made emperor, the pope Agapito, begged that he would come into Italy and relieve him from the tyranny of the Berengarii. The States of Italy were governed in this manner: Lombardy was under Berengarius III. and Alfred his son; Tuscany and Romagna were governed by a deputy of the western emperor; Puglia and Calabria were partly under the Greek emperor, and partly under the Saracens; in Rome two consuls were annually chosen from the nobility, who governed her according to ancient custom; to these was added a prefect, who dispensed justice among the people; and there was a council of twelve, who each year appointed rectors for the places subject to them. The popes had more or less authority in Rome and the rest of Italy, in proportion as they were favorites of the emperor or of the most powerful states. The Emperor Otho came into Italy, took the kingdom from the Berengarii, in which they had reigned fifty-five years, and reinstated the pontiff in his dignity. He had a son and a nephew, each named Otho, who, one after the other, succeeded to the empire. In the reign of Otho III., Pope Gregory V. was expelled by the Romans; whereupon the emperor came into Italy and replaced him; and the pope, to revenge himself on the Romans, took from them the right to create an emperor, and gave it to three princes and three bishops of Germany; the princes of Brandenburg, Palatine, and Saxony, and the bishops of Magonza, Treveri, and Colonia. This occurred in the year 1002. After the death of Otho III. the electors created Henry, duke of Bavaria, emperor, who at the end of twelve years was crowned by Pope Stephen VIII. Henry and his wife Simeonda were persons of very holy life, as is seen by the many temples built and endowed by them, of which the church of St. Miniato, near Florence, is one. Henry died in 1024, and was succeeded by Conrad of Suabia; and the latter by Henry II., who came to Rome; and as there was a schism in the church of three popes, he set them all aside, and caused the election of Clement II., by whom he was crowned emperor. CHAPTER IV Nicholas II. commits the election of the pope to the cardinals--First example of a prince deprived of his dominions by the pope--Guelphs and Ghibellines--Establishment of the kingdom of Naples--Pope Urban II. goes to France--The first crusade--New orders of knighthood--Saladin takes from the Christians their possessions in the east--Death of the Countess Matilda--Character of Frederick Barbarossa--Schism--Frederick creates an anti-pope--Building of Alexandria in Puglia--Disgraceful conditions imposed by the pope upon Henry, king of England--Reconciliation of Frederick with the pope--The kingdom of Naples passes to the Germans--Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis. Italy was at this time governed partly by the people, some districts by their own princes, and others by the deputies of the emperor. The highest in authority, and to whom the others referred, was called the chancellor. Of the princes, the most powerful were Godfred and the Countess Matilda his wife, who was daughter of Beatrice, the sister of Henry II. She and her husband possessed Lucca, Parma, Reggio, Mantua, and the whole of what is now called THE PATRIMONY OF THE CHURCH. The ambition of the Roman people caused many wars between them and the pontiffs, whose authority had previously been used to free them from the emperors; but when they had taken the government of the city to themselves, and regulated it according to their own pleasure, they at once became at enmity with the popes, who received far more injuries from them than from any Christian potentate. And while the popes caused all the west to tremble with their censures, the people of Rome were in open rebellion against them; nor had they or the popes any other purpose, but to deprive each other of reputation and authority. Nicholas II. now attained the papacy; and as Gregory V. had taken from the Romans the right to create an emperor, he in the same manner determined to deprive them of their share in the election of the pope; and confined the creation to the cardinals alone. Nor did this satisfy him; for, having agreed with the princes who governed Calabria and Puglia, with methods which we shall presently relate, he compelled the officers whom the Romans appointed to their different jurisdictions, to render obedience to him; and some of them he even deprived of their offices. After the death of Nicholas, there was a schism in the church; the clergy of Lombardy refused obedience to Alexander II., created at Rome, and elected Cadolo of Parma anti-pope; and Henry, who hated the power of the pontiffs, gave Alexander to understand that he must renounce the pontificate, and ordered the cardinals to go into Germany to appoint a new pope. He was the first who felt the importance of spiritual weapons; for the pope called a council at Rome, and deprived Henry of both the empire and the kingdom. Some of the people of Italy took the part of the pope, others of Henry; and hence arose the factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines; that Italy, relieved from the inundations of barbarians, might be distracted with intestine strife. Henry, being excommunicated, was compelled by his people to come into Italy, and fall barefooted upon his knees before the pope, and ask his pardon. This occurred in the year 1082. Nevertheless, there shortly afterward arose new discords between the pope and Henry; upon which the pope again excommunicated him, and the emperor sent his son, also named Henry, with an army to Rome, and he, with the assistance of the Romans, who hated the pope, besieged him in the fortress. Robert Guiscard them came from Puglia to his relief, but Henry had left before his arrival, and returned to Germany. The Romans stood out alone, and the city was sacked by Robert, and reduced to ruins. As from this Robert sprung the establishment of the kingdom of Naples, it seems not superfluous to relate particularly his actions and origin. Disunion having arisen among the descendants of Charlemagne, occasion was given to another northern people, called Normans, to assail France and occupy that portion of the country which is now named Normandy. A part of these people came into Italy at the time when the province was infested with the Berengarii, the Saracans, and the Huns, and occupied some places in Romagna, where, during the wars of that period, they conducted themselves valiantly. Tancred, one of these Norman princes, had many children; among the rest were William, surnamed Ferabac, and Robert, called Guiscard. When the principality was governed by William, the troubles of Italy were in some measure abated; but the Saracens still held Sicily, and plundered the coasts of Italy daily. On this account William arranged with the princes of Capua and Salerno, and with Melorco, a Greek, who governed Puglia and Calabria for the Greek emperor, to attack Sicily; and it was agreed that, if they were victorious, each should have a fourth part of the booty and the territory. They were fortunate in their enterprise, expelled the Saracens, and took possession of the island; but, after the victory, Melorco secretly caused forces to be brought from Greece, seized Sicily in the name of the emperor, and appropriated the booty to himself and his followers. William was much dissatisfied with this, but reserved the exhibition of his displeasure for a suitable opportunity, and left Sicily with the princes of Salerno and Capua. But when they had parted from him to return to their homes, instead of proceeding to Romagna he led his people towards Puglia, and took Melfi; and from thence, in a short time, recovered from the Greek emperor almost the whole of Puglia and Calabria, over which provinces, in the time of pope Nicholas II. his brother Robert Guiscard was sovereign. Robert having had many disputes with his nephews for the inheritance of these states, requested the influence of the pope to settle them; which his holiness was very willing to afford, being anxious to make a friend of Robert, to defend himself against the emperor of Germany and the insolence of the Roman people, which indeed shortly followed, when, at the instance of Gregory, he drove Henry from Rome, and subdued the people. Robert was succeeded by his sons Roger and William, to whose dominion not only was Naples added, but all the places interjacent as far as Rome, and afterward Sicily, of which Roger became sovereign; but, upon William going to Constantinople, to marry the daughter of the emperor, his dominions were wrested from him by his brother Roger. Inflated with so great an acquisition, Roger first took the title of king of Italy, but afterward contented himself with that of king of Puglia and Sicily. He was the first who established and gave that name to this kingdom, which still retains its ancient boundaries, although its sovereigns have been of many families and countries. Upon the failure of the Normans, it came to the Germans, after these to the French, then to the Aragonese, and it is now held by the Flemish. About this time Urban II. became pope and excited the hatred of the Romans. As he did not think himself safe even in Italy, on account of the disunion which prevailed, he directed his thoughts to a generous enterprise. With his whole clergy he went into France, and at Anvers, having drawn together a vast multitude of people, delivered an oration against the infidels, which so excited the minds of his audience, that they determined to undertake the conquest of Asia from the Saracens; which enterprise, with all those of a similar nature, were afterward called crusades, because the people who joined in them bore upon their armor and apparel the figure of a cross. The leaders were Godfrey, Eustace, and Baldwin of Bouillon, counts of Boulogne, and Peter, a hermit celebrated for his prudence and sagacity. Many kings and people joined them, and contributed money; and many private persons fought under them at their own expense; so great was the influence of religion in those days upon the minds of men, excited by the example of those who were its principal ministers. The proudest successes attended the beginning of this enterprise; for the whole of Asia Minor, Syria, and part of Egypt, fell under the power of the Christians. To commemorate these events the order of the Knights of Jerusalem was created, which still continues, and holds the island of Rhodes--the only obstacle to the power of the Mohammedans. The same events gave rise to the order of the Knights Templars, which, after a short time, on account of their shameless practices, was dissolved. Various fortunes attended the crusaders in the course of their enterprises, and many nations and individuals became celebrated accordingly. The kings of France and England joined them, and, with the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, acquired great reputation, till the time of Saladin, when, by whose talents, and the disagreement of the Christians among themselves, the crusaders were robbed of all that glory which they had at first acquired; and, after ninety years, were driven from those places which they had so honorably and happily recovered. After the death of Urban, Pascal II. became pope, and the empire was under the dominion of Henry IV. who came to Rome pretending friendship for the pontiff but afterward put his holiness and all his clergy in prison; nor did he release them till it was conceded that he should dispose of the churches of Germany according to his own pleasure. About this time, the Countess Matilda died, and made the church heir to all her territories. After the deaths of Pascal and Henry IV. many popes and emperors followed, till the papacy was occupied by Alexander III. and the empire by Frederick, surnamed Barbarossa. The popes during this period had met with many difficulties from the people of Rome and the emperors; and in the time of Barbarossa they were much increased. Frederick possessed military talent, but was so full of pride that he would not submit to the pontiff. However, at his election to the empire he came to Rome to be crowned, and returned peaceably to Germany, where he did not long remain in the same mind, but came again into Italy to subdue certain places in Lombardy, which did not obey him. It happened at this time that the cardinal St. Clement, of a Roman family, separated from Alexander, and was made pope by some of the cardinals. The Emperor Frederick, being encamped at Cerma, Alexander complained to him of the anti-pope, and received for answer, that they were both to go to him, and, having heard each side, he would determine which was the true pope. This reply displeased Alexander; and, as he saw the emperor was inclined to favor the anti-pope, he excommunicated him, and then fled to Philip, king of France. Frederick, in the meantime, carrying on the war in Lombardy, destroyed Milan; which caused the union of Verona, Padua, and Vicenza against him for their common defense. About the same period the anti-pope died, and Frederick set up Guido of Cremona, in his stead. The Romans, from the absence of the pope, and from the emperor being in Lombardy, had reacquired some authority in Rome, and proceeded to recover the obedience of those places which had been subject to them. And as the people of Tusculum refused to submit to their authority, they proceeded against them with their whole force; but these, being assisted by Frederick, routed the Roman army with such dreadful slaughter, that Rome was never after either so populous or so rich. Alexander now returned to the city, thinking he could be safe there on account of the enmity subsisting between the Romans and the emperor, and from the enemies which the latter had in Lombardy. But Frederick, setting aside every other consideration, led his forces and encamped before Rome; and Alexander fled to William, king of Puglia, who had become hair of that kingdom after the death of Roger. Frederick, however, withdrew from Rome on account of the plague which then prevailed, and returned to Germany. The cities of Lombardy in league against him, in order to command Pavia and Tortona, which adhered to the imperial party, built a city, to be their magazine in time of war, and named in Alexandria, in honor of the pope and in contempt of Frederick. Guido the anti-pope died, and Giovanni of Fermo was appointed in his stead, who, being favored by the imperialists, lived at Montefiascone. Pope Alexander being at Tusculum, whither he had been called by the inhabitants, that with his authority he might defend them from the Romans, ambassadors came to him from Henry, king of England, to signify that he was not blamable for the death of Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, although public report had slandered him with it. On this the pope sent two cardinals to England, to inquire into the truth of the matter; and although they found no actual charge against the king, still, on account of the infamy of the crime, and for not having honored the archbishop so much as he deserved, the sentence against the king of England was, that having called together the barons of his empire, he should upon oath before them affirm his innocence; that he should immediately send two hundred soldiers to Jerusalem, paid for one year; that, before the end of three years, he should himself proceed thither with as large an army as he could draw together; that his subjects should have the power of appealing to Rome when they thought proper; and that he should annul whatever acts had been passed in his kingdom unfavorable to ecclesiastical rule. These terms were all accepted by Henry; and thus a great king submitted to a sentence that in our day a private person would have been ashamed of. But while the pope exercised so great authority over distant princes, he could not compel obedience from the Romans themselves, or obtain their consent that he should remain in Rome, even though he promised to intermeddle only with ecclesiastical affairs. About this time Frederick returned to Italy, and while he was preparing to carry on new wars against the pope, his prelates and barons declared that they would abandon him unless he reconciled himself with the church; so that he was obliged to go and submit to the pope at Venus, where a pacification was effected, but in which the pope deprived the emperor of all authority over Rome, and named William, king of Sicily and Puglia, a coadjutor with him. Frederick, unable to exist without war, joined the crusaders in Asia, that he might exercise that ambition against Mohammed, which he could not gratify against the vicars of Christ. And being near the river Cydnus, tempted by the clearness of its waters, bathed therein, took cold, and died. Thus the river did a greater favor to the Mohammedans than the pope's excommunications had done to the Christians; for the latter only checked his pride, while the former finished his career. Frederick being dead, the pope had now only to suppress the contumacy of the Romans; and, after many disputes concerning the creation of consuls, it was agreed that they should elect them as they had been accustomed to do, but that these should not undertake the office, till they had first sworn to be faithful to the church. This agreement being made, Giovanni the anti-pope took refuge in Mount Albano, where he shortly afterward died. William, king of Naples, died about the same time, and the pope intended to occupy that kingdom on the ground that the king had left only a natural son named Tancred. But the barons would not consent, and wished that Tancred should be king. Celestine III., the then pope, anxious to snatch the kingdom from the hands of Tancred, contrived that Henry, son of Frederick should be elected emperor, and promised him the kingdom on the condition that he should restore to the church all the places that had belonged to her. To facilitate this affair, he caused Gostanza, a daughter of William, who had been placed in a monastery and was now old, to be brought from her seclusion and become the wife of Henry. Thus the kingdom of Naples passed from the Normans, who had been the founders of it, to the Germans. As soon as the affairs of Germany were arranged, the Emperor Henry came into Italy with Gostanza his wife, and a son about four years of age named Frederick; and, as Tancred was now dead, leaving only an infant named Roger, he took possession of the kingdom without much difficulty. After some years, Henry died in Sicily, and was succeeded in the kingdom by Frederick, and in the empire by Otho, duke of Saxony, who was elected through the influence of Innocent III. But as soon as he had taken the crown, contrary to the general expectation, he became an enemy of the pope, occupied Romagna, and prepared to attack the kingdom. On this account the pope excommunicated him; he was abandoned by every one, and the electors appointed Frederick, king of Naples, emperor in his stead. Frederick came to Rome for his coronation; but the pope, being afraid of his power, would not crown him, and endeavored to withdraw him from Italy as he had done Otho. Frederick returned to Germany in anger, and, after many battles with Otho, at length conquered him. Meanwhile, Innocent died, who, besides other excellent works, built the hospital of the Holy Ghost at Rome. He was succeeded by Honorius III., in whose time the religious orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis were founded, 1218. Honorius crowned Frederick, to whom Giovanni, descended from Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, who commanded the remainder of the Christian army in Asia and still held that title, gave a daughter in marriage; and, with her portion, conceded to him the title to that kingdom: hence it is that every king of Naples is called king of Jerusalem. CHAPTER V The state of Italy--Beginning of the greatness of the house of Este--Guelphs and Ghibellines--Death of the Emperor Frederick II.--Manfred takes possession of the kingdom of Naples--Movements of the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Lombardy--Charles of Anjou invested by the pope with the kingdom of Naples and Sicily--Restless policy of the popes--Ambitious views of pope Nicholas III.--Nephews of the popes--Sicilian vespers--The Emperor Rodolph allows many cities to purchase their independence--Institution of the jubilee--The popes at Avignon. At this time the states of Italy were governed in the following manner: the Romans no longer elected consuls, but instead of them, and with the same powers, they appointed one senator, and sometimes more. The league which the cities of Lombardy had formed against Frederick Barbarossa still continued, and comprehended Milan, Brescia, Mantua, and the greater number of the cities of Romagna, together with Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Trevisa. Those which took part with the emperor, were Cremona, Bergamo, Parma, Reggio, and Trento. The other cities and fortresses of Lombardy, Romagna, and the march of Trevisa, favored, according to their necessities, sometimes one party, sometimes the other. In the time of Otho III. there had come into Italy a man called Ezelin, who, remaining in the country, had a son, and he too had a son named Ezelin. This person, being rich and powerful, took part with Frederick, who, as we have said, was at enmity with the pope; Frederick, at the instigation and with the assistance of Ezelin, took Verona and Mantua, destroyed Vicenza, occupied Padua, routed the army of the united cities, and then directed his course towards Tuscany. Ezelin, in the meantime, had subdued the whole of the Trevisian March, but could not prevail against Ferrara, which was defended by Azone da Este and the forces which the pope had in Lombardy; and, as the enemy were compelled to withdraw, the pope gave Ferrara in fee to this Azone, from whom are descended those who now govern that city. Frederick halted at Pisa, desirous of making himself lord of Tuscany; but, while endeavoring to discover what friends and foes he had in that province, he scattered so many seeds of discord as occasioned the ruin of Italy; for the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines multiplied,--those who supported the church taking the name of Guelphs, while the followers of the emperor were called Ghibellines, these names being first heard at Pistoia. Frederick, marching from Pisa, assailed and wasted the territories of the church in a variety of ways; so that the pope, having no other remedy, unfurled against him the banner of the cross, as his predecessor had done against the Saracens. Frederick, that he might be suddenly abandoned by his people, as Frederick Barbarossa and others had been, took into his pay a number of Saracens; and to bind them to him, and establish in Italy a firm bulwark against the church, without fear of papal maledictions, he gave them Nocera in the kingdom of Naples, that, having a refuge of their own, they might be placed in greater security. The pontificate was now occupied by Innocent IV., who, being in fear of Frederick, went to Genoa, and thence to France, where he appointed a council to be held at Lyons, where it was the intention of Frederick to attend, but he was prevented by the rebellion of Parma: and, being repulsed, he went into Tuscany, and from thence to Sicily, where he died, leaving his son Conrad in Suabia; and in Puglia, Manfred, whom he had created duke of Benevento, born of a concubine. Conrad came to take possession of the kingdom, and having arrived at Naples, died, leaving an infant son named Corradino, who was then in Germany. On this account Manfred occupied the state, first as guardian of Corradino, but afterward, causing a report to be circulated that Corradino had died, made himself king, contrary to the wishes of both the pope and the Neapolitans, who, however, were obliged to submit. While these things were occurring in the kingdom of Naples, many movements took place in Lombardy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs were headed by a legate of the pope; and the Ghibelline party by Ezelin, who possessed nearly the whole of Lombardy beyond the Po; and, as in the course of the war Padua rebelled, he put to death twelve thousand of its citizens. But before its close he himself was slain, in the eightieth year of his age, and all the places he had held became free. Manfred, king of Naples, continued those enmities against the church which had been begun by his ancestors, and kept the pope, Urban IV., in continual alarm; so that, in order to subdue him, Urban summoned the crusaders, and went to Perugia to await their arrival. Seeing them few and slow in their approach, he found that more able assistance was necessary to conquer Manfred. He therefore sought the favor of France; created Louis of Anjou, the king's brother, sovereign of Naples and Sicily, and excited him to come into Italy to take possession of that kingdom. But before Charles came to Rome the pope died, and was succeeded by Clement IV., in whose time he arrived at Ostia, with thirty galleys, and ordered that the rest of his forces should come by land. During his abode at Rome, the citizens, in order to attach him to them, made him their senator, and the pope invested him with the kingdom, on condition that he should pay annually to the church the sum of fifty thousand ducats; and it was decreed that, from thenceforth, neither Charles nor any other person, who might be king of Naples, should be emperor also. Charles marched against Manfred, routed his army, and slew him near Benevento, and then became sovereign of Sicily and Naples. Corradino, to whom, by his father's will, the state belonged, having collected a great force in Germany, marched into Italy against Charles, with whom he came to an engagement at Tagliacozzo, was taken prisoner while endeavoring to escape, and being unknown, put to death. Italy remained in repose until the pontificate of Adrian V. Charles, being at Rome and governing the city by virtue of his office of senator, the pope, unable to endure his power, withdrew to Viterbo, and solicited the Emperor Rodolph to come into Italy and assist him. Thus the popes, sometimes in zeal for religion, at others moved by their own ambition, were continually calling in new parties and exciting new disturbances. As soon as they had made a prince powerful, they viewed him with jealousy and sought his ruin; and never allowed another to rule the country, which, from their own imbecility, they were themselves unable to govern. Princes were in fear of them; for, fighting or running away, the popes always obtained the advantage, unless it happened they were entrapped by deceit, as occurred to Boniface VIII., and some others, who under pretense of friendship, were ensnared by the emperors. Rodolph did not come into Italy, being detained by the war in which he was engaged with the king of Bohemia. At this time Adrian died, and Nicholas III., of the Orsini family, became pontiff. He was a bold, ambitious man; and being resolved at any event to diminish the power of Charles, induced the Emperor Rodolph to complain that he had a governor in Tuscany favorable to the Guelphic faction, who after the death of Manfred had been replaced by him. Charles yielded to the emperor and withdrew his governor, and the pope sent one of his nephews, a cardinal, as governor for the emperor, who, for the honor done him, restored Romagna to the church, which had been taken from her by his predecessors, and the pope made Bertoldo Orsino duke of Romagna. As Nicholas now thought himself powerful enough to oppose Charles, he deprived him of the office of senator, and made a decree that no one of royal race should ever be a senator in Rome. It was his intention to deprive Charles of Sicily, and to this end he entered into a secret negotiation with Peter, king of Aragon, which took effect in the following papacy. He also had the design of creating two kings out of his family, the one in Lombardy, the other in Tuscany, whose power would defend the church from the Germans who might design to come into Italy, and from the French, who were in the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. But with these thoughts he died. He was the first pope who openly exhibited his own ambition; and, under pretense of making the church great, conferred honors and emolument upon his own family. Previous to his time no mention is made of the nephews or families of any pontiff, but future history is full of them; nor is there now anything left for them to attempt, except the effort to make the papacy hereditary. True it is, the princes of their creating have not long sustained their honors; for the pontiffs, being generally of very limited existence, did not get their plants properly established. To Nicholas succeeded Martin IV., of French origin, and consequently favorable to the party of Charles, who sent him assistance against the rebellion of Romagna; and while they were encamped at Furli, Guido Bonatto, an astrologer, contrived that at an appointed moment the people should assail the forces of the king, and the plan succeeding, all the French were taken and slain. About this period was also carried into effect the plot of Pope Nicholas and Peter, king of Aragon, by which the Sicilians murdered all the French that were in that island; and Peter made himself sovereign of it, saying, that it belonged to him in the right of his wife Gostanza, daughter of Manfred. But Charles, while making warlike preparations for the recovery of Sicily, died, leaving a son, Charles II., who was made prisoner in Sicily, and to recover his liberty promised to return to his prison, if within three years he did not obtain the pope's consent that the kings of Aragon should be invested with the kingdom of Sicily. The Emperor Rodolph, instead of coming into Italy, gave the empire the advantage of having done so, by sending an ambassador, with authority to make all those cities free which would redeem themselves with money. Many purchased their freedom, and with liberty changed their mode of living. Adolpho of Saxony succeeded to the empire; and to the papacy, Pietro del Murrone, who took the name of Celestino; but, being a hermit and full of sanctity, after six months renounced the pontificate, and Boniface VIII. was elected. After a time the French and Germans left Italy, and the country remained wholly in the hands of the Italians; but Providence ordained that the pope, when these enemies were withdrawn, should neither establish nor enjoy his authority, and raised two very powerful families in Rome, the Colonnesi and the Orsini, who with their arms, and the proximity of their abode, kept the pontificate weak. Boniface then determined to destroy the Colonnesi, and, besides excommunicating, endeavored to direct the weapons of the church against them. This, although it did them some injury, proved more disastrous to the pope; for those arms which from attachment to the faith performed valiantly against its enemies, as soon as they were directed against Christians for private ambition, ceased to do the will of those who wished to wield them. And thus the too eager desire to gratify themselves, caused the pontiffs by degrees to lose their military power. Besides what is just related, the pope deprived two cardinals of the Colonnesi family of their office; and Sciarra, the head of the house, escaping unknown, was taken by corsairs of Catalonia and put to the oar; but being afterward recognized at Marseilles, he was sent to Philip, king of France, who had been excommunicated and deprived of the kingdom. Philip, considering that in a war against the pontiff he would either be a loser or run great hazards, had recourse to deception, and simulating a wish to come to terms, secretly sent Sciarra into Italy, who, having arrived at Anagnia, where his holiness then resided, assembled a few friends, and in the night took him prisoner. And although the people of Anagnia set him at liberty shortly after, yet from grief at the injury he died mad. Boniface was founder of the jubilee in 1300, and fixed that it should be celebrated at each revolution of one hundred years. In those times various troubles arose between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions; and the emperors having abandoned Italy, many places became free, and many were occupied by tyrants. Pope Benedict restored the scarlet hat to the cardinals of the Colonnesi family, and reblessed Philip, king of France. He was succeeded by Clement V., who, being a Frenchman, removed the papal court to Avignon in 1305. CHAPTER VI The Emperor Henry comes into Italy--The Florentines take the part of the pope--The Visconti originate the duchy of Milan--Artifice of Maffeo Visconti against the family of de la Torre--Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, first duke of Milan--The Emperor Louis in Italy--John, king of Bohemia, in Italy--League against the king of Bohemia and the pope's legate--Origin of Venice--Liberty of the Venetians confirmed by Pepin and the Greek emperor--Greatness of Venice--Decline of Venice--Discord between the pope and the emperor--Giovanna, queen of Naples--Rienzi--The jubilee reduced to fifty years--Succession of the duke of Milan--Cardinal Egidio the pope's legate--War between the Genoese and the Venetians. At this time, Charles II. of Naples died, and was succeeded by his son Robert. Henry of Luxemburg had been elected to the empire, and came to Rome for his coronation, although the pope was not there. His coming occasioned great excitement in Lombardy; for he sent all the banished to their homes, whether they were Guelphs or Ghibellines; and in consequence of this, one faction endeavoring to drive out the other, the whole province was filled with war; nor could the emperor with all his endeavors abate its fury. Leaving Lombardy by way of Genoa, he came to Pisa, where he endeavored to take Tuscany from King Robert; but not being successful, he went to Rome, where he remained only a few days, being driven away by the Orsini with the consent of King Robert, and returned to Pisa; and that he might more securely make war upon Tuscany, and wrest the country from the hands of the king, he caused it to be assailed by Frederick, monarch of Sicily. But when he was in hope of occupying Tuscany and robbing the king of Naples of his dominions, he died, and was succeeded by Louis of Bavaria. About the same period, John XXII. attained the papacy, during whose time the emperor still continued to persecute the Guelphs and the church, but they were defended by Robert and the Florentines. Many wars took place in Lombardy between the Visconti and the Guelphs, and in Tuscany between Castruccio of Lucca and the Florentines. As the family of Visconti gave rise to the duchy of Milan, one of the five principalities which afterward governed Italy, I shall speak of them from a rather earlier date. Milan, upon recovering from the ruin into which she had been thrown by Frederick Barbarossa, in revenge for her injuries, joined the league formed by the Lombard cities for their common defense; this restrained him, and for awhile preserved alive the interests of the church in Lombardy. In the course of the wars which followed, the family of La Torre became very potent in that city, and their reputation increased so long as the emperor possessed little authority in the province. But Frederick II. coming into Italy, and the Ghibelline party, by the influence of Ezelin having grown powerful, seeds of the same faction sprang up in all the cities. In Milan were the Visconti, who expelled the La Torres; these, however, did not remain out, for by agreement between the emperor and the pope they were restored to their country. For when the pope and his court removed to France, and the emperor, Henry of Luxemburg, came into Italy, with the pretext of going to Rome for his crown, he was received in Milan by Maffeo Visconti and Guido della Torre, who were then the heads of these families. But Maffeo, designing to make use of the emperor for the purpose of expelling Guido, and thinking the enterprise not difficult, on account of the La Torre being of the contrary faction to the imperial, took occasion, from the remarks which the people made of the uncivil behavior of the Germans, to go craftily about and excite the populace to arm themselves and throw off the yoke of these barbarians. When a suitable moment arrived, he caused a person in whom he confided to create a tumult, upon which the people took arms against the Germans. But no sooner was the mischief well on foot, than Maffeo, with his sons and their partisans, ran to Henry, telling him that all the disturbance had been occasioned by the La Torre family, who, not content to remain peaceably in Milan, had taken the opportunity to plunder him, that they might ingratiate themselves with the Guelphs of Italy and become princes in the city; they then bade him be of good cheer, for they, with their party, whenever he wished it, were ready to defend him with their lives. Henry, believing all that Maffeo told him, joined his forces to those of the Visconti, and attacking the La Torre, who were in various parts of the city endeavoring to quell the tumult, slew all upon whom they could lay hands, and having plundered the others of their property, sent them into exile. By this artifice, Maffeo Visconti became a prince of Milan. Of him remained Galeazzo and Azzo; and, after these, Luchino and Giovanni. Giovanni became archbishop of Milan; and of Luchino, who died before him, were left Bernabo and Galeazzo; Galeazzo, dying soon after, left a son called the Count of Virtu, who after the death of the archbishop, contrived the murder of his uncle, Bernabo, became prince of Milan, and was the first who had the title of duke. The duke left Filippo and Giovanmaria Angelo, the latter of whom being slain by the people of Milan, the state fell to Filippo; but he having no male heir, Milan passed from the family of Visconti to that of Sforza, in the manner to be related hereafter. But to return to the point from which we deviated. The Emperor Louis, to add to the importance of his party and to receive the crown, came into Italy; and being at Milan, as an excuse for taking money of the Milanese, he pretended to make them free and to put the Visconti in prison; but shortly afterwards he released them, and, having gone to Rome, in order to disturb Italy with less difficulty, he made Piero della Corvara anti-pope, by whose influence, and the power of the Visconti, he designed to weaken the opposite faction in Tuscany and Lombardy. But Castruccio died, and his death caused the failure of the emperor's purpose; for Pisa and Lucca rebelled. The Pisans sent Piero della Corvara a prisoner to the pope in France, and the emperor, despairing of the affairs of Italy, returned to Germany. He had scarcely left, before John king of Bohemia came into the country, at the request of the Ghibellines of Brescia, and made himself lord of that city and of Bergamo. And as his entry was with the consent of the pope, although he feigned the contrary, the legate of Bologna favored him, thinking by this means to prevent the return of the emperor. This caused a change in the parties of Italy; for the Florentines and King Robert, finding the legate was favorable to the enterprises of the Ghibellines, became foes of all those to whom the legate and the king of Bohemia were friendly. Without having regard for either faction, whether Guelph or Ghibelline, many princes joined them, of whom, among others, were the Visconti, the Della Scala, Filippo Gonzao of Mantua, the Carrara, and those of Este. Upon this the pope excommunicated them all. The king, in fear of the league, went to collect forces in his own country, and having returned with a large army, still found his undertaking a difficult one; so, seeing his error, he withdrew to Bohemia, to the great displeasure of the legate, leaving only Reggio and Modena guarded, and Parma in the care of Marsilio and Piero de' Rossi, who were the most powerful men in the city. The king of Bohemia being gone, Bologna joined the league; and the leaguers divided among themselves the four cities which remained of the church faction. They agreed that Parma should pertain to the Della Scalla; Reggio to the Gonzaga; Modena to the family of Este, and Lucca to the Florentines. But in taking possession of these cities, many disputes arose which were afterward in a great measure settled by the Venetians. Some, perhaps, will think it a species of impropriety that we have so long deferred speaking of the Venetians, theirs being a republic, which, both on account of its power and internal regulations, deserves to be celebrated above any principality of Italy. But that this surprise may cease when the cause is known, I shall speak of their city from a more remote period; that everyone may understand what were their beginnings, and the causes which so long withheld them from interfering in the affairs of Italy. When Attila, king of the Huns, besieged Aquileia, the inhabitants, after defending themselves a long time, began to despair of effecting their safety, and fled for refuge to several uninhabited rocks, situated at the point of the Adriatic Sea, now called the Gulf of Venice, carrying with them whatever movable property they possessed. The people of Padua, finding themselves in equal danger, and knowing that, having became master of Aquileia, Attila would next attack themselves, also removed with their most valuable property to a place on the same sea, called Rivo Alto, to which they brought their women, children, and aged persons, leaving the youth in Padua to assist in her defense. Besides these, the people of Monselice, with the inhabitants of the surrounding hills, driven by similar fears, fled to the same rocks. But after Attila had taken Aquileia, and destroyed Padua, Monselice, Vicenza, and Verona, the people of Padua and others who were powerful, continued to inhabit the marshes about Rivo Alto; and, in like manner, all the people of the province anciently called Venetia, driven by the same events, became collected in these marshes. Thus, under the pressure of necessity, they left an agreeable and fertile country to occupy one sterile and unwholesome. However, in consequence of a great number of people being drawn together into a comparatively small space, in a short time they made those places not only habitable, but delightful; and having established among themselves laws and useful regulations, enjoyed themselves in security amid the devastations of Italy, and soon increased both in reputation and strength. For, besides the inhabitants already mentioned, many fled to these places from the cities of Lombardy, principally to escape from the cruelties of Clefis king of the Lombards, which greatly tended to increase the numbers of the new city; and in the conventions which were made between Pepin, king of France, and the emperor of Greece, when the former, at the entreaty of the pope, came to drive the Lombards out of Italy, the duke of Benevento and the Venetians did not render obedience to either the one or the other, but alone enjoyed their liberty. As necessity had led them to dwell on sterile rocks, they were compelled to seek the means of subsistence elsewhere; and voyaging with their ships to every port of the ocean, their city became a depository for the various products of the world, and was itself filled with men of every nation. For many years the Venetians sought no other dominion than that which tended to facilitate their commercial enterprises, and thus acquired many ports in Greece and Syria; and as the French had made frequent use of their ships in voyages to Asia, the island of Candia was assigned to them in recompense for these services. While they lived in this manner, their name spread terror over the seas, and was held in veneration throughout Italy. This was so completely the case, that they were generally chosen to arbitrate in controversies between the states, as occurred in the difference between the Colleagues, on account of the cities they had divided among themselves; which being referred to the Venetians, they awarded Brescia and Bergamo to the Visconti. But when, in the course of time, urged by their eagerness for dominion, they had made themselves masters of Padua, Vicenza, Trevisa, and afterward of Verona, Bergamo, and Brescia, with many cities in Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, other nations were impressed with such an opinion of their power, that they were a terror, not only to the princes of Italy, but to the ultramontane kings. These states entered into an alliance against them, and in one day wrested from them the provinces they had obtained with so much labor and expense; and although they have in latter times reacquired some portions, still possessing neither power nor reputation, like all the other Italian powers, they live at the mercy of others. Benedict XII. having attained the pontificate and finding Italy lost, fearing, too, that the emperor would assume the sovereignty of the country, determined to make friends of all who had usurped the government of those cities which had been accustomed to obey the emperor; that they might have occasion to dread the latter, and unite with himself in the defense of Italy. To this end he issued a decree, confirming to all the tyrants of Lombardy the places they had seized. After making this concession the pope died, and was succeeded by Clement VI. The emperor, seeing with what a liberal hand the pontiff had bestowed the dominions of the empire, in order to be equally bountiful with the property of others, gave to all who had assumed sovereignty over the cities or territories of the church, the imperial authority to retain possession of them. By this means Galeotto Malatesti and his brothers became lords of Rimino, Pesaro, and Fano; Antonio da Montefeltro, of the Marca and Urbino; Gentile da Varano, of Camerino; Guido di Polenta, of Ravenna; Sinibaldo Ordelaffi, of Furli and Cesena; Giovanni Manfredi, of Faenza; Lodovico Alidossi, of Imola; and besides these, many others in divers places. Thus, of all the cities, towns, or fortresses of the church, few remained without a prince; for she did not recover herself till the time of Alexander VI., who, by the ruin of the descendants of these princes, restored the authority of the church. The emperor, when he made the concession before named, being at Tarento, signified an intention of going into Italy. In consequence of this, many battles were fought in Lombardy, and the Visconti became lords of Parma. Robert king of Naples, now died, leaving only two grandchildren, the issue of his sons Charles, who had died a considerable time before him. He ordered that the elder of the two, whose name was Giovanna or Joan, should be heiress of the kingdom, and take for her husband Andrea, son of the king of Hungary, his grandson. Andrea had not lived with her long, before she caused him to be murdered, and married another cousin, Louis, prince of Tarento. But Louis, king of Hungary, and brother of Andrea, in order to avenge his death, brought forces into Italy, and drove Queen Joan and her husband out of the kingdom. At this period a memorable circumstance took place at Rome. Niccolo di Lorenzo, often called Rienzi or Cola di Rienzi, who held the office of chancellor at Campidoglio, drove the senators from Rome and, under the title of tribune, made himself the head of the Roman republic; restoring it to its ancient form, and with so great reputation of justice and virtue, that not only the places adjacent, but the whole of Italy sent ambassadors to him. The ancient provinces, seeing Rome arise to new life, again raised their heads, and some induced by hope, others by fear, honored him as their sovereign. But Niccolo, notwithstanding his great reputation, lost all energy in the very beginning of his enterprise; and as if oppressed with the weight of so vast an undertaking, without being driven away, secretly fled to Charles, king of Bohemia, who, by the influence of the pope, and in contempt of Louis of Bavaria, had been elected emperor. Charles, to ingratiate himself with the pontiff, sent Niccolo to him, a prisoner. After some time, in imitation of Rienzi, Francesco Baroncegli seized upon the tribunate of Rome, and expelled the senators; and the pope, as the most effectual means of repressing him, drew Niccolo from his prison, sent him to Rome, and restored to him the office of tribune; so that he reoccupied the state and put Francesco to death; but the Colonnesi becoming his enemies, he too, after a short time, shared the same fate, and the senators were again restored to their office. The king of Hungary, having driven out Queen Joan, returned to his kingdom; but the pope, who chose to have the queen in the neighborhood of Rome rather than the king, effected her restoration to the sovereignty, on the condition that her husband, contenting himself with the title of prince of Tarento, should not be called king. Being the year 1350, the pope thought that the jubilee, appointed by Boniface VIII. to take place at the conclusion of each century, might be renewed at the end of each fifty years; and having issued a decree for the establishment of it, the Romans, in acknowledgment of the benefit, consented that he should send four cardinals to reform the government of the city, and appoint senators according to his own pleasure. The pope again declared Louis of Tarento, king, and in gratitude for the benefit, Queen Joan gave Avignon, her inheritance, to the church. About this time Luchino Visconti died, and his brother the archbishop, remaining lord of Milan, carried on many wars against Tuscany and his neighbors, and became very powerful. Bernabo and Galeazzo, his nephews, succeeded him; but Galeazzo soon after died, leaving Giovan Galeazzo, who shared the state with Bernabo. Charles, king of Bohemia, was then emperor, and the pontificate was occupied by Innocent VI., who sent Cardinal Egidio, a Spaniard, into Italy. He restored the reputation of the church, not only in Rome and Romagna, but throughout the whole of Italy; he recovered Bologna from the archbishop of Milan, and compelled the Romans to accept a foreign senator appointed annually by the pope. He made honorable terms with the Visconti, and routed and took prisoner, John Agut, an Englishman, who with four thousand English had fought on the side of the Ghibellines in Tuscany. Urban V., hearing of so many victories, resolved to visit Italy and Rome, whither also the emperor came; after remaining a few months, he returned to the kingdom of Bohemia, and the pope to Avignon. On the death of Urban, Gregory XI. was created pope; and, as the Cardinal Egidio was dead, Italy again recommenced her ancient discords, occasioned by the union of the other powers against the Visconti; and the pope, having first sent a legate with six thousand Bretons, came in person and established the papal court at Rome in 1376, after an absence of seventy-one years in France. To Gregory XI., succeeded Urban VI., but shortly afterwards Clement VI. was elected at Fondi by ten cardinals, who declared the appointment of Urban irregular. At this time, the Genoese threw off the yoke of the Visconti under whom they had lived many years; and between them and the Venetians several important battles were fought for the island of Tenedos. Although the Genoese were for a time successful, and held Venice in a state of siege during many months, the Venetians were at length victorious; and by the intervention of the pope, peace was made in the year 1381. In these wars, artillery was first used, having been recently invented by the Dutch. CHAPTER VII Schism in the church--Ambitious views of Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti--The pope and the Romans come to an agreement--Boniface IX. introduces the practice of Annates--Disturbance in Lombardy--The Venetians acquire dominion on terra firma--Differences between the pope and the people of Rome--Council of Pisa--Council of Constance--Filippo Visconti recovers his dominion--Giovanna II. of Naples--Political condition of Italy. A schism having thus arisen in the church, Queen Joan favored the schismatic pope, upon which Urban caused Charles of Durazzo, descended from the kings of Naples, to undertake the conquest of her dominions. Having succeeded in his object, she fled to France, and he assumed the sovereignty. The king of France, being exasperated, sent Louis of Anjou into Italy to recover the kingdom for the queen, to expel Urban from Rome, and establish the anti-pope. But in the midst of this enterprise Louis died, and his people being routed returned to France. In this conjuncture the pope went to Naples, where he put nine cardinals into prison for having taken the part of France and the anti-pope. He then became offended with the king, for having refused to make his nephew prince of Capua; and pretending not to care about it, requested he would grant him Nocera for his habitation, but, having fortified it, he prepared to deprive the king of his dominions. Upon this the king pitched his camp before the place, and the pope fled to Naples, where he put to death the cardinals whom he had imprisoned. From thence he proceeded to Rome, and, to acquire influence, created twenty-nine cardinals. At this time Charles, king of Naples, went to Hungary, where, having been made king, he was shortly afterward killed in battle, leaving a wife and two children at Naples. About the same time Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti murdered Bernabo his uncle and took the entire sovereignty upon himself; and, not content with being duke of Milan and sovereign of the whole of Lombardy, designed to make himself master of Tuscany; but while he was intent upon occupying the province with the ultimate view of making himself king of Italy, he died. Boniface IX. succeeded Urban VI. The anti-pope, Clement VI., also died, and Benedict XIII. was appointed his successor. Many English, Germans, and Bretons served at this period in the armies of Italy, commanded partly by those leaders who had from time to time authority in the country, and partly by such as the pontiffs sent, when they were at Avignon. With these warriors the princes of Italy long carried on their wars, till the coming of Lodovico da Cento of Romagna, who formed a body of Italian soldiery, called the Company of St. George, whose valor and discipline soon caused the foreign troops to fall into disrepute, and gave reputation to the native forces of the country, of which the princes afterward availed themselves in their wars with each other. The pope, Boniface IX., being at enmity with the Romans, went to Scesi, where he remained till the jubilee of 1400, when the Romans, to induce him to return to the city, consented to receive another foreign senator of his appointing, and also allowed him to fortify the castle of Saint Angelo: having returned upon these conditions, in order to enrich the church, he ordained that everyone, upon vacating a benefice, should pay a year's value of it to the Apostolic Chamber. After the death of Giovanni Galeazzo, duke of Milan, although he left two children, Giovanmaria and Filippo, the state was divided into many parts, and in the troubles which ensued Giovanmaria was slain. Filippo remained some time in the castle of Pavia, from which, through the fidelity and virtue of the castellan, he escaped. Among others who occupied cities possessed by his father, was Guglielmo della Scala, who, being banished, fell into the hands of Francesco de Carrera, lord of Padua, by whose means he recovered the state of Verona, in which he only remained a short time, for he was poisoned, by order of Francesco, and the city taken from him. These things occasioned the people of Vicenza, who had lived in security under the protection of the Visconti, to dread the greatness of the lord of Padua, and they placed themselves under the Venetians, who, engaging in arms with him, first took Verona and then Padua. At this time Pope Boniface died, and was succeeded by Innocent VII. The people of Rome supplicated him to restore to them their fortresses and their liberty; but as he would not consent to their petition, they called to their assistance Ladislaus, king of Naples. Becoming reconciled to the people, the pope returned to Rome, and made his nephew Lodovico count of La Marca. Innocent soon after died, and Gregory XII. was created, upon the understanding to renounce the papacy whenever the anti-pope would also renounce it. By the advice of the cardinals, in order to attempt the reunion of the church, Benedict, the anti-pope, came to Porto Venere, and Gregory to Lucca, where they made many endeavors, but effected nothing. Upon this, the cardinals of both the popes abandoned them, Benedict going to Spain, and Gregory to Rimini. On the other hand, the cardinals, with the favor of Balthazar Cossa, cardinal and legate of Bologna, appointed a council at Pisa, where they created Alexander V., who immediately excommunicated King Ladislaus, and invested Louis of Anjou with the kingdom; this prince, with the Florentines, Genoese, and Venetians, attacked Ladislaus and drove him from Rome. In the head of the war Alexander died, and Balthazar Cossa succeeded him, with the title of John XXIII. Leaving Bologna, where he was elected, he went to Rome, and found there Louis of Anjou, who had brought the army from Provence, and coming to an engagement with Ladislaus, routed him. But by the mismanagement of the leaders, they were unable to prosecute the victory, so that the king in a short time gathered strength and retook Rome. Louis fled to Provence, the pope to Bologna; where, considering how he might diminish the power of Ladislaus, he caused Sigismund, king of Hungary, to be elected emperor, and advised him to come to Italy. Having a personal interview at Mantua, they agreed to call a general council, in which the church should be united; and having effected this, the pope thought he should be fully enabled to oppose the forces of his enemies. At this time there were three popes, Gregory, Benedict, and Giovanni, which kept the church weak and in disrepute. The city of Constance, in Germany, was appointed for the holding of the council, contrary to the expectation of Pope John. And although the death of Ladislaus had removed the cause which induced the pope to call the council, still, having promised to attend, he could not refuse to go there. In a few months after his arrival at Constance he discovered his error, but it was too late; endeavoring to escape, he was taken, put into prison, and compelled to renounce the papacy. Gregory, one of the anti-popes, sent his renunciation; Benedict, the other, refusing to do the same, was condemned as a heretic; but, being abandoned by his cardinals, he complied, and the council elected Oddo, of the Colonnesi family, pope, by the title of Martin V. Thus the church was united under one head, after having been divided by many pontiffs. Filippo Visconti was, as we have said, in the fortress of Pavia. But Fazino Cane, who in the affairs of Lombardy had become lord of Vercelli, Alessandria, Novara, and Tortona, and had amassed great riches, finding his end approach, and having no children, left his wife Beatrice heiress of his estates, and arranged with his friends that a marriage should be effected between her and Filippo. By this union Filippo became powerful, and reacquired Milan and the whole of Lombardy. By way of being grateful for these numerous favors, as princes commonly are, he accused Beatrice of adultery and caused her to be put to death. Finding himself now possessed of greater power, he began to think of warring with Tuscany and of prosecuting the designs of Giovanni Galeazzo, his father. Ladislaus, king of Naples, at his death, left to his sister Giovanna the kingdom and a large army, under the command of the principal leaders of Italy, among the first of whom was Sforza of Cotignuola, reputed by the soldiery of that period to be a very valiant man. The queen, to shun the disgrace of having kept about her person a certain Pandolfello, whom she had brought up, took for her husband Giacopo della Marca, a Frenchman of the royal line, on the condition that he should be content to be called Prince of Tarento, and leave to her the title and government of the kingdom. But the soldiery, upon his arrival in Naples, proclaimed him king; so that between the husband and the wife wars ensued; and although they contended with varying success, the queen at length obtained the superiority, and became an enemy of the pope. Upon this, in order to reduce her to necessity, and that she might be compelled to throw herself into his lap, Sforza suddenly withdrew from her service without giving her any pervious notice of his intention to do so. She thus found herself at once unarmed, and not having any other source, sought the assistance of Alfonzo, king of Aragon and Sicily, adopted him as her son, and engaged Braccio of Montone as her captain, who was of equal reputation in arms with Sforza, and inimical to the pope, on account of his having taken possession of Perugia and some other places belonging to the church. After this, peace was made between the queen and the pontiff; but King Alfonzo, expecting she would treat him as she had her husband, endeavored secretly to make himself master of the strongholds; but, possessing acute observation, she was beforehand with him, and fortified herself in the castle of Naples. Suspicions increasing between them, they had recourse to arms, and the queen, with the assistance of Sforza, who again resumed her service, drove Alfonzo out of Naples, deprived him of his succession, and adopted Louis of Anjou in his stead. Hence arose new contests between Braccio, who took the part of Alfonzo, and Sforza, who defended the cause of the queen. In the course of the war, Sforza was drowned in endeavoring to pass the river Pescara; the queen was thus again unarmed, and would have been driven out of the kingdom, but for the assistance of Filippo Visconti, the duke of Milan, who compelled Alfonzo to return to Aragon. Braccio, undaunted at the departure of Alfonzo, continued the enterprise against the queen, and besieged L'Aquilla; but the pope, thinking the greatness of Braccio injurious to the church, received into his pay Francesco, the son of Sforza, who went in pursuit of Braccio to L'Aquilla, where he routed and slew him. Of Braccio remained Oddo, his son, from whom the pope took Perugia, and left him the state of Montone alone; but he was shortly afterward slain in Romagna, in the service of the Florentines; so that of those who had fought under Braccio, Niccolo Piccinino remained of greatest reputation. Having continued our general narration nearly to the period which we at first proposed to reach, what remains is of little importance, except the war which the Florentines and Venetians carried on against Filippo duke of Milan, of which an account will be given when we speak particularly of Florence. I shall, therefore, continue it no further, briefly explaining the condition of Italy in respect of her princes and her arms, at the period to which we have now come. Joan II. held Naples, La Marca, the Patrimony and Romagna; some of these places obeyed the church, while others were held by vicars or tyrants, as Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, by those of the House of Este; Faenza by the Manfredi; Imola by the Alidossi; Furli by the Ordelaffi; Rimini and Psaro by the Malatesti; and Camerino by those of Varano. Part of Lombardy was subject to the Duke Filippo, part to the Venetians; for all those who had held single states were set aside, except the House of Gonzaga, which ruled in Mantua. The greater part of Tuscany was subject to the Florentines. Lucca and Sienna alone were governed by their own laws; Lucca was under the Guinigi; Sienna was free. The Genoese, being sometimes free, at others, subject to the kings of France or the Visconti, lived unrespected, and may be enumerated among the minor powers. None of the principal states were armed with their own proper forces. Duke Filippo kept himself shut up in his apartments, and would not allow himself to be seen; his wars were managed by commissaries. The Venetians, when they directed their attention to terra firma, threw off those arms which had made them terrible upon the seas, and falling into the customs of Italy, submitted their forces to the direction of others. The practice of arms being unsuitable to priests or women, the pope and Queen Joan of Naples were compelled by necessity to submit to the same system which others practiced from defect of judgment. The Florentines also adopted the same custom, for having, by their frequent divisions, destroyed the nobility, and their republic being wholly in the hands of men brought up to trade, they followed the usages and example of others. Thus the arms of Italy were either in the hands of the lesser princes, or of men who possessed no state; for the minor princes did not adopt the practice of arms from any desire of glory, but for the acquisition of either property or safety. The others (those who possessed no state) being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honor upon themselves. The most noticed among the latter were Carmignola, Francesco Sforza, Niccolo Piccinino the pupil of Braccio, Agnolo della Pergola, Lorenzo di Micheletto Attenduli, il Tartaglia, Giacopaccio, Cecolini da Perugia, Niccolo da Tolentino, Guido Torello, Antonia dal Ponte ad Era, and many others. With these, were those lords of whom I have before spoken, to which may be added the barons of Rome, the Colonnesi and the Orsini, with other lords and gentlemen of the kingdoms of Naples and Lombardy, who, being constantly in arms, had such an understanding among themselves, and so contrived to accommodate things to their own convenience, that of those who were at war, most commonly both sides were losers; and they had made the practice of arms so totally ridiculous, that the most ordinary leader, possessed of true valor, would have covered these men with disgrace, whom, with so little prudence, Italy honored. With these idle princes and such contemptible arms, my history must, therefore, be filled; to which, before I descend, it will be necessary, as was at first proposed, to speak of the origin of Florence, that it may be clearly understood what was the state of the city in those times, and by what means, through the labours of a thousand years, she became so imbecile. BOOK II CHAPTER I The custom of ancient republics to plant colonies, and the advantage of it--Increased population tends to make countries more healthy--Origin of Florence--Aggrandizement of Florence--Origin of the name of Florence--Destruction of Florence by Totila--The Florentines take Fiesole--The first division in Florence, and the cause of it--Buondelmonti--Buondelmonti slain--Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence--Guelphic families--Ghibelline families--The two factions come to terms. Among the great and wonderful institutions of the republics and principalities of antiquity that have now gone into disuse, was that by means of which towns and cities were from time to time established; and there is nothing more worthy the attention of a great prince, or of a well-regulated republic, or that confers so many advantages upon a province, as the settlement of new places, where men are drawn together for mutual accommodation and defense. This may easily be done, by sending people to reside in recently acquired or uninhabited countries. Besides causing the establishment of new cities, these removals render a conquered country more secure, and keep the inhabitants of a province properly distributed. Thus, deriving the greatest attainable comfort, the inhabitants increase rapidly, are more prompt to attack others, and defend themselves with greater assurance. This custom, by the unwise practice of princes and republics, having gone into desuetude, the ruin and weakness of territories has followed; for this ordination is that by which alone empires are made secure, and countries become populated. Safety is the result of it; because the colony which a prince establishes in a newly acquired country, is like a fortress and a guard, to keep the inhabitants in fidelity and obedience. Neither can a province be wholly occupied and preserve a proper distribution of its inhabitants without this regulation; for all districts are not equally healthy, and hence some will abound to overflowing, while others are void; and if there be no method of withdrawing them from places in which they increase too rapidly, and planting them where they are too few the country would soon be wasted; for one part would become a desert, and the other a dense and wretched population. And, as nature cannot repair this disorder, it is necessary that industry should effect it, for unhealthy localities become wholesome when a numerous population is brought into them. With cultivation the earth becomes fruitful, and the air is purified with fires--remedies which nature cannot provide. The city of Venice proves the correctness of these remarks. Being placed in a marshy and unwholesome situation, it became healthy only by the number of industrious individuals who were drawn together. Pisa, too, on account of its unwholesome air, was never filled with inhabitants, till the Saracens, having destroyed Genoa and rendered her rivers unnavigable, caused the Genoese to migrate thither in vast numbers, and thus render her populous and powerful. Where the use of colonies is not adopted, conquered countries are held with great difficulty; districts once uninhabited still remain so, and those which populate quickly are not relieved. Hence it is that many places of the world, and particularly in Italy, in comparison of ancient times, have become deserts. This has wholly arisen and proceeded from the negligence of princes, who have lost all appetite for true glory, and of republics which no longer possess institutions that deserve praise. In ancient times, by means of colonies, new cities frequently arose, and those already begun were enlarged, as was the case with Florence, which had its beginning from Fiesole, and its increase from colonies. It is exceedingly probable, as Dante and Giovanni Villani show, that the city of Fiesole, being situate upon the summit of the mountain, in order that her markets might be more frequented, and afford greater accommodation for those who brought merchandise, would appoint the place in which to told them, not upon the hill, but in the plain, between the foot of the mountain and the river Arno. I imagine these markets to have occasioned the first erections that were made in those places, and to have induced merchants to wish for commodious warehouses for the reception of their goods, and which, in time, became substantial buildings. And afterward, when the Romans, having conquered the Carthaginians, rendered Italy secure from foreign invasion, these buildings would greatly increase; for men never endure inconveniences unless some powerful necessity compels them. Thus, although the fear of war induces a willingness to occupy places strong and difficult of access, as soon as the cause of alarm is removed, men gladly resort to more convenient and easily attainable localities. Hence, the security to which the reputation of the Roman republic gave birth, caused the inhabitants, having begun in the manner described, to increase so much as to form a town, this was at first called the Villa Arnina. After this occurred the civil wars between Marius and Sylla; then those of Cæsar, and Pompey; and next those of the murderers of Cæsar, and the parties who undertook to avenge his death. Therefore, first by Sylla, and afterward by the three Roman citizens, who, having avenged the death of Cæsar, divided the empire among themselves, colonies were sent to Fiesole, which, either in part or in whole, fixed their habitations in the plain, near to the then rising town. By this increase, the place became so filled with dwellings, that it might with propriety be enumerated among the cities of Italy. There are various opinions concerning the derivation of the word Florentia. Some suppose it to come from Florinus, one of the principal persons of the colony; others think it was originally not Florentia, but Fluentia, and suppose the word derived from _fluente_, or flowing of the Arno; and in support of their opinion, adduce a passage from Pliny, who says, "the Fluentini are near the flowing of the Arno." This, however, may be incorrect, for Pliny speaks of the locality of the Florentini, not of the name by which they were known. And it seems as if the word Fluentini were a corruption, because Frontinus and Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote at nearly the same period as Pliny, call them Florentia and Florentini; for, in the time of Tiberius, they were governed like the other cities of Italy. Besides, Cornelius refers to the coming of ambassadors from the Florentines, to beg of the emperor that the waters of the Chiane might not be allowed to overflow their country; and it is not at all reasonable that the city should have two names at the same time. Therefore I think that, however derived, the name was always Florentia, and that whatever the origin might be, it occurred under the Roman empire, and began to be noticed by writers in the times of the first emperors. When the Roman empire was afflicted by the barbarians, Florence was destroyed by Totila, king of the Ostrogoths; and after a period of two hundred and fifty years, rebuilt by Charlemagne; from whose time, till the year 1215, she participated in the fortune of the rest of Italy; and, during this period, first the descendants of Charles, then the Berengarii, and lastly the German emperors, governed her, as in our general treatise we have shown. Nor could the Florentines, during those ages, increase in numbers, or effect anything worthy of memory, on account of the influence of those to whom they were subject. Nevertheless, in the year 1010, upon the feast of St. Romolo, a solemn day with the Fiesolani, they took and destroyed Fiesole, which must have been performed either with the consent of the emperors, or during the interim from the death of one to the creation of his successor, when all assumed a larger share of liberty. But then the pontiffs acquired greater influence, and the authority of the German emperors was in its wane, all the places of Italy governed themselves with less respect for the prince; so that, in the time of Henry III. the mind of the country was divided between the emperor and the church. However, the Florentines kept themselves united until the year 1215, rendering obedience to the ruling power, and anxious only to preserve their own safety. But, as the diseases which attack our bodies are more dangerous and mortal in proportion as they are delayed, so Florence, though late to take part in the sects of Italy, was afterward the more afflicted by them. The cause of her first division is well known, having been recorded by Dante and many other writers; I shall, however, briefly notice it. Among the most powerful families of Florence were the Buondelmonti and the Uberti; next to these were the Amidei and the Donati. Of the Donati family there was a rich widow who had a daughter of exquisite beauty, for whom, in her own mind, she had fixed upon Buondelmonti, a young gentleman, the head of the Buondelmonti family, as her husband; but either from negligence, or, because she thought it might be accomplished at any time, she had not made known her intention, when it happened that the cavalier betrothed himself to a maiden of the Amidei family. This grieved the Donati widow exceedingly; but she hoped, with her daughter's beauty, to disturb the arrangement before the celebration of the marriage; and from an upper apartment, seeing Buondelmonti approach her house alone, she descended, and as he was passing she said to him, "I am glad to learn you have chosen a wife, although I had reserved my daughter for you;" and, pushing the door open, presented her to his view. The cavalier, seeing the beauty of the girl, which was very uncommon, and considering the nobility of her blood, and her portion not being inferior to that of the lady whom he had chosen, became inflamed with such an ardent desire to possess her, that, not thinking of the promise given, or the injury he committed in breaking it, or of the evils which his breach of faith might bring upon himself, said, "Since you have reserved her for me, I should be very ungrateful indeed to refuse her, being yet at liberty to choose;" and without any delay married her. As soon as the fact became known, the Amidei and the Uberti, whose families were allied, were filled with rage, and having assembled with many others, connections of the parties, they concluded that the injury could not be tolerated without disgrace, and that the only vengeance proportionate to the enormity of the offence would be to put Buondelmonti to death. And although some took into consideration the evils that might ensue upon it, Mosca Lamberti said, that those who talk of many things effect nothing, using that trite and common adage, _Cosa fatta capo ha_. Thereupon, they appointed to the execution of the murder Mosca himself, Stiatti Uberti, Lambertuccio Amidei, and Oderigo Fifanti, who, on the morning of Easter day, concealed themselves in a house of the Amidei, situate between the old bridge and St. Stephen's, and as Buondelmonti was passing upon a white horse, thinking it as easy a matter to forget an injury as reject an alliance, he was attacked by them at the foot of the bridge, and slain close by a statue of Mars. This murder divided the whole city; one party espousing the cause of the Buondelmonti, the other that of the Uberti; and as these families possessed men and means of defense, they contended with each other for many years, without one being able to destroy the other. Florence continued in these troubles till the time of Frederick II., who, being king of Naples, endeavored to strengthen himself against the church; and, to give greater stability to his power in Tuscany, favored the Uberti and their followers, who, with his assistance, expelled the Buondelmonti; thus our city, as all the rest of Italy had long time been, became divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines; and as it will not be superfluous, I shall record the names of the families which took part with each faction. Those who adopted the cause of the Guelphs were the Buondelmonti, Nerli, Rossi, Frescobaldi, Mozzi, Bardi, Pulci, Gherardini, Foraboschi, Bagnesi, Guidalotti, Sacchetti, Manieri, Lucardesi, Chiaramontesi, Compiobbesi, Cavalcanti, Giandonati, Gianfigliazzi, Scali, Gualterotti, Importuni, Bostichi, Tornaquinci, Vecchietti, Tosinghi, Arrigucci, Agli, Sizi, Adimari, Visdomini, Donati, Passi, della Bella, Ardinghi, Tedaldi, Cerchi. Of the Ghibelline faction were the Uberti, Manelli, Ubriachi, Fifanti, Amidei, Infangati, Malespini, Scolari, Guidi, Galli, Cappiardi, Lamberti, Soldanieri, Cipriani, Toschi, Amieri, Palermini, Migliorelli, Pigli, Barucci, Cattani, Agolanti, Brunelleschi, Caponsacchi, Elisei, Abati, Tidaldini, Giuochi, and Galigai. Besides the noble families on each side above enumerated, each party was joined by many of the higher ranks of the people, so that the whole city was corrupted with this division. The Guelphs being expelled, took refuge in the Upper Val d'Arno, where part of their castles and strongholds were situated, and where they strengthened and fortified themselves against the attacks of their enemies. But, upon the death of Frederick, the most unbiased men, and those who had the greatest authority with the people, considered that it would be better to effect the reunion of the city, than, by keeping her divided, cause her ruin. They therefore induced the Guelphs to forget their injuries and return, and the Ghibellines to lay aside their jealousies and receive them with cordiality. CHAPTER II New form of government in Florence--Military establishments--The greatness of Florence--Movements of the Ghibellines--Ghibellines driven out of the city--Guelphs routed by the forces of the king of Naples--Florence in the power of the king of Naples--Project of the Ghibellines to destroy Florence opposed by Farinata degli Uberti--Adventures of the Guelphs of Florence--The pope gives his standard to the Guelphs--Fears of the Ghibellines and their preparations for the defense of their power--Establishment of trades' companies, and their authority--Count Guido Novello expelled--He goes to Prato--The Guelphs restored to the city--The Ghibellines quit Florence--The Florentines reform the government in favor of the Guelphs--The pope endeavors to restore the Ghibellines and excommunicates Florence--Pope Nicholas III. endeavors to abate the power of Charles king of Naples. Being united, the Florentines thought the time favorable for the ordination of a free government, and that it would be desirable to provide their means of defense before the new emperor should acquire strength. They therefore divided the city into six parts, and elected twelve citizens, two for each sixth, to govern the whole. These were called Anziani, and were elected annually. To remove the cause of those enmities which had been observed to arise from judicial decisions, they provided two judges from some other state,--one called captain of the people, the other podesta, or provost,--whose duty it was to decide in cases, whether civil or criminal, which occurred among the people. And as order cannot be preserved without a sufficient force for the defense of it, they appointed twenty banners in the city, and seventy-six in the country, upon the rolls of which the names of all the youth were armed; and it was ordered that everyone should appear armed, under his banner, whenever summoned, whether by the captain of the people or the Anziani. They had ensigns according to the kind of arms they used, the bowmen being under one ensign, and the swordsmen, or those who carried a target, under another; and every year, upon the day of Pentecost, ensigns were given with great pomp to the new men, and new leaders were appointed for the whole establishment. To give importance to their armies, and to serve as a point of refuge for those who were exhausted in the fight, and from which, having become refreshed, they might again make head against the enemy, they provided a large car, drawn by two oxen, covered with red cloth, upon which was an ensign of white and red. When they intended to assemble the army, this car was brought into the New Market, and delivered with pomp to the heads of the people. To give solemnity to their enterprises, they had a bell called Martinella, which was rung during a whole month before the forces left the city, in order that the enemy might have time to provide for his defense; so great was the virtue then existing among men, and with so much generosity of mind were they governed, that as it is now considered a brave and prudent act to assail an unprovided enemy, in those days it would have been thought disgraceful, and productive only of a fallacious advantage. This bell was also taken with the army, and served to regulate the keeping and relief of guard, and other matters necessary in the practice of war. With these ordinations, civil and military, the Florentines established their liberty. Nor is it possible to imagine the power and authority Florence in a short time acquired. She became not only the head of Tuscany, but was enumerated among the first cities of Italy, and would have attained greatness of the most exalted kind, had she not been afflicted with the continual divisions of her citizens. They remained under the this government ten years, during which time they compelled the people of Pistoria, Arezzo, and Sienna, to enter into league with them; and returning with the army from Sienna, they took Volterra, destroyed some castles, and led the inhabitants to Florence. All these enterprises were effected by the advice of the Guelphs, who were much more powerful than the Ghibellines, for the latter were hated by the people as well on account of their haughty bearing while in power, during the time of Frederick, as because the church party was in more favor than that of the emperor; for with the aid of the church they hoped to preserve their liberty, but, with the emperor, they were apprehensive of losing it. The Ghibellines, in the meantime, finding themselves divested of authority, could not rest, but watched for an occasion of repossessing the government; and they thought the favorable moment come, when they found that Manfred, son of Frederick, had made himself sovereign of Naples, and reduced the power of the church. They, therefore, secretly communicated with him, to resume the management of the state, but could not prevent their proceedings from coming to the knowledge of the Anziani, who immediately summoned the Uberti to appear before them; but instead of obeying, they took arms and fortified themselves in their houses. The people, enraged at this, armed themselves, and with the assistance of the Guelphs, compelled them to quit the city, and, with the whole Ghibelline party, withdraw to Sienna. They then asked assistance of Manfred king of Naples, and by the able conduct of Farinata degli Uberti, the Guelphs were routed by the king's forces upon the river Arbia, with so great slaughter, that those who escaped, thinking Florence lost, did not return thither, but sought refuge at Lucca. Manfred sent the Count Giordano, a man of considerable reputation in arms, to command his forces. He after the victory, went with the Ghibellines to Florence, and reduced the city entirely to the king's authority, annulling the magistracies and every other institution that retained any appearance of freedom. This injury, committed with little prudence, excited the ardent animosity of the people, and their enmity against the Ghibellines, whose ruin it eventually caused, was increased to the highest pitch. The necessities of the kingdom compelling the Count Giordano to return to Naples, he left at Florence as regal vicar the Count Guido Novallo, lord of Casentino, who called a council of Ghibellines at Empoli. There it was concluded, with only one dissenting voice, that in order to preserve their power in Tuscany, it would be necessary to destroy Florence, as the only means of compelling the Guelphs to withdraw their support from the party of the church. To this so cruel a sentence, given against such a noble city, there was not a citizen who offered any opposition, except Farinata degli Uberti, who openly defended her, saying he had not encountered so many dangers and difficulties, but in the hope of returning to his country; that he still wished for what he had so earnestly sought, nor would he refuse the blessing which fortune now presented, even though by using it, he were to become as much an enemy of those who thought otherwise, as he had been of the Guelphs; and that no one need be afraid the city would occasion the ruin of their country, for he hoped that the valor which had expelled the Guelphs, would be sufficient to defend her. Farinata was a man of undaunted resolution, and excelled greatly in military affairs: being the head of the Ghibelline party, and in high estimation with Manfred, his authority put a stop to the discussion, and induced the rest to think of some other means of preserving their power. The Lucchese being threatened with the anger of the count, for affording refuge to the Guelphs after the battle of the Arbia, could allow them to remain no longer; so leaving Lucca, they went to Bologna, from whence they were called by the Guelphs of Parma against the Ghibellines of that city, where, having overcome the enemy, the possessions of the latter were assigned to them; so that having increased in honors and riches, and learning that Pope Clement had invited Charles of Anjou to take the kingdom from Manfred, they sent ambassadors to the pope to offer him their services. His holiness not only received them as friends, but gave them a standard upon which his insignia were wrought. It was ever after borne by the Guelphs in battle, and is still used at Florence. Charles having taken the kingdom from Manfred, and slain him, to which success the Guelphs of Florence had contributed, their party became more powerful, and that of the Ghibellines proportionately weaker. In consequence of this, those who with Count Novello governed the city, thought it would be advisable to attach to themselves, with some concession, the people whom they had previously aggravated with every species of injury; but these remedies which, if applied before the necessity came would have been beneficial, being offered when they were no longer considered favors, not only failed of producing any beneficial results to the donors, but hastened their ruin. Thinking, however, to win them to their interests, they restored some of the honors of which they had deprived them. They elected thirty-six citizens from the higher rank of the people, to whom, with two cavaliers, knights or gentlemen, brought from Bologna, the reformation of the government of the city was confided. As soon as they met, they classed the whole of the people according to their arts or trades, and over each art appointed a magistrate, whose duty was to distribute justice to those placed under him. They gave to each company or trade a banner, under which every man was expected to appear armed, whenever the city required it. These arts were at first twelve, seven major and five minor. The minor arts were afterward increased to fourteen, so that the whole made, as at present, twenty-one. The thirty-six reformers also effected other changes for the common good. Count Guido proposed to lay a tax upon the citizens for the support of the soldiery; but during the discussion found so much difficulty, that he did not dare to use force to obtain it; and thinking he had now lost the government, called together the leaders of the Ghibellines, and they determined to wrest from the people those powers which they had with so little prudence conceded. When they thought they had sufficient force, the thirty-six being assembled, they caused a tumult to be raised, which so alarmed them that they retired to their houses, when suddenly the banners of the Arts were unfurled, and many armed men drawn to them. These, learning that Count Guido and his followers were at St. John's, moved toward the Holy Trinity, and chose Giovanni Soldanieri for their leader. The count, on the other hand, being informed where the people were assembled, proceeded in that direction; nor did the people shun the fight, for, meeting their enemies where now stands the residence of the Tornaquinci, they put the count to flight, with the loss of many of his followers. Terrified with this result, he was afraid his enemies would attack him in the night, and that his own party, finding themselves beaten, would murder him. This impression took such hold of his mind that, without attempting any other remedy, he sought his safety rather in flight than in combat, and, contrary to the advice of the rectors, went with all his people to Prato. But, on finding himself in a place of safety, his fears fled; perceiving his error he wished to correct it, and on the following day, as soon as light appeared, he returned with his people to Florence, to enter the city by force which he had abandoned in cowardice. But his design did not succeed; for the people, who had had difficulty in expelling him, kept him out with facility; so that with grief and shame he went to the Casentino, and the Ghibellines withdrew to their villas. The people being victorious, by the advice of those who loved the good of the republic, determined to reunite the city, and recall all the citizens as well Guelph as Ghibelline, who yet remained without. The Guelphs returned, after having been expelled six years; the recent offences of the Ghibellines were forgiven, and themselves restored to their country. They were, however, most cordially hated, both by the people and the Guelphs, for the latter could not forget their exile, and the former but too well remembered their tyranny when they were in power; the result was, that the minds of neither party became settled. While affairs were in this state at Florence, a report prevailed that Corradino, nephew of Manfred, was coming with a force from Germany, for the conquest of Naples; this gave the Ghibellines hope of recovering power, and the Guelphs, considering how they should provide for their security, requested assistance from Charles for their defense, in case of the passage of Corradino. The coming of the forces of Charles rendered the Guelphs insolent, and so alarmed the Ghibellines that they fled the city, without being driven out, two days before the arrival of the troops. The Ghibellines having departed, the Florentines reorganized the government of the city, and elected twelve men who, as the supreme power, were to hold their magistracy two months, and were not called Anziani or "ancients," but Buono Uomini or "good men." They also formed a council of eighty citizens, which they called the Credenza. Besides these, from each sixth, thirty citizens were chosen, who, with the Credenza and the twelve Buono Uomini, were called the General Council. They also appointed another council of one hundred and twenty citizens, elected from the people and the nobility, to which all those things were finally referred that had undergone the consideration of the other councils, and which distributed the offices of the republic. Having formed this government, they strengthened the Guelphic party by appointing its friends to the principal offices of state, and a variety of other measures, that they might be enabled to defend themselves against the Ghibellines, whose property they divided into three parts, one of which was applied to the public use, another to the Capitani, and the third was assigned to the Guelphs, in satisfaction of the injuries they had received. The pope, too, in order to keep Tuscany in the Guelphic interest, made Charles imperial vicar over the province. While the Florentines, by virtue of the new government, preserved their influence at home by laws, and abroad with arms, the pope died, and after a dispute, which continued two years, Gregory X. was elected, being then in Syria, where he had long lived; but not having witnessed the working of parties, he did not estimate them in the manner his predecessors had done, and passing through Florence on his way to France, he thought it would be the office of a good pastor to unite the city, and so far succeeded that the Florentines consented to receive the Syndics of the Ghibellines in Florence to consider the terms of their recall. They effected an agreement, but the Ghibellines without were so terrified that they did not venture to return. The pope laid the whole blame upon the city, and being enraged excommunicated her, in which state of contumacy she remained as long as the pontiff lived; but was reblessed by his successor Innocent V. The pontificate was afterward occupied by Nicholas III. of the Orsini family. It has to be remarked that it was invariably the custom of the popes to be jealous of those whose power in Italy had become great, even when its growth had been occasioned by the favors of the church; and as they always endeavored to destroy it, frequent troubles and changes were the result. Their fear of a powerful person caused them to increase the influence of one previously weak; his becoming great caused him also to be feared, and his being feared made them seek the means of destroying him. This mode of thinking and operation occasioned the kingdom of Naples to be taken from Manfred and given to Charles, but as soon as the latter became powerful his ruin was resolved upon. Actuated by these motives, Nicholas III. contrived that, with the influence of the emperor, the government of Tuscany should be taken from Charles, and Latino his legate was therefore sent into the province in the name of the empire. CHAPTER III Changes in Florence--The Ghibellines recalled--New form of government in Florence--The Signory created--Victory over the Aretins--The Gonfalonier of Justice created--Ubaldo Ruffoli the first Gonfalonier--Giano della Bella--New reform by his advice--Giano della Bella becomes a voluntary exile--Dissensions between the people and the nobility--The tumults composed--Reform of Government--Public buildings--The prosperous state of the city. Florence was at this time in a very unhappy condition; for the great Guelphic families had become insolent, and set aside the authority of the magistrates; so that murders and other atrocities were daily committed, and the perpetrators escaped unpunished, under the protection of one or other of the nobility. The leaders of the people, in order to restrain this insolence, determined to recall those who had been expelled, and thus gave the legate an opportunity of uniting the city. The Ghibellines returned, and, instead of twelve governors, fourteen were appointed, seven for each party, who held their office one year, and were to be chosen by the pope. The Florentines lived under this government two years, till the pontificate of Martin, who restored to Charles all the authority which had been taken from him by Nicholas, so that parties were again active in Tuscany; for the Florentines took arms against the emperor's governor, and to deprive the Ghibellines of power, and restrain the nobility, established a new form of government. This was in the year 1282, and the companies of the Arts, since magistrates had been appointed and colors given to them, had acquired so great influence, that of their own authority they ordered that, instead of fourteen citizens, three should be appointed and called Priors, to hold the government of the republic two months, and chosen from either the people or the nobility. After the expiration of the first magistracy they were augmented to six, that one might be chosen from each sixth of the city, and this number was preserved till the year 1342, when the city was divided into quarters, and the Priors became eight, although upon some occasions during the interim they were twelve. This government, as will be seen hereafter, occasioned the ruin of the nobility; for the people by various causes excluded them from all participation in it, and then trampled upon them without respect. The nobles at first, owing to their divisions among themselves, made no opposition; and each being anxious to rob the other of influence in the state, they lost it altogether. To this government a palace was given, in which they were to reside constantly, and all requisite officers were appointed; it having been previously the custom of councils and magistrates to assemble in churches. At first they were only called Priors, but to increase their distinction the word signori, or lords, was soon afterward adopted. The Florentines remained for some time in domestic quiet, during which they made war with the Aretins for having expelled the Guelphs, and obtained a complete victory over them at Campaldino. The city being increased in riches and population, it was found expedient to extend the walls, the circle of which was enlarged to the extent it at present remains, although its diameter was previously only the space between the old bridge and the church of St. Lorenzo. Wars abroad and peace within the city had caused the Guelph and Ghibelline factions to become almost extinct; and the only party feeling which seemed occasionally to glow, was that which naturally exists in all cities between the higher classes and the people; for the latter, wishing to live in conformity with the laws, and the former to be themselves the rulers of the people, it was not possible for them to abide in perfect amity together. This ungenial disposition, while their fear of the Ghibellines kept them in order, did not discover itself, but no sooner were they subdued than it broke forth, and not a day passed without some of the populace being injured, while the laws were insufficient to procure redress, for every noble with his relations and friends defended himself against the forces of the Priors and the Capitano. To remedy this evil, the leaders of the Arts' companies ordered that every Signory at the time of entering upon the duties of office should appoint a Gonfalonier of Justice, chosen from the people, and place a thousand armed men at his disposal divided into twenty companies of fifty men each, and that he, with his gonfalon or banner and his forces, should be ready to enforce the execution of the laws whenever called upon, either by the Signors themselves or the Capitano. The first elected to this high office was Ubaldo Ruffoli. This man unfurled his gonfalon, and destroyed the houses of the Galletti, on account of a member of that family having slain one of the Florentine people in France. The violent animosities among the nobility enabled the companies of the Arts to establish this law with facility; and the former no sooner saw the provision which had been made against them than they felt the acrimonious spirit with which it was enforced. At first it impressed them with greater terror, but they soon after returned to their accustomed insolence, for one or more of their body always making part of the Signory, gave them opportunities of impeding the Gonfalonier, so that he could not perform the duties of his office. Besides this, the accuser always required a witness of the injury he had received, and no one dared to give evidence against the nobility. Thus in a short time Florence again fell into the same disorders as before, and the tyranny exercised against the people was as great as ever; for the decisions of justice were either prevented or delayed, and sentences were not carried into execution. In this unhappy state, the people not knowing what to do, Giano della Bella, of a very noble family, and a lover of liberty, encouraged the heads of the Arts to reform the constitution of the city; and by his advice it was ordered that the Gonfalonier should reside with the Priors, and have four thousand men at his command. They deprived the nobility of the right to sit in the Signory. They condemned the associates of a criminal to the same penalty as himself, and ordered that public report should be taken as evidence. By these laws, which were called the ordinations of justice, the people acquired great influence, and Giano della Bella not a small share of trouble; for he was thoroughly hated by the great, as the destroyer of their power, while the opulent among the people envied him, for they thought he possessed too great authority. This became very evident upon the first occasion that presented itself. It happened that a man from the class of the people was killed in a riot, in which several of the nobility had taken a part, and among the rest Corso Donati, to whom, as the most forward of the party, the death was attributed. He was, therefore, taken by the captain of the people, and whether he was really innocent of the crime or the Capitano was afraid of condemning him, he was acquitted. This acquittal displeased the people so much, that, seizing their arms, they ran to the house of Giano della Bella, to beg that he would compel the execution of those laws which he had himself made. Giano, who wished Corso to be punished, did not insist upon their laying down their arms, as many were of opinion he ought to have done, but advised them to go to the Signory, complain of the fact, and beg that they would take it into consideration. The people, full of wrath, thinking themselves insulted by the Capitano and abandoned by Giano della Bella, instead of going to the Signory went to the palace of the Capitano, of which they made themselves masters, and plundered it. This outrage displeased the whole city, and those who wished the ruin of Giano laid the entire blame upon him; and as in the succeeding Signory there was an enemy of his, he was accused to the Capitano as the originator of the riot. While the case was being tried, the people took arms, and, proceeding to his house, offered to defend him against the Signory and his enemies. Giano, however, did not wish to put this burst of popular favor to the proof, or trust his life to the magistrates, for he feared the malignity of the latter and the instability of the former; so, in order to remove an occasion for his enemies to injure him, or his friends to offend the laws, he determined to withdraw, deliver his countrymen from the fear they had of him, and, leaving the city which at his own charge and peril he had delivered from the servitude of the great, become a voluntary exile. After the departure of Giano della Bella the nobility began to entertain hopes of recovering their authority; and judging their misfortune to have arisen from their divisions, they sent two of their body to the Signory, which they thought was favorable to them, to beg they would be pleased to moderate the severity of the laws made against them. As soon as their demand became known, the minds of the people were much excited; for they were afraid the Signors would submit to them; and so, between the desire of the nobility and the jealousy of the people, arms were resorted to. The nobility were drawn together in three places: near the church of St. John, in the New Market, and in the Piazza of the Mozzi, under three leaders, Forese Adimari, Vanni de Mozzi, and Geri Spini. The people assembled in immense numbers, under their ensigns, before the palace of the Signory, which at that time was situated near St. Procolo; and, as they suspected the integrity of the Signory, they added six citizens to their number to take part in the management of affairs. While both parties were preparing for the fight, some individuals, as well of the people as of the nobility, accompanied by a few priests of respectable character, mingled among them for the purpose of effecting a pacification, reminding the nobility that their loss of power, and the laws which were made against them, had been occasioned by their haughty conduct, and the mischievous tendency of their proceedings; that resorting to arms to recover by force what they had lost by illiberal measures and disunion, would tend to the destruction of their country and increase the difficulties of their own position; that they should bear in mind that the people, both in riches, numbers, and hatred, were far stronger than they; and that their nobility, on account of which they assumed to be above others, did not contribute to win battles, and would be found, when they came to arms, to be but an empty name, and insufficient to defend them against so many. On the other hand, they reminded the people that it is not prudent to wish always to have the last blow; that it is an injudicious step to drive men to desperation, for he who is without hope is also without fear; that they ought not to forget that in the wars the nobility had always done honor to the country, and therefore it was neither wise nor just to pursue them with so much bitterness; and that although the nobility could bear with patience the loss of the supreme magistracy, they could not endure that, by the existing laws, it should be in the power of everyone to drive them from their country; and, therefore, it would be well to qualify these laws, and, in furtherance of so good a result, be better to lay down their arms than, trusting to numbers, try the fortune of a battle; for it is often seen that the many are overcome by the few. Variety of opinion was found among the people; many wished to decide the question by arms at once, for they were assured it would have to be done some time, and that it would be better to do so then than delay till the enemy had acquired greater strength; and that if they thought a mitigation of the laws would satisfy them, that then they would be glad to comply, but that the pride of the nobility was so great they would not submit unless they were compelled. To many others, who were more peaceable and better disposed, it appeared a less evil to qualify the laws a little than to come to battle; and their opinion prevailing, it was provided that no accusation against the nobility could be received unless supported with sufficient testimony. Although arms were laid aside, both parties remained full of suspicion, and each fortified itself with men and places of strength. The people reorganized the government, and lessened the number of its officers, to which measure they were induced by finding that the Signors appointed from the families, of which the following were the heads, had been favorable to the nobility, viz.: the Mancini, Magalotti, Altoviti, Peruzzi, and Cerretani. Having settled the government, for the greater magnificence and security of the Signory, they laid the foundation of their palace; and to make space for the piazza, removed the houses that had belonged to the Uberti; they also at the same period commenced the public prisons. These buildings were completed in a few years; nor did our city ever enjoy a greater state of prosperity than in those times: filled with men of great wealth and reputation; possessing within her walls 30,000 men capable of bearing arms, and in the country 70,000, while the whole of Tuscany, either as subjects or friends, owed obedience to Florence. And although there might be some indignation and jealousy between the nobility and the people, they did not produce any evil effect, but all lived together in unity and peace. And if this peace had not been disturbed by internal enmities there would have been no cause of apprehension whatever, for the city had nothing to fear either from the empire or from those citizens whom political reasons kept from their homes, and was in condition to meet all the states of Italy with her own forces. The evil, however, which external powers could not effect, was brought about by those within. CHAPTER IV The Cerchi and the Donati--Origin of the Bianca and Nera factions in Pistoia--They come to Florence--Open enmity of the Donati and the Cerchi--Their first conflict--The Cerchi head the Bianca faction--The Donati take part with the Nera--The pope's legate at Florence increases the confusion with an interdict--New affray between the Cerchi and the Donati--The Donati and others of the Nera faction banished by the advice of Dante Alighieri--Charles of Valois sent by the pope to Florence--The Florentines suspect him--Corso Donati and the rest of the Nera party return to Florence--Veri Cerchi flies--The pope's legate again in Florence--The city again interdicted--New disturbances--The Bianchi banished--Dante banished--Corso Donati excites fresh troubles--The pope's legate endeavors to restore the emigrants but does not succeed--Great fire in Florence. The Cerchi and the Donati were, for riches, nobility, and the number and influence of their followers, perhaps the two most distinguished families in Florence. Being neighbors, both in the city and the country, there had arisen between them some slight displeasure, which, however, had not occasioned an open quarrel, and perhaps never would have produced any serious effect if the malignant humors had not been increased by new causes. Among the first families of Pistoia was the Cancellieri. It happened that Lore, son of Gulielmo, and Geri, son of Bertacca, both of this family, playing together, and coming to words, Geri was slightly wounded by Lore. This displeased Gulielmo; and, designing by a suitable apology to remove all cause of further animosity, he ordered his son to go to the house of the father of the youth whom he had wounded and ask pardon. Lore obeyed his father; but this act of virtue failed to soften the cruel mind of Bertacca, and having caused Lore to be seized, in order to add the greatest indignity to his brutal act, he ordered his servants to chop off the youth's hand upon a block used for cutting meat upon, and then said to him, "Go to thy father, and tell him that sword wounds are cured with iron and not with words." The unfeeling barbarity of this act so greatly exasperated Gulielmo that he ordered his people to take arms for his revenge. Bertacca prepared for his defense, and not only that family, but the whole city of Pistoia, became divided. And as the Cancellieri were descended from a Cancelliere who had had two wives, of whom one was called Bianca (white), one party was named by those who were descended from her BIANCA; and the other, by way of greater distinction, was called NERA (black). Much and long-continued strife took place between the two, attended with the death of many men and the destruction of much property; and not being able to effect a union among themselves, but weary of the evil, and anxious either to bring it to an end, or, by engaging others in their quarrel, increase it, they came to Florence, where the Neri, on account of their familiarity with the Donati, were favored by Corso, the head of that family; and on this account the Bianchi, that they might have a powerful head to defend them against the Donati, had recourse to Veri de Cerchi, a man in no respect inferior to Corso. This quarrel, and the parties in it, brought from Pistoia, increased the old animosity between the Cerchi and the Donati, and it was already so manifest, that the Priors and all well-disposed men were in hourly apprehension of its breaking out, and causing a division of the whole city. They therefore applied to the pontiff, praying that he would interpose his authority between these turbulent parties, and provide the remedy which they found themselves unable to furnish. The pope sent for Veri, and charged him to make peace with the Donati, at which Veri exhibited great astonishment, saying that he had no enmity against them, and that as pacification presupposes war, he did not know, there being no war between them, how peacemaking could be necessary. Veri having returned from Rome without anything being effected, the rage of the parties increased to such a degree, that any trivial accident seemed sufficient to make it burst forth, as indeed presently happened. It was in the month of May, during which, and upon holidays, it is the custom of Florence to hold festivals and public rejoicings throughout the city. Some youths of the Donati family, with their friends, upon horseback, were standing near the church of the Holy Trinity to look at a party of ladies who were dancing; thither also came some of the Cerchi, like the Donati, accompanied with many of the nobility, and, not knowing that the Donati were before them, pushed their horses and jostled them; thereupon the Donati, thinking themselves insulted, drew their swords, nor were the Cerchi at all backward to do the same, and not till after the interchange of many wounds, they separated. This disturbance was the beginning of great evils; for the whole city became divided, the people as well as the nobility, and the parties took the names of the Bianchi and the Neri. The Cerchi were at the head of the Bianchi faction, to which adhered the Adimari, the Abati, a part of the Tosinghi, of the Bardi, of the Rossi, of the Frescobaldi, of the Nerli, and of the Manelli; all the Mozzi, the Scali, Gherardini, Cavalcanti, Malespini, Bostichi, Giandonati, Vecchietti, and Arrigucci. To these were joined many families of the people, and all the Ghibellines then in Florence, so that their great numbers gave them almost the entire government of the city. The Donati, at the head of whom was Corso, joined the Nera party, to which also adhered those members of the above-named families who did not take part with the Bianchi; and besides these, the whole of the Pazzi, the Bisdomini, Manieri, Bagnesi, Tornaquinci, Spini, Buondelmonti, Gianfigliazzi, and the Brunelleschi. Nor did the evil confine itself to the city alone, for the whole country was divided upon it, so that the Captains of the Six Parts, and whoever were attached to the Guelphic party or the well-being of the republic, were very much afraid that this new division would occasion the destruction of the city, and give new life to the Ghibelline faction. They, therefore, sent again to Pope Boniface, desiring that, unless he wished that city which had always been the shield of the church should either be ruined or become Ghibelline, he would consider some means for her relief. The pontiff thereupon sent to Florence, as his legate, Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta, a Portuguese, who, finding the Bianchi, as the most powerful, the least in fear, not quite submissive to him, he interdicted the city, and left it in anger, so that greater confusion now prevailed than had done previously to his coming. The minds of men being in great excitement, it happened that at a funeral which many of the Donati and the Cerchi attended, they first came to words and then to arms, from which, however, nothing but merely tumult resulted at the moment. However, having each retired to their houses, the Cerchi determined to attack the Donati, but, by the valor of Corso, they were repulsed and great numbers of them wounded. The city was in arms. The laws and the Signory were set at nought by the rage of the nobility, and the best and wisest citizens were full of apprehension. The Donati and their followers, being the least powerful, were in the greatest fear, and to provide for their safety they called together Corso, the Captains of the Parts, and the other leaders of the Neri, and resolved to apply to the pope to appoint some personage of royal blood, that he might reform Florence; thinking by this means to overcome the Bianchi. Their meeting and determination became known to the Priors, and the adverse party represented it as a conspiracy against the liberties of the republic. Both parties being in arms, the Signory, one of whom at that time was the poet Dante, took courage, and from his advice and prudence, caused the people to rise for the preservation of order, and being joined by many from the country, they compelled the leaders of both parties to lay aside their arms, and banished Corso, with many of the Neri. And as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives, they also banished many of the Bianchi, who, however, soon afterward, under pretense of some justifiable cause, returned. Corso and his friends, thinking the pope favorable to their party, went to Rome and laid their grievances before him, having previously forwarded a statement of them in writing. Charles of Valois, brother of the king of France, was then at the papal court, having been called into Italy by the king of Naples, to go over into Sicily. The pope, therefore, at the earnest prayers of the banished Florentines, consented to send Charles to Florence, till the season suitable for his going to Sicily should arrive. He therefore came, and although the Bianchi, who then governed, were very apprehensive, still, as the head of the Guelphs, and appointed by the pope, they did not dare to oppose him, and in order to secure his friendship, they gave him authority to dispose of the city as he thought proper. Thus authorized, Charles armed all his friends and followers, which step gave the people so strong a suspicion that he designed to rob them of their liberty, that each took arms, and kept at his own house, in order to be ready, if Charles should make any such attempt. The Cerchi and the leaders of the Bianchi faction had acquired universal hatred by having, while at the head of the republic, conducted themselves with unbecoming pride; and this induced Corso and the banished of the Neri party to return to Florence, knowing well that Charles and the Captains of the Parts were favorable to them. And while the citizens, for fear of Charles, kept themselves in arms, Corso, with all the banished, and followed by many others, entered Florence without the least impediment. And although Veri de Cerchi was advised to oppose him, he refused to do so, saying that he wished the people of Florence, against whom he came, should punish him. However, the contrary happened, for he was welcomed, not punished by them; and it behooved Veri to save himself by flight. Corso, having forced the Pinti Gate, assembled his party at San Pietro Maggiore, near his own house, where, having drawn together a great number of friends and people desirous of change, he set at liberty all who had been imprisoned for offenses, whether against the state or against individuals. He compelled the existing Signory to withdraw privately to their own houses, elected a new one from the people of the Neri party, and for five days plundered the leaders of the Bianchi. The Cerchi, and the other heads of their faction, finding Charles opposed to them, withdrew from the city, and retired to their strongholds. And although at first they would not listen to the advice of the pope, they were now compelled to turn to him for assistance, declaring that instead of uniting the city, Charles had caused greater disunion than before. The pope again sent Matteo d'Acquasparta, his legate, who made peace between the Cerchi and the Donati, and strengthened it with marriages and new betrothals. But wishing that the Bianchi should participate in the employments of the government, to which the Neri who were then at the head of it would not consent, he withdrew, with no more satisfaction nor less enraged than on the former occasion, and left the city interdicted for disobedience. Both parties remained in Florence, and equally discontented; the Neri from seeing their enemies at hand, and apprehending the loss of their power, and the Bianchi from finding themselves without either honor or authority; and to these natural causes of animosity new injuries were added. Niccolo de' Cerchi, with many of his friends, went to his estates, and being arrived at the bridge of Affrico, was attacked by Simone, son of Corso Donati. The contest was obstinate, and one each side had a sorrowful conclusion; for Niccolo was slain, and Simone was so severely wounded that he died on the following night. This event again disturbed the entire city; and although the Neri were most to blame, they were defended by those who were at the head of affairs; and before sentence was delivered, a conspiracy of the Bianchi with Piero Ferrante, one of the barons who had accompanied Charles, was discovered, by whose assistance they sought to be replaced in the government. The matter became known from letters addressed to him by the Cerchi, although some were of opinion that they were not genuine, but written and pretended to be found, by the Donati, to abate the infamy which their party had acquired by the death of Niccolo. The whole of the Cerchi were, however, banished,--with their followers of the Bianchi party, of whom was Dante the poet,--their property confiscated, and their houses pulled down. They sought refuge, with a great number of Ghibellines who had joined them, in many places, seeking fresh fortunes in new undertakings. Charles, having effected the purpose of his coming, left the city, and returned to the pope to pursue his enterprise against Sicily, in which he was neither wiser nor more fortunate than he had been at Florence; so that with disgrace and the loss of many of his followers, he withdrew to France. After the departure of Charles, Florence remained quiet. Corso alone was restless, thinking he did not possess that sort of authority in the city which was due to his rank; for the government being in the hands of the people, he saw the offices of the republic administered by many inferior to himself. Moved by passions of this kind, he endeavored, under the pretense of an honorable design, to justify his own dishonorable purposes, and accused many citizens who had the management of the public money, of applying it to their private uses, and recommended that they should be brought to justice and punished. This opinion was adopted by many who had the same views as himself; and many in ignorance joined them, thinking Corso actuated only by pure patriotism. On the other hand, the accused citizens, enjoying the popular favor, defended themselves, and this difference arose to such a height, that, after civil means, they had recourse to arms. Of the one party were Corso and Lottieri, bishop of Florence, with many of the nobility and some of the people; on the other side were the Signory, with the greater part of the people; so that skirmishes took place in many parts of the city. The Signory, seeing their danger great, sent for aid to the Lucchese, and presently all the people of Lucca were in Florence. With their assistance the disturbances were settled for the moment, and the people retained the government and their liberty, without attempting by any other means to punish the movers of the disorder. The pope had heard of the tumults at Florence, and sent his legate, Niccolo da Prato, to settle them, who, being in high reputation both for his quality, learning, and mode of life, presently acquired so much of the people's confidence, that authority was given him to establish such a government as he should think proper. As he was of Ghibelline origin, he determined to recall the banished; but designing first to gain the affections of the lower orders, he renewed the ancient companies of the people, which increased the popular power and reduced that of the nobility. The legate, thinking the multitude on his side, now endeavored to recall the banished, and, after attempting in many ways, none of which succeeded, he fell so completely under the suspicion of the government, that he was compelled to quit the city, and returned to the pope in great wrath, leaving Florence full of confusion and suffering under an interdict. Neither was the city disturbed with one division alone, but by many; first the enmity between the people and the nobility, then that of the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, and lastly, of the Bianchi and the Neri. All the citizens were, therefore, in arms, for many were dissatisfied with the departure of the legate, and wished for the return of the banished. The first who set this disturbance on foot were the Medici and the Guinigi, who, with the legate, had discovered themselves in favor of the rebels; and thus skirmishes took place in many parts of the city. In addition to these evils a fire occurred, which first broke out at the garden of St. Michael, in the houses of the Abati; it thence extended to those of the Capoinsacchi, and consumed them, with those of the Macci, Amieri, Toschi, Cipriani, Lamberti, Cavalcanti, and the whole of the New Market; from thence it spread to the gate of St. Maria, and burned it to the ground; turning from the old bridge, it destroyed the houses of the Gherardini, Pulci, Amidei, and Lucardesi, and with these so many others that the number amounted to seventeen hundred. It was the opinion of many that this fire occurred by accident during the heat of the disturbances. Others affirm that it was begun willfully by Neri Abati, prior of St. Pietro Scarragio, a dissolute character, fond of mischief, who, seeing the people occupied with the combat, took the opportunity of committing a wicked act, for which the citizens, being thus employed, could offer no remedy. And to insure his success, he set fire to the house of his own brotherhood, where he had the best opportunity of doing it. This was in the year 1304, Florence being afflicted both with fire and the sword. Corso Donati alone remained unarmed in so many tumults; for he thought he would more easily become the arbitrator between the contending parties when, weary of strife, they should be inclined to accommodation. They laid down their arms, however, rather from satiety of evil than from any desire of union; and the only consequence was, that the banished were not recalled, and the party which favored them remained inferior. CHAPTER V The emigrants attempt to re-enter Florence, but are not allowed to do so--The companies of the people restored--Restless conduct of Corso Donati--The ruin of Corso Donati--Corso Donati accused and condemned--Riot at the house of Corso--Death of Corso--His character--Fruitless attempt of the Emperor Henry against the Florentines--The emigrants are restored to the city--The citizens place themselves under the king of Naples for five years--War with Uguccione della Faggiuola--The Florentines routed--Florence withdraws herself from subjection to King Robert, and expels the Count Novello--Lando d'Agobbio--His tyranny--His departure. The legate being returned to Rome, and hearing of the new disturbance which had occurred, persuaded the pope that if he wished to unite the Florentines, it would be necessary to have twelve of the first citizens appear before him, and having thus removed the principal causes of disunion, he might easily put a stop to it. The pontiff took this advice, and the citizens, among whom was Corso Donati, obeyed the summons. These having left the city, the legate told the exiles that now, when the city was deprived of her leaders, was the time for them to return. They, therefore, having assembled, came to Florence, and entering by a part of the wall not yet completed, proceeded to the piazza of St. Giovanni. It is worthy of remark, that those who, a short time previously, when they came unarmed and begged to be restored to their country, had fought for their return, now, when they saw them in arms and resolved to enter by force, took arms to oppose them (so much more was the common good esteemed than private friendship), and being joined by the rest of the citizens, compelled them to return to the places whence they had come. They failed in their undertaking by having left part of their force at Lastra, and by not having waited the arrival of Tolosetto Uberti, who had to come from Pistoia with three hundred horse; for they thought celerity rather than numbers would give them the victory; and it often happens, in similar enterprises, that delay robs us of the occasion, and too great anxiety to be forward prevents us of the power, or makes us act before we are properly prepared. The banished having retired, Florence again returned to her old divisions; and in order to deprive the Cavalcanti of their authority, the people took from them the Stinche, a castle situated in the Val di Greve, and anciently belonging to the family. And as those who were taken in it were the first who were put into the new prisons, the latter were, and still continue, named after it,--the Stinche. The leaders of the republic also re-established the companies of the people, and gave them the ensigns that were first used by the companies of the Arts; the heads of which were called Gonfaloniers of the companies and colleagues of the Signory; and ordered, that when any disturbance arose they should assist the Signory with arms, and in peace with counsel. To the two ancient rectors they added an executor, or sheriff, who, with the Gonfaloniers, was to aid in repressing the insolence of the nobility. In the meantime the pope died. Corso, with the other citizens, returned from Rome; and all would have been well if his restless mind had not occasioned new troubles. It was his common practice to be of a contrary opinion to the most powerful men in the city; and whatever he saw the people inclined to do, he exercised his utmost influence to effect, in order to attach them to himself; so that he was a leader in all differences, at the head of every new scheme, and whoever wished to obtain anything extraordinary had recourse to him. This conduct caused him to be hated by many of the highest distinction; and their hatred increased to such a degree that the Neri faction to which he belonged, became completely divided; for Corso, to attain his ends, had availed himself of private force and authority, and of the enemies of the state. But so great was the influence attached to his person, that everyone feared him. Nevertheless, in order to strip him of the popular favor (which by this means may easily be done), a report was set on foot that he intended to make himself prince of the city; and to the design his conduct gave great appearance of probability, for his way of living quite exceeded all civil bounds; and the opinion gained further strength, upon his taking to wife a daughter of Uguccione della Faggiuola, head of the Ghibelline and Bianchi faction, and one of the most powerful men in Tuscany. When this marriage became known it gave courage to his adversaries, and they took arms against him; for the same reason the people ceased to defend him, and the greater part of them joined the ranks of his enemies, the leaders of whom were Rosso della Tosa, Pazino dei Pazzi, Geri Spini, and Berto Brunelleschi. These, with their followers, and the greater part of the people, assembled before the palace of the Signory, by whose command a charge was made before Piero Branca, captain of the people, against Corso, of intending, with the aid of Uguccione, to usurp the government. He was then summoned, and for disobedience, declared a rebel; nor did two hours pass over between the accusation and the sentence. The judgment being given, the Signory, with the companies of the people under their ensigns, went in search of him, who, although seeing himself abandoned by many of his followers, aware of the sentence against him, the power of the Signory, and the multitude of his enemies, remained undaunted, and fortified his houses, in the hope of defending them till Uguccione, for whom he had sent, should come to his Relief. His residences, and the streets approaching them, were barricaded and taken possession of by his partisans, who defended them so bravely that the enemy, although in great numbers, could not force them, and the battle became one of the hottest, with wounds and death on all sides. But the people, finding they could not drive them from their ground, took possession of the adjoining houses, and by unobserved passages obtained entry. Corso, thus finding himself surrounded by his foes, no longer retaining any hope of assistance from Uguccione, and without a chance of victory, thought only of effecting his personal safety, and with Gherardo Bordoni, and some of his bravest and most trusted friends, fought a passage through the thickest of their enemies, and effected their escape from the city by the Gate of the Cross. They were, however, pursued by vast numbers, and Gherardo was slain upon the bridge of Affrico by Boccaccio Cavicciulli. Corso was overtaken and made prisoner by a party of Catalan horse, in the service of the Signory, at Rovezzano. But when approaching Florence, that he might avoid being seen and torn to pieces by his victorious enemies, he allowed himself to fall from horseback, and being down, one of those who conducted him cut his throat. The body was found by the monks of San Salvi, and buried without any ceremony due to his rank. Such was the end of Corso, to whom his country and the Neri faction were indebted for much both of good and evil; and if he had possessed a cooler spirit he would have left behind him a more happy memory. Nevertheless, he deserves to be enumerated among the most distinguished men our city has produced. True it is, that his restless conduct made both his country and his party forgetful of their obligation to him. The same cause also produced his miserable end, and brought many troubles upon both his friends and his country. Uguccione, coming to the assistance of his relative, learned at Remoli that Corso had been overcome by the people, and finding that he could not render him any assistance, in order to avoid bringing evil upon himself without occasion, he returned home. After the death of Corso, which occurred in the year 1308, the disturbances were appeased, and the people lived quietly till it was reported that the Emperor Henry was coming into Italy, and with him all the Florentine emigrants, to whom he had promised restoration to their country. The leaders of the government thought, that in order to lessen the number of their enemies, it would be well to recall, of their own will, all who had been expelled, excepting such as the law had expressly forbidden to return. Of the number not admitted, were the greater part of the Ghibellines, and some of those of the Bianchi faction, among whom were Dante Alighieri, the sons of Veri de' Cerchi and of Giano della Bella. Besides this they sent for aid to Robert, king of Naples, and not being able to obtain it of him as friends, they gave their city to him for five years, that he might defend them as his own people. The emperor entered Italy by the way of Pisa, and proceeded by the marshes to Rome, where he was crowned in the year 1312. Then, having determined to subdue the Florentines, he approached their city by the way of Perugia and Arezzo, and halted with his army at the monastery of San Salvi, about a mile from Florence, where he remained fifty days without effecting anything. Despairing of success against Florence, he returned to Pisa, where he entered into an agreement with Frederick, king of Sicily, to undertake the conquest of Naples, and proceeded with his people accordingly; but while filled with the hope of victory, and carrying dismay into the heart of King Robert, having reached Buonconvento, he died. Shortly after this, Uguccione della Faggiuola, having by means of the Ghibelline party become lord of Pisa and of Lucca, caused, with the assistance of these cities, very serious annoyance to the neighbouring places. In order to effect their relief the Florentines requested King Robert would allow his brother Piero to take the command of their armies. On the other hand, Uguccione continued to increase his power; and either by force or fraud obtained possession of many castles in the Val d'Arno and the Val di Nievole; and having besieged Monte Cataini, the Florentines found it would be necessary to send to its relief, that they might not see him burn and destroy their whole territory. Having drawn together a large army, they entered the Val di Nievole where they came up with Uguccione, and were routed after a severe battle in which Piero the king's brother and 2,000 men were slain; but the body of the Prince was never found. Neither was the victory a joyful one to Uguccione; for one of his sons, and many of the leaders of his army, fell in the strife. The Florentines after this defeat fortified their territory, and King Robert sent them, for commander of their forces, the Count d'Andria, usually called Count Novello, by whose deportment, or because it is natural to the Florentines to find every state tedious, the city, notwithstanding the war with Uguccione, became divided into friends and enemies of the king. Simon della Tosa, the Magalotti, and certain others of the people who had attained greater influence in the government than the rest, were leaders of the party against the king. By these means messengers were sent to France, and afterward into Germany, to solicit leaders and forces that they might drive out the count, whom the king had appointed governor; but they failed of obtaining any. Nevertheless they did not abandon their undertaking, but still desirous of one whom they might worship, after an unavailing search in France and Germany, they discovered him at Agobbio, and having expelled the Count Novello, caused Lando d'Agobbio to be brought into the city as Bargello (sheriff), and gave him the most unlimited power of the citizens. This man was cruel and rapacious; and going through the country accompanied with an armed force, he put many to death at the mere instigation of those who had endowed him with authority. His insolence rose to such a height, that he stamped base metal with the impression used upon the money of the state, and no one had sufficient courage to oppose him, so powerful had he become by the discords of Florence. Great, certainly, but unhappy city! which neither the memory of past divisions, the fear of her enemies, nor a king's authority, could unite for her own advantage; so that she found herself in a state of the utmost wretchedness, harassed without by Uguccione, and plundered within by Lando d'Agobbio. The friends of the king and those who opposed Lando and his followers, were either of noble families or the highest of the people, and all Guelphs; but their adversaries being in power they could not discover their minds without incurring the greatest danger. Being, however, determined to deliver themselves from such disgraceful tyranny, they secretly wrote to King Robert, requesting him to appoint for his vicar in Florence Count Guido da Battifolle. The king complied; and the opposite party, although the Signory were opposed to the king, on account of the good quality of the count, did not dare to resist him. Still his authority was not great, because the Signory and Gonfaloniers of the companies were in favor of Lando and his party. During these troubles, the daughter of King Albert of Bohemia passed through Florence, in search of her husband, Charles, the son of King Robert, and was received with the greatest respect by the friends of the king, who complained to her of the unhappy state of the city, and of the tyranny of Lando and his partisans; so that through her influence and the exertions of the king's friends, the citizens were again united, and before her departure, Lando was stripped of all authority and send back to Agobbio, laden with blood and plunder. In reforming the government, the sovereignty of the city was continued to the king for another three years, and as there were then in office seven Signors of the party of Lando, six more were appointed of the king's friends, and some magistracies were composed of thirteen Signors; but not long afterward the number was reduced to seven according to ancient custom. CHAPTER VI War with Castruccio--Castruccio marches against Prato and retires without making any attempt--The emigrants not being allowed to return, endeavor to enter the city by force, and are repulsed--Change in the mode of electing the great officers of state--The Squittini established--The Florentines under Raymond of Cardona are routed by Castruccio at Altopascio--Treacherous designs of Raymond--The Florentines give the sovereignty of the city to Charles duke of Cambria, who appoints the duke of Athens for his vicar--The duke of Calabria comes to Florence--The Emperor Louis of Bavaria visits Italy--The excitement he produces--Death of Castruccio and of Charles duke of Calabria--Reform of government. About the same time, Uguccione lost the sovereignty of Lucca and of Pisa, and Castruccio Castracani, a citizen of Lucca, became lord of them, who, being a young man, bold and fierce, and fortunate in his enterprises, in a short time became the head of the Ghibellines in Tuscany. On this account the discords among the Florentines were laid aside for some years, at first to abate the increasing power of Castruccio, and afterward to unite their means for mutual defense against him. And in order to give increased strength and efficacy to their counsels, the Signory appointed twelve citizens whom they called Buonomini, or good men, without whose advice and consent nothing of any importance could be carried into effect. The conclusion of the sovereignty of King Robert being come, the citizens took the government into their own hands, reappointed the usual rectors and magistracies, and were kept united by the dread of Castruccio, who, after many efforts against the lords of Lunigiano, attacked Prato, to the relief of which the Florentines having resolved to go, shut up their shops and houses, and proceeded thither in a body, amounting to twenty thousand foot and one thousand five hundred horse. And in order to reduce the number of Castruccio's friends and augment their own, the Signory declared that every rebel of the Guelphic party who should come to the relief of Prato would be restored to his country; they thus increased their army with an addition of four thousand men. This great force being quickly brought to Prato, alarmed Castruccio so much, that without trying the fortune of battle, he retired toward Lucca. Upon this, disturbances arose in the Florentine camp between the nobility and the people, the latter of whom wished to pursue the foe and destroy him; the former were for returning home, saying they had done enough for Prato in hazarding the safety of Florence on its account, which they did not regret under the circumstances, but now, that necessity no longer existing, the propriety of further risk ceased also, as there was little to be gained and much to lose. Not being able to agree, the question was referred to the Signory, among whom the difference of opinion was equally great; and as the matter spread throughout the city, the people drew together, and used such threatening language against the nobility that they, being apprehensive for their safety, yielded; but the resolution being adopted too late, and by many unwillingly, gave the enemy time to withdraw in safety to Lucca. This unfortunate circumstance made the people so indignant against the great that the Signory refused to perform the promise made to the exiles, and the latter, anticipating the fact, determined to be beforehand, and were at the gates of Florence to gain admittance into the city before the rest of the forces; but their design did not take effect, for their purpose being foreseen, they were repulsed by those who had remained at home. They then endeavored to acquire by entreaty what they had failed to obtain by force; and sent eight men as ambassadors to the Signory, to remind them of the promise given, and of the dangers they had undergone, in hope of the reward which had been held out to them. And although the nobility, who felt the obligation on account of their having particularly undertaken to fulfill the promise for which the Signory had bound themselves, used their utmost exertion in favor of the exiles, so great was the anger of the multitude on account of their only partial success against Castruccio, that they could not obtain their admission. This occasioned cost and dishonor to the city; for many of the nobility, taking offense at this proceeding, endeavored to obtain by arms that which had been refused to their prayers, and agreed with the exiles that they should come armed to the city, and that those within would arm themselves in their defense. But the affair was discovered before the appointed day arrived, so that those without found the city in arms, and prepared to resist them. So completely subdued were those within, that none dared to take arms; and thus the undertaking was abandoned, without any advantage having been obtained by the party. After the departure of the exiles it was determined to punish those who had been instrumental in bringing them to the city; but, although everyone knew who were the delinquents, none ventured to name and still less to accuse them. It was, therefore, resolved that in order to come at the truth, everyone should write the names of those he believed to be guilty, and present the writing secretly to the Capitano. By this means, Amerigo Donati, Teghiajo, Frescobaldi, and Lotteringo Gherardini were accused; but, the judges being more favorably disposed to them than, perhaps, their misdeeds deserved, each escaped by paying a fine. The tumults which arose in Florence from the coming of the rebels to the gates, showed that one leader was insufficient for the companies of the people; they, therefore, determined that in future each should have three or four; and to every Gonfalonier two or three Pennonieri (pennon bearers) were added, so that if the whole body were not drawn out, a part might operate under one of them. And as happens in republics, after any disturbance, some old laws are annulled and others renewed, so on this occasion, as it had been previously customary to appoint the Signory for a time only, the then existing Signors and the Colleagues, feeling themselves possessed of sufficient power, assumed the authority to fix upon the Signors that would have to sit during the next forty months, by putting their names into a bag or purse, and drawing them every two months. But, before the expiration of the forty months, many citizens were jealous that their names had not been deposited among the rest, and a new emborsation was made. From this beginning arose the custom of emborsing or enclosing the names of all who should take office in any of the magistracies for a long time to come, as well those whose offices employed them within the city as those abroad, though previously the councils of the retiring magistrates had elected those who were to succeed them. These emborsations were afterward called Squittini, or pollings,--and it was thought they would prevent much trouble to the city, and remove the cause of those tumults which every three, or at most five, years, took place upon the creation of magistrates, from the number of candidates for office. And not being able to adopt a better expedient, they made use of this, but did not observe the defects which lay concealed under such a trivial accommodation. In 1325, Castruccio, having taken possession of Pistoia, became so powerful that the Florentines, fearing his greatness, resolved, before he should get himself firmly seated in his new conquest, to attack him and withdraw it from his authority. Of their citizens and friends they mustered an army amounting to 20,000 foot and 3,000 horse, and with this body encamped before Altopascio, with the intention of taking the place and thus preventing it from relieving Pistoia. Being successful in the first part of their design, they marched toward Lucca, and laid the country waste in their progress; but from the little prudence and less integrity of their leader, Ramondo di Cardona, they made but small progress; for he, having observed them upon former occasions very prodigal of their liberty, placing it sometimes in the hands of a king, at others in those of a legate, or persons of even inferior quality, thought, if he could bring them into some difficulty, it might easily happen that they would make him their prince. Nor did he fail frequently to mention these matters, and required to have that authority in the city which had been given him over the army, endeavoring to show that otherwise he could not enforce the obedience requisite to a leader. As the Florentines did not consent to this, he wasted time, and allowed Castruccio to obtain the assistance which the Visconti and other tyrants of Lombardy had promised him, and thus become very strong. Ramondo, having willfully let the opportunity of victory pass away, now found himself unable to escape; for Castruccio coming up with him at Altopascio, a great battle ensued in which many citizens were slain and taken prisoners, and among the former fell Ramondo, who received from fortune that reward of bad faith and mischievous counsels which he had richly deserved from the Florentines. The injury they suffered from Castruccio, after the battle, in plunder, prisoners, destruction, and burning of property, is quite indescribable; for, without any opposition, during many months, he led his predatory forces wherever he thought proper, and it seemed sufficient to the Florentines if, after such a terrible event, they could save their city. Still they were not so absolutely cast down as to prevent them from raising great sums of money, hiring troops, and sending to their friends for assistance; but all they could do was insufficient to restrain such a powerful enemy; so that they were obliged to offer the sovereignty to Charles duke of Calabria, son of King Robert, if they could induce him to come to their defense; for these princes, being accustomed to rule Florence, preferred her obedience to her friendship. But Charles, being engaged in the wars of Sicily, and therefore unable to undertake the sovereignty of the city, sent in his stead Walter, by birth a Frenchman, and duke of Athens. He, as viceroy, took possession of the city, and appointed the magistracies according to his own pleasure; but his mode of proceeding was quite correct, and so completely contrary to his real nature, that everyone respected him. The affairs of Sicily being composed, Charles came to Florence with a thousand horse. He made his entry into the city in July, 1326, and his coming prevented further pillage of the Florentine territory by Castruccio. However, the influence which they acquired without the city was lost within her walls, and the evils which they did not suffer from their enemies were brought upon them by their friends; for the Signory could not do anything without the consent of the duke of Calabria, who, in the course of one year, drew from the people 400,000 florins, although by the agreement entered into with him, the sum was not to exceed 200,000; so great were the burdens with which either himself or his father constantly oppressed them. To these troubles were added new jealousies and new enemies; for the Ghibellines of Lombardy became so alarmed upon the arrival of Charles in Tuscany, that Galeazzo Visconti and the other Lombard tyrants, by money and promises, induced Louis of Bavaria, who had lately been elected emperor contrary to the wish of the pope, to come into Italy. After passing through Lombardy he entered Tuscany, and with the assistance of Castruccio, made himself master of Pisa, from whence, having been pacified with sums of money, he directed his course towards Rome. This caused the duke of Calabria to be apprehensive for the safety of Naples; he therefore left Florence, and appointed as his viceroy Filippo da Saggineto. After the departure of the emperor, Castruccio made himself master of Pisa, but the Florentines, by a treaty with Pistoia, withdrew her from obedience to him. Castruccio then besieged Pistoia, and persevered with so much vigor and resolution, that although the Florentines often attempted to relieve her, by attacking first his army and then his country, they were unable either by force or policy to remove him; so anxious was he to punish the Pistolesi and subdue the Florentines. At length the people of Pistoia were compelled to receive him for their sovereign; but this event, although greatly to his glory, proved but little to his advantage, for upon his return to Lucca he died. And as one event either of good or evil seldom comes alone, at Naples also died Charles duke of Calabria and lord of Florence, so that in a short time, beyond the expectation of their most sanguine hopes, the Florentines found themselves delivered from the domination of the one and the fear of the other. Being again free, they set about the reformation of the city, annulled all the old councils, and created two new ones, the one composed of 300 citizens from the class of the people, the other of 250 from the nobility and the people. The first was called the Council of the People, the other the Council of the Commune. CHAPTER VII The Emperor at Rome--The Florentines refuse to purchase Lucca, and repent of it--Enterprises of the Florentines--Conspiracy of the Bardi and the Frescobaldi--The conspiracy discovered and checked--Maffeo da Marradi appeases the tumult--Lucca is purchased by the Florentines and taken by the Pisans--The duke of Athens at Florence--The nobility determine to make him prince of the city. The emperor, being arrived at Rome, created an anti-pope, did many things in opposition to the church, and attempted many others, but without effect, so that at last he retired with disgrace, and went to Pisa, where, either because they were not paid, or from disaffection, about 800 German horse mutinied, and fortified themselves at Montechiaro upon the Ceruglio; and when the emperor had left Pisa to go into Lombardy, they took possession of Lucca and drove out Francesco Castracani, whom he had left there. Designing to turn their conquest to account, they offered it to the Florentines for 80,000 florins, which, by the advice of Simone della Tosa, was refused. This resolution, if they had remained in it, would have been of the greatest utility to the Florentines; but as they shortly afterward changed their minds, it became most pernicious; for although at the time they might have obtained peaceful possession of her for a small sum and would not, they afterward wished to have her and could not, even for a much larger amount; which caused many and most hurtful changes to take place in Florence. Lucca, being refused by the Florentines, was purchased by Gherardino Spinoli, a Genoese, for 30,000 florins. And as men are often less anxious to take what is in their power than desirous of that which they cannot attain, as soon as the purchase of Gherardino became known, and for how small a sum it had been bought, the people of Florence were seized with an extreme desire to have it, blaming themselves and those by whose advice they had been induced to reject the offer made to them. And in order to obtain by force what they had refused to purchase, they sent troops to plunder and overrun the country of the Lucchese. About this time the emperor left Italy. The anti-pope, by means of the Pisans, became a prisoner in France; and the Florentines from the death of Castruccio, which occurred in 1328, remained in domestic peace till 1340, and gave their undivided attention to external affairs, while many wars were carried on in Lombardy, occasioned by the coming of John king of Bohemia, and in Tuscany, on account of Lucca. During this period Florence was ornamented with many new buildings, and by the advice of Giotto, the most distinguished painter of his time, they built the tower of Santa Reparata. Besides this, the waters of the Arno having, in 1333, risen twelve feet above their ordinary level, destroyed some of the bridges and many buildings, all which were restored with great care and expense. In the year 1340, new sources of disagreement arose. The great had two ways of increasing or preserving their power; the one, so to restrain the emborsation of magistrates, that the lot always fell upon themselves or their friends; the other, that having the election of the rectors, they were always favorable to their party. This second mode they considered of so great importance, that the ordinary rectors not being sufficient for them, they on some occasions elected a third, and at this time they had made an extraordinary appointment, under the title of captain of the guard, of Jacopo Gabrielli of Agobbio, and endowed him with unlimited authority over the citizens. This man, under the sanction of those who governed, committed constant outrages; and among those whom he injured were Piero de' Bardi and Bardo Frescobaldi. These being of the nobility, and naturally proud, could not endure that a stranger, supported by a few powerful men, should without cause injure them with impunity, and consequently entered into a conspiracy against him and those by whom he was supported. They were joined by many noble families, and some of the people, who were offended with the tyranny of those in power. Their plan was, that each should bring into his house a number of armed men, and on the morning after the day of All Saints, when almost all would be in the temples praying for their dead, they should take arms, kill the Capitano and those who were at the head of affairs, and then, with a new Signory and new ordinances, reform the government. But, as the more a dangerous business is considered, the less willingly it is undertaken, it commonly happens, when there is any time allowed between the determining upon a perilous enterprise and its execution, that the conspiracy by one means or another becomes known. Andrea de' Bardi was one of the conspirators, and upon reconsideration of the matter, the fear of the punishment operated more powerfully upon him than the desire of revenge, and he disclosed the affair to Jacopo Alberti, his brother-in-law. Jacopo acquainted the Priors, and they informed the government. And as the danger was near, All Saints' day being just at hand, many citizens met together in the palace; and thinking their peril increased by delay, they insisted that the Signory should order the alarm to be rung, and called the people together in arms. Taldo Valori was at this time Gonfalonier, and Francesco Salviati one of the Signory, who, being relatives of the Bardi, were unwilling to summon the people with the bell, alleging as a reason that it is by no means well to assemble them in arms upon every slight occasion, for power put into the hands of an unrestrained multitude was never beneficial; that it is an easy matter to excite them to violence, but a difficult thing to restrain them; and that, therefore, it would be taking a more prudent course if they were to inquire into the truth of the affair, and punish the delinquents by the civil authority, than to attempt, upon a simple information, to correct it by such a tumultuous means, and thus hazard the safety of the city. None would listen to these remarks; the Signory were assailed with insolent behavior and indecent expressions, and compelled to sound the alarm, upon which the people presently assembled in arms. On the other hand, the Bardi and the Frescobaldi, finding themselves discovered, that they might conquer with glory or die without shame, armed themselves, in the hope that they would be able to defend that part of the city beyond the river, where their houses were situated; and they fortified the bridge in expectation of assistance, which they expected from the nobles and their friends in the country. Their design was frustrated by the people who, in common with themselves, occupied this part of the city; for these took arms in favor of the Signory, so that, seeing themselves thus circumstanced, they abandoned the bridges, and betook themselves to the street in which the Bardi resided, as being a stronger situation than any other; and this they defended with great bravery. Jacopo d'Agobbio, knowing the whole conspiracy was directed against himself, in fear of death, terrified and vanquished, kept himself surrounded with forces near the palace of the Signory; but the other rectors, who were much less blamable, discovered greater courage, and especially the podesta or provost, whose name was Maffeo da Marradi. He presented himself among the combatants without any fear, and passing the bridge of the Rubaconte amid the swords of the Bardi, made a sign that he wished to speak to them. Upon this, their reverence for the man, his noble demeanor, and the excellent qualities he was known to possess, caused an immediate cessation of the combat, and induced them to listen to him patiently. He very gravely, but without the use of any bitter or aggravating expressions, blamed their conspiracy, showed the danger they would incur if they still contended against the popular feeling, gave them reason to hope their complaints would be heard and mercifully considered, and promised that he himself would use his endeavors in their behalf. He then returned to the Signory, and implored them to spare the blood of the citizens, showing the impropriety of judging them unheard, and at length induced them to consent that the Bardi and the Frescobaldi, with their friends, should leave the city, and without impediment be allowed to retire to their castles. Upon their departure the people being again disarmed, the Signory proceeded against those only of the Bardi and Frescobaldi families who had taken arms. To lessen their power, they bought of the Bardi the castle of Mangona and that of Vernia; and enacted a law which provided that no citizen should be allowed to possess a castle or fortified place within twenty miles of Florence. After a few months, Stiatta Frescobaldi was beheaded, and many of his family banished. Those who governed, not satisfied with having subdued the Bardi and the Frescobaldi, as is most commonly the case, the more authority they possessed the worse use they made of it and the more insolent they became. As they had hitherto had one captain of the guard who afflicted the city, they now appointed another for the country, with unlimited authority, to the end that those whom they suspected might abide neither within nor without. And they excited them to such excesses against the whole of the nobility, that these were driven to desperation, and ready to sell both themselves and the city to obtain revenge. The occasion at length came, and they did not fail to use it. The troubles of Tuscany and Lombardy had brought the city of Lucca under the rule of Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona, who, though bound by contract to assign her to the Florentines, had refused to do so; for, being lord of Parma, he thought he should be able to retain her, and did not trouble himself about his breach of faith. Upon this the Florentines joined the Venetians, and with their assistance brought Mastino to the brink of ruin. They did not, however, derive any benefit from this beyond the slight satisfaction of having conquered him; for the Venetians, like all who enter into league with less powerful states than themselves, having acquired Trevigi and Vicenza, made peace with Mastino without the least regard for the Florentines. Shortly after this, the Visconti, lords of Milan, having taken Parma from Mastino, he found himself unable to retain Lucca, and therefore determined to sell it. The competitors for the purchase were the Florentines and the Pisans; and in the course of the treaty the Pisans, finding that the Florentines, being the richer people, were about to obtain it, had recourse to arms, and, with the assistance of the Visconti, marched against Lucca. The Florentines did not, on that account, withdraw from the purchase, but having agreed upon the terms with Mastino, paid part of the money, gave security for the remainder, and sent Naddo Rucellai, Giovanni di Bernadino de' Medici, and Rosso di Ricciardo de' Ricci, to take possession, who entered Lucca by force, and Mastino's people delivered the city to them. Nevertheless, the Pisans continued the siege, and the Florentines used their utmost endeavors to relieve her; but after a long war, loss of money, and accumulation of disgrace, they were compelled to retire, and the Pisans became lords of Lucca. The loss of this city, as in like cases commonly happens, exasperated the people of Florence against the members of the government; at every street corner and public place they were openly censured, and the entire misfortune was laid to the charge of their greediness and mismanagement. At the beginning of the war, twenty citizens had been appointed to undertake the direction of it, who appointed Malatesta da Rimini to the command of the forces. He having exhibited little zeal and less prudence, they requested assistance from Robert king of Naples, and he sent them Walter duke of Athens, who, as Providence would have it, to bring about the approaching evils, arrived at Florence just at the moment when the undertaking against Lucca had entirely failed. Upon this the Twenty, seeing the anger of the people, thought to inspire them with fresh hopes by the appointment of a new leader, and thus remove, or at least abate, the causes of calumny against themselves. As there was much to be feared, and that the duke of Athens might have greater authority to defend them, they first chose him for their coadjutor, and then appointed him to the command of the army. The nobility, who were discontented from the causes above mentioned, having many of them been acquainted with Walter, when upon a former occasion he had governed Florence for the duke of Calabria, thought they had now an opportunity, though with the ruin of the city, of subduing their enemies; for there was no means of prevailing against those who had oppressed them but of submitting to the authority of a prince who, being acquainted with the worth of one party and the insolence of the other, would restrain the latter and reward the former. To this they added a hope of the benefits they might derive from him when he had acquired the principality by their means. They, therefore, took several occasions of being with him secretly, and entreated he would take the command wholly upon himself, offering him the utmost assistance in their power. To their influence and entreaty were also added those of some families of the people; these were the Peruzzi, Acciajuoli, Antellesi, and Buonaccorsi, who, being overwhelmed with debts, and without means of their own, wished for those of others to liquidate them, and, by the slavery of their country, to deliver themselves from their servitude to their creditors. These demonstrations excited the ambitious mind of the duke to greater desire of dominion, and in order to gain himself the reputation of strict equity and justice, and thus increase his favor with the plebeians, he prosecuted those who had conducted the war against Lucca, condemned many to pay fines, others to exile, and put to death Giovanni de' Medici, Naddo Rucellai, and Guglielmo Altoviti. CHAPTER VIII The Duke of Athens requires to be made prince of Florence--The Signory address the duke upon the subject--The plebeians proclaim him prince of Florence for life--Tyrannical proceedings of the duke--The city disgusted with him--Conspiracies against the duke--The duke discovers the conspiracies, and becomes terrified--The city rises against him--He is besieged in the palace--Measures adopted by the citizens for reform of the government--The duke is compelled to withdraw from the city--Miserable deaths of Guglielmo da Scesi and his son--Departure of the duke of Athens--His character. These executions greatly terrified the middle class of citizens, but gave satisfaction to the great and to the plebeians;--to the latter, because it is their nature to delight in evil; and to the former, by thus seeing themselves avenged of the many wrongs they had suffered from the people. When the duke passed along the streets he was hailed with loud cheers, the boldness of his proceedings was praised, and both parties joined in open entreaties that he would search out the faults of the citizens, and punish them. The office of the Twenty began to fall into disuse, while the power of the duke became great, and the influence of fear excessive; so that everyone, in order to appear friendly to him, caused his arms to be painted over their houses, and the name alone was all he needed to be absolutely prince. Thinking himself upon such a footing that he might safely attempt anything, he gave the Signory to understand that he judged it necessary for the good of the city, that the sovereignty should be freely given to him, and that as the rest of the citizens were willing that it should be so, he desired they would also consent. The Signory, notwithstanding many had foreseen the ruin of their country, were much disturbed at this demand; and although they were aware of the dangerous position in which they stood, that they might not be wanting in their duty, resolutely refused to comply. The duke had, in order to assume a greater appearance of religion and humanity, chosen for his residence the convent of the Minor Canons of St. Croce, and in order to carry his evil designs into effect, proclaimed that all the people should, on the following morning, present themselves before him in the piazza of the convent. This command alarmed the Signory much more than his discourse to them had done, and they consulted with those citizens whom they thought most attached to their country and to liberty; but they could not devise any better plan, knowing the power of which the duke was possessed, than to endeavor by entreaty to induce him either to forego his design or to make his government less intolerable. A party of them was, therefore, appointed to wait upon him, one of whom addressed him in the following manner:-- "We appear before you, my lord, induced first by the demand which you have made, and then by the orders you have given for a meeting of the people; for it appears to us very clearly, that it is your intention to effect by extraordinary means the design from which we have hitherto withheld our consent. It is not, however, our intention to oppose you with force, but only to show what a heavy charge you take upon yourself, and the dangerous course you adopt; to the end that you may remember our advice and that of those who, not by consideration of what is beneficial for you, but for the gratification of their own unreasonable wishes, have advised you differently. You are endeavoring to reduce to slavery a city that has always existed in freedom; for the authority which we have at times conceded to the kings of Naples was companionship and not servitude. Have you considered the mighty things which the name of liberty implies to such a city as this, and how delightful it is to those who hear it? It has a power which nothing can subdue, time cannot wear away, nor can any degree of merit in a prince countervail the loss of it. Consider, my lord, how great the force must be that can keep a city like this in subjection, no foreign aid would enable you to do it; neither can you confide in those at home; for they who are at present your friends, and advise you to adopt the course you now pursue, as soon as with your assistance they have overcome their enemies, will at once turn their thoughts toward effecting your destruction, and then take the government upon themselves. The plebeians, in whom you confide, will change upon any accident, however trivial; so that in a very short time you may expect to see the whole city opposed to you, which will produce both their ruin and your own. Nor will you be able to find any remedy for this; for princes who have but few enemies may make their government very secure by the death or banishment of those who are opposed to them; but when the hatred is universal, no security whatever can be found, for you cannot tell from what direction the evil may commence; and he who has to apprehend every man his enemy cannot make himself assured of anyone. And if you should attempt to secure a friend or two, you would only increase the dangers of your situation; for the hatred of the rest would be increased by your success, and they would become more resolutely disposed to vengeance. "That time can neither destroy nor abate the desire for freedom is most certain; for it has been often observed, that those have reassumed their liberty who in their own persons had never tasted of its charms, and love it only from remembrance of what they have heard their fathers relate; and, therefore, when recovered, have preserved it with indomitable resolution and at every hazard. And even when their fathers could not remember it, the public buildings, the halls of the magistracy, and the insignia of free institutions, remind them of it; and these things cannot fail to be known and greatly desired by every class of citizens. "What is it you imagine you can do, that would be an equivalent for the sweets of liberty, or make men lose the desire of their present conditions? No; if you were to join the whole of Tuscany to the Florentine rule, if you were to return to the city daily in triumph over her enemies, what could it avail? The glory would not be ours, but yours. We should not acquire fellow-citizens, but partakers of our bondage, who would serve to sink us still deeper in ignominy. And if your conduct were in every respect upright, your demeanor amiable, and your judgments equitable, all these would be insufficient to make you beloved. If you imagine otherwise, you deceive yourself; for, to one accustomed to the enjoyment of liberty, the slightest chains feel heavy, and every tie upon his free soul oppresses him. Besides, it is impossible to find a violent people associated with a good prince, for of necessity they must soon become alike, or their difference produce the ruin of one of them. You may, therefore, be assured, that you will either have to hold this city by force, to effect which, guards, castles, and external aid have oft been found insufficient, or be content with the authority we have conferred; and this we would advise, reminding you that no dominion can be durable to which the governed do not consent; and we have no wish to lead you, blinded by ambition, to such a point that, unable either to stand or advance, you must, to the great injury of both, of necessity fall." This discourse did not in the slightest degree soften the obdurate mind of the duke, who replied that it was not his intention to rob the city of her liberty, but to restore it to her; for those cities alone are in slavery that are disunited, while the united are free. As Florence, by her factions and ambition, had deprived herself of liberty, he should restore, not take it from her; and as he had been induced to take this charge upon himself, not from his own ambition, but at the entreaty of a great number of citizens, they would do well to be satisfied with that which produced contentment among the rest. With regard to the danger he might incur, he thought nothing of it; for it was not the part of a good man to avoid doing good from his apprehension of evil, and it was the part of a coward to shun a glorious undertaking because some uncertainty attended the success of the attempt; and he knew he should so conduct himself, that they would soon see they had entertained great apprehensions and been in little danger. The Signory then agreed, finding they could not do better, that on the following morning the people should be assembled in their accustomed place of meeting, and with their consent the Signory should confer upon the duke the sovereignty of the city for one year, on the same conditions as it had been intrusted to the duke of Calabria. It was upon the 8th of November, 1342, when the duke, accompanied by Giovanni della Tosa and all his confederates, with many other citizens, came to the piazza or court of the palace, and having, with the Signory mounted upon the ringhiera, or rostrum (as the Florentines call those steps which lead to the palace), the agreement which had been entered into between the Signory and himself was read. When they had come to the passage which gave the government to him for one year, the people shouted, "FOR LIFE." Upon this, Francesco Rustichelli, one of the Signory, arose to speak, and endeavored to abate the tumult and procure a hearing; but the mob, with their hootings, prevented him from being heard by anyone; so that with the consent of the people the duke was elected, not for one year merely, but for life. He was then borne through the piazza by the crowd, shouting his name as they proceeded. It is the custom that he who is appointed to the guard of the palace shall, in the absence of the Signory, remain locked within. This office was at that time held by Rinieri di Giotto, who, bribed by the friends of the duke, without waiting for any force, admitted him immediately. The Signory, terrified and dishonored, retired to their own houses; the palace was plundered by the followers of the duke, the Gonfalon of the people torn to pieces, and the arms of the duke placed over the palace. All this happened to the indescribable sorrow of good men, though to the satisfaction of those who, either from ignorance or malignity, were consenting parties. The duke, having acquired the sovereignty of the city, in order to strip those of all authority who had been defenders of her liberty, forbade the Signory to assemble in the palace, and appointed a private dwelling for their use. He took their colors from the Gonfaloniers of the companies of the people; abolished the ordinances made for the restraint of the great; set at liberty those who were imprisoned; recalled the Bardi and the Frescobaldi from exile, and forbade everyone from carrying arms about his person. In order the better to defend himself against those within the city, he made friends of all he could around it, and therefore conferred great benefits upon the Aretini and other subjects of the Florentines. He made peace with the Pisans, although raised to power in order that he might carry on war against them; ceased paying interest to those merchants who, during the war against Lucca, had lent money to the republic; increased the old taxes, levied new ones, and took from the Signory all authority. His rectors were Baglione da Perugia and Guglielmo da Scesi, who, with Cerrettieri Bisdomini, were the persons with whom he consulted on public affairs. He imposed burdensome taxes upon the citizens; his decisions between contending parties were unjust; and that precision and humanity which he had at first assumed, became cruelty and pride; so that many of the greatest citizens and noblest people were, either by fines, death, or some new invention, grievously oppressed. And in completing the same bad system, both without the city and within, he appointed six rectors for the country, who beat and plundered the inhabitants. He suspected the great, although he had been benefited by them, and had restored many to their country; for he felt assured that the generous minds of the nobility would not allow them, from any motives, to submit contentedly to his authority. He also began to confer benefits and advantages upon the lowest orders, thinking that with their assistance, and the arms of foreigners, he would be able to preserve the tyranny. The month of May, during which feasts are held, being come, he caused many companies to be formed of the plebeians and very lowest of the people, and to these, dignified with splendid titles, he gave colors and money; and while one party went in bacchanalian procession through the city, others were stationed in different parts of it, to receive them as guests. As the report of the duke's authority spread abroad, many of French origin came to him, for all of whom he found offices and emoluments, as if they had been the most trustworthy of men; so that in a short time Florence became not only subject to French dominion, but adopted their dress and manners; for men and women, without regard to propriety or sense of shame, imitated them. But that which disgusted the people most completely was the violence which, without any distinction of quality or rank, he and his followers committed upon the women. The people were filled with indignation, seeing the majesty of the state overturned, its ordinances annihilated, its laws annulled, and every decent regulation set at naught; for men unaccustomed to royal pomp could not endure to see this man surrounded with his armed satellites on foot and on horseback; and having now a closer view of their disgrace, they were compelled to honor him whom they in the highest degree hated. To this hatred, was added the terror occasioned by the continual imposition of new taxes and frequent shedding of blood, with which he impoverished and consumed the city. The duke was not unaware of these impressions existing strongly in the people's minds, nor was he without fear of the consequences; but still pretended to think himself beloved; and when Matteo di Morozzo, either to acquire his favor or to free himself from danger, gave information that the family of the Medici and some others had entered into a conspiracy against him he not only did not inquire into the matter, but caused the informer to be put to a cruel death. This mode of proceeding restrained those who were disposed to acquaint him of his danger and gave additional courage to such as sought his ruin. Bertone Cini, having ventured to speak against the taxes with which the people were loaded, had his tongue cut out with such barbarous cruelty as to cause his death. This shocking act increased the people's rage, and their hatred of the duke; for those who were accustomed to discourse and to act upon every occasion with the greatest boldness, could not endure to live with their hands tied and forbidden to speak. This oppression increased to such a degree, that not merely the Florentines, who though unable to preserve their liberty cannot endure slavery, but the most servile people on earth would have been roused to attempt the recovery of freedom; and consequently many citizens of all ranks resolved either to deliver themselves from this odious tyranny or die in the attempt. Three distinct conspiracies were formed; one of the great; another of the people, and the third of the working classes; each of which, besides the general causes which operated upon the whole, were excited by some other particular grievance. The great found themselves deprived of all participation in the government; the people had lost the power they possessed, and the artificers saw themselves deficient in the usual remuneration of their labor. Agnolo Acciajuoli was at this time archbishop of Florence, and by his discourses had formerly greatly favored the duke, and procured him many followers among the higher class of the people. But when he found him lord of the city, and became acquainted with his tyrannical mode of proceeding, it appeared to him that he had misled his countrymen; and to correct the evil he had done, he saw no other course, but to attempt the cure by the means which had caused it. He therefore became the leader of the first and most powerful conspiracy, and was joined by the Bardi, Rossi, Frescobaldi, Scali Altoviti, Magalotti, Strozzi, and Mancini. Of the second, the principals were Manno and Corso Donati, and with them the Pazzi, Cavicciulli, Cerchi, and Albizzi. Of the third the first was Antonio Adimari, and with him the Medici, Bordini, Rucellai, and Aldobrandini. It was the intention of these last, to slay him in the house of the Albizzi, whither he was expected to go on St. John's day, to see the horses run, but he not having gone, their design did not succeed. They then resolved to attack him as he rode through the city; but they found this would be very difficult; for he was always accompanied with a considerable armed force, and never took the same road twice together, so that they had no certainty of where to find him. They had a design of slaying him in the council, although they knew that if he were dead, they would be at the mercy of his followers. While these matters were being considered by the conspirators, Antonio Adimari, in expectation of getting assistance from them, disclosed the affair to some Siennese, his friends, naming certain of the conspirators, and assuring them that the whole city was ready to rise at once. One of them communicated the matter to Francesco Brunelleschi, not with a design to injure the plot, but in the hope that he would join them. Francesco, either from personal fear, or private hatred of some one, revealed the whole to the duke; whereupon, Pagolo del Mazecha and Simon da Monterappoli were taken, who acquainted him with the number and quality of the conspirators. This terrified him, and he was advised to request their presence rather than to take them prisoners, for if they fled, he might without disgrace, secure himself by banishment of the rest. He therefore sent for Antonio Adimari, who, confiding in his companions, appeared immediately, and was detained. Francesco Brunelleschi and Uguccione Buondelmonti advised the duke to take as many of the conspirators prisoners as he could, and put them to death; but he, thinking his strength unequal to his foes, did not adopt this course, but took another, which, had it succeeded, would have freed him from his enemies and increased his power. It was the custom of the duke to call the citizens together upon some occasions and advise with them. He therefore having first sent to collect forces from without, made a list of three hundred citizens, and gave it to his messengers, with orders to assemble them under the pretense of public business; and having drawn them together, it was his intention either to put them to death or imprison them. The capture of Antonio Adimari and the sending for forces, which could not be kept secret, alarmed the citizens, and more particularly those who were in the plot, so that the boldest of them refused to attend, and as each had read the list, they sought each other, and resolved to rise at once and die like men, with arms in their hands, rather than be led like calves to the slaughter. In a very short time the chief conspirators became known to each other, and resolved that the next day, which was the 26th July, 1343, they would raise a disturbance in the Old Market place, then arm themselves and call the people to freedom. The next morning being come, at nine o'clock, according to agreement, they took arms, and at the call of liberty assembled, each party in its own district, under the ensigns and with the arms of the people, which had been secretly provided by the conspirators. All the heads of families, as well of the nobility as of the people, met together, and swore to stand in each other's defense, and effect the death of the duke; except some of the Buondelmonti and of the Cavalcanti, with those four families of the people which had taken so conspicuous a part in making him sovereign, and the butchers, with others, the lowest of the plebeians, who met armed in the piazza in his favor. The duke immediately fortified the place, and ordered those of his people who were lodged in different parts of the city to mount upon horseback and join those in the court; but, on their way thither, many were attacked and slain. However, about three hundred horse assembled, and the duke was in doubt whether he should come forth and meet the enemy, or defend himself within. On the other hand, the Medici, Cavicciulli, Rucellai, and other families who had been most injured by him, fearful that if he came forth, many of those who had taken arms against him would discover themselves his partisans, in order to deprive him of the occasion of attacking them and increasing the number of his friends, took the lead and assailed the palace. Upon this, those families of the people who had declared for the duke, seeing themselves boldly attacked, changed their minds, and all took part with the citizens, except Uguccione Buondelmonti, who retired into the palace, and Giannozzo Cavalcanti, who having withdrawn with some of his followers to the new market, mounted upon a bench, and begged that those who were going in arms to the piazza, would take the part of the duke. In order to terrify them, he exaggerated the number of his people and threatened all with death who should obstinately persevere in their undertaking against their sovereign. But not finding any one either to follow him, or to chastise his insolence, and seeing his labor fruitless, he withdrew to his own house. In the meantime, the contest in the piazza between the people and the forces of the duke was very great; but although the place served them for defense, they were overcome, some yielding to the enemy, and others, quitting their horses, fled within the walls. While this was going on, Corso and Amerigo Donati, with a part of the people, broke open the stinche, or prisons; burnt the papers of the provost and of the public chamber; pillaged the houses of the rectors, and slew all who had held offices under the duke whom they could find. The duke, finding the piazza in possession of his enemies, the city opposed to him, and without any hope of assistance, endeavored by an act of clemency to recover the favor of the people. Having caused those whom he had made prisoners to be brought before him, with amiable and kindly expressions he set them at liberty, and made Antonio Adimari a knight, although quite against his will. He caused his own arms to be taken down, and those of the people to be replaced over the palace; but these things coming out of season, and forced by his necessities, did him little good. He remained, notwithstanding all he did, besieged in the palace, and saw that having aimed at too much he had lost all, and would most likely, after a few days, die either of hunger, or by the weapons of his enemies. The citizens assembled in the church of Santa Reparata, to form the new government, and appointed fourteen citizens, half from the nobility and half from the people, who, with the archbishop, were invested with full authority to remodel the state of Florence. They also elected six others to take upon them the duties of provost, till he who should be finally chosen took office, the duties of which were usually performed by a subject of some neighboring state. Many had come to Florence in defense of the people; among whom were a party from Sienna, with six ambassadors, men of high consideration in their own country. These endeavored to bring the people and the duke to terms; but the former refused to listen to any whatever, unless Guglielmo da Scesi and his son, with Cerrettieri Bisdomini, were first given up to them. The duke would not consent to this; but being threatened by those who were shut up with him, he was forced to comply. The rage of men is certainly always found greater, and their revenge more furious upon the recovery of liberty, than when it has only been defended. Guglielmo and his son were placed among the thousands of their enemies, and the latter was not yet eighteen years old; neither his beauty, his innocence, nor his youth, could save him from the fury of the multitude; but both were instantly slain. Those who could not wound them while alive, wounded them after they were dead; and not satisfied with tearing them to pieces, they hewed their bodies with swords, tore them with their hands, and even with their teeth. And that every sense might be satiated with vengeance, having first heard their moans, seen their wounds, and touched their lacerated bodies, they wished even the stomach to be satisfied, that having glutted the external senses, the one within might also have its share. This rabid fury, however hurtful to the father and son, was favorable to Cerrettieri; for the multitude, wearied with their cruelty toward the former, quite forgot him, so that he, not being asked for, remained in the palace, and during night was conveyed safely away by his friends. The rage of the multitude being appeased by their blood, an agreement was made that the duke and his people, with whatever belonged to him, should quit the city in safety; that he should renounce all claim, of whatever kind, upon Florence, and that upon his arrival in the Casentino he should ratify his renunciation. On the sixth of August he set out, accompanied by many citizens, and having arrived at the Casentino he ratified the agreement, although unwillingly, and would not have kept his word if Count Simon had not threatened to take him back to Florence. This duke, as his proceedings testified, was cruel and avaricious, difficult to speak with, and haughty in reply. He desired the service of men, not the cultivation of their better feelings, and strove rather to inspire them with fear than love. Nor was his person less despicable than his manners; he was short, his complexion was black, and he had a long, thin beard. He was thus in every respect contemptible; and at the end of ten months, his misconduct deprived him of the sovereignty which the evil counsel of others had given him. CHAPTER IX Many cities and territories, subject to the Florentines, rebel--Prudent conduct adopted upon this occasion--The city is divided into quarters--Disputes between the nobility and the people--The bishop endeavors to reconcile them, but does not succeed--The government reformed by the people--Riot of Andrea Strozzi--Serious disagreements between the nobility and the people--They come to arms, and the nobility are subdued--The plague in Florence of which Boccaccio speaks. These events taking place in the city, induced all the dependencies of the Florentine state to throw off their yoke; so that Arezzo, Castiglione, Pistoia, Volterra, Colle, and San Gemigniano rebelled. Thus Florence found herself deprived of both her tyrant and her dominions at the same moment, and in recovering her liberty, taught her subjects how they might become free. The duke being expelled and the territories lost, the fourteen citizens and the bishop thought it would be better to act kindly toward their subjects in peace, than to make them enemies by war, and to show a desire that their subjects should be free as well as themselves. They therefore sent ambassadors to the people of Arezzo, to renounce all dominion over that city, and to enter into a treaty with them; to the end that as they could not retain them as subjects, they might make use of them as friends. They also, in the best manner they were able, agreed with the other places that they should retain their freedom, and that, being free, they might mutually assist each other in the preservation of their liberties. This prudent course was attended with a most favorable result; for Arezzo, not many years afterward, returned to the Florentine rule, and the other places, in the course of a few months, returned to their former obedience. Thus it frequently occurs that we sooner attain our ends by a seeming indifferent to them, than by more obstinate pursuit. Having settled external affairs, they now turned to the consideration of those within the city; and after some altercation between the nobility and the people, it was arranged that the nobility should form one-third of the Signory and fill one-half of the other offices. The city was, as we have before shown, divided into sixths; and hence there would be six signors, one for each sixth, except when, from some more than ordinary cause, there had been twelve or thirteen created; but when this had occurred they were again soon reduced to six. It now seemed desirable to make an alteration in this respect, as well because the sixths were not properly divided, as that, wishing to give their proportion to the great, it became desirable to increase the number. They therefore divided the city into quarters, and for each created three signors. They abolished the office of Gonfalonier of Justice, and also the Gonfaloniers of the companies of the people; and instead of the twelve Buonuomini, or good men, created eight counsellors, four from each party. The government having been established in this manner, the city might have been in repose if the great had been content to live in that moderation which civil society requires. But they produced a contrary result, for those out of office would not conduct themselves as citizens, and those who were in government wished to be lords, so that every day furnished some new instance of their insolence and pride. These things were very grievous to the people, and they began to regret that for one tyrant put down, there had sprung up a thousand. The arrogance of one party and the anger of the other rose to such a degree, that the heads of the people complained to the bishop of the improper conduct of the nobility, and what unfit associates they had become for the people; and begged he would endeavor to induce them to be content with their share of administration in the other offices, and leave the magistracy of the Signory wholly to themselves. The bishop was naturally a well-meaning man, but his want of firmness rendered him easily influenced. Hence, at the instance of his associates, he at first favored the duke of Athens, and afterward, by the advice of other citizens, conspired against him. At the reformation of the government, he had favored the nobility, and now he appeared to incline toward the people, moved by the reasons which they had advanced. Thinking to find in others the same instability of purpose, he endeavored to effect an amicable arrangement. With this design he called together the fourteen who were yet in office, and in the best terms he could imagine advised them to give up the Signory to the people, in order to secure the peace of the city; and assured them that if they refused, ruin would most probably be the result. This discourse excited the anger of the nobility to the highest pitch, and Ridolfo de' Bardi reproved him in unmeasured terms as a man of little faith; reminding him of his friendship for the duke, to prove the duplicity of his present conduct, and saying, that in driving him away he had acted the part of a traitor. He concluded by telling him, that the honors they had acquired at their own peril, they would at their own peril defend. They then left the bishop, and in great wrath, informed their associates in the government, and all the families of the nobility, of what had been done. The people also expressed their thoughts to each other, and as the nobility made preparations for the defense of their signors, they determined not to wait till they had perfected their arrangements; and therefore, being armed, hastened to the palace, shouting, as they went along, that the nobility must give up their share in the government. The uproar and excitement were astonishing. The Signors of the nobility found themselves abandoned; for their friends, seeing all the people in arms, did not dare to rise in their defense, but each kept within his own house. The Signors of the people endeavored to abate the excitement of the multitude, by affirming their associates to be good and moderate men; but, not succeeding in their attempt, to avoid a greater evil, sent them home to their houses, whither they were with difficulty conducted. The nobility having left the palace, the office of the four councillors was taken from their party, and conferred upon twelve of the people. To the eight signors who remained, a Gonfalonier of Justice was added, and sixteen Gonfaloniers of the companies of the people; and the council was so reformed, that the government remained wholly in the hands of the popular party. At the time these events took place there was a great scarcity in the city, and discontent prevailed both among the highest and the lowest classes; in the latter for want of food, and in the former from having lost their power in the state. This circumstance induced Andrea Strozzi to think of making himself sovereign of the city. Selling his corn at a lower price than others did, a great many people flocked to his house; emboldened by the sight of these, he one morning mounted his horse, and, followed by a considerable number, called the people to arms, and in a short time drew together about 4,000 men, with whom he proceeded to the Signory, and demanded that the gates of the palace should be opened. But the signors, by threats and the force which they retained in the palace, drove them from the court; and then by proclamation so terrified them, that they gradually dropped off and returned to their homes, and Andrea, finding himself alone, with some difficulty escaped falling into the hands of the magistrates. This event, although an act of great temerity, and attended with the result that usually follows such attempts, raised a hope in the minds of the nobility of overcoming the people, seeing that the lowest of the plebeians were at enmity with them. And to profit by this circumstance, they resolved to arm themselves, and with justifiable force recover those rights of which they had been unjustly deprived. Their minds acquired such an assurance of success, that they openly provided themselves with arms, fortified their houses, and even sent to their friends in Lombardy for assistance. The people and the Signory made preparation for their defense, and requested aid from Perugia and Sienna, so that the city was filled with the armed followers of either party. The nobility on this side of the Arno divided themselves into three parts; the one occupied the houses of the Cavicciulli, near the church of St. John; another, the houses of the Pazzi and the Donati, near the great church of St. Peter; and the third those of the Cavalcanti in the New Market. Those beyond the river fortified the bridges and the streets in which their houses stood; the Nerli defended the bridge of the Carraja; the Frescobaldi and the Manelli, the church of the Holy Trinity; and the Rossi and the Bardi, the bridge of the Rubaconte and the Old Bridge. The people were drawn together under the Gonfalon of justice and the ensigns of the companies of the artisans. Both sides being thus arranged in order of battle, the people thought it imprudent to defer the contest, and the attack was commenced by the Medici and the Rondinelli, who assailed the Cavicciulli, where the houses of the latter open upon the piazza of St. John. Here both parties contended with great obstinacy, and were mutually wounded, from the towers by stones and other missiles, and from below by arrows. They fought for three hours; but the forces of the people continuing to increase, and the Cavicciulli finding themselves overcome by numbers, and hopeless of other assistance, submitted themselves to the people, who saved their houses and property; and having disarmed them, ordered them to disperse among their relatives and friends, and remain unarmed. Being victorious in the first attack, they easily overpowered the Pazzi and the Donati, whose numbers were less than those they had subdued; so that there only remained on this side of the Arno, the Cavalcanti, who were strong both in respect of the post they had chosen and in their followers. Nevertheless, seeing all the Gonfalons against them, and that the others had been overcome by three Gonfalons alone, they yielded without offering much resistance. Three parts of the city were now in the hands of the people, and only one in possession of the nobility; but this was the strongest, as well on account of those who held it, as from its situation, being defended by the Arno; hence it was first necessary to force the bridges. The Old Bridge was first assailed and offered a brave resistance; for the towers were armed, the streets barricaded, and the barricades defended by the most resolute men; so that the people were repulsed with great loss. Finding their labor at this point fruitless, they endeavored to force the Rubaconte Bridge, but no better success resulting, they left four Gonfalons in charge of the two bridges, and with the others attacked the bridge of the Carraja. Here, although the Nerli defended themselves like brave men, they could not resist the fury of the people; for this bridge, having no towers, was weaker than the others, and was attacked by the Capponi, and many families of the people who lived in that vicinity. Being thus assailed on all sides, they abandoned the barricades and gave way to the people, who then overcame the Rossi and the Frescobaldi; for all those beyond the Arno took part with the conquerors. There was now no resistance made except by the Bardi, who remained undaunted, notwithstanding the failure of their friends, the union of the people against them, and the little chance of success which they seemed to have. They resolved to die fighting, and rather see their houses burned and plundered, than submit to the power of their enemies. They defended themselves with such obstinacy, that many fruitless attempts were made to overcome them, both at the Old Bridge and the Rubaconte; but their foes were always repulsed with loss. There had in former times been a street which led between the houses of the Pitti, from the Roman road to the walls upon Mount St. George. By this way the people sent six Gonfalons, with orders to assail their houses from behind. This attack overcame the resolution of the Bardi, and decided the day in favor of the people; for when those who defended the barricades in the street learned that their houses were being plundered, they left the principal fight and hastened to their defense. This caused the Old Bridge to be lost; the Bardi fled in all directions and were received into the houses of the Quaratesi, Panzanesi, and Mozzi. The people, especially the lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury, that the most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton destruction. The nobility being thus overcome, the people reformed the government; and as they were of three kinds, the higher, the middle, and the lower class, it was ordered that the first should appoint two signors; the two latter three each, and that the Gonfalonier should be chosen alternately from either party. Besides this, all the regulations for the restraint of the nobility were renewed; and in order to weaken them still more, many were reduced to the grade of the people. The ruin of the nobility was so complete, and depressed them so much, that they never afterward ventured to take arms for the recovery of their power, but soon became humbled and abject in the extreme. And thus Florence lost the generosity of her character and her distinction in arms. After these events the city remained in peace till the year 1353. In the course of this period occurred the memorable plague, described with so much eloquence by Giovanni Boccaccio, and by which Florence lost 96,000 souls. In 1348, began the first war with the Visconti, occasioned by the archbishop, then prince of Milan; and when this was concluded, dissensions again arose in the city; for although the nobility were destroyed, fortune did not fail to cause new divisions and new troubles. BOOK III CHAPTER I Reflections upon the domestic discords of republics--A parallel between the discords of Rome and those of Florence--Enmities between the families of the Ricci and the Albizzi--Uguccione de' Ricci causes the laws against the Ghibellines to be renewed in order to injure the Albizzi--Piero degli Albizzi derives advantage from it--Origin of admonitions and the troubles which result from them--Uguccione de' Ricci moderates their injustice--Difficulties increase--A meeting of the citizens--They address the Signory--The Signory attempt to remedy the evils. Those serious, though natural enmities, which occur between the popular classes and the nobility, arising from the desire of the latter to command, and the disinclination of the former to obey, are the causes of most of the troubles which take place in cities; and from this diversity of purpose, all the other evils which disturb republics derive their origin. This kept Rome disunited; and this, if it be allowable to compare small things with great, held Florence in disunion; although in each city it produced a different result; for animosities were only beginning with the people and nobility of Rome contended, while ours were brought to a conclusion by the contentions of our citizens. A new law settled the disputes of Rome; those of Florence were only terminated by the death and banishment of many of her best people. Those of Rome increased her military virtue, while that of Florence was quite extinguished by her divisions. The quarrels of Rome established different ranks of society, those of Florence abolished the distinctions which had previously existed. This diversity of effects must have been occasioned by the different purposes which the two people had in view. While the people of Rome endeavored to associate with the nobility in the supreme honors, those of Florence strove to exclude the nobility from all participation in them: as the desire of the Roman people was more reasonable, no particular offense was given to the nobility; they therefore consented to it without having recourse to arms; so that, after some disputes concerning particular points, both parties agreed to the enactment of a law which, while it satisfied the people, preserved the nobility in the enjoyment of their dignity. On the other hand, the demands of the people of Florence being insolent and unjust, the nobility, became desperate, prepared for their defense with their utmost energy, and thus bloodshed and the exile of citizens followed. The laws which were afterward made, did not provide for the common good, but were framed wholly in favor of the conquerors. This too, must be observed, that from the acquisition of power, made by the people of Rome, their minds were very much improved; for all the offices of state being attainable as well by the people as the nobility, the peculiar excellencies of the latter exercised a most beneficial influence upon the former; and as the city increased in virtue she attained a more exalted greatness. But in Florence, the people being conquerors, the nobility were deprived of all participation in the government; and in order to regain a portion of it, it became necessary for them not only to seem like the people, but to be like them in behavior, mind, and mode of living. Hence arose those changes in armorial bearings, and in the titles of families, which the nobility adopted, in order that they might seem to be of the people; military virtue and generosity of feeling became extinguished in them; the people not possessing these qualities, they could not appreciate them, and Florence became by degrees more and more depressed and humiliated. The virtue of the Roman nobility degenerating into pride, the citizens soon found that the business of the state could not be carried on without a prince. Florence had now come to such a point, that with a comprehensive mind at the head of affairs she would easily have been made to take any form that he might have been disposed to give her; as may be partly observed by a perusal of the preceding book. Having given an account of the origin of Florence, the commencement of her liberty, with the causes of her divisions, and shown how the factions of the nobility and the people ceased with the tyranny of the duke of Athens, and the ruin of the former, we have now to speak of the animosities between the citizens and the plebeians and the various circumstances which they produced. The nobility being overcome, and the war with the archbishop of Milan concluded, there did not appear any cause of dissension in Florence. But the evil fortune of the city, and the defective nature of her laws, gave rise to enmities between the family of the Albizzi and that of the Ricci, which divided her citizens as completely as those of the Buondelmonti and the Uberti, or the Donati and the Cerchi had formerly done. The pontiffs, who at this time resided in France, and the emperors, who abode in Germany, in order to maintain their influence in Italy, sent among us multitudes of soldiers of many countries, as English, Dutch, and Bretons. As these, upon the conclusion of a war, were thrown out of pay, though still in the country, they, under the standard of some soldier of fortune, plundered such people as were least prepared to defend themselves. In the year 1353 one of these companies came into Tuscany under the command of Monsignor Reale, of Provence, and his approach terrified all the cities of Italy. The Florentines not only provided themselves forces, but many citizens, among whom were the Albizzi and the Ricci, armed themselves in their own defense. These families were at the time full of hatred against each other, and each thought to obtain the sovereignty of the republic by overcoming his enemy. They had not yet proceeded to open violence, but only contended in the magistracies and councils. The city being all in arms, a quarrel arose in the Old Market place, and, as it frequently happens in similar cases, a great number of people were drawn together. The disturbance spreading, it was told the Ricci that the Albizzi had assailed their partisans, and to the Albizzi that the Ricci were in quest of them. Upon this the whole city arose, and it was all the magistrates could do to restrain these families, and prevent the actual occurrence of a disaster which, without being the fault of either of them, had been willfully though falsely reported as having already taken place. This apparently trifling circumstance served to inflame the minds of the parties, and make each the more resolved to increase the number of their followers. And as the citizens, since the ruin of the nobility, were on such an equality that the magistrates were more respected now than they had previously been, they designed to proceed toward the suppression of this disorder with civil authority alone. We have before related, that after the victory of Charles I. the government was formed of the Guelphic party, and that it thus acquired great authority over the Ghibellines. But time, a variety of circumstances, and new divisions had so contributed to sink this party feeling into oblivion, that many of Ghibelline descent now filled the highest offices. Observing this, Uguccione, the head of the family of the Ricci, contrived that the law against the Ghibellines should be again brought into operation; many imagining the Albizzi to be of that faction, they having arisen in Arezzo, and come long ago to Florence. Uguccione by this means hoped to deprive the Albizzi of participation in the government, for all of Ghibelline blood who were found to hold offices, would be condemned in the penalties which this law provided. The design of Uguccione was discovered to Piero son of Filippo degli Albizzi, and he resolved to favor it: for he saw that to oppose it would at once declare him a Ghibelline; and thus the law which was renewed by the ambition of the Ricci for his destruction, instead of robbing Piero degli Albizzi of reputation, contributed to increase his influence, although it laid the foundation of many evils. Nor is it possible for a republic to enact a law more pernicious than one relating to matters which have long transpired. Piero having favored this law, which had been contrived by his enemies for his stumbling-block, it became the stepping-stone to his greatness; for, making himself the leader of this new order of things, his authority went on increasing, and he was in greater favor with the Guelphs than any other man. As there could not be found a magistrate willing to search out who were Ghibellines, and as this renewed enactment against them was therefore of small value, it was provided that authority should be given to the Capitani to find out who were of this faction; and, having discovered, to signify and ADMONISH them that they were not to take upon themselves any office of government; to which ADMONITIONS, if they were disobedient, they became condemned in the penalties. Hence, all those who in Florence are deprived of the power to hold offices are called _ammoniti_, or ADMONISHED. The Capitani in time acquiring greater audacity, admonished not only those to whom the admonition was applicable, but any others at the suggestion of their own avarice or ambition; and from 1356, when this law was made, to 1366, there had been admonished above 200 citizens. The Captains of the Parts and the sect of the Guelphs were thus become powerful; for every one honored them for fear of being admonished; and most particularly the leaders, who were Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo da Castiglionchio, and Carlo Strozzi. This insolent mode of proceeding was offensive to many; but none felt so particularly injured with it as the Ricci; for they knew themselves to have occasioned it, they saw it involved the ruin of the republic, and their enemies, the Albizzi, contrary to their intention, became great in consequence. On this account Uguccione de' Ricci, being one of the Signory, resolved to put an end to the evil which he and his friends had originated, and with a new law provided that to the six Captains of Parts an additional three should be appointed, of whom two should be chosen from the companies of minor artificers, and that before any party could be declared Ghibelline, the declaration of the Capitani must be confirmed by twenty-four Guelphic citizens, appointed for the purpose. This provision tempered for a time the power of the Capitani, so that the admonitions were greatly diminished, if not wholly laid aside. Still the parties of the Albizzi and the Ricci were continually on the alert to oppose each other's laws, deliberations, and enterprises, not from a conviction of their inexpediency, but from a hatred of their promoters. In such distractions the time passed from 1366 to 1371, when the Guelphs again regained the ascendant. There was in the family of the Buondelmonti a gentleman named Benchi, who, as an acknowledgment of his merit in a war against the Pisans, though one of the nobility, had been admitted among the people, and thus became eligible to office among the Signory; but when about to take his seat with them, a law was made that no nobleman who had become of the popular class should be allowed to assume that office. This gave great offense to Benchi, who, in union with Piero degli Albizzi, determined to depress the less powerful of the popular party with ADMONITIONS, and obtain the government for themselves. By the interest which Benchi possessed with the ancient nobility, and that of Piero with most of the influential citizens, the Guelphic party resumed their ascendancy, and by new reforms among the PARTS, so remodeled the administration as to be able to dispose of the offices of the captains and the twenty-four citizens at pleasure. They then returned to the ADMONITIONS with greater audacity than ever, and the house of the Albizzi became powerful as the head of this faction. On the other hand, the Ricci made the most strenuous exertions against their designs; so that anxiety universally prevailed, and ruin was apprehended alike from both parties. In consequence of this a great number of citizens, out of love to their country, assembled in the church of St. Piero Scarraggio, and after a long consideration of the existing disorders, presented themselves before the Signors, whom one of the principal among them addressed in the following terms:-- "Many of us, magnificent Signors! were afraid of meeting even for consideration of public business, without being publicly called together, lest we should be noted as presumptuous or condemned as ambitious. But seeing that so many citizens daily assemble in the lodges and halls of the palace, not for any public utility, but only for the gratification of their own ambition, we have thought that as those who assemble for the ruin of the republic are fearless, so still less ought they to be apprehensive who meet together only for its advantage; nor ought we to be anxious respecting the opinion they may form of our assembling, since they are so utterly indifferent to the opinion of others. Our affection for our country, magnificent Signors! caused us to assemble first, and now brings us before you, to speak of grievances already great and daily increasing in our republic, and to offer our assistance for their removal: and we doubt not that, though a difficult undertaking, it will still be attended with success, if you will lay aside all private regards, and authoritatively use the public force. "The common corruption of all the cities of Italy, magnificent Signors! has infested and still vitiates your own; for when this province had shaken off the imperial yoke, her cities not being subject to any powerful influence that might restrain them, administered affairs, not as free men do, but as a factious populace; and hence have arisen all the other evils and disorders that have appeared. In the first place, there cannot be found among the citizens either unity or friendship, except with those whose common guilt, either against their country or against private individuals, is a bond of union. And as the knowledge of religion and the fear of God seem to be alike extinct, oaths and promises have lost their validity, and are kept as long as it is found expedient; they are adopted only as a means of deception, and he is most applauded and respected whose cunning is most efficient and secure. On this account bad men are received with the approbation due to virtue, and good ones are regarded only in the light of fools. "And certainly in the cities of Italy all that is corruptible and corrupting is assembled. The young are idle, the old lascivious, and each sex and every age abounds with debasing habits, which the good laws, by misapplication, have lost the power to correct. Hence arises the avarice so observable among the citizens, and that greediness, not for true glory, but for unworthy honors; from which follow hatred, animosities, quarrels, and factions; resulting in deaths, banishments, affliction to all good men, and the advancement of the most unprincipled; for the good, confiding in their innocence, seek neither safety nor advancement by illegal methods as the wicked do, and thus unhonored and undefended they sink into oblivion. "From proceedings such as these, arise at once the attachment for and influence of parties; bad men follow them through ambition and avarice, and necessity compels the good to pursue the same course. And most lamentable is it to observe how the leaders and movers of parties sanctify their base designs with words that are all piety and virtue; they have the name of liberty constantly in their mouths, though their actions prove them her greatest enemies. The reward which they desire from victory is not the glory of having given liberty to the city, but the satisfaction of having vanquished others, and of making themselves rulers; and to attain their end, there is nothing too unjust, too cruel, too avaricious for them to attempt. Thus laws and ordinances, peace, wars, and treaties are adopted and pursued, not for the public good, not for the common glory of the state, but for the convenience or advantage of a few individuals. "And if other cities abound in these disorders, ours is more than any infected with them; for her laws, statutes, and civil ordinances are not, nor have they ever been, established for the benefit of men in a state of freedom, but according to the wish of the faction that has been uppermost at the time. Hence it follows that, when one party is expelled, or faction extinguished, another immediately arises; for, in a city that is governed by parties rather than by laws, as soon as one becomes dominant and unopposed, it must of necessity soon divide against itself; for the private methods at first adapted for its defense will now no longer keep it united. The truth of this, both the ancient and modern dissensions of our city prove. Everyone thought that when the Ghibellines were destroyed, the Guelphs would long continue happy and honored; yet after a short time they divided into the Bianchi and Neri, the black faction and the white. When the Bianchi were overcome, the city was not long free from factions; for either, in favor of the emigrants, or on account of the animosity between the nobility and the people, we were still constantly at war. And as if resolved to give up to others, what in mutual harmony we either would not or were unable to retain, we confided the care of our precious liberty first to King Robert, then to his brother, next to his son, and at last to the duke of Athens. Still we have never in any condition found repose, but seem like men who can neither agree to live in freedom nor be content with slavery. Nor did we hesitate (so greatly does the nature of our ordinances dispose us to division), while yet under allegiance to the king, to substitute for his majesty, one of the vilest of men born at Agobbio. "For the credit of the city, the name of the duke of Athens ought to be consigned to oblivion. His cruel and tyrannical disposition, however, might have taught us wisdom and instructed us how to live; but no sooner was he expelled than we handled our arms, and fought with more hatred, and greater fury than we had ever done on any former occasion; so that the ancient nobility were vanquished the city was left at the disposal of the people. It was generally supposed that no further occasion of quarrel or of party animosity could arise, since those whose pride and insupportable ambition had been regarded as the causes of them were depressed; however, experience proves how liable human judgment is to error, and what false impressions men imbibe, even in regard to the things that most intimately concern them; for we find the pride and ambition of the nobility are not extinct, but only transferred from them to the people who at this moment, according to the usual practice of ambitious men, are endeavoring to render themselves masters of the republic; and knowing they have no chance of success but what is offered by discord, they have again divided the city, and the names of Guelph and Ghibelline, which were beginning to be forgotten (and it would have been well if they had never been heard among us), are repeated anew in our ears. "It seems almost necessarily ordained, in order that in human affairs there may be nothing either settled or permanent, that in all republics there are what may be called fatal families, born for the ruin of their country. Of this kind of pest our city has produced a more copious brood than any other; for not one but many have disturbed and harassed her: first the Buondelmonti and the Uberti; then the Donati and the Cerchi; and now, oh ridiculous! oh disgraceful thought! the Ricci and the Albizzi have caused a division of her citizens. "We have not dwelt upon our corrupt habits or our old and continual dissensions to occasion you alarm, but to remind you of their causes; to show that as you doubtless are aware of them, we also keep them in view, and to remind you that their results ought not to make you diffident of your power to repress the disorders of the present time. The ancient families possessed so much influence, and were held in such high esteem, that civil force was insufficient to restrain them; but now, when the empire has lost its ascendancy, the pope is no longer formidable, and the whole of Italy is reduced to a state of the most complete equality, there can be no difficulty. Our republic might more especially than any other (although at first our former practices seem to present a reason to the contrary), not only keep itself united but be improved by good laws and civil regulations, if you, the Signory, would once resolve to undertake the matter; and to this we, induced by no other motive than the love of our country, would most strongly urge you. It is true the corruption of the country is great, and much discretion will be requisite to correct it; but do not impute the past disorders to the nature of the men, but to the times, which, being changed, give reasonable ground to hope that, with better government, our city will be attended with better fortune; for the malignity of the people will be overcome by restraining the ambition and annulling the ordinances of those who have encouraged faction, and adopting in their stead only such principles as are conformable to true civil liberty. And be assured, that these desirable ends will be more certainly attained by the benign influence of the laws, than by a delay which will compel the people to effect them by force and arms." The Signory, induced by the necessity of the case, of which they were previously aware, and further encouraged by the advice of those who now addressed them, gave authority to fifty-six citizens to provide for the safety of the republic. It is usually found that most men are better adapted to pursue a good course already begun, than to discover one applicable to immediate circumstances. These citizens thought rather of extinguishing existing factions than of preventing the formation of new ones, and effected neither of these objects. The facilities for the establishment of new parties were not removed; and out of those which they guarded against, another more powerful arose, which brought the republic into still greater danger. They, however, deprived three of the family of the Albizzi, and three of that of the Ricci, of all the offices of government, except those of the Guelphic party, for three years; and among the deprived were Piero degli Albizzi and Uguccione de' Ricci. They forbade the citizens to assemble in the palace, except during the sittings of the Signory. They provided that if any one were beaten, or possession of his property detained from him, he might bring his case before the council and denounce the offender, even if he were one of the nobility; and that if it were proved, the accused should be subject to the usual penalties. This provision abated the boldness of the Ricci, and increased that of the Albizzi; since, although it applied equally to both, the Ricci suffered from it by far the most; for if Piero was excluded from the palace of the Signory, the chamber of the Guelphs, in which he possessed the greatest authority, remained open to him; and if he and his followers had previously been ready to ADMONISH, they became after this injury, doubly so. To this pre-disposition for evil, new excitements were added. CHAPTER II The war of the Florentines against the pope's legate, and the causes of it--League against the pope--The censures of the pope disregarded in Florence--The city is divided into two factions, the one the Capitani di Parte, the other of the eight commissioners of the war--Measures adopted by the Guelphic party against their adversaries--The Guelphs endeavor to prevent Salvestro de Medici from being chosen Gonfalonier--Salvestro de Medici Gonfalonier--His law against the nobility, and in favor of the Ammoniti--The _Collegi_ disapprove of the law--Salvestro addresses the council in its favor--The law is passed--Disturbances in Florence. The papal chair was occupied by Gregory XI. He, like his predecessors, residing at Avignon, governed Italy by legates, who, proud and avaricious, oppressed many of the cities. One of these legates, then at Bologna, taking advantage of a great scarcity of food at Florence, endeavored to render himself master of Tuscany, and not only withheld provisions from the Florentines, but in order to frustrate their hopes of the future harvest, upon the approach of spring, attacked them with a large army, trusting that being famished and unarmed, he should find them an easy conquest. He might perhaps have been successful, had not his forces been mercenary and faithless, and, therefore, induced to abandon the enterprise for the sum of 130,000 florins, which the Florentines paid them. People may go to war when they will, but cannot always withdraw when they like. This contest, commenced by the ambition of the legate, was sustained by the resentment of the Florentines, who, entering into a league with Bernabo of Milan, and with the cities hostile to the church, appointed eight citizens for the administration of it, giving them authority to act without appeal, and to expend whatever sums they might judge expedient, without rendering an account of the outlay. This war against the pontiff, although Uguccione was now dead, reanimated those who had followed the party of the Ricci, who, in opposition to the Albizzi, had always favored Bernabo and opposed the church, and this, the rather, because the eight commissioners of war were all enemies of the Guelphs. This occasioned Piero degli Albizzi, Lapo da Castiglionchio, Carlo Strozzi, and others, to unite themselves more closely in opposition to their adversaries. The eight carried on the war, and the others admonished during three years, when the death of the pontiff put an end to the hostilities, which had been carried on which so much ability, and with such entire satisfaction to the people, that at the end of each year the eight were continued in office, and were called _Santi_, or holy, although they had set ecclesiastical censures at defiance, plundered the churches of their property, and compelled the priests to perform divine service. So much did citizens at that time prefer the good of their country to their ghostly consolations, and thus showed the church, that if as her friends they had defended, they could as enemies depress her; for the whole of Romagna, the Marches, and Perugia were excited to rebellion. Yet while this war was carried on against the pope, they were unable to defend themselves against the captains of the parts and their faction; for the insolence of the Guelphs against the eight attained such a pitch, that they could not restrain themselves from abusive behavior, not merely against some of the most distinguished citizens, but even against the eight themselves; and the captains of the parts conducted themselves with such arrogance, that they were feared more than the Signory. Those who had business with them treated them with greater reverence, and their court was held in higher estimation: so that no ambassador came to Florence, without commission to the captains. Pope Gregory being dead, and the city freed from external war; there still prevailed great confusion within; for the audacity of the Guelphs was insupportable, and as no available mode of subduing them presented itself, it was thought that recourse must be had to arms, to determine which party was the strongest. With the Guelphs were all the ancient nobility, and the greater part of the most popular leaders, of which number, as already remarked, were Lapo, Piero, and Carlo. On the other side, were all the lower orders, the leaders of whom were the eight commissioners of war, Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi, and with them the Ricci, Alberti, and Medici. The rest of the multitude, as most commonly happens, joined the discontented party. It appeared to the heads of the Guelphic faction that their enemies would be greatly strengthened, and themselves in considerable danger in case a hostile Signory should resolve on their subjugation. Desirous, therefore, of being prepared against this calamity, the leaders of the party assembled to take into consideration the state of the city and that of their own friends in particular, and found the _ammoniti_ so numerous and so great a difficulty, that the whole city was excited against them on this account. They could not devise any other remedy than, that as their enemies had deprived them of all the offices of honor, they should banish their opponents from the city, take possession of the palace of the Signory, and bring over the whole state to their own party; in imitation of the Guelphs of former times, who found no safety in the city, till they had driven all their adversaries out of it. They were unanimous upon the main point, but did not agree upon the time of carrying it into execution. It was in the month of April, in the year 1378, when Lapo, thinking delay inadvisable, expressed his opinion, that procrastination was in the highest degree perilous to themselves; as in the next Signory, Salvestro de' Medici would very probably be elected Gonfalonier, and they all knew he was opposed to their party. Piero degli Albizzi, on the other hand, thought it better to defer, since they would require forces, which could not be assembled without exciting observation, and if they were discovered, they would incur great risk. He thereupon judged it preferable to wait till the approaching feast of St. John on which, being the most solemn festival of the city, vast multitudes would be assembled, among whom they might conceal whatever numbers they pleased. To obviate their fears of Salvestro, he was to be ADMONISHED, and if this did not appear likely to be effectual, they would "ADMONISH" one of the Colleague of his quarter, and upon redrawing, as the ballot-boxes would be nearly empty, chance would very likely occasion that either he or some associate of his would be drawn, and he would thus be rendered incapable of sitting as Gonfalonier. They therefore came to the conclusion proposed by Piero, though Lapo consented reluctantly, considering the delay dangerous, and that, as no opportunity can be in all respects suitable, he who waits for the concurrence of every advantage, either never makes an attempt, or, if induced to do so, is most frequently foiled. They "admonished" the Colleague, but did not prevent the appointment of Salvestro, for the design was discovered by the Eight, who took care to render all attempts upon the drawing futile. Salvestro Alammano de' Medici was therefore drawn Gonfalonier, and, being one of the noblest popular families, he could not endure that the people should be oppressed by a few powerful persons. Having resolved to put an end to their insolence, and perceiving the middle classes favorably disposed, and many of the highest of the people on his side, he communicated his design to Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi, and Georgio Scali, who all promised their assistance. They, therefore, secretly draw up a law which had for its object to revive the restrictions upon the nobility, to retrench the authority of the Capitani di Parte, and recall the _ammoniti_ to their dignity. In order to attempt and obtain their ends, at one and the same time, having to consult, first the Colleagues and then the Councils, Salvestro being Provost (which office for the time makes its possessor almost prince of the city), he called together the Colleagues and the Council on the same morning, and the Colleagues being apart, he proposed the law prepared by himself and his friends, which, being a novelty, encountered in their small number so much opposition, that he was unable to have it passed. Salvestro, seeing his first attempt likely to fail, pretended to leave the room for a private reason, and, without being perceived, went immediately to the Council, and taking a lofty position from which he could be both seen and heard, said:--"That considering himself invested with the office of Gonfalonier, not so much to preside in private cases (for which proper judges were appointed, who have their regular sittings), as to guard the state, correct the insolence of the powerful, and ameliorate those laws by the influence of which the republic was being ruined, he had carefully attended to both these duties, and to his utmost ability provided for them, but found the perversity of some so much opposed to his just designs as to deprive him of all opportunity of doing good, and them not only of the means of assisting him with their counsel, but even hearing him. Therefore finding he no longer contributed either to the benefit of the republic or of the people generally, he could not perceive any reason for his longer holding the magistracy, of which he was either undeserving, or others thought him so, and would therefore retire to his house, that the people might appoint another in his stead, who would either have greater virtue or better fortune than himself." And having said this, he left the room as if to return home. Those of the council who were in the secret, and others desirous of novelty, raised a tumult, at which the Signory and the Colleagues came together, and finding the Gonfalonier leaving them, entreatingly and authoritatively detained him, and obliged him to return to the council room, which was now full of confusion. Many of the noble citizens were threatened in opprobrious language; and an artificer seized Carlo Strozzi by the throat, and would undoubtedly have murdered him, but was with difficulty prevented by those around. He who made the greatest disturbance, and incited the city to violence, was Benedetto degli Alberti, who, from a window of the palace, loudly called the people to arms; and presently the courtyards were filled with armed men, and the Colleagues granted to threats, what they had refused to entreaty. The Capitani di Parte had at the same time drawn together a great number of citizens to their hall to consult upon the means of defending themselves against the orders of the Signors, but when they heard the tumult that was raised, and were informed of the course the Councils had adopted, each took refuge in his own house. Let no one, when raising popular commotions, imagine he can afterward control them at his pleasure, or restrain them from proceeding to the commission of violence. Salvestro intended to enact his law, and compose the city; but it happened otherwise; for the feelings of all had become so excited, that they shut up the shops; the citizens fortified themselves in their houses; many conveyed their valuable property into the churches and monasteries, and everyone seemed to apprehend something terrible at hand. The companies of the Arts met, and each appointed an additional officer or Syndic; upon which the Priors summoned their Colleagues and these Syndics, and consulted a whole day how the city might be appeased with satisfaction to the different parties; but much difference of opinion prevailed, and no conclusion was come to. On the following day the Arts brought forth their banners, which the Signory understanding, and being apprehensive of evil, called the Council together to consider what course to adopt. But scarcely were they met, when the uproar recommenced, and soon the ensigns of the Arts, surrounded by vast numbers of armed men, occupied the courts. Upon this the Council, to give the Arts and the people hope of redress, and free themselves as much as possible from the charge of causing the mischief, gave a general power, which in Florence is called _Balia_, to the Signors, the Colleagues, the Eight, the Capitani di Parte, and to the Syndics of the Arts, to reform the government of the city, for the common benefit of all. While this was being arranged, a few of the ensigns of the Arts and some of the mob, desirous of avenging themselves for the recent injuries they had received from the Guelphs, separated themselves from the rest, and sacked and burnt the house of Lapo da Castiglionchio, who, when he learned the proceedings of the Signory against the Guelphs, and saw the people in arms, having no other resource but concealment or flight, first took refuge in Santa Croce, and afterward, being disguised as a monk, fled into the Casentino, where he was often heard to blame himself for having consented to wait till St. John's day, before they had made themselves sure of the government. Piero degli Albizzi and Carlo Strozzi hid themselves upon the first outbreak of the tumult, trusting that when it was over, by the interest of their numerous friends and relations, they might remain safely in Florence. The house of Lapo being burnt, as mischief begins with difficulty but easily increases, many other houses, either through public hatred, or private malice, shared the same fate; and the rioters, that they might have companions more eager than themselves to assist them in their work of plunder, broke open the public prisons, and then sacked the monastery of the Agnoli and the convent of S. Spirito, whither many citizens had taken their most valuable goods for safety. Nor would the public chambers have escaped these destroyers' hands, except out of reverence for one of the Signors, who on horseback, and followed by many citizens in arms, opposed the rage of the mob. CHAPTER III Contrary measures adopted by the magistrates to effect a pacification--Luigi Guicciardini the Gonfalonier entreats the magistrates of the Arts to endeavor to pacify the people--Serious riot caused by the plebeians--The woolen Art--The plebeians assemble--The speech of a seditious plebeian--Their resolution thereupon--The Signory discover the designs of the plebeians--Measures adopted to counteract them. This popular fury being abated by the authority of the Signors and the approach of night, on the following day, the Balia relieved the admonished, on condition that they should not for three years be capable of holding any magistracy. They annulled the laws made by the Guelphs to the prejudice of the citizens; declared Lapo da Castiglionchio and his companions, rebels, and with them many others, who were the objects of universal detestation. After these resolutions, the new Signory were drawn for, and Luigi Guicciardini appointed Gonfalonier, which gave hope that the tumults would soon be appeased; for everyone thought them to be peaceable men and lovers of order. Still the shops were not opened, nor did the citizens lay down their arms, but continued to patrol the city in great numbers; so that the Signory did not assume the magistracy with the usual pomp, but merely assembled within the palace, omitting all ceremony. This Signory, considering nothing more advisable in the beginning of their magistracy than to restore peace, caused a relinquishment of arms; ordered the shops to be opened, and the strangers who had been called to their aid, to return to their homes. They appointed guards in many parts of the city, so that if the admonished would only have remained quiet, order would soon have been re-established. But they were not satisfied to wait three years for the recovery of their honours; so that to gratify them the Arts again met, and demanded of the Signory, that for the benefit and quiet of the city, they would ordain that no citizens should at any time, whether Signor, Colleague, Capitano di Parte, or Consul of any art whatever, be admonished as a Ghibelline; and further, that new ballots of the Guelphic party should be made, and the old ones burned. These demands were at once acceded to, not only by the Signors, but by all the Councils; and thus it was hoped the tumults newly excited would be settled. But since men are not satisfied with recovering what is their own, but wish to possess the property of others and to revenge themselves, those who were in hopes of benefiting by these disorders persuaded the artificers that they would never be safe, if several of their enemies were not expelled from the city or destroyed. This terrible doctrine coming to the knowledge of the Signory, they caused the magistrates of the Arts and their Syndics to be brought before them, and Luigi Guicciardini, the Gonfalonier, addressed them in the following words: "If these Signors, and I with them, had not long been acquainted with the fate of this city, that as soon as external wars have ceased the internal commence, we should have been more surprised, and our displeasure would have been greater. But as evils to which we are accustomed are less annoying, we have endured past disturbances patiently, they having arisen for the most part without our fault; and we hoped that, like former troubles, they would soon have an end, after the many and great concessions we had made at your suggestion. But finding that you are yet unsettled, that you contemplate the commission of new crimes against your fellow-citizens, and are desirous of making new exiles, our displeasure increases in proportion to your misconduct. And certainly, could we have believed that during our magistracy the city was to be ruined, whether with or without your concurrence, we should certainly, either by flight or exile, have avoided these horrors. But trusting that we had to do with those who possessed some feelings of humanity and some love of their country, we willingly accepted the magistracy, thinking that by our gentleness we should overcome your ambition. But we perceive from experience that the more humble our behavior, the more concessions we make, the prouder you become, and the more exorbitant are your demands. And though we speak thus, it is not in order to offend, but to amend you. Let others tell you pleasing tales, our design is to communicate only what is for your good. Now we would ask you, and have you answer on your honor, What is there yet ungranted, that you can, with any appearance of propriety, require? You wished to have authority taken from the Capitani di Parte; and it is done. You wished that the ballotings should be burned, and a reformation of them take place; and we consent. You desired that the admonished should be restored to their honours; and it is permitted. At your entreaty we have pardoned those who have burned down houses and plundered churches; many honorable citizens have been exiled to please you; and at your suggestion new restraints have been laid upon the Great. When will there be an end of your demands? and how long will you continue to abuse our liberality? Do you not observe with how much more moderation we bear defeat than you your victory? To what end will your divisions bring our city? Have you forgotten that when disunited Castruccio, a low citizen of Lucca, subdued her? or that a duke of Athens, your hired captain did so too? But when the citizens were united in her defense, an archbishop of Milan and a pope were unable to subdue it, and, after many years of war, were compelled to retire with disgrace. "Then why would you, by your discords, reduce to slavery in a time of peace, that city, which so many powerful enemies have left free, even in war? What can you expect from your disunion but subjugation? or from the property of which you already have plundered, or may yet plunder us, but poverty? for this property is the means by which we furnish occupation for the whole city, and if you take it from us, our means of finding that occupation is withdrawn. Besides, those who take it will have difficulty in preserving what is dishonestly acquired, and thus poverty and destitution are brought upon the city. Now, I, and these Signors command, and if it were consistent with propriety, we would entreat that you allow your minds to be calmed; be content, rest satisfied with the provisions that have been made for you; and if you should be found to need anything further, make your request with decency and order, and not with tumult; for when your demands are reasonable they will always be complied with, and you will not give occasion to evil designing men to ruin your country and cast the blame upon yourselves." These words conveying nothing but the truth, produced a suitable effect upon the minds of the citizens, who thanking the Gonfalonier for having acted toward them the part of a king Signor, and toward the city that of a good citizen, offered their obedience in whatever might be committed to them. And the Signors, to prove the sincerity of their intentions, appointed two citizens for each of the superior magistracies, who, with Syndics of the arts, were to consider what could be done to restore quite, and report their resolutions to the Signors. While these things were in progress, a disturbance arose, much more injurious to the republic than anything that had hitherto occurred. The greatest part of the fires and robberies which took place on the previous days were perpetrated by the very lowest of the people; and those who had been the most audacious, were afraid that when the greater differences were composed, they would be punished for the crimes they had committed; and that as usual, they would be abandoned by those who had instigated them to the commission of crime. To this may be added, the hatred of the lower orders toward the rich citizens and the principals of the arts, because they did not think themselves remunerated for their labor in a manner equal to their merits. For in the time of Charles I., when the city was divided into arts, a head or governor was appointed to each, and it was provided that the individuals of each art, should be judged in civil matters by their own superiors. These arts, as we have before observed, were at first twelve; in the course of time they were increased to twenty-one, and attained so much power, that in a few years they grasped the entire government of the city; and as some were in greater esteem than others, they were divided into MAJOR and MINOR; seven were called "major," and fourteen, the "minor arts." From this division, and from other causes which we have narrated above, arose the arrogance of the Capitani di Parte; for those citizens who had formerly been Guelphs, and had the constant disposal of that magistracy, favored the followers of the major and persecuted the minor arts and their patrons; and hence arose the many commotions already mentioned. When the companies of the arts were first organized, many of those trades, followed by the lowest of the people and the plebeians, were not incorporated, but were ranged under those arts most nearly allied to them; and, hence, when they were not properly remunerated for their labor, or their masters oppressed them, they had no one of whom to seek redress, except the magistrate of the art to which theirs was subject; and of him they did not think justice always attainable. Of the arts, that which had always had, and now has, the greatest number of these subordinates, is the woolen; which being both then, and still, the most powerful body, and first in authority, supports the greater part of the plebeians and lowest of the people. The lower classes, then, the subordinates not only of the woolen, but also of the other arts, were discontented, from the causes just mentioned; and their apprehension of punishment for the burnings and robberies they had committed, did not tend to compose them. Meetings took place in different parts during the night, to talk over the past, and to communicate the danger in which they were, when one of the most daring and experienced, in order to animate the rest, spoke thus: "If the question now were, whether we should take up arms, rob and burn the houses of the citizens, and plunder churches, I am one of those who would think it worthy of further consideration, and should, perhaps, prefer poverty and safety to the dangerous pursuit of an uncertain good. But as we have already armed, and many offenses have been committed, it appears to me that we have to consider how to lay them aside, and secure ourselves from the consequences of what is already done. I certainly think, that if nothing else could teach us, necessity might. You see the whole city full of complaint and indignation against us; the citizens are closely united, and the signors are constantly with the magistrates. You may be sure they are contriving something against us; they are arranging some new plan to subdue us. We ought therefore to keep two things in view, and have two points to consider; the one is, to escape with impunity for what has been done during the last few days, and the other, to live in greater comfort and security for the time to come. We must, therefore, I think, in order to be pardoned for our faults, commit new ones; redoubling the mischief, and multiplying fires and robberies; and in doing this, endeavor to have as many companions as we can; for when many are in fault, few are punished; small crimes are chastised, but great and serious ones rewarded. When many suffer, few seek vengeance; for general evils are endured more patiently than private ones. To increase the number of misdeeds will, therefore, make forgiveness more easily attainable, and will open the way to secure what we require for our own liberty. And it appears evident that the gain is certain; for our opponents are disunited and rich; their disunion will give us the victory, and their riches, when they have become ours, will support us. Be not deceived about that antiquity of blood by which they exalt themselves above us; for all men having had one common origin, are all equally ancient, and nature has made us all after one fashion. Strip us naked, and we shall all be found alike. Dress us in their clothing, and they in ours, we shall appear noble, they ignoble--for poverty and riches make all the difference. It grieves me much to think that some of you are sorry inwardly for what is done, and resolve to abstain from anything more of the kind. Certainly, if it be so, you are not the men I took you for; because neither shame nor conscience ought to have any influence with you. Conquerors, by what means soever, are never considered aught but glorious. We have no business to think about conscience; for when, like us, men have to fear hunger, and imprisonment, or death, the fear of hell neither can nor ought to have any influence upon them. If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains. Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried. Therefore we must use force when the opportunity offers; and fortune cannot present us one more favorable than the present, when the citizens are still disunited, the Signory doubtful, and the magistrates terrified; for we may easily conquer them before they can come to any settled arrangement. By this means we shall either obtain the entire government of the city, or so large a share of it, as to be forgiven past errors, and have sufficient authority to threaten the city with a renewal of them at some future time. I confess this course is bold and dangerous, but when necessity presses, audacity becomes prudence, and in great affairs the brave never think of dangers. The enterprises that are begun with hazard always have a reward at last; and no one ever escaped from embarrassment without some peril. Besides, it is easy to see from all their preparations of prisons, racks, and instruments of death, that there is more danger in inaction than in endeavoring to secure ourselves; for in the first case the evils are certain, in the latter doubtful. How often have I heard you complain of the avarice of your superiors and the injustice of your magistrates. Now then is the time, not only to liberate yourself from them, but to become so much superior, that they will have more causes of grief and fear from you, than you from them. The opportunity presented by circumstances passes away, and when gone, it will be vain to think it can be recalled. You see the preparations of our enemies; let us anticipate them; and those who are first in arms will certainly be victors, to the ruin of their enemies and their own exaltation; and thus honors will accrue to many of us and security to all." These arguments greatly inflamed minds already disposed to mischief, so that they determined to take up arms as soon as they had acquired a sufficient number of associates, and bound themselves by oath to mutual defense, in case any of them were subdued by the civil power. While they were arranging to take possession of the republic, their design became known to the Signory, who, having taken a man named Simone, learned from him the particulars of the conspiracy, and that the outbreak was to take place on the following day. Finding the danger so pressing, they called together the colleagues and those citizens who with the syndics of the arts were endeavoring to effect the union of the city. It was then evening, and they advised the signors to assemble the consuls of the trades, who proposed that whatever armed force was in Florence should be collected, and with the Gonfaloniers of the people and their companies, meet under arms in the piazza next morning. It happened that while Simone was being tortured, a man named Niccolo da San Friano was regulating the palace clock, and becoming acquainted with what was going on, returned home and spread the report of it in his neighborhood, so that presently the piazza of St. Spirito was occupied by above a thousand men. This soon became known to the other conspirators, and San Pietro Maggiore and St. Lorenzo, their places of assembly, were presently full of them, all under arms. CHAPTER IV Proceedings of the plebeians--The demand they make of the Signory--They insist that the Signory leave the palace--The Signory leave the palace--Michael di Lando Gonfalonier--Complaints and movements of the plebeians against Michael di Lando--Michael di Lando proceeds against the plebeians and reduces them to order--Character of Michael di Lando. At daybreak on the 21st of July, there did not appear in the piazza above eighty men in arms friendly to the Signory, and not one of the Gonfaloniers; for knowing the whole city to be in a state of insurrection they were afraid to leave their homes. The first body of plebeians that made its appearance was that which had assembled at San Pietro Maggiore; but the armed force did not venture to attack them. Then came the other multitudes, and finding no opposition, they loudly demanded their prisoners from the Signory; and being resolved to have them by force if they were not yielded to their threats, they burned the house of Luigi Guicciardini; and the Signory, for fear of greater mischief, set them at liberty. With this addition to their strength they took the Gonfalon of Justice from the bearer, and under the shadow of authority which it gave them, burned the houses of many citizens, selecting those whose owners had publicly or privately excited their hatred. Many citizens, to avenge themselves for private injuries, conducted them to the houses of their enemies; for it was quite sufficient to insure its destruction, if a single voice from the mob called out, "To the house of such a one," or if he who bore the Gonfalon took the road toward it. All the documents belonging to the woolen trade were burned, and after the commission of much violence, by way of associating it with something laudable, Salvestro de Medici and sixty-three other citizens were made knights, among whom were Benedetto and Antonio degli Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi and others similarly their friends; though many received the honor against their wills. It was a remarkable peculiarity of the riots, that many who had their houses burned, were on the same day, and by the same party made knights; so close were the kindness and the injury together. This circumstance occurred to Luigi Guicciardini, Gonfalonier of Justice. In this tremendous uproar, the Signory, finding themselves abandoned by their armed force, by the leaders of the arts, and by the Gonfaloniers, became dismayed; for none had come to their assistance in obedience to orders; and of the sixteen Gonfalons, the ensign of the Golden Lion and of the Vaio, under Giovenco della Stufa and Giovanni Cambi alone appeared; and these, not being joined by any other, soon withdrew. Of the citizens, on the other hand, some, seeing the fury of this unreasonable multitude and the palace abandoned, remained within doors; others followed the armed mob, in the hope that by being among them, they might more easily protect their own houses or those of their friends. The power of the plebeians was thus increased and that of the Signory weakened. The tumult continued all day, and at night the rioters halted near the palace of Stefano, behind the church of St. Barnabas. Their number exceeded six thousand, and before daybreak they obtained by threats the ensigns of the trades, with which and the Gonfalon of Justice, when morning came, they proceeded to the palace of the provost, who refusing to surrender it to them, they took possession of it by force. The Signory, desirous of a compromise, since they could not restrain them by force, appointed four of the Colleagues to proceed to the palace of the provost, and endeavor to learn what was their intention. They found that the leaders of the plebeians, with the Syndics of the trades and some citizens, had resolved to signify their wishes to the Signory. They therefore returned with four deputies of the plebeians, who demanded that the woolen trade should not be allowed to have a foreign judge; that there should be formed three new companies of the arts; namely, one for the wool combers and dyers, one for the barbers, doublet-makers, tailors, and such like, and the third for the lowest class of people. They required that the three new arts should furnish two Signors; the fourteen minor arts, three; and that the Signory should provide a suitable place of assembly for them. They also made it a condition that no member of these companies should be expected during two years to pay any debt that amounted to less than fifty ducats; that the bank should take no interest on loans already contracted, and that only the principal sum should be demanded; that the condemned and the banished should be forgiven, and the admonished should be restored to participation in the honors of government. Besides these, many other articles were stipulated in favor of their friends, and a requisition made that many of their enemies should be exiled and admonished. These demands, though grievous and dishonorable to the republic, were for fear of further violence granted, by the joint deliberation of the Signors, Colleagues, and Council of the people. But in order to give it full effect, it was requisite that the Council of the Commune should also give its consent; and, as they could not assemble two councils during the same day it was necessary to defer it till the morrow. However the trades appeared content, the plebeians satisfied; and both promised, that these laws being confirmed, every disturbance should cease. On the following morning, while the Council of the Commune were in consultation, the impatient and volatile multitude entered the piazza, under their respective ensigns, with loud and fearful shouts, which struck terror into all the Council and Signory; and Guerrente Marignolli, one of the latter, influenced more by fear than anything else, under pretense of guarding the lower doors, left the chamber and fled to his house. He was unable to conceal himself from the multitude, who, however, took no notice, except that, upon seeing him, they insisted that all the Signors should quit the palace, and declared that if they refused to comply, their houses should be burned and their families put to death. The law had now been passed; the Signors were in their own apartments; the Council had descended from the chamber, and without leaving the palace, hopeless of saving the city, they remained in the lodges and courts below, overwhelmed with grief at seeing such depravity in the multitude, and such perversity or fear in those who might either have restrained or suppressed them. The Signory, too, were dismayed and fearful for the safety of their country, finding themselves abandoned by one of their associates, and without any aid or even advice; when, at this moment of uncertainty as to what was about to happen, or what would be best to be done, Tommaso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti, either from motives of ambition (being desirous of remaining masters of the palace), or because they thought it the most advisable step, persuaded them to give way to the popular impulse, and withdraw privately to their homes. This advice, given by those who had been the leaders of the tumult, although the others yielded, filled Alamanno Acciajuoli and Niccolo del Bene, two of the Signors, with anger; and, reassuming a little vigor, they said, that if the others would withdraw they could not help it, but they would remain as long as they continued in office, if they did not in the meantime lose their lives. These dissensions redoubled the fears of the Signory and the rage of the people, so that the Gonfalonier, disposed rather to conclude his magistracy in dishonor than in danger, recommended himself to the care of Tommaso Strozzi, who withdrew him from the palace and conducted him to his house. The other Signors were, one after another, conveyed in the same manner, so that Alamanno and Niccolo, not to appear more valiant than wise, seeing themselves left alone, also retired, and the palace fell into the hands of the plebeians and the Eight Commissioners of War, who had not yet laid down their authority. When the plebeians entered the palace, the standard of the Gonfalonier of Justice was in the hands of Michael di Lando, a wool comber. This man, barefoot, with scarcely anything upon him, and the rabble at his heels, ascended the staircase, and, having entered the audience chamber of the Signory, he stopped, and turning to the multitude said, "You see this palace is now yours, and the city is in your power; what do you think ought to be done?" To which they replied, they would have him for their Gonfalonier and lord; and that he should govern them and the city as he thought best. Michael accepted the command; and, as he was a cool and sagacious man, more favored by nature than by fortune, he resolved to compose the tumult, and restore peace to the city. To occupy the minds of the people, and give himself time to make some arrangement, he ordered that one Nuto, who had been appointed bargello, or sheriff, by Lapo da Castiglionchio, should be sought. The greater part of his followers went to execute this commission; and, to commence with justice the government he had acquired by favor, he commanded that no one should either burn or steal anything; while, to strike terror into all, he caused a gallows to be erected in the court of the palace. He began the reform of government by deposing the Syndics of the trades, and appointing new ones; he deprived the Signory and the Colleagues of their magistracy, and burned the balloting purses containing the names of those eligible to office under the former government. In the meantime, Ser Nuto, being brought by the mob into the court, was suspended from the gallows by one foot; and those around having torn him to pieces, in little more than a moment nothing remained of him but the foot by which he had been tied. The Eight Commissioners of War, on the other hand, thinking themselves, after the departure of the Signors, left sole masters of the city, had already formed a new Signory; but Michael, on hearing this, sent them an order to quit the palace immediately; for he wished to show that he could govern Florence without their assistance. He then assembled the Syndics of the trades, and created as a Signory, four from the lowest plebeians; two from the major, and two from the minor trades. Besides this, he made a new selection of names for the balloting purses, and divided the state into three parts; one composed of the new trades, another of the minor, and the third of the major trades. He gave to Salvestro de' Medici the revenue of the shops upon the Old Bridge; for himself he took the provostry of Empoli, and conferred benefits upon many other citizens, friends of the plebeians; not so much for the purpose of rewarding their labors, as that they might serve to screen him from envy. It seemed to the plebeians that Michael, in his reformation of the state, had too much favored the higher ranks of the people, and that themselves had not a sufficient share in the government to enable them to preserve it; and hence, prompted by their usual audacity, they again took arms, and coming tumultuously into the court of the palace, each body under their particular ensigns, insisted that the Signory should immediately descend and consider new means for advancing their well-being and security. Michael, observing their arrogance, was unwilling to provoke them, but without further yielding to their request, blamed the manner in which it was made, advised them to lay down their arms, and promised that then would be conceded to them, what otherwise, for the dignity of the state, must of necessity be withheld. The multitude, enraged at this reply, withdrew to Santa Maria Novella, where they appointed eight leaders for their party, with officers, and other regulations to ensure influence and respect; so that the city possessed two governments, and was under the direction of two distinct powers. These new leaders determined that Eight, elected from their trades, should constantly reside in the palace with the Signory, and that whatever the Signory should determine must be confirmed by them before it became law. They took from Salvestro de' Medici and Michael di Lando the whole of what their former decrees had granted them, and distributed to many of their party offices and emoluments to enable them to support their dignity. These resolutions being passed, to render them valid they sent two of their body to the Signory, to insist on their being confirmed by the Council, with an intimation, that if not granted they would be vindicated by force. This deputation, with amazing audacity and surpassing presumption, explained their commission to the Signory, upbraided the Gonfalonier with the dignity they had conferred upon him, the honor they had done him, and with the ingratitude and want of respect he had shown toward them. Coming to threats toward the end of their discourse, Michael could not endure their arrogance, and sensible rather of the dignity of the office he held than of the meanness of his origin, determined by extraordinary means to punish such extraordinary insolence, and drawing the sword with which he was girt, seriously wounded, and cause them to be seized and imprisoned. When the fact became known, the multitude were filled with rage, and thinking that by their arms they might ensure what without them they had failed to effect, they seized their weapons and with the utmost fury resolved to force the Signory to consent to their wishes. Michael, suspecting what would happen, determined to be prepared, for he knew his credit rather required him to be first to the attack than to wait the approach of the enemy, or, like his predecessors, dishonor both the palace and himself by flight. He therefore drew together a good number of citizens (for many began to see their error), mounted on horseback, and followed by crowds of armed men, proceeded to Santa Maria Novella, to encounter his adversaries. The plebeians, who as before observed were influenced by a similar desire, had set out about the same time as Michael, and it happened that as each took a different route, they did not meet in their way, and Michael, upon his return, found the piazza in their possession. The contest was now for the palace, and joining in the fight, he soon vanquished them, drove part of them out of the city, and compelled the rest to throw down their arms and escape or conceal themselves, as well as they could. Having thus gained the victory, the tumults were composed, solely by the talents of the Gonfalonier, who in courage, prudence, and generosity surpassed every other citizen of his time, and deserves to be enumerated among the glorious few who have greatly benefited their country; for had he possessed either malice or ambition, the republic would have been completely ruined, and the city must have fallen under greater tyranny than that of the duke of Athens. But his goodness never allowed a thought to enter his mind opposed to the universal welfare: his prudence enabled him to conduct affairs in such a manner, that a great majority of his own faction reposed the most entire confidence in him; and he kept the rest in awe by the influence of his authority. These qualities subdued the plebeians, and opened the eyes of the superior artificers, who considered how great must be the folly of those, who having overcome the pride of the nobility, could endure to submit to the nauseous rule of the rabble. CHAPTER V New regulations for the elections of the Signory--Confusion in the City--Piero degli Albizzi and other citizens condemned to death--The Florentines alarmed by the approach of Charles of Durazzo--The measures adopted in consequence thereof--Insolent Conduct of Giorgio Scali--Benedetto Alberti--Giorgio Scali beheaded. By the time Michael di Lando had subdued the plebeians, the new Signory was drawn, and among those who composed it, were two persons of such base and mean condition, that the desire increased in the minds of the people to be freed from the ignominy into which they had fallen; and when, upon the first of September, the new Signory entered office and the retiring members were still in the palace, the piazza being full of armed men, a tumultuous cry arose from the midst of them, that none of the lowest of the people should hold office among the Signory. The obnoxious two were withdrawn accordingly. The name of one was Il Tira, of the other Baroccio, and in their stead were elected Giorgio Scali and Francesco di Michele. The company of the lowest trade was also dissolved, and its members deprived of office, except Michael di Lando, Lorenzo di Puccio and a few others of better quality. The honors of government were divided into two parts, one of which was assigned to the superior trades, the other to the inferior; except that the latter were to furnish five Signors, and the former only four. The Gonfalonier was to be chosen alternately from each. The government thus composed, restored peace to the city for the time; but though the republic was rescued from the power of the lowest plebeians, the inferior trades were still more influential than the nobles of the people, who, however, were obliged to submit for the gratification of the trades, of whose favor they wished to deprive the plebeians. The new establishment was supported by all who wished the continued subjugation of those who, under the name of the Guelphic party, had practiced such excessive violence against the citizens. And as among others, thus disposed, were Giorgio Scali, Benedetto Alberti, Salvestro di Medici, and Tommaso Strozzi, these four almost became princes of the city. This state of the public mind strengthened the divisions already commenced between the nobles of the people, and the minor artificers, by the ambition of the Ricci and the Albizzi; from which, as at different times very serious effects arose, and as they will hereafter be frequently mentioned, we shall call the former the popular party, the latter the plebeian. This condition of things continued three years, during which many were exiled and put to death; for the government lived in constant apprehension, knowing that both within and without the city many were dissatisfied with them. Those within, either attempted or were suspected of attempting every day some new project against them; and those without, being under no restraint, were continually, by means of some prince or republic, spreading reports tending to increase the disaffection. Gianozzo da Salerno was at this time in Bologna. He held a command under Charles of Durazzo, a descendant of the kings of Naples, who, designing to undertake the conquest of the dominions of Queen Giovanna, retained his captain in that city, with the concurrence of Pope Urban, who was at enmity with the queen. Many Florentine emigrants were also at Bologna, in close correspondence with him and Charles. This caused the rulers in Florence to live in continual alarm, and induced them to lend a willing ear to any calumnies against the suspected. While in this disturbed state of feeling, it was disclosed to the government that Gianozzo da Salerno was about to march to Florence with the emigrants, and that great numbers of those within were to rise in arms, and deliver the city to him. Upon this information many were accused, the principal of whom were Piero degli Albizzi and Carlo Strozzi: and after these Cipriano Mangione, Jacopo Sacchetti, Donato Barbadori, Filippo Strozzi, and Giovanni Anselmi, the whole of whom, except Carlo Strozzi who fled, were made prisoners; and the Signory, to prevent any one from taking arms in their favor, appointed Tommaso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti with a strong armed force, to guard the city. The arrested citizens were examined, and although nothing was elicited against them sufficient to induce the Capitano to find them guilty, their enemies excited the minds of the populace to such a degree of outrageous and overwhelming fury against them, that they were condemned to death, as it were, by force. Nor was the greatness of his family, or his former reputation of any service to Piero degli Albizzi, who had once been, of all the citizens, the man most feared and honored. Some one, either as a friend to render him wise in his prosperity, or an enemy to threaten him with the fickleness of fortune, had upon the occasion of his making a feast for many citizens, sent him a silver bowl full of sweetmeats, among which a large nail was found, and being seen by many present, was taken for a hint to him to fix the wheel of fortune, which, having conveyed him to the top, must if the rotation continued, also bring him to the bottom. This interpretation was verified, first by his ruin, and afterward by his death. After this execution the city was full of consternation, for both victors and vanquished were alike in fear; but the worst effects arose from the apprehensions of those possessing the management of affairs; for every accident, however trivial, caused them to commit fresh outrages, either by condemnations, admonitions, or banishment of citizens; to which must be added, as scarcely less pernicious, the frequent new laws and regulations which were made for defense of the government, all of which were put in execution to the injury of those opposed to their faction. They appointed forty-six persons, who, with the Signory, were to purge the republic of all suspected by the government. They admonished thirty-nine citizens, ennobled many of the people, and degraded many nobles to the popular rank. To strengthen themselves against external foes, they took into their pay John Hawkwood, an Englishman of great military reputation, who had long served the pope and others in Italy. Their fears from without were increased by a report that several bodies of men were being assembled by Charles of Durazzo for the conquest of Naples, and many Florentine emigrants were said to have joined him. Against these dangers, in addition to the forces which had been raised, large sums of money were provided; and Charles, having arrived at Arezzo, obtained from the Florentines 40,000 ducats, and promised he would not molest them. His enterprise was immediately prosecuted, and having occupied the kingdom of Naples, he sent Queen Giovanna a prisoner into Hungary. This victory renewed the fears of those who managed the affairs of Florence, for they could not persuade themselves that their money would have a greater influence on the king's mind than the friendship which his house had long retained for the Guelphs, whom they so grievously oppressed. This suspicion increasing, multiplied oppressions; which again, instead of diminishing the suspicion, augmented it; so that most men lived in the utmost discontent. To this the insolence of Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi (who by their popular influence overawed the magistrates) also contributed, for the rulers were apprehensive that by the power these men possessed with the plebeians they could set them at defiance; and hence it is evident that not only to good men, but even to the seditious, this government appeared tyrannical and violent. To put a period to the outrageous conduct of Giorgio, it happened that a servant of his accused Giovanni di Cambio of practices against the state, but the Capitano declared him innocent. Upon this, the judge determined to punish the accuser with the same penalties that the accused would have incurred had he been guilty, but Giorgio Scali, unable to save him either by his authority or entreaties, obtained the assistance of Tommaso Strozzi, and with a multitude of armed men, set the informer at liberty and plundered the palace of the Capitano, who was obliged to save himself by flight. This act excited such great and universal animosity against him, that his enemies began to hope they would be able to effect his ruin, and also to rescue the city from the power of the plebeians, who for three years had held her under their arrogant control. To the realization of this design the Capitano greatly contributed, for the tumult having subsided, he presented himself before the signors, and said "He had cheerfully undertaken the office to which they had appointed him, for he thought he should serve upright men who would take arms for the defense of justice, and not impede its progress. But now that he had seen and had experience of the proceedings of the city, and the manner in which affairs were conducted, that dignity which he had voluntarily assumed with the hope of acquiring honor and emolument, he now more willingly resigned, to escape from the losses and danger to which he found himself exposed." The complaint of the Capitano was heard with the utmost attention by the Signory, who promising to remunerate him for the injury he had suffered and provide for his future security, he was satisfied. Some of them then obtained an interview with certain citizens who were thought to be lovers of the common good, and least suspected by the state; and in conjunction with these, it was concluded that the present was a favorable opportunity for rescuing the city from Giorgio and the plebeians, the last outrage he had committed having completely alienated the great body of the people from him. They judged it best to profit by the occasion before the excitement had abated, for they knew that the favor of the mob is often gained or lost by the most trifling circumstance; and more certainly to insure success, they determined, if possible, to obtain the concurrence of Benedetto Alberti, for without it they considered their enterprise to be dangerous. Benedetto was one of the richest citizens, a man of unassuming manners, an ardent lover of the liberties of his country, and one to whom tyrannical measures were in the highest degree offensive; so that he was easily induced to concur in their views and consent to Giorgio's ruin. His enmity against the nobles of the people and the Guelphs, and his friendship for the plebeians, were caused by the insolence and tyrannical proceedings of the former; but finding that the plebeians had soon become quite as insolent, he quickly separated himself from them; and the injuries committed by them against the citizens were done wholly without his consent. So that the same motives which made him join the plebeians induced him to leave them. Having gained Benedetto and the leaders of the trades to their side, they provided themselves with arms and made Giorgio prisoner. Tommaso fled. The next day Giorgio was beheaded; which struck so great a terror into his party, that none ventured to express the slightest disapprobation, but each seemed anxious to be foremost in defense of the measure. On being led to execution, in the presence of that people who only a short time before had idolized him, Giorgio complained of his hard fortune, and the malignity of those citizens who, having done him an undeserved injury, had compelled him to honor and support a mob, possessing neither faith nor gratitude. Observing Benedetto Alberti among those who had armed themselves for the preservation of order, he said, "Do you, too, consent, Benedetto, that this injury shall be done to me? Were I in your place and you in mine, I would take care that no one should injure you. I tell you, however, this day is the end of my troubles and the beginning of yours." He then blamed himself for having confided too much in a people who may be excited and inflamed by every word, motion, and breath of suspicion. With these complaints he died in the midst of his armed enemies, delighted at his fall. Some of his most intimate associates were also put to death, and their bodies dragged about by the mob. CHAPTER VI Confusion and riots in the city--Reform of government in opposition to the plebeians--Injuries done to those who favored the plebeians--Michael di Lando banished--Benedetto Alberti hated by the Signory--Fears excited by the coming of Louis of Anjou--The Florentines purchase Arezzo--Benedetto Alberti becomes suspected and is banished--His discourse upon leaving the city--Other citizens banished and admonished--War with Giovanni Galeazzo, duke of Milan. The death of Giorgio caused very great excitement; many took arms at the execution in favor of the Signory and the Capitano; and many others, either for ambition or as a means for their own safety, did the same. The city was full of conflicting parties, who each had a particular end in view, and wished to carry it into effect before they disarmed. The ancient nobility, called the GREAT, could not bear to be deprived of public honors; for the recovery of which they used their utmost exertions, and earnestly desired that authority might be restored to the Capitani di Parte. The nobles of the people and the major trades were discontented at the share the minor trades and lowest of the people possessed in the government; while the minor trades were desirous of increasing their influence, and the lowest people were apprehensive of losing the companies of their trades and the authority which these conferred. Such opposing views occasioned Florence, during a year, to be disturbed by many riots. Sometimes the nobles of the people took arms; sometimes the major and sometimes the minor trades and the lowest of the people; and it often happened that, though in different parts, all were at once in insurrection. Hence many conflicts took place between the different parties or with the forces of the palace; for the Signory sometimes yielding, and at other times resisting, adopted such remedies as they could for these numerous evils. At length, after two assemblies of the people, and many Balias appointed for the reformation of the city; after much toil, labor, and imminent danger, a government was appointed, by which all who had been banished since Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier were restored. They who had acquired distinctions or emoluments by the Balia of 1378 were deprived of them. The honors of government were restored to the Guelphic party; the two new Companies of the Trades were dissolved, and all who had been subject to them assigned to their former companies. The minor trades were not allowed to elect the Gonfalonier of Justice, their share of honors was reduced from a half to a third; and those of the highest rank were withdrawn from them altogether. Thus the nobles of the people and the Guelphs repossessed themselves of the government, which was lost by the plebeians after it had been in their possession from 1378 to 1381, when these changes took place. The new establishment was not less injurious to the citizens, or less troublesome at its commencement than that of the plebeians had been; for many of the nobles of the people, who had distinguished themselves as defenders of the plebeians, were banished, with a great number of the leaders of the latter, among whom was Michael di Lando; nor could all the benefits conferred upon the city by his authority, when in danger from the lawless mob, save him from the rabid fury of the party that was now in power. His good offices evidently excited little gratitude in his countrymen. The neglect of their benefactors is an error into which princes and republics frequently fall; and hence mankind, alarmed by such examples, as soon as they begin to perceive the ingratitude of their rulers, set themselves against them. As these banishments and executions had always been offensive to Benedetto Alberti, they continued to disgust him, and he censured them both publicly and privately. The leaders of the government began to fear him, for they considered him one of the most earnest friends of the plebeians, and thought he had not consented to the death of Giorgio Scali from disapprobation of his proceeding, but that he might be left himself without a rival in the government. His discourse and his conduct alike served to increase their suspicions, so that all the ruling party had their eyes upon him, and eagerly sought an opportunity of crushing him. During this state of things, external affairs were not of serious importance, for some which ensued were productive of apprehension rather than of injury. At this time Louis of Anjou came into Italy, to recover the kingdom of Naples for Queen Giovanna, and drive out Charles of Durazzo. His coming terrified the Florentines; for Charles, according to the custom of old friends, demanded their assistance, and Louis, like those who seek new alliances, required their neutrality. The Florentines, that they might seem to comply with the request of Louis, and at the same time assist Charles, discharged from their service Sir John Hawkwood, and transferred him to that of Pope Urban, who was friendly to Charles; but this deceit was at once detected, and Louis considered himself greatly injured by the Florentines. While the war was carried on between Louis and Charles in Puglia, new forces were sent from France in aid of Louis, and on arriving in Tuscany, were by the emigrants of Arezzo conducted to that city, and took it from those who held possession for Charles. And when they were about to change the government of Florence, as they had already done that of Arezzo, Louis died, and the order of things in Puglia and in Tuscany was changed accordingly; for Charles secured the kingdom, which had been all but lost, and the Florentines, who were apprehensive for their own city, purchased Arezzo from those who held it for Louis. Charles, having secured Puglia, went to take possession of Hungary, to which he was heir, leaving, with his wife, his children Ladislaus and Giovanna, who were yet infants. He took possession of Hungary, but was soon after slain there. As great rejoicings were made in Florence on account of this acquisition as ever took place in any city for a real victory, which served to exhibit the public and private wealth of the people, many families endeavoring to vie with the state itself in displays of magnificence. The Alberti surpassed all others; the tournaments and exhibitions made by them were rather suitable for a sovereign prince than for any private individuals. These things increased the envy with which the family was regarded, and being joined with suspicions which the state entertained of Benedetto, were the causes of his ruin. The rulers could not endure him, for it appeared as if, at any moment, something might occur, which, with the favor of his friends, would enable him to recover his authority, and drive them out of the city. While in this state of suspicion and jealousy, it happened that while he was Gonfalonier of the Companies, his son-in-law, Filippo Magalotti, was drawn Gonfalonier of Justice; and this circumstance increased the fears of the government, for they thought it would strengthen Benedetto's influence, and place the state in the greater peril. Anxious to provide a remedy, without creating much disturbance, they induced Bese Magalotti, his relative and enemy, to signify to the Signory that Filippo, not having attained the age required for the exercise of that office, neither could nor ought to hold it. The question was examined by the signors, and part of them out of hatred, others in order to avoid disunion among themselves, declared Filippo ineligible to the dignity, and in his stead was drawn Bardo Mancini, who was quite opposed to the plebeian interests, and an inveterate foe of Benedetto. This man, having entered upon the duties of his office, created a _Balia_ for the reformation of the state, which banished Benedetto Alberti and admonished all the rest of his family except Antonio. Before his departure, Benedetto called them together, and observing their melancholy demeanor, said, "You see, my fathers, and you the elders of our house, how fortune has ruined me and threatened you. I am not surprised at this, neither ought you to be so, for it always happens thus to those who among a multitude of the wicked, wish to act rightly, and endeavor to sustain, what the many seek to destroy. The love of my country made me take part with Salvestro de Medici and afterward separated me from Giorgio Scali. The same cause compelled me to detest those who now govern, who having none to punish them, will allow no one to reprove their misdeeds. I am content that my banishment should deliver them from the fears they entertain, not of me only, but of all who they think perceives or is acquainted wit their tyrannical and wicked proceedings; and they have aimed their first blow at me, in order the more easily to oppress you. I do not grieve on my own account; for those honors which my country bestowed upon me while free, she cannot in her slavery take from me; and the recollection of my past life will always give me greater pleasure than the pain imparted by the sorrows of exile. I deeply regret that my country is left a prey to the greediness and pride of the few who keep her in subjection. I grieve for you; for I fear that the evils which this day cease to affect me, and commence with you, will pursue you with even greater malevolence than they have me. Comfort, then, each other; resolve to bear up against every misfortune, and conduct yourselves in such a manner, that when disasters befall you (and there will be many), every one may know they have come upon you undeservedly." Not to give a worse impression of his virtue abroad than he had done at home, he made a journey to the sepulcher of Christ, and while upon his return, died at Rhodes. His remains were brought to Florence, and interred with all possible honors, by those who had persecuted him, when alive, with every species of calumny and injustice. The family of the Alberti was not the only injured party during these troubles of the city; for many others were banished and admonished. Of the former were Piero Benini, Matteo Alderotti, Giovanni and Francesco del Bene, Giovanni Benci, Andrea Adimari, and with them many members of the minor trades. Of the admonished were the Covini, Benini, Rinucci, Formiconi, Corbizzi, Manelli, and Alderotti. It was customary to create the Balia for a limited time; and when the citizens elected had effected the purpose of their appointment, they resigned the office from motives of good feeling and decency, although the time allowed might not have expired. In conformity with this laudable practice, the Balia of that period, supposing they had accomplished all that was expected of them, wished to retire; but when the multitude were acquainted with their intention, they ran armed to the palace, and insisted, that before resigning their power, many other persons should be banished and admonished. This greatly displeased the signors; but without disclosing the extent of their displeasure, they contrived to amuse the multitude with promises, till they had assembled a sufficient body of armed men, and then took such measures, that fear induced the people to lay aside the weapons which madness had led them to take up. Nevertheless, in some degree to gratify the fury of the mob, and to reduce the authority of the plebeian trades, it was provided, that as the latter had previously possessed a third of the honors, they should in future have only a fourth. That there might always be two of the signors particularly devoted to the government, they gave authority to the Gonfalonier of Justice, and four others, to form a ballot-purse of select citizens, from which, in every Signory, two should be drawn. This government from its establishment in 1381, till the alterations now made, had continued six years; and the internal peace of the city remained undisturbed until 1393. During this time, Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, usually called the Count of Virtú, imprisoned his uncle Bernabo, and thus became sovereign of the whole of Lombardy. As he had become duke of Milan by fraud, he designed to make himself king of Italy by force. In 1391 he commenced a spirited attack upon the Florentines; but such various changes occurred in the course of the war, that he was frequently in greater danger than the Florentines themselves, who, though they made a brave and admirable defense, for a republic, must have been ruined, if he had survived. As it was, the result was attended with infinitely less evil than their fears of so powerful an enemy had led them to apprehend; for the duke having taken Bologna, Pisa, Perugia, and Sienna, and prepared a diadem with which to be crowned king of Italy at Florence, died before he had tasted the fruit of his victories, or the Florentines began to feel the effect of their disasters. CHAPTER VII Maso degli Albizzi--His violence excites the anger of the people--They have recourse to Veri de' Medici--The modesty of Veri--He refuses to assume the dignity of prince, and appeases the people--Discourse of Veri to the Signory--The banished Florentines endeavor to return--They secretly enter the city and raise a tumult--Some of them slain, others taken to the church of St. Reparata--A conspiracy of exiles supported by the duke of Milan--The conspiracy discovered and the parties punished--Various enterprises of the Florentines--Taking of Pisa--War with the king of Naples--Acquisition of Cortona. During the war with the duke of Milan the office of Gonfalonier of Justice fell to Maso degli Albizzi, who by the death of Piero in 1379, had become the inveterate enemy of the Alberti: and as party feeling is incapable either of repose or abatement, he determined, notwithstanding Benedetto had died in exile, that before the expiration of his magistracy, he would revenge himself on the remainder of that family. He seized the opportunity afforded by a person, who on being examined respecting correspondence maintained with the rebels, accused Andrea and Alberto degli Alberti of such practices. They were immediately arrested, which so greatly excited the people, that the Signory, having provided themselves with an armed force, called the citizens to a general assembly or parliament, and appointed a Balia, by whose authority many were banished, and a new ballot for the offices of government was made. Among the banished were nearly all the Alberti; many members of the trades were admonished, and some put to death. Stung by these numerous injuries, the trades and the lowest of the people rose in arms, considering themselves despoiled both of honor and life. One body of them assembled in the piazza; another ran to the house of Veri de' Medici, who, after the death of Salvestro, was head of the family. The Signory, in order to appease those who came to the piazza or court of the palace, gave them for leaders, with the ensigns of the Guelphs and of the people in their hands, Rinaldo Gianfigliazzi, and Donato Acciajuoli, both men of the popular class, and more attached to the interests of the plebeians than any other. Those who went to the house of Veri de' Medici, begged that he would be pleased to undertake the government, and free them from the tyranny of those citizens who were destroying the peace and safety of the commonwealth. It is agreed by all who have written concerning the events of this period, that if Veri had had more ambition than integrity he might without any impediment have become prince of the city; for the unfeeling treatment which, whether right or wrong, had been inflicted upon the trades and their friends, had so excited the minds of men to vengeance, that all they required was some one to be their leader. Nor were there wanting those who could inform him of the state of public feeling; for Antonio de' Medici with whom he had for some time been upon terms of most intimate friendship, endeavored to persuade him to undertake the government of the republic. To this Veri replied: "Thy menaces when thou wert my enemy, never alarmed me; nor shall thy counsel, now when thou art my friend, do me any harm." Then, turning toward the multitude, he bade them be of good cheer; for he would be their defender, if they would allow themselves to be advised by him. He then went, accompanied by a great number of citizens, to the piazza, and proceeded directly to the audience chamber of the Signory, whom he addressed to this effect: That he could not regret having lived so as to gain the love of the Florentines; but he was sorry they had formed an opinion of him which his past life had not warranted; for never having done anything that could be construed as either factious or ambitious, he could not imagine how it had happened, that they should think him willing to stir up strife as a discontented person, or usurp the government of his country like an ambitious one. He therefore begged that the infatuation of the multitude might not injure him in their estimation; for, to the utmost of his power, their authority should be restored. He then recommended them to use good fortune with moderation; for it would be much better to enjoy an imperfect victory with safety to the city, than a complete one at her ruin. The Signory applauded Veri's conduct; begged he would endeavor to prevent recourse to arms, and promised that what he and the other citizens might deem most advisable should be done. Veri then returned to the piazza, where the people who had followed him were joined by those led by Donato and Rinaldo, and informed the united companies that he had found the Signory most kindly disposed toward them; that many things had been taken into consideration, which the shortness of time, and the absence of the magistrates, rendered incapable of being finished. He therefore begged they would lay down their arms and obey the Signory; assuring them that humility would prevail rather than pride, entreaties rather than threats; and if they would take his advice, their privileges and security would remain unimpaired. He thus induced them to return peaceably to their homes. The disturbance having subsided, the Signory armed the piazza, enrolled 2,000 of the most trusty citizens, who were divided equally by Gonfalons, and ordered to be in readiness to give their assistance whenever required; and they forbade the use of arms to all who were not thus enrolled. Having adopted these precautionary measures, they banished and put to death many of those members of the trades who had shown the greatest audacity in the late riots; and to invest the office of Gonfalonier of Justice with more authoritative majesty, they ordered that no one should be eligible to it, under forty-five years of age. Many other provisions for the defense of the state were made, which appeared intolerable to those against whom they were directed, and were odious even to the friends of the Signory themselves, for they could not believe a government to be either good or secure, which needed so much violence for its defense, a violence excessively offensive, not only to those of the Alberti who remained in the city, and to the Medici, who felt themselves injured by these proceedings, but also to many others. The first who attempted resistance was Donato, the son of Jacopo Acciajuoli, who thought of great authority, and the superior rather than the equal of Maso degli Albizzi (who on account of the events which took place while he was Gonfalonier of Justice, was almost at the head of the republic), could not enjoy repose amid such general discontent, or, like many others, convert social evils to his own private advantage, and therefore resolved to attempt the restoration of the exiles to their country, or at least their offices to the admonished. He went from one to another, disseminating his views, showing that the people would not be satisfied, or the ferment of parties subside, without the changes he proposed; and declared that if he were in the Signory, he would soon carry them into effect. In human affairs, delay causes tedium, and haste danger. To avoid what was tedious, Donato Acciajuoli resolved to attempt what involved danger. Michele Acciajuoli his relative, and Niccolo Ricoveri his friend, were of the Signory. This seemed to Donato a conjuncture of circumstances too favorable to be lost, and he requested they would propose a law to the councils, which would include the restoration of the citizens. They, at his entreaty, spoke about the matter to their associates, who replied, that it was improper to attempt any innovation in which the advantage was doubtful and the danger certain. Upon this, Donato, having in vain tried all other means he could think of, excited with anger, gave them to understand that since they would not allow the city to be governed with peaceful measures, he would try what could be done with arms. These words gave so great offense, that being communicated to the heads of the government, Donato was summoned, and having appeared, the truth was proven by those to whom he had intrusted the message, and he was banished to Barletta. Alamanno and Antonio de' Medici were also banished, and all those of that family, who were descended from Alamanno, with many who, although of the inferior artificers, possessed influence with the plebeians. These events took place two years after the reform of government effected by Maso degli Albizzi. At this time many discontented citizens were at home, and others banished in the adjoining states. Of the latter there lived at Bologna Picchio Cavicciulli, Tommaso de' Ricci, Antonio de' Medici, Benedetto degli Spini, Antonio Girolami, Cristofano di Carlone, and two others of the lowest order, all bold young men, and resolved upon returning to their country at any hazard. These were secretly told by Piggiello and Baroccio Cavicciulli, who, being admonished, lived in Florence, that if they came to the city they should be concealed in their house; from which they might afterward issue, slay Maso degli Albizzi, and call the people to arms, who, full of discontent, would willingly arise, particularly as they would be supported by the Ricci, Adimari, Medici, Manelli, and many other families. Excited with these hopes, on the fourth of August, 1397, they came to Florence, and having entered unobserved according to their arrangement, they sent one of their party to watch Maso, designing with his death to raise the people. Maso was observed to leave his house and proceed to that of an apothecary, near the church of San Pietro Maggiore, which he entered. The man who went to watch him ran to give information to the other conspirators, who took their arms and hastened to the house of the apothecary, but found that Maso had gone. However, undaunted with the failure of their first attempt, they proceeded to the Old Market, where they slew one of the adverse party, and with loud cries of "people, arms, liberty, and death to the tyrants," directed their course toward the New Market, and at the end of the Calimala slew another. Pursuing their course with the same cries, and finding no one join them in arms, they stopped at the Loggia Nighittosa, where, from an elevated situation, being surrounded with a great multitude, assembled to look on rather than assist them, they exhorted the men to take arms and deliver themselves from the slavery which weighed so heavily upon them; declaring that the complaints of the discontented in the city, rather than their own grievances, had induced them to attempt their deliverance. They had heard that many prayed to God for an opportunity of avenging themselves, and vowed they would use it whenever they found anyone to conduct them; but now, when the favorable circumstances occurred, and they found those who were ready to lead them, they stared at each other like men stupefied, and would wait till those who were endeavoring to recover for them their liberty were slain, and their own chains more strongly riveted upon them; they wondered that those who were wont to take arms upon slight occasions, remained unmoved under the pressure of so many and so great evils; and that they could willingly suffer such numbers of their fellow-citizens to be banished, so many admonished, when it was in their power to restore the banished to their country, and the admonished to the honors of the state. These words, although full of truth, produced no effect upon those to whom they were addressed; for they were either restrained by their fears, or, on account of the two murders which had been committed, disgusted with the parties. Thus the movers of the tumult, finding that neither words or deeds had force sufficient to stir anyone, saw, when too late, how dangerous a thing it is to attempt to set a people free who are resolved to be slaves; and, despairing of success, they withdrew to the temple of Santa Reparata, where, not to save their lives, but to defer the moment of their deaths, they shut themselves up. Upon the first rumor of the affair, the Signory being in fear, armed and secured the palace; but when the facts of the case were understood, the parties known, and whither they had betaken themselves, their fears subsided, and they sent the Capitano with a sufficient body of armed men to secure them. The gates of the temple were forced without much trouble; part of the conspirators were slain defending themselves; the remainder were made prisoners and examined, but none were found implicated in the affair except Baroccio and Piggiello Cavicciulli, who were put to death with them. Shortly after this event, another occurred of greater importance. The Florentines were, as we have before remarked, at war with the duke of Milan, who, finding that with merely open force he could not overcome them, had recourse to secret practices, and with the assistance of the exiles of whom Lombardy was full, he formed a plot to which many in the city were accessory. It was resolved by the conspirators that most of the emigrants, capable of bearing arms, should set out from the places nearest Florence, enter the city by the river Arno, and with their friends hasten to the residences of the chiefs of the government; and having slain them, reform the republic according to their own will. Of the conspirators within the city, was one of the Ricci named Samminiato; and as it often happens in treacherous practices, few are insufficient to effect the purpose of the plot, and among many secrecy cannot be preserved, so while Samminiato was in quest of associates, he found an accuser. He confided the affair to Salvestro Cavicciulli, whose wrongs and those of his friends were thought sufficient to make him faithful; but he, more influenced by immediate fear than the hope of future vengeance, discovered the whole affair to the Signory, who, having caused Samminiato to be taken, compelled him to tell all the particulars of the matter. However, none of the conspirators were taken, except Tommaso Davizi, who, coming from Bologna, and unaware of what had occurred at Florence, was seized immediately upon his arrival. All the others had fled immediately upon the apprehension of Samminiato. Samminiato and Tommaso having been punished according to their deserts, a Balia was formed of many citizens, which sought the delinquents, and took measures for the security of the state. They declared six of the family of the Ricci rebels; also, six of the Alberti; two of the Medici; three of the Scali; two of the Strozzi; Bindo Altoviti, Bernado Adimari, and many others of inferior quality. They admonished all the family of the Alberti, the Ricci, and the Medici for ten years, except a few individuals. Among the Alberti, not admonished, was Antonio, who was thought to be quiet and peaceable. It happened, however, before all suspicion of the conspiracy had ceased, a monk was taken who had been observed during its progress to pass frequently between Bologna and Florence. He confessed that he had often carried letters to Antonio, who was immediately seized, and, though he denied all knowledge of the matter from the first, the monk's accusation prevailed, and he was fined in a considerable sum of money, and banished a distance of three hundred miles from Florence. That the Alberti might not constantly place the city in jeopardy, every member of the family was banished whose age exceeded fifteen years. These events took place in the year 1400, and two years afterward, died Giovanni Galeazzo, duke of Milan, whose death as we have said above, put an end to the war, which had then continued twelve years. At this time, the government having gained greater strength, and being without enemies external or internal, undertook the conquest of Pisa, and having gloriously completed it, the peace of the city remained undisturbed from 1400 to 1433, except that in 1412, the Alberti, having crossed the boundary they were forbidden to pass, a Balia was formed which with new provisions fortified the state and punished the offenders with heavy fines. During this period also, the Florentines made war with Ladislaus, king of Naples, who finding himself in great danger ceded to them the city of Cortona of which he was master; but soon afterward, recovering his power, he renewed the war, which became far more disastrous to the Florentines than before; and had it not, in 1414, been terminated by his death, as that of Lombardy had been by the death of the duke of Milan, he, like the duke, would have brought Florence into great danger of losing her liberty. Nor was the war with the king concluded with less good fortune than the former; for when he had taken Rome, Sienna, the whole of La Marca and Romagna, and had only Florence itself to vanquish, he died. Thus death has always been more favorable to the Florentines than any other friend, and more potent to save them than their own valor. From the time of the king's decease, peace was preserved both at home and abroad for eight years, at the end of which, with the wars of Filippo, duke of Milan, the spirit of faction again broke out, and was only appeased by the ruin of that government which continued from 1381 to 1434, had conducted with great glory so many enterprises; acquired Arezzo, Pisa, Cortona, Leghorn, and Monte Pulciano; and would have accomplished more if the citizens had lived in unity, and had not revived former factions; as in the following book will be particularly shown. BOOK IV CHAPTER I License and Slavery peculiar defects in republican governments--Application of this reflection to the state of Florence--Giovanni di Bicci di' Medici re-establishes the authority of his family--Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan, endeavors to make amicable arrangements with the Florentines--Their jealousy of him--Precautionary measures against him--War declared--The Florentines are routed by the ducal forces. Republican governments, more especially those imperfectly organized, frequently change their rulers and the form of their institutions; not by the influence of liberty or subjection, as many suppose, but by that of slavery and license; for with the nobility or the people, the ministers respectively of slavery or licentiousness, only the name of liberty is in any estimation, neither of them choosing to be subject either to magistrates or laws. When, however, a good, wise, and powerful citizen appears (which is but seldom), who establishes ordinances capable of appeasing or restraining these contending dispositions, so as to prevent them from doing mischief, then the government may be called free, and its institutions firm and secure; for having good laws for its basis, and good regulations for carrying them into effect, it needs not, like others, the virtue of one man for its maintenance. With such excellent laws and institutions, many of those ancient republics, which were of long duration, were endowed. But these advantages are, and always have been, denied to those which frequently change from tyranny to license, or the reverse; because, from the powerful enemies which each condition creates itself, they neither have, nor can possess any stability; for tyranny cannot please the good, and license is offensive to the wise: the former may easily be productive of mischief, while the latter can scarcely be beneficial; in the former, the insolent have too much authority, and in the latter, the foolish; so that each requires for their welfare the virtue and the good fortune of some individual who may be removed by death, or become unserviceable by misfortune. Hence, it appears, that the government which commenced in Florence at the death of Giorgio Scali, in 1381, was first sustained by the talents of Maso degli Albizzi, and then by those of Niccolo da Uzzano. The city remained tranquil from 1414 to 1422; for King Ladislaus was dead, and Lombardy divided into several parts; so that there was nothing either internal or external to occasion uneasiness. Next to Niccolo da Uzzano in authority, were Bartolomeo Valori, Neroni di Nigi, Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Neri di Gino, and Lapo Niccolini. The factions that arose from the quarrels of the Albizzi and the Ricci, and which were afterward so unhappily revived by Salvestro de' Medici, were never extinguished; for though the party most favored by the rabble only continued three years, and in 1381 was put down, still, as it comprehended the greatest numerical proportion, it was never entirely extinct, though the frequent Balias and persecutions of its leaders from 1381 to 1400, reduced it almost to nothing. The first families that suffered in this way were the Alberti, the Ricci, and the Medici, which were frequently deprived both of men and money; and if any of them remained in the city, they were deprived of the honors of government. These oft-repeated acts of oppression humiliated the faction, and almost annihilated it. Still, many retained the remembrance of the injuries they had received, and a desire of vengeance remained pent in their bosoms, ungratified and unquenched. Those nobles of the people, or new nobility, who peaceably governed the city, committed two errors, which eventually caused the ruin of their party; the first was, that by long continuance in power they became insolent; the second, that the envy they entertained toward each other, and their uninterrupted possession of power, destroyed that vigilance over those who might injure them, which they ought to have exercised. Thus daily renewing the hatred of a mass of the people by their sinister proceedings, and either negligent of the threatened dangers, because rendered fearless by prosperity, or encouraging them through mutual envy, they gave an opportunity to the family of the Medici to recover their influence. The first to do so was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who having become one of the richest men, and being of a humane and benevolent disposition, obtained the supreme magistracy by the consent of those in power. This circumstance gave so much gratification to the mass of the people (the multitude thinking they had now found a defender), that not without occasion the judicious of the party observed it with jealousy, for they perceived all the former feelings of the city revived. Niccolo da Uzzano did not fail to acquaint the other citizens with the matter, explaining to them how dangerous it was to aggrandize one who possessed so much influence; that it was easy to remedy an evil at its commencement, but exceedingly difficult after having allowed it to gather strength; and that Giovanni possessed several qualities far surpassing those of Salvestro. The associates of Niccolo were uninfluenced by his remarks; for they were jealous of his reputation, and desired to exalt some person, by means of whom he might be humbled. This was the state of Florence, in which opposing feelings began to be observable, when Filippo Visconti, second son of Giovanni Galeazzo, having, by the death of his brother, become master of all Lombardy, and thinking he might undertake almost anything, greatly desired to recover Genoa, which enjoyed freedom under the Dogiate of Tommaso da Campo Fregoso. He did not think it advisable to attempt this, or any other enterprise, till he had renewed amicable relations with the Florentines, and made his good understanding with them known; but with the aid of their reputation he trusted he should attain his wishes. He therefore sent ambassadors to Florence to signify his desires. Many citizens were opposed to his design, but did not wish to interrupt the peace with Milan, which had now continued for many years. They were fully aware of the advantages he would derive from a war with Genoa, and the little use it would be to Florence. Many others were inclined to accede to it, but would set a limit to his proceedings, which, if he were to exceed, all would perceive his base design, and thus they might, when the treaty was broken, more justifiably make war against him. The question having been strongly debated, an amicable arrangement was at length effected, by which Filippo engaged not to interfere with anything on the Florentine side of the rivers Magra and Panaro. Soon after the treaty was concluded, the duke took possession of Brescia, and shortly afterward of Genoa, contrary to the expectation of those who had advocated peace; for they thought Brescia would be defended by the Venetians, and Genoa would be able to defend herself. And as in the treaty which Filippo made with the Doge of Genoa, he had acquired Serezana and other places situated on this side the Magra, upon condition that, if he wished to alienate them, they should be given to the Genoese, it was quite palpable that he had broken the treaty; and he had, besides, entered into another treaty with the legate of Bologna, in opposition to his engagement respecting the Panaro. These things disturbed the minds of the citizens, and made them, apprehensive of new troubles, consider the means to be adopted for their defense. The dissatisfaction of the Florentines coming to the knowledge of Filippo, he, either to justify himself, or to become acquainted with their prevailing feelings, or to lull them to repose, sent ambassadors to the city, to intimate that he was greatly surprised at the suspicions they entertained, and offered to revoke whatever he had done that could be thought a ground of jealousy. This embassy produced no other effect than that of dividing the citizens; one party, that in greatest reputation, judged it best to arm, and prepare to frustrate the enemy's designs; and if he were to remain quiet, it would not be necessary to go to war with him, but an endeavor might be made to preserve peace. Many others, whether envious of those in power, or fearing a rupture with the duke, considered it unadvisable so lightly to entertain suspicions of an ally, and thought his proceedings need not have excited so much distrust; that appointing the ten and hiring forces was in itself a manifest declaration of war, which, if undertaken against so great a prince, would bring certain ruin upon the city without the hope of any advantage; for possession could never be retained of the conquests that might be made, because Romagna lay between, and the vicinity of the church ought to prevent any attempt against Romagna itself. However the views of those who were in favor of war prevailed, the Council of Ten were appointed, forces were hired, and new taxes levied, which, as they were more burdensome upon the lower than the upper ranks, filled the city with complaints, and all condemned the ambition and avarice of the great, declaring that, to gratify themselves and oppress the people, they would go to war without any justifiable motive. They had not yet come to an open rupture with the duke, but everything tended to excite suspicion; for Filippo had, at the request of the legate of Bologna (who was in fear of Antonio Bentivogli, an emigrant of Bologna at Castel Bolognese), sent forces to that city, which, being close upon the Florentine territory, filled the citizens with apprehension; but what gave every one greater alarm, and offered sufficient occasion for the declaration of war, was the expedition made by the duke against Furli. Giorgio Ordelaffi was lord of Furli, who dying, left Tibaldo, his son, under the guardianship of Filippo. The boy's mother, suspicious of his guardian, sent him to Lodovico Alidossi, her father, who was lord of Imola, but she was compelled by the people of Furli to obey the will of her deceased husband, to withdraw him from the natural guardian, and place him in the hands of the duke. Upon this Filippo, the better to conceal his purpose, caused the Marquis of Ferrara to send Guido Torello as his agent, with forces, to seize the government of Furli, and thus the territory fell into the duke's hands. When this was known at Florence, together with the arrival of forces at Bologna, the arguments in favor of war were greatly strengthened, but there were still many opposed to it, and among the rest Giovanni de' Medici, who publicly endeavored to show, that even if the ill designs of the duke were perfectly manifest, it would still be better to wait and let him commence the attack, than to assail him; for in the former case they would be justified in the view of the princes of Italy as well as in their own; but if they were to strike the first blow at the duke, public opinion would be as favorable to him as to themselves; and besides, they could not so confidently demand assistance as assailants, as they might do if assailed; and that men always defend themselves more vigorously when they attack others. The advocates of war considered it improper to await the enemy in their houses, and better to go and seek him; that fortune is always more favorable to assailants than to such as merely act on the defensive, and that it is less injurious, even when attended with greater immediate expense, to make war at another's door than at our own. These views prevailed, and it was resolved that the ten should provide all the means in their power for rescuing Furli from the hands of the duke. Filippo, finding the Florentines resolved to occupy the places he had undertaken to defend, postponed all personal considerations, and sent Agnolo della Pergola with a strong force against Imola, that Ludovico, having to provide for the defense of his own possessions, might be unable to protect the interests of his grandson. Agnolo approached Imola while the forces of the Florentines were at Modigliana, and an intense frost having rendered the ditches of the city passable, he crossed them during the night, captured the place, and sent Lodovico a prisoner to Milan. The Florentines finding Imola in the hands of the enemy, and the war publicly known, sent their forces to Furli and besieged it on all sides. That the duke's people might not relieve it, they hired Count Alberigo, who from Zagonara, his own domain, overran the country daily, up to the gates of Imola. Agnolo della Pergola, finding the strong position which the Florentines had taken prevented him from relieving Furli, determined to attempt the capture of Zagonara, thinking they would not allow that place to be lost, and that in the endeavor to relieve it they would be compelled to give up their design against Furli, and come to an engagement under great disadvantage. Thus the duke's people compelled Alberigo to sue for terms, which he obtained on condition of giving up Zagonara, if the Florentines did not relieve him within fifteen days. This misfortune being known in the Florentine camp and in the city, and all being anxious that the enemy should not obtain the expected advantage, they enabled him to secure a greater; for having abandoned the siege of Furli to go to the relief of Zagonara, on encountering the enemy they were soon routed, not so much by the bravery of their adversaries as by the severity of the season; for, having marched many hours through deep mud and heavy rain, they found the enemy quite fresh, and were therefore easily vanquished. Nevertheless, in this great defeat, famous throughout all Italy, no death occurred except those of Lodovico degli Obizi and two of his people, who having fallen from their horses were drowned in the morass. CHAPTER II The Florentines murmur against those who had been advocates of the war--Rinaldo degli Albizzi encourages the citizens--Measures for the prosecution of the war--Attempt of the higher classes to deprive the plebeians of their share in the government--Rinaldo degli Albizzi addresses an assembly of citizens and advises the restoration of the _Grandi_--Niccolo da Uzzano wishes to have Giovanni de' Medici on their side--Giovanni disapproves of the advice of Rinaldo degli Albizzi. The defeat at Zagonara spread consternation throughout Florence; but none felt it so severely as the nobility, who had been in favor of the war; for they perceived their enemies to be inspirited and themselves disarmed, without friends, and opposed by the people, who at the corners of streets insulted them with sarcastic expressions, complaining of the heavy taxes, and the unnecessary war, and saying, "Oh! they appointed the ten to frighten the enemy. Have they relieved Furli, and rescued her from the hands of the duke? No! but their designs have been discovered; and what had they in view? not the defense of liberty; for they do not love her; but to aggrandize their own power, which God has very justly abated. This is not the only enterprise by many a one with which they have oppressed the city; for the war against King Ladislaus was of a similar kind. To whom will they flee for assistance now? to Pope Martin, whom they ridiculed before the face of Braccio; or to Queen Giovanna, whom they abandoned, and compelled to throw herself under the protection of the king of Aragon?" To these reproaches was added all that might be expected from an enraged multitude. Seeing the discontent so prevalent, the Signory resolved to assemble a few citizens, and with soft words endeavor to soothe the popular irritation. On this occasion, Rinaldo degli Albizzi, the eldest son of Maso, who, by his own talents and the respect he derived from the memory of his father, aspired to the first offices in the government, spoke at great length; showing that it is not right to judge of actions merely by their effects; for it often happens that what has been very maturely considered is attended with unfavorable results: that if we are to applaud evil counsels because they are sometimes followed by fortunate events, we should only encourage men in error which would bring great mischief upon the republic; because evil counsel is not always attended with happy consequences. In the same way, it would be wrong to blame a wise resolution, because if its being attended with an unfavorable issue; for by so doing, we should destroy the inclination of citizens to offer advice and speak the truth. He then showed the propriety of undertaking the war; and that if it had not been commenced by the Florentines in Romagna the duke would have assailed them in Tuscany. But since it had pleased God, that the Florentine people should be overcome, their loss would be still greater if they allowed themselves to be dejected; but if they set a bold front against adversity, and made good use of the means within their power, they would not be sensible of their loss or the duke of his victory. He assured them they ought not to be alarmed by impending expenses and consequent taxation; because the latter might be reduced, and the future expense would not be so great as the former had been; for less preparation is necessary for those engaged in self-defense than for those who design to attack others. He advised them to imitate the conduct of their forefathers, who, by courageous conduct in adverse circumstances, had defended themselves against all their enemies. Thus encouraged, the citizens engaged Count Oddo the son of Braccio, and united with him, for directing the operations of the war, Niccolo Piccinino, a pupil of his father's, and one of the most celebrated of all who had served under him. To these they added other leaders, and remounted some of those who had lost their horses in the late defeat. They also appointed twenty citizens to levy new taxes, who finding the great quite subdued by the recent loss, took courage and drained them without mercy. These burdens were very grievous to the nobility, who at first, in order to conciliate, did not complain of their own particular hardships, but censured the tax generally as unjust, and advised that something should be done in the way of relief; but their advice was rejected in the Councils. Therefore, to render the law as offensive as possible, and to make all sensible of its injustice, they contrived that the taxes should be levied with the utmost rigor, and made it lawful to kill any that might resist the officers employed to collect them. Hence followed many lamentable collisions, attended with the blood and death of citizens. It began to be the impression of all, that arms would be resorted to, and all prudent persons apprehended some approaching evil; for the higher ranks, accustomed to be treated with respect, could not endure to be used like dogs; and the rest were desirous that the taxation should be equalized. In consequence of this state of things, many of the first citizens met together, and it was resolved that it had become necessary for their safety, that some attempt should be made to recover the government; since their want of vigilance had encouraged men to censure public actions, and allowed those to interfere in affairs who had hitherto been merely the leaders of the rabble. Having repeatedly discussed the subject, they resolved to meet again at an appointed hour, when upwards of seventy citizens assembled in the church of St. Stephen, with the permission of Lorenzo Ridolfi and Francesco Gianfigliazzi, both members of the Signory. Giovanni de' Medici was not among them either because being under suspicion he was not invited or that entertaining different views he was unwilling to interfere. Rinaldo degli Albizzi addressed the assembly, describing the condition of the city, and showing how by their own negligence it had again fallen under the power of the plebeians, from whom it had been wrested by their fathers in 1381. He reminded them of the iniquity of the government which was in power from 1378 to 1381, and that all who were then present had to lament, some a father, others a grandfather, put to death by its tyranny. He assured them they were now in the same danger, and that the city was sinking under the same disorders. The multitude had already imposed a tax of its own authority; and would soon, if not restrained by greater force or better regulations, appoint the magistrates, who, in this case, would occupy their places, and overturn the government which for forty-two years had ruled the city with so much glory; the citizens would then be subject to the will of the multitude, and live disorderly and dangerous, or be under the command of some individual who might make himself prince. For these reasons he was of opinion, that whoever loved his country and his honor must arouse himself, and call to mind the virtue of Bardo Mancini, who, by the ruin of the Alberti, rescued the city from the dangers then impending; and that the cause of the audacity now assumed by the multitude was the extensive Squittini or Pollings, which, by their negligence, were allowed to be made; for thus the palace had become filled with low men. He therefore concluded, that the only means of remedying the evil was to restore the government to the nobility, and diminish the authority of the minor trades by reducing the companies from fourteen to seven, which would give the plebeians less authority in the Councils, both by the reduction in their number and by increasing the authority of the great; who, on account of former enmities, would be disinclined to favor them. He added, that it is a good thing to know how to avail themselves of men according to the times; and that as their fathers had used the plebeians to reduce the influence of the great, that now, the great having been humbled, and the plebeians become insolent, it was well to restrain the insolence of the latter by the assistance of the former. To effect this they might proceed either openly or otherwise, for some of them belonging to the Council of Ten, forces might be led into the city without exciting observation. Rinaldo was much applauded, and his advice was approved of by the whole assembly. Niccolo da Uzzano who, among others, replied to it, said, "All that Rinaldo had advanced was correct, and the remedies he proposed good and certain, if they could be adopted without an absolute division of the city; and this he had no doubt would be effected if they could induce Giovanni de' Medici to join them; for with him on their side, the multitude being deprived of their chief and stay, would be unable to oppose them; but that if he did not concur with them they could do nothing without arms, and that with them they would incur the risk of being vanquished, or of not being able to reap the fruit of victory." He then modestly reminded them of what he had said upon a former occasion, and of their reluctance to remedy the evil when it might easily have been done; that now the same remedy could not be attempted without incurring the danger of greater evils, and therefore there was nothing left for them to do but to gain him over to their side, if practicable. Rinaldo was then commissioned to wait upon Giovanni and try if he could induce him to join them. He undertook this commission, and in the most prevailing words he could make use of endeavored to induce him to coincide with their views; and begged that he would not by favoring an audacious mob, enable them to complete the ruin both of the government and the city. To this Giovanni replied, that he considered it the duty of a good and wise citizen to avoid altering the institutions to which a city is accustomed; there being nothing so injurious to the people as such a change; for many are necessarily offended, and where there are several discontented, some unpropitious event may be constantly apprehended. He said it appeared to him that their resolution would have two exceedingly pernicious effects; the one conferring honors on those who, having never possessed them, esteemed them the less, and therefore had the less occasion to grieve for their absence; the other taking them from those who being accustomed to their possession would never be at rest till they were restored to them. It would thus be evident that the injury done to one party, was greater than the benefit they had conferred upon the other; so that whoever was the author of the proposition, he would gain few friends and make many enemies, and that the latter would be more resolutely bent on injuring him than the former would be zealous for his defense, for mankind are naturally more disposed to revenge than to gratitude, as if the latter could only be exercised with some inconvenience to themselves, while the former brings alike gratification and profit. Then, directing his discourse more particularly to Rinaldo, he said, "And you, if you could call to mind past events, and knew how craftily affairs are conducted in this city, would not be so eager in this pursuit; for he who advises it, when by your aid he has wrested the power from the people, will, with the people's assistance, who will have become your enemies, deprive you of it. And it will happen to you as to Benedetto Alberti, who, at the persuasion of those who were not his friends, consented to the ruin of Giorgio Scali and Tommaso Strozzi, and shortly afterward was himself sent into exile by the very same men." He therefore advised Rinaldo to think more maturely of these things, and endeavor to imitate his father, who, to obtain the benevolence of all, reduced the price of salt, provided that whoever owed taxes under half a florin should be at liberty to pay them or not, as he thought proper, and that at the meeting of the Councils every one should be free from the importunities of his creditors. He concluded by saying, that as regarded himself, he was disposed to let the government of the city remain as it was. CHAPTER III Giovanni de' Medici acquires the favor of the people--Bravery of Biaggio del Melano--Baseness of Zanobi del Pino--The Florentines obtain the friendship of the lord of Faenza--League of the Florentines with the Venetians--Origin of the Catasto--The rich citizens discontented with it--Peace with the duke of Milan--New disturbances on account of the Catasto. These events, and the circumstances attending them, becoming known to the people, contributed greatly to increase the reputation of Giovanni, and brought odium on those who had made the proposals; but he assumed an appearance of indifference, in order to give less encouragement to those who by his influence were desirous of change. In his discourse he intimated to every one that it is not desirable to promote factions, but rather to extinguish them; and that whatever might be expected of him, he only sought the union of the city. This, however, gave offense to many of his party; for they would have rather seen him exhibit greater activity. Among others so disposed, was Alamanno de' Medici, who being of a restless disposition, never ceased exciting him to persecute enemies and favor friends; condemning his coldness and slow method of proceeding, which he said was the cause of his enemies' practicing against him, and that these practices would one day effect the ruin of himself and his friends. He endeavored to excite Cosmo, his son, with similar discourses; but Giovanni, for all that was either disclosed or foretold him, remained unmoved, although parties were now declared, and the city in manifest disunion. There were at the palace, in the service of the Signory, two chancellors, Ser Martino and Ser Pagolo. The latter favored the party of Niccolo da Uzzano, the former that of Giovanni; and Rinaldo, seeing Giovanni unwilling to join them, thought it would be advisable to deprive Ser Martino of his office, that he might have the palace more completely under his control. The design becoming known to his adversaries, Ser Martino was retained and Ser Pagolo discharged, to the great injury and displeasure of Rinaldo and his party. This circumstance would soon have produced most mischievous effects, but for the war with which the city was threatened, and the recent defeat suffered at Zagonara, which served to check the audacity of the people; for while these events were in progress at Florence, Agnolo della Pergola, with the forces of the duke, had taken all the towns and cities possessed by the Florentines in Romagna, except Castracaro and Modigliano; partly from the weakness of the places themselves, and partly by the misconduct of those who had the command of them. In the course of the campaign, two instances occurred which served to show how greatly courage is admired even in enemies, and how much cowardice and pusillanimity are despised. Biaggio del Melano was castellan in the fortress of Monte Petroso. Being surrounded by enemies, and seeing no chance of saving the place, which was already in flames, he cast clothes and straw from a part which was not yet on fire, and upon these he threw his two little children, saying to the enemy, "Take to yourselves those goods which fortune has bestowed upon me, and of which you may deprive me; but those of the mind, in which my honor and glory consist, I will not give up, neither can you wrest them from me." The besiegers ran to save the children, and placed for their father ropes and ladders, by which to save himself, but he would not use them, and rather chose to die in the flames than owe his safety to the enemies of his country: an example worthy of that much lauded antiquity, which offers nothing to surpass it, and which we admire the more from the rarity of any similar occurrence. Whatever could be recovered from the ruins, was restored for the use of the children, and carefully conveyed to their friends; nor was the republic less grateful; for as long as they lived, they were supported at her charge. An example of an opposite character occurred at Galeata, where Zanobi del Pino was governor; he, without offering the least resistance, gave up the fortress to the enemy; and besides this, advised Agnolo della Pergola to leave the Alps of Romagna, and come among the smaller hills of Tuscany, where he might carry on the war with less danger and greater advantage. Agnolo could not endure the mean and base spirit of this man, and delivered him to his own attendants, who, after many reproaches, gave him nothing to eat but paper painted with snakes, saying, that of a Guelph they would make him a Ghibelline; and thus fasting, he died in a few days. At this time Count Oddo and Niccolo Piccinino entered the Val di Lamona, with the design of bringing the lord of Faenza over to the Florentines, or at least inducing him to restrain the incursions of Agnolo della Pergola into Romagna; but as this valley is naturally strong, and its inhabitants warlike, Count Oddo was slain there, and Niccolo Piccinino sent a prisoner to Faenza. Fortune, however, caused the Florentines to obtain by their loss, what, perhaps, they would have failed to acquire by victory; for Niccolo so prevailed with the lord of Faenza and his mother, that they became friends of the Florentines. By this treaty, Niccolo Piccinino was set at liberty, but did not take the advice he had given others; for while in treaty with the city, concerning the terms of his engagement, either the conditions proposed were insufficient, or he found better elsewhere; for quite suddenly he left Arezzo, where he had been staying, passed into Lombardy, and entered the service of the duke. The Florentines, alarmed by this circumstance, and reduced to despondency by their frequent losses, thought themselves unable to sustain the war alone, and sent ambassadors to the Venetians, to beg they would lend their aid to oppose the greatness of one who, if allowed to aggrandize himself, would soon become as dangerous to them as to the Florentines themselves. The Venetians were advised to adopt the same course by Francesco Carmignuola, one of the most distinguished warriors of those times, who had been in the service of the duke, and had afterward quitted it; but they hesitated, not knowing how far to trust him; for they thought his enmity with the duke was only feigned. While in this suspense, it was found that the duke, by means of a servant of Carmignuola, had caused poison to be given him in his food, which, although it was not fatal, reduced him to extremity. The truth being discovered, the Venetians laid aside their suspicion; and as the Florentines still solicited their assistance, a treaty was formed between the two powers, by which they agreed to carry on the war at the common expense of both: the conquests in Lombardy to be assigned to the Venetians; those in Romagna and Tuscany to the Florentines; and Carmignuola was appointed Captain General of the League. By this treaty the war was commenced in Lombardy, where it was admirably conducted; for in a few months many places were taken from the duke, together with the city of Brescia, the capture of which was in those days considered a most brilliant exploit. The war had continued from 1422 to 1427, and the citizens of Florence were so wearied of the taxes that had been imposed during that time, that it was resolved to revise them, preparatory to their amelioration. That they might be equalized according to the means of each citizen, it was proposed that whoever possessed property of the value of one hundred florins should pay half a florin of taxes. Individual contribution would thus be determined by an invariable rule, and not left to the discretion of parties; and as it was found that the new method would press heavily upon the powerful classes, they used their utmost endeavors to prevent it from becoming law. Giovanni de' Medici alone declared himself in favor of it, and by his means it was passed. In order to determine the amount each had to pay, it was necessary to consider his property in the aggregate, which the Florentines call _accatastare_, in which in this application of it would signify TO RATE or VALUE, and hence this tax received the name of _catasto_. The new method of rating formed a powerful check to the tyranny of the great, who could no longer oppress the lower classes, or silence them with threats in the council as they had formerly done, and it therefore gave general satisfaction, though to the wealthy classes it was in the highest degree offensive. But as it is found men are never satisfied, but that the possession of one advantage only makes them desire more, the people, not content with the equality of taxation which the new law produced, demanded that the same rule should be applied to past years; that in investigation should be made to determine how much, according to the Catasto, the rich had paid less than their share, and that they should now pay up to an equality with those who, in order to meet the demand unjustly made, had been compelled to sell their possessions. This proposal alarmed the great more than the Catasto had done; and in self-defense they unceasingly decried it, declaring it in the highest degree unjust in being laid not only on immovable but movable property, which people possess to-day and lose to-morrow; that many persons have hidden wealth which the Catasto cannot reach; that those who leave their own affairs to manage those of the republic should be less burdened by her, it being enough for them to give their labour, and that it was unjust of the city to take both their property and their time, while of others she only took money. The advocates of the Catasto replied, that if movable property varies, the taxes would also vary, and frequently rating it would remedy the evil to which it was subject; that it was unnecessary to mention those who possessed hidden property; for it would be unreasonable to take taxes for that which produced no interest, and that if it paid anything, it could not fail to be discovered: that those who did not like to labor for the republic might cease to do so; for no doubt she would find plenty of loving citizens who would take pleasure in assisting her with both money and counsel: that the advantages and honors of a participation in the government are so great, that of themselves they are a sufficient remuneration to those who thus employ themselves, without wishing to be excused from paying their share of taxes. But, they added, the real grievance had not been mentioned: for those who were offended with the Catasto, regretted they could no longer involve the city in all the difficulties of war without injury to themselves, now that they had to contribute like the rest; and that if this law had then been in force they would not have gone to war with King Ladislaus, or the Duke Filippo, both which enterprises had been not through necessity, but to impoverish the citizens. The excitement was appeased by Giovanni de' Medici, who said, "It is not well to go into things so long past, unless to learn something for our present guidance; and if in former times the taxation has been unjust, we ought to be thankful, that we have now discovered a method of making it equitable, and hope that this will be the means of uniting the citizens, not of dividing them; which would certainly be the case were they to attempt the recovery of taxes for the past, and make them equal to the present; and that he who is content with a moderate victory is always most successful; for those who would more than conquer, commonly lose." With such words as these he calmed the disturbance, and this retrospective equalization was no longer contemplated. The war with the duke still continued; but peace was at length restored by means of a legate of the pope. The duke, however, from the first disregarded the conditions, so that the league again took arms, and meeting the enemy's forces at Maclovio routed them. After this defeat the duke again made proposals for peace, to which the Florentines and Venetians both agreed; the former from jealousy of the Venetians, thinking they had spent quite enough money in the aggrandizement of others; the latter, because they found Carmignuola, after the defeat of the duke, proceed but coldly in their cause; so that they thought it no longer safe to trust him. A treaty was therefore concluded in 1428, by which the Florentines recovered the places they had lost in Romagna; and the Venetians kept Brescia, to which the duke added Bergamo and the country around it. In this war the Florentines expended three millions and a half of ducats, extended the territory and power of the Venetians, and brought poverty and disunion upon themselves. Being at peace with their neighbors, domestic troubles recommenced. The great citizens could not endure the Catasto, and not knowing how to set it aside, they endeavored to raise up more numerous enemies to the measure, and thus provide themselves with allies to assist them in annulling it. They therefore instructed the officers appointed to levy the tax, that the law required them to extend the Catasto over the property of their nearest neighbors, to see if Florentine wealth was concealed among it. The dependent states were therefore ordered to present a schedule of their property against a certain time. This was extremely offensive to the people of Volterra, who sent to the Signory to complain of it; but the officers, in great wrath, committed eighteen of the complainants to prison. The Volterrani, however, out of regard for their fellow-countrymen who were arrested, did not proceed to any violence. CHAPTER IV Death of Giovanni de' Medici--His character--Insurrection of Volterra--Volterra returns to her allegiance--Niccolo Fortebraccio attacks the Lucchese--Diversity of opinion about the Lucchese war--War with Lucca--Astore Gianni and Rinaldo degli Albizzi appointed commissaries--Violence of Astorre Gianni. About this time Giovanni de' Medici was taken ill, and finding his end approach, called his sons Cosmo and Lorenzo to him, to give them his last advice, and said, "I find I have nearly reached the term which God and nature appointed at my birth, and I die content, knowing that I leave you rich, healthy, and of such standing in society, that if you pursue the same course that I have, you will live respected in Florence, and in favor with everyone. Nothing cheers me so much at this moment, as the recollection that I have never willfully offended anyone; but have always used my utmost endeavors to confer benefits upon all. I would have you do so too. With regard to state affairs, if you would live in security, take just such a share as the laws and your countrymen think proper to bestow, thus you will escape both danger and envy; for it is not what is given to any individual, but what he has determined to possess, that occasions odium. You will thus have a larger share than those who endeavor to engross more than belongs to them; for they thus usually lose their own, and before they lose it, live in constant disquiet. By adopting this method, although among so many enemies, and surrounded by so many conflicting interests, I have not only maintained my reputation but increased my influence. If you pursue the same course, you will be attended by the same good fortune; if otherwise, you may be assured, your end will resemble that of those who in our own times have brought ruin both upon themselves and their families." Soon after this interview with his sons, Giovanni died, regretted by everyone, as his many excellencies deserved. He was compassionate; not only bestowing alms on those who asked them, but very frequently relieving the necessities of the poor, without having been solicited so to do. He loved all; praised the good, and pitied the infirmities of the wicked. He never sought the honors of government; yet enjoyed them all; and never went to the palace unless by request. He loved peace and shunned war; relieved mankind in adversity, and assisted them in prosperity; never applied the public money to his own uses, but contributed to the public wealth. He was courteous in office; not a man of great eloquence, but possessed of extraordinary prudence. His demeanor expressed melancholy; but after a short time his conversation became pleasant and facetious. He died exceedingly rich in money, but still more in good fame and the best wishes of mankind; and the wealth and respect he left behind him were not only preserved but increased by his son Cosmo. The Volterran ambassadors grew weary of lying in prison, and to obtain their liberty promised to comply with the commands of the Florentines. Being set free and returned to their city, the time arrived for the new Priors to enter upon office, and among those who were drawn, was one named Giusto, a plebeian, but possessing great influence with his class, and one of those who had been imprisoned at Florence. He, being inflamed with hatred against the Florentines on account of his public as well as personal injuries, was further stimulated by Giovanni di Contugi, a man of noble family, and his colleague in office, to induce the people, by the authority of the Priors and his own influence, to withdraw their country from the power of the Florentines, and make himself prince. Prompted by these motives, Giusto took arms, rode through the city, seized the Capitano, who resided in it, on behalf of the Florentines, and with the consent of the people, became lord of Volterra. This circumstance greatly displeased the Florentines; but having just made peace with the duke, and the treaty being yet uninfringed on either side, they bethought themselves in a condition to recover the place; and that the opportunity might not be lost, they immediately appointed Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Palla Strozzi commissaries, and sent them upon the expedition. In the meantime, Giusto, who expected the Florentines would attack him, requested assistance of Lucca and Sienna. The latter refused, alleging her alliance with Florence; and Pagolo Guinigi, to regain the favor of the Florentines, which he imagined he had lost in the war with the duke and by his friendship for Filippo, not only refused assistance to Giusto, but sent his messenger prisoner to Florence. The commissaries, to come upon the Volterrani unawares, assembled their cavalry, and having raised a good body of infantry in the Val d'Arno Inferiore, and the country about Pisa, proceeded to Volterra. Although attacked by the Florentines and abandoned by his neighbors, Giusto did not yield to fear; but, trusting to the strength of the city and the ruggedness of the country around it, prepared for his defense. There lived at Volterra one Arcolano, brother of that Giovanni Contugi who had persuaded Giusto to assume the command. He possessed influence among the nobility, and having assembled a few of his most confidential friends, he assured them that by this event, God had come to the relief of their necessities; for if they would only take arms, deprive Giusto of the Signory, and give up the city to the Florentines, they might be sure of obtaining the principal offices, and the place would retain all its ancient privileges. Having gained them over, they went to the palace in which Giusto resided; and while part of them remained below, Arcolano, with three others, proceeded to the chamber above, where finding him with some citizens, they drew him aside, as if desirous to communicate something of importance, and conversing on different subjects, let him to the lower apartment, and fell upon him with their swords. They, however, were not so quick as to prevent Giusto from making use of his own weapon; for with it he seriously wounded two of them; but being unable to resist so many, he was at last slain, and his body thrown into the street. Arcolano and his party gave up the city to the Florentine commissaries, who, being at hand with their forces, immediately took possession; but the condition of Volterra was worse than before; for among other things which operated to her disadvantage, most of the adjoining countryside was separated from her, and she was reduced to the rank of a vicariate. Volterra having been lost and recovered almost at the same time, present circumstances afforded nothing of sufficient importance to occasion a new war, if ambition had not again provoked one. Niccolo Fortebraccio, the son of a sister of Braccio da Perugia, had been in the service of the Florentines during most of their wars with the duke. Upon the restoration of peace he was discharged; but when the affair of Volterra took place, being encamped with his people at Fucecchio, the commissaries availed themselves both of himself and his forces. Some thought that while Rinaldo conducted the expedition along with him, he persuaded him, under one pretext or another, to attack the Lucchese, assuring him, that if he did so, the Florentines would consent to undertake an expedition against them, and would appoint him to the command. When Volterra was recovered, and Niccolo returned to his quarters at Fucecchio, he, either at the persuasion of Rinaldo, or of his own accord, in November, 1429, took possession of Ruoti and Compito, castles belonging to the Lucchese, with three hundred cavalry and as many infantry, and then descending into the plain, plundered the inhabitants to a vast amount. The news of this incursion having reached Florence, persons of all classes were seen gathered in parties throughout the city discussing the matter, and nearly all were in favor of an expedition against Lucca. Of the Grandees thus disposed, were the Medici and their party, and with them also Rinaldo, either because he thought the enterprise beneficial to the republic, or induced by his own ambition and the expectation of being appointed to the command. Niccolo da Uzzano and his party were opposed to the war. It seems hardly credible that such contrary opinions should prevail, though at different times, in the same men and the same city, upon the subject of war; for the same citizens and people that, during the ten years of peace had incessantly blamed the war undertaken against Duke Filippo, in defense of liberty, now, after so much expense and trouble, with their utmost energy, insisted on hostilities against Lucca, which, if successful, would deprive that city of her liberty; while those who had been in favor of a war with the duke, were opposed to the present; so much more ready are the multitude to covet the possessions of others than to preserve their own, and so much more easily are they led by the hope of acquisition than by the fear of loss. The suggestions of the latter appear incredible till they are verified; and the pleasing anticipations of the former are cherished as facts, even while the advantages are very problematical, or at best, remote. The people of Florence were inspired with hope, by the acquisitions which Niccolo Fortebraccio had made, and by letters received from their rectors in the vicinity of Lucca; for their deputies at Vico and Pescia had written, that if permission were given to them to receive the castles that offered to surrender, the whole country of Lucca would very soon be obtained. It must, however, be added, that an ambassador was sent by the governor of Lucca to Florence, to complain of the attack made by Niccolo, and to entreat that the Signory would not make war against a neighbor, and a city that had always been friendly to them. The ambassador was Jacopo Viviani, who, a short time previously, had been imprisoned by Pagolo Guinigi, governor of Lucca, for having conspired against him. Although he had been found guilty, his life was spared, and as Pagolo thought the forgiveness mutual, he reposed confidence in him. Jacopo, more mindful of the danger he had incurred than of the lenity exercised toward him, on his arrival in Florence secretly instigated the citizens to hostilities; and these instigations, added to other hopes, induced the Signory to call the Council together, at which 498 citizens assembled, before whom the principal men of the city discussed the question. Among the first who addressed the assembly in favor of the expedition, was Rinaldo. He pointed out the advantage that would accrue from the acquisition, and justified the enterprise from its being left open to them by the Venetians and the duke, and that as the pope was engaged in the affairs of Naples, he could not interfere. He then remarked upon the facility of the expedition, showing that Lucca, being now in bondage to one of her own citizens, had lost her natural vigor and former anxiety for the preservation of her liberty, and would either be surrendered to them by the people in order to expel the tyrant, or by the tyrant for fear of the people. He recalled the remembrance of the injuries done to the republic by the governor of Lucca; his malevolent disposition toward them; and their embarrassing situation with regard to him, if the pope or the duke were to make war upon them; and concluded that no enterprise was ever undertaken by the people of Florence with such perfect facility, more positive advantage, or greater justice in its favor. In a reply to this, Niccolo da Uzzano stated that the city of Florence never entered on a more unjust or more dangerous project, or one more pregnant with evil, than this. In the first place they were going to attack a Guelphic city, that had always been friendly to the Florentine people, and had frequently, at great hazard, received the Guelphs into her bosom when they were expelled from their own country. That in the history of the past there was not an instance, while Lucca was free, of her having done an injury to the Florentines; and that if they had been injured by her enslavers, as formerly by Castruccio, and now by the present governor, the fault was not in the city, but in her tyrant. That if they could assail the latter without detriment to the people, he should have less scruple, but as this was impossible, he could not consent that a city which had been friendly to Florence should be plundered of her wealth. However, as it was usual at present to pay little or no regard either to equity or injustice, he would consider the matter solely with reference to the advantage of Florence. He thought that what could not easily be attended by pernicious consequences might be esteemed useful, but he could not imagine how an enterprise should be called advantageous in which the evils were certain and the utility doubtful. The certain evils were the expenses with which it would be attended; and these, he foresaw, would be sufficiently great to alarm even a people that had long been in repose, much more one wearied, as they were, by a tedious and expensive war. The advantage that might be gained was the acquisition of Lucca, which he acknowledged to be great; but the hazards were so enormous and immeasurable, as in his opinion to render the conquest quite impossible. He could not induce himself to believe that the Venetians, or Filippo, would willingly allow them to make the acquisition; for the former only consented in appearance, in order to avoid the semblance of ingratitude, having so lately, with Florentine money, acquired such an extent of dominion. That as regarded the duke, it would greatly gratify him to see them involved in new wars and expenses; for, being exhausted and defeated on all sides, he might again assail them; and that if, after having undertaken it, their enterprise against Lucca were to prove successful, and offer them the fullest hope of victory, the duke would not want an opportunity of frustrating their labors, either by assisting the Lucchese secretly with money, or by apparently disbanding his own troops, and then sending them, as if they were soldiers of fortune, to their relief. He therefore advised that they should give up the idea, and behave toward the tyrant in such a way as to create him as many enemies as possible; for there was no better method of reducing Lucca than to let them live under the tyrant, oppressed and exhausted by him; for, if prudently managed, that city would soon get into such a condition that he could not retain it, and being ignorant or unable to govern itself, it must of necessity fall into their power. But he saw that his discourse did not please them, and that his words were unheeded; he would, however, predict this to them, that they were about to commence a war in which they would expend vast sums, incur great domestic dangers, and instead of becoming masters of Lucca, they would deliver her from her tyrant, and of a friendly city, feeble and oppressed, they would make one free and hostile, and that in time she would become an obstacle to the greatness of their own republic. The question having been debated on both sides, they proceeded to vote, as usual, and of the citizens present only ninety-eight were against the enterprise. Thus determined in favor of war, they appointed a Council of Ten for its management, and hired forces, both horse and foot. Astorre Gianni and Rinaldo degli Albizzi were appointed commissaries, and Niccolo Fortebraccio, on agreeing to give up to the Florentines the places he had taken, was engaged to conduct the enterprise as their captain. The commissaries having arrived with the army in the country of the Lucchese, divided their forces; one part of which, under Astorre, extended itself along the plain, toward Camaiore and Pietrasanta, while Rinaldo, with the other division, took the direction of the hills, presuming that when the citizens found themselves deprived of the surrounding country, they would easily submit. The proceedings of the commissaries were unfortunate, not that they failed to occupy many places, but from the complaints made against them of mismanaging the operations of the war; and Astorre Gianni had certainly given very sufficient cause for the charges against him. There is a fertile and populous valley near Pietrasanta, called Seravezza, whose inhabitants, on learning the arrival of the commissary, presented themselves before him and begged he would receive them as faithful subjects of the Florentine republic. Astorre pretended to accept their proposal, but immediately ordered his forces to take possession of all the passes and strong positions of the valley, assembled the men in the principal church, took them all prisoners, and then caused his people to plunder and destroy the whole country, with the greatest avarice and cruelty, making no distinction in favor of consecrated places, and violating the women, both married and single. These things being known in Florence, displeased not only the magistracy, but the whole city. CHAPTER V The inhabitants of Seravezza appeal to the Signory--Complaints against Rinaldo degli Albizzi--The commissaries changed--Filippo Brunelleschi proposes to submerge the country about Lucca--Pagolo Guinigi asks assistance of the duke of Milan--The duke sends Francesco Sforza--Pagolo Guinigi expelled--The Florentines routed by the forces of the duke--The acquisitions of the Lucchese after the victory--Conclusion of the war. A few of the inhabitants of the valley of Seravezza, having escaped the hands of the commissary, came to Florence and acquainted every one in the streets with their miserable situation; and by the advice of those who, either through indignation at his wickedness or from being of the opposite party, wished to punish the commissary, they went to the Council of Ten, and requested an audience. This being granted, one of them spoke to the following effect: "We feel assured, magnificent lords, that we shall find credit and compassion from the Signory, when you learn how your commissary has taken possession of our country, and in what manner he has treated us. Our valley, as the memorials of your ancient houses abundantly testify, was always Guelphic, and has often proved a secure retreat to your citizens when persecuted by the Ghibellines. Our forefathers, and ourselves too, have always revered the name of this noble republic as the leader and head of their party. While the Lucchese were Guelphs we willingly submitted to their government; but when enslaved by the tyrant, who forsook his old friends to join the Ghibelline faction, we have obeyed him more through force than good will. And God knows how often we have prayed, that we might have an opportunity of showing our attachment to our ancient party. But how blind are mankind in their wishes! That which we desired for our safety has proved our destruction. As soon as we learned that your ensigns were approaching, we hastened to meet your commissary, not as an enemy, but as the representative of our ancient lords; placed our valley, our persons, and our fortunes in his hands, and commended them to his good faith, believing him to possess the soul, if not of a Florentine, at least of a man. Your lordships will forgive us; for, unable to support his cruelties, we are compelled to speak. Your commissary has nothing of the man but the shape, nor of a Florentine but the name; a more deadly pest, a more savage beast, a more horrid monster never was imagined in the human mind; for, having assembled us in our church under pretense of wishing to speak with us, he made us prisoners. He then burned and destroyed the whole valley, carried off our property, ravaged every place, destroyed everything, violated the women, dishonored the virgins, and dragging them from the arms of their mothers, gave them up to the brutality of his soldiery. If by any injury to the Florentine people we merited such treatment, or if he had vanquished us armed in our defense, we should have less reason for complaint; we should have accused ourselves, and thought that either our mismanagement or our arrogance had deservedly brought the calamity upon us; but after having freely presented ourselves to him unarmed, to be robbed and plundered with such unfeeling barbarity, is more than we can bear. And though we might have filled Lombardy with complaints and charges against this city, and spread the story of our misfortunes over the whole of Italy, we did not wish to slander so just and pious a republic, with the baseness and perfidy of one wicked citizen, whose cruelty and avarice, had we known them before our ruin was complete, we should have endeavored to satiate (though indeed they are insatiable), and with one-half of our property have saved the rest. But the opportunity is past; we are compelled to have recourse to you, and beg that you will succor the distresses of your subjects, that others may not be deterred by our example from submitting themselves to your authority. And if our extreme distress cannot prevail with you to assist us, be induced, by your fear of the wrath of God, who has seen his temple plundered and burned, and his people betrayed in his bosom." Having said this they threw themselves on the ground, crying aloud, and praying that their property and their country might be restored to them; and that if the Signory could not give them back their honor, they would, at least, restore husbands to their wives, and children to their fathers. The atrocity of the affair having already been made known, and now by the living words of the sufferers presented before them, excited the compassion of the magistracy. They ordered the immediate return of Astorre, who being tried, was found guilty, and admonished. They sought the goods of the inhabitants of Seravezza; all that could be recovered was restored to them, and as time and circumstance gave opportunity, they were compensated for the rest. Complaints were made against Rinaldo degli Albizzi, that he carried on the war, not for the advantage of the Florentine people, but his own private emolument; that as soon as he was appointed commissary, he lost all desire to take Lucca, for it was sufficient for him to plunder the country, fill his estates with cattle, and his house with booty; and, not content with what his own satellites took, he purchased that of the soldiery, so that instead of a commissary he became a merchant. These calumnies coming to his ears, disturbed the temper of this proud but upright man, more than quite became his dignity. He was so exasperated against the citizens and magistracy, that without waiting for or asking permission, he returned to Florence, and, presenting himself before the Council of Ten, he said that he well knew how difficult and dangerous a thing it was to serve an unruly people and a divided city, for the one listens to every report, the other pursues improper measures; they neglect to reward good conduct, and heap censure upon whatever appears doubtful; so that victory wins no applause, error is accused by all, and if vanquished, universal condemnation is incurred; from one's own party through envy, and from enemies through hatred, persecution results. He confessed that the baseness of the present calumnies had conquered his patience and changed the temper of his mind; but he would say, he had never, for fear of a false accusation, avoided doing what appeared to him beneficial to the city. However, he trusted the magistrates would in future be more ready to defend their fellow-citizens, so that the latter might continue anxious to effect the prosperity of their country; that as it was not customary at Florence to award triumphs for success, they ought at least to be protected from calumny; and that being citizens themselves, and at any moment liable to false accusations, they might easily conceive how painful it is to an upright mind to be oppressed with slander. The Ten endeavored, as well as circumstances would admit, to soothe the acerbity of his feelings, and confided the care of the expedition to Neri di Gino and Alamanno Salviati, who, instead of overrunning the country, advanced near to Lucca. As the weather had become extremely cold, the forces established themselves at Campannole, which seemed to the commissaries waste of time; and wishing to draw nearer the place, the soldiery refused to comply, although the Ten had insisted they should pitch their camp before the city, and would not hear of any excuse. At that time there lived at Florence, a very distinguished architect, named Filippo di Ser Brunelleschi, of whose works our city is full, and whose merit was so extraordinary, that after his death his statue in marble was erected in the principal church, with an inscription underneath, which still bears testimony to those who read it, of his great talents. This man pointed out, that in consequence of the relative positions of the river Serchio and the city of Lucca, the wastes of the river might be made to inundate the surrounding country, and place the city in a kind of lake. His reasoning on this point appeared so clear, and the advantage to the besiegers so obvious and inevitable, that the Ten were induced to make the experiment. The result, however, was quite contrary to their expectation, and produced the utmost disorder in the Florentine camp; for the Lucchese raised high embankments in the direction of the ditch made by our people to conduct the waters of the Serchio, and one night cut through the embankment of the ditch itself, so that having first prevented the water from taking the course designed by the architect, they now caused it to overflow the plain, and compelled the Florentines, instead of approaching the city as they wished, to take a more remote position. The design having failed, the Council of Ten, who had been re-elected, sent as commissary, Giovanni Guicciardini, who encamped before Lucca, with all possible expedition. Pagolo Guinigi finding himself thus closely pressed, by the advice of Antonio del Rosso, then representative of the Siennese at Lucca, sent Salvestro Trento and Leonardo Bonvisi to Milan, to request assistance from the duke; but finding him indisposed to comply, they secretly engaged, on the part of the people, to deliver their governor up to him and give him possession of the place; at the same time intimating, that if he did not immediately follow this advice, he would not long have the opportunity, since it was the intention of Pagolo to surrender the city to the Florentines, who were very anxious to obtain it. The duke was so much alarmed with this idea, that, setting aside all other considerations, he caused Count Francesco Sforza, who was engaged in his service, to make a public request for permission to go to Naples; and having obtained it, he proceeded with his forces directly to Lucca, though the Florentines, aware of the deception, and apprehensive of the consequences, had sent to the count, Boccacino Alamanni, his friend, to frustrate this arrangement. Upon the arrival of the count at Lucca, the Florentines removed their camp to Librafatta, and the count proceeded immediately to Pescia, where Pagolo Diacceto was lieutenant governor, who, promoted by fear rather than any better motive, fled to Pistoia, and if the place had not been defended by Giovanni Malavolti, to whom the command was intrusted, it would have been lost. The count failing in his attempt went to Borgo a Buggiano which he took, and burned the castle of Stigliano, in the same neighborhood. The Florentines being informed of these disasters, found they must have recourse to those remedies which upon former occasions had often proved useful. Knowing that with mercenary soldiers, when force is insufficient, corruption commonly prevails, they offered the count a large sum of money on condition that he should quit the city, and give it up to them. The count finding that no more money was to be had from Lucca, resolved to take it of those who had it to dispense, and agreed with the Florentines, not to give them Lucca, which for decency he could not consent to, but to withdraw his troops, and abandon it, on condition of receiving fifty thousand ducats; and having made this agreement, to induce the Lucchese to excuse him to the duke, he consented that they should expel their tyrant. Antonio del Rosso, as we remarked above, was Siennese ambassador at Lucca, and with the authority of the count he contrived the ruin of Pagolo Guinigi. The heads of the conspiracy were Pierro Cennami and Giovanni da Chivizzano. The count resided upon the Serchio, at a short distance from the city, and with him was Lanzilao, the son of Pagolo. The conspirators, about forty in number, went armed at night in search of Pagolo, who, on hearing the noise they made, came toward them quite astonished, and demanded the cause of their visit; to which Piero Cennami replied, that they had long been governed by him, and led about against the enemy, to die either by hunger or the sword, but were resolved to govern themselves for the future, and demanded the keys of the city and the treasure. Pagolo said the treasure was consumed, but the keys and himself were in their power; he only begged that as his command had begun and continued without bloodshed, it might conclude in the same manner. Count Francesco conducted Pagolo and his son to the duke, and they afterward died in prison. The departure of the count having delivered Lucca from her tyrant, and the Florentines from their fear of his soldiery, the former prepared for her defense, and the latter resumed the siege. They appointed the count of Urbino to conduct their forces, and he pressed the Lucchese so closely, that they were again compelled to ask the assistance of the duke, who dispatched Niccolo Piccinino, under the same pretense as he previously sent Count Francesco. The Florentine forces met him on his approach to Lucca, and at the passage of the Serchio a battle ensued, in which they were routed, the commissary with a few of his men escaping to Pisa. This defeat filled the Florentines with dismay, and as the enterprise had been undertaken with the entire approbation of the great body of the people, they did not know whom to find fault with, and therefore railed against those who had been appointed to the management of the war, reviving the charges made against Rinaldo. They were, however, more severe against Giovanni Guicciardini than any other, declaring that if he had wished, he might have put a period to the war at the departure of Count Francesco, but that he had been bribed with money, for he had sent home a large sum, naming the party who had been intrusted to bring it, and the persons to whom it had been delivered. These complaints and accusations were carried to so great a length that the captain of the people, induced by the public voice, and pressed by the party opposed to the war, summoned him to trial. Giovanni appeared, though full of indignation. However his friends, from regard to their own character, adopted such a course with the Capitano as induced him to abandon the inquiry. After this victory, the Lucchese not only recovered the places that had belonged to them, but occupied all the country of Pisa except Beintina, Calcinaja, Livorno, and Librafatta; and, had not a conspiracy been discovered that was formed in Pisa, they would have secured that city also. The Florentines again prepared for battle, and appointed Micheletto, a pupil of Sforza, to be their leader. The duke, on the other hand, followed up this victory, and that he might bring a greater power against the Florentines, induced the Genoese, the Siennese, and the governor of Piombino, to enter into a league for the defense of Lucca, and to engage Niccolo Piccinino to conduct their forces. Having by this step declared his design, the Venetians and the Florentines renewed their league, and the war was carried on openly in Tuscany and Lombardy, in each of which several battles were fought with variety of fortune. At length, both sides being wearied out, they came to terms for the cessation of hostilities, in May, 1433. By this arrangement the Florentines, Lucchese, and Siennese, who had each occupied many fortresses belonging to the others, gave them all up, and each party resumed its original possessions. CHAPTER VI Cosmo de' Medici, his character and mode of proceedings--The greatness of Cosmo excites the jealousy of the citizens--The opinion of Niccolo da Uzzano--Scandalous divisions of the Florentines--Death of Niccolo da Uzzano--Bernardo Guadagni, Gonfalonier, adopts measures against Cosmo--Cosmo arrested in the palace--He is apprehensive of attempts against his life. During the war the malignant humors of the city were in constant activity. Cosmo de' Medici, after the death of Giovanni, engaged more earnestly in public affairs, and conducted himself with more zeal and boldness in regard to his friends than his father had done, so that those who rejoiced at Giovanni's death, finding what the son was likely to become, perceived they had no cause for exultation. Cosmo was one of the most prudent of men; of grave and courteous demeanor, extremely liberal and humane. He never attempted anything against parties, or against rulers, but was bountiful to all; and by the unwearied generosity of his disposition, made himself partisans of all ranks of the citizens. This mode of proceeding increased the difficulties of those who were in the government, and Cosmo himself hoped that by its pursuit he might be able to live in Florence as much respected and as secure as any other citizen; or if the ambition of his adversaries compelled him to adopt a different course, arms and the favor of his friends would enable him to become more so. Averardo de' Medici and Puccio Pucci were greatly instrumental in the establishment of his power; the former by his boldness, the latter by unusual prudence and sagacity, contributed to his aggrandizement. Indeed the advice of wisdom of Puccio were so highly esteemed, that Cosmo's party was rather distinguished by the name of Puccio than by his own. By this divided city the enterprise against Lucca was undertaken; and the bitterness of party spirit, instead of being abated, increased. Although the friends of Cosmo had been in favor of it, many of the adverse faction were sent to assist in the management, as being men of greater influence in the state. Averardo de' Medici and the rest being unable to prevent this, endeavored with all their might to calumniate them; and when any unfavorable circumstance occurred (and there were many), fortune and the exertions of the enemy were never supposed to be the causes, but solely the want of capacity in the commissary. This disposition aggravated the offenses of Astorre Gianni; this excited the indignation of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, and made him resign his commission without leave; this, too, compelled the captain of the people to require the appearance of Giovanni Guicciardini, and from this arose all the other charges which were made against the magistrates and the commissaries. Real evils were magnified, unreal ones feigned, and the true and the false were equally believed by the people, who were almost universally their foes. All these events and extraordinary modes of proceeding were perfectly known to Niccolo da Uzzano and the other leaders of the party; and they had often consulted together for the purpose of finding a remedy, but without effect; though they were aware of the danger of allowing them to increase, and the great difficulty that would attend any attempt to remove or abate them. Niccolo da Uzzano was the earliest to take offense; and while the war was proceeding without, and these troubles within, Niccolo Barbadoro desirous of inducing him to consent to the ruin of Cosmo, waited upon him at his house; and finding him alone in his study, and very pensive, endeavored, with the best reasons he could advance, to persuade him to agree with Rinaldo on Cosmo's expulsion. Niccolo da Uzzano replied as follows: "It would be better for thee and thy house, as well as for our republic, if thou and those who follow thee in this opinion had beards of silver instead of gold, as is said of thee; for advice proceeding from the hoary head of long experience would be wiser and of greater service to all. It appears to me, that those who talk of driving Cosmo out of Florence would do well to consider what is their strength, and what that of Cosmo. You have named one party, that of the nobility, the other that of the plebeians. If the fact corresponded with the name, the victory would still be most uncertain, and the example of the ancient nobility of this city, who were destroyed by the plebeians, ought rather to impress us with fear than with hope. We have, however, still further cause for apprehension from the division of our party, and the union of our adversaries. In the first place, Neri di Gino and Nerone di Nigi, two of our principal citizens, have never so fully declared their sentiments as to enable us to determine whether they are most our friends our those of our opponents. There are many families, even many houses, divided; many are opposed to us through envy of brothers or relatives. I will recall to your recollection two or three of the most important; you may think of the others at your leisure. Of the sons of Maso degli Albizzi, Luca, from envy of Rinaldo, has thrown himself into their hands. In the house of Guicciardini, of the sons of Luigi, Piero is the enemy of Giovanni and in favor of our adversaries. Tommaso and Niccolo Soderini openly oppose us on account of their hatred of their uncle Francesco. So that if we consider well what we are, and what our enemies, I cannot see why we should be called NOBLE any more than they. If it is because they are followed by the plebeians, we are in a worse condition on that account, and they in a better; for were it to come either to arms or to votes, we should not be able to resist them. True it is, we still preserve our dignity, our precedence, the priority of our position, but this arises from the former reputation of the government, which has now continued fifty years; and whenever we come to the proof, or they discover our weakness we shall lose it. If you were to say, the justice of our cause ought to augment our influence and diminish theirs I answer, that this justice requires to be perceived and believed by others as well as by ourselves, but this is not the case; for the justice of our cause is wholly founded upon our suspicion that Cosmo designs to make himself prince of the city. And although we entertain this suspicion and suppose it to be correct, others have it not; but what is worse, they charge us with the very design of which we accuse him. Those actions of Cosmo which lead us to suspect him are, that he lends money indiscriminately, and not to private persons only, but to the public; and not to Florentines only, but to the _condottieri_, the soldiers of fortune. Besides, he assists any citizen who requires magisterial aid; and, by the universal interest he possesses in the city, raises first one friend and then another to higher grades of honor. Therefore, to adduce our reasons for expelling him, would be to say that he is kind, generous, liberal, and beloved by all. Now tell me, what law is there which forbids, disapproves, or condemns men for being pious, liberal, and benevolent? And though they are all modes adopted by those who aim at sovereignty, they are not believed to be such, nor have we sufficient power to make them to be so esteemed; for our conduct has robbed us of confidence, and the city, naturally partial and (having always lived in faction) corrupt, cannot lend its attention to such charges. But even if we were successful in an attempt to expel him (which might easily happen under a favorable Signory), how could we (being surrounded by his innumerable friends, who would constantly reproach us, and ardently desire to see him again in the city) prevent his return? It would be impossible for they being so numerous, and having the good will of all upon their side, we should never be secure from them. And as many of his first discovered friends as you might expel, so many enemies would you make, so that in a short time he would return, and the result would be simply this, that we had driven him out a good man and he had returned to us a bad one; for his nature would be corrupted by those who recalled him, and he, being under obligation, could not oppose them. Or should you design to put him to death, you could not attain your purpose with the magistrates, for his wealth, and the corruption of your minds, will always save him. But let us suppose him put to death, or that being banished, he did not return, I cannot see how the condition of our republic would be ameliorated; for if we relieve her from Cosmo, we at once make her subject to Rinaldo, and it is my most earnest desire that no citizen may ever, in power and authority, surpass the rest. But if one of these must prevail, I know of no reason that should make me prefer Rinaldo to Cosmo. I shall only say, may God preserve the city from any of her citizens usurping the sovereignty, but if our sins have deserved this, in mercy save us from Rinaldo. I pray thee, therefore, do not advise the adoption of a course on every account pernicious, nor imagine that, in union with a few, you would be able to oppose the will of the many; for the citizens, some from ignorance and others from malice, are ready to sell the republic at any time, and fortune has so much favored them, that they have found a purchaser. Take my advice then; endeavor to live moderately; and with regard to liberty, you will find as much cause for suspicion in our party as in that of our adversaries. And when troubles arise, being of neither side, you will be agreeable to both, and you will thus provide for your own comfort and do no injury to any." These words somewhat abated the eagerness of Barbadoro, so that tranquillity prevailed during the war with Lucca. But this being ended, and Niccolo da Uzzano dead, the city being at peace and under no restraint, unhealthy humors increased with fearful rapidity. Rinaldo, considering himself now the leader of the party, constantly entreated and urged every citizen whom he thought likely to be Gonfalonier, to take up arms and deliver the country from him who, from the malevolence of a few and the ignorance of the multitude, was inevitably reducing it to slavery. These practices of Rinaldo, and those of the contrary side, kept the city full of apprehension, so that whenever a magistracy was created, the numbers of each party composing it were made publicly known, and upon drawing for the Signory the whole city was aroused. Every case brought before the magistrates, however trivial, was made a subject of contention among them. Secrets were divulged, good and evil alike became objects of favor and opposition, the benevolent and the wicked were alike assailed, and no magistrate fulfilled the duties of his office with integrity. In this state of confusion, Rinaldo, anxious to abate the power of Cosmo, and knowing that Bernardo Guadagni was likely to become Gonfalonier, paid his arrears of taxes, that he might not, by being indebted to the public, be incapacitated for holding the office. The drawing soon after took place, and fortune, opposed to our welfare, caused Bernardo to be appointed for the months of September and October. Rinaldo immediately waited upon him, and intimated how much the party of the nobility, and all who wished for repose, rejoiced to find he had attained that dignity; that it now rested with him to act in such a manner as to realize their pleasing expectations. He then enlarged upon the danger of disunion, and endeavored to show that there was no means of attaining the blessing of unity but by the destruction of Cosmo, for he alone, by the popularity acquired with his enormous wealth, kept them depressed; that he was already so powerful, that if not hindered, he would soon become prince, and that it was the part of a good citizen, in order to prevent such a calamity, to assemble the people in the piazza, and restore liberty to his country. Rinaldo then reminded the new Gonfalonier how Salvestro de' Medici was able, though unjustly, to restrain the power of the Guelphs, to whom, by the blood of their ancestors, shed in its cause, the government rightly belonged; and argued that what he was able unjustly to accomplish against so many, might surely be easily performed with justice in its favor against one! He encouraged him with the assurance that their friends would be ready in arms to support him; that he need not regard the plebeians, who adored Cosmo, since their assistance would be of no greater avail than Giorgio Scali had found it on a similar occasion; and that with regard to his wealth, no apprehension was necessary, for when he was under the power of the Signory, his riches would be so too. In conclusion, he averred that this course would unite and secure the republic, and crown the Gonfalonier with glory. Bernardo briefly replied, that he thought it necessary to act exactly as Rinaldo had advised, and that as the time was suitable for action, he should provide himself with forces, being assured from what Rinaldo had said, he would be supported by his colleagues. Bernardo entered upon the duties of his office, prepared his followers, and having concerted with Rinaldo, summoned Cosmo, who, though many friends dissuaded him from it, obeyed the call, trusting more to his own innocence than to the mercy of the Signory. As soon as he had entered the palace he was arrested. Rinaldo, with a great number of armed men, and accompanied by nearly the whole of his party, proceeded to the piazza, when the Signory assembled the people, and created a Balia of two hundred persons for the reformation of the city. With the least possible delay they entered upon the consideration of reform, and of the life or death of Cosmo. Many wished him to be banished, others to be put to death, and several were silent, either from compassion toward him or for fear of the rest, so that these differences prevented them from coming to any conclusion. There is an apartment in the tower of the palace which occupies the whole of one floor, and is called the Alberghettino, in which Cosmo was confined, under the charge of Federigo Malavolti. In this place, hearing the assembly of the Councils, the noise of arms which proceeded from the piazza, and the frequent ringing of the bell to assemble the Balia, he was greatly apprehensive for his safety, but still more less his private enemies should cause him to be put to death in some unusual manner. He scarcely took any food, so that in four days he ate only a small quantity of bread, Federigo, observing his anxiety, said to him, "Cosmo, you are afraid of being poisoned, and are evidently hastening your end with hunger. You wrong me if you think I would be a party to such an atrocious act. I do not imagine your life to be in much danger, since you have so many friends both within the palace and without; but if you should eventually lose it, be assured they will use some other medium than myself for that purpose, for I will never imbue my hands in the blood of any, still less in yours, who never injured me; therefore cheer up, take some food, and preserve your life for your friends and your country. And that you may do so with greater assurance, I will partake of your meals with you." These words were of great relief to Cosmo, who, with tears in his eyes, embraced and kissed Federigo, earnestly thanking him for so kind and affectionate conduct, and promising, if ever the opportunity were given him, he would not be ungrateful. CHAPTER VII Cosmo is banished to Padua--Rinaldo degli Albizzi attempts to restore the nobility--New disturbances occasioned by Rinaldo degli Albizzi--Rinaldo takes arms against the Signory--His designs are disconcerted--Pope Eugenius in Florence--He endeavors to reconcile the parties--Cosmo is recalled--Rinaldo and his party banished--Glorious return of Cosmo. Cosmo in some degree recovered his spirits, and while the citizens were disputing about him, Federigo, by way of recreation, brought an acquaintance of the Gonfalonier to take supper with him, an amusing and facetious person, whose name was Il Farnagaccio. The repast being nearly over, Cosmo, who thought he might turn this visit to advantage, for he knew the man very intimately, gave a sign to Federigo to leave the apartment, and he, guessing the cause, under pretense of going for something that was wanted on the table, left them together. Cosmo, after a few friendly expressions addressed to Il Farnagaccio, gave him a small slip of paper, and desired him to go to the director of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, for one thousand one hundred ducats; he was to take the hundred for himself, and carry the thousand to the Gonfalonier, and beg that he would take some suitable occasion of coming to see him. Farnagaccio undertook the commission, the money was paid, Bernardo became more humane, and Cosmo was banished to Padua, contrary to the wish of Rinaldo, who earnestly desired his death. Averardo and many others of the house of Medici were also banished, and with them Puccio and Giovanni Pucci. To silence those who were dissatisfied with the banishment of Cosmo, they endowed with the power of a Balia, the Eight of War and the Capitano of the People. After his sentence, Cosmo on the third of October, 1433, came before the Signory, by whom the boundary to which he was restricted was specified; and they advised him to avoid passing it, unless he wished them to proceed with greater severity both against himself and his property. Cosmo received his sentence with a cheerful look, assuring the Signory that wherever they determined to send him, he would willingly remain. He earnestly begged, that as they had preserved his life they would protect it, for he knew there were many in the piazza who were desirous to take it; and assured them, that wherever he might be, himself and his means were entirely at the service of the city, the people, and the Signory. He was respectfully attended by the Gonfalonier, who retained him in the palace till night, then conducted him to his own house to supper, and caused him to be escorted by a strong armed force to his place of banishment. Wherever the cavalcade passed, Cosmo was honorably received, and was publicly visited by the Venetians, not as an exile, but with all the respect due to one in the highest station. Florence, widowed of so great a citizen, one so generally beloved, seemed to be universally sunk in despondency; victors and the vanquished were alike in fear. Rinaldo, as if inspired with a presage of his future calamities, in order not to appear deficient to himself or his party, assembled many citizens, his friends, and informed them that he foresaw their approaching ruin for having allowed themselves to be overcome by the prayers, the tears, and the money of their enemies; and that they did not seem aware they would soon themselves have to entreat and weep, when their prayers would not be listened to, or their tears excite compassion; and that of the money received, they would have to restore the principal, and pay the interest in tortures, exile, and death; that it would have been much better for them to have done nothing than to have left Cosmo alive, and his friends in Florence; for great offenders ought either to remain untouched, or be destroyed; that there was now no remedy but to strengthen themselves in the city, so that upon the renewed attempts of their enemies, which would soon take place, they might drive them out with arms, since they had not sufficient civil authority to expel them. The remedy to be adopted, he said, was one that he had long before advocated, which was to regain the friendship of the grandees, restoring and conceding to them all the honors of the city, and thus make themselves strong with that party, since their adversaries had joined the plebeians. That by this means they would become the more powerful side, for they would possess greater energy, more comprehensive talent and an augmented share of influence; and that if this last and only remedy were not adopted, he knew not what other means could be made use of to preserve the government among so many enemies, or prevent their own ruin and that of the city. Mariotto Baldovinetti, one of the assembly, was opposed to this plan, on account of the pride and insupportable nature of the nobility; and said, that it would be folly to place themselves again under such inevitable tyranny for the sake of avoiding imaginary dangers from the plebeians. Rinaldo, finding his advice unfavorably received, vexed at his own misfortune and that of his party, imputed the whole to heaven itself, which had resolved upon it, rather than to human ignorance and blunders. In this juncture of affairs, no remedial measure being attempted, a letter was found written by Agnolo Acciajuoli to Cosmo, acquainting him with the disposition of the city in his favor, and advising him, if possible, to excite a war, and gain the friendship of Neri di Gino; for he imagined the city to be in want of money, and as she would not find anyone to serve her, the remembrance of him would be revived in the minds of the citizens, and they would desire his return; and that if Neri were detached from Rinaldo, the party of the latter would be so weakened, as to be unable to defend themselves. This letter coming to the hands of the magistrates, Agnolo was taken, put to the torture, and sent into exile. This example, however, did not at all deter Cosmo's party. It was now almost a year since Cosmo had been banished, and the end of August, 1434, being come, Niccolo di Cocco was drawn Gonfalonier for the two succeeding months, and with him eight signors, all partisans of Cosmo. This struck terror into Rinaldo and his party; and as it is usual for three days to elapse before the new Signory assume the magistracy and the old resign their authority, Rinaldo again called together the heads of his party. He endeavored to show them their certain and immediate danger, and that their only remedy was to take arms, and cause Donato Velluti, who was yet Gonfalonier, to assemble the people in the piazza and create a Balia. He would then deprive the new Signory of the magistracy, appoint another, burn the present balloting purses, and by means of a new Squittini, provide themselves with friends. Many thought this course safe and requisite; others, that it was too violent, and likely to be attended with great evil. Among those who disliked it was Palla Strozzi, a peaceable, gentle, and humane person, better adapted for literary pursuits than for restraining a party, or opposing civil strife. He said that bold and crafty resolutions seem promising at their commencement, but are afterward found difficult to execute, and generally pernicious at their conclusion; that he thought the fear of external wars (the duke's forces being upon the confines of Romagna), would occupy the minds of the Signory more than internal dissensions; but, still, if any attempt should be made, and it could not take place unnoticed, they would have sufficient time to take arms, and adopt whatever measures might be found necessary for the common good, which being done upon necessity, would occasion less excitement among the people and less danger to themselves. It was therefore concluded, that the new Signory should come in; that their proceedings should be watched, and if they were found attempting anything against the party, each should take arms, and meet in the piazza of San Pulinari, situated near the palace, and whence they might proceed wherever it was found necessary. Having come to this conclusion, Rinaldo's friends separated. The new Signory entered upon their office, and the Gonfalonier, in order to acquire reputation, and deter those who might intend to oppose him, sent Donato Velluti, his predecessor, to prison, upon the charge of having applied the public money to his own use. He then endeavored to sound his colleagues with respect to Cosmo: seeing them desirous of his return, he communicated with the leaders of the Medici party, and, by their advice, summoned the hostile chiefs, Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Ridolfo Peruzzi, and Niccolo Barbadoro. After this citation, Rinaldo thought further delay would be dangerous: he therefore left his house with a great number of armed men, and was soon joined by Ridolfo Peruzzi and Niccolo Barbadoro. The force accompanying them was composed of several citizens and a great number of disbanded soldiers then in Florence: and all assembled according to appointment in the piazza of San Pulinari. Palla Strozzi and Giovanni Guicciardini, though each had assembled a large number of men, kept in their houses; and therefore Rinaldo sent a messenger to request their attendance and to reprove their delay. Giovanni replied, that he should lend sufficient aid against their enemies, if by remaining at home he could prevent his brother Piero from going to the defense of the palace. After many messages Palla came to San Pulinari on horseback, accompanied by two of his people on foot, and unarmed. Rinaldo, on meeting him, sharply reproved him for his negligence, declaring that his refusal to come with the others arose either from defect of principle or want of courage; both of which charges should be avoided by all who wished to preserve such a character as he had hitherto possessed; and that if he thought this abominable conduct to his party would induce their enemies when victorious to spare him from death or exile, he deceived himself; but for himself (Rinaldo) whatever might happen, he had the consolation of knowing, that previously to the crisis he had never neglected his duty in council, and that when it occurred he had used every possible exertion to repel it with arms; but that Palla and the others would experience aggravated remorse when they considered they had upon three occasions betrayed their country; first when they saved Cosmo; next when they disregarded his advice; and now the third time by not coming armed in her defense according to their engagement. To these reproaches Palla made no reply audible to those around, but, muttering something as he left them, returned to his house. The Signory, knowing Rinaldo and his party had taken arms, finding themselves abandoned, caused the palace to be shut up, and having no one to consult they knew not what course to adopt. However, Rinaldo, by delaying his coming to the piazza, having waited in expectation of forces which did not join him, lost the opportunity of victory, gave them courage to provide for their defense, and allowed many others to join them, who advised that means should be used to induce their adversaries to lay down their arms. Thereupon, some of the least suspected, went on the part of the Signory to Rinaldo, and said, they did not know what occasion they had given his friends for thus assembling in arms; that they never had any intention of offending him, and if they had spoken of Cosmo, they had no design of recalling him; so if their fears were thus occasioned they might at once be dispelled, for that if they came to the palace they would be graciously received, and all their complaints attended to. These words produced no change in Rinaldo's purpose; he bade them provide for their safety by resigning their offices, and said that then the government of the city would be reorganized, for the mutual benefit of all. It rarely happens, where authorities are equal and opinions contrary, that any good resolution is adopted. Ridolfo Peruzzi, moved by the discourse of the citizens, said, that all he desired was to prevent the return of Cosmo, and this being granted to them seemed a sufficient victory; nor would he, to obtain a greater, fill the city with blood; he would therefore obey the Signory; and accordingly went with his people to the palace, where he was received with a hearty welcome. Thus Rinaldo's delay at San Pulinari, Palla's want of courage, and Ridolfo's desertion, deprived their party of all chance of success; while the ardor of the citizens abated, and the pope's authority did not contribute to its revival. Pope Eugenius was at this time at Florence, having been driven from Rome by the people. These disturbances coming to his knowledge, he thought it a duty suitable to his pastoral office to appease them, and sent the patriarch Giovanni Vitelleschi, Rinaldo's most intimate friend, to entreat the latter to come to an interview with him, as he trusted he had sufficient influence with the Signory to insure his safety and satisfaction, without injury or bloodshed to the citizens. By his friend's persuasion, Rinaldo proceeded with all his followers to Santa Maria Nuova, where the pope resided. Eugenius gave him to understand, that the Signory had empowered him to settle the differences between them, and that all would be arranged to his satisfaction, if he laid down his arms. Rinaldo, having witnessed Palla's want of zeal, and the fickleness of Ridolfo Peruzzi, and no better course being open to him, placed himself in the pope's hands, thinking that at all events the authority of his holiness would insure his safety. Eugenius then sent word to Niccolo Barbadoro, and the rest who remained without, that they were to lay down their arms, for Rinaldo was remaining with the pontiff, to arrange terms of agreement with the signors; upon which they immediately dispersed, and laid aside their weapons. The Signory, seeing their adversaries disarmed, continued to negotiate an arrangement by means of the pope; but at the same time sent secretly to the mountains of Pistoia for infantry, which, with what other forces they could collect, were brought into Florence by night. Having taken possession of all the strong positions in the city, they assembled the people in the piazza and created a new balia, which, without delay, restored Cosmo and those who had been exiled with him to their country; and banished, of the opposite party, Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Ridolfo Peruzzi, Niccolo Barbadoro, and Palla Strozzi, with so many other citizens, that there were few places in Italy which did not contain some, and many others beyond her limits were full of them. By this and similar occurrences, Florence was deprived of men of worth, and of much wealth and industry. The pope, seeing such misfortunes befall those who by his entreaties were induced to lay down their arms, was greatly dissatisfied, and condoled with Rinaldo on the injuries he had received through his confidence in him, but advised him to be patient, and hope for some favorable turn of fortune. Rinaldo replied, "The want of confidence in those who ought to have trusted me, and the great trust I have reposed in you, have ruined both me and my party. But I blame myself principally for having thought that you, who were expelled from your own country, could preserve me in mine. I have had sufficient experience of the freaks of fortune; and as I have never trusted greatly to prosperity, I shall suffer less inconvenience from adversity; and I know that when she pleases she can become more favorable. But if she should never change, I shall not be very desirous of living in a city in which individuals are more powerful than the laws; for that country alone is desirable in which property and friends may be safely enjoyed, not one where they may easily be taken from us, and where friends, from fear of losing their property, are compelled to abandon each other in their greatest need. Besides, it has always been less painful to good men to hear of the misfortunes of their country than to witness them; and an honorable exile is always held in greater esteem than slavery at home." He then left the pope, and, full of indignation, blaming himself, his own measures, and the coldness of his friends, went into exile. Cosmo, on the other hand, being informed of his recall, returned to Florence; and it has seldom occurred that any citizen, coming home triumphant from victory, was received by so vast a concourse of people, or such unqualified demonstrations of regard as he was upon his return from banishment; for by universal consent he was hailed as the benefactor of the people, and the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. BOOK V CHAPTER I The vicissitudes of empires--The state of Italy--The military factions of Sforza and Braccio--The Bracceschi and the Sforzeschi attack the pope, who is expelled by the Romans--War between the pope and the duke of Milan--The Florentines and the Venetians assist the pope--Peace between the pope and the duke of Milan--Tyranny practiced by the party favorable to the Medici. It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline. In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune. Hence, wise men have observed, that the age of literary excellence is subsequent to that of distinction in arms; and that in cities and provinces, great warriors are produced before philosophers. Arms having secured victory, and victory peace, the buoyant vigor of the martial mind cannot be enfeebled by a more excusable indulgence than that of letters; nor can indolence, with any greater or more dangerous deceit, enter a well regulated community. Cato was aware of this when the philosophers, Diogenes and Carneades, were sent ambassadors to the senate by the Athenians; for perceiving with what earnest admiration the Roman youth began to follow them, and knowing the evils that might result to his country from this specious idleness, he enacted that no philosopher should be allowed to enter Rome. Provinces by this means sink to ruin, from which, men's sufferings having made them wiser, they again recur to order, if they be not overwhelmed by some extraordinary force. These causes made Italy, first under the ancient Tuscans, and afterward under the Romans, by turns happy and unhappy; and although nothing has subsequently arisen from the ruins of Rome at all corresponding to her ancient greatness (which under a well-organized monarchy might have been gloriously effected), still there was so much bravery and intelligence in some of the new cities and governments that afterward sprang up, that although none ever acquired dominion over the rest, they were, nevertheless, so balanced and regulated among themselves, as to enable them to live in freedom, and defend their country from the barbarians. Among these governments, the Florentines, although they possessed a smaller extent of territory, were not inferior to any in power and authority; for being situated in the middle of Italy, wealthy, and prepared for action, they either defended themselves against such as thought proper to assail them, or decided victory in favor of those to whom they became allies. From the valor, therefore, of these new governments, if no seasons occurred of long-continued peace, neither were any exposed to the calamities of war; for that cannot be called peace in which states frequently assail each other with arms, nor can those be considered wars in which no men are slain, cities plundered, or sovereignties overthrown; for the practice of arms fell into such a state of decay, that wars were commenced without fear, continued without danger, and concluded without loss. Thus the military energy which is in other countries exhausted by a long peace, was wasted in Italy by the contemptible manner in which hostilities were carried on, as will be clearly seen in the events to be described from 1434 to 1494, from which it will appear how the barbarians were again admitted into Italy, and she again sunk under subjection to them. Although the transactions of our princes at home and abroad will not be viewed with admiration of their virtue and greatness like those of the ancients, perhaps they may on other accounts be regarded with no less interest, seeing what masses of high spirited people were kept in restraint by such weak and disorderly forces. And if, in detailing the events which took place in this wasted world, we shall not have to record the bravery of the soldier, the prudence of the general, or the patriotism of the citizen, it will be seen with what artifice, deceit, and cunning, princes, warriors, and leaders of republics conducted themselves, to support a reputation they never deserved. This, perhaps, will not be less useful than a knowledge of ancient history; for, if the latter excites the liberal mind to imitation, the former will show what ought to be avoided and decried. Italy was reduced to such a condition by her rulers, that when, by consent of her princes, peace was restored, it was soon disturbed by those who retained their armies, so that glory was not gained by war nor repose by peace. Thus when the league and the duke of Milan agreed to lay aside their arms in 1433, the soldiers, resolved upon war, directed their efforts against the church. There were at this time two factions or armed parties in Italy, the Sforzesca and the Braccesca. The leader of the former was the Count Francesco, the son of Sforza, and of the latter, Niccolo Piccinino and Niccolo Fortebraccio. Under the banner of one or other of these parties almost all the forces of Italy were assembled. Of the two, the Sforzesca was in greatest repute, as well from the bravery of the count himself, as from the promise which the duke of Milan had made him of his natural daughter, Madonna Bianca, the prospect of which alliance greatly strengthened his influence. After the peace of Lombardy, these forces, from various causes attacked Pope Eugenius. Niccolo Fortebraccio was instigated by the ancient enmity which Braccio had always entertained against the church; the count was induced by ambition: so that Niccolo assailed Rome, and the count took possession of La Marca. The Romans, in order to avoid the war, drove Pope Eugenius from their city: and he, having with difficulty escaped, came to Florence, where seeing the imminent danger of his situation, being abandoned by the princes (for they were unwilling again to take up arms in his cause, after having been so anxious to lay them aside), he came to terms with the count, and ceded to him the sovereignty of La Marca, although, to the injury of having occupied it, he had added insult; for in signing the place, from which he addressed letters to his agents, he said in Latin, according to the Latin custom, _Ex Girfalco nostro Firmiano, invito Petro et Paulo_. Neither was he satisfied with this concession, but insisted upon being appointed Gonfalonier of the church, which was also granted; so much more was Eugenius alarmed at the prospect of a dangerous war than of an ignominious peace. The count, having been thus been reconciled to the pontiff, attacked Niccolo Fortebraccio, and during many months various encounters took place between them, from all which greater injury resulted to the pope and his subjects, than to either of the belligerents. At length, by the intervention of the duke of Milan, an arrangement, by way of a truce, was made, by which both became princes in the territories of the church. The war thus extinguished at Rome was rekindled in Romagna by Batista da Canneto, who at Bologna slew some of the family of the Grifoni, and expelled from the city the governor who resided there for the pope, along with others who were opposed to him. To enable himself to retain the government, he applied for assistance to Filippo; and the pope, to avenge himself for the injury, sought the aid of the Venetians and Florentines. Both parties obtained assistance, so that very soon two large armies were on foot in Romagna. Niccolo Piccinino commanded for the duke, Gattamelata and Niccolo da Tolentino for the Venetians and Florentines. They met near Imola, where a battle ensued, in which the Florentines and Venetians were routed, and Niccolo da Tolentino was sent prisoner to Milan where, either through grief for his loss or by some unfair means, he died in a few days. The duke, on this victory, either being exhausted by the late wars, or thinking the League after their defeat would not be in haste to resume hostilities, did not pursue his good fortune, and thus gave the pope and his colleagues time to recover themselves. They therefore appointed the Count Francesco for their leader, and undertook to drive Niccolo Fortebraccio from the territories of the church, and thus terminate the war which had been commenced in favor of the pontiff. The Romans, finding the pope supported by so large an army, sought a reconciliation with him, and being successful, admitted his commissary into the city. Among the places possessed by Niccolo Fortebraccio, were Tivoli, Montefiascone, Citta di Castello, and Ascesi, to the last of which, not being able to keep the field, he fled, and the count besieged him there. Niccolo's brave defense making it probable that the war would be of considerable duration, the duke deemed to necessary to prevent the League from obtaining the victory, and said that if this were not effected he would very soon have to look at the defense of his own territories. Resolving to divert the count from the siege, he commanded Niccolo Piccinino to pass into Tuscany by way of Romagna; and the League, thinking it more important to defend Tuscany than to occupy Ascesi, ordered the count to prevent the passage of Niccolo, who was already, with his army, at Furli. The count accordingly moved with his forces, and came to Cesena, having left the war of La Marca and the care of his own territories to his brother Lione; and while Niccolo Piccinino was endeavoring to pass by, and the count to prevent him, Fortebraccio attacked Lione with great bravery, made him prisoner, routed his forces, and pursuing the advantage of his victory, at once possessed himself of many places in La Marca. This circumstance greatly perplexed the count, who thought he had lost all his territories; so, leaving part of his force to check Piccinino, with the remainder he pursued Fortebraccio, whom he attacked and conquered. Fortebraccio was taken prisoner in the battle, and soon after died of his wounds. This victory restored to the pontiff all the places that had been taken from him by Fortebraccio, and compelled the duke of Milan to sue for peace, which was concluded by the intercession of Niccolo da Esta, marquis of Ferrara; the duke restoring to the church the places he had taken from her, and his forces retiring into Lombardy. Batista da Canneto, as in the case with all who retain authority only by the consent and forces of another, when the duke's people had quitted Romagna, unable with his own power to keep possession of Bologna, fled, and Antonio Bentivogli, the head of the opposite party, returned to his country. All this took place during the exile of Cosmo, after whose return, those who had restored him, and a great number of persons injured by the opposite party, resolved at all events to make themselves sure of the government; and the Signory for the months of November and December, not content with what their predecessors had done in favor of their party extended the term and changed the residences of several who were banished, and increased the number of exiles. In addition to these evils, it was observed that citizens were more annoyed on account of their wealth, their family connections or private animosities, than for the sake of the party to which they adhered, so that if these prescriptions had been accompanied with bloodshed, they would have resembled those of Octavius and Sylla, though in reality they were not without some stains; for Antonio di Bernardo Guadagni was beheaded, and four other citizens, among whom were Zanobi dei Belfratelli and Cosmo Barbadori, passing the confines to which they were limited, proceeded to Venice, where the Venetians, valuing the friendship of Cosmo de' Medici more than their own honor, sent them prisoners to him, and they were basely put to death. This circumstance greatly increased the influence of that party, and struck their enemies with terror, finding that such a powerful republic would so humble itself to the Florentines. This, however, was supposed to have been done, not so much out of kindness to Cosmo, as to excite dissensions in Florence, and by means of bloodshed make greater certainty of division among the citizens, for the Venetians knew there was no other obstacle to their ambition so great as the union of her people. The city being cleared of the enemies, or suspected enemies of the state, those in possession of the government now began to strengthen their party by conferring benefits upon such as were in a condition to serve them, and the family of the Alberti, with all who had been banished by the former government, were recalled. All the nobility, with few exceptions, were reduced to the ranks of the people, and the possessions of the exiles were divided among themselves, upon each paying a small acknowledgment. They then fortified themselves with new laws and provisos, made new Squittini, withdrawing the names of their adversaries from the purses, and filling them with those of their friends. Taking advice from the ruin of their enemies, they considered that to allow the great offices to be filled by mere chance of drawing, did not afford the government sufficient security, they therefore resolved that the magistrates possessing the power of life and death should always be chosen from among the leaders of their own party, and therefore that the _Accoppiatori_, or persons selected for the imborsation of the new Squittini, with the Signory who had to retire from office, should make the new appointments. They gave to eight of the guard authority to proceed capitally, and provided that the exiles, when their term of banishment was complete, should not be allowed to return, unless from the Signory and Colleagues, which were thirty-seven in number, the consent of thirty-four was obtained. It was made unlawful to write to or to receive letters from them; every word, sign, or action that gave offense to the ruling party was punished with the utmost rigor; and if there was still in Florence any suspected person whom these regulations did not reach, he was oppressed with taxes imposed for the occasion. Thus in a short time, having expelled or impoverished the whole of the adverse party, they established themselves firmly in the government. Not to be destitute of external assistance, and to deprive others of it, who might use it against themselves, they entered into a league, offensive and defensive, with the pope, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan. CHAPTER II Death of Giovanni II.--René of Anjou and Alfonso of Aragon aspire to the kingdom--Alfonso is routed and taken by the Genoese--Alfonso being a prisoner of the duke of Milan, obtains his friendship--The Genoese disgusted with the duke of Milan--Divisions among the Genoese--The Genoese, by means of Francesco Spinola, expel the duke's governor--League against the duke of Milan--Rinaldo degli Albizzi advises the duke to make war against the Florentines--His discourse to the duke--The duke adopts measures injurious to the Florentines--Niccolo Piccinino appointed to command the duke's forces--Preparations of the Florentines--Piccinino routed before Barga. The affairs of Florence being in this condition, Giovanna, queen of Naples, died, and by her will appointed René of Anjou to be her successor. Alfonso, king of Aragon, was at this time in Sicily, and having obtained the concurrence of many barons, prepared to take possession of the kingdom. The Neapolitans, with whom a greater number of barons were also associated, favored René. The pope was unwilling that either of them should obtain it; but desired the affairs of Naples to be administered by a governor of his own appointing. In the meantime Alfonso entered the kingdom, and was received by the duke of Sessa; he brought with him some princes, whom he had engaged in his service, with the design (already possessing Capua, which the prince of Taranto held in his name) of subduing the Neapolitans, and sent his fleet to attack Gaeta, which had declared itself in their favor. They therefore demanded assistance of the duke of Milan, who persuaded the Genoese to undertake their defense; and they, to satisfy the duke their sovereign, and protect the merchandise they possessed, both at Naples and Gaeta, armed a powerful fleet. Alfonso hearing of this, augmented his own naval force, went in person to meet the Genoese, and coming up with them near the island of Ponzio, an engagement ensued, in which the Aragonese were defeated, and Alfonso, with many of the princes of his suite, made prisoners, and sent by the Genoese to the Filippo. This victory terrified the princes of Italy, who, being jealous of the duke's power, thought it would give him a great opportunity of being sovereign of the whole country. But so contrary are the views of men, that he took a directly opposite course. Alfonso was a man of great sagacity, and as soon as an opportunity presented itself of communicating with Filippo, he proved to him how completely he contravened his own interests, by favoring René and opposing himself; for it would be the business of the former, on becoming king of Naples, to introduce the French into Milan; that in an emergency he might have assistance at hand, without the necessity of having to solicit a passage for his friends. But he could not possibly secure this advantage without effecting the ruin of the duke, and making his dominions a French province; and that the contrary of all this would result from himself becoming lord of Naples; for having only the French to fear, he would be compelled to love and caress, nay even to obey those who had it in their power to open a passage for his enemies. That thus the title of king of king of Naples would be with himself (Alfonso), but the power and authority with Filippo; so that it was much more the duke's business than his own to consider the danger of one course and the advantage of the other; unless he rather wished to gratify his private prejudices than to give security to his dominions. In the one case he would be a free prince, in the other, placed between two powerful sovereigns, he would either be robbed of his territories or live in constant fear, and have to obey them like a slave. These arguments so greatly influenced the duke, that, changing his design, he set Alfonso at liberty, sent him honorably to Genoa and then to Naples. From thence the king went to Gaeta, which as soon as his liberation had become known, was taken possession of by some nobles of his party. The Genoese, seeing that the duke, without the least regard for them, had liberated the king, and gained credit to himself through the dangers and expense which they had incurred; that he enjoyed all the honor of the liberation, and they were themselves exposed to the odium of the capture, and the injuries consequent upon the king's defeat, were greatly exasperated. In the city of Genoa, while in the enjoyment of her liberty, a magistrate is created with the consent of the people, whom they call the Doge; not that he is absolutely a prince, or that he alone has the power of determining matters of government; but that, as the head of the state, he proposes those questions or subjects which have to be considered and determined by the magistrates and the councils. In that city are many noble families so powerful, that they are with great difficulty induced to submit to the authority of the law. Of these, the most powerful are the Fregosa and the Adorna, from whom arise the dissensions of the city, and the impotence of her civil regulations; for the possession of this high office being contested by means inadmissible in well-regulated communities, and most commonly with arms in their hands, it always occurs that one party is oppressed and the other triumphant; and sometimes those who fail in the pursuit have recourse to the arms of strangers, and the country they are not allowed to rule they subject to foreign authority. Hence it happens, that those who govern in Lombardy most commonly command in Genoa, as occurred at the time Alfonso of Aragon was made prisoner. Among the leading Genoese who had been instrumental in subjecting the republic to Filippo, was Francesco Spinola, who, soon after he had reduced his country to bondage, as always happens in such cases, became suspected by the duke. Indignant at this, he withdrew to a sort of voluntary exile at Gaeta, and being there when the naval expedition was in preparation, and having conducted himself with great bravery in the action, he thought he had again merited so much of the duke's confidence as would obtain for him permission to remain undisturbed at Genoa. But the duke still retained his suspicions; for he could not believe that a vacillating defender of his own country's liberty would be faithful to himself; and Francesco Spinola resolved again to try his fortune, and if possible restore freedom to his country, and honorable safety for himself; for he was there was no probability of regaining the forfeited affection of his fellow-citizens, but by resolving at his own peril to remedy the misfortunes which he had been so instrumental in producing. Finding the indignation against the duke universal, on account of the liberation of the king, he thought the moment propitious for the execution of his design. He communicated his ideas to some whom he knew to be similarly inclined, and his arguments ensured their co-operation. The great festival of St. John the Baptist being come, when Arismeno, the new governor sent by the duke, was to enter Genoa, and he being already arrived, accompanied by Opicino, the former governor, and many Genoese citizens, Francesco Spinola thought further delay improper; and, issuing from his house with those acquainted with his design, all armed, they raised the cry of liberty. It was wonderful to see how eagerly the citizens and people assembled at the word; so that those who for any reason might be favorable to Filippo, not only had no time to arm, but scarcely to consider the means of escape. Arismeno, with some Genoese, fled to the fortress which was held for the duke, Opicino, thinking that if he could reach the palace, where two thousand men were in arms, and at his command, he might be able either to effect his own safety, or induce his friends to defend themselves, took that direction; but before he arrived at the piazza he was slain, his body divided into many pieces and scattered about the city. The Genoese having placed the government in the hands of free magistrates, in a few days recovered the castle, and the other strongholds possessed by the duke, and delivered themselves entirely from his yoke. These transactions, though at first they had alarmed the princes of Italy with the apprehension that the duke would become too powerful, now gave them hope, seeing the turn they had taken, of being able to restrain him; and, notwithstanding the recent league, the Florentines and Venetians entered into alliance with the Genoese. Rinaldo degli Albizzi and the other leading Florentine exiles, observing the altered aspect of affairs, conceived hopes of being able to induce the duke to make war against Florence, and having arrived at Milan, Rinaldo addressed him in the following manner: "If we, who were once your enemies, come now confidently to supplicate your assistance to enable us to return to our country, neither you, nor anyone, who considers the course and vicissitudes of human affairs, can be at all surprised; for of our past conduct toward yourself and our present intentions toward our country, we can adduce palpable and abundant reasons. No good man will ever reproach another who endeavors to defend his country, whatever be his mode of doing so; neither have we had any design of injuring you, but only to preserve our country from detriment; and we appeal to yourself, whether, during the greatest victories of our league, when you were really desirous of peace, we were not even more anxious for it than yourself; so that we do not think we have done aught to make us despair altogether of favor from you. Nor can our country itself complain that we now exhort you to use those arms against her, from which we have so pertinaciously defended her; for that state alone merits the love of all her citizens, which cares with equal affection for all; not one that favors a few, and casts from her the great mass of her children. Nor are the arms that men use against their country to be universally condemned; for communities, although composed of many, resemble individual bodies; and as in these, many infirmities arise which cannot be cured without the application of fire or of steel, so in the former, there often occur such numerous and great evils, that a good and merciful citizen, when there is a necessity for the sword, would be much more to blame in leaving her uncured, than by using this remedy for her preservation. What greater disease can afflict a republic than slavery? and what remedy is more desirable for adoption than the one by which alone it can be effectually removed? No wars are just but those that are necessary; and force is merciful when it presents the only hope of relief. I know not what necessity can be greater than ours, or what compassion can exceed that which rescues our country from slavery. Our cause is therefore just, and our purpose merciful, as both yourself and we may be easily convinced. The amplest justice is on your side; for the Florentines have not hesitated, after a peace concluded with so much solemnity, to enter into league with those who have rebelled against you; so that if our cause is insufficient to excite you against them, let your own just indignation do so; and the more so, seeing the facility of the undertaking. You need be under no apprehension from the memory of the past, in which you may have observed the power of that people and their pertinency in self-defense; though these might reasonably excite fear, if they were still animated by the valor of former times. But now, all is entirely the reverse; for what power can be expected in a city that has recently expelled the greatest part of her wealth and industry? What indomitable resolution need be apprehended from the people whom so many and such recent enmities have disunited? The disunion which still prevails will prevent wealthy citizens advancing money as they used to do on former occasions; for though men willingly contribute according to their means, when they see their own credit, glory, and private advantage dependent upon it, or when there is a hope of regaining in peace what has been spent in war, but not when equally oppressed under all circumstances, when in war they suffer the injuries of the enemy, and in peace, the insolence of those who govern them. Besides this, the people feel more deeply the avarice of their rulers, than the rapacity of the enemy; for there is hope of being ultimately relieved from the latter evil, but none from the former. Thus, in the last war, you had to contend with the whole city; but now with only a small portion. You attempted to take the government from many good citizens; but now you oppose only a few bad ones. You then endeavored to deprive a city of her liberty, now you come to restore it. As it is unreasonable to suppose that under such disparity of circumstances, the result should be the same, you have now every reason to anticipate an easy victory; and how much it will strengthen your own government, you may easily judge; having Tuscany friendly, and bound by so powerful an obligation, in your enterprises, she will be even of more service to you than Milan. And, although, on former occasions, such an acquisition might be looked upon as ambitious and unwarrantable, it will now be considered merciful and just. Then do not let this opportunity escape, and be assured, that although your attempts against the city have been attended with difficulty, expense, and disgrace, this will with facility procure you incalculable advantage and an honorable renown." Many words were not requisite to induce the duke to hostilities against the Florentines, for he was incited to it by hereditary hatred and blind ambition, and still more, by the fresh injuries which the league with the Genoese involved; yet his past expenses, the dangerous measures necessary, the remembrance of his recent losses, and the vain hopes of the exiles, alarmed him. As soon as he had learned the revolt of Genoa, he ordered Niccolo Piccinino to proceed thither with all his cavalry and whatever infantry he could raise, for the purpose of recovering her, before the citizens had time to become settled and establish a government; for he trusted greatly in the fortress within the city, which was held for him. And although Niccolo drove the Genoese from the mountains, took from them the valley of Pozeveri, where they had entrenched themselves, and obliged them to seek refuge within the walls of the city, he still found such an insurmountable obstacle in the resolute defense of the citizens, that he was compelled to withdraw. On this, at the suggestion of the Florentine exiles, he commanded Niccolo to attack them on the eastern side, upon the confines of Pisa in the Genoese territory, and to push the war with his utmost vigor, thinking this plan would manifest and develop the course best to be adopted. Niccolo therefore besieged and took Serezana, and having committed great ravages, by way of further alarming the Florentines he proceeded to Lucca, spreading a report that it was his intention to go to Naples to render assistance to the king of Aragon. Upon these new events Pope Eugenius left Florence and proceeded to Bologna, where he endeavored to effect an amicable arrangement between the league and the duke, intimating to the latter, that if he would not consent to some treaty, the pontiff must send Francesco Sforza to assist the league, for the latter was now his confederate, and served in his pay. Although the pope greatly exerted himself in this affair, his endeavors were unavailing; for the duke would not listen to any proposal that did not leave him the possession of Genoa, and the league had resolved that she should remain free; and, therefore, each party, having no other resource, prepared to continue the war. In the meantime Niccolo Piccinino arrived at Lucca, and the Florentines, being doubtful what course to adopt, ordered Neri di Gino to lead their forces into the Pisan territory, induced the pontiff to allow Count Francesco to join him, and with their forces they halted at San Gonda. Piccinino then demanded admission into the kingdom of Naples, and this being refused, he threatened to force a passage. The armies were equal, both in regard of numbers and the capacity of their leaders, and unwilling to tempt fortune during the bad weather, it being the month of December, they remained several days without attacking each other. The first movement was made by Niccolo Piccinino, who being informed that if he attacked Vico Pisano by night, he could easily take possession of the place, made the attempt, and having failed, ravaged the surrounding country, and then burned and plundered the town of San Giovanni alla Vena. This enterprise, though of little consequence, excited him to make further attempts, the more so from being assured that the count and Neri were yet in their quarters, and he attacked Santa Maria in Castello and Filetto, both which places he took. Still the Florentine forces would not stir; not that the count entertained any fear, but because, out of regard to the pope, who still labored to effect an accommodation, the government of Florence had deferred giving their final consent to the war. This course, which the Florentines adopted from prudence, was considered by the enemy to be only the result of timidity, and with increased boldness they led their forces up to Barga, which they resolved to besiege. This new attack made the Florentines set aside all other considerations, and resolve not only to relieve Barga, but to invade the Lucchese territory. Accordingly the count proceeded in pursuit of Niccolo, and coming up with him before Barga, an engagement took place, in which Piccinino was overcome, and compelled to raise the siege. The Venetians considering the duke to have broken the peace, send Giovan Francesco da Gonzaga, their captain, to Ghiaradadda, who, by severely wasting the duke's territories, induced him to recall Niccolo Piccinino from Tuscany. This circumstance, together with the victory obtained over Niccolo, emboldened the Florentines to attempt the recovery of Lucca, since the duke, whom alone they feared, was engaged with the Venetians, and the Lucchese having received the enemy into their city, and allowed him to attack them, would have no ground of complaint. CHAPTER III The Florentines go to war with Lucca--Discourse of a citizen of Lucca to animate the plebeians against the Florentines--The Lucchese resolve to defend themselves--They are assisted by the duke of Milan--Treaty between the Florentines and the Venetians--Francesco Sforza, captain of the league, refuses to cross the Po in the service of the Venetians and returns to Tuscany--The bad faith of the Venetians toward the Florentines--Cosmo de' Medici at Venice--Peace between the Florentines and the Lucchese--The Florentines effect a reconciliation between the pope and the Count di Poppi--The pope consecrates the church of Santa Reparata--Council of Florence. The count commenced operations against Lucca in April, 1437, and the Florentines, desirous of recovering what they had themselves lost before they attacked others, retook Santa Maria in Castello, and all the places which Piccinino had occupied. Then, entering the Lucchese territory, they besieged Camaiore, the inhabitants of which, although faithful to their rulers, being influenced more by immediate danger than by attachment to their distant friends, surrendered. In the same manner, they obtained Massa and Serezana. Toward the end of May they proceeded in the direction of Lucca, burning the towns, destroying the growing crops, grain, trees, and vines, driving away the cattle, and leaving nothing undone to injure the enemy. The Lucchese, finding themselves abandoned by the duke, and hopeless of defending the open country, forsook it; entrenched and fortified the city, which they doubted not, being well garrisoned, they would be able to defend for a time, and that, in the interim, some event would occur for their relief, as had been the case during the former wars which the Florentines had carried on against them. Their only apprehension arose from the fickle minds of the plebeians, who, becoming weary of the siege, would have more consideration of their own danger than of other's liberty, and would thus compel them to submit to some disgraceful and ruinous capitulation. In order to animate them to defense, they were assembled in the public piazza, and some of the eldest and most esteemed of the citizens addressed them in the following terms: "You are doubtless aware that what is done from necessity involves neither censure nor applause; therefore, if you should accuse us of having caused the present war, by receiving the ducal forces into the city, and allowing them to commit hostilities against the Florentines, you are greatly mistaken. You are well acquainted with the ancient enmity of the Florentines against you, which is not occasioned by any injuries you have done them, or by fear on their part, but by our weakness and their own ambition; for the one gives them hope of being able to oppress us, and the other incites them to attempt it. It is then vain to imagine that any merit of yours can extinguish that desire in them, or that any offense you can commit, can provoke them to greater animosity. They endeavor to deprive you of your liberty; you must resolve to defend it; and whatever they may undertake against us for that purpose, although we may lament, we need not wonder. We may well grieve, therefore, that they attack us, take possession of our towns, burn our houses, and waste our country. But who is so simple as to be surprised at it? for were it in our power, we should do just the same to them, or even worse. They declare war against us now, they say, for having received Niccolo; but if we had not received him, they would have done the same and assigned some other ground for it; and if the evil had been delayed, it would most probably have been greater. Therefore, you must not imagine it to be occasioned by his arrival, but rather by your own ill fortune and their ambition; for we could not have refused admission to the duke's forces, and, being come, we could not prevent their aggressions. You know, that without the aid of some powerful ally we are incapable of self-defense, and that none can render us this service more powerfully or faithfully than the duke. He restored our liberty; it is reasonable to expect he will defend it. He has always been the greatest foe of our inveterate enemies; if, therefore, to avoid incensing the Florentines we had excited his anger, we should have lost our best friend, and rendered our enemy more powerful and more disposed to oppress us; so that it is far preferable to have this war upon our hands, and enjoy the favor of the duke, than to be in peace without it. Besides, we are justified in expecting that he will rescue us from the dangers into which we are brought on his account, if we only do not abandon our own cause. You all know how fiercely the Florentines have frequently assailed us, and with what glory we have maintained our defense. We have often been deprived of every hope, except in God and the casualties which time might produce, and both have proved our friends. And as they have delivered us formerly, why should they not continue to do so. Then we were forsaken by the whole of Italy; now we have the duke in our favor; besides we have a right to suppose that the Venetians will not hastily attack us; for they will not willingly see the power of Florence increased. On a former occasion the Florentines were more at liberty; they had greater hope of assistance, and were more powerful in themselves, while we were in every respect weaker; for then a tyrant governed us, now we defend ourselves; then the glory of our defense was another's, now it is our own; then they were in harmony, now they are disunited, all Italy being filled with their banished citizens. But were we without the hope which these favorable circumstances present, our extreme necessity should make us firmly resolved on our defense. It is reasonable to fear every enemy, for all seek their own glory and your ruin; above all others, you have to dread the Florentines, for they would not be satisfied by submission and tribute, or the dominion of our city, but they would possess our entire substance and persons, that they might satiate their cruelty with our blood, and their avarice with our property, so that all ranks ought to dread them. Therefore do not be troubled at seeing our crops destroyed, our towns burned, our fortresses occupied; for if we preserve the city, the rest will be saved as a matter of course; if we lose her, all else would be of no advantage to us; for while retaining our liberty, the enemy can hold them only with the greatest difficulty, while losing it they would be preserved in vain. Arm, therefore; and when in the fight, remember that the reward of victory will be safety, not only to your country, but to your homes, your wives, and your children." The speaker's last words were received with the utmost enthusiasm by the people, who promised one and all to die rather than abandon their cause, or submit to any terms that could violate their liberty. They then made arrangements for the defense of the city. In the meantime, the Florentine forces were not idle; and after innumerable mischiefs done to the country took Monte Carlo by capitulation. They then besieged Uzzano, in order that the Lucchese, being pressed on all sides, might despair of assistance, and be compelled to submission by famine. The fortress was very strong, and defended by a numerous garrison, so that its capture would be by no means an easy undertaking. The Lucchese, as might be expected, seeing the imminent peril of their situation, had recourse to the duke, and employed prayers and remonstrances to induce him to render them aid. They enlarged upon their own merits and the offenses of the Florentines; and showed how greatly it would attach the duke's friends to him to find they were defended, and how much disaffection it would spread among them, if they were left to be overwhelmed by the enemy; that if they lost their liberties and their lives, he would lose his honor and his friends, and forfeit the confidence of all who from affection might be induced to incur dangers in his behalf; and added tears to entreaties, so that if he were unmoved by gratitude to them, he might be induced to their defense by motives of compassion. The duke, influenced by his inveterate hostility against the Florentines, his new obligation to the Lucchese, and, above all, by his desire to prevent so great an acquisition from falling into the hands of his ancient enemies, determined either to send a strong force into Tuscany, or vigorously to assail the Venetians, so as to compel the Florentines to give up their enterprise and go to their relief. It was soon known in Florence that the duke was preparing to send forces into Tuscany. This made the Florentines apprehensive for the success of their enterprise; and in order to retain the duke in Lombardy, they requested the Venetians to press him with their utmost strength. But they also were alarmed, the marquis of Mantua having abandoned them and gone over to the duke; and thus, finding themselves almost defenseless, they replied, "that instead of increasing their responsibilities, they should be unable to perform their part in the war, unless the Count Francesco were sent to them to take the command of the army, and with the special understanding that he should engage to cross the Po in person. They declined to fulfil their former engagements unless he were bound to do so; for they could not carry on the war without a leader, or repose confidence in any except the count; and he himself would be useless to them, unless he came under an obligation to carry on the war whenever they might think needful." The Florentines thought the war ought to be pushed vigorously in Lombardy; but they saw that if they lost the count their enterprise against Lucca was ruined; and they knew well that the demand of the Venetians arose less from any need they had of the count, than from their desire to frustrate this expedition. The count, on the other hand, was ready to pass into Lombardy whenever the league might require him, but would not alter the tenor of his engagement; for he was unwilling to sacrifice the hope of the alliance promised to him by the duke. The Florentines were thus embarrassed by two contrary impulses, the wish to possess Lucca, and the dread of a war with Milan. As commonly happens, fear was the most powerful, and they consented, after the capture of Uzzano, that the count should go into Lombardy. There still remained another difficulty, which, depending on circumstances beyond the reach of their influence, created more doubts and uneasiness than the former; the count would not consent to pass the Po, and the Venetians refused to accept him on any other condition. Seeing no other method of arrangement, than that each should make liberal concessions, the Florentines induced the count to cross the river by a letter addressed to the Signory of Florence, intimating that this private promise did not invalidate any public engagement, and that he might still refrain from crossing; hence it resulted that the Venetians, having commenced the war, would be compelled to proceed, and that the evil apprehended by the Florentines would be averted. To the Venetians, on the other hand, they averred that this private letter was sufficiently binding, and therefore they ought to be content; for if they could save the count from breaking with his father-in-law, it was well to do so, and that it could be of no advantage either to themselves or the Venetians to publish it without some manifest necessity. It was thus determined that the count should pass into Lombardy; and having taken Uzzano, and raised bastions about Lucca to restrain in her inhabitants, placed the management of the siege in the hands of the commissaries, crossed the Apennines, and proceeded to Reggio, when the Venetians, alarmed at his progress, and in order to discover his intentions, insisted upon his immediately crossing the Po, and joining the other forces. The count refused compliance, and many mutual recriminations took place between him and Andrea Mauroceno, their messenger on this occasion, each charging the other with arrogance and treachery: after many protestations, the one of being under no obligation to perform that service, and the other of not being bound to any payment, they parted, the count to return to Tuscany, the other to Venice. The Florentines had sent the count to encamp in the Pisan territory, and were in hopes of inducing him to renew the war against the Lucchese, but found him indisposed to do so, for the duke, having been informed that out of regard to him he had refused to cross the Po, thought that by this means he might also save the Lucchese, and begged the count to endeavor to effect an accommodation between the Florentines and the Lucchese, including himself in it, if he were able, declaring, at the same time, the promised marriage should be solemnized whenever he thought proper. The prospect of this connection had great influence with the count, for, as the duke had no sons, it gave him hope of becoming sovereign of Milan. For this reason he gradually abated his exertions in the war, declared he would not proceed unless the Venetians fulfilled their engagement as to the payment, and also retained him in the command; that the discharge of the debt would not alone be sufficient, for desiring to live peaceably in his own dominions, he needed some alliance other than that of the Florentines, and that he must regard his own interests, shrewdly hinting that if abandoned by the Venetians, he would come to terms with the duke. These indirect and crafty methods of procedure were highly offensive to the Florentines, for they found their expedition against Lucca frustrated, and trembled for the safety of their own territories if ever the count and the duke should enter into a mutual alliance. To induce the Venetians to retain the count in the command, Cosmo de' Medici went to Venice, hoping his influence would prevail with them, and discussed the subject at great length before the senate, pointing out the condition of the Italian states, the disposition of their armies, and the great preponderance possessed by the duke. He concluded by saying, that if the count and the duke were to unite their forces, they (the Venetians) might return to the sea, and the Florentines would have to fight for their liberty. To this the Venetians replied, that they were acquainted with their own strength and that of the Italians, and thought themselves able at all events to provide for their own defense; that it was not their custom to pay soldiers for serving others; that as the Florentines had used the count's services, they must pay him themselves; with respect to the security of their own states, it was rather desirable to check the count's pride than to pay him, for the ambition of men is boundless, and if he were now paid without serving, he would soon make some other demand, still more unreasonable and dangerous. It therefore seemed necessary to curb his insolence, and not allow it to increase till it became incorrigible; and that if the Florentines, from fear or any other motive, wished to preserve his friendship, they must pay him themselves. Cosmo returned without having effected any part of his object. The Florentines used the weightiest arguments they could adopt to prevent the count from quitting the service of the League, a course he was himself reluctant to follow, but his desire to conclude the marriage so embarrassed him, that any trivial accident would have been sufficient to determine his course, as indeed shortly happened. The count had left his territories in La Marca to the care of Il Furlano, one of his principal condottieri, who was so far influenced by the duke as to take command under him, and quit the count's service. This circumstance caused the latter to lay aside every idea but that of his own safety, and to come to agreement with the duke; among the terms of which compact was one that he should not be expected to interfere in the affairs of Romagna and Tuscany. The count then urged the Florentines to come to terms with the Lucchese, and so convinced them of the necessity of this, that seeing no better course to adopt, they complied in April, 1438, by which treaty the Lucchese retained their liberty, and the Florentines Monte Carlo and a few other fortresses. After this, being full of exasperation, they despatched letters to every part of Italy, overcharged with complaints, affecting to show that since God and men were averse to the Lucchese coming under their dominion, they had made peace with them. And it seldom happens that any suffer so much for the loss of their own lawful property as they did because they could not obtain the possessions of others. Though the Florentines had now so many affairs in hand, they did not allow the proceedings of their neighbors to pass unnoticed, or neglect the decoration of their city. As before observed, Niccolo Fortebraccio was dead. He had married a daughter of the Count di Poppi, who, at the decease of his son-in-law, held the Borgo San Sepolcro, and other fortresses of that district, and while Niccolo lived, governed them in his name. Claiming them as his daughter's portion, he refused to give them up to the pope, who demanded them as property held of the church, and who, upon his refusal, sent the patriarch with forces to take possession of them. The count, finding himself unable to sustain the attack, offered them to the Florentines, who declined them; but the pope having returned to Florence, they interceded with him in the count's behalf. Difficulties arising, the patriarch attacked the Casentino, took Prato Vecchio, and Romena, and offered them also to the Florentines, who refused them likewise, unless the pope would consent they should restore them to the count, to which, after much hesitation, he acceded, on condition that the Florentines should prevail with the Count di Poppi to restore the Borgo to him. The pope was thus satisfied, and the Florentines having so far completed the building of their cathedral church of Santa Reparata, which had been commenced long ago, as to enable them to perform divine service in it, requested his holiness to consecrate it. To this the pontiff willingly agreed, and the Florentines, to exhibit the wealth of the city and the splendor of the edifice, and do greater honor to the pope, erected a platform from Santa Maria Novella, where he resided, to the cathedral he was about to consecrate, six feet in height and twelve feet wide, covered with rich drapery, for the accommodation of the pontiff and his court, upon which they proceeded to the building, accompanied by those civic magistrates, and other officers who were appointed to take part in the procession. The usual ceremonies of consecration having been completed, the pope, to show his affection for the city, conferred the honor of knighthood upon Giuliano Davanzati, their Gonfalonier of Justice, and a citizen of the highest reputation; and the Signory, not to appear less gracious than the pope, granted to the new created knight the government of Pisa for one year. There were at that time certain differences between the Roman and the Greek churches, which prevented perfect conformity in divine service; and at the last council of Bâle, the prelates of the Western church having spoken at great length upon the subject, it was resolved that efforts should be made to bring the emperor and the Greek prelates to the council at Bâle, to endeavor to reconcile the Greek church with the Roman. Though this resolution was derogatory to the majesty of the Greek empire, and offensive to its clergy, yet being then oppressed by the Turks, and fearing their inability for defense, in order to have a better ground for requesting assistance, they submitted; and therefore, the emperor, the patriarch, with other prelates and barons of Greece, to comply with the resolution of the council, assembled at Bâle, came to Venice; but being terrified by the plague then prevailing, it was resolved to terminate their differences at Florence. The Roman and Greek prelates having held a conference during several days, in which many long discussions took place, the Greeks yielded, and agreed to adopt the ritual of the church of Rome. CHAPTER IV New wars in Italy--Niccolo Piccinino, in concert with the duke of Milan, deceives the pope, and takes many places from the church--Niccolo attacks the Venetians--Fears and precautions of the Florentines--The Venetians request assistance of the Florentines and of Sforza--League against the duke of Milan--The Florentines resolve to send the count to assist the Venetians--Neri di Gino Capponi at Venice--His discourse to the senate--Extreme joy of the Venetians. Peace being restored between the Lucchese and Florentines, and the duke and the count having become friends, hopes were entertained that the arms of Italy would be laid aside, although those in the kingdom of Naples, between René of Anjou and Alfonso of Aragon, could find repose only by the ruin of one party or the other. And though the pope was dissatisfied with the loss of so large a portion of his territories, and the ambition of the duke and the Venetians was obvious, still it was thought that the pontiff, from necessity, and the others from weariness, would be advocates of peace. However, a different state of feeling prevailed, for neither the duke nor the Venetians were satisfied with their condition; so that hostilities were resumed, and Lombardy and Tuscany were again harassed by the horrors of war. The proud mind of the duke could not endure that the Venetians should possess Bergamo and Brescia, and he was still further annoyed, by hearing, that they were constantly in arms, and in the daily practice of annoying some portion of his territories. He thought, however, that he should not only be able to restrain them, but to recover the places he had lost, if the pope, the Florentines, and the count could be induced to forego the Venetian alliance. He therefore resolved to take Romagna from the pontiff, imagining that his holiness could not injure him, and that the Florentines, finding the conflagration so near, either for their own sake would refrain from interference, or if they did not, could not conveniently attack him. The duke was also aware of the resentment of the Florentines against the Venetians, on account of the affair of Lucca, and he therefore judged they would be the less eager to take arms against him on their behalf. With regard to the Count Francesco, he trusted that their new friendship, and the hope of his alliance would keep him quiet. To give as little color as possible for complaint, and to lull suspicion, particularly, because in consequence of his treaty with the count, the latter could not attack Romagna, he ordered Niccolo Piccinino, as if instigated by his own ambition to do so. When the agreement between the duke and the count was concluded, Niccolo was in Romagna, and in pursuance of his instructions from the duke, affected to be highly incensed, that a connection had been established between him and the count, his inveterate enemy. He therefore withdrew himself and his forces to Camurata, a place between Furli and Ravenna, which he fortified, as if designing to remain there some time, or till a new enterprise should present itself. The report of his resentment being diffused, Niccolo gave the pope to understand how much the duke was under obligation to him, and how ungrateful he proved; and he was persuaded that, possessing nearly all the arms of Italy, under the two principal generals, he could render himself sole ruler: but if his holiness pleased, of the two principal generals whom he fancied he possessed, one would become his enemy, and the other be rendered useless; for, if money were provided him, and he were kept in pay, he would attack the territories held of the church by the count, who being compelled to look to his own interests, could not subserve the ambition of Filippo. The pope giving entire credence to this representation, on account of its apparent reasonableness, sent Niccolo five thousand ducats and loaded him with promises of states for himself and his children. And though many informed him of the deception, he could not give credit to them, nor would he endure the conversation of any who seemed to doubt the integrity of Niccolo's professions. The city of Ravenna was held for the church by Ostasio da Polenta. Niccolo finding further delay would be detrimental, since his son Francesco had, to the pope's great dishonor, pillaged Spoleto, determined to attack Ravenna, either because he judged the enterprise easy, or because he had a secret understanding with Ostasio, for in a few days after the attack, the place capitulated. He then took Bologna, Imola, and Furli; and (what is worthy of remark) of twenty fortresses held in that country for the pope, not one escaped falling into his hands. Not satisfied with these injuries inflicted on the pontiff, he resolved to banter him by his words as well as ridicule him by his deeds, and wrote, that he had only done as his holiness deserved, for having unblushingly attempted to divide two such attached friends as the duke and himself, and for having dispersed over Italy letters intimating that he had quitted the duke to take part with the Venetians. Having taken possession of Romagna, Niccolo left it under the charge of his son, Francesco, and with the greater part of his troops, went into Lombardy, where joining the remainder of the duke's forces, he attacked the country about Brescia, and having soon completely conquered it, besieged the city itself. The duke, who desired the Venetians to be left defenseless, excused himself to the pope, the Florentines, and the count, saying, that if the doings of Niccolo were contrary to the terms of the treaty, they were equally contrary to his wishes, and by secret messengers, assured them that when an occasion presented itself, he would give them a convincing proof that they had been performed in disobedience to his instructions. Neither the count nor the Florentines believed him, but thought, with reason, that these enterprises had been carried on to keep them at bay, till he had subdued the Venetians, who, being full of pride, and thinking themselves able alone to resist the duke, had not deigned to ask for any assistance, but carried on the war under their captain, Gattamelata. Count Francesco would have wished, with the consent of the Florentines, to go to the assistance of king René, if the events of Romagna and Lombardy had not hindered him; and the Florentines would willingly have consented, from their ancient friendship to the French dynasty, but the duke was entirely in favor of Alfonso. Each being engaged in wars near home, refrained from distant undertakings. The Florentines, finding Romagna occupied with the duke's forces, and the Venetians defeated, as if foreseeing their own ruin in that of others, entreated the count to come to Tuscany, where they might consider what should be done to resist Filippo's power, which was now greater than it had ever before been; assuring him that if his insolence were not in some way curbed, all the powers of Italy would soon have to submit to him. The count felt the force of the fears entertained by the Florentines, but his desire to secure the duke's alliance kept him in suspense; and the duke, aware of this desire, gave him the greatest assurance that his hopes would be realized as shortly as possible, if he abstained from hostilities against him. As the lady was now of marriageable age, the duke had frequently made all suitable preparations for the celebration of the ceremony, but on one pretext or another they had always been wholly set aside. He now, to give the count greater confidence, added deeds to his words, and sent him thirty thousand florins, which, by the terms of the marriage contract, he had engaged to pay. Still the war in Lombardy proceeded with greater vehemence than ever; the Venetians constantly suffered fresh losses of territory, and the fleets they equipped upon the rivers were taken by the duke's forces; the country around Verona and Brescia was entirely occupied, and the two cities themselves so pressed, that their speedy fall was generally anticipated. The marquis of Mantua, who for many years had led the forces of their republic, quite unexpectedly resigned his command, and went over to the duke's service. Thus the course which pride prevented them from adopting at the commencement of the war, fear compelled them to take during its progress; for knowing there was no help for them but in the friendship of the Florentines and the count, they began to make overtures to obtain it, though with shame and apprehension; for they were afraid of receiving a reply similar to that which they had given the Florentines, when the latter applied for assistance in the enterprise against Lucca and the count's affairs. However, they found the Florentines more easily induced to render aid than they expected, or their conduct deserved; so much more were the former swayed by hatred of their ancient enemy, than by resentment of the ingratitude of their old and habitual friends. Having foreseen the necessity into which the Venetians must come, they had informed the count that their ruin must involve his own; that he was deceived if he thought the duke, while fortune, would esteem him more than if he were in adversity; that the duke was induced to promise him his daughter by the fear he entertained of him; that what necessity occasions to be promised, it also causes to be performed; and it was therefore desirable to keep the duke in that necessity, which could be done without supporting the power of the Venetians. Therefore he might perceive, that if the Venetians were compelled to abandon their inland territories, he would not only lose the advantages derivable from them, but also those to be obtained from such as feared them; and that if he considered well the powers of Italy, he would see that some were poor, and others hostile; that the Florentines alone were not, as he had often said, sufficient for his support; so that on every account it was best to keep the Venetians powerful by land. These arguments, conjoined with the hatred which the count had conceived against Filippo, by supposing himself duped with regard to the promised alliance, induced him to consent to a new treaty; but still he would not consent to cross the Po. The agreement was concluded in February, 1438; the Venetians agreeing to pay two-thirds of the expense of the war, the Florentines one-third, and each engaging to defend the states which the count possessed in La Marca. Nor were these the only forces of the league, for the lord of Faenza, the sons of Pandolfo Malatesti da Rimino and Pietro Giampagolo Orsini also joined them. They endeavored, by very liberal offers, to gain over the marquis of Mantua, but could not prevail against the friendship and stipend of the duke; and the lord of Faenza, after having entered into compact with the league, being tempted by more advantageous terms, went over to him. This made them despair of being able to effect an early settlement of the troubles of Romagna. The affairs of Lombardy were in this condition: Brescia was so closely besieged by the duke's forces, that constant apprehensions were entertained of her being compelled by famine to a surrender; while Verona was so pressed, that a similar fate was expected to await her, and if one of these cities were lost, all the other preparations for the war might be considered useless, and the expenses already incurred as completely wasted. For this there was no remedy, but to send the count into Lombardy; and to this measure three obstacles presented themselves. The first was, to induce him to cross the Po, and prosecute the war in whatever locality might be found most advisable; the second, that the count being at a distance, the Florentines would be left almost at the mercy of the duke, who, issuing from any of his fortresses, might with part of his troops keep the count at bay, and with the rest introduce into Tuscany the Florentine exiles, whom the existing government already dreaded; the third was, to determine what route the count should take to arrive safely in the Paduan territory, and join the Venetian forces. Of these three difficulties, the second, which particularly regarded the Florentines, was the most serious; but, knowing the necessity of the case, and wearied out by the Venetians, who with unceasing importunity demanded the count, intimating that without him they should abandon all hope, they resolved to relieve their allies rather than listen to the suggestions of their own fears. There still remained the question about the route to be taken, for the safety of which they determined the Venetians should provide; and as they had sent Neri Capponi to treat with the count and induce him to cross the Po, they determined that the same person should also proceed to Venice, in order to make the benefit the more acceptable to the Signory, and see that all possible security were given to the passage of the forces. Neri embarked at Cesena and went to Venice; nor was any prince ever received with so much honor as he was; for upon his arrival, and the matters which his intervention was to decide and determine, the safety of the republic seemed to depend. Being introduced to the senate, and in presence of the Doge, he said, "The Signory of Florence, most serene prince, has always perceived in the duke's greatness the source of ruin both to this republic and our own, and that the safety of both states depends upon their separate strength and mutual confidence. If such had been the opinion of this illustrious Signory, we should ourselves have been in better condition, and your republic would have been free from the dangers that now threaten it. But as at the proper crisis you withheld from us confidence and aid, we could not come to the relief of your distress, nor could you, being conscious of this, freely ask us; for neither in your prosperity nor adversity have you clearly perceived our motives. You have not observed, that those whose deeds have once incurred our hatred, can never become entitled to our regard; nor can those who have once merited our affection ever after absolutely cancel their claim. Our attachment to your most serene Signory is well known to you all, for you have often seen Lombardy filled with our forces and our money for your assistance. Our hereditary enmity to Filippo and his house is universally known, and it is impossible that love or hatred, strengthened by the growth of years, can be eradicated from our minds by any recent act either of kindness or neglect. We have always thought, and are still of the same opinion, that we might now remain neutral, greatly to the duke's satisfaction, and with little hazard to ourselves; for if by your ruin he were to become lord of Lombardy, we should still have sufficient influence in Italy in free us from any apprehension on our own account; for every increase of power and territory augments that animosity and envy, from which arise wars and the dismemberment of states. We are also aware what heavy expenses and imminent perils we should avoid, by declining to involve ourselves in these disputes; and how easily the field of battle may be transferred from Lombardy to Tuscany, by our interference in your behalf. Yet all these apprehensions are at once overborne by our ancient affection for the senate and people of Venice, and we have resolved to come to your relief with the same zeal with which we should have armed in our own defense, had we been attacked. Therefore, the senate of Florence, judging it primarily necessary to relieve Verona and Brescia, and thinking this impossible without the count, have sent me, in the first instance, to persuade him to pass into Lombardy, and carry on the war wherever it may be most needful; for you are aware he is under no obligation to cross the Po. To induce him to do so, I have advanced such arguments as are suggested by the circumstances themselves, and which would prevail with us. He, being invincible in arms, cannot be surpassed in courtesy, and the liberality he sees the Florentines exercise toward you, he has resolved to outdo; for he is well aware to what dangers Tuscany will be exposed after his departure, and since we have made your affairs our primary consideration, he has also resolved to make his own subservient to yours. I come, therefore, to tender his services, with seven thousand cavalry and two thousand infantry, ready at once to march against the enemy, wherever he may be. And I beg of you, so do my lords at Florence and the count, that as his forces exceed the number he has engaged to furnish you, out of your liberality, would remunerate him, that he may not repent of having come to your assistance, nor we, who have prevailed with him to do so." This discourse of Neri to the senate was listened to with that profound attention which an oracle might be imagined to command; and his audience were so moved by it, that they could not restrain themselves, till the prince had replied, as strict decorum on such occasions required, but rising from their seats, with uplifted hands, and most of them with tears in their eyes, they thanked the Florentines for their generous conduct, and the ambassador for his unusual dispatch; and promised that time should never cancel the remembrance of such goodness, either in their own hearts, or their children's; and that their country, thenceforth, should be common to the Florentines with themselves. CHAPTER V Francesco Sforza marches to assist the Venetians, and relieves Verona--He attempts to relieve Brescia but fails--The Venetians routed by Piccinino upon the Lake of Garda--Piccinino routed by Sforza; the method of his escape--Piccinino surprises Verona--Description of Verona--Recovered by Sforza--The duke of Milan makes war against the Florentines--Apprehensions of the Florentines--Cardinal Vitelleschi their enemy. When their demonstrations of gratitude had subsided, the Venetian senate, by the aid of Neri di Gino, began to consider the route the count ought to take, and how to provide him with necessaries. There were four several roads; one by Ravenna, along the beach, which on account of its being in many places interrupted by the sea and by marshes, was not approved. The next was the most direct, but rendered inconvenient by a tower called the Uccellino, which being held for the duke, it would be necessary to capture; and to do this, would occupy more time than could be spared with safety to Verona and Brescia. The third was by the brink of the lake; but as the Po had overflowed its banks, to pass in this direction was impossible. The fourth was by the way of Bologna to Ponte Puledrano, Cento, and Pieve; then between the Bondeno and the Finale to Ferrara, and thence they might by land or water enter the Paduan territory, and join the Venetian forces. This route, though attended with many difficulties, and in some parts liable to be disputed by the enemy, was chosen as the least objectionable. The count having received his instructions, commenced his march, and by exerting the utmost celerity, reached the Paduan territory on the twentieth of June. The arrival of this distinguished commander in Lombardy filled Venice and all her dependencies with hope; for the Venetians, who only an instant before had been in fear for their very existence, began to contemplate new conquests. The count, before he made any other attempt, hastened to the relief of Verona; and to counteract his design, Niccolo led his forces to Soave, a castle situated between the Vincentino and the Veronese, and entrenched himself by a ditch that extended from Soave to the marshes of the Adige. The count, finding his passage by the plain cut off, resolved to proceed by the mountains, and thus reach Verona, thinking Niccolo would imagine this way to be so rugged and elevated as to be impracticable, or if he thought otherwise, he would not be in time to prevent him; so, with provisions for eight days, he took the mountain path, and with his forces, arrived in the plain, below Soave. Niccolo had, even upon this route, erected some bastions for the purpose of preventing him, but they were insufficient for the purpose; and finding the enemy had, contrary to his expectations, effected a passage, to avoid a disadvantageous engagement he crossed to the opposite side of the Adige, and the count entered Verona without opposition. Having happily succeeded in his first project, that of relieving Verona, the count now endeavored to render a similar service to Brescia. This city is situated so close to the Lake of Garda, that although besieged by land, provisions may always be sent into it by water. On this account the duke had assembled a large force in the immediate vicinity of the lake, and at the commencement of his victories occupied all the places which by its means might relieve Brescia. The Venetians also had galleys upon the lake, but they were unequal to a contest with those of the duke. The count therefore deemed it advisable to aid the Venetian fleet with his land forces, by which means he hoped to obtain without much difficulty those places which kept Brescia in blockade. He therefore encamped before Bardolino, a fortress situated upon the lake, trusting that after it was taken the others would surrender. But fortune opposed this design, for a great part of his troops fell sick; so, giving up the enterprise, he went to Zevio, a Veronese castle, in a healthy and plentiful situation. Niccolo, upon the count's retreat, not to let slip an opportunity of making himself master of the lake, left his camp at Vegasio, and with a body of picked men took the way thither, attacked the Venetian fleet with the utmost impetuosity, and took nearly the whole of it. By this victory almost all the fortresses upon the lake fell into his hands. The Venetians, alarmed at this loss, and fearing that in consequence of it Brescia would surrender, solicited the count, by letters and messengers, to go to its relief; and he, perceiving that all hope of rendering assistance from the lake was cut off, and that to attempt an approach by land, on account of the ditches, bastions, and other defenses erected by Niccolo, was marching to certain destruction, determined that as the passage by the mountains had enabled him to relieve Verona, it should also contribute to the preservation of Brescia. Having taken this resolution, the count left Zevio, and by way of the Val d'Acri went to the Lake of St. Andrea, and thence to Torboli and Peneda, upon the Lake of Garda. He then proceeded to Tenna, and besieged the fortress, which it was necessary to occupy before he could reach Brescia. Niccolo, on being acquainted with the count's design, led his army to Peschiera. He then, with the marquis of Mantua and a chosen body of men, went to meet him, and coming to an engagement, was routed, his people dispersed, and many of them taken, while others fled to the fleet, and some to the main body of his army. It was now nightfall, and Niccolo had escaped to Tenna, but he knew that if he were to remain there till morning, he must inevitably fall into the enemy's hands; therefore, to avoid a catastrophe which might be regarded as almost fatal, he resolved to make a dangerous experiment. Of all his attendants he had only with him a single servant, a Dutchman, of great personal strength, and who had always been devotedly attached to him. Niccolo induced this man to take him upon his shoulders in a sack, as if he had been carrying property of his master's, and to bear him to a place of security. The enemy's lines surrounded Tenna, but on account of the previous day's victory, all was in disorder, and no guard was kept, so that the Dutchman, disguised as a trooper, passed through them without any opposition, and brought his master in safety to his own troops. Had this victory been as carefully improved as it was fortunately obtained, Brescia would have derived from it greater relief and the Venetians more permanent advantage; but they, having thoughtlessly let it slip, the rejoicings were soon over, and Brescia remained in her former difficulties. Niccolo, having returned to his forces, resolved by some extraordinary exertion to cancel the impression of his death, and deprive the Venetians of the change of relieving Brescia. He was acquainted with the topography of the citadel of Verona, and had learned from prisoners whom he had taken, that it was badly guarded, and might be very easily recovered. He perceived at once that fortune presented him with an opportunity of regaining the laurels he had lately lost, and of changing the joy of the enemy for their recent victory into sorrow for a succeeding disaster. The city of Verona is situated in Lombardy, at the foot of the mountains which divide Italy from Germany, so that it occupies part both of hill and plain. The river Adige rises in the valley of Trento, and entering Italy, does not immediately traverse the country, but winding to the left, along the base of the hills, enters Verona, and crosses the city, which it divides unequally, giving much the larger portion to the plain. On the mountain side of the river are two fortresses, formidable rather from their situation than from their actual strength, for being very elevated they command the whole place. One is called San Piero, the other San Felice. On the opposite side of the Adige, upon the plain, with their backs against the city walls, are two other fortresses, about a mile distant from each other, one called the Old the other the New Citadel, and a wall extends between them that may be compared to a bowstring, of which the city wall is the arc. The space comprehended within this segment is very populous, and is called the Borgo of St. Zeno. Niccolo Piccinino designed to capture these fortresses and the Borgo, and he hoped to succeed without much difficulty, as well on account of the ordinary negligence of the guard, which their recent successes would probably increase, as because in war no enterprise is more likely to be successful than one which by the enemy is deemed impossible. With a body of picked men, and accompanied by the marquis of Mantua, he proceeded by night to Verona, silently scaled the walls, and took the New Citadel: then entering the place with his troops, he forced the gate of S. Antonio, and introduced the whole of his cavalry. The Venetian garrison of the Old Citadel hearing an uproar, when the guards of the New were slaughtered, and again when the gate was forced, being now aware of the presence of enemies, raised an alarm, and called the people to arms. The citizens awaking in the utmost confusion, some of the boldest armed and hastened to the rector's piazza. In the meantime, Niccolo's forces had pillaged the Borgo of San Zeno; and proceeding onward were ascertained by the people to be the duke's forces, but being defenseless they advised the Venetian rectors to take refuge in the fortresses, and thus save themselves and the place; as it was more advisable to preserve their lives and so rich a city for better fortune, than by endeavoring to repel the present evil, encounter certain death, and incur universal pillage. Upon this the rectors and all the Venetian party, fled to the fortress of San Felice. Some of the first citizens, anxious to avoid being plundered by the troops, presented themselves before Niccolo and the marquis of Mantua, and begged they would rather take possession of a rich city, with honor to themselves, than of a poor one to their own disgrace; particularly as they had not induced either the favor of its former possessors, or the animosity of its present masters, by self-defense. The marquis and Niccolo encouraged them, and protected their property to the utmost of their power during such a state of military license. As they felt sure the count would endeavor to recover the city, they made every possible exertion to gain possession of the fortresses, and those they could not seize they cut off from the rest of the place by ditches and barricades, so that the enemy might be shut out. The Count Francesco was with his army at Tenna; and when the report was first brought to him he refused to credit it; but being assured of the fact by parties whom it would have been ridiculous to doubt, he resolved, by the exertion of uncommon celerity, to repair the evil negligence had occasioned; and though all his officers advised the abandonment of Verona and Brescia, and a march to Vicenza, lest he might be besieged by the enemy in his present situation, he refused, but resolved to attempt the recovery of Verona. During the consultation, he turned to the Venetian commissaries and to Bernardo de' Medici, who was there as commissary for the Florentines, and promised them the recovery of the place if one of the fortresses should hold out. Having collected his forces, he proceeded with the utmost speed to Verona. Observing his approach, Niccolo thought he designed, according to the advice he had received, to go to Vicenza, but finding him continue to draw near, and taking the direction of San Felice, he prepared for its defense--though too late; for the barricades were not completed; his men were dispersed in quest of plunder, or extorting money from the inhabitants by way of ransom; and he could not collect them in time to prevent the count's troops from entering the fortress. They then descended into the city, which they happily recovered, to Niccolo's disgrace, and with the loss of great numbers of his men. He himself, with the marquis of Mantua, first took refuge in the citadel, and thence escaping into the country, fled to Mantua, where, having assembled the relics of their army, they hastened to join those who were at the siege of Brescia. Thus in four days Verona was lost and again recovered from the duke. The count, after this victory, it being now winter and the weather very severe, having first with considerable difficulty thrown provisions into Brescia, went into quarters at Verona, and ordered, that during the cold season, galleys should be provided at Torboli, that upon the return of spring, they might be in a condition to proceed vigorously to effect the permanent relief of Brescia. The duke, finding the war suspended for a time, the hope he had entertained of occupying Brescia and Verona annihilated, and the money and counsels of the Florentines the cause of this, and seeing that neither the injuries they had received from the Venetians could alienate them, nor all the promises he had made attach them to himself, he determined, in order to make them feel more closely the effects of the course they had adopted, to attack Tuscany; to which he was strenuously advised by the Florentine exiles and Niccolo. The latter advocated this from his desire to recover the states of Braccio, and expel the count from La Marca; the former, from their wish to return home, and each by suitable arguments endeavored to induce the duke to follow the plan congenial to their own views. Niccolo argued that he might be sent into Tuscany, and continue the siege of Brescia; for he was master of the lake, the fortresses were well provided, and their officers were qualified to oppose the count should he undertake any fresh enterprise; which it was not likely he would do without first relieving Brescia, a thing impossible; and thus the duke might carry on the war in Tuscany, without giving up his attempts in Lombardy; intimating that the Florentines would be compelled, as soon as he entered Tuscany, to recall the count to avoid complete ruin; and whatever course they took, victory to the duke must be the result. The exiles affirmed, that if Niccolo with his army were to approach Florence, the people oppressed with taxes, and wearied out by the insolence of the great, would most assuredly not oppose him, and pointed out the facility of reaching Florence; for the way by the Casentino would be open to them, through the friendship of Rinaldo and the Count di Poppi; and thus the duke, who was previously inclined to the attempt, was induced by their joint persuasions to make it. The Venetians, on the other hand, though the winter was severe, incessantly urged the count to relieve Brescia with all his forces. The count questioned the possibility of so doing, and advised them to wait the return of spring, in the meantime strengthening their fleet as much as possible, and then assist it both by land and water. This rendered the Venetians dissatisfied; they were dilatory in furnishing provisions, and consequently many deserted from their army. The Florentines, being informed of these transactions, became alarmed, perceiving the war threatening themselves, and the little progress made in Lombardy. Nor did the suspicion entertained by them of the troops of the church give them less uneasiness; not that the pope was their enemy, but because they saw those forces more under the sway of the patriarch, who was their greatest foe. Giovanni Vitelleschi of Corneto was at first apostolic notary, then bishop of Recanati, and afterward patriarch of Alexandria; but at last, becoming a cardinal, he was called Cardinal of Florence. He was bold and cunning; and, having obtained great influence, was appointed to command all the forces of the church, and conduct all the enterprises of the pontiff, whether in Tuscany, Romagna, the kingdom of Naples, or in Rome. Hence he acquired so much power over the pontiff, and the papal troops, that the former was afraid of commanding him, and the latter obeyed no one else. The cardinal's presence at Rome, when the report came of Niccolo's design to march into Tuscany, redoubled the fear of the Florentines; for, since Rinaldo was expelled, he had become an enemy of the republic, from finding that the arrangements made by his means were not only disregarded, but converted to Rinaldo's prejudice, and caused the laying down of arms, which had given his enemies an opportunity of banishing him. In consequence of this, the government thought it would be advisable to restore and indemnify Rinaldo, in case Niccolo came into Tuscany and were joined by him. Their apprehensions were increased by their being unable to account for Niccolo's departure from Lombardy, and his leaving one enterprise almost completed, to undertake another so entirely doubtful; which they could not reconcile with their ideas of consistency, except by supposing some new design had been adopted, or some hidden treachery intended. They communicated their fears to the pope, who was now sensible of his error in having endowed the cardinal with too much authority. CHAPTER VI The pope imprisons the cardinal and assists the Florentines--Difference of opinion between the count and the Venetians respecting the management of the war. The Florentines reconcile them--The count wishes to go into Tuscany to oppose Piccinino, but is prevented by the Venetians--Niccolo Piccinino in Tuscany--He takes Marradi, and plunders the neighborhood of Florence--Description of Marradi--Cowardice of Bartolomeo Orlandini--Brave resistance of Castel San Niccolo--San Niccolo surrenders--Piccinino attempts to take Cortona, but fails. While the Florentines were thus anxious, fortune disclosed the means of securing themselves against the patriarch's malevolence. The republic everywhere exercised the very closest espionage over epistolary communication, in order to discover if any persons were plotting against the state. It happened that letters were intercepted at Monte Pulciano, which had been written by the patriarch to Niccolo without the pope's knowledge; and although they were written in an unusual character, and the sense so involved that no distinct idea could be extracted, the obscurity itself, and the whole aspect of the matter so alarmed the pontiff, that he resolved to seize the person of the cardinal, a duty he committed to Antonio Rido, of Padua, who had the command of the castle of St. Angelo, and who, after receiving his instructions, soon found an opportunity of carrying them into effect. The patriarch, having determined to go into Tuscany, prepared to leave Rome on the following day, and ordered the castellan to be upon the drawbridge of the fortress in the morning, for he wished to speak with him as he passed. Antonio perceived this to be the favorable moment, informed his people what they were to do, and awaited the arrival of the patriarch upon the bridge, which adjoined the building, and might for the purpose of security be raised or lowered as occasion required. The appointed time found him punctual; and Antonio, having drawn him, as if for the convenience of conversation, on to the bridge, gave a signal to his men, who immediately raised it, and in a moment the cardinal, from being a commander of armies, found himself a prisoner of the castellan. The patriarch's followers at first began to use threats, but being informed of the pope's directions they were appeased. The castellan comforting him with kind words, he replied, that "the great do not make each other prisoners to let them go again; and that those whom it is proper to take, it is not well to set free." He shortly afterward died in prison. The pope appointed Lodovico, patriarch of Aquileia, to command his troops; and, though previously unwilling to interfere in the wars of the league and the duke, he was now content to take part in them, and engaged to furnish four thousand horse and two thousand foot for the defense of Tuscany. The Florentines, freed from this cause for anxiety, were still apprehensive of Niccolo, and feared confusion in the affairs of Lombardy, from the differences of opinion that existed between the count and the Venetians. In order the better to become acquainted with the intentions of the parties, they sent Neri di Gini Capponi and Giuliano Davanzati to Venice, with instructions to assist in the arrangement of the approaching campaign; and ordered that Neri, having discovered how the Venetians were disposed, should proceed to the count, learn his designs, and induce him to adopt the course that would be most advantageous to the League. The ambassadors had only reached Ferrara, when they were told that Niccolo Piccinino had crossed the Po with six thousand horse. This made them travel with increased speed; and, having arrived at Venice, they found the Signory fully resolved that Brescia should be relieved without waiting for the return of spring; for they said that "the city would be unable to hold out so long, the fleet could not be in readiness, and that seeing no more immediate relief, she would submit to the enemy; which would render the duke universally victorious, and cause them to lose the whole of their inland possessions." Neri then proceeded to Verona to ascertain the count's opinion, who argued, for many reasons, that to march to Brescia before the return of spring would be quite useless, or even worse; for the situation of Brescia, being considered in conjunction with the season, nothing could be expected to result but disorder and fruitless toil to the troops; so that, when the suitable period should arrive, he would be compelled to return to Verona with his army, to recover from the injuries sustained in the winter, and provide necessaries for the summer; and thus the time available for the war would be wasted in marching and countermarching. Orsatto Justiniani and Giovanni Pisani were deputed on the part of Venice to the count at Verona, having been sent to consider these affairs, and with them it was agreed that the Venetians should pay the count ninety thousand ducats for the coming year, and to each of the soldiers forty ducats; that he should set out immediately with the whole army and attack the duke, in order to compel him, for his own preservation, to recall Niccolo into Lombardy. After this agreement the ambassadors returned to Venice; and the Venetians, having so large an amount of money to raise, were very remiss with their commissariat. In the meantime, Niccolo Piccinino pursued his route, and arrived in Romagna, where he prevailed upon the sons of Pandolfo Malatesti to desert the Venetians and enter the duke's service. This circumstance occasioned much uneasiness in Venice, and still more at Florence; for they thought that with the aid of the Malatesti they might resist Niccolo; but finding them gone over to the enemy, they were in fear lest their captain, Piero Giampagolo Orsini, who was in the territories of the Malatesti, should be disarmed and rendered powerless. The count also felt alarmed, for, through Niccolo's presence in Tuscany, he was afraid of losing La Marca; and, urged by a desire to look after his own affairs, he hastened to Venice, and being introduced to the Doge, informed him that the interests of the League required his presence in Tuscany; for the war ought to be carried on where the leader and forces of the enemy were, and not where his garrisons and towns were situated; for when the army is vanquished the war is finished; but to take towns and leave the armament entire, usually allowed the war to break out again with greater virulence; that Tuscany and La Marca would be lost if Niccolo were not vigorously resisted, and that, if lost, there would be no possibility of the preservation of Lombardy. But supposing the danger to Lombardy not so imminent, he did not intend to abandon his own subjects and friends, and that having come into Lombardy as a prince, he did not intend to return a mere condottiere. To this the Doge replied, it was quite manifest that, if he left Lombardy, or even recrossed the Po, all their inland territories would be lost; in that case they were unwilling to spend any more money in their defense. For it would be folly to attempt defending a place which must, after all, inevitably be lost; and that it is less disgraceful and less injurious to lose dominions only, then to lose both territory and money. That if the loss of their inland possessions should actually result, it would then be seen how highly important to the preservation of Romagna and Tuscany the reputation of the Venetians had been. On these accounts they were of quite a different opinion from the count; for they saw that whoever was victor in Lombardy would be so everywhere else, that conquest would be easily attainable now, when the territories of the duke were left almost defenseless by the departure of Niccolo, and that he would be ruined before he could order Niccolo's recall, or provide himself with any other remedy; that whoever attentively considered these things would see, that the duke had sent Niccolo into Tuscany for no other reason than to withdraw the count from his enterprise, and cause the war, which was now at his own door, to be removed to a greater distance. That if the count were to follow Niccolo, unless at the instigation of some very pressing necessity, he would find his plan successful, and rejoice in the adoption of it; but if he were to remain in Lombardy, and allow Tuscany to shift for herself, the duke would, when too late, see the imprudence of his conduct, and find that he had lost his territories in Lombardy and gained nothing in Tuscany. Each party having spoken, it was determined to wait a few days to see what would result from the agreement of the Malatesti with Niccolo; whether the Florentines could avail themselves of Piero Giampagolo, and whether the pope intended to join the League with all the earnestness he had promised. Not many days after these resolutions were adopted, it was ascertained that the Malatesti had made the agreement more from fear than any ill-will toward the League; that Piero Giampagolo had proceeded with his force toward Tuscany, and that the pope was more disposed than ever to assist them. This favorable intelligence dissipated the count's fears, and he consented to remain in Lombardy, and that Neri Capponi should return to Florence with a thousand of his own horse, and five hundred from the other parties. It was further agreed, that if the affairs of Tuscany should require the count's presence, Neri should write to him, and he would proceed thither to the exclusion of every other consideration. Neri arrived at Florence with his forces in April, and Giampagolo joined them the same day. In the meantime, Niccolo Piccinino, the affairs of Romagna being settled, purposed making a descent into Tuscany, and designing to go by the mountain passes of San Benedetto and the valley of Montone, found them so well guarded by the contrivance of Niccolo da Pisa, that his utmost exertions would be useless in that direction. As the Florentines, upon this sudden attack, were unprovided with troops and officers, they had sent into the defiles of these hills many of their citizens, with infantry raised upon the emergency to guard them, among whom was Bartolomeo Orlandini, a cavaliere, to whom was intrusted the defense of the castle of Marradi and the adjacent passes. Niccolo Piccinino, finding the route by San Benedetto impracticable, on account of the bravery of its commander, thought the cowardice of the officer who defended that of Marradi would render the passage easy. Marradi is a castle situated at the foot of the mountains which separate Tuscany from Romagna; and, though destitute of walls, the river, the mountains, and the inhabitants, make it a place of great strength; for the peasantry are warlike and faithful, and the rapid current undermining the banks has left them of such tremendous height that it is impossible to approach it from the valley if a small bridge over the stream be defended; while on the mountain side the precipices are so steep and perpendicular as to render it almost impregnable. In spite of these advantages, the pusillanimity of Bartolomeo Orlandini rendered the men cowardly and the fortress untenable; for as soon as he heard of the enemy's approach he abandoned the place, fled with all his forces, and did not stop till he reached the town of San Lorenzo. Niccolo, entering the deserted fortress, wondered it had not been defended, and, rejoicing over his acquisition, descended into the valley of the Mugello, where he took some castles, and halted with his army at Pulicciano. Thence he overran the country as far as the mountains of Fiesole; and his audacity so increased that he crossed the Arno, plundering and destroying everything to within three miles of Florence. The Florentines, however, were not dismayed. Their first concern was to give security to the government, for which they had no cause for apprehension, so universal was the good will of the people toward Cosmo; and besides this, they had restricted the principal offices to a few citizens of the highest class, who with their vigilance would have kept the populace in order, even if they had been discontented or desirous of change. They also knew by the compact made in Lombardy what forces Neri would bring with him, and expected the troops of the pope. These prospects sustained their courage till the arrival of Neri di Gino, who, on account of the disorders and fears of the city, determined to set out immediately and check Niccolo. With the cavalry he possessed, and a body of infantry raised entirely from the people, he recovered Remole from the hands of the enemy, where having encamped, he put a stop to all further depredations, and gave the inhabitants hopes of repelling the enemy from the neighborhood. Niccolo finding that, although the Florentines were without troops, no disturbance had arisen, and learning what entire composure prevailed in the city, thought he was wasting time, and resolved to undertake some other enterprise to induce them to send forces after him, and give him a chance of coming to an engagement, by means of which, if victorious, he trusted everything would succeed to his wishes. Francesco, Count di Poppi, was in the army of Niccolo, having deserted the Florentines, with whom he was in league, when the enemy entered the Mugello; and though with the intention of securing him as soon as they had an idea of his design, they increased his appointments, and made him commissary over all the places in his vicinity; still, so powerful is the attachment to party, that no benefit or fear could eradicate the affection he bore toward Rinaldo and the late government; so that as soon as he knew Niccolo was at hand he joined him, and with the utmost solicitude entreated him to leave the city and pass into the Casentino, pointing out to him the strength of the country, and how easily he might thence harass his enemies. Niccolo followed his advice, and arriving in the Casentino, took Romena and Bibbiena, and then pitched his camp before Castel San Niccolo. This fortress is situated at the foot of the mountains which divide the Casentino from the Val d'Arno; and being in an elevated situation, and well garrisoned, it was difficult to take, though Niccolo, with catapults and other engines, assailed it without intermission. The siege had continued more than twenty days, during which the Florentines had collected all their forces, having assembled under several leaders, three thousand horse, at Fegghine, commanded by Piero Giampagolo Orsini, their captain, and Neri Capponi and Bernardo de' Medici, commissaries. Four messengers, from Castel San Niccolo, were sent to them to entreat succor. The commissaries having examined the site, found it could not be relieved, except from the Alpine regions, in the direction of the Val d'Arno, the summit of which was more easily attainable by the enemy than by themselves, on account of their greater proximity, and because the Florentines could not approach without observation; so that it would be making a desperate attempt, and might occasion the destruction of the forces. The commissaries, therefore, commended their fidelity, and ordered that when they could hold out no longer, they should surrender. Niccolo took the fortress after a siege of thirty-two days; and the loss of so much time, for the attainment of so small an advantage, was the principle cause of the failure of his expedition; for had he remained with his forces near Florence, he would have almost deprived the government of all power to compel the citizens to furnish money: nor would they so easily have assembled forces and taken other precautions, if the enemy had been close upon them, as they did while he was at a distance. Besides this, many would have been disposed to quiet their apprehensions of Niccolo, by concluding a peace; particularly, as the contest was likely to be of some duration. The desire of the Count di Poppi to avenge himself on the inhabitants of San Niccolo, long his enemies, occasioned his advice to Piccinino, who adopted it for the purpose of pleasing him; and this caused the ruin of both. It seldom happens, that the gratification of private feelings, fails to be injurious to the general convenience. Niccolo, pursuing his good fortune, took Rassina and Chiusi. The Count di Poppi advised him to halt in these parts, arguing that he might divide his people between Chiusi, Caprese, and the Pieve, render himself master of this branch of the Apennines, and descend at pleasure into the Casentino, the Val d'Arno, the Val di Chiane, or the Val di Tavere, as well as be prepared for every movement of the enemy. But Niccolo, considering the sterility of these places, told him, "his horses could not eat stones," and went to the Borgo San Sepolcro, where he was amicably received, but found that the people of Citta di Castello, who were friendly to the Florentines, could not be induced to yield to his overtures. Wishing to have Perugia at his disposal, he proceeded thither with forty horse, and being one of her citizens, met with a kind reception. But in a few days he became suspected, and having attempted unsuccessfully to tamper with the legate and people of Perugia, he took eight thousand ducats from them, and returned to his army. He then set on foot secret measures, to seduce Cortona from the Florentines, but the affair being discovered, his attempts were fruitless. Among the principal citizens was Bartolomeo di Senso, who being appointed to the evening watch of one of the gates, a countryman, his friend, told him, that if he went he would be slain. Bartolomeo, requesting to know what was meant, he became acquainted with the whole affair, and revealed it to the governor of the place, who, having secured the leaders of the conspiracy, and doubled the guards at the gates, waited till the time appointed for the coming of Niccolo, who finding his purpose discovered, returned to his encampment. CHAPTER VII Brescia relieved by Sforza--His other victories--Piccinino is recalled into Lombardy--He endeavors to bring the Florentines to an engagement--He is routed before Anghiari--Serious disorders in the camp of the Florentines after the victory--Death of Rinaldo degli Albizzi--His character--Neri Capponi goes to recover the Casentino--The Count di Poppi surrenders--His discourse upon quitting his possessions. While these events were taking place in Tuscany, so little to the advantage of the duke, his affairs in Lombardy were in a still worse condition. The Count Francesco, as soon as the season would permit, took the field with his army, and the Venetians having again covered the lake with their galleys, he determined first of all to drive the duke from the water; judging, that this once effected, his remaining task would be easy. He therefore, with the Venetian fleet, attacked that of the duke, and destroyed it. His land forces took the castles held for Filippo, and the ducal troops who were besieging Brescia, being informed of these transactions, withdrew; and thus, the city, after standing a three years' siege, was at length relieved. The count then went in quest of the enemy, whose forces were encamped before Soncino, a fortress situated upon the River Oglio; these he dislodged and compelled to retreat to Cremona, where the duke again collected his forces, and prepared for his defense. But the count constantly pressing him more closely, he became apprehensive of losing either the whole, or the greater part, of his territories; and perceiving the unfortunate step he had taken, in sending Niccolo into Tuscany, in order to correct his error, he wrote to acquaint him with what had transpired, desiring him, with all possible dispatch, to leave Tuscany and return to Lombardy. In the meantime, the Florentines, under their commissaries, had drawn together their forces, and being joined by those of the pope, halted at Anghiari, a castle placed at the foot of the mountains that divide the Val di Tavere from the Val di Chiane, distant four miles from the Borgo San Sepolcro, on a level road, and in a country suitable for the evolutions of cavalry or a battlefield. As the Signory had heard of the count's victory and the recall of Niccolo, they imagined that without again drawing a sword or disturbing the dust under their horses' feet, the victory was their own, and the war at an end, they wrote to the commissaries, desiring them to avoid an engagement, as Niccolo could not remain much longer in Tuscany. These instructions coming to the knowledge of Piccinino, and perceiving the necessity of his speedy return, to leave nothing unattempted, he determined to engage the enemy, expecting to find them unprepared, and not disposed for battle. In this determination he was confirmed by Rinaldo, the Count di Poppi, and other Florentine exiles, who saw their inevitable ruin in the departure of Niccolo, and hoped, that if he engaged the enemy, they would either be victorious, or vanquished without dishonor. This resolution being adopted, Niccolo led his army, unperceived by the enemy, from Citta di Castello to the Borgo, where he enlisted two thousand men, who, trusting the general's talents and promises, followed him in hope of plunder. Niccolo then led his forces in battle array toward Anghiari, and had arrived within two miles of the place, when Micheletto Attendulo observed great clouds of dust, and conjecturing at once, that it must be occasioned by the enemy's approach, immediately called the troops to arms. Great confusion prevailed in the Florentine camp, for the ordinary negligence and want of discipline were now increased by their presuming the enemy to be at a distance, and they were more disposed to fight than to battle; so that everyone was unarmed, and some wandering from the camp, either led by their desire to avoid the excessive heat, or in pursuit of amusement. So great was the diligence of the commissaries and of the captain, that before the enemy's arrival, the men were mounted and prepared to resist their attack; and as Micheletto was the first to observe their approach, he was also first armed and ready to meet them, and with his troops hastened to the bridge which crosses the river at a short distance from Anghiari. Pietro Giampagolo having previous to the surprise, filled up the ditches on either side of the road, and leveled the ground between the bridge and Anghiari, and Micheletto having taken his position in front of the former, the legate and Simoncino, who led the troops of the church, took post on the right, and the commissaries of the Florentines, with Pietro Giampagolo, their captain, on the left; the infantry being drawn up along the banks of the river. Thus, the only course the enemy could take, was the direct one over the bridge; nor had the Florentines any other field for their exertions, excepting that their infantry were ordered, in case their cavalry were attacked in flank by the hostile infantry, to assail them with their cross bows, and prevent them from wounding the flanks of the horses crossing the bridge. Micheletto bravely withstood the enemy's charge upon the bridge; but Astorre and Francesco Piccinino coming up, with a picked body of men, attacked him so vigorously, that he was compelled to give way, and was pushed as far as the foot of the hill which rises toward the Borgo d'Anghiari; but they were in turn repulsed and driven over the bridge, by the troops that took them in flank. The battle continued two hours, during which each side had frequent possession of the bridge, and their attempts upon it were attended with equal success; but on both sides of the river, the disadvantage of Niccolo was manifest; for when his people crossed the bridge, they found the enemy unbroken, and the ground being leveled, they could manoeuvre without difficulty, and the weary be relieved by such as were fresh. But when the Florentines crossed, Niccolo could not relieve those that were harassed, on account of the hindrance interposed by the ditches and embankments on each side of the road; thus whenever his troops got possession of the bridge, they were soon repulsed by the fresh forces of the Florentines; but when the bridge was taken by the Florentines, and they passed over and proceeded upon the road, Niccolo having no opportunity to reinforce his troops, being prevented by the impetuosity of the enemy and the inconvenience of the ground, the rear guard became mingled with the van, and occasioned the utmost confusion and disorder; they were forced to flee, and hastened at full speed toward the Borgo. The Florentine troops fell upon the plunder, which was very valuable in horses, prisoners, and military stores, for not more than a thousand of the enemy's cavalry reached the town. The people of the Borgo, who had followed Niccolo in the hope of plunder, became booty themselves, all of them being taken, and obliged to pay a ransom. The colors and carriages were also captured. This victory was much more advantageous to the Florentines than injurious to the duke; for, had they been conquered, Tuscany would have been his own; but he, by his defeat, only lost the horses and accoutrements of his army, which could be replaced without any very serious expense. Nor was there ever an instance of wars being carried on in an enemy's country with less injury to the assailants than at this; for in so great a defeat, and in a battle which continued four hours, only one man died, and he, not from wounds inflicted by hostile weapons, or any honorable means, but, having fallen from his horse, was trampled to death. Combatants then engaged with little danger; being nearly all mounted, covered with armor, and preserved from death whenever they chose to surrender, there was no necessity for risking their lives; while fighting, their armor defended them, and when they could resist no longer, they yielded and were safe. This battle, from the circumstances which attended and followed it, presents a striking example of the wretched state of military discipline in those times. The enemy's forces being defeated and driven into the Borgo, the commissaries desired to pursue them, in order to make the victory complete, but not a single condottiere or soldier would obey, alleging, as a sufficient reason for their refusal, that they must take care of the booty and attend to their wounded; and, what is still more surprising, the next day, without permission from the commissaries, or the least regard for their commanders, they went to Arezzo, and, having secured their plunder, returned to Anghiari; a thing so contrary to military order and all subordination, that the merest shadow of a regular army would easily and most justly have wrested from them the victory they had so undeservedly obtained. Added to this, the men-at-arms, or heavy-armed horse, who had been taken prisoners, whom the commissaries wished to be detained that they might not rejoin the enemy, were set at liberty, contrary to their orders. It is astonishing, that an army so constructed should have sufficient energy to obtain the victory, or that any should be found so imbecile as to allow such a disorderly rabble to vanquish them. The time occupied by the Florentine forces in going and returning from Arezzo, gave Niccolo opportunity of escaping from the Borgo, and proceeding toward Romagna. Along with him also fled the Florentine exiles, who, finding no hope of their return home, took up their abodes in various parts of Italy, each according to his own convenience. Rinaldo made choice of Ancona; and, to gain admission to the celestial country, having lost the terrestrial, he performed a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher; whence having returned, he died suddenly while at table at the celebration of the marriage of one of his daughters; an instance of fortune's favor, in removing him from the troubles of this world upon the least sorrowful day of his exile. Rinaldo d'Albizzi appeared respectable under every change of condition; and would have been more so had he lived in a united city, for many qualities were injurious to him in a factious community, which in an harmonious one would have done him honor. When the forces returned from Arezzo, Niccolo being then gone, the commissaries presented themselves at the Borgo, the people of which were willing to submit to the Florentines; but their offer was declined, and while negotiations were pending, the pope's legate imagined the commissaries designed to take it from the church. Hard words were exchanged and hostilities might have ensued between the Florentine and ecclesiastical forces, if the misunderstanding had continued much longer; but as it was brought to the conclusion desired by the legate, peace was restored. While the affair of the Borgo San Sepolcro was in progress, Niccolo Piccinino was supposed to have marched toward Rome; other accounts said La Marca, and hence the legate and the count's forces moved toward Perugia to relieve La Marca or Rome, as the case might be, and Bernardo de Medici accompanied them. Neri led the Florentine forces to recover the Casentino, and pitched his camp before Rassina, which he took, together with Bibbiena, Prato Vecchio, and Romena. From thence he proceeded to Poppi and invested it on two sides with his forces, in one direction toward the plain of Certomondo, in the other upon the hill extending to Fronzole. The count finding himself abandoned to his fate, had shut himself up in Poppi, not with any hope of assistance, but with a view to make the best terms he could. Neri pressing him, he offered to capitulate, and obtained reasonable conditions, namely, security for himself and family, with leave to take whatever he could carry away, on condition of ceding his territories and government to the Florentines. When he perceived the full extent of his misfortune, standing upon the bridge which crosses the Arno, close to Poppi, he turned to Neri in great distress, and said, "Had I well considered my own position and the power of the Florentines, I should now have been a friend of the republic and congratulating you on your victory, not an enemy compelled to supplicate some alleviation of my woe. The recent events which to you bring glory and joy, to me are full of wretchedness and sorrow. Once I possessed horses, arms, subjects, grandeur and wealth: can it be surprising that I part with them reluctantly? But as you possess both the power and the inclination to command the whole of Tuscany, we must of necessity obey you; and had I not committed this error, my misfortune would not have occurred, and your liberality could not have been exercised; so, that if you were to rescue me from entire ruin, you would give the world a lasting proof of your clemency. Therefore, let your pity pass by my fault, and allow me to retain this single house to leave to the descendants of those from whom your fathers have received innumerable benefits." To this Neri replied: "That his having expected great results from men who were capable of doing only very little, had led him to commit so great a fault against the republic of Florence; that, every circumstance considered, he must surrender all those places to the Florentines, as an enemy, which he was unwilling to hold as a friend: that he had set such an example, as it would be most highly impolitic to encourage; for, upon a change of fortune, it might injure the republic, and it was not himself they feared, but his power while lord of the Casentino. If, however, he could live as a prince in Germany, the citizens would be very much gratified; and out of love to those ancestors of whom he had spoken, they would be glad to assist him." To this, the count, in great anger, replied: "He wished the Florentines at a much greater distance." Attempting no longer to preserve the least urbanity of demeanor, he ceded the place and all its dependencies to the Florentines, and with his treasure, wife, and children, took his departure, mourning the loss of a territory which his forefathers had held during four hundred years. When all these victories were known at Florence, the government and people were transported with joy. Benedetto de' Medici, finding the report of Niccolo having proceeded either to Rome or to La Marca, incorrect, returned with his forces to Neri, and they proceeded together to Florence, where the highest honors were decreed to them which it was customary with the city to bestow upon her victorious citizens, and they were received by the Signory, the Capitani di Parte, and the whole city, in triumphal pomp. BOOK VI CHAPTER I Reflections on the object of war and the use of victory--Niccolo reinforces his army--The duke of Milan endeavors to recover the services of Count Francesco Sforza--Suspicions of the Venetians--They acquire Ravenna--The Florentines purchase the Borgo San Sepolcro of the pope--Piccinino makes an excursion during the winter--The count besieged in his camp before Martinengo--The insolence of Niccolo Piccinino--The duke in revenge makes peace with the league--Sforza assisted by the Florentines. Those who make war have always and very naturally designed to enrich themselves and impoverish the enemy; neither is victory sought or conquest desirable, except to strengthen themselves and weaken the enemy. Hence it follows, that those who are impoverished by victory or debilitated by conquest, must either have gone beyond, or fallen short of, the end for which wars are made. A republic or a prince is enriched by the victories he obtains, when the enemy is crushed and possession is retained of the plunder and ransom. Victory is injurious when the foe escapes, or when the soldiers appropriate the booty and ransom. In such a case, losses are unfortunate, and conquests still more so; for the vanquished suffers the injuries inflicted by the enemy, and the victor those occasioned by his friends, which being less justifiable, must cause the greater pain, particularly from a consideration of his being thus compelled to oppress his people by an increased burden of taxation. A ruler possessing any degree of humanity, cannot rejoice in a victory that afflicts his subjects. The victories of the ancient and well organized republics, enabled them to fill their treasuries with gold and silver won from their enemies, to distribute gratuities to the people, reduce taxation, and by games and solemn festivals, disseminate universal joy. But the victories obtained in the times of which we speak, first emptied the treasury, and then impoverished the people, without giving the victorious party security from the enemy. This arose entirely from the disorders inherent in their mode of warfare; for the vanquished soldiery, divesting themselves of their accoutrements, and being neither slain nor detained prisoners, only deferred a renewed attack on the conqueror, till their leader had furnished them with arms and horses. Besides this, both ransom and booty being appropriated by the troops, the victorious princes could not make use of them for raising fresh forces, but were compelled to draw the necessary means from their subjects' purses, and this was the only result of victory experienced by the people, except that it diminished the ruler's reluctance to such a course, and made him less particular about his mode of oppressing them. To such a state had the practice of war been brought by the sort of soldiery then on foot, that the victor and the vanquished, when desirous of their services, alike needed fresh supplies of money; for the one had to re-equip them, and the other to bribe them; the vanquished could not fight without being remounted, and the conquerors would not take the field without a new gratuity. Hence it followed, that the one derived little advantage from the victory, and the other was the less injured by defeat; for the routed party had to be re-equipped, and the victorious could not pursue his advantage. From this disorderly and perverse method of procedure, it arose, that before Niccolo's defeat became known throughout Italy, he had again reorganized his forces, and harassed the enemy with greater vigor than before. Hence, also, it happened, that after his disaster at Tenna, he so soon occupied Verona: that being deprived of his army at Verona, he was shortly able to appear with a large force in Tuscany; that being completely defeated at Anghiari, before he reached Tuscany, he was more powerful in the field than ever. He was thus enabled to give the duke of Milan hopes of defending Lombardy, which by his absence appeared to be lost; for while Niccolo spread consternation throughout Tuscany, disasters in the former province so alarmed the duke, that he was afraid his utter ruin would ensue before Niccolo, whom he had recalled, could come to his relief, and check the impetuous progress of the count. Under these impressions, the duke, to insure by policy that success which he could not command by arms, had recourse to remedies, which on similar occasions had frequently served his turn. He sent Niccolo da Esti, prince of Ferrara, to the count who was then at Peschiera, to persuade him, "That this war was not to his advantage; for if the duke became so ruined as to be unable to maintain his position among the states of Italy, the count would be the first to suffer; for he would cease to be of importance either with the Venetians or the Florentines; and to prove the sincerity of his wish for peace, he offered to fulfill the engagement he had entered into with regard to his daughter, and send her to Ferrara; so that as soon as peace was established, the union might take place." The count replied, "That if the duke really wished for peace, he might easily be gratified, as the Florentines and the Venetians were equally anxious for it. True, it was, he could with difficulty credit him, knowing that he had never made peace but from necessity, and when this no longer pressed him, again desired war. Neither could he give credence to what he had said concerning the marriage, having been so repeatedly deceived; yet when peace was concluded, he would take the advice of his friends upon that subject." The Venetians, who were sometimes needlessly jealous of their soldiery, became greatly alarmed at these proceedings; and not without reason. The count was aware of this, and wishing to remove their apprehensions, pursued the war with unusual vigor; but his mind had become so unsettled by ambition, and the Venetians' by jealousy, that little further progress was made during the remainder of the summer, and upon the return of Niccolo into Lombardy, winter having already commenced, the armies withdrew into quarters, the count to Verona, the Florentine forces to Tuscany, the duke's to Cremona, and those of the pope to Romagna. The latter, after having been victorious at Anghiari, made an unsuccessful attack upon Furli and Bologna, with a view to wrest them from Niccolo Piccinino; but they were gallantly defended by his son Francesco. However, the arrival of the papal forces so alarmed the people of Ravenna with the fear of becoming subject to the church, that, by consent of Ostasio di Polenta their lord, they placed themselves under the power of the Venetians; who, in return for the territory, and that Ostasio might never retake by force what he had imprudently given them, sent him and his son to Candia, where they died. In the course of these affairs, the pope, notwithstanding the victory at Anghiari, became so in want of money, that he sold the fortress of Borgo San Sepolcro to the Florentines for 25,000 ducats. Affairs being thus situated, each party supposed winter would protect them from the evils of war, and thought no more of peace. This was particularly the case with the duke, who, being rendered doubly secure by the season and by the presence of Niccolo, broke off all attempts to effect a reconciliation with the count, reorganized Niccolo's forces, and made every requisite preparation for the future struggle. The count being informed of this, went to Venice to consult with the senate on the course to be pursued during the next year. Niccolo, on the other hand, being quite prepared, and seeing the enemy unprovided, did not await the return of spring, but crossed the Adda during severe weather, occupied the whole Brescian territory, except Oddula and Acri, and made prisoners two thousand horse belonging to Francesco's forces, who had no apprehension of an attack. But the greatest source of anxiety to the count, and alarm to the Venetians, was the desertion of his service by Ciarpellone, one of his principal officers. Francesco, on learning these matters, immediately left Venice, and, arriving at Brescia, found that Niccolo, after doing all the mischief he could, had retired to his quarters; and therefore, finding the war concluded for the present was not disposed to rekindle it, but rather to use the opportunity afforded by the season and his enemies, of reorganizing his forces, so as to be able, when spring arrived, to avenge himself for his former injuries. To this end he induced the Venetians to recall the forces they had in Tuscany, in the Florentine service, and to order that to succeed Gattamelata, who was dead, Micheletto Attendulo should take the command. On the approach of spring, Niccolo Piccinino was the first to take the field, and encamped before Cignano, a fortress twelve miles from Brescia; the count marched to its relief, and the war between them was conducted in the usual manner. The count, apprehensive for the city of Bergamo, besieged Martinengo, a castle so situated that the possession of it would enable him to relieve the former, which was closely pressed by Niccolo, who, having foreseen that the enemy could impede him only from the direction of Martinengo, had put the castle into a complete state of defense, so that the count was obliged to lend his whole force to the siege. Upon this, Niccolo placed his troops in a situation calculated to intercept the count's provisions, and fortified himself with trenches and bastions in such a manner that he could not be attacked without the most manifest hazard to his assailant. Hence the besiegers were more distressed than the people of Martinengo whom they besieged. The count could not hold his position for want of food, nor quit it without imminent danger; so that the duke's victory appeared certain, and defeat equally inevitable to the count and the Venetians. But fortune, never destitute of means to assist her favorites, or to injure others, caused the hope of victory to operate so powerfully upon Niccolo Piccinino, and made him assume such a tone of unbounded insolence, that, losing all respect for himself and the duke, he sent him word that, having served under his ensign for so long, without obtaining sufficient land to serve him for a grave, he wished to know from himself what was to be the reward of his labors; for it was in his power to make him master of Lombardy, and place all his enemies in his power; and, as a certain victory ought to be attended by a sure remuneration, he desired the duke to concede to him the city of Piacenza, that when weary with his lengthened services he might at last betake himself to repose. Nor did he hesitate, in conclusion, to threaten, if his request were not granted, to abandon the enterprise. This injurious and most insolent mode of proceeding highly offended the duke, and, on further consideration, he determined rather to let the expedition altogether fail, than consent to his general's demand. Thus, what all the dangers he had incurred, and the threats of his enemies, could not draw from him, the insolent behavior of his friends made him willing to propose. He resolved to come to terms with the count, and sent Antonio Guido Buono, of Tortona, to offer his daughter and conditions of peace, which were accepted with great pleasure by the count, and also by the colleagues as far as themselves were concerned. The terms being secretly arranged, the duke sent to command Niccolo to make a truce with the count for one year; intimating, that being exhausted with the expense, he could not forego a certain peace for a doubtful victory. Niccolo was utterly astonished at this resolution, and could not imagine what had induced the duke to lose such a glorious opportunity; nor could he surmise that, to avoid rewarding his friends, he would save his enemies, and therefore to the utmost of his power he opposed this resolution; and the duke was obliged, in order to induce his compliance, to threaten that if he did not obey he would give him up to his soldiers and his enemies. Niccolo submitted, with the feelings of one compelled to leave country and friends, complaining of his hard fate, that fortune and the duke were robbing him of the victory over his enemies. The truce being arranged, the marriage of the duke's daughter, Bianca, to the count was solemnized, the duke giving Cremona for her portion. This being over, peace was concluded in November, 1441, at which Francesco Barbadico and Pagolo Trono were present for the Venetians, and for the Florentines Agnolo Acciajuoli. Peschiera, Asola, and Lonato, castles in the Mantuan territory, were assigned to the Venetians. The war in Lombardy was concluded; but the dissensions in the kingdom of Naples continued, and the inability to compose them occasioned the resumption of those arms which had been so recently laid aside. Alfonso, of Aragon, had, during these wars, taken from René the whole kingdom except Naples; so that, thinking he had the victory in his power, he resolved during the siege of Naples to take Benevento, and his other possessions in that neighborhood, from the count; and thought he might easily accomplish this while the latter was engaged in the wars of Lombardy. Having heard of the conclusion of peace, Alfonso feared the count would not only come for the purpose of recovering his territories, but also to favor René; and René himself had hope of his assistance for the same reason. The latter, therefore, sent to the count, begging he would come to the relief of a friend, and avenge himself of an enemy. On the other hand, Alfonso entreated Filippo, for the sake of the friendship which subsisted between them, to find the count some other occupation, that, being engaged in greater affairs, he might not have an opportunity of interfering between them. Filippo complied with this request, without seeming to be aware that he violated the peace recently made, so greatly to his disadvantage. He therefore signified to pope Eugenius, that the present was a favorable opportunity for recovering the territories which the count had taken from the church; and, that he might be in a condition to use it, offered him the services of Niccolo Piccinino, and engaged to pay him during the war; who, since the peace of Lombardy, had remained with his forces in Romagna. Eugenius eagerly took the advice, induced by his hatred of the count, and his desire to recover his lost possessions; feeling assured that, although on a former occasion he had been duped by Niccolo, it would be improper, now that the duke interfered, to suspect any deceit; and, joining his forces to those of Niccolo, he assailed La Marca. The count, astonished at such an unexpected attack, assembled his troops, and went to meet the enemy. In the meantime, King Alfonso took possession of Naples, so that the whole kingdom, except Castelnuova, was in his power. Leaving a strong guard at Castelnuova René set out and came to Florence, where he was most honorably received; and having remained a few days, finding he could not continue the war, he withdrew to Marseilles. In the meantime, Alfonso took Castelnuova, and the count found himself assailed in the Marca Inferiore, both by the pope and Niccolo. He applied to the Venetians and the Florentines for assistance, in men and money, assuring them that if they did not determine to restrain the pope and king, during his life, they would soon afterward find their very existence endangered, for both would join Filippo and divide Italy among them. The Florentines and Venetians hesitated for a time, both to consider the propriety of drawing upon themselves the enmity of the pope and the king, and because they were then engaged in the affairs of the Bolognese. Annibale Bentivoglio had driven Francesco Piccinino from Bologna, and for defense against the duke, who favored Francesco, he demanded and received assistance of the Venetians and Florentines; so that, being occupied with these matters they could not resolve to assist the count, but Annibale, having routed Francesco Piccinino, and those affairs seeming to be settled, they resolved to support him. Designing however to make sure of the duke, they offered to renew the league with him, to which he was not averse; for, although he consented that war should be made against the count, while King René was in arms, yet finding him now conquered, and deprived of the whole kingdom, he was not willing that the count should be despoiled of his territories; and therefore, not only consented that assistance should be given him, but wrote to Alfonso to be good enough to retire to his kingdom, and discontinue hostilities against the count; and although reluctantly, yet in acknowledgment of his obligations to the duke, Alfonso determined to satisfy him, and withdrew with his forces beyond the Tronto. CHAPTER II Discords of Florence--Jealousy excited against Neri di Gino Capponi--Baldaccio d'Anghiari murdered--Reform of government in favor of the Medici--Enterprises of Sforza and Piccinino--Death of Niccolo Piccinino--End of the war--Disturbances in Bologna--Annibale Bentivoglio slain by Battista Canneschi, and the latter by the people--Santi, supposed to be the son of Ercole Bentivoglio, is called to govern the city of Bologna--Discourse of Cosmo de' Medici to him--Perfidious designs of the duke of Milan against Sforza--General war in Italy--Losses of the duke of Milan--The duke has recourse to the count, who makes peace with him--Offers of the duke and the Venetians to the count--The Venetians furtively deprive the count of Cremona. While the affairs of Romagna proceeded thus, the city of Florence was not tranquil. Among the citizens of highest reputation in the government, was Neri di Gino Capponi, of whose influence Cosmo de' Medici had more apprehension than any other; for to the great authority which he possessed in the city was added his influence with the soldiery. Having been often leader of the Florentine forces he had won their affection by his courage and talents; and the remembrance of his own and his father's victories (the latter having taken Pisa, and he himself having overcome Niccolo Piccinino at Anghiari) caused him to be beloved by many, and feared by those who were averse to having associates in the government. Among the leaders of the Florentine army was Baldaccio d'Anghiari, an excellent soldier, for in those times there was not one in Italy who surpassed him in vigor either of body or mind; and possessing so much influence with the infantry, whose leader he had always been, many thought they would follow him wherever he chose to lead them. Baldaccio was the intimate friend of Neri, who loved him for his talents, of which he had been a constant witness. This excited great suspicion in the other citizens, who, thinking it alike dangerous either to discharge or retain him in their service, determined to destroy him, and fortune seemed to favor their design. Bartolommeo Orlandini was Gonfalonier of Justice; the same person who was sent to the defense of Marradi, when Niccolo Piccinino came into Tuscany, as we have related above, and so basely abandoned the pass, which by its nature was almost impregnable. So flagrant an instance of cowardice was very offensive to Baldaccio, who, on many occasions, both by words and letters, had contributed to make the disgraceful fact known to all. The shame and vexation of Bartolommeo were extreme, so that of all things he wished to avenge himself, thinking, with the death of his accuser, to efface the stain upon his character. This feeling of Bartolommeo Orlandini was known to other citizens, so that they easily persuaded him to put Baldaccio to death, and at one avenge himself, and deliver his country from a man whom they must either retain at great peril, or discharge to their greater confusion. Bartolommeo having therefore resolved to murder him, concealed in his own apartment at the palace several young men, all armed; and Baldaccio, entering the piazza, whither it was his daily custom to come, to confer with the magistrates concerning his command, the Gonfalonier sent for him, and he, without any suspicion, obeyed. Meeting him in the corridor, which leads to the chambers of the Signory, they took a few turns together discoursing of his office, when being close to the door of the apartments in which the assassins were concealed, Bartolommeo gave them the signal, upon which they rushed out, and finding Baldaccio alone and unarmed, they slew him, and threw the body out of the window which looks from the palace toward the dogano, or customhouse. It was thence carried into the piazza, where the head being severed, it remained the whole day exposed to the gaze of the people. Baldaccio was married, and had only one child, a boy, who survived him but a short time; and his wife, Annalena, thus deprived of both husband and offspring, rejected every proposal for a second union. She converted her house into a monastery, to which she withdrew, and, being joined by many noble ladies, lived in holy seclusion to the end of her days. The convent she founded, and which is named from her, preserves her story in perpetual remembrance. This circumstance served to weaken Neri's power, and made him lose both influence and friends. Nor did this satisfy the citizens who held the reins of government; for it being ten years since their acquisition of power, and the authority of the Balia expired, many began to exhibit more boldness, both in words and deeds, than seemed consistent with their safety; and the leaders of the party judged, that if they wished to preserve their influence, some means must be adopted to increase it. To this end, in 1444 the councils created a new Balia, which reformed the government, gave authority to a limited number to create the Signory, re-established the Chancery of Reformations, depriving Filippo Peruzzi of his office of president in it, and appointing another wholly under their influence. They prolonged the term of exile to those who were banished; put Giovanni di Simone Vespucci in prison; deprived the Accoppiatori of their enemies of the honors of government, and with them the sons of Piero Baroncelli, the whole of the Seragli, Bartolommeo Fortini, Francesco Castellani, and many others. By these means they strengthened their authority and influence, and humbled their enemies, or those whom they suspected of being so. Having thus recovered and confirmed their government, they then turned their attention to external affairs. As observed above, Niccolo Piccinino was abandoned by King Alfonso, and the count having been aggrandized by the assistance of the Florentines, attacked and routed him near Fermo, where, after losing nearly the whole of his troops, Niccolo fled to Montecchio, which he fortified in such a manner that in a short time he had again assembled so large an army as enabled him to make head against the count; particularly as the season was now come for them to withdraw into quarters. His principal endeavor during the winter was to collect troops, and in this he was assisted both by the pope and Alfonso; so that, upon the approach of spring, both leaders took the field, and Niccolo, being the strongest, reduced the count to extreme necessity, and would have conquered him if the duke had not contrived to frustrate his designs. Filippo sent to beg he would come to him with all speed, for he wished to have a personal interview, that he might communicate matters of the highest importance. Niccolo, anxious to hear them, abandoned a certain victory for a very doubtful advantage; and leaving his son Francesco to command the army, hastened to Milan. The count being informed of the circumstance, would not let slip the opportunity of fighting in the absence of Niccolo; and, coming to an engagement near the castle of Monte Loro, routed the father's forces and took the son prisoner. Niccolo having arrived at Milan saw that the duke had duped him, and learning the defeat of his army and the capture of his son, he died of grief in 1445, at the age of sixty-four, having been a brave rather than a fortunate leader. He left two sons, Francesco and Jacopo, who, possessing less talent than their father, were still more unfortunate; so that the arms of the family became almost annihilated, while those of Sforza, being favored by fortune, attained augmented glory. The pope, seeing Niccolo's army defeated and himself dead, having little hope of assistance from Aragon, sought peace with the count, and, by the intervention of the Florentines, succeeded. Of La Marca, the pope only retained Osimo, Fabriano, and Recanati; all the rest remained in the count's possession. Peace being restored to La Marca, the whole of Italy would have obtained repose had it not been disturbed by the Bolognese. There were in Bologna two very powerful families, the Canneschi and the Bentivogli. Of the latter, Annibale was the head; of the former, Battista, who, as a means of confirming their mutual confidence, had contracted family alliances; but among men who have the same objects of ambition in view, it is easy to form connections, but difficult to establish friendship. The Bolognese were in a league with the Venetians and Florentines, which had been effected by the influence of Annibale, after they had driven out Francesco Piccinino; and Battista, knowing how earnestly the duke desired to have the city favorable to him, proposed to assassinate Annibale, and put Bologna into his power. This being agreed upon, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1445, he attacked Annibale with his men, and slew him: and then, with shouts of "the duke, the duke," rode through the city. The Venetian and Florentine commissaries were in Bologna at the time, and at first kept themselves within doors; but finding that the people, instead of favoring the murderers, assembled in the piazza, armed in great numbers, mourning the death of Annibale, they joined them; and, assembling what forces they could, attacked the Canneschi, soon overpowered them, slew part, and drove the remainder out of the city. Battista, unable to effect his escape, or his enemies his capture, took refuge in a vault of his house, used for storing grain. The friends of the Bentivogli, having sought him all day, and knowing he had not left the city, so terrified his servants, that one of them, a groom, disclosed the place of his concealment, and being drawn forth in complete armor he was slain, his body dragged about the streets, and afterward burned. Thus the duke's authority was sufficient to prompt the enterprise, but his force was not at hand to support it. The tumults being settled by the death of Battista, and the flight of the Canneschi, Bologna still remained in the greatest confusion. There not being one of the house of Bentivogli of age to govern, Annibale having left but one son whose name was Giovanni, only six years old, it was apprehended that disunion would ensue among the Bentivogli, and cause the return of the Cannecshi, and the ruin both of their own country and party. While in this state of apprehension, Francesco, sometime Count di Poppi, being at Bologna, informed the rulers of the city, that if they wished to be governed by one of the blood of Annibale, he could tell them of one; and related that about twenty years ago, Ercole, cousin of Annibale, being at Poppi, became acquainted with a girl of the castle, of whom was born a son named Santi, whom Ercole, on many occasions acknowledged to be his own, nor could he deny it, for whoever knew him and saw the boy, could not fail to observe the strongest resemblance. The citizens gave credit to the tale, and immediately sent to Florence to see the young man, and procure of Cosmo and Neri permission to return with him to Bologna. The reputed father of Santi was dead, and he lived under the protection of his uncle, whose name was Antonio da Cascese. Antonio was rich, childless, and a friend of Neri, to whom the matter becoming known, he thought it ought neither to be despised nor too hastily accepted; and that it would be best for Santi and those who had been sent from Bologna, to confer in the presence of Cosmo. They were accordingly introduced, and Santi was not merely honored but adored by them, so greatly were they influenced by the spirit of party. However, nothing was done at the time, except that Cosmo, taking Santi apart, spoke to him thus: "No one can better advise you in this matter than yourself; for you have to take that course to which your own mind prompts you. If you be the son of Ercole Bentivoglio, you will naturally aspire to those pursuits which are proper to your family and worthy of your father; but if you be the son of Agnolo da Cascese, you will remain in Florence, and basely spend the remainder of your days in some branch of the woolen trade." These words greatly influenced the youth, who, though he had at first almost refused to adopt such a course, said, he would submit himself wholly to what Cosmo and Neri should determine. They, assenting to the request of the Bolognese, provided suitable apparel, horses, and servants; and in a few days he was escorted by a numerous cavalcade to Bologna, where the guardianship of Annibale's son and of the city were placed in his hands. He conducted himself so prudently, that although all his ancestors had been slain by their enemies, he lived in peace and died respected by everyone. After the death of Niccolo Piccinino and the peace of La Marca, Filippo wishing to procure a leader of his forces, secretly negotiated with Ciarpellone, one of the principal captains of Count Francesco, and arrangements having been made, Ciarpellone asked permission to go to Milan to take possession of certain castles which had been given him by Filippo during the late wars. The count suspecting what was in progress, in order to prevent the duke from accommodating himself at his expense, caused Ciarpellone to be arrested, and soon afterward put to death; alleging that he had been detected plotting against him. Filippo was highly annoyed and indignant, which the Venetians and the Florentines were glad to observe, for their greatest fear was, that the duke and the count should become friends. The duke's anger caused the renewal of war in La Marca. Gismondo Malatesti, lord of Rimino, being son-in-law of the count, expected to obtain Pesaro; but the count, having obtained possession, gave it to his brother, Alessandro. Gismondo, offended at this, was still further exasperated at finding that Federigo di Montefeltro, his enemy, by the count's assistance, gained possession of Urbino. He therefore joined the duke, and solicited the pope and the king to make war against the count, who, to give Gismondo a taste of the war he so much desired, resolved to take the initiative, and attacked him immediately. Thus Romagna and La Marca were again in complete confusion, for Filippo, the king, and the pope, sent powerful assistance to Gismondo, while the Florentines and Venetians supplied the count with money, though not with men. Nor was Filippo satisfied with the war in Romagna, but also desired to take Cremona and Pontremoli from the count; but Pontremoli was defended by the Florentines, and Cremona by the Venetians. Thus the war was renewed in Lombardy, and after several engagements in the Cremonese, Francesco Piccinino, the leader of the duke's forces, was routed at Casale, by Micheletto and the Venetian troops. This victory gave the Venetians hope of obtaining the duke's dominions. They sent a commissary to Cremona, attacked the Ghiaradadda, and took the whole of it, except Crema. Then crossing the Adda, they overran the country as far as Milan. Upon this the duke had recourse to Alfonso, and entreated his assistance, pointing out the danger his kingdom would incur if Lombardy were to fall into the hands of the Venetians. Alfonso promised to send him troops, but apprised him of the difficulties which would attend their passage, without the permission of the count. Filippo, driven to extremity, then had recourse to Francesco, and begged he would not abandon his father-in-law, now that he had become old and blind. The count was offended with the duke for making war against him; but he was jealous of the increasing greatness of the Venetians, and he himself began to be in want of money, for the League supplied him sparingly. The Florentines, being no longer in fear of the duke, ceased to stand in need of the count, and the Venetians desired his ruin; for they thought Lombardy could not be taken from him except by this means; yet while Filippo sought to gain him over, and offered him the entire command of his forces, on condition that he should restore La Marca to the pope and quit the Venetian alliance, ambassadors were sent to him by that republic, promising him Milan, if they took it, and the perpetual command of their forces, if he would push the war in La Marca, and prevent Alfonso from sending troops into Lombardy. The offers of the Venetians were great, as also were their claims upon him, having begun the war in order to save him from losing Cremona; while the injuries received from the duke were fresh in his memory, and his promises had lost all influence, still the count hesitated; for on the one hand, were to be considered his obligations to the League, his pledged faith, their recent services, and his hopes of the future, all which had their influence on him; on the other, were the entreaties of his father-in-law, and above all, the bane which he feared would be concealed under the specious offers of the Venetians, for he doubted not, that both with regard to Milan and their other promises, if they were victorious, he would be at their mercy, to which no prudent men would ever submit if he could avoid it. These difficulties in the way of his forming a determination, were obviated by the ambition of the Venetians, who, seeing a chance of occupying Cremona, from secret intelligence with that city, under a different pretext, sent troops into its neighborhood; but the affair was discovered by those who commanded Cremona for the count, and measures were adopted which prevented its success. Thus without obtaining Cremona, they lost the count's friendship, who, now being free from all other considerations, joined the duke. CHAPTER III Death of Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan--The Milanese appoint Sforza their captain--Milan becomes a republic--The pope endeavors to restore peace to Italy--The Venetians oppose this design--Alfonso attacks the Florentines--The neighborhood of Piombino becomes the principal theater of war--Scarcity in the Florentine camp--Disorders occur in the Neapolitan and Florentine armies--Alfonso sues for peace and is compelled to retreat--Pavia surrenders to the count--Displeasure of the Milanese--The count besieges Caravaggio--The Venetians endeavor to relieve the place--They are routed by the count before Caravaggio. Pope Eugenius being dead, was succeeded by Nicholas V. The count had his whole army at Cotignola, ready to pass into Lombardy, when intelligence was brought him of the death of Filippo, which happened on the last day of August, 1447. This event greatly afflicted him, for he doubted whether his troops were in readiness, on account of their arrears of pay; he feared the Venetians, who were his armed enemies, he having recently forsaken them and taken part with the duke; he was in apprehension from Alfonso, his inveterate foe; he had no hope from the pontiff or the Florentines; for the latter were allies of the Venetians, and he had seized the territories of the former. However, he resolved to face his fortune and be guided by circumstances; for it often happens, that when engaged in business valuable ideas are suggested, which in a state of inaction would never have occurred. He had great hopes, that if the Milanese were disposed to defend themselves against the ambition of the Venetians, they could make use of no other power but his. Therefore, he proceeded confidently into the Bolognese territory, thence to Modena and Reggio, halted with his forces upon the Lenza, and sent to offer his services at Milan. On the death of the duke, part of the Milanese were inclined to establish a republic; others wished to choose a prince, and of these, one part favored the count, and another Alfonso. However, the majority being in favor of freedom, they prevailed over the rest, and organized a republic, to which many cities of the Duchy refused obedience; for they, too, desired to live in the enjoyment of their liberty, and even those who did not embrace such views, refused to submit to the sovereignty of the Milanese. Lodi and Piacenza surrendered themselves to the Venetians; Pavia and Parma became free. This confused state of things being known to the count, he proceeded to Cremona, where his ambassadors and those of the Milanese arranged for him to command the forces of the new republic, with the same remuneration he had received from the duke at the time of his decease. To this they added the possession of Brescia, until Verona was recovered, when he should have that city and restore Brescia to the Milanese. Before the duke's death, Pope Nicholas, after his assumption of the pontificate, sought to restore peace among the princes of Italy, and with this object endeavored, in conjunction with the ambassadors sent by the Florentines to congratulate him on his accession, to appoint a diet at Ferrara to attempt either the arrangement of a long truce, or the establishment of peace. A congress was accordingly held in that city, of the pope's legate and the Venetian, ducal, and Florentine representatives. King Alfonso had no envoy there. He was at Tivoli with a great body of horse and foot, and favorable to the duke; both having resolved, that having gained the count over to their side, they would openly attack the Florentines and Venetians, and till the arrival of the count in Lombardy, take part in the treaty for peace at Ferrara, at which, though the king did not appear, he engaged to concur in whatever course the duke should adopt. The conference lasted several days, and after many debates, resolved on either a truce for five years, or a permanent peace, whichsoever the duke should approve; and the ducal ambassadors, having returned to Milan to learn his decision, found him dead. Notwithstanding this, the Milanese were disposed to adopt the resolutions of the assembly, but the Venetians refused, indulging great hopes of becoming masters of Lombardy, particularly as Lodi and Piacenza, immediately after the duke's death, had submitted to them. They trusted that either by force or by treaty they could strip Milan of her power; and then so press her, as to compel her also to surrender before any assistance could arrive; and they were the more confident of this from seeing the Florentines involved in war with King Alfonso. The king being at Tivoli, and designing to pursue his enterprise against Tuscany, as had been arranged between himself and Filippo, judging that the war now commenced in Lombardy would give him both time and opportunity, and wishing to have a footing in the Florentine state before he openly commenced hostilities, opened a secret understanding with the fortress of Cennina, in the Val d'Arno Superiore, and took possession of it. The Florentines, surprised with this unexpected event, perceiving the king already in action, and resolved to do them all the injury in his power, hired forces, created a council of ten for management of the war, and prepared for the conflict in their usual manner. The king was already in the Siennese, and used his utmost endeavors to reduce the city, but the inhabitants of Sienna were firm in their attachment to the Florentines, and refused to receive him within their walls or into any of their territories. They furnished him with provisions, alleging in excuse, the enemy's power and their inability to resist. The king, finding he could not enter by the Val d'Arno, as he had first intended, both because Cennina had been already retaken, and because the Florentines were now in some measure prepared for their defense, turned toward Volterra, and occupied many fortresses in that territory. Thence he proceeded toward Pisa, and with the assistance of Fazio and Arrigo de' Conti, of the Gherardesca, took some castles, and issuing from them, assailed Campiglia, but could not take it, the place being defended by the Florentines, and it being now in the depth of winter. Upon this the king, leaving garrisons in the places he had taken to harass the surrounding country, withdrew with the remainder of his army to quarters in the Siennese. The Florentines, aided by the season, used the most active exertions to provide themselves troops, whose captains were Federigo, lord of Urbino, and Gismondo Malatesti da Rimino, who, though mutual foes, were kept so united by the prudence of the commissaries, Neri di Gino and Bernardetto de' Medici, that they broke up their quarters while the weather was still very severe and recovered not only the places that had been taken in the territory of Pisa, but also the Pomerancie in the neighborhood of Volterra, and so checked the king's troops, which at first had overrun the Maremma, that they could scarcely retain the places they had been left to garrison. Upon the return of the spring the commissaries halted with their whole force, consisting of five thousand horse and two thousand foot, at the Spedaletto. The king approached with his army, amounting to fifteen thousand men, within three miles of Campiglia, but when it was expected he would attack the place he fell upon Piombino, hoping, as it was insufficiently provided, to take it with very little trouble, and thus acquire a very important position, the loss of which would be severely felt by the Florentines; for from it he would be able to exhaust them with a long war, obtain his own provision by sea, and harass the whole territory of Pisa. They were greatly alarmed at this attack, and, considering that if they could remain with their army among the woods of Campiglia, the king would be compelled to retire either in defeat or disgrace. With this view they equipped four galleys at Livorno, and having succeeded in throwing three hundred infantry into Piombino, took up their own position at the Caldane, a place where it would be difficult to attack them; and they thought it would be dangerous to encamp among the thickets of the plain. The Florentine army depended for provisions on the surrounding places, which, being poor and thinly inhabited, had difficulty in supplying them. Consequently the troops suffered, particularly from want of wine, for none being produced in that vicinity, and unable to procure it from more distant places, it was impossible to obtain a sufficient quantity. But the king, though closely pressed by the Florentines, was well provided except in forage, for he obtained everything else by sea. The Florentines, desirous to supply themselves in the same manner, loaded four vessels with provisions, but, upon their approach, they were attacked by seven of the king's galleys, which took two of them and put the rest to flight. This disaster made them despair of procuring provisions, so that two hundred men of a foraging party, principally for want of wine, deserted to the king, and the rest complained that they could not live without it, in a situation where the heat was so excessive and the water bad. The commissaries therefore determined to quit the place, and endeavor to recover those castles which still remained in the enemy's power; who, on his part, though not suffering from want of provisions, and greatly superior in numbers, found his enterprise a failure, from the ravages made in his army by those diseases which the hot season produces in marshy localities; and which prevailed to such an extent that many died daily, and nearly all were affected. These circumstances occasioned overtures of peace. The king demanded fifty thousand florins, and the possession of Piombino. When the terms were under consideration, many citizens, desirous of peace, would have accepted them, declaring there was no hope of bringing to a favorable conclusion a war which required so much money to carry it on. But Neri Capponi going to Florence, placed the matter in a more correct light, and it was then unanimously determined to reject the proposal, and take the lord of Piombino under their protection, with an alliance offensive and defensive, provided he did not abandon them, but assist in their defense as hitherto. The king being informed of this resolution, saw that, with his reduced army, he could not gain the place, and withdrew in the same condition as if completely routed, leaving behind him two thousand dead. With the remainder of his sick troops he retired to the Siennese territory, and thence to his kingdom, incensed against the Florentines, and threatening them with new wars upon the return of spring. While these events were proceeding in Tuscany the Count Sforza, having become leader of the Milanese forces, strenuously endeavored to secure the friendship of Francesco Piccinino, who was also in their service, that he might support him in his enterprises, or be less disposed to do him injury. He then took the field with his army, upon which the people of Pavia, conscious of their inability to resist him, and unwilling to obey the Milanese, offered to submit themselves to his authority, on condition that he should not subject them to the power of Milan. The count desired the possession of Pavia, and considered the circumstance a happy omen, as it would enable him to give a color to his designs. He was not restrained from treachery either by fear or shame; for great men consider failure disgraceful,--a fraudulent success the contrary. But he was apprehensive that his possession of the city would excite the animosity of the Milanese, and perhaps induce them to throw themselves under the power of the Venetians. If he refused to accept the offer, he would have occasion to fear the duke of Savoy, to whom many citizens were inclined to submit themselves; and either alternative would deprive him of the sovereignty of Lombardy. Concluding there was less danger in taking possession of the city than in allowing another to have it, he determined to accept the proposal of the people of Pavia, trusting he would be able to satisfy the Milanese, to whom he pointed out the danger they must have incurred had he not complied with it; for her citizens would have surrendered themselves to the Venetians or to the duke of Savoy; so that in either case they would have been deprived of the government, and therefore they ought to be more willing to have himself as their neighbor and friend, than a hostile power such as either of the others, and their enemy. The Milanese were upon this occasion greatly perplexed, imagining they had discovered the count's ambition, and the end he had in view; but they thought it desirable to conceal their fears, for they did not know, if the count were to desert them, to whom they could have recourse except the Venetians, whose pride and tyranny they naturally dreaded. They therefore resolved not to break with the count, but by his assistance remedy the evils with which they were threatened, hoping that when freed from them they might rescue themselves from him also; for at that time they were assailed not only by the Venetians but by the Genoese and the duke of Savoy, in the name of Charles of Orleans, the son of a sister of Filippo, but whom the count easily vanquished. Thus their only remaining enemies were the Venetians, who, with a powerful army, determined to occupy their territories, and had already taken possession of Lodi and Piacenza, before which latter place the count encamped; and, after a long siege, took and pillaged the city. Winter being set in, he led his forces into quarters, and then withdrew to Cremona, where, during the cold season, he remained in repose with his wife. In the spring, the Venetian and Milanese armies again took the field. It was the design of the Milanese, first to recover Lodi and then to come to terms with the Venetians; for the expenses of the war had become very great, and they were doubtful of their general's sincerity, so that they were anxious alike for the repose of peace, and for security against the count. They therefore resolved that the army should march to the siege of Carravaggio, hoping that Lodi would surrender, on that fortress being wrested from the enemy's hands. The count obeyed, though he would have preferred crossing the Adda and attacking the Brescian territory. Having encamped before Caravaggio, he so strongly entrenched himself, that if the enemy attempted to relieve the place, they would have to attack him at a great disadvantage. The Venetian army, led by Micheletto, approached within two bowshots of the enemy's camp, and many skirmishes ensued. The count continued to press the fortress, and reduced it to the very last extremity, which greatly distressed the Venetians, since they knew the loss of it would involve the total failure of their expedition. Very different views were entertained by their military officers respecting the best mode of relieving the place, but they saw no course open except to attack the enemy in his trenches, in spite of all obstacles. The castle was, however, considered of such paramount importance, that the Venetian senate, though naturally timid, and averse to all hazardous undertakings, chose rather to risk everything than allow it to fall into the hands of the enemy. They therefore resolved to attack the count at all events, and early the next morning commenced their assault upon a point which was least defended. At the first charge, as commonly happens in a surprise, Francesco's whole army was thrown into dismay. Order, however, was soon so completely restored by the count, that the enemy, after various efforts to gain the outworks, were repulsed and put to flight; and so entirely routed, that of twelve thousand horse only one thousand escaped the hands of the Milanese, who took possession of all the carriages and military stores; nor had the Venetians ever before suffered such a thorough rout and overthrow. Among the plunder and prisoners, crouching down, as if to escape observation, was found a Venetian commissary, who, in the course of the war and before the fight, had spoken contemptuously of the count, calling him "bastard," and "base-born." Being made prisoner, he remembered his faults, and fearing punishment, being taken before the count, was agonized with terror; and, as is usual with mean minds (in prosperity insolent, in adversity abject and cringing), prostrated himself, weeping and begging pardon for the offenses he had committed. The count, taking him by the arm, raised him up, and encouraged him to hope for the best. He then said he wondered how a man so prudent and respectable as himself, could so far err as to speak disparagingly of those who did not merit it; and as regarded the insinuations which he had made against him, he really did not know how Sforza his father, and Madonna Lucia his mother, had proceeded together, not having been there, and having no opportunity of interfering in the matter, so that he was not liable either to blame or praise. However, he knew very well, that in regard to his own actions he had conducted himself so that no one could blame him; and in proof of this he would refer both the Venetian senate and himself to what had happened that day. He then advised him in future to be more respectful in speaking of others, and more cautious in regard to his own proceedings. CHAPTER IV The count's successes--The Venetians come to terms with him--Views of the Venetians--Indignation of the Milanese against the count--Their ambassador's address to him--The count's moderation and reply--The count and the Milanese prepare for war--Milanese ambassadors at Venice--League of the Venetians and Milanese--The count dupes the Venetians and Milanese--He applies for assistance to the Florentines--Diversity of opinions in Florence on the subject--Neri di Gino Capponi averse to assisting the count--Cosmo de' Medici disposed to do so--The Florentines sent ambassadors to the count. After this victory, the count marched into the Brescian territory, occupied the whole country, and then pitched his camp within two miles of the city. The Venetians, having well-grounded fears that Brescia would be next attacked, provided the best defense in their power. They then collected the relics of their army, and, by virtue of the treaty, demanded assistance of the Florentines; who, being relieved from the war with Alfonso, sent them one thousand foot and two thousand horse, by whose aid the Venetians were in a condition to treat for peace. At one time it seemed the fate of their republic to lose by war and win by negotiation; for what was taken from them in battle was frequently restored twofold on the restoration of peace. They knew the Milanese were jealous of the count, and that he wished to be not their captain merely, but their sovereign; and as it was in their power to make peace with either of the two (the one desiring it from ambition, the other from fear), they determined to make choice of the count, and offer him assistance to effect his design; persuading themselves, that as the Milanese would perceive they had been duped by him, they would in revenge place themselves in the power of any one rather than in his; and that, becoming unable either to defend themselves or trust the count, they would be compelled, having no other resource, to fall into their hands. Having taken this resolution, they sounded the count, and found him quite disposed for peace, evidently desirous that the honor and advantage of the victory at Caravaggio should be his own, and not accrue to the Milanese. The parties therefore entered into an agreement, in which the Venetians undertook to pay the count thirteen thousand florins per month, till he should obtain Milan, and to furnish him, during the continuance of the war, four thousand horse and two thousand foot. The count engaged to restore to the Venetians the towns, prisoners, and whatever else had been taken by him during the late campaigns, and content himself with those territories which the duke possessed at the time of his death. When this treaty became known at Milan, it grieved the citizens more than the victory at Caravaggio had exhilarated them. The rulers of the city mourned, the people complained, women and children wept, and all exclaimed against the count as false and perfidious. Although they could not hope that either prayers or promises would divert him from his ungrateful design, they sent ambassadors to see with what kind of color he would invest his unprincipled proceedings, and being admitted to his presence, one of them spoke to the following effect;--"It is customary with those who wish to obtain a favor, to make use either of prayers, presents, or threats, that pity, convenience, or fear, may induce a compliance with their requests. But as with cruel, avaricious, or, in their own conceit, powerful men, these arguments have no weight, it is vain to hope, either to soften them by prayers, win them by presents, or alarm them by menaces. We, therefore, being now, though late, aware of thy pride, cruelty, and ambition, come hither, not to ask aught, nor with the hope, even if we were so disposed, of obtaining it, but to remind thee of the benefits thou hast received from the people of Milan, and to prove with what heartless ingratitude thou hast repaid them, that at least, under the many evils oppressing us, we may derive some gratification from telling thee how and by whom they have been produced. Thou canst not have forgotten thy wretched condition at the death of the duke Filippo; the king and the pope were both thine enemies; thou hadst abandoned the Florentines and the Venetians, who, on account of their just indignation, and because they stood in no further need of thee, were almost become thy declared enemies. Thou wert exhausted by thy wars against the church; with few followers, no friends, or any money; hopeless of being able to preserve either thy territories or thy reputation. From these circumstances thy ruin must have ensued, but for our simplicity; we received thee to our home, actuated by reverence for the happy memory of our duke, with whom, being connected by marriage and renewed alliance, we believed thy affection would descend to those who had inherited his authority, and that, if to the benefits he had conferred on thee, our own were added, the friendship we sought to establish would not only be firm, but inseparable; with this impression, we added Verona or Brescia to thy previous appointments. What more could we either give or promise thee? What else couldst thou, not from us merely, but from any others, have either had or expected? Thou receivedst from us an unhoped-for benefit, and we, in return, an unmerited wrong. Neither hast thou deferred until now the manifestation of thy base designs; for no sooner wert thou appointed to command our armies, than, contrary to every dictate of propriety, thou didst accept Pavia, which plainly showed what was to be the result of thy friendship; but we bore with the injury, in hope that the greatness of the advantage would satisfy thy ambition. Alas! those who grasp at all cannot be satisfied with a part. Thou didst promise that we should possess the conquests which thou might afterward make; for thou wert well aware that what was given at many times might be withdrawn at once, as was the case after the victory at Caravaggio, purchased by our money and blood, and followed by our ruin. Oh! unhappy states, which have to guard against their oppressor; but much more wretched those who have to trust to mercenary and faithless arms like thine! May our example instruct posterity, since that of Thebes and Philip of Macedon, who, after victory over her enemies, from being her captain became her foe and her prince, could not avail us. "The only fault of which we are conscious is our over-weening confidence in one whom we ought not to have trusted; for thy past life, thy restless mind, incapable of repose, ought to have put us on our guard; neither ought we to have confided in one who betrayed the lord of Lucca, set a fine upon the Florentines and the Venetians, defied the duke, despised the king, and besides all this, persecuted the church of God, and the Divinity himself with innumerable atrocities. We ought not to have fancied that so many potentates possessed less influence over the mind of Francesco Sforza, than the Milanese; or that he would preserve unblemished that faith towards us which he had on so many occasions broken with them. Still this want of caution in us does not excuse the perfidy in thee; nor can it obliterate the infamy with which our just complaints will blacken thy character throughout the world, or prevent the remorse of thy conscience, when our arms are used for our own destruction; for thou wilt see that the sufferings due to parricides are fully deserved by thee. And though ambition should blind thine eyes, the whole world, witness to thine iniquity, will compel thee to open them; God himself will unclose them, if perjuries, if violated faith, if treacheries displease him, and if, as ever, he is still the enemy of the wicked. Do not, therefore, promise thyself any certainty of victory; for the just wrath of the Almighty will weigh heavily upon thee; and we are resolved to lose our liberty only with our lives; but if we found we could not ultimately defend it, we would submit ourselves to anyone rather than to thee. And if our sins be so great that in spite of our utmost resolution, we should still fall into thy hands, be quite assured, that the sovereignty which is commenced in deceit and villainy, will terminate either in thyself or thy children with ignominy and blood." The count, though not insensible to the just reproaches of the Milanese, did not exhibit either by words or gestures any unusual excitement, and replied, that "He willingly attributed to their angry feelings all the serious charges of their indiscreet harangue; and he would reply to them in detail, were he in the presence of anyone who could decide their differences; for it would be evident that he had not injured the Milanese, but only taken care that they should not injure him. They well knew how they had proceeded after the victory of Caravaggio; for, instead of rewarding him with either Verona or Brescia, they sought peace with the Venetians, that all the blame of the quarrel might rest on him, themselves obtaining the fruit of victory, the credit of peace, and all the advantages that could be derived from the war. It would thus be manifest they had no right to complain, when he had effected the arrangements which they first attempted to make; and that if he had deferred to do so a little longer, he would have had reason to accuse them of the ingratitude with which they were now charging him. Whether the charge were true or false, that God, whom they had invoked to avenge their injuries, would show at the conclusion of the war, and would demonstrate which was most his friend, and who had most justice on their side." Upon the departure of the ambassadors, the count determined to attack the Milanese, who prepared for their defense, and appointed Francesco and Jacopo Piccinino (attached to their cause, on account of the ancient feud of the families of Braccio and Sforza) to conduct their forces in support of liberty; at least till they could deprive the count of the aid of the Venetians, who they did not think would long be either friendly or faithful to him. On the other hand, the count, perfectly aware of this, thought it not imprudent, supposing the obligation of the treaty insufficient, to bind them by the ties of interest; and, therefore, in assigning to each their portion of the enterprise, he consented that the Venetians should attack Crema, and himself, with the other forces, assail the remainder of the territory. The advantage of this arrangement kept the Venetians so long in alliance with the count, that he was enabled to conquer the whole of the Milanese territory, and to press the city so closely, that the inhabitants could not provide themselves with necessaries; despairing of success, they sent envoys to the Venetians to beg they would compassionate their distress, and, as ought to be the case between republics, assist them in defense of their liberty against a tyrant, whom, if once master of their city, they would be unable to restrain; neither did they think he would be content with the boundaries assigned him by the treaty, but would expect all the dependencies of Milan. The Venetians had not yet taken Crema, and wishing before they changed sides, to effect this point, they PUBLICLY answered the envoys, that their engagements with the count prevented them from defending the Milanese; but SECRETLY, gave them every assurance of their wish to do so. The count had approached so near Milan with his forces, that he was disputing the suburbs with the inhabitants, when the Venetians having taken Crema, thought they need no longer hesitate to declare in favor of the Milanese, with whom they made peace and entered into alliance; among the terms of which was the defense of their liberty unimpaired. Having come to this agreement, they ordered their forces to withdraw from the count's camp and to return to the Venetian territory. They informed him of the peace made with the Milanese, and gave him twenty days to consider what course he would adopt. He was not surprised at the step taken by the Venetians, for he had long foreseen it, and expected its occurrence daily; but when it actually took place, he could not avoid feeling regret and displeasure similar to what the Milanese had experienced when he abandoned them. He took two days to consider the reply he would make to the ambassadors whom the Venetians had sent to inform him of the treaty, and during this time he determined to dupe the Venetians, and not abandon his enterprise; therefore, appearing openly to accept the proposal for peace, he sent his ambassadors to Venice with full credentials to effect the ratification, but gave them secret orders not to do so, and with pretexts or caviling to put it off. To give the Venetians greater assurance of his sincerity, he made a truce with the Milanese for a month, withdrew from Milan and divided his forces among the places he had taken. This course was the occasion of his victory and the ruin of the Milanese; for the Venetians, confident of peace, were slow in preparing for war, and the Milanese finding the truce concluded, the enemy withdrawn, and the Venetians their friends, felt assured that the count had determined to abandon his design. This idea injured them in two ways: one, by neglecting to provide for their defense; the next, that, being seed-time, they sowed a large quantity of grain in the country which the enemy had evacuated, and thus brought famine upon themselves. On the other hand, all that was injurious to his enemies favored the count, and the time gave him opportunity to take breath and provide himself with assistance. The Florentines during the war of Lombardy had not declared in favor of either party, or assisted the count either in defense of the Milanese or since; for he never having been in need had not pressingly requested it; and they only sent assistance to the Venetians after the rout at Caravaggio, in pursuance of the treaty. Count Francesco, standing now alone, and not knowing to whom else he could apply, was compelled to request immediate aid of the Florentines, publicly from the state, and privately from friends, particularly from Cosmo de' Medici, with whom he had always maintained a steady friendship, and by whom he had constantly been faithfully advised and liberally supported. Nor did Cosmo abandon him in his extreme necessity, but supplied him generously from his own resources, and encouraged him to prosecute his design. He also wished the city publicly to assist him, but there were difficulties in the way. Neri di Gino Capponi, one of the most powerful citizens of Florence, thought it not to the advantage of the city, that the count should obtain Milan; and was of opinion that it would be more to the safety of Italy for him to ratify the peace than pursue the war. In the first place, he apprehended that the Milanese, through their anger against the count, would surrender themselves entirely to the Venetians, which would occasion the ruin of all. Supposing he should occupy Milan, it appeared to him that so great military superiority, combined with such an extent of territory, would be dangerous to themselves, and that if as count he was intolerable, he would become doubly so as duke. He therefore considered it better for the republic of Florence and for Italy, that the count should be content with his military reputation, and that Lombardy should be divided into two republics, which could never be united to injure others, and separately are unable to do so. To attain this he saw no better means than to refrain from aiding the count, and continuing in the former league with the Venetians. These reasonings were not satisfactory to Cosmo's friends, for they imagined that Neri had argued thus, not from a conviction of its advantage to the republic, but to prevent the count, as a friend of Cosmo, from becoming duke, apprehending that Cosmo would, in consequence of this, become too powerful. Cosmo, in reply, pointed out, that to lend assistance to the count would be highly beneficial both to Italy and the republic; for it was unwise to imagine the Milanese could preserve their own liberty; for the nature of their community, their mode of life, and their hereditary feuds were opposed to every kind of civil government, so that it was necessary, either that the count should become duke of Milan, or the Venetians her lords. And surely under such circumstances, no one could doubt which would be most to their advantage, to have for their neighbor a powerful friend or a far more powerful foe. Neither need it be apprehended that the Milanese, while at war with the count, would submit to the Venetians; for the count had a stronger party in the city, and the Venetians had not, so that whenever they were unable to defend themselves as freemen, they would be more inclined to obey the count than the Venetians. These diverse views kept the city long in suspense; but at length it was resolved to send ambassadors to the count to settle the terms of agreement, with instructions, that if they found him in such a condition as to give hopes of his ultimate success, they were to close with him, but, if otherwise, they were to draw out the time in diplomacy. CHAPTER V Prosecution of the war between the count and the Milanese--The Milanese reduced to extremity--The people rise against the magistrates--Milan surrenders to the count--League between the new duke of Milan and the Florentines, and between the king of Naples and the Venetians--Venetian and Neapolitan ambassadors at Florence--Answer of Cosmo de' Medici to the Venetian ambassador--Preparations of the Venetians and the king of Naples for the war--The Venetians excite disturbances in Bologna--Florence prepares for war--The emperor, Frederick III. at Florence--War in Lombardy between the duke of Milan and the Venetians--Ferrando, son of the king of Naples, marches into Tuscany against the Florentines. The ambassadors were at Reggio when they heard that the count had become lord of Milan; for as soon as the truce had expired, he approached the city with his forces, hoping quickly to get possession of it in spite of the Venetians, who could bring no relief except from the side of the Adda, which route he could easily obstruct, and therefore had no apprehension (being then winter) of their arrival, and he trusted that, before the return of spring, he would be victorious, particularly, as by the death of Francesco Piccinino, there remained only Jacopo his brother, to command the Milanese. The Venetians had sent an ambassador to Milan to confirm the citizens in their resolution of defense, promising them powerful and immediate aid. During the winter a few slight skirmishes had taken place between the count and the Venetians; but on the approach of milder weather, the latter, under Pandolfo Malatesti, halted with their army upon the Adda, and considering whether, in order to succor the Milanese, they ought to risk a battle, Pardolfo, their general, aware of the count's abilities, and the courage of his army, said it would be unadvisable to do so, and that, under the circumstances, it was needless, for the count, being in great want of forage, could not keep the field, and must soon retire. He therefore advised them to remain encamped, to keep the Milanese in hope, and prevent them from surrendering. This advice was approved by the Venetians, both as being safe, and because, by keeping the Milanese in this necessity, they might be the sooner compelled to submit to their dominion; for they felt quite sure that the injuries they had received would always prevent their submission to the count. In the meantime, the Milanese were reduced to the utmost misery; and as the city usually abounded with poor, many died of hunger in the streets; hence arose complaints and disturbances in several parts, which alarmed the magistrates, and compelled them to use their utmost exertions to prevent popular meetings. The multitude are always slow to resolve on commotion; but the resolution once formed, any trivial circumstance excites it to action. Two men in humble life, talking together near the Porta Nuova of the calamities of the city, their own misery, and the means that might be adopted for their relief, others beginning to congregate, there was soon collected a large crowd; in consequence of it a report was spread that the neighborhood of Porta Nuova had risen against the government. Upon this, all the lower orders, who only waited for an example, assembled in arms, and chose Gasparre da Vicomercato to be their leader. They then proceeded to the place where the magistrates were assembled, and attacked them so impetuously that all who did not escape by flight were slain: among the number, as being considered a principal cause of the famine, and gratified at their distress, fell Lionardo Veniero, the Venetian ambassador. Having thus almost become masters of the city, they considered what course was next to be adopted to escape from the horrors surrounding them, and to procure peace. A feeling universally prevailed, that as they could not preserve their own liberty, they ought to submit to a prince who could defend them. Some proposed King Alfonso, some the duke of Savoy, and others the king of France, but none mentioned the count, so great was the general indignation against him. However, disagreeing with the rest, Gasparre da Vicomercato proposed him, and explained in detail that if they desired relief from war, no other plan was open, since the people of Milan required a certain and immediate peace, and not a distant hope of succor. He apologized for the count's proceedings, accused the Venetians, and all the powers of Italy, of which some from ambition and others from avarice were averse to their possessing freedom. Having to dispose of their liberty, it would be preferable, he said, to obey one who knew and could defend them; so that, by their servitude they might obtain peace, and not bring upon themselves greater evils and more dangerous wars. He was listened to with the most profound attention; and, having concluded his harangue, it was unanimously resolved by the assembly, that the count should be called in, and Gasparre was appointed to wait upon him and signify their desire. By the people's command he conveyed the pleasing and happy intelligence to the count, who heard it with the utmost satisfaction, and entered Milan as prince on the twenty-sixth of February, 1450, where he was received with the greatest possible joy by those who, only a short time previously had heaped on him all the slanders that hatred could inspire. The news of this event reaching Florence, orders were immediately sent to the envoys who were upon the way to Milan, that instead of treating for his alliance with the count, they should congratulate the duke upon his victory; they, arranging accordingly, had a most honorable reception, and were treated with all possible respect; for the duke well knew that in all Italy he could not find braver or more faithful friends, to defend him against the power of the Venetians, than the Florentines, who, being no longer in fear of the house of Visconti, found themselves opposed by the Aragonese and Venetians; for the Aragonese princes of Naples were jealous of the friendship which the Florentines had always evinced for the family of France; and the Venetians seeing the ancient enmity of the Florentines against the Visconti transferred to themselves, resolved to injure them as much as possible; for they knew how pertinaciously and invariably they had persecuted the Lombard princes. These considerations caused the new duke willingly to join the Florentines, and united the Venetians and King Alfonso against their common enemies; impelling them at the same time to hostilities, the king against the Florentines, and the Venetians against the duke, who, being fresh in the government, would, they imagined, be unable to resist them, even with all the aid he could obtain. But as the league between the Florentines and the Venetians still continued, and as the king, after the war of Piombino, had made peace with the former, it seemed indecent to commence an open rupture until some plausible reason could be assigned in justification of offensive measures. On this account each sent ambassadors to Florence, who, on the part of their sovereigns, signified that the league formed between them was made not for injury to any, but solely for the mutual defense of their states. The Venetian ambassador then complained that the Florentines had allowed Alessandro, the duke's brother, to pass into Lombardy with his forces; and besides this, had assisted and advised in the treaty made between the duke and the marquis of Mantua, matters which he declared to be injurious to the Venetians, and inconsistent with the friendship hitherto subsisting between the two governments; amicably reminding them, that one who inflicts unmerited injury, gives others just ground of hostility, and that those who break a peace may expect war. The Signory appointed Cosmo de' Medici to reply to what had been said by the Venetian ambassador, and in a long and excellent speech he recounted the numerous advantages conferred by the city on the Venetian republic; showed what an extent of dominion they had acquired by the money, forces, and counsel of the Florentines, and reminded him that, although the friendship had originated with the Florentines, they had never given occasion of enmity; and as they desired peace, they greatly rejoiced when the treaty was made, if it had been entered into for the sake of peace, and not of war. True it was, he wondered much at the remarks which had been made, seeing that such light and trivial matters should give offense to so great a republic; but if they were worthy of notice he must have it universally understood, that the Florentines wished their country to be free and open to all; and that the duke's character was such, that if he desired the friendship of the marquis of Mantua, he had no need of anyone's favor or advice. He therefore feared that these cavils were produced by some latent motive, which it was not thought proper to disclose. Be this as it might, they would freely declare to all, that in the same proportion as the friendship of the Florentines was beneficial their enmity could be destructive. The matter was hushed up; and the ambassadors, on their departure, appeared perfectly satisfied. But the league between the king and the Venetians made the Florentines and the duke rather apprehend war than hope for a long continuance of peace. They therefore entered into an alliance, and at the same time the enmity of the Venetians transpired by a treaty with the Siennese, and the expulsion of all Florentine subjects from their cities and territories. Shortly after this, Alfonso did the same, without any consideration of the peace made the year previous, and not having even the shadow of an excuse. The Venetians attempted to take Bologna, and having armed the emigrants, and united to them a considerable force, introduced them into the city by night through one of the common sewers. No sooner had they entered, than they raised a cry, by which Santi Bentivogli, being awakened, was told that the whole city was in possession of the rebels. But though many advised him to escape, saying that he could not save the city by his stay, he determined to confront the danger, and taking arms encouraged his followers, assembled a few friends, attacked and routed part of the rebels, slew many more, and drove the remainder out of the city. By this act of bravery all agreed he had fully proved himself a genuine scion of the house of the Bentivogli. These events and demonstrations gave the Florentines an earnest of approaching war; they consequently followed their usual practice on similar occasions, and created the Council of Ten. They engaged new condottieri, sent ambassadors to Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, and Sienna, to demand assistance from their friends, gain information about those they suspected, decide such as were wavering, and discover the designs of the foe. From the pope they obtained only general expressions of an amicable disposition and admonitions to peace; from the king, empty excuses for having expelled the Florentines, and offers of safe conduct for whoever should demand it; and although he endeavored, as much as possible, to conceal every indication of his hostile designs, the ambassadors felt convinced of his unfriendly disposition, and observed many preparations tending to the injury of the republic. The League with the duke was strengthened by mutual obligations, and through his means they became friends with the Genoese, the old differences with them respecting reprisals, and other small matters of dispute, being composed, although the Venetians used every possible means to prevent it, and entreated the emperor of Constantinople to expel all Florentines from his dominions; so fierce was the animosity with which they entered on this war, and so powerful their lust of dominion, that without the least hesitation they sought the destruction of those who had been the occasion of their own power. The emperor, however, refused to listen to them. The Venetian senate forbade the Florentine ambassadors to enter their territories, alleging, that being in league with the king, they could not entertain them without his concurrence. The Siennese received the ambassadors with fair words, fearing their own ruin before the League could assist them, and therefore endeavored to appease the powers whose attack they were unable to resist. The Venetians and the king (as was then conjectured) were disposed to send ambassadors to Florence to justify the war. But the Venetian envoy was not allowed to enter the Florentine dominions, and the king's ambassador, being unwilling to perform his office alone, the embassy was not completed; and thus the Venetians learned, that however little they might esteem the Florentines, the latter had still less respect for them. In the midst of these fears, the emperor, Frederick III., came into Italy to be crowned. On the thirtieth of January, 1451, he entered Florence with fifteen hundred horse, and was most honorably received by the Signory. He remained in the city till the sixth of February, and then proceeded to Rome for his coronation, where, having been solemnly consecrated, and his marriage celebrated with the empress, who had come to Rome by sea, he returned to Germany, and again passed through Florence in May, with the same honors as upon his arrival. On his return, having derived some benefits from the marquis of Mantua, he conceded to him Modena and Reggio. In the meantime, the Florentines did not fail to prepare themselves for immediate war; and to augment their influence, and strike the enemy with terror, they, in conjunction with the duke, entered into alliance with the king of France for the mutual defense of their states. This treaty was published with great pomp throughout all Italy. The month of May, 1452, having arrived, the Venetians thought it not desirable to defer any longer their attack upon the duke, and with sixteen thousand horse and six thousand foot assailed his territories in the direction of Lodi, while the marquis of Montferrat, instigated either by his own ambition or the entreaties of the Venetians, did the same on the side of Alexandria. The duke assembled a force of eighteen thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry, garrisoned Alexandria and Lodi, and all the other places where the enemy might annoy them. He then attacked the Brescian territory, and greatly harassed the Venetians; while both parties alike plundered the country and ravaged the smaller towns. Having defeated the marquis of Montferrat at Alexandria, the duke was able to unite his whole force against the Venetians and invade their territory. While the war in Lombardy proceeded thus, giving rise to various trifling incidents unworthy of recital, King Alfonso and the Florentines carried on hostilities in Tuscany, but in a similarly inefficient manner, evincing no greater talent, and incurring no greater danger. Ferrando, the illegitimate son of Alfonso, entered the country with twelve thousand troops, under the command of Federigo, lord of Urbino. Their first attempt was to attack Fojano, in the Val di Chiane; for, having the Siennese in their favor, they entered the Florentine territory in that direction. The walls of the castle were weak, and it was small, and consequently poorly manned, but the garrison were, among the soldiers of that period, considered brave and faithful. Two hundred infantry were also sent by the Signory for its defense. Before this castle, thus provided, Ferrando sat down, and either from the valor of its defenders or his own deficiencies, thirty-six days elapsed before he took it. This interval enabled the city to make better provision for places of greater importance, to collect forces and conclude more effective arrangements than had hitherto been made. The enemy next proceeded into the district of Chiane, where they attacked two small towns, the property of private citizens, but could not capture them. They then encamped before the Castellina, a fortress upon the borders of the Chianti, within ten miles of Sienna, weak from its defective construction, and still more so by its situation; but, notwithstanding these defects, the assailants were compelled to retire in disgrace, after having lain before it forty-four days. So formidable were those armies, and so perilous those wars, that places now abandoned as untenable were then defended as impregnable. While Ferrando was encamped in the Chianti he made many incursions, and took considerable booty from the Florentine territories, extending his depredations within six miles of the city, to the great alarm and injury of the people, who at this time, having sent their forces to the number of eight thousand soldiers under Astorre da Faenza and Gismondo Malatesti toward Castel di Colle, kept them at a distance from the enemy, lest they should be compelled to an engagement; for they considered that so long as they were not beaten in a pitched battle, they could not be vanquished in the war generally; for small castles, when lost, were recovered at the peace, and larger places were in no danger, because the enemy would not venture to attack them. The king had also a fleet of about twenty vessels, comprising galleys and smaller craft, which lay off Pisa, and during the siege of Castellina were moored near the Rocca di Vada, which, from the negligence of the governor, he took, and then harassed the surrounding country. However, this annoyance was easily removed by a few soldiers sent by the Florentines to Campiglia, and who confined the enemy to the coast. CHAPTER VI Conspiracy of Stefano Porcari against the papal government--The conspirators discovered and punished--The Florentines recover the places they had lost--Gherardo Gambacorti, lord of Val di Bagno, endeavors to transfer his territories to the king of Naples--Gallant conduct of Antonio Gualandi, who counteracts the design of Gambacorti--René of Anjou is called into Italy by the Florentines--René returns to France--The pope endeavors to restore peace--Peace proclaimed--Jacopo Piccinino attacks the Siennese. The pontiff did not interfere in these affairs further than to endeavor to bring the parties to a mutual accommodation; but while he refrained from external wars he incurred the danger of more serious troubles at home. Stefano Porcari was a Roman citizen, equally distinguished for nobility of birth and extent of learning, but still more by the excellence of his character. Like all who are in pursuit of glory, he resolved either to perform or to attempt something worthy of memory, and thought he could not do better than deliver his country from the hands of the prelates, and restore the ancient form of government; hoping, in the event of success, to be considered a new founder or second father of the city. The dissolute manners of the priesthood, and the discontent of the Roman barons and people, encouraged him to look for a happy termination of his enterprise; but he derived his greatest confidence from those verses of Petrarch in the canzone which begins, "Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi," where he says,-- "Sopra il Monte Tarpejo canzon vedra, Un cavalier, ch' Italia tutta onora, Pensoso piu d'altrui, che di se stesso." Stefano, believing poets are sometimes endowed with a divine and prophetic spirit, thought the event must take place which Petrarch in this canzone seemed to foretell, and that he was destined to effect the glorious task; considering himself in learning, eloquence, friends, and influence, superior to any other citizen of Rome. Having taken these impressions, he had not sufficient prudence to avoid discovering his design by his discourse, demeanor, and mode of living; so that the pope becoming acquainted with it, in order to prevent the commission of some rash act, banished him to Bologna and charged the governor of the city to compel his appearance before him once every day. Stefano was not daunted by this first check, but with even greater earnestness prosecuted his undertaking, and, by such means as were available, more cautiously corresponded with his friends, and often went and returned from Rome with such celerity as to be in time to present himself before the governor within the limit allowed for his appearance. Having acquired a sufficient number of partisans, he determined to make the attempt without further delay, and arranged with his friends at Rome to provide an evening banquet, to which all the conspirators were invited, with orders that each should bring with him his most trust-worthy friends, and himself promised to be with him before the entertainment was served. Everything was done according to this orders, and Stefano Porcari arrived at the place appointed. Supper being brought in, he entered the apartment dressed in cloth of gold, with rich ornaments about his neck, to give him a dignified appearance and commanding aspect. Having embraced the company, he delivered a long oration to dispose their minds to the glorious undertaking. He then arranged the measures to be adopted, ordering that one part of them should, on the following morning, take possession of the pontiff's palace, and that the other should call the people of Rome to arms. The affair came to the knowledge of the pope the same night, some say by treachery among the conspirators, and others that he knew of Porcari's presence at Rome. Be this as it may, on the night of the supper Stefano, and the greater part of his associates, were arrested, and afterward expiated their crime by death. Thus ended his enterprise; and though some may applaud his intentions, he must stand charged with deficiency of understanding; for such undertakings, though possessing some slight appearance of glory, are almost always attended with ruin. Gherardo Gambacorti was lord of Val di Bagno, and his ancestors as well as himself had always been in the pay or under the protection of the Florentines. Alfonso endeavored to induce him to exchange his territory for another in the kingdom of Naples. This became known to the Signory, who, in order to ascertain his designs, sent an ambassador to Gambacorti, to remind him of the obligations of his ancestors and himself to their republic, and induce him to continue faithful to them. Gherardo affected the greatest astonishment, assured the ambassador with solemn oaths that no such treacherous thought had ever entered his mind, and that he would gladly go to Florence and pledge himself for the truth of his assertions; but being unable, from indisposition, he would send his son as an hostage. These assurances, and the proposal with which they were accompanied, induced the Florentines to think Gherardo had been slandered, and that his accuser must be alike weak and treacherous. Gherardo, however, hastened his negotiation with redoubled zeal, and having arranged the terms, Alfonso sent Frate Puccio, a knight of Jerusalem, with a strong body of men to the Val di Bagno, to take possession of the fortresses and towns, the people of which, being attached to the Florentine republic, submitted unwillingly. Frate Puccio had already taken possession of nearly the whole territory, except the fortress of Corzano. Gambacorti was accompanied, while transferring his dominions, by a young Pisan of great courage and address, named Antonio Gualandi, who, considering the whole affair, the strength of the place, the well known bravery of the garrison, their evident reluctance to give it up, and the baseness of Gambacorti, at once resolved to make an effort to prevent the fulfillment of his design; and Gherardo being at the entrance, for the purpose of introducing the Aragonese, he pushed him out with both his hands, and commanded the guards to shut the gate upon such a scoundrel, and hold the fortress for the Florentine republic. When this circumstance became known in Bagno and the neighboring places, the inhabitants took up arms against the king's forces, and, raising the Florentine standard, drove them out. The Florentines learning these events, imprisoned Gherardo's son, and sent troops to Bagno for the defense of the territory, which having hitherto been governed by its own prince, now became a vicariate. The traitor Gherardo escaped with difficulty, leaving his wife, family, and all his property, in the hands of those whom he had endeavored to betray. This affair was considered by the Florentines of great importance; for had the king succeeded in securing the territory, he might have overrun the Val di Tavere and the Casentino at his pleasure, and would have caused so much annoyance, that they could no longer have allowed their whole force to act against the army of the Aragonese at Sienna. In addition to the preparations made by the Florentines in Italy to resist the hostile League, they sent as ambassador, Agnolo Acciajuoli, to request that the king of France would allow René of Anjou to enter Italy in favor of the duke and themselves, and also, that by his presence in the country, he might defend his friends and attempt the recovery of the kingdom of Naples; for which purpose they offered him assistance in men and money. While the war was proceeding in Lombardy and Tuscany, the ambassador effected an arrangement with King René, who promised to come into Italy during the month of June, the League engaging to pay him thirty thousand florins upon his arrival at Alexandria, and ten thousand per month during the continuance of the war. In pursuance of this treaty, King René commenced his march into Italy, but was stopped by the duke of Savoy and the marquis of Montferrat, who, being in alliance with the Venetians, would not allow him to pass. The Florentine ambassador advised, that in order to uphold the influence of his friends, he should return to Provence, and conduct part of his forces into Italy by sea, and, in the meantime, endeavor, by the authority of the king of France, to obtain a passage for the remainder through the territories of the duke. This plan was completely successful; for René came into Italy by sea, and his forces, by the mediation of the king of France, were allowed a passage through Savoy. King René was most honorably received by Duke Francesco, and joining his French with the Italian forces, they attacked the Venetians with so much impetuosity, that they shortly recovered all the places which had been taken in the Cremonese. Not content with this, they occupied nearly the whole Brescian territory; so that the Venetians, unable to keep the field, withdrew close to the walls of Brescia. Winter coming on, the duke deemed it advisable to retire into quarters, and appointed Piacenza for the forces of René, where, having passed the whole of the cold season of 1453, without attempting anything, the duke thought of taking the field, on the approach of spring, and stripping the Venetians of the remainder of their possessions by land, but was informed by the king that he was obliged of necessity to return to France. This determination was quite new and unexpected to the duke, and caused him the utmost concern; but though he immediately went to dissuade René from carrying it into effect, he was unable either by promises or entreaties to divert him from his purpose. He engaged, however, to leave part of his forces, and send his son for the service of the League. The Florentines were not displeased at this; for having recovered their territories and castles, they were no longer in fear of Alfonso, and on the other hand, they did not wish the duke to obtain any part of Lombardy but what belonged to him. René took his departure, and send his son John into Italy, according to his promise, who did not remain in Lombardy, but came direct to Florence, where he was received with the highest respect. The king's departure made the duke desirous of peace. The Venetians, Alfonso, and the Florentines, being all weary of the war, were similarly disposed; and the pope continued to wish it as much as ever; for during this year the Turkish emperor, Mohammed, had taken Constantinople and subdued the whole of Greece. This conquest alarmed the Christians, more especially the Venetians and the pope, who already began to fancy the Mohammedans at their doors. The pope therefore begged the Italian potentates to send ambassadors to himself, with authority to negotiate a general peace, with which all complied; but when the particular circumstances of each case came to be considered, many difficulties were found in the war of effecting it. King Alfonso required the Florentines to reimburse the expenses he had incurred in the war, and the Florentines demanded some compensation from him. The Venetians thought themselves entitled to Cremona from the duke; while he insisted upon the restoration of Bergamo, Brescia, and Crema; so that it seemed impossible to reconcile such conflicting claims. But what could not be effected by a number at Rome was easily managed at Milan and Venice by two; for while the matter was under discussion at Rome, the duke and the Venetians came to an arrangement on the ninth of April, 1454, by virtue of which, each party resumed what they possessed before the war, the duke being allowed to recover from the princes of Montferrat and Savoy the places they had taken. To the other Italian powers a month was allowed to ratify the treaty. The pope and the Florentines, and with them the Siennese and other minor powers, acceded to it within the time. Besides this, the Florentines, the Venetians, and the duke concluded a treaty of peace for twenty-five years. King Alfonso alone exhibited dissatisfaction at what had taken place, thinking he had not been sufficiently considered, that he stood, not on the footing of a principal, but only ranked as an auxiliary, and therefore kept aloof, and would not disclose his intentions. However, after receiving a legate from the pope, and many solemn embassies from other powers, he allowed himself to be persuaded, principally by means of the pontiff, and with his son joined the League for thirty years. The duke and the king also contracted a twofold relationship and double marriage, each giving a daughter to a son of the other. Notwithstanding this, that Italy might still retain the seeds of war, Alfonso would not consent to the peace, unless the League would allow him, without injury to themselves, to make war upon the Genoese, Gismondo Malatesti, and Astorre, prince of Faenza. This being conceded, his son Ferrando, who was at Sienna, returned to the kingdom, having by his coming into Tuscany acquired no dominion and lost a great number of his men. Upon the establishment of a general peace, the only apprehension entertained was, that it would be disturbed by the animosity of Alfonso against the Genoese; yet it happened otherwise. The king, indeed, did not openly infringe the peace, but it was frequently broken by the ambition of the mercenary troops. The Venetians, as usual on the conclusion of a war, had discharged Jacopo Piccinino, who with some other unemployed condottieri, marched into Romagna, thence into the Siennese, and halting in the country, took possession of many places. At the commencement of these disturbances, and the beginning of the year 1455, Pope Nicholas died, and was succeeded by Calixtus III., who, to put a stop to the war newly broken out so near home, immediately sent Giovanni Ventimiglia, his general, with what forces he could furnish. These being joined by the troops of the Florentines and the duke of Milan, both of whom furnished assistance, attacked Jacopo, near Bolsena, and though Ventimiglia was taken prisoner, yet Jacopo was worsted, and retreated in disorder to Castiglione della Pescaia, where, had he not been assisted by Alfonso, his force would have been completely annihilated. This made it evident that Jacopo's movement had been made by order of Alfonso, and the latter, as if palpably detected, to conciliate his allies, after having almost alienated them with this unimportant war, ordered Jacopo to restore to the Siennese the places he had taken, and they gave him twenty thousand florins by way of ransom, after which he and his forces were received into the kingdom of Naples. CHAPTER VII Christendom alarmed by the progress of the Turks--The Turks routed before Belgrade--Description of a remarkable hurricane--War against the Genoese and Gismondo Malatesti--Genoa submits to the king of France--Death of Alfonso king of Naples--Succeeded by his son Ferrando--The pope designs to give the kingdom of Naples to his nephew Piero Lodovico Borgia--Eulogy of Pius II.--Disturbances in Genoa between John of Anjou and the Fregosi--The Fregosi subdued--John attacks the kingdom of Naples--Ferrando king of Naples routed--Ferrando reinstated--The Genoese cast off the French yoke--John of Anjou routed in the kingdom of Naples. The pope, though anxious to restrain Jacopo Piccinino, did not neglect to make provision for the defense of Christendom, which seemed in danger from the Turks. He sent ambassadors and preachers into every Christian country, to exhort princes and people to arm in defense of their religion, and with their persons and property to contribute to the enterprise against the common enemy. In Florence, large sums were raised, and many citizens bore the mark of a red cross upon their dress to intimate their readiness to become soldiers of the faith. Solemn processions were made, and nothing was neglected either in public or private, to show their willingness to be among the most forward to assist the enterprise with money, counsel, or men. But the eagerness for this crusade was somewhat abated, by learning that the Turkish army, being at the siege of Belgrade, a strong city and fortress in Hungary, upon the banks of the Danube, had been routed and the emperor wounded; so that the alarm felt by the pope and all Christendom, on the loss of Constantinople, having ceased to operate, they proceeded with deliberately with their preparations for war; and in Hungary their zeal was cooled through the death of Giovanni Corvini the Waiwode, who commanded the Hungarian forces on that memorable occasion, and fell in the battle. To return to the affairs of Italy. In the year 1456, the disturbances occasioned by Jacopo Piccinino having subsided, and human weapons laid aside, the heavens seemed to make war against the earth; dreadful tempestuous winds then occurring, which produced effects unprecedented in Tuscany, and which to posterity will appear marvelous and unaccountable. On the twenty-fourth of August, about an hour before daybreak, there arose from the Adriatic near Ancona, a whirlwind, which crossing from east to west, again reached the sea near Pisa, accompanied by thick clouds, and the most intense and impenetrable darkness, covering a breadth of about two miles in the direction of its course. Under some natural or supernatural influence, this vast and overcharged volume of condensed vapor burst; its fragments contended with indescribable fury, and huge bodies sometimes ascending toward heaven, and sometimes precipitated upon the earth, struggled, as it were, in mutual conflict, whirling in circles with intense velocity, and accompanied by winds, impetuous beyond all conception; while flashes of awful brilliancy, and murky, lurid flames incessantly broke forth. From these confused clouds, furious winds, and momentary fires, sounds issued, of which no earthquake or thunder ever heard could afford the least idea; striking such awe into all, that it was thought the end of the world had arrived, that the earth, waters, heavens, and entire universe, mingling together, were being resolved into their ancient chaos. Wherever this awful tempest passed, it produced unprecedented and marvelous effects; but these were more especially experienced near the castle of St. Casciano, about eight miles from Florence, upon the hill which separates the valleys of Pisa and Grieve. Between this castle and the Borgo St. Andrea, upon the same hill, the tempest passed without touching the latter, and in the former, only threw down some of the battlements and the chimneys of a few houses; but in the space between them, it leveled many buildings quite to the ground. The roofs of the churches of St. Martin, at Bagnolo, and Santa Maria della Pace, were carried more than a mile, unbroken as when upon their respective edifices. A muleteer and his beasts were driven from the road into the adjoining valley, and found dead. All the large oaks and lofty trees which could not bend beneath its influence, were not only stripped of their branches but borne to a great distance from the places where they grew, and when the tempest had passed over and daylight made the desolation visible, the inhabitants were transfixed with dismay. The country had lost all its habitable character; churches and dwellings were laid in heaps; nothing was heard but the lamentations of those whose possessions had perished, or whose cattle or friends were buried beneath the ruins; and all who witnessed the scene were filled with anguish or compassion. It was doubtless the design of the Omnipotent, rather to threaten Tuscany than to chastise her; for had the hurricane been directed over the city, filled with houses and inhabitants, instead of proceeding among oaks and elms, or small and thinly scattered dwellings, it would have been such a scourge as the mind, with all its ideas of horror, could not have conceived. But the Almighty desired that this slight example should suffice to recall the minds of men to a knowledge of himself and of his power. To return to our history. King Alfonso was dissatisfied with the peace, and as the war which he had unnecessarily caused Jacopo Piccinino to make against the Siennese, had produced no important result, he resolved to try what could be done against those whom the conditions of the League permitted him to attack. He therefore, in the year 1456, assailed the Genoese, both by sea and by land, designing to deprive the Fregosi of the government and restore the Adorni. At the same time, he ordered Jacopo Piccinino to cross the Tronto, and attack Gismondo Malatesti, who, having fortified his territories, did not concern himself, and this part of the king's enterprise produced no effect; but his proceedings against Genoa occasioned more wars against himself and his kingdom than he could have wished. Piero Fregoso was then doge of Genoa, and doubting his ability to sustain the attack of the king, he determined to give what he could not hold, to some one who might defend it against his enemies, in hope, that at a future period, he should obtain a return for the benefit conferred. He therefore sent ambassadors to Charles VII. of France, and offered him the government of Genoa. Charles accepted the offer, and sent John of Anjou, the son of King René, who had a short time previously left Florence and returned to France, to take possession with the idea, that he, having learned the manners and customs of Italy, would be able to govern the city; and also that this might give him an opportunity of undertaking the conquest of Naples, of which René, John's father, had been deprived by Alfonso. John, therefore, proceeded to Genoa, where he was received as prince, and the fortresses, both of the city and the government, given up to him. This annoyed Alfonso, with the fear that he had brought upon himself too powerful an enemy. He was not, however, dismayed; but pursued his enterprise vigorously, and had led his fleet to Porto, below Villamarina, when he died after a sudden illness, and thus John and the Genoese were relieved from the war. Ferrando, who succeeded to the kingdom of his father Alfonso, became alarmed at having so powerful an enemy in Italy, and was doubtful of the disposition of many of his barons, who being desirous of change, he feared would take part with the French. He was also apprehensive of the pope, whose ambition he well knew, and who seeing him new in the government, might design to take it from him. He had no hope except from the duke of Milan, who entertained no less anxiety concerning the affairs of the kingdom than Ferrando; for he feared that if the French were to obtain it, they would endeavor to annex his own dominions; which he knew they considered to be rightfully their own. He, therefore, soon after the death of Alfonso, sent letters and forces to Ferrando; the latter to give him aid and influence, the former to encourage him with an intimation that he would not, under any circumstances, forsake him. The pontiff intended, after the death of Alfonso, to give the kingdom of Naples to his nephew Piero Lodovico Borgia, and, to furnish a decent pretext for his design and obtain the concurrence of the powers of Italy in its favor he signified a wish to restore that realm to the dominion of the church of Rome; and therefore persuaded the duke not to assist Ferrando. But in the midst of these views and opening enterprises, Calixtus died, and Pius II. of Siennese origin, of the family of the Piccolomini, and by name Æneas, succeeded to the pontificate. This pontiff, free from the ties of private interest, having no object but to benefit Christendom and honor the church, at the duke's entreaty crowned Ferrando king of Naples; judging it easier to establish peace if the kingdom remained in the hands which at present held it, than if he were to favor the views of the French, or, as Calixtus purposed, take it for himself. Ferrando, in acknowledgment of the benefit, created Antonio, one of the pope's nephews, prince of Malfi, gave him an illegitimate daughter of his own in marriage, and restored Benevento and Terracina to the church. It thus appeared that the internal dissensions of Italy might be quelled, and the pontiff prepared to induce the powers of Christendom to unite in an enterprise against the Turks (as Calixtus had previously designed) when differences arose between the Fregosi and John of Anjou, the lord of Genoa, which occasioned greater and more important wars than those recently concluded. Pietrino Fregoso was at his castle of Riviera, and thought he had not been rewarded by John in proportion to his family's merits; for it was by their means the latter had become prince of the city. This impression drove the parties into open enmity; a circumstance gratifying to Ferrando, who saw in it relief from his troubles, and the sole means of procuring his safety: he therefore assisted Pietrino with money and men, trusting to drive John out of the Genoese territory. The latter being aware of his design, sent for aid to France; and, on obtaining it, attacked Pietrino, who, through his numerous friends, entertained the strongest assurance of success; so that John was compelled to keep within the city, into which Pietrino having entered by night, took possession of some parts of it; but upon the return of day, his people were all either slain or made prisoners by John's troops, and he himself was found among the dead. This victory gave John hopes of recovering the kingdom; and in October, 1459, he sailed thither from Genoa, with a powerful fleet, and landed at Baia; whence he proceeded to Sessa, by the duke of which place he was favorably received. The prince of Taranto, the Aquilani, with several cities and other princes, also joined him; so that a great part of the kingdom fell into his hands. On this Ferrando applied for assistance to the pope and the duke of Milan; and, to diminish the number of his enemies, made peace with Gismondo Malatesti, which gave so much offense to Jacopo Piccinino, the hereditary enemy of Gismondo, that he resigned his command under Ferrando, and joined his rival. Ferrando also sent money to Federigo, lord of Urbino, and collected with all possible speed what was in those times considered a tolerable army; which, meeting the enemy upon the river Sarni, an engagement ensued in which Ferrando was routed, and many of his principal officers taken. After this defeat, the city of Naples alone, with a few smaller places and princes of inferior note, adhered to Ferrando, the greater part having submitted to John. Jacopo Piccinino, after the victory, advised an immediate march upon Naples; but John declined this, saying, he would first reduce the remainder of the kingdom, and then attack the seat of government. This resolution occasioned the failure of his enterprise; for he did not consider how much more easily the members follow the head than the head the members. After his defeat, Ferrando took refuge in Naples, whither the scattered remnants of his people followed him; and by soliciting his friends, he obtained money and a small force. He sent again for assistance to the pope and the duke, by both of whom he was supplied more liberally and speedily than before; for they began to entertain most serious apprehensions of his losing the kingdom. His hopes were thus revived; and, marching from Naples, he regained his reputation in his dominions, and soon obtained the places of which he had been deprived. While the war was proceeding in the kingdom, a circumstance occurred by which John of Anjou lost his influence, and all chance of success in the enterprise. The Genoese had become so weary of the haughty and avaricious dominion of the French, that they took arms against the viceroy, and compelled him to seek refuge in the castelletto; the Fregosi and the Adorni united in the enterprise against him, and were assisted with money and troops by the duke of Milan, both for the recovery and preservation of the government. At the same time, King René coming with a fleet to the assistance of his son, and hoping to recover Genoa by means of the castelletto, upon landing his forces was so completely routed, that he was compelled to return in disgrace to Provence. When the news of his father's defeat reached Naples, John was greatly alarmed, but continued the war for a time by the assistance of those barons who, being rebels, knew they would obtain no terms from Ferrando. At length, after various trifling occurrences, the two royal armies came to an engagement, in which John was routed near Troia, in the year 1463. He was, however, less injured by his defeat than by the desertion of Jacopo Piccinino, who joined Ferrando; and, being abandoned by his troops, he was compelled to take refuge in Istria, and thence withdrew to France. This war continued four years. John's failure was attributable to negligence; for victory was often within his grasp, but he did not take proper means to secure it. The Florentines took no decisive part in this war. John, king of Aragon, who succeeded upon the death of Alfonso, sent ambassadors to request their assistance for his nephew Ferrando, in compliance with the terms of the treaty recently made with his father Alfonso. The Florentines replied, that they were under no obligation; that they did not think proper to assist the son in a war commenced by the father with his own forces; and that as it was begun without either their counsel or knowledge, it must be continued and concluded without their help. The ambassadors affirmed the engagement to be binding on the Florentines, and themselves to be answerable for the event of the war; and then in great anger left the city. Thus with regard to external affairs, the Florentines continued tranquil during this war; but the case was otherwise with their domestic concerns, as will be particularly shown in the following book. BOOK VII CHAPTER I Connection of the other Italian governments with the history of Florence--Republics always disunited--Some differences are injurious; others not so--The kind of dissensions prevailing at Florence--Cosmo de' Medici and Neri Capponi become powerful by dissimilar means--Reform in the election of magistrates favorable to Cosmo--Complaints of the principal citizens against the reform in elections--Luca Pitti, Gonfalonier of Justice, restrains the imborsations by force--Tyranny and pride of Luca Pitti and his party--Palace of the Pitti--Death of Cosmo de' Medici--His liberality and magnificence--His modesty--His prudence--Sayings of Cosmo. It will perhaps appear to the readers of the preceding book that, professing only to write of the affairs of Florence, I have dilated too much in speaking of those which occurred in Lombardy and Naples. But as I have not already avoided, so it is not my intention in future to forbear, similar digressions. For although we have not engaged to give an account of the affairs of Italy, still it would be improper to neglect noticing the most remarkable of them. If they were wholly omitted, our history would not be so well understood, neither would it be so instructive or agreeable; since from the proceedings of the other princes and states of Italy, have most commonly arisen those wars in which the Florentines were compelled to take part. Thus, from the war between John of Anjou and King Ferrando, originated those serious enmities and hatreds which ensued between Ferrando and the Florentines, particularly the house of Medici. The king complained of a want of assistance during the war, and of the aid afforded to his enemy; and from his anger originated the greatest evils, as will be hereafter seen. Having, in speaking of external affairs, come down to the year 1463, it will be necessary in order to make our narrative of the contemporaneous domestic transactions clearly understood, to revert to a period several years back. But first, according to custom, I would offer a few remarks referring to the events about to be narrated, and observe, that those who think a republic may be kept in perfect unity of purpose are greatly deceived. True it is, that some divisions injure republics, while others are beneficial to them. When accompanied by factions and parties they are injurious; but when maintained without them they contribute to their prosperity. The legislator of a republic, since it is impossible to prevent the existence of dissensions, must at least take care to prevent the growth of faction. It may therefore be observed, that citizens acquire reputation and power in two ways; the one public, the other private. Influence is acquired publicly by winning a battle, taking possession of a territory, fulfilling the duties of an embassy with care and prudence, or by giving wise counsel attended by a happy result. Private methods are conferring benefits upon individuals, defending them against the magistrates, supporting them with money, and raising them to undeserved honors; or with public games and entertainments gaining the affection of the populace. This mode of procedure produces parties and cliques; and in proportion as influence thus acquired is injurious, so is the former beneficial, if quite free from party spirit; because it is founded upon the public good, and not upon private advantage. And though it is impossible to prevent the existence of inveterate feuds, still if they be without partisans to support them for their own individual benefit, they do not injure a republic, but contribute to its welfare; since none can attain distinction, but as he contributes to her good, and each party prevents the other from infringing her liberties. The dissensions of Florence were always accompanied by factions, and were therefore always pernicious; and the dominant party only remained united so long as its enemies held it in check. As soon as the strength of the opposition was annihilated, the government, deprived of the restraining influence of its adversaries, and being subject to no law, fell to pieces. The party of Cosmo de' Medici gained the ascendant in 1434; but the depressed party being very numerous, and composed of several very influential persons, fear kept the former united, and restrained their proceedings within the bounds of moderation, so that no violence was committed by them, nor anything done calculated to excite popular dislike. Consequently, whenever this government required the citizens' aid to recover or strengthen its influence, the latter were always willing to gratify its wishes; so that from 1434 to 1455, during a period of twenty-one years, the authority of a balia was granted to it six times. There were in Florence, as we have frequently observed, two principally powerful citizens, Cosmo de' Medici and Neri Capponi. Neri acquired his influence by public services; so that he had many friends but few partisans. Cosmo, being able to avail himself both of public and private means, had many partisans as well as friends. While both lived, having always been united, they obtained from the people whatever they required; for in them popularity and power were united. But in the year 1455, Neri being dead, and the opposition party extinct, the government found a difficulty in resuming its authority; and this was occasioned, remarkably enough, by Cosmo's private friends, and the most influential men in the state; for, not fearing the opposite party, they became anxious to abate his power. This inconsistency was the beginning of the evils which took place in 1456; so that those in power were openly advised in the deliberative councils not to renew the power of the balia, but to close the balloting purses, and appoint the magistrates by drawing from the pollings or squittini previously made. To restrain this disposition, Cosmo had the choice of two alternatives, either forcibly to assume the government, with the partisans he possessed, and drive out the others, or to allow the matter to take its course, and let his friends see they were not depriving him of power, but rather themselves. He chose the latter; for he well knew that at all events the purses being filled with the names of his own friends, he incurred no risk, and could take the government into his own hands whenever he found occasion. The chief offices of state being again filled by lot, the mass of the people began to think they had recovered their liberty, and that the decisions of the magistrates were according to their own judgments, unbiased by the influence of the Great. At the same time, the friends of different grandees were humbled; and many who had commonly seen their houses filled with suitors and presents, found themselves destitute of both. Those who had previously been very powerful were reduced to an equality with men whom they had been accustomed to consider inferior; and those formerly far beneath them were now become their equals. No respect or deference was paid to them; they were often ridiculed and derided, and frequently heard themselves and the republic mentioned in the open streets without the least deference; thus they found it was not Cosmo but themselves that had lost the government. Cosmo appeared not to notice these matters; and whenever any subject was proposed in favor of the people he was the first to support it. But the greatest cause of alarm to the higher classes, and his most favorable opportunity of retaliation, was the revival of the catasto, or property-tax of 1427, so that individual contributions were determined by statute, and not by a set of persons appointed for its regulation. This law being re-established, and a magistracy created to carry it into effect, the nobility assembled, and went to Cosmo to beg he would rescue them and himself from the power of the plebeians, and restore to the government the reputation which had made himself powerful and them respected. He replied, he was willing to comply with their request, but wished the law to be obtained in the regular manner, by consent of the people, and not by force, of which he would not hear on any account. They then endeavored in the councils to establish a new balia, but did not succeed. On this the grandees again came to Cosmo, and most humbly begged he would assemble the people in a general council or parliament, but this he refused, for he wished to make them sensible of their great mistake; and when Donato Cocchi, being Gonfalonier of Justice, proposed to assemble them without his consent, the Signors who were of Cosmo's party ridiculed the idea so unmercifully, that the man's mind actually became deranged, and he had to retire from office in consequence. However, since it is undesirable to allow matters to proceed beyond recovery, the Gonfalon of Justice being in the hands of Luca Pitti, a bold-spirited man, Cosmo determined to let him adopt what course he thought proper, that if any trouble should arise it might be imputed to Luca and not to himself. Luca, therefore, in the beginning of his magistracy, several times proposed to the people the appointment of a new balia; and, not succeeding, he threatened the members of the councils with injurious and arrogant expressions, which were shortly followed by corresponding conduct; for in the month of August, 1458, on the eve of Saint Lorenzo, having filled the piazza, and compelled them to assent to a measure to which he knew them to be averse. Having recovered power, created a new balia, and filled the principal offices according to the pleasure of a few individuals, in order to commence that government with terror which they had obtained by force, they banished Girolamo Machiavelli, with some others, and deprived many of the honors of government. Girolamo, having transgressed the confines to which he was limited, was declared a rebel. Traveling about Italy, with the design of exciting the princes against his country, he was betrayed while at Lunigiana, and, being brought to Florence, was put to death in prison. This government, during the eight years it continued, was violent and insupportable; for Cosmo, being now old, and through ill health unable to attend to public affairs as formerly, Florence became a prey to a small number of her own citizens. Luca Pitti, in return for the services he had performed for the republic, as made a knight, and to be no less grateful than those who had conferred the dignity upon him, he ordered that the priors, who had hitherto been called priors of the trades, should also have a name to which they had no kind of claim, and therefore called them priors of liberty. He also ordered, that as it had been customary for the gonfalonier to sit upon the right hand of the rectors, he should in future take his seat in the midst of them. And that the Deity might appear to participate in what had been done, public processions were made and solemn services performed, to thank him for the recovery of the government. The Signory and Cosmo made Luca Pitti rich presents, and all the citizens were emulous in imitation of them; so that the money given amounted to no less a sum than twenty thousand ducats. He thus attained such influence, that not Cosmo but himself now governed the city; and his pride so increased, that he commenced two superb buildings, one in Florence, the other at Ruciano, about a mile distant, both in a style of royal magnificence; that in the city, being larger than any hitherto built by a private person. To complete them, he had recourse to the most extraordinary means; for not only citizens and private individuals made him presents and supplied materials, but the mass of people, of every grade, also contributed. Besides this, any exiles who had committed murders, thefts, or other crimes which made them amenable to the laws, found a safe refuge within their walls, if they were able to contribute toward their decoration or completion. The other citizens, though they did not build like him, were no less violent or rapacious, so that if Florence were not harassed by external wars, she was ruined by the wickedness of her own children. During this period the wars of Naples took place. The pope also commenced hostilities in Romagna against the Malatesti, from whom he wished to take Rimino and Cesena, held by them. In these designs, and his intentions of a crusade against the Turks, was passed the pontificate of Pius II. Florence continued in disunion and disturbance. The dissensions continued among the party of Cosmo, in 1455, from the causes already related, which by his prudence, as we have also before remarked, he was enabled to tranquilize; but in the year 1464, his illness increased, and he died. Friends and enemies alike grieved for his loss; for his political opponents, perceiving the rapacity of the citizens, even during the life of him who alone restrained them and made their tyranny supportable, were afraid, lest after his decease, nothing but ruin would ensue. Nor had they much hope of his son Piero, who though a very good man, was of infirm health, and new in the government, and they thought he would be compelled to give way; so that, being unrestrained, their rapacity would pass all bounds. On these accounts, the regret was universal. Of all who have left memorials behind them, and who were not of the military profession, Cosmo was the most illustrious and the most renowned. He not only surpassed all his contemporaries in wealth and authority, but also in generosity and prudence; and among the qualities which contributed to make him prince in his own country, was his surpassing all others in magnificence and generosity. His liberality became more obvious after his death, when Piero, his son, wishing to know what he possessed, it appeared there was no citizen of any consequence to whom Cosmo had not lent a large sum of money; and often, when informed of some nobleman being in distress, he relieved him unasked. His magnificence is evident from the number of public edifices he erected; for in Florence are the convents and churches of St. Marco and St. Lorenzo, and the monastery of Santa Verdiana; in the mountains of Fiesole, the church and abbey of St. Girolamo; and in the Mugello, he not only restored, but rebuilt from its foundation, a monastery of the Frati Minori, or Minims. Besides these, in the church of Santa Croce, the Servi, the Agnoli, and in San Miniato, he erected splendid chapels and altars; and besides building the churches and chapels we have mentioned, he provided them with all the ornaments, furniture, and utensils suitable for the performance of divine service. To these sacred edifices are to be added his private dwellings, one in Florence, of extent and elegance adapted to so great a citizen, and four others, situated at Careggi, Fiesole, Craggiulo, and Trebbio, each, for size and grandeur, equal to royal palaces. And, as if it were not sufficient to be distinguished for magnificence of buildings in Italy alone, he erected an hospital at Jerusalem, for the reception of poor and infirm pilgrims. Although his habitations, like all his other works and actions, were quite of a regal character, and he alone was prince in Florence, still everything was so tempered with his prudence, that he never transgressed the decent moderation of civil life; in his conversation, his servants, his traveling, his mode of living, and the relationships he formed, the modest demeanor of the citizen was always evident; for he was aware that a constant exhibition of pomp brings more envy upon its possessor than greater realities borne without ostentation. Thus in selecting consorts for his sons, he did not seek the alliance of princes, but for Giovanni chose Corneglia degli Allesandri, and for Piero, Lucrezia de' Tornabuoni. He gave his granddaughters, the children of Piero, Bianca to Guglielmo de' Pazzi, and Nannina to Bernardo Ruccellai. No one of his time possessed such an intimate knowledge of government and state affairs as himself; and hence amid such a variety of fortune, in a city so given to change, and among a people of such extreme inconstancy, he retained possession of the government thirty-one years; for being endowed with the utmost prudence, he foresaw evils at a distance, and therefore had an opportunity either of averting them, or preventing their injurious results. He thus not only vanquished domestic and civil ambition, but humbled the pride of many princes with so much fidelity and address, that whatever powers were in league with himself and his country, either overcame their adversaries, or remained uninjured by his alliance; and whoever were opposed to him, lost either their time, money, or territory. Of this the Venetians afford a sufficient proof, who, while in league with him against Duke Filippo were always victorious, but apart from him were always conquered; first by Filippo and then by Francesco. When they joined Alfonso against the Florentine republic, Cosmo, by his commercial credit, so drained Naples and Venice of money, that they were glad to obtain peace upon any terms it was thought proper to grant. Whatever difficulties he had to contend with, whether within the city or without, he brought to a happy issue, at once glorious to himself and destructive to his enemies; so that civil discord strengthened his government in Florence, and war increased his power and reputation abroad. He added to the Florentine dominions, the Borgo of St. Sepolcro, Montedoglio, the Casentino and Val di Bagno. His virtue and good fortune overcame all his enemies and exalted his friends. He was born in the year 1389, on the day of the saints Cosmo and Damiano. His earlier years were full of trouble, as his exile, captivity, and personal danger fully testify; and having gone to the council of Constance, with Pope John, in order to save his life, after the ruin of the latter, he was obliged to escape in disguise. But after the age of forty, he enjoyed the greatest felicity; and not only those who assisted him in public business, but his agents who conducted his commercial speculations throughout Europe, participated in his prosperity. Hence many enormous fortunes took their origin in different families of Florence, as in that of the Tornabuoni, the Benci, the Portinari, and the Sassetti. Besides these, all who depended upon his advice and patronage became rich; and, though he was constantly expending money in building churches, and in charitable purposes, he sometimes complained to his friends that he had never been able to lay out so much in the service of God as to find the balance in his own favor, intimating that all he had done or could do, was still unequal to what the Almighty had done for him. He was of middle stature, olive complexion, and venerable aspect; not learned but exceedingly eloquent, endowed with great natural capacity, generous to his friends, kind to the poor, comprehensive in discourse, cautious in advising, and in his speeches and replies, grave and witty. When Rinaldo degli Albizzi, at the beginning of his exile, sent to him to say, "the hen had laid," he replied, "she did ill to lay so far from the nest." Some other of the rebels gave him to understand they were "not dreaming." He said, "he believed it, for he had robbed them of their sleep." When Pope Pius was endeavoring to induce the different governments to join in an expedition against the Turks, he said, "he was an old man, and had undertaken the enterprise of a young one." To the Venetians ambassadors, who came to Florence with those of King Alfonso to complain of the republic, he uncovered his head, and asked them what color it was; they said, "white;" he replied, "it is so; and it will not be long before your senators have heads as white as mine." A few hours before his death, his wife asked him why he kept his eyes shut, and he said, "to get them in the way of it." Some citizens saying to him, after his return from exile, that he injured the city, and that it was offensive to God to drive so many religious persons out of it; he replied that, "it was better to injure the city, than to ruin it; that two yards of rose-colored cloth would make a gentleman, and that it required something more to direct a government than to play with a string of beads." These words gave occasion to his enemies to slander him, as a man who loved himself more than his country, and was more attached to this world than to the next. Many others of his sayings might be adduced, but we shall omit them as unnecessary. Cosmo was a friend and patron of learned men. He brought Argiripolo, a Greek by birth, and one of the most erudite of his time, to Florence, to instruct the youth in Hellenic literature. He entertained Marsilio Ficino, the reviver of the Platonic philosophy, in his own house; and being much attached to him, have him a residence near his palace at Careggi, that he might pursue the study of letters with greater convenience, and himself have an opportunity of enjoying his company. His prudence, his great wealth, the uses to which he applied it, and his splendid style of living, caused him to be beloved and respected in Florence, and obtained for him the highest consideration, not only among the princes and governments of Italy, but throughout all Europe. He thus laid a foundation for his descendants, which enabled them to equal him in virtue, and greatly surpass him in fortune; while the authority they possessed in Florence and throughout Christendom was not obtained without being merited. Toward the close of his life he suffered great affliction; for, of his two sons, Piero and Giovanni, the latter, of whom he entertained the greatest hopes, died; and the former was so sickly as to be unable to attend either to public or private business. On being carried from one apartment to another, after Giovanni's death, he remarked to his attendants, with a sigh, "This is too large a house for so small a family." His great mind also felt distressed at the idea that he had not extended the Florentine dominions by any valuable acquisition; and he regretted it the more, from imagining he had been deceived by Francesco Sforza, who, while count, had promised, that if he became lord of Milan, he would undertake the conquest of Lucca for the Florentines, a design, however, that was never realized; for the count's ideas changed upon his becoming duke; he resolved to enjoy in peace, the power he had acquired by war, and would not again encounter its fatigues and dangers, unless the welfare of his own dominions required it. This was a source of much annoyance to Cosmo, who felt he had incurred great expense and trouble for an ungrateful and perfidious friend. His bodily infirmities prevented him from attending either to public or private affairs, as he had been accustomed, and he consequently witnessed both going to decay; for Florence was ruined by her own citizens, and his fortune by his agents and children. He died, however, at the zenith of his glory and in the enjoyment of the highest renown. The city, and all the Christian princes, condoled with his son Piero for his loss. His funeral was conducted with the utmost pomp and solemnity, the whole city following his corpse to the tomb in the church of St. Lorenzo, on which, by public decree, he was inscribed, "FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY." If, in speaking of Cosmo's actions, I have rather imitated the biographies of princes than general history, it need not occasion wonder; for of so extraordinary an individual I was compelled to speak with unusual praise. CHAPTER II The duke of Milan becomes lord of Genoa--The king of Naples and the duke of Milan endeavor to secure their dominions to their heirs--Jacopo Piccinino honorably received at Milan, and shortly afterward murdered at Naples--Fruitless endeavors of Pius II. to excite Christendom against the Turks--Death of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan--Perfidious counsel given to Piero de' Medici by Diotisalvi Neroni--Conspiracy of Diotisalvi and others against Piero--Futile attempts to appease the disorders--Public spectacles--Projects of the conspirators against Piero de' Medici--Niccolo Fedini discloses to Piero the plots of his enemies. While Florence and Italy were in this condition, Louis XI. of France was involved in very serious troubles with his barons, who, with the assistance of Francis, duke of Brittany, and Charles, duke of Burgundy, were in arms against him. This attack was so serious, that he was unable to render further assistance to John of Anjou in his enterprise against Genoa and Naples; and, standing in need of all the forces he could raise, he gave over Savona (which still remained in the power of the French) to the duke of Milan, and also intimated, that if he wished, he had his permission to undertake the conquest of Genoa. Francesco accepted the proposal, and with the influence afforded by the king's friendship, and the assistance of the Adorni, he became lord of Genoa. In acknowledgment of this benefit, he sent fifteen hundred horse into France for the king's service, under the command of Galeazzo, his eldest son. Thus Ferrando of Aragon and Francesco Sforza became, the latter, duke of Lombardy and prince of Genoa, and the former, sovereign of the whole kingdom of Naples. Their families being allied by marriage, they thought they might so confirm their power as to secure to themselves its enjoyment during life, and at their deaths, its unencumbered reversion to their heirs. To attain this end, they considered it necessary that the king should remove all ground of apprehension from those barons who had offended him in the war of John of Anjou, and that the duke should extirpate the adherents of the Bracceschi, the natural enemies of his family, who, under Jacopo Piccinino, had attained the highest reputation. The latter was now the first general in Italy, and possessing no territory, he naturally excited the apprehension of all who had dominions, and especially of the duke, who, conscious of what he had himself done, thought he could neither enjoy his own estate in safety, nor leave them with any degree of security to his son during Jacopo's lifetime. The king, therefore, strenuously endeavored to come to terms with his barons, and using his utmost ingenuity to secure them, succeeded in his object; for they perceived their ruin to be inevitable if they continued in war with their sovereign, though from submission and confidence in him, they would still have reason for apprehension. Mankind are always most eager to avoid a certain evil; and hence inferior powers are easily deceived by princes. The barons, conscious of the danger of continuing the war, trusted the king's promises, and having placed themselves in his hands, they were soon after destroyed in various ways, and under a variety of pretexts. This alarmed Jacopo Piccinino, who was with his forces at Sulmona; and to deprive the king of the opportunity of treating him similarly, he endeavored, by the mediation of his friends, to be reconciled with the duke, who, by the most liberal offers, induced Jacopo to visit him at Milan, accompanied by only a hundred horse. Jacopo had served many years with his father and brother, first under Duke Filippo, and afterward under the Milanese republic, so that by frequent intercourse with the citizens he had acquired many friends and universal popularity, which present circumstances tended to increase; for the prosperity and newly acquired power of the Sforzeschi had occasioned envy, while Jacopo's misfortunes and long absence had given rise to compassion and a great desire to see him. These various feelings were displayed upon his arrival; for nearly all the nobility went to meet him; the streets through which he passed were filled with citizens, anxious to catch a glimpse of him, while shouts of "The Bracceschi! the Bracceschi!" resounded on all sides. These honors accelerated his ruin; for the duke's apprehensions increased his desire of destroying him; and to effect this with the least possible suspicion, Jacopo's marriage with Drusiana, the duke's natural daughter, was now celebrated. The duke then arranged with Ferrando to take him into pay, with the title of captain of his forces, and give him 100,000 florins for his maintenance. After this agreement, Jacopo, accompanied by a ducal ambassador and his wife Drusiana, proceeded to Naples, where he was honorably and joyfully received, and for many days entertained with every kind of festivity; but having asked permission to go to Sulmona, where his forces were, the king invited him to a banquet in the castle, at the conclusion of which he and his son Francesco were imprisoned, and shortly afterward put to death. It was thus our Italian princes, fearing those virtues in others which they themselves did not possess, extirpated them; and hence the country became a prey to the efforts of those by whom it was not long afterward oppressed and ruined. At this time, Pope Pius II. having settled the affairs of Romagna, and witnessing a universal peace, thought it a suitable opportunity to lead the Christians against the Turks, and adopted measures similar to those which his predecessors had used. All the princes promised assistance either in men or money; while Matthias, king of Hungary, and Charles, duke of Burgundy, intimated their intention of joining the enterprise in person, and were by the pope appointed leaders of the expedition. The pontiff was so full of expectation, that he left Rome and proceeded to Ancona, where it had been arranged that the whole army should be assembled, and the Venetians engaged to send ships thither to convey the forces to Sclavonia. Upon the arrival of the pope in that city, there was soon such a concourse of people, that in a few days all the provisions it contained, or that could be procured from the neighborhood, were consumed, and famine began to impend. Besides this, there was no money to provide those who were in want of it, nor arms to furnish such as were without them. Neither Matthias nor Charles made their appearance. The Venetians sent a captain with some galleys, but rather for ostentation and the sake of keeping their word, than for the purpose of conveying troops. During this position of affairs, the pope, being old and infirm, died, and the assembled troops returned to their homes. The death of the pontiff occurred in 1465, and Paul II. of Venetian origin, was chosen to succeed him; and that nearly all the principalities of Italy might change their rulers about the same period, in the following year Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, also died, having occupied the dukedom sixteen years, and Galleazzo, his son, succeeded him. The death of this prince infused redoubled energy into the Florentine dissensions, and caused them to produce more prompt effects than they would otherwise have done. Upon the demise of Cosmo, his son Piero, being heir to the wealth and government of his father, called to his assistance Diotisalvi Neroni, a man of great influence and the highest reputation, in whom Cosmo reposed so much confidence that just before his death he recommended Piero to be wholly guided by him, both with regard to the government of the city and the management of his fortune. Piero acquired Diotisalvi with the opinion Cosmo entertained of him, and said that as he wished to obey his father, though now no more, as he always had while alive, he should consult him concerning both his patrimony and the city. Beginning with his private affairs, he caused an account of all his property, liabilities, and assets, to be placed in Diotisalvi's hands, that, with an entire acquaintance with the state of his affairs, he might be able to afford suitable advice, and the latter promised to use the utmost care. Upon examination of these accounts the affairs were found to be in great disorder, and Diotisalvi, instigated rather by his own ambition than by attachment to Piero or gratitude to Cosmo, thought he might without difficulty deprive him of both the reputation and the splendor which his father had left him as his inheritance. In order to realize his views, he waited upon Piero, and advised him to adopt a measure which, while it appeared quite correct in itself, and suitable to existing circumstances, involved a consequence destructive to his authority. He explained the disorder of his affairs, and the large amount of money it would be necessary to provide, if he wished to preserve his influence in the state and his reputation of wealth; and said there was no other means of remedying these disorders so just and available as to call in the sums which his father had lent to an infinite number of persons, both foreigners and citizens; for Cosmo, to acquire partisans in Florence and friends abroad, was extremely liberal of his money, and the amount of loans due to him was enormous. Piero thought the advice good, because he was only desirous to repossess his own property to meet the demands to which he was liable; but as soon as he had ordered those amounts to be recalled, the citizens, as if he had asked for something to which he had no kind of claim, took great offense, loaded him with opprobrious expressions, and accused him of being avaricious and ungrateful. Diotisalvi, noticing the popular excitement against Piero, occasioned by his own advice, obtained an interview with Luca Pitti, Agnolo Acciajuoli, and Niccolo Soderini, and they resolved to unite their efforts to deprive him both of the government and his influence. Each was actuated by a different motive; Luca Pitti wished to take the position Cosmo had occupied, for he was now become so great, that he disdained to submit to Piero; Diotisalvi Neroni, who knew Luca unfit to be at the head of a government, thought that of necessity on Piero's removal, the whole authority of the state would devolve upon himself; Niccolo Soderini desired the city to enjoy greater liberty, and for the laws to be equally binding upon all. Agnolo Acciajuoli was greatly incensed against the Medici, for the following reasons: his son, Raffaello, had some time before married Alessandra de' Bardi, and received with her a large dowry. She, either by her own fault or the misconduct of others, suffered much ill-treatment both from her father-in-law and her husband, and in consequence Lorenzo d' Ilarione, her kinsman, out of pity for the girl, being accompanied by several armed men, took her away from Agnolo's house. The Acciajuoli complained of the injury done them by the Bardi, and the matter was referred to Cosmo, who decided that the Acciajuoli should restore to Alessandra her fortune, and then leave it to her choice either to return to her husband or not. Agnolo thought Cosmo had not, in this instance, treated him as a friend; and having been unable to avenge himself on the father, he now resolved to do his utmost to ruin the son. These conspirators, though each was influenced by a different motive from the rest, affected to have only one object in view, which was that the city should be governed by the magistrates, and not be subjected to the counsels of a few individuals. The odium against Piero, and opportunities of injuring him, were increased by the number of merchants who failed about this time; for it was reported that he, in having, quite unexpectedly to all, resolved to call in his debts, had, to the disgrace and ruin of the city, caused them to become insolvent. To this was added his endeavor to obtain Clarice degli Orsini as wife of Lorenzo, his eldest son; and hence his enemies took occasion to say, it was quite clear, that as he despised a Florentine alliance, he no longer considered himself one of the people, and was preparing to make himself prince; for he who refuses his fellow-citizens as relatives, desires to make them slaves, and therefore cannot expect to have them as friends. The leaders of the sedition thought they had the victory in their power; for the greater part of the citizens followed them, deceived by the name of liberty which they, to give their purpose a graceful covering, adopted upon their ensigns. In this agitated state of the city, some, to whom civil discord was extremely offensive, thought it would be well to endeavor to engage men's minds with some new occupation, because when unemployed they are commonly led by whoever chooses to excite them. To divert their attention from matters of government, it being now a year since the death of Cosmo, it was resolved to celebrate two festivals, similar to the most solemn observed in the city. At one of them was represented the arrival of the three kings from the east, led by the star which announced the nativity of Christ; which was conducted with such pomp and magnificence, that the preparations for it kept the whole city occupied many months. The other was a tournament (for so they call the exhibition of equestrian combats), in which the sons of the first families in the city took part with the most celebrated cavaliers of Italy. Among the most distinguished of the Florentine youth was Lorenzo, eldest son of Piero, who, not by favor, but by his own personal valor, obtained the principal prize. When these festivals were over, the citizens reverted to the same thoughts which had previously occupied them, and each pursued his ideas with more earnestness than ever. Serious differences and troubles were the result; and these were greatly increased by two circumstances: one of which was, that the authority of the balia had expired; the other, that upon the death of Duke Francesco, Galeazzo the new duke sent ambassadors to Florence, to renew the engagements of his father with the city, which, among other things, provided that every year a certain sum of money should be paid to the duke. The principal opponents of the Medici took occasion, from this demand, to make public resistance in the councils, on pretense that the alliance was made with Francesco and not Galeazzo; so that Francesco being dead, the obligation had ceased; nor was there any necessity to revive it, because Galeazzo did not possess his father's talents, and consequently they neither could nor ought to expect the same benefits from him; that if they had derived little advantage from Francesco, they would obtain still less from Galeazzo; and that if any citizen wished to hire him for his own purposes, it was contrary to civil rule, and inconsistent with the public liberty. Piero, on the contrary, argued that it would be very impolitic to lose such an alliance from mere avarice, and that there was nothing so important to the republic, and to the whole of Italy, as their alliance with the duke; that the Venetians, while they were united, could not hope either by feigned friendship or open war to injure the duchy; but as soon as they perceived the Florentines alienated from him they would prepare for hostilities, and, finding him young, new in the government, and without friends, they would, either by force or fraud, compel him to join them; in which case ruin of the republic would be inevitable. The arguments of Piero were without effect, and the animosity of the parties began to be openly manifested in their nocturnal assemblies; the friends of the Medici meeting in the Crocetta, and their adversaries in the Pieta. The latter being anxious for Piero's ruin, had induced many citizens to subscribe their names as favorable to the undertaking. Upon one occasion, particularly when considering the course to be adopted, although all agreed that the power of the Medici ought to be reduced, different opinions were given concerning the means by which it should be effected; one party, the most temperate and reasonable, held that as the authority of the balia had ceased, they must take care to prevent its renewal; it would then be found to be the universal wish that the magistrates and councils should govern the city, and in a short time Piero's power would be visibly diminished, and, as a consequence of his loss of influence in the government, his commercial credit would also fail; for his affairs were in such a state, that if they could prevent him from using the public money his ruin must ensue. They would thus be in no further danger from him, and would succeed in the recovery of their liberty, without the death or exile of any individual; but if they attempted violence they would incur great dangers; for mankind are willing to allow one who falls of himself to meet his fate, but if pushed down they would hasten to his relief; so that if they adopted no extraordinary measures against him, he will have no reason for defense or aid; and if he were to seek them it would be greatly to his own injury, by creating such a general suspicion as would accelerate his ruin, and justify whatever course they might think proper to adopt. Many of the assembly were dissatisfied with this tardy method of proceeding; they thought delay would be favorable to him and injurious to themselves; for if they allowed matters to take their ordinary course, Piero would be in no danger whatever, while they themselves would incur many; for the magistrates who were opposed to him would allow him to rule the city, and his friends would make him a prince, and their own ruin would be inevitable, as happened in 1458; and though the advice they had just heard might be most consistent with good feeling, the present would be found to be the safest. That it would therefore be best, while the minds of men were yet excited against him, to effect his destruction. It must be their plan to arm themselves, and engage the assistance of the marquis of Ferrara, that they might not be destitute of troops; and if a favorable Signory were drawn, they would be in condition to make use of them. They therefore determined to wait the formation of the new Signory, and be governed by circumstances. Among the conspirators was Niccolo Fedini, who had acted as president of their assemblies. He, being induced by most certain hopes, disclosed the whole affair to Piero, and gave him a list of those who had subscribed their names, and also of the conspirators. Piero was alarmed on discovering the number and quality of those who were opposed to him; and by the advice of his friends he resolved to take the signatures of those who were inclined to favor him. Having employed one of his most trusty confidants to carry his design into effect, he found so great a disposition to change and instability, that many who had previously set down their names among the number of his enemies, now subscribed them in his favor. CHAPTER III Niccolo Soderini drawn Gonfalonier of Justice--Great hopes excited in consequence--The two parties take arms--The fears of the Signory--Their conduct with regard to Piero--Piero's reply to the Signory--Reform of government in favor of Piero de' Medici--Dispersion of his enemies--Fall of Lucca Pitti--Letter of Agnolo Acciajuoli to Piero de' Medici--Piero's answer--Designs of the Florentine exiles--They induce the Venetians to make war on Florence. In the midst of these events, the time arrived for the renewal of the supreme magistracy; and Niccolo Soderini was drawn Gonfalonier of Justice. It was surprising to see by what a concourse, not only of distinguished citizens, but also of the populace, he was accompanied to the palace; and while on the way thither an olive wreath was placed upon his head, to signify that upon him depended the safety and liberty of the city. This, among many similar instances, serves to prove how undesirable it is to enter upon office or power exciting inordinate expectations; for, being unable to fulfil them (many looking for more than it is possible to perform), shame and disappointment are the ordinary results. Tommaso and Niccolo Soderini were brothers. Niccolo was the more ardent and spirited, Tommaso the wiser man; who, being very much the friend of Piero, and knowing that his brother desired nothing but the liberty of the city, and the stability of the republic, without injury to any, advised him to make new Squittini, by which means the election purses might be filled with the names of those favorable to his design. Niccolo took his brother's advice, and thus wasted the period of his magistracy in vain hopes, which his friends, the leading conspirators, allowed him to do from motives of envy; for they were unwilling that the government should be reformed by the authority of Niccolo, and thought they would be in time enough to effect their purpose under another gonfalonier. Thus the magistracy of Niccolo expired; and having commenced many things without completing aught, he retired from office with much less credit than when he had entered upon it. This circumstance caused the aggrandizement of Piero's party, whose friends entertained stronger hopes, while those who had been neutral or wavering became his adherents; so that both sides being balanced, many months elapsed without any open demonstration of their particular designs. Piero's party continuing to gather strength, his enemies' indignation increased in proportion; and they now determined to effect by force what they either could not accomplish, or were unwilling to attempt by the medium of the magistrates, which was assassination of Piero, who lay sick at Careggi, and to this end order the marquis of Ferrara nearer to the city with his forces, that after Piero's death he might lead them into the piazza, and thus compel the Signory to form a government according to their own wishes; for though all might not be friendly, they trusted they would be able to induce those to submit by fear who might be opposed to them from principle. Diotisalvi, the better to conceal his design, frequently visited Piero, conversed with him respecting the union of the city, and advised him to effect it. The conspirators' designs had already been fully disclosed to Piero; besides this, Domenico Martelli had informed him, that Francesco Neroni, the brother of Diotisalvi, had endeavored to induce him to join them, assuring him the victory was certain, and their object all but attained. Upon this, Piero resolved to take advantage of his enemies' tampering with the marquis of Ferrara, and be first in arms. He therefore intimated that he had received a letter from Giovanni Bentivogli, prince of Bologna, which informed him that the marquis of Ferrara was upon the river Albo, at the head of a considerable force, with the avowed intention of leading it to Florence; that upon this advice he had taken up arms; after which, in the midst of a strong force, he came to the city, when all who were disposed to support him, armed themselves also. The adverse party did the same, but not in such good order, being unprepared. The residence of Diotisalvi being near that of Piero, he did not think himself safe in it, but first went to the palace and begged the Signory would endeavor to induce Piero to lay down his arms, and thence to Luca Pitti, to keep him faithful in their cause. Niccolo Soderini displayed the most activity; for taking arms, and being followed by nearly all the plebeians in his vicinity, he proceeded to the house of Luca, and begged that he would mount his horse, and come to the piazza in support of the Signory, who were, he said, favorable, and that the victory would, undoubtedly, be on their side; that he should not stay in the house to be basely slain by their armed enemies, or ignominiously deceived by those who were unarmed; for, in that case, he would soon repent of having neglected an opportunity irrecoverably lost; that if he desired the forcible ruin of Piero, he might easily effect it; and that if he were anxious for peace, it would be far better to be in a condition to propose terms than to be compelled to accept any that might be offered. These words produced no effect upon Luca, whose mind was now quite made up; he had been induced to desert his party by new conditions and promises of alliance from Piero; for one of his nieces had been married to Giovanni Tornabuoni. He, therefore, advised Niccolo to dismiss his followers and return home, telling him he ought to be satisfied, if the city were governed by the magistrates, which would certainly be the case, and that all ought to lay aside their weapons; for the Signory, most of whom were friendly, would decide their differences. Niccolo, finding him impracticable, returned home; but before he left, he said, "I can do the city no good alone, but I can easily foresee the evils that will befall her. This resolution of yours will rob our country of her liberty; you will lose the government, I shall lose my property, and the rest will be exiled." During this disturbance the Signory closed the palace and kept their magistrates about them, without showing favor to either party. The citizens, especially those who had followed Luca Pitti, finding Piero fully prepared and his adversaries unarmed, began to consider, not how they might injure him, but how, with least observation, glide into the ranks of his friends. The principal citizens, the leaders of both factions, assembled in the palace in the presence of the Signory, and spoke respecting the state of the city and the reconciliation of parties; and as the infirmities of Piero prevented him from being present, they, with one exception, unanimously determined to wait upon him at his house. Niccolo Soderini having first placed his children and his effects under the care of his brother Tommaso, withdrew to his villa, there to await the event, but apprehended misfortune to himself and ruin to his country. The other citizens coming into Piero's presence, one of them who had been appointed spokesman, complained of the disturbances that had arisen in the city, and endeavored to show, that those must be most to blame who had been first to take up arms; and not knowing what Piero (who was evidently the first to do so) intended, they had come in order to be informed of his design, and if it had in view the welfare of the city, they were desirous of supporting it. Piero replied, that not those who first take arms are the most to blame, but those who give the first occasion for it, and if they would reflect a little on their mode of proceeding toward himself, they would cease to wonder at what he had done; for they could not fail to perceive, that nocturnal assemblies, the enrollment of partisans, and attempts to deprive him both of his authority and his life, had caused him to take arms; and they might further observe, that as his forces had not quitted his own house, his design was evidently only to defend himself and not to injure others. He neither sought nor desired anything but safety and repose; neither had his conduct ever manifested a desire for ought else; for when the authority of the Balia expired, he never made any attempt to renew it, and was very glad the magistrates had governed the city and had been content. They might also remember that Cosmo and his sons could live respected in Florence, either with the Balia or without it, and that in 1458, it was not his family, but themselves, who had renewed it. That if they did not wish for it at present, neither did he; but this did not satisfy them; for he perceived that they thought it impossible to remain in Florence while he was there. It was entirely beyond all his anticipations that his own or his father's friends should think themselves unsafe with him in Florence, having always shown himself quiet and peaceable. He then addressed himself to Diotisalvi and his brothers, who were present, reminding them with grave indignation, of the benefits they had received from Cosmo, the confidence he had reposed in them and their subsequent ingratitude; and his words so strongly excited some present, that had he not interfered, they would certainly have torn the Neroni to pieces on the spot. He concluded by saying, that he should approve of any determination of themselves and the Signory; and that for his own part, he only desired peace and safety. After this, many things were discussed, but nothing determined, excepting generally, that it was necessary to reform the administration of the city and government. The Gonfalon of Justice was then in the hands of Bernardo Lotti, a man not in the confidence of Piero, who was therefore disinclined to attempt aught while he was in office; but no inconvenience would result from the delay, as his magistracy was on the point of expiring. Upon the election of Signors for the months of September and October, 1466, Roberto Lioni was appointed to the supreme magistracy, and as soon as he assumed its duties, every requisite arrangement having been previously made, the people were called to the piazza, and a new Balia created, wholly in favor of Piero, who soon afterward filled all the offices of government according to his own pleasure. These transactions alarmed the leaders of the opposite faction, and Agnolo Acciajuoli fled to Naples, Diotisalvi Neroni and Niccolo Soderini to Venice. Luca Pitti remained in Florence, trusting to his new relationship and the promises of Piero. The refugees were declared rebels, and all the family of the Neroni were dispersed. Giovanni di Neroni, then archbishop of Florence, to avoid a greater evil, became a voluntary exile at Rome, and to many other citizens who fled, various places of banishment were appointed. Nor was this considered sufficient; for it was ordered that the citizens should go in solemn procession to thank God for the preservation of the government and the reunion of the city, during the performance of which, some were taken and tortured, and part of them afterward put to death and exiled. In this great vicissitude of affairs, there was not a more remarkable instance of the uncertainty of fortune than Luca Pitti, who soon found the difference between victory and defeat, honor and disgrace. His house now presented only a vast solitude, where previously crowds of citizens had assembled. In the streets, his friends and relatives, instead of accompanying, were afraid even to salute him. Some of them were deprived of the honors of government, others of their property, and all alike threatened. The superb edifices he had commenced were abandoned by the builders; the benefits that had been conferred upon him, where now exchanged for injuries, the honors for disgrace. Hence many of those who had presented him with articles of value now demanded them back again, as being only lent; and those who had been in the habit of extolling him as a man of surpassing excellence, now termed him violent and ungrateful. So that, when too late, he regretted not having taken the advice of Niccolo Soderini, and preferred an honorable death in battle, than to a life of ignominy among his victorious enemies. The exiles now began to consider various means of recovering that citizenship which they had not been able to preserve. However, Agnolo Acciajuoli being at Naples, before he attempted anything else, resolved to sound Piero, and try if he could effect a reconciliation. For this purpose, he wrote to him in the following terms: "I cannot help laughing at the freaks of fortune, perceiving how, at her pleasure, she converts friends into enemies, and enemies into friends. You may remember that during your father's exile, regarding more the injury done to him than my own misfortunes, I was banished, and in danger of death, and never during Cosmo's life failed to honor and support your family; neither have I since his death ever entertained a wish to injure you. True, it is, that your own sickness, and the tender years of your sons, so alarmed me, that I judged it desirable to give such a form to the government, that after your death our country might not be ruined; and hence, the proceedings, which not against you, but for the safety of the state, have been adopted, which, if mistaken, will surely obtain forgiveness, both for the good design in view, and on account of my former services. Neither can I apprehend, that your house, having found me so long faithful, should now prove unmerciful, or that you could cancel the impression of so much merit for so small a fault." Piero replied: "Your laughing in your present abode is the cause why I do not weep, for were you to laugh in Florence, I should have to weep at Naples. I confess you were well disposed toward my father, and you ought to confess you were well paid for it; and the obligation is so much the greater on your part than on ours, as deeds are of greater value than words. Having been recompensed for your good wishes, it ought not to surprise you that you now receive the due reward of your bad ones. Neither will a pretense of your patriotism excuse you, for none will think the city less beloved or benefited by the Medici, than by the Acciajuoli. It, therefore, seems but just, that you should remain in dishonor at Naples, since you knew not how to live with honor at home." Agnolo, hopeless of obtaining pardon, went to Rome, where, joining the archbishop and other refugees, they used every available means to injure the commercial credit of the Medici in that city. Their attempts greatly annoyed Piero; but by his friends' assistance, he was enabled to render them abortive. Diotisalvi Neroni and Niccolo Soderini strenuously urged the Venetian senate to make war upon their country, calculating, that in case of an attack, the government being new and unpopular, would be unable to resist. At this time there resided at Ferrara, Giovanni Francesco, son of Palla Strozzi, who, with his father, was banished from Florence in the changes of 1434. He possessed great influence, and was considered one of the richest merchants. The newly banished pointed out to Giovanni Francesco how easily they might return to their country, if the Venetians were to undertake the enterprise, and that it was most probable they would do so, if they had pecuniary assistance, but that otherwise it would be doubtful. Giovanni Francesco, wishing to avenge his own injuries, at once fell in with their ideas, and promised to contribute to the success of the attempt all the means in his power. On this they went to the Doge, and complained of the exile they were compelled to endure, for no other reason, they said, than for having wished their country should be subject to equal laws, and that the magistrates should govern, not a few private individuals; that Piero de' Medici, with his adherents, who were accustomed to act tyrannically, had secretly taken up arms, deceitfully induced them to lay their own aside, and thus, by fraud, expelled them from their country; that, not content with this, they made the Almighty himself a means of oppression to several, who, trusting to their promises, had remained in the city and were there betrayed; for, during public worship and solemn supplications, that the Deity might seem to participate in their treachery, many citizens had been seized, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death; thus affording to the world a horrible and impious precedent. To avenge themselves for these injuries, they knew not where to turn with so much hope of success as to the senate, which, having always enjoyed their liberty, ought to compassionate those who had lost it. They therefore called upon them as free men to assist them against tyrants; as pious, against the wicked; and would remind the Venetians, that it was the family of the Medici who had robbed them of their dominions in Lombardy, contrary to the wish of the other citizens, and who, in opposition to the interests of the senate, had favored and supported Francesco, so, that if the exiles' distresses could not induce them to undertake the war, the just indignation of the people of Venice, and their desire of vengeance ought to prevail. CHAPTER IV War between the Venetians and the Florentines--Peace re-established--Death of Niccolo Soderini--His character--Excesses in Florence--Various external events from 1468 to 1471--Accession of Sixtus IV.--His character--Grief of Piero de' Medici for the violence committed in Florence--His speech to the principal citizens--Plans of Piero de' Medici for the restoration of order--His death and character--Tommaso Soderini, a citizen of great reputation, declares himself in favor of the Medici--Disturbances at Prato occasioned by Bernardo Nardi. The concluding words of the Florentine exiles produced the utmost excitement among the Venetian senators, and they resolved to send Bernardo Coglione, their general, to attack the Florentine territory. The troops were assembled, and joined by Ercole da Esti, who had been sent by Borgo, marquis of Ferrara. At the commencement of hostilities, the Florentines not being prepared, their enemies burned the Borgo of Dovadola, and plundered the surrounding country. But having expelled the enemies of Piero, renewed their league with Galeazzo, duke of Milan, and Ferrando, king of Naples, they appointed to the command of their forces Federigo, count of Urbino; and being thus on good terms with their friends, their enemies occasioned them less anxiety. Ferrando sent Alfonso, his eldest son, to their aid, and Galeazzo came in person, each at the head of a suitable force, and all assembled at Castrocaro, a fortress belonging to the Florentines, and situated among the roots of the Appennines which descend from Tuscany to Romagna. In the meantime, the enemy withdrew toward Imola. A few slight skirmishes took place between the armies; yet, in accordance with the custom of the times, neither of them acted on the offensive, besieged any town, or gave the other an opportunity of coming to a general engagement; but each kept within their tents, and conducted themselves with most remarkable cowardice. This occasioned general dissatisfaction among the Florentines; for they found themselves involved in an expensive war, from which no advantage could be derived. The magistrates complained of these spiritless proceedings to those who had been appointed commissaries to the expedition; but they replied, that the entire evil was chargeable upon the Duke Galeazzo, who possessing great authority and little experience, was unable to suggest useful measures, and unwilling to take the advice of those who were more capable; and therefore any demonstration of courage or energy would be impracticable so long as he remained with the army. Hereupon the Florentines intimated to the duke, that his presence with the force was in many ways advantageous and beneficial, and of itself sufficient to alarm the enemy; but they considered his own safety and that of his dominions, much more important than their own immediate convenience; because so long as the former were safe, the Florentines had nothing to fear, and all would go well; but if his dominions were to suffer, they might then apprehend all kinds of misfortune. They assured him they did not think it prudent for him to be absent so long from Milan, having recently succeeded to the government, and being surrounded by many powerful enemies and suspected neighbors; while any who were desirous of plotting against him, had an opportunity of doing so with impunity. They would, therefore, advise him to return to his territories, leaving part of his troops with them for the use of the expedition. This advice pleased Galeazzo, who, in consequence, immediately withdrew to Milan. The Florentine generals being now left without any hindrance, to show that the cause assigned for their inaction was the true one, pressed the enemy more closely, so that they came to a regular engagement, which continued half a day, without either party yielding. Some horses were wounded and prisoners taken, but no death occurred. Winter having arrived, and with it the usual time for armies to retire into quarters, Bartolommeo Coglione withdrew to Ravenna, the Florentine forces into Tuscany, and those of the king and duke, each to the territories of their sovereign. As this attempt had not occasioned any tumult in Florence, contrary to the rebels' expectation, and the troops they had hired were in want of pay, terms of peace were proposed, and easily arranged. The revolted Florentines, thus deprived of hope, dispersed themselves in various places. Diotisalvi Neroni withdrew to Ferrara, where he was received and entertained by the Marquis Borso. Niccolo Soderini went to Ravenna, where, upon a small pension allowed by the Venetians, he grew old and died. He was considered a just and brave man, but over-cautious and slow to determine, a circumstance which occasioned him, when Gonfalonier of Justice, to lose the opportunity of victory which he would have gladly recovered when too late. Upon the restoration of peace, those who remained victorious in Florence, as if unable to convince themselves they had conquered, unless they oppressed not merely their enemies, but all whom they suspected, prevailed upon Bardo Altoviti, then Gonfalonier of Justice, to deprive many of the honors of government, and to banish several more. They exercised their power so inconsiderately, and conducted themselves in such an arbitrary manner, that it seemed as if fortune and the Almighty had given the city up to them for a prey. Piero knew little of these things, and was unable to remedy even the little he knew, on account of his infirmities; his body being so contracted that he could use no faculty but that of speech. All he could do was to admonish the leading men, and beg they would conduct themselves with greater moderation, and not by their violence effect their country's ruin. In order to divert the city, he resolved to celebrate the marriage of his son Lorenzo with Clarice degli Orsini with great splendor; and it was accordingly solemnized with all the display suitable to the exalted rank of the parties. Feasts, dancing, and antique representations occupied many days; at the conclusion of which, to exhibit the grandeur of the house of Medici and of the government, two military spectacles were presented, one performed by men on horseback, who went through the evolutions of a field engagement, and the other representing the storming of a town; everything being conducted with admirable order and the greatest imaginable brilliancy. During these transactions in Florence, the rest of Italy, though at peace, was filled with apprehension of the power of the Turks, who continued to attack the Christians, and had taken Negropont, to the great disgrace and injury of the Christian name. About this time died Borso, marquis of Ferrara, who was succeeded by his brother Ercole. Gismondo da Rimini, the inveterate enemy of the church also expired, and his natural brother Roberto, who was afterward one of the best generals of Italy, succeeded him. Pope Paul died, and was succeeded by Sixtus IV. previously called Francesco da Savona, a man of the very lowest origin, who by his talents had become general of the order of St. Francis, and afterward cardinal. He was the first who began to show how far a pope might go, and how much that which was previously regarded as sinful lost its iniquity when committed by a pontiff. Among others of his family were Piero and Girolamo, who, according to universal belief, were his sons, though he designated them by terms reflecting less scandal on his character. Piero being a priest, was advanced to the dignity of a cardinal, with the title of St. Sixtus. To Girolamo he gave the city of Furli, taken from Antonio Ordelaffi, whose ancestors had held that territory for many generations. This ambitious method of procedure made him more regarded by the princes of Italy, and all sought to obtain his friendship. The duke of Milan gave his natural daughter Caterina to Girolamo, with the city of Imola, which he had taken from Taddeo degli Alidossi, as her portion. New matrimonial alliances were formed between the duke and king Ferrando; Elisabetta, daughter of Alfonso, the king's eldest son, being united to Giovan Galeazzo, the eldest son of the duke. Italy being at peace, the principal employment of her princes was to watch each other, and strengthen their own influence by new alliances, leagues, or friendships. But in the midst of this repose, Florence endured great oppression from her principal citizens, and the infirmities of Piero incapacitated him from restraining their ambition. However, to relieve his conscience, and, if possible, to make them ashamed of their conduct, he sent for them to his house, and addressed them in the following words: "I never thought a time would come when the behavior of my friends would compel me to esteem and desire the society of my enemies, and wish that I had been defeated rather than victorious; for I believed myself to be associated with those who would set some bounds to their avarice, and who, after having avenged themselves on their enemies, and lived in their country with security and honor, would be satisfied. But now I find myself greatly deceived, unacquainted with the ambition of mankind, and least of all with yours; for, not satisfied with being masters of so great a city, and possessing among yourselves those honors, dignities, and emoluments which used to be divided among many citizens; not contented with having shared among a few the property of your enemies, or with being able to oppress all others with public burdens, while you yourselves are exempt from them, and enjoy all the public offices of profit you must still further load everyone with ill usage. You plunder your neighbors of their wealth; you sell justice; you evade the law; you oppress the timid and exalt the insolent. Nor is there, throughout all Italy, so many and such shocking examples of violence and avarice as in this city. Has our country fostered us only to be her destroyer? Have we been victorious only to effect her ruin? Has she honored us that we may overwhelm her with disgrace? Now, by that faith which is binding upon all good men, I promise you, that if you still conduct yourselves so as to make me regret my victory, I will adopt such measures as shall cause you bitterly to repent of having misused it." The reply of the citizens accorded with the time and circumstances, but they did not forego their evil practices; so that, in consequence, Piero sent for Agnolo Acciajuoli to come secretly to Cafaggiolo, and discussed with him at great length the condition of the city; and doubtless, had he not been prevented by death, he would have called home the exiles as a check upon the rapine of the opposite party. But these honorable designs were frustrated; for, sinking under bodily infirmities and mental anguish, he expired in the fifty-third year of his age. His goodness and virtue were not duly appreciated by his country, principally from his having, until almost the close of his life, been associated with Cosmo, and the few years he survived being spent in civil discord and constant debility. Piero was buried in the church of St. Lorenzo, near his father, and his obsequies were performed with all the pomp and solemnity due to his exalted station. He left two sons, Lorenzo and Guiliano, whose extreme youth excited alarm in the minds of thinking men, though each gave hopes of future usefulness to the republic. Among the principal citizens in the government of Florence, and very superior to the rest, was Tommaso Soderini, whose prudence and authority were well known not only at home, but throughout Italy. After Piero's death, the whole city looked up to him; many citizens waited upon him at his own house, as the head of the government, and several princes addressed him by letter; but he, impartially estimating his own fortune and that of the house of Medici, made no reply to the princes' communications, and told the citizens, it was not his house, but that of the Medici they ought to visit. To demonstrate by his actions the sincerity and integrity of his advice he assembled all the heads of noble families in the convent of St. Antonio, whither he also brought Lorenzo and Guiliano de' Medici, and in a long and serious speech upon the state of the city, the condition of Italy, and the views of her princes, he assured them, that if they wished to live in peace and unity in Florence, free both from internal dissensions and foreign wars, it would be necessary to respect the sons of Piero and support the reputation of their house; for men never regret their continuance in a course sanctioned by custom while new methods are soon adopted and as speedily set aside; and it has always been found easier to maintain a power which by its continuance has outlived envy, than to raise a new one, which innumerable unforeseen causes may overthrow. When Tommaso had concluded, Lorenzo spoke, and, though young, with such modesty and discretion that all present felt a presentiment of his becoming what he afterward proved to be; and before the citizens departed they swore to regard the youths as their sons, and the brothers promised to look upon them as their parents. After this, Lorenzo and Guiliano were honored as princes, and resolved to be guided by the advice of Tommaso Soderini. While profound tranquillity prevailed both at home and abroad, no wars disturbing the general repose, there arose an unexpected disturbance, which came like a presage of future evils. Among the ruined families of the party of Luca Pitti, was that of the Nardi; for Salvestro and his brothers, the heads of the house, were banished and afterward declared rebels for having taken part in the war under Bartolommeo Coglione. Bernardo, the brother of Salvestro, was young, prompt, and bold, and on account of his poverty being unable to alleviate the sorrows of exile, while the peace extinguished all hopes of his return to the city, he determined to attempt some means of rekindling the war; for a trifling commencement often produces great results, and men more readily prosecute what is already begun than originate new enterprises. Bernardo had many acquaintances at Prato, and still more in the district of Pistoia, particularly among the Palandra, a family which, though rustic, was very numerous, and, like the rest of the Pistolesi, brought up to slaughter and war. These he knew to be discontented, on account of the Florentine magistrates having endeavored, perhaps too severely, to check their partiality for inveterate feuds and consequence bloodshed. He was also aware that the people of Prato considered themselves injured by the pride and avarice of their governors, and that some were ill disposed toward Florence; therefore all things considered, he hoped to be able to kindle a fire in Tuscany (should Prato rebel) which would be fostered by so many, that those who might wish to extinguish it would fail in the attempt. He communicated his ideas to Diotisalvi Neroni, and asked him, in case they should succeed in taking possession of Prato, what assistance might be expected from the princes of Italy, by his means? Diotisalvi considered the enterprise as imminently dangerous, and almost impracticable; but since it presented a fresh chance of attaining his object, at the risk of others, he advised him to proceed, and promised certain assistance from Bologna and Ferrara, if he could retain Prato not less than fifteen days. Bernardo, whom this promise inspired with a lively hope of success, proceeded secretly to Prato, and communicated with those most disposed to favor him, among whom were the Palandra; and having arranged the time and plan, informed Diotisalvi of what had been done. CHAPTER V Bernardo takes possession of Prato, but is not assisted by the inhabitants--He is taken, and the tumult appeased--Corruption of Florence--The duke of Milan in Florence--The church of Santo Spirito destroyed by fire--The rebellion of Volterra, and the cause of it--Volterra reduced to obedience by force, in accordance with the advice of Lorenzo de' Medici--Volterra pillaged. Cesare Petrucci held the office of Provost of Prato for the Florentine people, at this period. It is customary with governors of towns, similarly situated, to keep the keys of the gates near their persons; and whenever, in peaceful times, they are required by any of the inhabitants, for entrance or exit, they are usually allowed to be taken. Bernardo was aware of this custom, and about daybreak, presented himself at the gate which looks toward Pistoia, accompanied by the Palandra and about one hundred persons, all armed. Their confederates within the town also armed themselves, and one of them asked the governor for the keys, alleging, as a pretext, that some one from the country wished to enter. The governor not entertaining the slightest suspicion, sent a servant with them. When at a convenient distance, they were taken by the conspirators, who, opening the gates, introduced Bernardo and his followers. They divided themselves into two parties, one of which, led by Salvestro, an inhabitant of Prato, took possession of the citadel; the other following Bernardo, seized the palace, and placed Cesare with all his family in the custody of some of their number. They then raised the cry of liberty, and proceeded through the town. It was now day, and many of the inhabitants hearing the disturbance, ran to the piazza where, learning that the fortress and the palace were taken and the governor with all his people made prisoners, they were utterly astonished, and could not imagine how it had occurred. The eight citizens, possessing the supreme authority, assembled in their palace to consider what was best to be done. In the meantime, Bernardo and his followers, on going round the town, found no encouragement, and being told that the Eight had assembled, went and declared the nature of their enterprise, which he said was to deliver the country from slavery, reminding them how glorious it would be for those who took arms to effect such an honorable object, for they would thus obtain permanent repose and everlasting fame. He called to recollection their ancient liberty and present condition, and assured them of certain assistance, if they would only, for a few days, aid in resisting the forces the Florentines might send against them. He said he had friends in Florence who would join them as soon as they found the inhabitants resolved to support him. His speech did not produce the desired effect upon the Eight, who replied that they knew not whether Florence was free or enslaved, for that was a matter which they were not called upon to decide; but this they knew very well, that for their own part, they desired no other liberty than to obey the magistrates who governed Florence, from whom they had never received any injury sufficient to make them desire a change. They therefore advised him to set the governor at liberty, clear the place of his people, and, as quickly as possible, withdraw from the danger he had so rashly incurred. Bernardo was not daunted by these words, but determined to try whether fear could influence the people of Prato, since entreaties produced so little effect. In order to terrify them, he determined to put Cesare to death, and having brought him out of prison, ordered him to be hanged at the windows of the palace. He was already led to the spot with a halter around his neck, when seeing Bernardo giving directions to hasten his end, he turned to him, and said: "Bernardo, you put me to death, thinking that the people of Prato will follow you; but the direct contrary will result; for the respect they have for the rectors which the Florentine people send here is so great, that as soon as they witness the injury inflicted upon me, they will conceive such a disgust against you as will inevitably effect your ruin. Therefore, it is not by my death, but by the preservation of my life, that you can attain the object you have in view; for if I deliver your commands, they will be much more readily obeyed, and following your directions, we shall soon attain the completion of your design." Bernardo, whose mind was not fertile in expedients, thought the advice good, and commanded Cesare, on being conducted to a veranda which looked upon the piazza, to order the people of Prato to obey him, and having done which, Cesare was led back to prison. The weakness of the conspirators was obvious; and many Florentines residing in the town, assembled together, among whom, Giorgio Ginori, a knight of Rhodes, took arms first against them, and attacked Bernardo, who traversed the piazza, alternately entreating and threatening those who refused to obey him, and being surrounded by Giorgio's followers, he was wounded and made prisoner. This being done, it was easy to set the governor at liberty and subdue the rest, who being few, and divided into several parties, were nearly all either secured or slain. An exaggerated report of these transactions reached Florence, it being told there that Prato was taken, the governor and his friends put to death, and the place filled with the enemy; and that Pistoia was also in arms, and most of the citizens in the conspiracy. In consequence of this alarming account, the palace as quickly filled with citizens, who consulted with the Signory what course ought to be adopted. At this time, Roberto da San Severino, one of the most distinguished generals of this period, was at Florence, and it was therefore determined to send him, with what forces could be collected, to Prato, with orders that he should approach the place, particularly observe what was going on, and provide such remedies as the necessity of the case and his own prudence should suggest. Roberto had scarcely passed the fortress of Campi, when he was met by a messenger from the governor, who informed him that Bernardo was taken, his followers either dispersed or slain, and everything restored to order. He consequently returned to Florence, whither Bernardo was shortly after conveyed, and when questioned by the magistracy concerning the real motives of such a weak conspiracy, he said, he had undertaken it, because, having resolved to die in Florence rather than live in exile, he wished his death to be accompanied by some memorable action. This disturbance having been raised and quelled almost at the same time, the citizens returned to their accustomed mode of life, hoping to enjoy, without anxiety, the state they had now established and confirmed. Hence arose many of those evils which usually result from peace; for the youth having become more dissolute than before, more extravagant in dress, feasting, and other licentiousness, and being without employment, wasted their time and means on gaming and women; their principal study being how to appear splendid in apparel, and attain a crafty shrewdness in discourse; he who could make the most poignant remark being considered the wisest, and being most respected. These manners derived additional encouragement from the followers of the duke of Milan, who, with his duchess and the whole ducal court, as it was said, to fulfill a vow, came to Florence, where he was received with all the pomp and respect due to so great a prince, and one so intimately connected with the Florentine people. Upon this occasion the city witnessed an unprecedented exhibition; for, during Lent, when the church commands us to abstain from animal food, the Milanese, without respect for either God or his church, ate of it daily. Many spectacles were exhibited in honor of the duke, and among others, in the temple of Santo Spirito, was represented the descent of the Holy Ghost among the apostles; and in consequence of the numerous fires used upon the occasion, some of the woodwork became ignited, and the church was completely destroyed by the flames. Many thought that the Almighty being offended at our misconduct, took this method of signifying his displeasure. If, therefore, the duke found the city full of courtly delicacies, and customs unsuitable to well-regulated conduct, he left it in a much worse state. Hence the good citizens thought it necessary to restrain these improprieties, and made a law to put a stop to extravagance in dress, feasts, and funerals. In the midst of this universal peace, a new and unexpected disturbance arose in Tuscany. Certain citizens of Volterra had discovered an alum-mine in their district, and being aware of the profit derivable from it, in order to obtain the means of working and securing it, they applied to some Florentines, and allowed them to share in the profits. This, as is frequently the case with new undertakings, at first excited little attention from the people of Volterra; but in time, finding the profits derived from it had become considerable, they fruitlessly endeavored to effect what at first might have been easily accomplished. They began by agitating the question in their councils, declaring it grossly improper that a source of wealth discovered in the public lands should be converted to the emolument of private individuals. They next sent advocates to Florence, and the question was referred to the consideration of certain citizens, who, either through being bribed by the party in possession, or from a sincere conviction, declared the aim of the people of Volterra to be unjust in desiring to deprive their citizens of the fruit of their labor; and decided that the alum-pit was the rightful property of those who had hitherto wrought it; but, at the same time, recommended them to pay an annual sum by way of acknowledgment to the city. This answer instead of abating, served only to increase the animosities and tumult in Volterra, and absorbed entire attention both in the councils and throughout the city; the people demanding the restitution of what they considered their due, and the proprietors insisting upon their right to retain what they had originally acquired, and what had been subsequently been confirmed to them by the decision of the Florentines. In the midst of these disturbances, a respectable citizen, named Il Pecorino, was killed, together with several others, who had embraced the same side, whose houses were also plundered and burned; and the fury of the mob rose to such a height, that they were with difficulty restrained from putting the Florentine rectors to death. After the first outrage, the Volterrani immediately determined to send ambassadors to Florence, who intimated, that if the Signory would allow them their ancient privileges, the city would remain subject to them as formerly. Many and various were the opinions concerning the reply to be made. Tommaso Soderini advised that they should accept the submission of the people of Volterra, upon any conditions with which they were disposed to make it; for he considered it unreasonable and unwise to kindle a flame so near home that it might burn their own dwelling; he suspected the pope's ambition, and was apprehensive of the power of the king; nor could he confide in the friendship either of the duke or the Venetians, having no assurance of the sincerity of the latter, or the valor of the former. He concluded by quoting that trite proverb, "Meglio un magro accordo che una grassa vittoria."[*] On the other hand, Lorenzo de' Medici, thinking this an opportunity for exhibiting his prudence and wisdom, and being strenuously supported by those who envied the influence of Tommaso Soderini, resolved to march against them, and punish the arrogance of the people of Volterra with arms; declaring that if they were not made a striking example, others would, without the least fear or respect, upon every slight occasion, adopt a similar course. The enterprise being resolved on, the Volterrani were told that they could not demand the observance of conditions which they themselves had broken, and therefore must either submit to the direction of the Signory or expect war. With this answer they returned to their city, and prepared for its defense; fortifying the place, and sending to all the princes of Italy to request assistance, none of whom listened to them, except the Siennese and the lord of Piombino, who gave them some hope of aid. The Florentines on the other hand, thinking success dependent principally upon celerity, assembled ten thousand foot and two thousand horse, who, under the command of Federigo, lord of Urbino, marched into the country of Volterra and quickly took entire possession of it. They then encamped before the city, which, being in a lofty situation, and precipitous on all sides, could only be approached by a narrow pass near the church of St. Alessandro. The Volterrani had engaged for their defense about one thousand mercenaries, who, perceiving the great superiority of the Florentines, found the place untenable, and were tardy in their defensive operations, but indefatigable in the constant injuries they committed upon the people of the place. Thus these poor citizens were harassed by the enemy without, and by their own soldiery within; so, despairing of their safety, they began to think of a capitulation; and, being unable to obtain better terms, submitted to the discretion of the Florentine commissaries, who ordered the gates to be opened, and introduced the greater part of their forces. They then proceeded to the palace, and commanded the priors to retire to their homes; and, on the way thither, one of them was in derision stripped by the soldiers. From this beginning (so much more easily are men predisposed to evil than to good) originated the pillage and destruction of the city; which for a whole day suffered the greatest horrors, neither women nor sacred places being spared; and the soldiery, those engaged for its defense as well as its assailants, plundered all that came within their reach. The news of this victory was received with great joy at Florence, and as the expedition had been undertaken wholly by the advice of Lorenzo, he acquired great reputation. Upon which one of the intimate friends of Tommaso Soderini, reminding him of the advice he had given, asked him what he thought of the taking of Volterra; to which he replied, "To me the place seems rather lost than won; for had it been received on equitable terms, advantage and security would have been the result; but having to retain it by force it will in critical junctures, occasion weakness and anxiety, and in times of peace, injury and expense." [*] A lean peace is better than a fat victory. CHAPTER VI Origin of the animosity between Sixtus IV. and Lorenzo de' Medici--Carlo di Braccio da Perugia attacks the Siennese--Carlo retires by desire of the Florentines--Conspiracy against Galeazzo, duke of Milan--His vices--He is slain by the conspirators--Their deaths. The pope, anxious to retain the territories of the church in obedience, had caused Spoleto to be sacked for having, through internal factions, fallen into rebellion. Citta di Castello being in the same state of contumacy, he besieged that place; and Niccolo Vitelli its prince, being on intimate terms with Lorenzo de' Medici, obtained assistance from him, which, though inadequate, was quite enough to originate that enmity between Sixtus IV. and the Medici afterward productive of such unhappy results. Nor would this have been so long in development had not the death of Frate Piero, cardinal of St. Sixtus, taken place; who, after having traveled over Italy and visited Venice and Milan (under the pretense of doing honor to the marriage of Ercole, marquis of Ferrara), went about sounding the minds of the princes, to learn how they were disposed toward the Florentines. But upon his return he died, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by the Venetians, who found they would have reason to fear Sixtus if he were allowed to avail himself of the talents and exertions of Frate Piero. Although of very low extraction, and meanly brought up within the walls of a convent, he had no sooner attained the distinction of the scarlet hat, than he exhibited such inordinate pride and ambition, that the pontificate seemed too little for him, and he gave a feast in Rome which would have seemed extraordinary even for a king, the expense exceeding twenty thousand florins. Deprived of this minister, the designs of Sixtus proceeded with less promptitude. The Florentines, the duke, and the Venetians having renewed their league, and allowed the pope and the king to join them if they thought proper, the two latter also entered into a league, reserving an opening for the others if they were desirous to become parties to it. Italy was thus divided in two factions; for circumstances daily arose which occasioned ill feeling between the two leagues; as occurred with respect to the island of Cyprus, to which Ferrando laid claim, and the Venetians occupied. Thus the pope and the king became more closely united. Federigo, prince of Urbino, was at this time one of the first generals of Italy; and had long served the Florentines. In order, if possible, to deprive the hostile league of their captain, the pope advised, and the king requested him to pay a visit to them. To the surprise and displeasure of the Florentines, Federigo complied; for they thought the same fate awaited him as had befallen Niccolo Piccinino. However, the result was quite different; for he returned from Naples and Rome greatly honored, and with the appointment of general to their forces. They also endeavored to gain over to their interest the lords of Romagna and the Siennese, that they might more easily injure the Florentines, who, becoming aware of these things, used their utmost endeavors to defend themselves against the ambition of their enemies; and having lost Federigo d'Urbino, they engaged Roberto da Rimino in his place, renewed the league with the Perugini and formed one with the prince of Faenza. The pope and the king assigned, as the reasons of their animosity against the Florentines, that they wished to withdraw them from the Venetian alliance, and associate them with their own league; for the pope did not think the church could maintain her reputation, nor the Count Girolamo retain the states of Romagna, while the Florentines and the Venetians remained united. The Florentines conjectured their design was to set them at enmity with the Venetians, not so much for the sake of gaining their friendship as to be able the more easily to injure them. Two years passed away in these jealousies and discontents before any disturbance broke out; but the first which occurred, and that but trivial, took place in Tuscany. Braccio of Perugia, whom we have frequently mentioned as one of the most distinguished warriors of Italy, left two sons, Oddo and Carlo; the latter was of tender years; the former, as above related, was slain by the people of Val di Lamona; but Carlo, when he came to mature age, was by the Venetians, out of respect for the memory of his father, and the hopes they entertained from himself, received among the condottieri of their republic. The term of his engagement having expired, he did not design to renew it immediately, but resolved to try if, by his own influence and his father's reputation, he could recover possession of Perugia. To this the Venetians willingly consented, for they usually extended their dominion by any changes that occurred in the neighboring states. Carlo consequently came into Tuscany, but found more difficulties in his attempt upon Perugia than he had anticipated, on account of its being allied with the Florentines; and desirous of doing something worthy of memory, he made war upon the Siennese, alleging them to be indebted to him for services performed by his father in the affairs of that republic, and attacked them with such impetuosity as to threaten the total overthrow of their dominion. The Siennese, ever ready to suspect the Florentines, persuaded themselves that this outrage had been committed with their cognizance, and made heavy complaints to the pope and the king against them. They also sent ambassadors to Florence to complain of the injuries they had suffered, and adroitly intimated, that if Carlo had not been secretly supported he could not have made war upon them with such perfect security. The Florentines denied all participation in the proceedings of Carlo, expressed their most earnest wish to do everything in their power to put a stop to them, and allowed the ambassadors to use whatever terms they pleased in the name of the Signory, to command him to desist. Carlo complained that the Florentines, by their unwillingness to support him, had deprived themselves of a most valuable acquisition and him of great glory; for he could have insured them the possession of the whole territory in a short time, from the want of courage in the people and the ineffectual provision they had made for their defense. He then withdrew to his engagement under the Venetians; but the Siennese, although delivered from such imminent peril by the Florentines, were still very indignant against them; considering themselves under no obligation to those who had delivered them from an evil to which they had first exposed them. While the transactions between the king and the pope were in progress, and those in Tuscany in the manner we have related, an event of greater importance occurred in Lombardy. Cola Montano, a learned and ambitious man, taught the Latin language to the youth of the principal families in Milan. Either out of hatred to the character and manners of the duke, or from some other cause, he constantly deprecated the condition of those who live under a bad prince; calling those glorious and happy who had the good fortune to be born and live in a republic. He endeavored to show that the most celebrated men had been produced in republics, and not reared under princes; that the former cherish virtue, while the latter destroy it; the one deriving advantage from virtuous men, while the latter naturally fear them. The youths with whom he was most intimate were Giovanni Andrea Lampognano, Carlo Visconti, and Girolamo Ogliato. He frequently discussed with them the faults of their prince, and the wretched condition of those who were subject to him; and by constantly inculcating his principles, acquired such an ascendancy over their minds as to induce them to bind themselves by oath to effect the duke's destruction, as soon as they became old enough to attempt it. Their minds being fully occupied with this design, which grew with their years, the duke's conduct and their own private injuries served to hasten its execution. Galeazzo was licentious and cruel, of both which vices he had given such repeated proofs, that he became odious to all. Not content with corrupting the wives of the nobility, he also took pleasure in making it notorious; nor was he satisfied with murdering individuals unless he effected their deaths by some unusual cruelty. He was suspected of having destroyed his own mother; for, not considering himself prince while she was present, he conducted himself in such a manner as induced her to withdraw from his court, and, travelling toward Cremona, which she obtained as part of her marriage portion, she was seized with a sudden illness, and died upon the road; which made many think her son had caused her death. The duke had dishonored both Carlo and Girolamo in respect to their wives or other female relatives, and had refused to concede to Giovanandrea possession of the monastery of Miramondo, of which he had obtained a grant from the pope for a near relative. These private injuries increased the young men's desire for vengeance, and the deliverance of their country from so many evils; trusting that whenever they should succeed in destroying the duke, many of the nobility and all the people would rise in their defense. Being resolved upon their undertaking, they were often together, which, on account of their long intimacy, did not excite any suspicion. They frequently discussed the subject; and in order to familiarize their minds with the deed itself, they practiced striking each other in the breast and in the side with the sheathed daggers intended to be used for the purpose. On considering the most suitable time and place, the castle seemed insecure; during the chase, uncertain and dangerous; while going about the city for his own amusement, difficult if not impracticable; and, at a banquet, of doubtful result. They, therefore, determined to kill him upon the occasion of some procession or public festivity when there would be no doubt of his presence, and where they might, under various pretexts, assemble their friends. It was also resolved that if one of their number were prevented from attending, on any account whatever, the rest should put him to death in the midst of their armed enemies. It was now the close of the year 1476, near Christmas, and as it was customary for the duke to go upon St. Stephen's day, in great solemnity, to the church of that martyr, they considered this the most suitable opportunity for the execution of their design. Upon the morning of that day they ordered some of their most trusty friends and servants to arm, telling them they wished to go to the assistance of Giovanandrea, who, contrary to the wish of some of his neighbors, intended to turn a watercourse into his estate; but that before they went they wished to take leave of the prince. They also assembled, under various pretenses, other friends and relatives, trusting that when the deed was accomplished, everyone would join them in the completion of their enterprise. It was their intention, after the duke's death, to collect their followers together and proceed to those parts of the city where they imagined the plebeians would be most disposed to take arms against the duchess and the principal ministers of state, and they thought the people, on account of the famine which then prevailed, would easily be induced to follow them; for it was their design to give up the houses of Cecco Simonetta, Giovanni Botti, and Francesco Lucani, all leading men in the government, to be plundered, and by this means gain over the populace and restore liberty to the community. With these ideas, and with minds resolved upon their execution, Giovanandrea, together with the rest, were early at the church, and heard mass together; after which, Giovanandrea, turning to a statue of St. Ambrose, said, "O patron of our city! thou knowest our intention, and the end we would attain, by so many dangers; favor our enterprise, and prove, by protecting the oppressed, that tyranny is offensive to thee." To the duke, on the other hand, when intending to go to the church, many omens occurred of his approaching death; for in the morning, having put on a cuirass, as was his frequent custom, he immediately took it off again, either because it inconvenienced him, or that he did not like its appearance. He then wished to hear mass in the castle, and found that the priest who officiated in the chapel had gone to St. Stephen's, and had taken with him the sacred utensils. On this he desired the service to be performed by the bishop of Como, who acquainted him with preventing circumstances. Thus, almost compelled, he determined to go to the church; but before his departure, caused his sons, Giovan Galeazzo and Ermes, to be brought to him, whom he embraced and kissed several times, seeming reluctant to part with them. He then left the castle, and, with the ambassadors of Ferrara and Mantua on either hand, proceeded to St. Stephen's. The conspirators, to avoid exciting suspicion, and to escape the cold, which was very severe, had withdrawn to an apartment of the archpriest, who was a friend of theirs, but hearing the duke's approach, they came into the church, Giovanandrea and Girolamo placing themselves upon the right hand of the entrance, and Carlo on the left. Those who led the procession had already entered, and were followed by the duke, surrounded by such a multitude as is usual on similar occasions. The first attack was made by Lampognano and Girolamo, who, pretending to clear the way for the prince, came close to him, and grasping their daggers, which, being short and sharp, were concealed in the sleeves of their vests, struck at him. Lampognano gave him two wounds, one in the belly, the other in the throat. Girolamo struck him in the throat and breast. Carlo Visconti, being nearer the door, and the duke having passed, could not wound him in front: but with two strokes, transpierced his shoulder and spine. These six wounds were inflicted so instantaneously, that the duke had fallen before anyone was aware of what had happened, and he expired, having only once ejaculated the name of the Virgin, as if imploring her assistance. A great tumult immediately ensued, several swords were drawn, and as often happens in sudden emergencies, some fled from the church, and others ran toward the scene of tumult, both without any definite motive or knowledge of what had occurred. Those, however, who were nearest the duke and had seen him slain, recognizing the murderers, pursued them. Giovanandrea, endeavoring to make his way out of the church, proceeded among the women, who being numerous, and according to their custom, seated upon the ground, was prevented in his progress by their apparel, and being overtaken, he was killed by a Moor, one of the duke's footmen. Carlo was slain by those immediately around him. Girolamo Olgiato passed through the crowd, and got out of the church; but seeing his companions dead, and not knowing where else to go, he proceeded home, where his father and brothers refused to receive him; his mother only, having compassion on her son recommended him to a priest, an old friend of the family, who, disguising him in his own apparel, led him to his house. Here he remained two days, not without hope that some disturbance might arise in Milan which would contribute to his safety. This not occurring, and apprehensive that his hiding place would be discovered, he endeavored to escape in disguise, but being observed, he was given over to justice, and disclosed all the particulars of the conspiracy. Girolamo was twenty-three years of age, and exhibited no less composure at his death than resolution in his previous conduct, for being stripped of his apparel, and in the hands of the executioner, who stood by with the sword unsheathed, ready to deprive him of life, he repeated the following words, in the Latin tongue, in which he was well versed: "Mors acerba, fama perpetua, stabit vetus memoria facti." The enterprise of these unfortunate young men was conducted with secrecy and executed with resolution; and they failed for want of the support of those whom they expected would rise in their defense. Let princes therefore learn to live, so as to render themselves beloved and respected by their subjects, that none may have hope of safety after having destroyed them; and let others see how vain is the expectation which induces them to trust so much to the multitude, as to believe, that even when discontented, they will either embrace or ward off their dangers. This event spread consternation all over Italy; but those which shortly afterward occurred in Florence caused much more alarm, and terminated a peace of twelve years' continuance, as will be shown in the following book; which, having commenced with blood and horror, will have a melancholy and tearful conclusion. BOOK VIII CHAPTER I State of the family of the Medici at Florence--Enmity of Sixtus IV. toward Florence--Differences between the family of the Pazzi and that of the Medici--Beginning of the conspiracy of the Pazzi--Arrangements to effect the design of the conspiracy--Giovanni Batista da Montesecco is sent to Florence--The pope joins the conspiracy--The king of Naples becomes a party to it--Names of the conspirators--The conspirators make many ineffectual attempts to kill Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici--The final arrangement--Order of the conspiracy. This book, commencing between two conspiracies, the one at Milan already narrated, the other yet to be recorded, it would seem appropriate, and in accordance with our usual custom, were we to treat of the nature and importance of these terrible demonstrations. This we should willingly do had we not discussed the matter elsewhere, or could it be comprised in few words. But requiring much consideration, and being already noticed in another place, it will be omitted, and we shall proceed with our narrative. The government of the Medici having subdued all its avowed enemies in order to obtain for that family undivided authority, and distinguish them from other citizens in their relation to the rest, found it necessary to subdue those who secretly plotted against them. While Medici contended with other families, their equals in authority and reputation, those who envied their power were able to oppose them openly without danger of being suppressed at the first demonstration of hostility; for the magistrates being free, neither party had occasion to fear, till one or other of them was overcome. But after the victory of 1466, the government became so entirely centred in the Medici, and they acquired so much authority, that discontented spirits were obliged either to suffer in silence, or, if desirous to destroy them, to attempt it in secrecy, and by clandestine means; which plots rarely succeed and most commonly involve the ruin of those concerned in them, while they frequently contribute to the aggrandizement of those against whom they are directed. Thus the prince of a city attacked by a conspiracy, if not slain like the duke of Milan (which seldom happens), almost always attains to a greater degree of power, and very often has his good disposition perverted to evil. The proceedings of his enemies give him cause for fear; fear suggests the necessity of providing for his own safety, which involves the injury of others; and hence arise animosities, and not unfrequently his ruin. Thus these conspiracies quickly occasion the destruction of their contrivers, and, in time, inevitably injure their primary object. Italy, as we have seen above, was divided into two factions; the pope and the king on one side; on the other, the Venetians, the duke, and the Florentines. Although the flames of war had not yet broken out, every day gave rise to some new occasion for rekindling them; and the pope, in particular, in all his plans endeavored to annoy the Florentine government. Thus Filippo de' Medici, archbishop of Pisa, being dead, Francesco Salviati, a declared enemy of the Medici, was appointed his successor, contrary to the wish of the Signory of Florence, who being unwilling to give him possession, there arose between them and the pope many fresh grounds of offense, before the matter was settled. Besides this, he conferred, at Rome, many favors upon the family of the Pazzi, and opposed that of the Medici, whenever an opportunity offered. The Pazzi were at this time, both on account of nobility of birth and their great wealth, the most brilliant in France. The head of this family was Jacopo, whom the people, on account of his distinguished pre-eminence, had made a knight. He had no children, except one natural daughter, but many nephews, sons of his brothers Piero and Antonio, the first of whom were Guglielmo, Francesco, Rinato, Giovanni, and then, Andrea, Niccolo, and Galeotto. Cosmo de' Medici, noticing the riches and rank of this family, had given his granddaughter, Bianca, to Guglielmo, hoping by this marriage to unite the houses, and obviate those enmities and dissensions so frequently occasioned by jealousy. However (so uncertain and fallacious are our expectations), very different feelings were thus originated; for Lorenzo's advisers pointed out to him how dangerous it was, and how injurious to his authority, to unite in the same individuals so much wealth and power. In consequence, neither Jacopo nor his nephews obtained those degrees of honor, which in the opinion of other citizens were their due. This gave rise to anger in the Pazzi, and fear on the part of the Medici; as the former of these increased, so did the latter; and upon all occasions, when the Pazzi came in competition with other citizens, their claims to distinction, however strong, were set aside by the magistracy. Francesco de' Pazzi, being at Rome, the Council of Eight, upon some trivial occasion, compelled him to return, without treating him with the respect usually observed toward great citizens, so that the Pazzi everywhere bitterly complained of the ill usage they experienced, and thus excited suspicion in others, and brought down greater evils upon themselves. Giovanni de' Pazzi had married the daughter of Giovanni Buonromei, a very wealthy man, whose riches on his decease, without other children, came to his daughter. His nephew, Carlo, however, took possession of part, and the question being litigated, a law was passed, by virtue of which the wife of Giovanni de' Pazzi was robbed of her inheritance, and it was given to Carlo. In this piece of injustice the Pazzi at once recognized the influence of the Medici. Giuliano de' Medici often complained to his brother Lorenzo of the affair, saying he was afraid that by grasping at too much they would lose all. Lorenzo, flushed with youth and power, would assume the direction of everything, and resolved that all transactions should bear an impress of his influence. The Pazzi, with their nobility and wealth unable to endure so many affronts, began to devise some means of vengeance. The first who spoke of any attempt against the Medici, was Francesco, who, being more sensitive and resolute than the others, determined either to obtain what was withheld from him, or lose what he still possessed. As the government of Florence gave him great offense, he resided almost constantly at Rome, where, like other Florentine merchants, he conducted extensive commercial operations; and being a most intimate friend of Count Girolamo, they frequently complained to each other of the conduct of the Medici. After a while they began to think that for the count to retain his estates, or the Pazzi their rights in the city, it would be necessary to change the government of Florence; and this they considered could not be done without the death of Giuliano and Lorenzo. They imagined the pope and the king would be easily induced to consent, because each could be convinced of the facility of the enterprise. Having acquired these ideas, they communicated them to Francesco Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, who, being ambitious and recently offended by the Medici, willingly adopted their views. Considering their next step, they resolved, in order to facilitate the design, to obtain the consent of Jacopo de' Pazzi, without whose concurrence they feared it would be impracticable. With this view, it was resolved that Francesco de' Pazzi should go to Florence, while the archbishop and the count were to remain at Rome, to be ready to communicate with the pope when a suitable opportunity occurred. Francesco found Jacopo de' Pazzi more cautious and difficult to persuade than he could have wished, and on imparting this to his friends at Rome, it was thought he desired the sanction of some greater authority to induce him to adopt their views. Upon this, the archbishop and the count communicated the whole affair to Giovanni Batista da Montesecco, a leader of the papal forces, possessing military reputation, and under obligations to the pope and the count. To him the affair seemed difficult and dangerous, while the archbishop endeavored to obviate his objections by showing how much assistance the pope and the king would lend to the enterprise; the hatred of the Florentines toward the Medici, the numerous friends the Salviati and the Pazzi would bring with them, the readiness with which the young men might be slain, on account of their going about the city unaccompanied and without suspicion, and the facility with which the government might then be changed. These things Giovanni Batista did not in reality believe, for he had heard from many Florentines quite contrary statements. While occupied with these deliberations, Carlo, lord of Faenza, was taken ill, and tears were entertained for his life. This circumstance seemed to the archbishop and the count to offer an opportunity for sending Giovanni Batista to Florence, and thence to Romagna, under pretence of recovering certain territories belonging to the latter, of which the lord of Faenza had taken possession. The count therefore commissioned Giovanni Batista to have an interview with Lorenzo de' Medici, and on his part request his advice how to proceed with respect to the affair of Romagna; that he should then see Francesco de' Pazzi, and in conjunction with him endeavor to induce his uncle Jacopo to adopt their ideas. To render the pope's authority available in their behalf, Giovanni Batista was ordered, before his departure, to communicate with the pontiff, who offered every means at his disposal in favor of their enterprise. Giovanni Batista, having arrived at Florence, obtained an interview with Lorenzo, by whom he was most graciously received; and with regard to the advice he was commissioned to ask, obtained a wise and friendly answer; so that he was astonished at finding him quite a different character from what he had been represented, and considered him to possess great sagacity, an affectionate heart, and most amicably disposed toward the count. He found Francesco de' Pazzi had gone to Lucca, and spoke to Jacopo, who was at first quite opposed to their design, but before they parted the pope's authority seemed to have influenced him; for he told Giovanni Batista, that he might go to Romagna, and that before his return Francesco would be with him, and they would then consult more particularly upon the subject. Giovanni Batista proceeded to Romagna, and soon returned to Florence. After a pretended consultation with Lorenzo, upon the count's affairs, he obtained an interview with Francesco and Jacopo de' Pazzi, when the latter gave his consent to their enterprise. They then discussed the means of carrying it into effect. Jacopo de' Pazzi was of opinion that it could not be effected while both the brothers remained at Florence; and therefore it would be better to wait till Lorenzo went to Rome, whither it was reported he had an intention of going; for then their object would be more easily attained. Francesco de' Pazzi had no objection to Lorenzo being at Rome, but if he were to forego the journey, he thought that both the brothers might be slain, either at a marriage, or at a play, or in a church. With regard to foreign assistance, he supposed the pope might assemble forces for the conquest of the fortress of Montone, being justified in taking it from Count Carlo, who had caused the tumults already spoken of in Sienna and Perugia. Still no definite arrangement was made; but it was resolved that Giovanni Batista and Francesco de' Pazzi should go to Rome and settle everything with the pontiff. The matter was again debated at Rome; and at length it was concluded that besides an expedition against Montone, Giovan Francesco da Tolentino, a leader of the papal troops, should go into Romagna, and Lorenzo da Castello to the Val di Tavere; that each, with the forces of the country, should hold himself in readiness to perform the commands of the archbishop de' Salviati and Francesco de Pazzi, both of whom were to come to Florence, and provide for the execution of their design, with the assistance of Giovanni Batista da Montesecco. King Ferrando promised, by his ambassador, to contribute all in his power to the success of their undertaking. Francesco de' Pazzi and the archbishop having arrived at Florence, prevailed upon Jacopo di Poggio, a well educated youth, but ambitious and very desirous of change, to join them, and two others, each of the name of Jacopo Salviati, one a brother, the other a kinsman, of the archbishop. They also gained over Bernardo Bandini and Napoleone Franzeni, two bold young men, under great obligations to the family of the Pazzi. Besides those already mentioned, they were joined by Antonio da Volterra and a priest named Stefano, who taught Latin to the daughter of Jacopo de' Pazzi. Rinato de' Pazzi, a grave and prudent man, being quite aware of the evils resulting from such undertakings, refused all participation in the conspiracy; he held it in abhorrence, and as much as possible, without betraying his kinsmen, endeavored to counteract it. The pope had sent Raffaello di Riario, a nephew of Count Girolamo, to the college of Pisa, to study canon law, and while there, had advanced him to the dignity of a cardinal. The conspirators determined to bring this cardinal to Florence, as they would thus be better able to conceal their design, since any persons requisite to be introduced into the city might easily be made to appear as a part of his retinue, and his arrival might facilitate the completion of their enterprise. The cardinal came, and was received by Jacopo de' Pazzi at his villa of Montughi, near Florence. By his means it was also intended to bring together Giuliano and Lorenzo, and whenever this happened, to put them both to death. They therefore invited them to meet the cardinal at their villa of Fiesole; but Giuliano, either intentionally or through some preventing cause, did not attend; and this design having failed, they thought that if asked to an entertainment at Florence, both brothers would certainly be present. With this intention they appointed Sunday, the twenty-sixth of April, 1478, to give a great feast; and, resolving to assassinate them at table, the conspirators met on the Saturday evening to arrange all proceedings for the following day. In the morning it was intimated to Francesco that Giuliano would be absent; on which the conspirators again assembled and finding they could no longer defer the execution of their design, since it would be impossible among so many to preserve secrecy, they determined to complete it in the cathedral church of Santa Reparata, where the cardinal attending, the two brothers would be present as usual. They wished Giovanni Batista da Montesecco to undertake the murder of Lorenzo, while that of Giuliano was assigned to Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini. Giovanni Batista refused, either because his familiarity with Lorenzo had created feelings in his favor, or from some other reason, saying he should not have resolution sufficient to commit such a deed in a church, and thus add sacrilege to treachery. This caused the failure of their undertaking; for time pressing, they were compelled to substitute Antonio da Volterra and Stefano, the priest, two men, who, from nature and habit, were the most unsuitable of any; for if firmness and resolution joined with experience in bloodshed be necessary upon any occasion, it is on such as these; and it often happens that those who are expert in arms, and have faced death in all forms on the field of battle, still fail in an affair like this. Having now decided upon the time, they resolved that the signal for the attack should be the moment when the priest who celebrated high mass should partake of the sacrament, and that, in the meantime, the Archbishop de' Salviati, with his followers, and Jacopo di Poggio, should take possession of the palace, in order that the Signory, after the young men's death, should voluntarily, or by force, contribute to their assistance. CHAPTER II Giuliano de' Medici slain--Lorenzo escapes--The archbishop Salviati endeavors to seize the palace of the Signory--He is taken and hanged--The enterprise of the conspirators entirely fails--Manifestations of the Florentines in favor of Lorenzo de' Medici--The conspirators punished--The funeral of Giuliano--The pope and the king of Naples make war upon the Florentines--Florence excommunicated--Speech of Lorenzo de' Medici to the citizens of Florence. The conspirators proceeded to Santa Reparata, where the cardinal and Lorenzo had already arrived. The church was crowded, and divine service commenced before Giuliano's arrival. Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, who were appointed to be his murderers, went to his house, and finding him, they, by earnest entreaties, prevailed upon him to accompany them. It is surprising that such intense hatred, and designs so full of horror as those of Francesco and Bernardo, could be so perfectly concealed; for while conducting him to the church, and after they had reached it, they amused him with jests and playful discourse. Nor did Francesco forget, under pretense of endearment, to press him in his arms, so as to ascertain whether under his apparel he wore a cuirass or other means of defense. Giuliano and Lorenzo were both aware of the animosity of the Pazzi, and their desire to deprive them of the government; but they felt assured that any design would be attempted openly, and in conjunction with the civil authority. Thus being free from apprehension for their personal safety both affected to be on friendly terms with them. The murderers being ready, each in his appointed station, which they could retain without suspicion, on account of the vast numbers assembled in the church, the preconcerted moment arrived, and Bernardo Bandini, with a short dagger provided for the purpose, struck Giuliano in the breast, who, after a few steps, fell to the earth. Francesco de' Pazzi threw himself upon the body and covered him with wounds; while, as if blinded by rage, he inflicted a deep incision upon his own leg. Antonio and Stefano, the priest, attacked Lorenzo, and after dealing many blows, effected only a slight incision in the throat; for either their want of resolution, the activity of Lorenzo, who, finding himself attacked, used his arms in his own defense, or the assistance of those by whom he was surrounded, rendered all attempts futile. They fled and concealed themselves, but being subsequently discovered, were put to death in the most ignominious manner, and their bodies dragged about the city. Lorenzo, with the friends he had about him, took refuge in the sacristy of the church. Bernardo Bandini, after Giuliano's death, also slew Francesco Nori, a most intimate friend of the Medici, either from some previous hatred or for having endeavored to render assistance to Giuliano; and not content with these murders, he ran in pursuit of Lorenzo, intending, by his own promptitude, to make up for the weakness and inefficiency of the others; but finding he had taken refuge in the vestry, he was prevented. In the midst of these violent and fearful deeds, during which the uproar was so terrible, that it seemed almost sufficient to bring the church down upon its inmates, the cardinal Riario remained close to the altar, where he was with difficulty kept in safety by the priests, until the Signory, upon the abatement of the disturbance, could conduct him to their palace, where he remained in the utmost terror till he was set at liberty. There were at this time in Florence some people of Perugia, whom party feuds had compelled to leave their homes; and the Pazzi, by promising to restore them to their country, obtained their assistance. The Archbishop de' Salviati, going to seize the palace, together with Jacopo di Poggio, and the Salviati, his friends, took these Perugini with him. Having arrived, he left part of his people below, with orders that when they heard a noise they should make themselves masters of the entrance, while himself, with the greater part of the Perugini, proceeded above, and finding the Signory at dinner (for it was now late), was admitted after a short delay, by Cesare Petrucci, the Gonfalonier of Justice. He entered with only a few of his followers, the greater part of them being shut up in the cancelleria into which they had gone, whose doors were so contrived, that upon closing they could not be opened from either side, without the key. The archbishop being with the gonfalonier, under pretense of having something to communicate on the part of the pope, addressed him in such an incoherent and hesitating manner, that the gonfalonier at once suspected him, and rushing out of the chamber to call assistance, found Jacopo di Poggio, whom he seized by the hair of the head, and gave into the custody of his attendants. The Signory hearing the tumult, snatched such arms as they could at the moment obtain, and all who had gone up with the archbishop, part of them being shut up, and part overcome with terror, were immediately slain or thrown alive out of the windows of the palace, at which the archbishop, the two Jacopi Salviati, and Jacopodi Poggio were hanged. Those whom the archbishop left below, having mastered the guard and taken possession of the entrance occupied all the lower floors, so that the citizens, who in the uproar, hastened to the palace, were unable to give either advice or assistance to the Signory. Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, perceiving Lorenzo's escape, and the principal agent in the enterprise seriously wounded, became immediately conscious of the imminent peril of their position. Bernardo, using the same energy in his own behalf that had served him against the Medici, finding all lost, saved himself by flight. Francesco, wounded as he was, got to his house, and endeavored to get on horseback, for it had been arranged they should ride through the city and call the people to arms and liberty; but he found himself unable, from the nature of his wound, and, throwing himself naked upon his bed, begged Jacopo de' Pazzi to perform the part for which he was himself incapacitated. Jacopo, though old and unaccustomed to such business, by way of making a last effort, mounted his horse, and, with about a hundred armed followers, collected without previous preparation, hastened to the piazza of the palace, and endeavored to assemble adherents by cries of "people," and "liberty;" but the former, having been rendered deaf by the fortune and liberty of the Medici, the latter was unknown in Florence, and he found no followers. The signors, who held the upper part of the palace, saluted him with stones and threats. Jacopo, while hesitating, was met by Giovanni Seristori, his brother-in-law, who upbraided him with the troubles he had occasioned, and then advised him to go home, for the people and liberty were as dear to other citizens as to himself. Thus deprived of every hope, Lorenzo being alive, Francesco seriously wounded, and none disposed to follow him, not knowing what to do, he resolved, if possible, to escape by flight; and, accompanied by those whom he had led into the piazza, left Florence with the intention of going into Romagna. In the meantime the whole city was roused to arms, and Lorenzo de' Medici, accompanied by a numerous escort, returned to his house. The palace was recovered from its assailants, all of whom were either slain or made prisoners. The name of the Medici echoed everywhere, and portions of dead bodies were seen borne on spears and scattered through the streets; while everyone was transported with rage against the Pazzi, and pursued them with relentless cruelty. The people took possession of their houses, and Francesco, naked as they found him, was led to the palace, and hanged beside the archbishop and the rest. He could not be induced, by any injurious words or deeds, to utter a syllable, but regarding those around with a steady look, he silently sighed. Guglielmo de' Pazzi, brother-in-law to Lorenzo, fled to the latter's house, and by his innocence and the intercession of his wife, Bianca, he escaped death. There was not a citizen of any rank whatever who did not, upon this occasion, wait upon Lorenzo with an offer of his services; so great were the popularity and good fortune which this family had acquired by their liberality and prudence. Rinato de' Pazzi was at his villa when the event took place, and on being informed of it, he endeavored to escape in disguise, but was arrested upon the road and brought to Florence. Jacopo de' Pazzi was taken while crossing the mountains of Romagna, for the inhabitants of these parts having heard what had occurred, and seeing him in flight, attacked and brought him back to the city; nor could he, though he frequently endeavored, prevail with them to put him to death upon the road. Jacopo and Rinato were condemned within four days after the murder of Giuliano. And though so many deaths had been inflicted that the roads were covered with fragments of human bodies, not one excited a feeling of regret, except that of Rinato; for he was considered a wise and good man, and possessed none of the pride for which the rest of his family were notorious. As if to mark the event by some extraordinary circumstance, Jacopo de' Pazzi, after having been buried in the tomb of his ancestors, was disinterred like an excommunicated person, and thrown into a hole at the outside of the city walls; from this grave he was taken, and with the halter in which he had been hanged, his body was dragged naked through the city, and, as if unfit for sepulture on earth, thrown by the populace into the Arno, whose waters were then very high. It was an awful instance of the instability of fortune, to see so wealthy a man, possessing the utmost earthly felicity, brought down to such a depth of misery, such utter ruin and extreme degradation. It is said he had vices, among which were gaming and profane swearing, to which he was very much addicted; but these seem more than balanced by his numerous charities, for he relieved many in distress, and bestowed much money for pious uses. It may also be recorded in his favor, that upon the Saturday preceding the death of Giuliano, in order that none might suffer from his misfortunes, he discharged all his debts; and whatever property he possessed belonging to others, either in his own house or his place of business, he was particularly careful to return to its owners. Giovanni Batista da Montesecco, after a long examination, was beheaded; Napoleone Franzesi escaped punishment by flight; Giulielmo de' Pazzi was banished, and such of his cousins as remained alive were imprisoned in the fortress of Volterra. The disturbances being over, and the conspirators punished, the funeral obsequies of Giuliano were performed amid universal lamentation; for he possessed all the liberality and humanity that could be wished for in one of his high station. He left a natural son, born some months after his death, named Giulio, who was endowed with that virtue and felicity with which the whole world is now acquainted; and of which we shall speak at length when we come to our own times, if God spare us. The people who had assembled in favor of the Pazzi under Lorenzo da Castello in the Val di Tavere, and under Giovan Francesco da Tolentino in Romagna, approached Florence, but having heard of the failure of the conspiracy, they returned home. The changes desired by the pope and the king in the government of Florence, not having taken place, they determined to effect by war what they had failed to accomplish by treachery; and both assembled forces with all speed to attack the Florentine states; publicly declaring that they only wished the citizens to remove Lorenzo de' Medici, who alone of all the Florentines was their enemy. The king's forces had already passed the Tronto, and the pope's were in Perugia; and that the citizens might feel the effect of spiritual as well as temporal weapons, the pontiff excommunicated and anathematized them. Finding themselves attacked by so many armies, the Florentines prepared for their defense with the utmost care. Lorenzo de' Medici, as the enemy's operations were said to be directed against himself alone, resolved first of all to assemble the Signory, and the most influential citizens, in the palace, to whom, being above three hundred in number, he spoke as follows:--"Most excellent signors, and you, magnificent citizens, I know not whether I have more occasion to weep with you for the events which have recently occurred, or to rejoice in the circumstances with which they have been attended. Certainly, when I think with what virulence of united deceit and hatred I have been attacked, and my brother murdered, I cannot but mourn and grieve from my heart, from my very soul. Yet when I consider with what promptitude, anxiety, love, and unanimity of the whole city my brother has been avenged and myself defended, I am not only compelled to rejoice, but feel myself honored and exalted; for if experience has shown me that I had more enemies than I apprehended, it has also proved that I possess more warm and resolute friends than I could ever have hoped for. I must therefore grieve with you for the injuries others have suffered, and rejoice in the attachment you have exhibited toward myself; but I feel more aggrieved by the injuries committed, since they are so unusual, so unexampled, and (as I trust you believe) so undeserved on our part. Think, magnificent citizens, to what a dreadful point ill fortune has reduced our family, when among friends, amidst our own relatives, nay, in God's holy temple, we have found our greatest foes. Those who are in danger turn to their friends for assistance; they call upon their relatives for aid; but we found ours armed, and resolved on our destruction. Those who are persecuted, either from public or private motives, flee for refuge to the altars; but where others are safe, we are assassinated; where parricides and assassins are secure, the Medici find their murderers. But God, who has not hitherto abandoned our house, again saved us, and has undertaken the defense of our just cause. What injury have we done to justify so intense desire of our destruction? Certainly those who have shown themselves so much our enemies, never received any private wrong from us; for, had we wished to injure them, they would not have had an opportunity of injuring us. If they attribute public grievances to ourselves (supposing any had been done to them), they do the greater injustices to you, to this palace, to the majesty of this government, by assuming that on our account you would act unfairly to any of your citizens; and such a supposition, as we all know, is contradicted by every view of the circumstances; for we, had we been able, and you, had we wished it, would never have contributed to so abominable a design. Whoever inquires into the truth of these matters, will find that our family has always been exalted by you, and from this sole cause, that we have endeavored by kindness, liberality, and beneficence, to do good to all; and if we have honored strangers, when did we ever injure our relatives? If our enemies' conduct has been adopted, to gratify their desire for power (as would seem to be the case from their having taken possession of the palace and brought an armed force into the piazza), the infamous, ambitious, and detestable motive is at once disclosed. If they were actuated by envy and hatred of our authority, they offend you rather than us; for from you we have derived all the influence we possess. Certainly usurped power deserves to be detested; but not distinctions conceded for acts of kindness, generosity, and magnificence. And you all know that our family never attained any rank to which this palace and your united consent did not raise it. Cosmo, my grandfather, did not return from exile with arms and violence, but by your unanimous desire and approbation. It was not my father, old and inform, who defended the government against so many enemies, but yourselves by your authority and benevolence defended him; neither could I, after his death, being then a boy, have maintained the position of my house except by your favor and advice. Nor should we ever be able to conduct the affairs of this republic, if you did not contribute to our support. Therefore, I know not the reason of their hatred toward us, or what just cause they have of envy. Let them direct their enmity against their own ancestors, who, by their pride and avarice, lost the reputation which ours, by very opposite conduct, were enabled to acquire. But let it be granted we have greatly injured them, and that they are justified in seeking our ruin; why do they come and take possession of the palace? Why enter into league with the pope and the king, against the liberties of this republic? Why break the long-continued peace of Italy? They have no excuse for this; they ought to confine their vengeance to those who do them wrong, and not confound private animosities with public grievances. Hence it is that since their defeat our misfortune is the greater; for on their account the pope and the king make war upon us, and this war, they say, is directed against my family and myself. And would to God that this were true; then the remedy would be sure and unfailing, for I would not be so base a citizen as to prefer my own safety to yours; I would at once resolve to ensure your security, even though my own destruction were the immediate and inevitable consequence. But as the wrongs committed by princes are usually concealed under some less offensive covering, they have adopted this plea to hide their more abominable purpose. If, however, you think otherwise, I am in your hands; it is with you to do with me what you please. You are my fathers, my protectors, and whatever you command me to do I will perform most willingly; nor will I ever refuse, when you find occasion to require it, to close the war with my own blood which was commenced with that of my brother." While Lorenzo spoke, the citizens were unable to refrain from tears, and the sympathy with which he had been heard was extended to their reply, delivered by one of them in the name of the rest, who said that the city acknowledged many advantages derived from the good qualities of himself and his family; and encouraged them to hope that with as much promptitude as they had used in his defense, and in avenging his brother's death, they would secure to him his influence in the government, which he should never lose while they retained possession of the country. And that their deeds might correspond with their words, they immediately appointed a number of armed men, as a guard for the security of his person against domestic enemies. CHAPTER III The Florentines prepare for war against the pope--They appeal to a future council--Papal and Neapolitan movements against the Florentines--The Venetians refuse to assist the Florentines--Disturbances in Milan--Genoa revolts from the duke--Futile endeavors to effect peace with the pope--The Florentines repulse their enemies from the territory of Pisa--They attack the papal states--The papal forces routed upon the borders of the Lake of Perugia. The Florentines now prepared for war, by raising money and collecting as large a force as possible. Being in league with the duke of Milan and the Venetians, they applied to both for assistance. As the pope had proved himself a wolf rather than a shepherd, to avoid being devoured under false accusations, they justified their cause with all available arguments, and filled Italy with accounts of the treachery practiced against their government, exposing the impiety and injustice of the pontiff, and assured the world that the pontificate which he had wickedly attained, he would as impiously fill; for he had sent those whom he had advanced to the highest order of prelacy, in the company of traitors and parricides, to commit the most horrid treachery in the church in the midst of divine service and during the celebration of the holy sacrament, and that then, having failed to murder the citizens, change the government, and plunder the city, according to his intention, he had suspended the performance of all religious offices, and injuriously menaced and injured the republic with pontifical maledictions. But if God was just, and violence was offensive to him, he would be displeased with that of his viceregent, and allow his injured people who were not admitted to communion with the latter, to offer up their prayers to himself. The Florentines, therefore, instead of receiving or obeying the interdict, compelled the priests to perform divine service, assembled a council in Florence of all the Tuscan prelates under their jurisdiction, and appealed against the injuries suffered from the pontiff to a future general council. The pope did not neglect to assign reasons in his own justification, and maintained it was the duty of a pontiff to suppress tyranny, depress the wicked, and exalt the good; and that this ought to be done by every available means; but that secular princes had no right to detain cardinals, hang bishops, murder, mangle, and drag about the bodies of priests, destroying without distinction the innocent with the guilty. Notwithstanding these complaints and accusations, the Florentines restored to the pope the cardinal whom they had detained, in return for which he immediately assailed them with his own forces and those of the king. The two armies, under the command of Alfonso, eldest son of Ferrando, and duke of Calabria, who had as his general, Federigo, count of Urbino, entered the Chianti, by permission of the Siennese, who sided with the enemy, occupied Radda with many other fortresses, and having plundered the country, besieged the Castellina. The Florentines were greatly alarmed at these attacks, being almost destitute of forces, and finding their friends slow to assist; for though the duke sent them aid, the Venetians denied all obligation to support the Florentines in their private quarrels, since the animosities of individuals were not to be defended at the public expense. The Florentines, in order to induce the Venetians to take a more correct view of the case, sent Tommaso Soderini as their ambassador to the senate, and, in the meantime, engaged forces, and appointed Ercole, marquis of Ferrara, to the command of their army. While these preparations were being made, the Castellina was so hard pressed by the enemy, that the inhabitants, despairing of relief, surrendered, after having sustained a siege of forty-two days. The enemy then directed their course toward Arezzo, and encamped before San Savino. The Florentine army being now in order, went to meet them, and having approached within three miles, caused such annoyance, that Federigo d'Urbino demanded a truce for a few days, which was granted, but proved so disadvantageous to the Florentines, that those who had made the request were astonished at having obtained it; for, had it been refused, they would have been compelled to retire in disgrace. Having gained these few days to recruit themselves, as soon as they were expired, they took the castle in the presence of their enemies. Winter being now come, the forces of the pope and king retired for convenient quarters to the Siennese territory. The Florentines also withdrew to a more commodious situation, and the marquis of Ferrara, having done little for himself and less for others, returned to his own territories. At this time, Genoa withdrew from the dominion of Milan, under the following circumstances. Galeazzo, at his death, left a son, Giovan Galeazzo, who being too young to undertake the government, dissensions arose between Sforza, Lodovico, Ottaviano, and Ascanio, his uncles, and the lady Bona, his mother, each of whom desired the guardianship of the young duke. By the advice and mediation of Tommaso Soderini, who was then Florentine ambassador at the court of Milan, and of Cecco Simonetta, who had been secretary to Galeazzo, the lady Bona prevailed. The uncles fled, Ottaviano was drowned in crossing the Adda; the rest were banished to various places, together with Roberto da San Severino, who in these disputes had deserted the duchess and joined the uncles of the duke. The troubles in Tuscany, which immediately followed, gave these princes hope that the new state of things would present opportunities for their advantage; they therefore quitted the places to which their exile limited them, and each endeavored to return home. King Ferrando, finding the Florentines had obtained assistance from none but the Milanese, took occasion to give the duchess so much occupation in her own government, as to render her unable to contribute to their assistance. By means of Prospero Adorno, the Signor Roberto, and the rebellious uncles of the duke, he caused Genoa to throw off the Milanese yoke. The Castelletto was the only place left; confiding in which, the duchess sent a strong force to recover the city, but it was routed by the enemy; and perceiving the danger which might arise to her son and herself if the war were continued, Tuscany being in confusion, and the Florentines, in whom alone she had hope, themselves in trouble, she determined, as she could not retain Genoa in subjection, to secure it as an ally; and agreed with Battistino Fregoso, the enemy of Prospero Adorno, to give him the Castelletto, and make him prince of Genoa, on condition that he should expel Prospero, and do nothing in favor of her son's uncles. Upon this agreement, Battistino, by the assistance of the Castelletto and of his friends, became lord of Genoa; and according to the custom of the city, took the title of Doge. The Sforzeschi and the Signor Roberto, being thus expelled by the Genoese, came with their forces into Lunigiana, and the pope and the king, perceiving the troubles of Lombardy to be composed, took occasion with them to annoy Tuscany in the Pisan territory, that the Florentines might be weakened by dividing their forces. At the close of winter they ordered Roberto da San Severino to leave Lunigiana and march thither, which he did, and with great tumult plundered many fortresses, and overran the country around Pisa. At this time, ambassadors came to Florence from the emperor, the king of France, and the king of Hungary, who were sent by their princes to the pontiff. They solicited the Florentines also to send ambassadors to the pope, and promised to use their utmost exertion to obtain for them an advantageous peace. The Florentines did not refuse to make trial, both for the sake of publicly justifying their proceedings, and because they were really desirous of peace. Accordingly, the ambassadors were sent, but returned without coming to any conclusion of their differences. The Florentines, to avail themselves of the influence of the king of France, since they were attacked by one part of the Italians and abandoned by the other, sent to him as their ambassador, Donato Acciajuoli, a distinguished Latin and Greek scholar, whose ancestors had always ranked high in the city, but while on his journey he died at Milan. To relieve his surviving family and pay a deserved tribute to his memory, he was honorably buried at the public expense, provision was made for his sons, and suitable marriage portions given to his daughters, and Guid' Antonio Vespucci, a man well acquainted with pontifical and imperial affairs, was sent as ambassador to the king in his stead. The attack of Signor Roberto upon the Pisan territory, being unexpected, greatly perplexed the Florentines; for having to resist the foe in the direction of Sienna, they knew not how to provide for the places about Pisa. To keep the Lucchese faithful, and prevent them from furnishing the enemy either with money or provisions, they sent as ambassador Piero di Gino Capponi, who was received with so much jealousy, on account of the hatred which that city always cherishes against the Florentines from former injuries and constant fear, that he was on many occasions in danger of being put to death by the mob; and thus his mission gave fresh cause of animosity rather than of union. The Florentines recalled the marquis of Ferrara, and engaged the marquis of Mantua; they also as earnestly requested the Venetians to send them Count Carlo, son of Braccio, and Deifobo, son of Count Jacopo, and after many delays, they complied; for having made a truce with the Turks, they had no excuse to justify a refusal, and could not break through the obligation of the League without the utmost disgrace. The counts, Carlo and Deifobo, came with a good force, and being joined by all that could be spared from the army, which, under the marquis of Ferrara, held in check the duke of Calabria, proceeded toward Pisa, to meet Signor Roberto, who was with his troops near the river Serchio, and who, though he had expressed his intention of awaiting their arrival, withdrew to the camp at Lunigiana, which he had quitted upon coming into the Pisan territory, while Count Carlo recovered all the places that had been taken by the enemy in that district. The Florentines, being thus relieved from the attack in the direction of Pisa, assembled the whole force between Colle and Santo Geminiano. But the army, on the arrival of Count Carlo, being composed of Sforzeschi and Bracceschi, their hereditary feuds soon broke forth, and it was thought that if they remained long in company, they would turn their arms against each other. It was therefore determined, as the smaller evil, to divide them; to send one party, under Count Carlo, into the district of Perugia, and establish the other at Poggibonzi, where they formed a strong encampment in order to prevent the enemy from penetrating the Florentine territory. By this they also hoped to compel the enemy to divide their forces; for Count Carlo was understood to have many partisans in Perugia, and it was therefore expected, either that he would occupy the place, or that the pope would be compelled to send a large body of men for its defense. To reduce the pontiff to greater necessity, they ordered Niccolo Vitelli, who had been expelled from Citta di Castello, where his enemy Lorenzo Vitelli commanded, to lead a force against that place, with the view of driving out his adversary and withdrawing it from obedience to the pope. At the beginning of the campaign, fortune seemed to favor the Florentines; for Count Carlo made rapid advances in the Perugino, and Niccolo Vitelli, though unable to enter Castello, was superior in the field, and plundered the surrounding country without opposition. The forces also, at Poggibonzi, constantly overran the country up to the walls of Sienna. These hopes, however, were not realized; for in the first place, Count Carlo died, while in the fullest tide of success; though the consequences of this would have been less detrimental to the Florentines, had not the victory to which it gave occasion, been nullified by the misconduct of others. The death of the count being known, the forces of the church, which had already assembled in Perugia, conceived hopes of overcoming the Florentines, and encamped upon the lake, within three miles of the enemy. On the other side, Jacopo Guicciardini, commissary to the army, by the advice of Roberto da Rimino, who, after the death of Count Carlo, was the principal commander, knowing the ground of their sanguine expectations, determined to meet them, and coming to an engagement near the lake, upon the site of the memorable rout of the Romans, by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, the papal forces were vanquished. The news of the victory, which did great honor to the commanders, diffused universal joy at Florence, and would have ensured a favorable termination of the campaign, had not the disorders which arose in the army at Poggibonzi thrown all into confusion; for the advantage obtained by the valor of the one, was more than counterbalanced by the disgraceful proceedings of the other. Having made considerable booty in the Siennese territory, quarrels arose about the division of it between the marquis of Mantua and the marquis of Ferrara, who, coming to arms, assailed each other with the utmost fury; and the Florentines seeing they could no longer avail themselves of the services of both, allowed the marquis of Ferrara and his men to return home. CHAPTER IV The duke of Calabria routs the Florentine army at Poggibonzi--Dismay in Florence on account of the defeat--Progress of the duke of Calabria--The Florentines wish for peace--Lorenzo de' Medici determines to go to Naples to treat with the king--Lodovico Sforza, surnamed the Moor, and his brothers, recalled to Milan--Changes in the government of that city in consequence--The Genoese take Serezana--Lorenzo de' Medici arrives at Naples--Peace concluded with the king--The pope and the Venetians consent to the peace--The Florentines in fear of the duke of Calabria--Enterprises of the Turks--They take Otranto--The Florentines reconciled with the pope--Their ambassadors at the papal court--The pope's reply to the ambassadors--The king of Naples restores to the Florentines all the fortresses he had taken. The army being thus reduced, without a leader, and disorder prevailing in every department, the duke of Calabria, who was with his forces near Sienna, resolved to attack them immediately. The Florentines, finding the enemy at hand, were seized with a sudden panic; neither their arms, nor their numbers, in which they were superior to their adversaries, nor their position, which was one of great strength, could give them confidence; but observing the dust occasioned by the enemy's approach, without waiting for a sight of them, they fled in all directions, leaving their ammunition, carriages, and artillery to be taken by the foe. Such cowardice and disorder prevailed in the armies of those times, that the turning of a horse's head or tail was sufficient to decide the fate of an expedition. This defeat loaded the king's troops with booty, and filled the Florentines with dismay; for the city, besides the war, was afflicted with pestilence, which prevailed so extensively, that all who possessed villas fled to them to escape death. This occasioned the defeat to be attended with greater horror; for those citizens whose possessions lay in the Val di Pesa and the Val d'Elsa, having retired to them, hastened to Florence with all speed as soon as they heard of the disaster, taking with them not only their children and their property, but even their laborers; so that it seemed as if the enemy were expected every moment in the city. Those who were appointed to the management of the war, perceiving the universal consternation, commanded the victorious forces in the Perugino to give up their enterprise in that direction, and march to oppose the enemy in the Val d'Elsa, who, after their victory, plundered the country without opposition; and although the Florentine army had so closely pressed the city of Perugia that it was expected to fall into their hands every instant, the people preferred defending their own possessions to endeavoring to seize those of others. The troops, thus withdrawn from the pursuit of their good fortune, were marched to San Casciano, a castle within eight miles of Florence; the leaders thinking they could take up no other position till the relics of the routed army were assembled. On the other hand, the enemy being under no further restraint at Perugia, and emboldened by the departure of the Florentines, plundered to a large amount in the districts of Arezzo and Cortona; while those who under Alfonso, duke of Calabria, had been victorious near Poggibonzi, took the town itself; sacked Vico and Certaldo, and after these conquests and pillagings encamped before the fortress of Colle, which was considered very strong; and as the garrison was brave and faithful to the Florentines, it was hoped they would hold the enemy at bay till the republic was able to collect its forces. The Florentines being at Santo Casciano, and the enemy continuing to use their utmost exertions against Colle, they determined to draw nearer, that the inhabitants might be more resolute in their defense, and the enemy assail them less boldly. With this design they removed their camp from Santo Casciano to Santo Geminiano, about five miles from Colle, and with light cavalry and other suitable forces were able every day to annoy the duke's camp. All this, however, was insufficient to relieve the people of Colle; for, having consumed their provisions, they were compelled to surrender on the thirteenth of November, to the great grief of the Florentines, and joy of the enemy, more especially of the Siennese, who, besides their habitual hatred of the Florentines, had a particular animosity against the people of Colle. It was now the depth of winter, and the weather so unsuitable for war, that the pope and the king, either designing to hold out a hope of peace, or more quietly to enjoy the fruit of their victories, proposed a truce for three months to the Florentines, and allowed them ten days to consider the reply. The offer was eagerly accepted; but as wounds are well known to be more painful after the blood cools than when they were first received, this brief repose awakened the Florentines to a consciousness of the miseries they had endured; and the citizens openly laid the blame upon each other, pointing out the errors committed in the management of the war, the expenses uselessly incurred, and the taxes unjustly imposed. These matters were boldly discussed, not only in private circles, but in the public councils; and one individual even ventured to turn to Lorenzo de' Medici, and say, "The city is exhausted, and can endure no more war; it is therefore necessary to think of peace." Lorenzo was himself aware of the necessity, and assembled the friends in whose wisdom and fidelity he had the greatest confidence, when it was at once concluded, that as the Venetians were lukewarm and unfaithful, and the duke in the power of his guardians, and involved in domestic difficulties, it would be desirable by some new alliance to give a better turn to their affairs. They were in doubt whether to apply to the king or to the pope; but having examined the question in all sides, they preferred the friendship of the king as more suitable and secure; for the short reigns of the pontiffs, the changes ensuing upon each succession, the disregard shown by their church toward temporal princes, and the still greater want of respect for them exhibited in her determinations, render it impossible for a secular prince to trust a pontiff, or safely to share his fortune; for an adherent of the pope will have a companion in victory, but in defeat must stand alone, while the pontiff is sustained by his spiritual power and influence. Having therefore decided that the king's friendship would be of the greatest utility to them, they thought it would be most easily and certainly obtained by Lorenzo's presence; for in proportion to the confidence they evinced toward him, the greater they imagined would be the probability of removing his impressions of past enmities. Lorenzo having resolved to go to Naples, recommended the city and government to the care of Tommaso Soderini, who was at that time Gonfalonier of Justice. He left Florence at the beginning of December, and having arrived at Pisa, wrote to the government to acquaint them with the cause of his departure. The Signory, to do him honor, and enable him the more effectually to treat with the king, appointed him ambassador from the Florentine people, and endowed him with full authority to make such arrangements as he thought most useful for the republic. At this time Roberto da San Severino, with Lodovico and Ascanio (Sforza their elder brother being dead) again attacked Milan, in order to recover the government. Having taken Tortona, and the city and the whole state being in arms, the duchess Bona was advised to restore the Sforzeschi, and to put a stop to civil contentions by admitting them to the government. The person who gave this advice was Antonio Tassino, of Ferrara, a man of low origin, who, coming to Milan, fell into the hands of the duke Galeazzo, and was given by him to his duchess for her valet. He, either from his personal attractions, or some secret influence, after the duke's death attained such influence over the duchess, that he governed the state almost at his will. This greatly displeased the minister Cecco, whom prudence and long experience had rendered invaluable; and who, to the utmost of his power, endeavored to diminish the authority of Tassino with the duchess and other members of the government. The latter, aware of this, to avenge himself for the injury, and secure defenders against Cecco, advised the duchess to recall the Sforzeschi, which she did, without communicating her design to the minister, who, when it was done, said to her, "You have taken a step which will deprive me of my life, and you of the government." This shortly afterward took place; for Cecco was put to death by Lodovico, and Tassino, being expelled from the dukedom, the duchess was so enraged that she left Milan, and gave up the care of her son to Lodovico, who, becoming sole governor of the dukedom, caused, as will be hereafter seen, the ruin of Italy. Lorenzo de' Medici had set out for Naples, and the truce between the parties was in force, when, quite unexpectedly, Lodovico Fregoso, being in correspondence with some persons of Serezana, entered the place by stealth, took possession of it with an armed force, and imprisoned the Florentine governor. This greatly offended the Signory, for they thought the whole had been concerted with the connivance of King Ferrando. They complained to the duke of Calabria, who was with the army at Sienna, of a breach of the truce; and he endeavored to prove, by letters and embassies, that it had occurred without either his own or his father's knowledge. The Florentines, however, found themselves in a very awkward predicament, being destitute of money, the head of the republic in the power of the king, themselves engaged in a long-standing war with the latter and the pope, in a new one with the Genoese, and entirely without friends; for they had no confidence in the Venetians, and on account of its changeable and unsettled state they were rather apprehensive of Milan. They had thus only one hope, and that depended upon Lorenzo's success with the king. Lorenzo arrived at Naples by sea, and was most honorably received, not only by Ferrando, but by the whole city, his coming having excited the greatest expectation; for it being generally understood that the war was undertaken for the sole purpose of effecting his destruction, the power of his enemies invested his name with additional lustre. Being admitted to the king's presence, he spoke with so much propriety upon the affairs of Italy, the disposition of her princes and people, his hopes from peace, his fears of the results of war, that Ferrando was more astonished at the greatness of his mind, the promptitude of his genius, his gravity and wisdom, than he had previously been at his power. He consequently treated him with redoubled honor, and began to feel compelled rather to part with him as a friend, than detain him as an enemy. However, under various pretexts he kept Lorenzo from December till March, not only to gain the most perfect knowledge of his own views, but of those of his city; for he was not without enemies, who would have wished the king to detain and treat him in the same manner as Jacopo Piccinino; and, with the ostensible view of sympathizing for him, pointed out all that would, or rather that they wished should, result from such a course; at the same time opposing in the council every proposition at all likely to favor him. By such means as these the opinion gained ground, that if he were detained at Naples much longer, the government of Florence would be changed. This caused the king to postpone their separation more than he would have otherwise done, to see if any disturbance were likely to arise. But finding everything go quietly on, Ferrando allowed him to depart on the sixth of March, 1479, having, with every kind of attention and token of regard, endeavored to gain his affection, and formed with him a perpetual alliance for their mutual defense. Lorenzo returned to Florence, and upon presenting himself before the citizens, the impressions he had created in the popular mind surrounded him with a halo of majesty brighter than before. He was received with all the joy merited by his extraordinary qualities and recent services, in having exposed his own life to the most imminent peril, in order to restore peace to his country. Two days after his return, the treaty between the republic of Florence and the king, by which each party bound itself to defend the other's territories, was published. The places taken from the Florentines during the war were to be taken up at the discretion of the king; the Pazzi confined in the tower of Volterra were to be set at liberty, and a certain sum of money, for a limited period, was to be paid to the duke of Calabria. As soon as this peace was publicly known, the pope and the Venetians were transported with rage; the pope thought himself neglected by the king; the Venetians entertained similar ideas with regard to the Florentines, and complained that, having been companions in the war, they were not allowed to participate in the peace. Reports of this description being spread abroad, and received with entire credence at Florence, caused a general fear that the peace thus made would give rise to greater wars; and therefore the leading members of the government determined to confine the consideration of the most important affairs to a smaller number, and formed a council of seventy citizens, in whom the principal authority was invested. This new regulation calmed the minds of those desirous of change, by convincing them of the futility of their efforts. To establish their authority, they in the first place ratified the treaty of peace with the king, and sent as ambassadors to the pope Antonio Ridolfi and Piero Nasi. But, notwithstanding the peace, Alfonso, duke of Calabria, still remained at Sienna with his forces, pretending to be detained by discords among the citizens, which, he said, had risen so high, that while he resided outside the city they had compelled him to enter and assume the office of arbitrator between them. He took occasion to draw large sums of money from the wealthiest citizens by way of fines, imprisoned many, banished others, and put some to death; he thus became suspected, not only by the Siennese but by the Florentines, of a design to usurp the sovereignty of Sienna; nor was any remedy then available, for the republic had formed a new alliance with the king, and were at enmity with the pope and the Venetians. This suspicion was entertained not only by the great body of the Florentine people, who were subtle interpreters of appearances, but by the principal members of the government; and it was agreed, on all hands, that the city never was in so much danger of losing her liberty. But God, who in similar extremities has always been her preserver, caused an unhoped-for event to take place, which gave the pope, the king, and the Venetians other matters to think of than those in Tuscany. The Turkish emperor, Mahomet II. had gone with a large army to the siege of Rhodes, and continued it for several months; but though his forces were numerous, and his courage indomitable, he found them more than equalled by those of the besieged, who resisted his attack with such obstinate valor, that he was at last compelled to retire in disgrace. Having left Rhodes, part of his army, under the Pasha Achmet, approached Velona, and, either from observing the facility of the enterprise, or in obedience to his sovereign's commands, coasting along the Italian shores, he suddenly landed four thousand soldiers, and attacked the city of Otranto, which he easily took, plundered, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. He then fortified the city and port, and having assembled a large body of cavalry, pillaged the surrounding country. The king, learning this, and aware of the redoubtable character of his assailant, immediately sent messengers to all the surrounding powers, to request assistance against the common enemy, and ordered the immediate return of the duke of Calabria with the forces at Sienna. This attack, however it might annoy the duke and the rest of Italy, occasioned the utmost joy at Florence and Sienna; the latter thinking it had recovered its liberty, and the former that she had escaped a storm which threatened her with destruction. These impressions, which were not unknown to the duke, increased the regret he felt at his departure from Sienna; and he accused fortune of having, by an unexpected and unaccountable accident, deprived him of the sovereignty of Tuscany. The same circumstance changed the disposition of the pope; for although he had previously refused to receive any ambassador from Florence, he was now so mollified as to be anxious to listen to any overtures of peace; and it was intimated to the Florentines, that if they would condescend to ask the pope's pardon, they would be sure of obtaining it. Thinking it advisable to seize the opportunity, they sent twelve ambassadors to the pontiff, who, on their arrival, detained them under different pretexts before he would admit them to an audience. However, terms were at length settled, and what should be contributed by each in peace or war. The messengers were then admitted to the feet of the pontiff, who, with the utmost pomp, received them in the midst of his cardinals. They apologized for past occurrences; first showing they had been compelled by necessity, then blaming the malignity of others, or the rage of the populace, and their just indignation, and enlarging on the unfortunate condition of those who are compelled either to fight or die; saying, that since every extremity is endured in order to avoid death, they had suffered war, interdicts, and other inconveniences, brought upon them by recent events, that their republic might escape slavery, which is the death of free cities. However, if in their necessities they had committed any offense, they were desirous to make atonement, and trusted in his clemency, who, after the example of the blessed Redeemer, would receive them into his compassionate arms. The pope's reply was indignant and haughty. After reiterating all the offenses against the church during the late transactions, he said that, to comply with the precepts of God, he would grant the pardon they asked, but would have them understand, that it was their duty to obey; and that upon the next instance of their disobedience, they would inevitably forfeit, and that most deservedly, the liberty which they had just been upon the point of losing; for those merit freedom who exercise themselves in good works and avoid evil; that liberty, improperly used, injures itself and others; that to think little of God, and less of his church, is not the part of a free man, but a fool, and one disposed to evil rather than good, and to effect whose correction is the duty not only of princes but of every Christian; so that in respect of the recent events, they had only themselves to blame, who, by their evil deeds, had given rise to the war, and inflamed it by still worse actions, it having been terminated by the kindness of others rather than by any merit of their own. The formula of agreement and benediction was then read; and, in addition to what had already been considered and agreed upon between the parties, the pope said, that if the Florentines wished to enjoy the fruit of his forgiveness, they must maintain fifteen galleys, armed, and equipped, at their own expense, as long as the Turks should make war upon the kingdom of Naples. The ambassadors complained much of this burden in addition to the arrangement already made, but were unable to obtain any alleviation. However, after their return to Florence, the Signory sent, as ambassador to the pope, Guidantonio Vespucci, who had recently returned from France, and who by his prudence brought everything to an amicable conclusion, obtained many favors from the pontiff, which were considered as presages of a closer reconciliation. Having settled their affairs with the pope, Sienna being free, themselves released from the fear of the king, by the departure of the duke of Calabria from Tuscany, and the war with the Turks still continuing, the Florentines pressed the king to restore their fortresses, which the duke of Calabria, upon quitting the country, had left in the hands of the Siennese. Ferrando, apprehensive that if he refused, they would withdraw from the alliance with him, and by new wars with the Siennese deprive him of the assistance he hoped to obtain from the pope and other Italian powers, consented that they should be given up, and by new favors endeavored to attach the Florentines to his interests. It is thus evident, that force and necessity, not deeds and obligations, induce princes to keep faith. The castles being restored, and this new alliance established, Lorenzo de' Medici recovered the reputation which first the war and then the peace, when the king's designs were doubtful, had deprived him of; for at this period there was no lack of those who openly slandered him with having sold his country to save himself, and said, that in war they had lost their territories, and in peace their liberty. But the fortresses being recovered, an honorable treaty ratified with the king, and the city restored to her former influence, the spirit of public discourse entirely changed in Florence, a place greatly addicted to gossip, and in which actions are judged by the success attending them, rather than by the intelligence employed in their direction; therefore, the citizens praised Lorenzo extravagantly, declaring that by his prudence he had recovered in peace, what unfavorable circumstances had taken from them in war, and that by his discretion and judgment he had done more than the enemy with all the force of their arms. CHAPTER V New occasions of war in Italy--Differences between the marquis of Ferrara, and the Venetians--The king of Naples and the Florentines attack the papal states--The pope's defensive arrangements--The Neapolitan army routed by the papal forces--Progress of the Venetians against the marquis of Ferrara--The pope makes peace, and enters into a league against the Venetians--Operations of the League against the Venetians--The Venetians routed at Bondeno--Their losses--Disunion among the League--Lodovico Sforza makes peace with the Venetians--Ratified by the other parties. The invasion of the Turks had deferred the war which was about to break forth from the anger of the pope and the Venetians at the peace between the Florentines and the king. But as the beginning of that invasion was unexpected and beneficial, its conclusion was equally unlooked for and injurious; for Mahomet dying suddenly, dissensions arose among his sons, and the forces which were in Puglia being abandoned by their commander, surrendered Otranto to the king. The fears which restrained the pope and the Venetians being thus removed, everyone became apprehensive of new troubles. On the one hand, was the league of the pope and the Venetians, and with them the Genoese, Siennese, and other minor powers; on the other, the Florentines, the king, and the duke, with whom were the Bolognese and many princes. The Venetians wished to become lords of Ferrara, and thought they were justified by circumstances in making the attempt, and hoping for a favorable result. Their differences arose thus: the marquis of Ferrara affirmed he was under no obligation to take salt from the Venetians, or to admit their governor; the terms of convention between them declaring, that after seventy years, the city was to be free from both impositions. The Venetians replied, that so long as he held the Polesine, he was bound to receive their salt and their governor. The marquis refusing his consent, the Venetians considered themselves justified in taking arms, and that the present moment offered a suitable opportunity; for the pope was indignant against the Florentines and the king; and to attach the pope still further, the Count Girolamo, who was then at Venice, was received with all possible respect; first admitted to the privileges of a citizen, and then raised to the rank of a senator, the highest distinctions the Venetian senate can confer. To prepare for the war, they levied new taxes, and appointed to the command of the forces, Roberto da San Severino, who being offended with Lodovico, governor of Milan, fled to Tortona, whence, after occasioning some disturbances, he went to Genoa, and while there, was sent for by the Venetians, and placed at the head of their troops. These circumstances becoming known to the opposite league, induced it also to provide for war. The duke of Milan appointed as his general, Federigo d'Urbino; the Florentines engaged Costanzo, lord of Pesaro; and to sound the disposition of the pope, and know whether the Venetians made war against Ferrara with his consent or not, King Ferrando sent Alfonso, duke of Calabria, with his army across the Tronto, and asked the pontiff's permission to pass into Lombardy to assist the marquis, which was refused in the most peremptory manner. The Florentines and the king, no longer doubtful about the pope's intentions, determined to harass him, and thus either compel him to take part with them, or throw such obstacles in his way, as would prevent him from helping the Venetians, who had already taken the field, attacked the marquis, overran his territory, and encamped before Figaruolo, a fortress of the greatest importance. In pursuance of the design of the Florentines and the king, the duke of Calabria, by the assistance of the Colonna family (the Orsini had joined the pope), plundered the country about Rome and committed great devastation; while the Florentines, with Niccolo Vitelli, besieged and took Citta di Castello, expelling Lorenzo Vitelli, who held it for the pope, and placing Niccolo in it as prince. The pope now found himself in very great straits; for the city of Rome was disturbed by factions and the country covered with enemies. But acting with courage and resolution, he appointed Roberto da Rimino to take the command of his forces; and having sent for him to Rome, where his troops were assembled, told him how great would be the honor, if he could deliver the church from the king's forces, and the troubles in which it was involved; how greatly indebted, not only himself, but all his successors would be, and, that not mankind merely, but God himself would be under obligations to him. The magnificent Roberto, having considered the forces and preparations already made, advised the pope to raise as numerous a body of infantry as possible, which was done without delay. The duke of Calabria was at hand, and constantly harassed the country up to the very gates of Rome, which so roused the indignation of the citizens, that many offered their assistance to Roberto, and all were thankfully received. The duke, hearing of these preparations, withdrew a short distance from the city, that in the belief of finding him gone, the magnificent Roberto would not pursue him, and also in expectation of his brother Federigo, whom their father had sent to him with additional forces. But Roberto, finding himself nearly equal to the duke in cavalry, and superior in infantry, marched boldly out of Rome and took a position within two miles of the enemy. The duke, seeing his adversaries close upon him, found he must either fight or disgracefully retire. To avoid a retreat unbecoming a king's son, he resolved to face the enemy; and a battle ensued which continued from morning till midday. In this engagement, greater valor was exhibited on both sides than had been shown in any other during the last fifty years, upward of a thousand dead being left upon the field. The troops of the church were at length victorious, for her numerous infantry so annoyed the ducal cavalry, that they were compelled to retreat, and Alfonso himself would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had he not been rescued by a body of Turks, who remained at Otranto, and were at that time in his service. The lord of Rimino, after this victory, returned triumphantly to Rome, but did not long enjoy the fruit of his valor; for having, during the heat of the engagement, taken a copious draught of water, he was seized with a flux, of which he very shortly afterward died. The pope caused his funeral to be conducted with great pomp, and in a few days, sent the Count Girolamo toward Citta di Castello to restore it to Lorenzo, and also endeavor to gain Rimino, which being by Roberto's death left to the care of his widow and a son who was quite a boy, his holiness thought might be easily won; and this certainly would have been the case, if the lady had not been defended by the Florentines, who opposed him so effectually, as to prevent his success against both Castello and Rimino. While these things were in progress at Rome and in Romagna, the Venetians took possession of Figaruolo and crossed the Po with their forces. The camp of the duke of Milan and the marquis was in disorder; for the count of Urbino having fallen ill, was carried to Bologna for his recovery, but died. Thus the marquis's affairs were unfortunately situated, while those of the Venetians gave them increasing hopes of occupying Ferrara. The Florentines and the king of Naples used their utmost endeavors to gain the pope to their views; and not having succeeded by force, they threatened him with the council, which had already been summoned by the emperor to assemble at Basle; and by means of the imperial ambassadors, and the co-operation of the leading cardinals, who were desirous of peace, the pope was compelled to turn his attention toward effecting the pacification of Italy. With this view, at the instigation of his fears, and with the conviction that the aggrandizement of the Venetians would be the ruin of the church and of Italy, he endeavored to make peace with the League, and sent his nuncios to Naples, where a treaty was concluded for five years, between the pope, the king, the duke of Milan, and the Florentines, with an opening for the Venetians to join them if they thought proper. When this was accomplished, the pope intimated to the Venetians, that they must desist from war against Ferrara. They refused to comply, and made preparations to prosecute their design with greater vigor than they had hitherto done; and having routed the forces of the duke and the marquis at Argenta, they approached Ferrara so closely as to pitch their tents in the marquis's park. The League found they must no longer delay rendering him efficient assistance, and ordered the duke of Calabria to march to Ferrara with his forces and those of the pope, the Florentine troops also moving in the same direction. In order to direct the operations of the war with greater efficiency, the League assembled a diet at Cremona, which was attended by the pope's legate, the Count Girolamo, the duke of Calabria, the Signor Lodovico Sforza, and Lorenzo de' Medici, with many other Italian princes; and when the measures to be adopted were fully discussed, having decided that the best way of relieving Ferrara would be to effect a division of the enemy's forces, the League desired Lodovico to attack the Venetians on the side of Milan, but this he declined, for fear of bringing a war upon the duke's territories, which it would be difficult to quell. It was therefore resolved to proceed with the united forces of the League to Ferrara, and having assembled four thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry, they went in pursuit of the Venetians, whose force amounted to two thousand two hundred men at arms, and six thousand foot. They first attacked the Venetian flotilla, then lying upon the river Po, which they routed with the loss of above two hundred vessels, and took prisoner Antonio Justiniano, the purveyor of the fleet. The Venetians, finding all Italy united against them, endeavored to support their reputation by engaging in their service the duke of Lorraine, who joined them with two hundred men at arms: and having suffered so great a destruction of their fleet, they sent him, with part of their army, to keep their enemies at bay, and Roberto da San Severino to cross the Adda with the remainder, and proceed to Milan, where they were to raise the cry of "The duke and the Lady Bona," his mother; hoping by this means to give a new aspect to affairs there, believing that Lodovico and his government were generally unpopular. This attack at first created great consternation, and roused the citizens in arms; but eventually produced consequences unfavorable to the designs of the Venetians; for Lodovico was now desirous to undertake what he had refused to do at the entreaty of his allies. Leaving the marquis of Ferrara to the defense of his own territories, he, with four thousand horse and two thousand foot, and joined by the duke of Calabria with twelve thousand horse and five thousand foot, entered the territory of Bergamo, then Brescia, next that of Verona, and, in defiance of the Venetians, plundered the whole country; for it was with the greatest difficulty that Roberto and his forces could save the cities themselves. In the meantime, the marquis of Ferrara had recovered a great part of his territories; for the duke of Lorraine, by whom he was attacked, having only at his command two thousand horse and one thousand foot, could not withstand him. Hence, during the whole of 1483, the affairs of the League were prosperous. The winter having passed quietly over, the armies again took the field. To produce the greater impression upon the enemy, the League united their whole force, and would easily have deprived the Venetians of all they possessed in Lombardy, if the war had been conducted in the same manner as during the preceding year; for by the departure of the duke of Lorraine, whose term of service had expired, they were reduced to six thousand horse and five thousand foot, while the allies had thirteen thousand horse and five thousand foot at their disposal. But, as is often the case where several of equal authority are joined in command, their want of unity decided the victory to their enemies. Federigo, marquis of Mantua, whose influence kept the duke of Calabria and Lodovico Sforza within bounds, being dead, differences arose between them which soon became jealousies. Giovan Galeazzo, duke of Milan, was now of an age to take the government on himself, and had married the daughter of the duke of Calabria, who wished his son-in-law to exercise the government and not Lodovico; the latter, being aware of the duke's design, studied to prevent him from effecting it. The position of Lodovico being known to the Venetians, they thought they could make it available for their own interests; and hoped, as they had often before done, to recover in peace all they had lost by war; and having secretly entered into treaty with Lodovico, the terms were concluded in August, 1484. When this became known to the rest of the allies, they were greatly dissatisfied, principally because they found that the places won from the Venetians were to be restored; that they were allowed to keep Rovigo and the Polesine, which they had taken from the marquis of Ferrara, and besides this retain all the pre-eminence and authority over Ferrara itself which they had formerly possessed. Thus it was evident to everyone, they had been engaged in a war which had cost vast sums of money, during the progress of which they had acquired honor, and which was concluded with disgrace; for the places wrested from the enemy were restored without themselves recovering those they had lost. They were, however, compelled to ratify the treaty, on account of the unsatisfactory state of their finances, and because the faults and ambition of others had rendered them unwilling to put their fortunes to further proof. CHAPTER VI Affairs of the pope--He is reconciled to Niccolo Vitelli--Discords between the Colonnesi and the Orsini--Various events--The war of Serezana--Genoa occupied by her archbishop--Death of Sixtus IV.--Innocent VIII. elected--Agostino Fregoso gives Serezana to the bank of St. Giorgio--Account of the bank of St. Giorgio--War with the Genoese for Serezana--Stratagem of the Florentines to attack Pietra Santa--Difficulties and final surrender of Pietra Santa--The Lucchese lay claim to Pietra Santa--The city of L'Aquila revolts against the king of Naples--War between him and the pope--The Florentines take the king's party--Peace between the pope and the king. During these events in Lombardy, the pope sent Lorenzo to invest Citta di Castello, for the purpose of expelling Niccolo Vitelli, the place having been abandoned to him by the League, for the purpose of inducing the pontiff to join them. During the siege, Niccolo's troops were led out against the papal forces and routed them. Upon this the pope recalled the Count Girolamo from Lombardy with orders first to recruit his army at Rome, and then proceed against Citta di Castello. But thinking afterward, that it would be better to obtain Niccolo Vitello as his friend than to renew hostilities with him, an arrangement was entered into by which the latter retained Citta di Castello, and the pope pacified Lorenzo as well as he could. He was induced to both these measures rather by his apprehension of fresh troubles than by his love of peace, for he perceived dissensions arising between the Colonessi and the Orsini. In the war between the king of Naples and the pope, the former had taken the district of Tagliacozzo from the Orsini, and given it to the Colonnesi, who had espoused his cause. Upon the establishment of peace, the Orsini demanded its restoration by virtue of the treaty. The pope had frequently intimated to the Colonnesi that it ought to be restored; but they, instead of complying with the entreaties of the Orsini, or being influenced by the pope's threats, renewed hostilities against the former. Upon this the pontiff, unable to endure their insolence, united his own forces with those of the Orsini, plundered the houses they possessed in Rome, slew or made prisoners all who defended them, and seized most of their fortresses. So that when these troubles were composed, it was rather by the complete subjugation of one party than from any desire for peace in the other. Nor were the affairs of Genoa or of Tuscany in repose, for the Florentines kept the Count Antonio da Marciano on the borders of Serezana; and while the war continued in Lombardy, annoyed the people of Serezana by inroads and light skirmishes. Battistino Fregoso, doge of Genoa, trusting to Pagolo Fregoso, the archbishop, was taken prisoner, with his wife and children, by the latter, who assumed the sovereignty of the city. The Venetian fleet had attacked the kingdom of Naples, taken Gallipoli, and harassed the neighboring places. But upon the peace of Lombardy, all tumults were hushed except those of Tuscany and Rome; for the pope died in five days after its declaration, either in the natural course of things, or because his grief for peace, to which he was always opposed, occasioned his end. Upon the decease of the pontiff, Rome was immediately in arms. The Count Girolamo withdrew his forces into the castle; and the Orsini feared the Colonnesi would avenge the injuries they had recently sustained. The Colonnesi demanded the restitution of their houses and castles, so that in a few days robberies, fires, and murders prevailed in several parts of the city. The cardinals entreated the count to give the castle into the hands of the college, withdraw his troops, and deliver Rome from the fear of his forces, and he, by way of ingratiating himself with the future pontiff obeyed, and retired to Imola. The cardinals, being thus divested of their fears, and the barons hopeless of assistance in their quarrels, proceeded to create a new pontiff, and after some discussion, Giovanni Batista Cibo, a Genoese, cardinal of Malfetta, was elected, and took the name of Innocent VIII. By the mildness of his disposition (for he was peaceable and humane) he caused a cessation of hostilities, and for the present restored peace to Rome. The Florentines, after the pacification of Lombardy, could not remain quiet; for it appeared disgraceful that a private gentleman should deprive them of the fortress of Serezana; and as it was allowed by the conditions of peace, not only to demand lost places, but to make war upon any who should impede their restoration, they immediately provided men and money to undertake its recovery. Upon this, Agostino Fregoso, who had seized Serezana, being unable to defend it, gave the fortress to the Bank of St. Giorgio. As we shall have frequent occasion to speak of St. Giorgio and the Genoese, it will not be improper, since Genoa is one of the principal cities of Italy, to give some account of the regulations and usages prevailing there. When the Genoese had made peace with the Venetians, after the great war, many years ago, the republic, being unable to satisfy the claims of those who had advanced large sums of money for its use, conceded to them the revenue of the Dogano or customhouse, so that each creditor should participate in the receipts in proportion to his claim, until the whole amount should be liquidated, and as a suitable place for their assembling, the palace over the Dogano was assigned for their use. These creditors established a form of government among themselves, appointing a council of one hundred persons for the direction of their affairs, and a committee of eight, who, as the executive body, should carry into effect the determinations of the council. Their credits were divided into shares, called _Luoghi_, and they took the title of the Bank, or Company of St. Giorgio. Having thus arranged their government, the city fell into fresh difficulties, and applied to San Giorgio for assistance, which, being wealthy and well managed, was able to afford the required aid. On the other hand, as the city had at first conceded the customs, she next began to assign towns, castles, or territories, as security for moneys received; and this practice has proceeded to such a length, from the necessities of the state, and the accommodation by the San Giorgio, that the latter now has under its administration most of the towns and cities in the Genoese dominion. These the Bank governs and protects, and every year sends its deputies, appointed by vote, without any interference on the part of the republic. Hence the affections of the citizens are transferred from the government to the San Giorgio, on account of the tyranny of the former, and the excellent regulations adopted by the latter. Hence also originate the frequent changes of the republic, which is sometimes under a citizen, and at other times governed by a stranger; for the magistracy, and not the San Giorgio, changes the government. So when the Fregosi and the Adorni were in opposition, as the government of the republic was the prize for which they strove, the greater part of the citizens withdrew and left it to the victor. The only interference of the Bank of St. Giorgio is when one party has obtained a superiority over the other, to bind the victor to the observance of its laws, which up to this time have not been changed; for as it possesses arms, money, and influence, they could not be altered without incurring the imminent risk of a dangerous rebellion. This establishment presents an instance of what in all the republics, either described or imagined by philosophers, has never been thought of; exhibiting within the same community, and among the same citizens, liberty and tyranny, integrity and corruption, justice and injustice; for this establishment preserves in the city many ancient and venerable customs; and should it happen (as in time it easily may) that the San Giorgio should have possession of the whole city, the republic will become more distinguished than that of Venice. Agostino Fregoso conceded Serezana to the San Giorgio, which readily accepted it, undertook its defense, put a fleet to sea, and sent forces to Pietra Santa to prevent all attempts of the Florentines, whose camp was in the immediate vicinity. The Florentines found it would be essentially necessary to gain possession of Pietra Santa, for without it the acquisition of Serezana lost much of its value, being situated between the latter place and Pisa; but they could not, consistently with the treaty, besiege it, unless the people of Pietra Santa, or its garrison, were to impede their acquisition of Serezana. To induce the enemy to do this, the Florentines sent from Pisa to the camp a quantity of provisions and military stores, accompanied by a very weak escort; that the people of Pietra Santa might have little cause for fear, and by the richness of the booty be tempted to the attack. The plan succeeded according to their expectation; for the inhabitants of Pietra Santa, attracted by the rich prize took possession of it. This gave legitimate occasion to the Florentines to undertake operations against them; so leaving Serezana they encamped before Pietra Santa, which was very populous, and made a gallant defense. The Florentines planted their artillery in the plain, and formed a rampart upon the hill, that they might also attack the place on that side. Jacopo Guicciardini was commissary of the army; and while the siege of Pietra Santa was going on, the Genoese took and burned the fortress of Vada, and, landing their forces, plundered the surrounding country. Biongianni Gianfigliazzi was sent against them, with a body of horse and foot, and checked their audacity, so that they pursued their depredations less boldly. The fleet continuing its efforts went to Livorno, and by pontoons and other means approached the new tower, playing their artillery upon it for several days, but being unable to make any impression they withdrew. In the meantime the Florentines proceeded slowly against Pietra Santa, and the enemy taking courage attacked and took their works upon the hill. This was effected with so much glory, and struck such a panic into the Florentines, that they were almost ready to raise the siege, and actually retreated a distance of four miles; for their generals thought that they would retire to winter quarters, it being now October, and make no further attempt till the return of spring. When the discomfiture was known at Florence, the government was filled with indignation; and, to impart fresh vigor to the enterprise, and restore the reputation of their forces, they immediately appointed Antonio Pucci and Bernardo del Neri commissaries, who, with vast sums of money, proceeded to the army, and intimated the heavy displeasure of the Signory, and of the whole city, if they did not return to the walls; and what a disgrace, if so large an army and so many generals, having only a small garrison to contend with, could not conquer so poor and weak a place. They explained the immediate and future advantages that would result from the acquisition, and spoke so forcibly upon the subject, that all became anxious to renew the attack. They resolved, in the first place, to recover the rampart upon the hill; and here it was evident how greatly humanity, affability, and condescension influence the minds of soldiers; for Antonio Pucci, by encouraging one and promising another, shaking hands with this man and embracing that, induced them to proceed to the charge with such impetuosity, that they gained possession of the rampart in an instant. However, the victory was not unattended by misfortune, for Count Antonio da Marciano was killed by a cannon shot. This success filled the townspeople with so much terror, that they began to make proposals for capitulation; and to invest the surrender with imposing solemnity, Lorenzo de' Medici came to the camp, when, after a few days, the fortress was given up. It being now winter, the leaders of the expedition thought it unadvisable to make any further effort until the return of spring, more particularly because the autumnal air had been so unhealthy that numbers were affected by it. Antonio Pucci and Biongianni Gianfigliazzi were taken ill and died, to the great regret of all, so greatly had Antonio's conduct at Pietra Santa endeared him to the army. Upon the taking of Pietra Santa, the Lucchese sent ambassadors to Florence, to demand its surrender to their republic, on account of its having previously belonged to them, and because, as they alleged, it was in the conditions that places taken by either party were to be restored to their original possessors. The Florentines did not deny the articles, but replied that they did not know whether, by the treaty between themselves and the Genoese, which was then under discussion, it would have to be given up or not, and therefore could not reply to that point at present; but in case of its restitution, it would first be necessary for the Lucchese to reimburse them for the expenses they had incurred and the injury they had suffered, in the death of so many citizens; and that when this was satisfactorily arranged, they might entertain hopes of obtaining the place. The whole winter was consumed in negotiations between the Florentines and Genoese, which, by the pope's intervention, were carried on at Rome; but not being concluded upon the return of spring, the Florentines would have attacked Serezana had they not been prevented by the illness of Lorenzo de' Medici, and the war between the pope and King Ferrando; for Lorenzo was afflicted not only by the gout, which seemed hereditary in his family, but also by violent pains in the stomach, and was compelled to go the baths for relief. The more important reason was furnished by the war, of which this was the origin. The city of L'Aquila, though subject to the kingdom of Naples, was in a manner free; and the Count di Montorio possessed great influence over it. The duke of Calabria was upon the banks of the Tronto with his men-at-arms, under pretense of appeasing some disturbances among the peasantry; but really with a design of reducing L'Aquila entirely under the king's authority, and sent for the Count di Montorio, as if to consult him upon the business he pretended then to have in hand. The count obeyed without the least suspicion, and on his arrival was made prisoner by the duke and sent to Naples. When this circumstance became known at L'Aquila, the anger of the inhabitants arose to the highest pitch; taking arms they killed Antonio Cencinello, commissary for the king, and with him some inhabitants known partisans of his majesty. The L'Aquilani, in order to have a defender in their rebellion, raised the banner of the church, and sent envoys to the pope, to submit their city and themselves to him, beseeching that he would defend them as his own subjects against the tyranny of the king. The pontiff gladly undertook their defense, for he had both public and private reasons for hating that monarch; and Signor Roberto of San Severino, an enemy of the duke of Milan, being disengaged, was appointed to take the command of his forces, and sent for with all speed to Rome. He entreated the friends and relatives of the Count di Montorio to withdraw their allegiance from the king, and induced the princes of Altimura, Salerno, and Bisignano to take arms against him. The king, finding himself so suddenly involved in war, had recourse to the Florentines and the duke of Milan for assistance. The Florentines hesitated with regard to their own conduct, for they felt all the inconvenience of neglecting their own affairs to attend to those of others, and hostilities against the church seemed likely to involve much risk. However, being under the obligation of a League, they preferred their honor to convenience or security, engaged the Orsini, and sent all their own forces under the Count di Pitigliano toward Rome, to the assistance of the king. The latter divided his forces into two parts; one, under the duke of Calabria, he sent toward Rome, which, being joined by the Florentines, opposed the army of the church; with the other, under his own command, he attacked the barons, and the war was prosecuted with various success on both sides. At length, the king, being universally victorious, peace was concluded by the intervention of the ambassadors of the king of Spain, in August, 1486, to which the pope consented; for having found fortune opposed to him he was not disposed to tempt it further. In this treaty all the powers of Italy were united, except the Genoese, who were omitted as rebels against the republic of Milan, and unjust occupiers of territories belonging to the Florentines. Upon the peace being ratified, Roberto da San Severino, having been during the war a treacherous ally of the church, and by no means formidable to her enemies, left Rome; being followed by the forces of the duke and the Florentines, after passing Cesena, found them near him, and urging his flight reached Ravenna with less than a hundred horse. Of his forces, part were received into the duke's service, and part were plundered by the peasantry. The king, being reconciled with his barons, put to death Jacopo Coppola and Antonello d'Aversa and their sons, for having, during the war, betrayed his secrets to the pope. CHAPTER VII The pope becomes attached to the Florentines--The Genoese seize Serezanello--They are routed by the Florentines--Serezana surrenders--Genoa submits to the duke of Milan--War between the Venetians and the Dutch--Osimo revolts from the church--Count Girolamo Riario, lord of Furli, slain by a conspiracy--Galeotto, lord of Faenza, is murdered by the treachery of his wife--The government of the city offered to the Florentines--Disturbances in Sienna--Death of Lorenzo de' Medici--His eulogy--Establishment of his family--Estates bought by Lorenzo--His anxiety for the defense of Florence--His taste for arts and literature--The university of Pisa--The estimation of Lorenzo by other princes. The pope having observed in the course of the war, how promptly and earnestly the Florentines adhered to their alliances, although he had previously been opposed to them from his attachment to the Genoese, and the assistance they had rendered to the king, now evinced a more amicable disposition, and received their ambassadors with greater favor than previously. Lorenzo de' Medici, being made acquainted with this change of feeling, encouraged it with the utmost solicitude; for he thought it would be of great advantage, if to the friendship of the king he could add that of the pontiff. The pope had a son named Francesco, upon whom designing to bestow states and attach friends who might be useful to him after his own death, saw no safer connection in Italy than Lorenzo's, and therefore induced the latter to give him one of his daughters in marriage. Having formed this alliance, the pope desired the Genoese to concede Serezana to the Florentines, insisting that they had no right to detain what Agostino had sold, nor was Agostino justified in making over to the Bank of San Giorgio what was not his own. However, his holiness did not succeed with them; for the Genoese, during these transactions at Rome, armed several vessels, and, unknown to the Florentines, landed three thousand foot, attacked Serezanello, situated above Serezana, plundered and burnt the town near it, and then, directing their artillery against the fortress, fired upon it with their utmost energy. This assault was new and unexpected by the Florentines, who immediately assembled their forces under Virginio Orsino, at Pisa, and complained to the pope, that while he was endeavoring to establish peace, the Genoese had renewed their attack upon them. They then sent Piero Corsini to Lucca, that by his presence he might keep the city faithful; and Pagolantonio Soderini to Venice, to learn how that republic was disposed. They demanded assistance of the king and of Signor Lodovico, but obtained it from neither; for the king expressed apprehensions of the Turkish fleet, and Lodovico made excuses, but sent no aid. Thus the Florentines in their own wars are almost always obliged to stand alone, and find no friends to assist them with the same readiness they practice toward others. Nor did they, on this desertion of their allies (it being nothing new to them) give way to despondency; for having assembled a large army under Jacopo Guicciardini and Pietro Vettori, they sent it against the enemy, who had encamped upon the river Magra, at the same time pressing Serezanello with mines and every species of attack. The commissaries being resolved to relieve the place, an engagement ensued, when the Genoese were routed, and Lodovico dal Fiesco, with several other principal men, made prisoners. The Serezanesi were not so depressed at their defeat as to be willing to surrender, but obstinately prepared for their defense, while the Florentine commissaries proceeded with their operations, and instances of valor occurred on both sides. The siege being protracted by a variety of fortune, Lorenzo de' Medici resolved to go to the camp, and on his arrival the troops acquired fresh courage, while that of the enemy seemed to fail; for perceiving the obstinacy of the Florentines' attack, and the delay of the Genoese in coming to their relief, they surrendered to Lorenzo, without asking conditions, and none were treated with severity except two or three who were leaders of the rebellion. During the siege, Lodovico had sent troops to Pontremoli, as if with an intention of assisting the Florentines; but having secret correspondence in Genoa, a party was raised there, who, by the aid of these forces, gave the city to the duke of Milan. At this time the Dutch made war upon the Venetians, and Boccolino of Osimo, in the Marca, caused that place to revolt from the pope, and assumed the sovereignty. After a variety of fortune, he was induced to restore the city to the pontiff and come to Florence, where, under the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici, by whose advice he had been prevailed upon to submit, he lived long and respected. He afterward went to Milan, but did not experience such generous treatment; for Lodovico caused him to be put to death. The Venetians were routed by the Dutch, near the city of Trento, and Roberto da S. Severino, their captain, was slain. After this defeat, the Venetians, with their usual good fortune, made peace with the Dutch, not as vanquished, but as conquerors, so honorable were the terms they obtained. About this time, there arose serious troubles in Romagna. Francesco d'Orso, of Furli, was a man of great authority in that city, and became suspected by the count Girolamo, who often threatened him. He consequently, living under great apprehensions, was advised by his friends to provide for his own safety, by the immediate adoption of such a course as would relieve him from all further fear of the count. Having considered the matter and resolved to attempt it, they fixed upon the market day, at Furli, as most suitable for their purpose; for many of their friends being sure to come from the country, they might make use of their services without having to bring them expressly for the occasion. It was the month of May, when most Italians take supper by daylight. The conspirators thought the most convenient hour would be after the count had finished his repast; for his household being then at their meal, he would remain in the chamber almost alone. Having fixed upon the hour, Francesco went to the count's residence, left his companions in the hall, proceeded to his apartment, and desired an attendant to say he wished for an interview. He was admitted, and after a few words of pretended communication, slew him, and calling to his associates, killed the attendant. The governor of the place coming by accident to speak with the count, and entering the apartment with a few of his people, was also slain. After this slaughter, and in the midst of a great tumult, the count's body was thrown from the window, and with the cry of "church and liberty," they roused the people (who hated the avarice and cruelty of the count) to arms, and having plundered his house, made the Countess Caterina and her children prisoners. The fortress alone had to be taken to bring the enterprise to a successful issue; but the Castellan would not consent to its surrender. They begged the countess would desire him to comply with their wish, which she promised to do, if they would allow her to go into the fortress, leaving her children as security for the performance of her promise. The conspirators trusted her, and permitted her to enter; but as soon as she was within, she threatened them with death and every kind of torture in revenge for the murder of her husband; and upon their menacing her with the death of her children, she said she had the means of getting more. Finding they were not supported by the pope, and that Lodovico Sforza, uncle to the countess, had sent forces to her assistance, the conspirators became terrified, and taking with them whatever property they could carry off, they fled to Citta di Castello. The countess recovered the state, and avenged the death of her husband with the utmost cruelty. The Florentines hearing of the count's death, took occasion to recover the fortress of Piancaldoli, of which he had formerly deprived them, and, on sending some forces, captured it; but Cecco, the famous engineer, lost his life during the siege. To this disturbance in Romagna, another in that province, no less important, has to be added. Galeotto, lord of Faenza, had married the daughter of Giovanni Bentivogli, prince of Bologna. She, either through jealousy or ill treatment by her husband, or from the depravity of her own nature, hated him to such a degree, that she determined to deprive him of his possessions and his life; and pretending sickness, she took to her bed, where, having induced Galeotto to visit her, he was slain by assassins, whom she had concealed for that purpose in the apartment. She had acquainted her father with her design, and he hoped, on his son-in-law's death, to become lord of Faenza. A great tumult arose as soon as the murder was known, the widow, with an infant son, fled into the fortress, the people took up arms, Giovanni Bentivogli, with a condottiere of the duke of Milan, named Bergamino, engaged for the occasion, entered Faenza with a considerable force, and Antonio Boscoli, the Florentine commissary, was also there. These leaders being together, and discoursing of the government of the place, the men of Val di Lamona, who had risen unanimously upon learning what had occurred, attacked Giovanni and Bergamino, the latter of whom they slew, made the former prisoner, and raising the cry of "Astorre and the Florentines," offered the city to the commissary. These events being known at Florence, gave general offense; however, they set Giovanni and his daughter at liberty, and by the universal desire of the people, took the city and Astorre under their protection. Besides these, after the principal differences of the greater powers were composed, during several years tumults prevailed in Romagna, the Marca, and Sienna, which, as they are unimportant, it will be needless to recount. When the duke of Calabria, after the war of 1478, had left the country, the distractions of Sienna became more frequent, and after many changes, in which, first the plebeians, and then the nobility, were victorious, the latter and length maintained the superiority, and among them Pandolfo and Jacopo Petrucci obtained the greatest influence, so that the former being distinguished for prudence and the latter for resolution, they became almost princes in the city. The Florentines after the war of Serezana, lived in great prosperity until 1492, when Lorenzo de' Medici died; for he having put a stop to the internal wars of Italy, and by his wisdom and authority established peace, turned his thoughts to the advancement of his own and the city's interests, and married Piero, his eldest son, to Alfonsina, daughter of the Cavaliere Orsino. He caused Giovanni, his second son, to be raised to the dignity of cardinal. This was the more remarkable from its being unprecedented; for he was only fourteen years of age when admitted to the college; and became the medium by which his family attained to the highest earthly glory. He was unable to make any particular provision for Guiliano, his third son, on account of his tender years, and the shortness of his own life. Of his daughters, one married Jacopo Salviati; another, Francesco Cibo; the third, Piero Ridolfi; and the fourth, whom, in order to keep his house united, he had married to Giovanni de' Medici, died. In his commercial affairs he was very unfortunate, from the improper conduct of his agents, who in all their proceedings assumed the deportment of princes rather than of private persons; so that in many places, much of his property was wasted, and he had to be relieved by his country with large sums of money. To avoid similar inconvenience, he withdrew from mercantile pursuits, and invested his property in land and houses, as being less liable to vicissitude. In the districts of Prato, Pisa, and the Val di Pesa, he purchased extensively, and erected buildings, which for magnificence and utility, were quite of regal character. He next undertook the improvement of the city, and as many parts were unoccupied by buildings, he caused new streets to be erected in them, of great beauty, and thus enlarged the accommodation of the inhabitants. To enjoy his power in security and repose, and conquer or resist his enemies at a distance, in the direction of Bologna he fortified the castle of Firenzuola, situated in the midst of the Appennines; toward Sienna he commenced the restoration and fortification of the Poggio Imperiale; and he shut out the enemy in the direction of Genoa, by the acquisition of Pietra Santa and Serezana. For the greater safety of the city, he kept in pay the Baglioni, at Perugia, and the Vitelli, at Citta di Castello, and held the government of Faenza wholly in his own power; all which greatly contributed to the repose and prosperity of Florence. In peaceful times, he frequently entertained the people with feasts, and exhibitions of various events and triumphs of antiquity; his object being to keep the city abundantly supplied, the people united, and the nobility honored. He was a great admirer of excellence in the arts, and a patron of literary men, of which Agnolo da Montepulciano, Cristofero Landini, and Demetrius Chalcondylas, a Greek, may afford sufficient proofs. On this account, Count Giovanni della Mirandola, a man of almost supernatural genius, after visiting every court of Europe, induced by the munificence of Lorenzo, established his abode at Florence. He took great delight in architecture, music, and poetry, many of his comments and poetical compositions still remaining. To facilitate the study of literature to the youth of Florence, he opened a university at Pisa, which was conducted by the most distinguished men in Italy. For Mariano da Chinazano, a friar of the order of St. Augustine, and an excellent preacher, he built a monastery in the neighborhood of Florence. He enjoyed much favor both from fortune and from the Almighty; all his enterprises were brought to a prosperous termination, while his enemies were unfortunate; for, besides the conspiracy of the Pazzi, an attempt was made to murder him in the Carmine, by Batista Frescobaldi, and a similar one by Baldinetto da Pistoja, at his villa; but these persons, with their confederates, came to the end their crimes deserved. His skill, prudence, and fortune, were acknowledged with admiration, not only by the princes of Italy, but by those of distant countries; for Matthias, king of Hungary, gave him many proofs of his regard; the sultan sent ambassadors to him with valuable presents, and the Turkish emperor placed in his hands Bernardo Bandini, the murderer of his brother. These circumstances raised his fame throughout Italy, and his reputation for prudence constantly increased; for in council he was eloquent and acute, wise in determination, and prompt and resolute in execution. Nor can vices be alleged against him to sully so many virtues; though he was fond of women, pleased with the company of facetious and satirical men, and amused with the games of the nursery, more than seemed consistent with so great a character; for he was frequently seen playing with his children, and partaking of their infantine sports; so that whoever considers this gravity and cheerfulness, will find united in him dispositions which seem almost incompatible with each other. In his later years, he was greatly afflicted; besides the gout, he was troubled with excruciating pains in the stomach, of which he died in April, 1492, in the forty-fourth year of his age; nor was there ever in Florence, or even in Italy, one so celebrated for wisdom, or for whose loss such universal regret was felt. As from his death the greatest devastation would shortly ensue, the heavens gave many evident tokens of its approach; among other signs, the highest pinnacle of the church of Santa Reparata was struck with lightning, and great part of it thrown down, to the terror and amazement of everyone. The citizens and all the princes of Italy mourned for him, and sent their ambassadors to Florence, to condole with the city on the occasion; and the justness of their grief was shortly after apparent; for being deprived of his counsel, his survivors were unable either to satisfy or restrain the ambition of Lodovico Sforza, tutor to the duke of Milan; and hence, soon after the death of Lorenzo, those evil plants began to germinate, which in a little time ruined Italy, and continue to keep her in desolation. 
45469	----	images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 45469-h.htm or 45469-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45469/45469-h/45469-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45469/45469-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/twofirstcenturie00villuoft Transcribers' note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A carat character is used to denote superscription. Superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: CC^{o}). Chapter IX does not have a section VII. This appears to be a misprint, not missing text. THE TWO FIRST CENTURIES OF FLORENTINE HISTORY * * * * * * BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. Fully Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ _net_. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI. With Photogravure Frontispiece. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._ _net_. THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS OF ITALY. With Frontispiece and Maps. Two vols. Demy 8vo, cloth, 32_s_. STUDIES HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. With Seven Photogravure Plates. Demy 8vo, cloth, 15_s._ _net_. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. * * * * * * [Illustration: THE MERCATO VECCHIO BEFORE ITS DEMOLITION.] THE TWO FIRST CENTURIES OF FLORENTINE HISTORY The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante by PROFESSOR PASQUALE VILLARI Translated by Linda Villari FOURTH IMPRESSION Illustrated London T. Fisher Unwin 1 Adelphi Terrace 1908 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH VERSION. _Before deciding to issue this translation I had first to reflect whether my Florentine studies could be of any use to the English public. Since Roscoe's day English literature has been enriched by works of much importance on different phases of the political, literary, and artistic history of Florence. Both Napier and Trollope have bequeathed very complete narratives of Florentine events, and translations of notable foreign works have also been produced. But nearly all these works appeared before any scientific research as to the origin of the City and Commonwealth had begun, or, at least, before it had reached the results I have briefly expounded, and which deserve notice, not only on the score of intrinsic worth, but also because they throw new light on the subsequent history of Florence._ _To attempt any new delineation of the special vicissitudes of the Florentine Republic, already so exhaustively and lucidly treated by other historians, would have been outside my purpose. As stated in the preface to the Italian edition, my sole aim was to investigate in what manner the Republic was formed, the nature of its constitution, the why and wherefore of its continual transmutations, the first causes and genuine motives of the factions by which the city was torn, and likewise to ascertain how it came about that--despite all this turbulence and strife--commerce and industry, the fine arts and letters should have been able to achieve such marvellous results. Now, so far as I know, English literature contains nothing on this particular theme, although one that can scarcely fail to be of some use and interest even to readers familiar with greater works and more extended and detailed accounts of Florentine history._ _These researches are not pursued beyond the times of Dante and Henry VII., inasmuch as that term actually marks the close of the period during which the Republic took shape and built up its constitution. This was followed by a new phase of equally high importance but very different character, during which the Republic entered, instead, on a course of decomposition. In fact, we have only to draw a comparison between the "Divine Comedy" and the "Decameron," to instantly perceive how deep was the change a few years had wrought in the spirit of Florence and of all Italy. These two works were almost contemporaneous, yet when reading them they seem to us the product of two entirely different ages. Whether in politics, religion, morals, or letters, the character of these two periods is seen to be essentially diverse. The Middle Ages, with all their rough primitive originality, have come to an end; classic learning and the Renaissance have begun. Touching this second period, there is no scarcity of information, documents, or chroniclers, as in the case of the first. The historian is confronted by totally novel problems to which numerous modern writers have given their attention, and which have also been investigated in previous works of my own._ _Even this second period would certainly afford matter for another work on the gradual course of political and moral dissolution, during which art and literature blossomed to new splendour. Such investigations, however, would transport me beyond the limits I have set to this book. Under what conditions and amid what difficulties these researches were begun and carried forward has been already plainly told in my preface to the Italian edition. It only remains for me to crave the indulgence of English readers._ _PASQUALE VILLARI._ AUTHOR'S PREFACE. A word of explanation is due to my readers touching the genesis of the present work. In 1866 I began a course of lectures at our Istituto Superiore on the History of Florence, chiefly for the purpose of examining the political constitution of the Republic, and investigating the various transformations it had undergone during the long series of internal revolutions by which the city was harassed. In this way I hoped to ascertain the veritable causes of those revolutions, to discover some leading thread through the mazes of Florentine history, which even when treated by great writers has often been found exceedingly involved and obscure, and likewise to determine the most logical mode of arranging it in periods. Even a partial solution of these problems would have been of some use. I continued the lectures for a considerable time, but suspended them on reaching the period of Giano della Bella's "Decrees of Justice" (_Ordinamenti di Giustizia_), 1293. Some of these discourses were published in the Milan _Politecnico_, others in the _Nuova Antologia_ at Florence. It was then my intention to collect them in a volume; but after some hesitation I renounced the idea. It seemed indispensable to at least add some outline of the course of events subsequent to the fall of Giano della Bella and the exile of Dante, in order to conclude the first and most important period of the political history of Florence. Besides, I saw that the necessity of continuing these lectures on fixed days had not always allowed sufficient time for overcoming obstacles encountered by the way. Accordingly, more than a superficial revisal was required; gaps had to be filled in, certain pages re-written. Hence fresh researches were demanded, for which other labours granted no leisure at the moment. Meanwhile new documents, new dissertations, and monographs on Florentine history were continually appearing, besides notable works on a larger scale such as those of Capponi, Del Lungo, Hartwig, Perrens, &c. All this increased the difficulty of revising and correcting lectures, now lapsing inevitably more and more out of date. On the other hand I sometimes found previous deductions confirmed by recently discovered documents, and that certain general ideas I had enounced were accepted and followed by writers of note. This naturally inclined me to be less severe in judging my work, and more disposed to listen to the tried friends who were urging its republication. Being thus encouraged to resume my forsaken studies, I lectured in 1888 on the times of Henry VII. of Germany and the exile of Dante. Later on, in 1890, recognising that my previous work on the origins of the city and its commonwealth had become altogether inadequate since the appearance of so much new material, I returned to the subject in a fresh course of lectures, which likewise saw the light in the _Nuova Antologia_. Then, I finally began to put the scattered papers together to revise and correct them. Hence it will be plainly seen that this book is composed of various separate parts which, although informed, one and all, by the same leading idea and treating of the same argument, were produced at distant intervals during a quarter of a century, in which the study of Florentine history had made rapid advance through the labours of numerous and competent writers. Therefore, in spite of devoting my best efforts to pruning, revising, and arranging my lectures, they are still old essays more or less disjointed, and containing many unavoidable repetitions. Greater organic unity could only have been attained by re-writing the whole and composing a new book; whereas my intention was merely to republish a series of scattered compositions, under the fitting title of "Researches." What finally decided me to reprint them was, that, as I venture to think, their dominant and fundamental notes still ring true, even after the numerous works produced by other hands. Indeed, unless I be mistaken, those works frequently support my observations, and confirm the ideas expressed throughout on the general character and progressive development of Florentine history. Whether I be right or wrong in this belief the reader must decide. At any rate I venture to hope that, in judging this book, he will kindly make allowance for the time and manner in which it came into existence. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF FLORENCE 38 CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE 80 CHAPTER III. THE FIRST WARS AND FIRST REFORMS OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE 131 CHAPTER IV. STATE OF PARTIES--CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST POPULAR GOVERNMENT AND OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE 173 CHAPTER V. FLORENCE THE DOMINANT POWER IN TUSCANY 240 CHAPTER VI. THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS AND POLICY OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE 310 CHAPTER VII. THE FAMILY AND THE STATE IN ITALIAN COMMUNES 360 CHAPTER VIII. THE ENACTMENTS OF JUSTICE 431 CHAPTER IX. THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC IN DANTE'S TIME 484 CHAPTER X. DANTE, FLORENTINE EXILES AND HENRY VII. 521 ILLUSTRATIONS. THE MERCATO VECCHIO, BEFORE ITS DEMOLITION _Frontispiece._ _To face page_ VARIOUS REMAINS DISCOVERED IN THE MERCATO VECCHIO, NOW IN THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM, FLORENCE 1 THE ARNO RIVER-GOD. BAS-RELIEF. ETRUSCAN MUSEUM 39 ETRUSCAN TOMBSTONES, FROM THE MERCATO VECCHIO 55 SITE OF ROMAN VILLA, NEAR SAN ANDREA, FLORENCE 57 PAVEMENT OF A ROMAN HOUSE, WITH IMPLUVIUM, FOUND UNDER THE MERCATO VECCHIO 59 MOSAIC PAVEMENT OF A _SALA DELLE TERME_ 59 PISCINA FRIGIDARIA, WITH CONNECTED CHILDREN'S BATHS, FOUND NEAR THE CAMPIDOGLIO 66 ATTACK ON THE MONKS OF SAN SALVI. BAS-RELIEF BY BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO; NATIONAL MUSEUM, FLORENCE 74 MIRACLE OF SAN GIOVANNI GUALBERTO (EXORCISING A DEVIL). BAS-RELIEF BY BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO 78 A ROMAN HYPOCAUST, PARTLY RECONSTRUCTED 85 EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE CALIDARIUM AND FURNACE 85 DESCENT TO A ROMAN WELL; DISCOVERED BENEATH THE CAMPIDOGLIO, FLORENCE 89 ROMAN CALIDARIUM, WITH FURNACE BENEATH; FLORENCE 93 IMPLUVIUM OF A ROMAN HOUSE; FLORENCE 93 MOUTH OF ROMAN FURNACE (MERCATO VECCHIO) 96 CALIDARIUM (_ibidem_) 96 BELFRY OF SAN ANDREA, MERCATO VECCHIO, FLORENCE 130 PALACE OF THE PODESTÀ, FLORENCE 192 PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE 241 SUPPOSED PALACE OF THEODORIC IN RAVENNA 383 THE TOMB OF THEODORIC, RAVENNA 384 ANCIENT SHRINE, RAVENNA 388 CHURCH OF SAN VITALE, RAVENNA 401 EMPEROR JUSTINIAN 403 EMPRESS THEODORA AND COURT, RAVENNA 404 SCENE IN CORN MARKET, FLORENCE 475 RIOT IN CORN MARKET, FLORENCE 476 [Illustration] [Illustration: VARIOUS REMAINS DISCOVERED IN THE MERCATO VECCHIO OF FLORENCE. (_Now in the Etruscan Museum._) [_To face page 1._] INTRODUCTION.[1] I. The history of Italian freedom, from the Middle Ages to the new series of foreign invasions, dating from the descent of Charles VIII. in 1494, mainly consists of the history of our communes. But this history is as yet unwritten, and, worse still, can never be written until the material required for the task shall have been brought to light, sifted, and illustrated. What were the most ancient political statutes, what those of the guilds of art and commerce, what the penal and civil laws, the individual conditions, revenue, expenditure, trade, and industry of those republics? To all these questions we can give but imperfect replies at the best, and some are left altogether unsolved. Yet until all are decided the civil history of our communes remains involved in obscurity. Through Machiavelli and Giannone Italy gave the world the first essays in constitutional history, and by Muratori's gigantic labours inaugurated the great school of learning that is the only settled basis of modern and, more especially, of constitutional history. But we soon allowed the sceptre we had won to be snatched from our grasp. It is true that we have never experienced any dearth of great scholars or historians, but the complete national history of a people is a task exceeding the powers of one or of several individuals. Such history must be produced, as it were, by the nation itself. Only the combined efforts of many scholars and of many generations can succeed in co-ordinating and investigating the vast mass of material that has to be ransacked in order to trace through the vicissitudes of numerous municipalities, all differing from, and at war with one another, the history of the Italian people. It has been long the custom with us for every one to work independently: hence we lack the spirit of agreement and co-operation required to enable individual efforts to carry forward the work of the whole country at the same pace. Certainly, however, I must not forget to note the example of our various national historical societies, subsidised by the Government, and composed of most learned and deserving men. But these associations and commissions have as yet no general nor united plan of work; and, in fact, some of their members are apt to devote their energies to labours which, however important, are disconnected from the main object. Thus there will be much delay before our learned men complete the investigation of any one period of our history. Yet the rules which should be followed are not far to seek, since Italians were the first to discover them, and we still bear them in mind. Nor has the issue of highly important collections of documents been relegated exclusively to our societies and commissions. None can have forgotten the untiring labours of the worthy Vieusseux and his friends in their management of the "Archivio Storico Italiano"! To show what excellent results may be achieved by the publication of a single series of State papers, it is sufficient to mention the Despatches (_Relazioni_) of Venetian Ambassadors, given to the world by Alberi, and whereby not only Italian but European history has been so greatly profited. What progress might not be made would all Italian scholars consent to devote their labours to a common end! We have seen how much Professor Pertz was enabled to achieve at Berlin, with a subsidy from the Confederation, and aided by all the scholars of Germany. Truly, his "Monumenta" form an enduring memorial of the national history of the Fatherland, and has become the nucleus of a new school of scholars and historians. Now that Italy is united, and her many states fused into one, she should know the history of her communes, and trace out the history of her people. It should also be kept in view that the Commune was the institution by whose means modern society was evolved from the Middle Ages. Rising in the midst of a throng of slaves, vassals, barons, marquises, dukes, the Commune gave birth to the _third estate_ and the people which, after first destroying feudalism in Italy, subsequently by the French Revolution, destroyed it throughout Europe. Even Augustin Thierry notes that "thus was formed the immense congregation of free men who in 1789 undertook for all France that which had been achieved by their forefathers in mediæval municipalities."[2] Accordingly, since Italy was the centre and seat of municipal liberty, the purpose of the present work is not only to investigate our civil history, but to demonstrate how much we contributed to the discovery of the principles of modern society and civilisation. All careful students of the history of Roman law in the Middle Ages will have occasion to remark that our commentators while reviewing ancient jurisprudence, unconsciously modified it in adapting it to their own times. Francesco Forti has declared that no student of our statutes can fail to perceive that many of the regulations found in the Napoleon Code, and supposed to be created by the French Revolution, already formed part of the old Italian law. I have come to the conclusion that in every branch of Italian civil life our history will be able to prove that the same remark holds good, inasmuch as our civil institutions contained the primary germs of modern freedom. But no one has yet dared to attempt this task, and, as I said before, no single strength could suffice for it. We have now to deal with a far humbler theme. By tracing in bold outline the history of a single commune, we desire to show what fresh researches remain to be made, and how many problems to be solved. The vicissitudes of the Florentine Republic can only be paralleled with those of the most flourishing periods of Athenian freedom. Throughout modern history we might seek in vain the example of another city simultaneously so turbulent and prosperous, where, despite so much internecine carnage, fine arts, letters, commerce, and industry, all flourished equally. The historian almost doubts his own veracity when bound to recount how a handful of men settled on a small spot of earth, extended their trade to the East and the West; establishing banks throughout Europe; and accumulated such vast wealth, that private fortunes sometimes sufficed to support tottering thrones. He has also to relate how these rich merchants founded modern poetry with their Dante, painting with their Giotto; how with the aid of their Arnolfo and Brunellesco, and of their Michelangelo, who was poet, painter, sculptor, and architect in one, they raised the stupendous buildings which the world will lastingly admire. The first and subtlest of European diplomatists were Florentines; political science and civil history were born in Florence with Machiavelli. Towards the end of the Middle Ages this narrow township seems a small point of fire shedding light over the whole world. It might well be thought that all difficulties regarding the history of this commune must have been already overcome, seeing that the finest Italian writers, the greatest modern historians, have for so long made it the theme of extended labours. In fact, what other city can boast annals penned by such men as Villani, Compagni, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Nardi, Varchi? And, in addition to histories and chronicles, we find an endless string of Diaries, _Prioristi_ (Notebooks), Reminiscences, before coming down to modern writers. Among the Florentines it was a very common practice to keep a daily register of events, and in this wise their splendid store of historic literature was continually enlarged. But, nevertheless, no history bristles with so many difficulties as that of Florence, nor offers so many apparently insurmountable contradictions. Events pass before our eyes, well described, vividly coloured; they flit past in a rapid and uninterrupted whirl, never resting, subject to no law, and seemingly obedient to chance alone. Personal hatred, jealousy, and private revenge produce political revolutions, drenching the city with the blood of its children. These revolutions endure for months, perhaps even for years, and end with arbitrary decrees, which are violated or undone the moment they have received magisterial sanction. Thus we are often moved to inquire, How can this be the work of far-seeing diplomats, of great politicians? Either lofty commendations for political good sense and acuteness were falsely lavished on men incapable of giving their country sound laws and stable institutions, and who in the gravest affairs of State were solely influenced by personal loves and hates; or else for centuries past we have accorded unmerited praise to the historians who have described impossible events to us in the most vivid colours. In fact, how could it possibly be that so much good sense should breed so much disorder? How, too, in the midst of this disorder, with the vessel of the State at the mercy of every wind that blew, could art, science, and literature give forth so glorious a harvest? Undoubtedly history, as we interpret it to-day, was unknown to the ancients. We seek the causes of events, whereas they merely described them. We wish to know the laws, manners, ideas, and prejudices of mankind, whereas our forefathers were exclusively concerned with human passions and actions. In the fifteenth century political science was chiefly a study of human nature, while at this day it is mainly a study of institutions. Modern history aims at the examination of mankind and society in every form, and from every point of view. That is why we have had to so often re-fashion the work that, nevertheless, had been splendidly performed by writers of old. Leaving aside all compilers of those fables and legends on the origin of Florence found repeated in even later works, Florentine historians may be divided into two great schools. First come the authors of Chronicles or Diaries, who flourished chiefly in the fourteenth century, although they continued long after that period. These writers record day by day the events they have witnessed and in which they have often taken part; stirred by the very passions they describe, they sometimes rise to eloquence, and the heat of their own words leaves them no time to dwell on abstract ideas. They presuppose in their readers their own detailed knowledge of the political institutions among which their lives were spent, but which are unknown to us, and the object of our keenest desire. Frequently, however, some fourteenth-century chronicler, such as Giovanni Villani, with his incomparable gift of observation, supplies such minute descriptions of events, reports so many details, that, almost unawares, we find ourselves carried back to his day. Sometimes, when descending to particulars, he apologises for detaining the reader on topics of small moment, little foreseeing what value we later generations would attach to all those details of the trade, instruction, revenue, and expenditure of the Republic, or how we should long for more facts of the same kind. But as soon as these writers touch upon times and events outside their own experience, they have either to copy verbatim from other chroniclers, or their narratives remain cold, colourless, and devoid of merit or authority. We pass at once from the most lively and graphic descriptions to the strangest fables, the greatest incoherence, since these men are incapable of using any discernment even in copying literally from others. Proofs of this are seen in their puerile accounts of the foundation of Florence. Historical criticism was as yet unborn. The scholarship of the fifteenth century gave rise to the study and imitation of Sallust and Livy; and Italian writers were no longer content to register facts from day to day, unconnectedly and without order. Many wrote in Latin, others in Italian; but all sought to compose historical narratives in a more artistic, or at all events, more artificial way. They launched into exordiums and general considerations; gave lengthy descriptions, eked out by many flights of fancy, of wars they had never witnessed, and of which they knew little or nothing; they attributed imaginary speeches to their personages, and sometimes fashioned their narratives in the shape of dialogues, to increase the distance between themselves and their fourteenth-century predecessors.[3] It was a period of rhetorical essays and servile imitations of the classics, during which Italian history and literature declined, although preparing for revival in the coming age. In fact, we find the art of history notably advanced in the sixteenth century. Machiavelli, who may be styled the most illustrious founder of that art, begins with a word of blame to preceding historians exactly because "they had said little or nothing of civil discords, or of existing internal enmities and their effects, and described other matters with a brevity that could be neither useful nor pleasing to the reader." Indirectly, these words serve as a faithful portrait of the book that has proved the most lasting monument to his own fame. He inquires into the causes of events, the origin of all the parties and revolutions of the Republic; thus creating a new method and opening a new road. He reduces the whole history of the Commonwealth into an admirable unity; he rejects with profound contempt the fabulous tales bequeathed by the chronicler regarding the foundation of Florence, and throws an eagle glance on party manoeuvres from their origin down to his own day. He was the first to undertake these researches, and, notwithstanding all newer investigations, his fundamental idea maintains its value. But Machiavelli gave little heed to institutions, scarcely any at all to laws and customs. Furthermore, he was so entirely guided by his instinct of divination as to care little for the historic exactitude of particular facts. To ascertain the infinite number of inaccuracies and blunders contained in his book, and which would be unpardonable in a modern writer, his narrative must be compared with the contemporary accounts of the old chroniclers, some of which were known to him. Not only are there frequent errors of date, but also of the names and number of magistrates and of the framework of institutions. It would seem that while divining the spirit of events, he simultaneously remoulded them according to his own fancy. Sometimes we find him appropriating entire pages from Cavalcanti's history, even transcribing the fictitious speeches attributed by that chronicler to historic characters, and by a few touches of his own pouring new life into the dull narrative without troubling to undertake any fresh research. Thus, his book, although a valuable guide, is also an unsafe one. He cannot always abstain from transplanting a true fact to the place best suited to his own theories, thus filling up inconvenient gaps without many scruples of conscience. His aim, so he tells us, was to investigate the causes of parties and revolutions. What is now designated as local colour--_i.e._, the historic colour of facts--is entirely absent from his narrative, and particularly from that of the earlier days of the Republic. Men adhere to different factions, sometimes commit evil, sometimes generous deeds, but are apparently always the same in his eyes. To what extent the clear appreciation of events is hampered by this theory may easily be imagined. Then, too, as Machiavelli draws nearer to his own times, he sees the constitution of the Republic changing and decaying, freedom disappearing, and a thousand personal passions arising to hasten the overthrow of enfeebled institutions. A knowledge of minute particulars would be doubly desirable at this period to make us understand the social revolution in question; but Machiavelli, though always a fifteenth-century Florentine, never lost sight of the example of Titus Livy and other Roman writers, and consequently, like all the scholars of his age, was inspired with a lofty contempt for any small details apt to endanger the epic unity of historic narrative. Then, later on, in approaching the distinct domination of the Medici, under whose rule he was living, he turns aside with ill-concealed disgust from the internal vicissitudes of the Republic and gives his whole attention to external events. He then discourses of warfare and of the Italian policy that was the passion of his life. In the midst of court intrigues and the contested predominance of this or that party, we find him chiefly concerned in ascertaining how a new prince might best reunite the scattered members of his torn and oppressed motherland; and note that this noble design frequently makes him forget the history of Florence. In reading old chronicles of contemporary events, we see before our eyes the living, speaking figures of Giano della Bella, Farinata degli Uberti, Corso Donati, and Michele di Lando. Their feelings, loves, and hates are known and almost familiar to us; but we are plunged in a restless, unrestrained tumult of passions, without knowing whence blows the blast driving men and things onward in a whirl of confusion, without one moment's truce. No sooner do we pass beyond the visual horizon of the writer, than all images become confused, and our sight is no less obscured than his own. Even at moments of most eloquent description we hear of institutions and magistrates conveying no meaning to our ears, and often see these change, disappear, and return without grasping the why and wherefore. But when, on the other hand, by the study and imitation of ancient authors, the art of embracing a vaster circle of facts springs into being, and the causes and relations of those facts are investigated in order to weld them into visible unity, historic criticism is still lacking to verify events, to examine and define laws and institutions, to colour and almost revive the past in all its varied and changeful aspects. The genius of the historian emits, as it were, flashes of light; but these, while illuminating some occasional point, only leave a confused and uncertain view of past ages in our mind. We require to know men and institutions, parties and laws, as they really were; nor is this enough: we must also comprehend how all these elements were fused into unity, and how laws and institutions were begotten by those men in those times. This was the task modern writers should have performed, but many reasons have prevented its completion. First of all, the progress achieved by art and literature while liberty was perishing in Florence, and their great influence on all modern culture, fixed the principal attention of writers on this section of Florentine history as being one of very general importance, and more easily intelligible to all. Accordingly, the greater number of modern, and especially of foreign students neither examined nor understood the precise period in which all the noblest qualities of the Florentine nature had been formed, and during which were evolved and trained the intellectual powers afterwards expressed in art and letters to the admiration of the whole world. Many foreigners seemed to believe that art and letters had not only flourished when manners were most corrupt, but were almost the result of and identified with the corruption that led to their decline. For the fine arts, being the offspring of liberty and morality, could not long survive their parent forces. It should be also observed that no great modern writer has yet produced any work specially devoted to the political and constitutional history of Florence.[4] It must be confessed that more than by any modern pen was achieved to this effect by the elder and younger Ammirato, who, although writers of the seventeenth century, already began to ransack State papers, and composed a work that was new and remarkable at that period. But they neither proposed to write a history of the Florentine constitution, nor possessed sufficient critical equipment for the purpose, had they sought to fulfil it. They often overload new and valuable information regarding events, and even institutions, with a mass of useless detail, destructive to the general unity of their narrative. It is scarcely requisite to add that modern writers, only treating of Florence in general histories of Italy, were necessarily compelled to pass briefly over secondary parts of their work. They often relied too blindly on old authors of acknowledged repute and influence, without using enough discrimination in sifting material of undeniable value from other parts composed of second-hand narratives and repetitions of fabulous tales. We have only to compare Villani with Malespini to see that one of the two undoubtedly copied many chapters from the other.[5] Nor is this a solitary example. As we have before remarked, Machiavelli borrowed whole chapters from Cavalcanti;[6] Guicciardini often translated from Galeazzo Capra, better known under the name of Capella;[7] Nardi reproduced Buonaccorsi verbatim. Therefore, without critical examination of these writers, and careful decision as to their relative value and the confidence to be accorded to different parts of their works, it is uncommonly easy to be misled. For this, and many other reasons, modern historians of Italy encounter numerous pitfalls when treating of Florentine matters. Now and then we see them halting, in common with chroniclers of the widest renown, to define the precise functions of the Captain of the people, or Podestà, or Council of the Commune, and afterwards finding it extremely difficult to make their definitions agree with actual facts whenever those titles recur in their pages. Such mistakes nearly always proceed from a double source. The definitions supplied by old writers regarding magistrates and their functions were extremely slight, when they alluded to their own times, and often inexact where other periods were in question. Also, modern writers generally demand a precise and fixed definition of institutions which were subject to change from the day of their birth, and unalterable only in name. The name not only remains intact after the institution has become entirely different from what it was at first, but often long outlives the institution itself. It is curious to see what ingenious theories are then started to give substance and reality to names now become ghosts of a vanished past. The only way to thread this labyrinth is by endeavouring to reconstruct the series of radical changes every one of those institutions underwent, and without once losing sight of the mutual relations preserved between them during the continual vicissitudes to which they are subject. Only by seeking the law that regulates and dominates these changes is it possible to discern the general idea of the Republic and determine the value of its institutions. But what can be done while we lack so many of the elements most needed for the completion of this task? The learned have yet to arrange, examine, and illustrate the endless series of provisions, statutes, _consulte_, _pratiche_, ambassadorial reports, and, in short, of all the State papers of the Republic, many of which are still unsought and undiscovered. Nevertheless, we believe that, without attempting for the present any complete history of Florence, some rather useful work may be performed. We may certainly follow the guidance of old chroniclers and historians regarding events of which they had ocular testimony, trying, when needed, to temper their party spirit by confronting them with writers of an opposite faction. Vast numbers of documents have been published in driblets, and many learned dissertations, although the series is still incomplete; besides, one may easily resort to the Florence archives in order to vanquish difficulties and bridge the principal gaps. And after undertaking researches of this kind, it seems easy to us to clearly prove how the whole history of Florence may be illumined by a new light, and its apparent disorder made to disappear. In fact, as soon as one begins to carefully examine the veritable first causes underlying the apparent, and often, fallacious causes of political revolutions in Florence, these revolutions will be found to follow one another in a marvellously logical sequence. Then in the wildest chaos we seem rapidly able to discern a mathematical succession and connection of causes and effects. Personal hatreds and jealousies are not causes, but only opportunities serving to accelerate the fast and feverish sequence of reforms by which the Florentine Commune, after trying by turns every political constitution possible at the time, gradually attained to the highest liberty compatible with the Middle Ages. It is this noble aim, this largeness of freedom, that rouses all the intellectual and moral force contained in the Republic, evolves its admirable political acumen, and allows letters and art and science to put forth such splendid flowers in the midst of apparent disorder. But when strictly personal passions and hatreds prevail, then real chaos begins, the constitution becomes corrupt, and the downfall of freedom is at hand. The sole aim of the present work is to offer a brief sketch of the history of Florence during the foundation of its liberties. So great is the importance of the theme that the historian Thiers has given long attention to it, and we know that an illustrious Italian has already made it the object of many years of strenuous research.[8] II. The history of every Italian republic may be divided into two chief periods: the origin of the commune, the development of its constitution and its liberties. In the first period, during which an old state of society is decaying and a new one arising, it is hard to distinguish the history of any one commune from that of the rest, inasmuch as it treats of Goths, Longobards, Greeks, and Franks, who dominate the greater part of Italy in turn, reducing the country, almost throughout its extent, to identical conditions. The position of conquerors and of conquered is everywhere the same, only altered by change of rulers. Amid the obscurity of the times and scarcity of information, there seems scarcely any difference between one Italian city and another. But differences are more clearly defined, and become increasingly prominent after the first arisal of freedom. Most obscure, though not of earliest date, was perhaps the origin of Florence, which tarried long before beginning to rise to importance. Our present purpose being merely to throw light on the history of the Florentine Constitution, we need not devote many words to the first period mentioned above--namely, of the origin of Italian communes in general. At one time this question was the theme of a learned, lengthy, and most lively dispute, chiefly carried on by Italian and German writers. But the scientific severity of researches, in which Italian scholars won much honour, was often impaired by patriotism and national prejudice. It being recognised that the origin of the Commune was likewise the origin of modern liberty and society, the problem was tacitly transformed into another question--_i.e._, whether Italians or Germans were the first founders of these liberties, this society? It is easy to understand how political feelings were then imported into the controversy, and effectually removed it from the ground of tranquil debate. Towards the end of the last century the question was often discussed in Italy by learned men of different views, such as Giannone, Maffei, Sigonio, Pagnoncelli, &c. Muratori, though lacking any prearranged system, threw powerful flashes of light on the subject, and raised it to higher regions by force of his stupendous learning. But the dispute did not become heated until Savigny took up the theme in his renowned "History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages." In endeavouring to prove the uninterrupted continuity of the said jurisprudence, he was obliged--inasmuch as all historical events are more or less connected together--to maintain that the Italians, when subject to barbarian and even to Longobard rule, lost neither all their personal liberty nor their ancient rights, and that the Roman Commune was never completely destroyed. Accordingly, the revival of our republics and of Roman law was no more than a renewal of old institutions and laws which had never entirely disappeared. Germany was quick to see to what conclusions the ideas of our great historian tended, and thereupon Eichorn, Leo, Bethmann, Karl Hegel, and others, rose up in arms against the theory of the Italian Commune being of Roman birth. They maintained, on the contrary, that the barbarians, and more especially the Longobards, whose domination was harsher and more prolonged than the rest, had stripped us of all liberty, destroyed every vestige of Roman institutions, and that, consequently, the new communes and their statutes were of new creation, and originally derived from Germanic tribes alone. To all appearance these views should have stirred Italian patriotism to furious opposition, and made Savigny's ideas universally popular among us. Yet this was not the case. We supplied many learned adherents to either side. At that time our national feeling had just awakened; we already desired--nay, claimed--a united Italy, no matter at what cost, and detested everything that seemed opposed to our unity. Well, the Longobards had been on the point of mastering the whole of Italy, and the Papacy alone had been able to arrest their conquests by securing the aid of the Franks. But for this, even the Italy of the ninth or tenth century might have become as united a country as France. Already the school of thinkers had been revived among us that, even in Machiavelli's day, had regarded the Pope as the fatal cause of Italy's divisions. Therefore, naturally enough, while confuting Savigny's views, our nineteenth-century Ghibellines exalted the Longobards, ventured to praise their goodness and humanity, and hurled invectives against the Papacy for having prevented their general and permanent conquest of Italy. But, on the other hand, there was also a political school that looked to the Pope as the future saviour of Italy, and this school, prevailing later on during the revolution of 1848, adopted the opposite theory, and possessed two most illustrious representatives in Manzoni and Carlo Troya. At any rate, they had little difficulty in proving that barbarians had been invariably barbaric, killing, destroying, and trampling down all things, and that the Papacy, by summoning the Franks, no matter for what end, had certainly rendered some help to the harshly oppressed masses. The Franks, in fact, gave some relief to the Latin population, sanctioned the use of Roman law and granted new powers to Popes and bishops, who undoubtedly contributed to the revival of the communes. Thus, although for opposite ends, identical opinions were maintained on both sides of the Alps. Throughout this controversy learning was always subordinated to political aims, although the disputants may not have been always aware of it; and historic truth and serenity consequently suffered unavoidable hurt. Balbo, Capponi, and Capei, after throwing their weight on this side or that, ended by holding very temperate views, and their teachings cast much light on the point at issue. The main difficulty proceeds from the fact that few persons are willing to believe that in the Middle Ages, as well as throughout modern history, we can always trace the continuous reciprocal action of the Latin and German races, and that it is impossible to award the merit of any of the chief political, social, or literary revolutions exclusively to either. On the contrary, wherever the absolute predominance of one of the two races seems most undoubted, we have to tread with most caution, and seek to discover what share of the work was due to the other. Likewise, in order to justly weigh and determine their reciprocal rights in history, impartial narrative would have a better chance of success than any system based on political ideas. Assuredly, when facts are once thoroughly verified, no system is needed, since general ideas result naturally from facts. Were it allowable to introduce here a comparison with far younger times, we might remark that when French literature invaded Germany in the eighteenth century it obtained general imitation there, and unexpectedly led to the revival of national German literature. In order to glorify the national tone of this literature, would it be necessary to maintain that the great previous diffusion of French writings was only imagined by historians? Later, the French flag was flaunted in nearly every city of Germany, and the people humiliated and crushed. From that moment we see the national German spirit springing to vigorous life. Must we say that this revival was due to the French? Is it not better to describe events as they occurred, rejecting all foregone conclusions? I am quite aware of the abyss between these recent events and those of old days; but, nevertheless, I consider that Balbo was right in remarking that the fact of the origin of the communes being disputed at such length and with so much heat and learning by the two rival schools, proved that the truth was not confined exclusively to either. Accordingly, we will rapidly sum up the conclusions we deem the most reasonable. Every one knows that, after the earlier barbarian descents, by which the Empire was devastated, and Rome itself frequently ravaged, Italy endured five real and thorough invasions. Odoacer, with his mercenary horde, composed of men of different tribes, but generally designated as Heruli, was the leader who dealt the mortal blow in 476, and becoming master of Italy for more than ten years, scarcely attempted to govern it, and only seized a third of the soil. But a new host poured in from the banks of the Danube, commonly styled Goths, and subdivided into Visigoths and Ostrogoths. The former division, commanded by Alaric, had already besieged and sacked Rome; the latter, led by Theodoric, appeared in 489, and speedily subjected all Italy. Theodoric's reign was highly praised. The chiefs of these early barbarian tribes had often served for many years in Roman legions, and had sometimes been educated in Rome. Accordingly they felt a genuine admiration for the majesty of the very empire that the heat of victory now urged them to destroy. Theodoric organised the government; and, according to the barbarian custom, seized a third of the land for his men; but he left the Romans their laws and their magistrates. In every province a count was at the head of the government, and held jurisdiction over the Ostrogoths. The Romans were ruled according to their own laws, and these laws administered by a mixed tribunal of both races. But Theodoric's government became gradually harsher and more intolerable to the Romans, so that, after his death, they revolted against his successors, and invoked the aid of the Greeks of the Eastern Empire. But revolt brought them nothing save increased suffering, inasmuch as the Goths began to murder the Romans in self-defence, deprived them of what liberty and institutions they had been allowed to retain, and organised a military and absolute government. This was the government Belisarius and Narses found established on coming from Constantinople to deliver and reconquer Italy; this was the government they copied with their dukes, or _duces_. The Ostrogoths had ruled Italy for fifty-nine years (493-552), and the Greeks held it for sixteen more (552-568). Theirs also was a purely martial government, under the General-in-chief Narses, but with dukes, tribunes, and inferior judges nominated by the Empire. As usual, the newcomers appropriated a share of the soil, and probably this share now went to the State. Their tyranny was different from that of the barbarians, but it was the tyranny of corrupt rulers, and therefore more cruel. The Greeks had expelled the Goths, and next came the Longobards to drive out the Greeks. They gradually extended their conquests, and in fifteen years became masters of three-fourths of Italy, leaving only a few strips of land, mainly near the sea, to the Greeks whom they never succeeded in expelling altogether. The Longobards struck deep roots in Italian soil, and dwelt on it for more than two hundred years (568-773), ruling in a very harsh and tyrannous fashion. They took a third of the land, reduced the Italians almost to slavery, and respected neither Roman laws nor Roman institutions. Beneath their sway the ancient civilisation seemed annihilated, and the germs of a newer one were prepared, although its first budding forth is still involved in much obscurity. Every controversy as to the origin of our communes started from inquiries into the condition of the Italians under the Longobard rule. If ancient tradition were at any time really broken off and replaced by a totally new one, it must have occurred under that rule. Or, if it only underwent a great change before assuming new life and vigour at a later time, the process must have dated from the same period. Nevertheless, wherever the Byzantine domination had obtained, a feebler and more vacillating government weighed less cruelly on the people; therefore, as early as the seventh and eighth centuries, certain cities were seen to develop new life. The Commune speedily took shape, even in Rome, where the power of the Papacy, hostile to the Longobards, had greatly increased. On first coming among us, these barbarians of the Arian creed respected neither the Catholic bishops, the minor clergy, nor anything sacred or profane, and later on menaced the Eternal City itself. Accordingly, as a means of defence against the threatening enemy at his gates, the Pontiff summoned the Franks to save the Church and country from oppression. They came in obedience to this call, led first by Pepin and then by Charlemagne, who, driving out the Longobards, and fortifying the Papacy by grants of land, enabled the Pope to inaugurate his temporal dominion. In reward for this Charlemagne was crowned emperor; and thus the ancient Empire of the West was re-established by the new Empire of the Franks, to which the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire afterwards succeeded. Thereupon the dissolution of barbarian institutions, already begun in Italy, proceeded at a more rapid pace. There was a ferment in Italian public life, heralding the approach of a new era. Institutions, usages, laws, traditions of all kinds--Longobard, Greek, Frankish, ecclesiastical, Roman--were found side by side and jumbled together. Next ensued a prolonged term of violence and turmoil, during which the name of Italy was scarcely heard. All old and new institutions seem at war, all struggling in vain for supremacy, when suddenly the Commune arises to solve the problem, and the era of freedom begins. But what gave birth to the Commune? This is the question by which we are always confronted. It would be outside our present purpose to follow the learned scholars who have sought to deduce ingenious and complicated theories from some doubtful phrase in an old codex, or the vague words of some chronicler. It is certain that the Roman Empire was an aggregation of municipalities exercising self-government. The city was the primitive atom, the germ-cell, as it may be called, of the great Roman society that began to disperse when the capital lost the power of attraction required to bind together so great a number of cities separated by vast tracts of country either totally deserted, or only inhabited by the slaves cultivating the soil. The barbarians, on the other hand, knew nothing of citizen life, and the _Gau_ or _Comitatus_ (whence the term _contado_ is derived), only comprising embryo towns, or rather villages, which were sometimes burnt when the tribes moved on elsewhere, resembled the primitive nucleus of Teutonic society. In the _comitatus_ the count ruled and administered justice with his magistrates; the chiefs of the soldiery were his subordinates, and became barons later on. Several countships joined together formed the dukedoms or marquisates into which Italy was then divided, and the whole of the invading nation was commanded by a king elected by the people. When, therefore, the Germanic tribes held sway over the Latin, the _Gau_ held sway over the cities which indeed formed its constituents. And the counts, as military chieftains, ruled the conquered land, of which the victors appropriated one-third. The Goths pursued the same plan; so too the Greeks, who replaced all counts by their own _duces_; and so also the Longobards. Only the latter's rule was far more tyrannous, especially at first, and their history is very obscure. They began by slaughtering the richest and most powerful Romans; they seized one-third of the revenues, it would seem, instead of the lands, thus leaving the oppressed masses without any free property, and consequently in a worse condition than before. The Goths had permitted the Romans to live in their own way, but the Longobards respected no laws, rights, nor institutions of the vanquished race. On this head Manzoni remarks[9] that no mention is found of any Italian personage, whether actual or imaginary, in connection with any royal office or public act of the time. Nevertheless, from absolute tyranny, and even downright subjection, to the total destroyal of every Roman law, right, and institution, there is a long step. In order to attribute to the Longobards--numbering, it is said, some 130,000 souls in all--the total extinction of Roman life in every direction, we must credit them with an administrative power, far too well ordered and disciplined, too steadfast and permanent, to be any way compatible with their condition. How could a tribe incapable of comprehending Roman life persecute it to extinction on all sides? Granting even, although this is another disputed point, that the Romans were deprived of all independent property; granting that Roman law was neither legally recognised nor respected by the Longobards, it by no means follows that every vestige of Roman law and civilisation was therefore destroyed at the time. Far more just and credible seems the opinion of other writers who have maintained that when the Longobards descended into Italy they thought chiefly of their own needs, made no legal provision for the Italians, and were satisfied with keeping them in subjection.[10] Thus, in all private concerns, and in matters beyond the grasp of the barbarian administration, the conquered people could continue to live according to the Roman law and in pursuance of ancient customs. In fact, Romans and Longobards lived on Italian soil as two separate nations; the fusion of victors and vanquished, so easy elsewhere, is seen to have been difficult in Italy, even after the lapse of two centuries. So great is the tenacity and persistence of the Latin race among us, that it is easier to reduce the conquered to slavery, or extirpate them altogether, than to deprive them of their individuality. In fact, whenever, by the force of things, and by long intercourse, conquerors and conquered come into closer contact, the barbarians are unavoidably driven to make large concessions to the Latin civilisation, which even when apparently extinguished is always found to have life. How explain otherwise the gradual yielding of Longobard law to the pressure of Roman law; how explain the new species of code that gradually took shape, and was styled by Capponi _an almost Roman edifice built upon Germanic foundations_? As the Longobards became more firmly established in Italy, they began to inhabit the cities which they had been unable to entirely destroy; they also began to covet real property, and accordingly, during the reign of their king Autari, instead of a third of the revenues, seized an even larger proportion of the land. This measure aggravated the condition of the vanquished on the one hand, but greatly improved it on the other, by leaving them in possession of some independent property.[11] And although, as Manzoni observed, we find no royal officials, great or small, of Roman blood, it is no less certain that the Longobards, having need of mariners, builders, and artisans, were obliged to make use of Romans and their superior skill in those capacities. It was in this way that the ancient _scholae_, or associations of craftsmen, continued to survive throughout the Middle Ages, as we know to have been the case with the _magistri comacini_, or Guild of Como Masons, to whose skill the conquering race had frequent recourse. In however rough and disorderly a fashion these associations contrived to withstand the barbarian impact, they were certainly an element of the old civilisation, and kept the thread of it unbroken. Other remains and traditions of that same civilisation also clung about them; and when every other form of government or protecting force was lacking to the inhabitants of cities, these associations guarded the public welfare to some extent. Do we not find that an ancient municipality, when first left to its own resources, sometimes closed the city gates against the barbarians, and defended itself, almost after the manner of an independent state? Was it not sometimes successful in repulsing the foe? Even when conquered, trampled, and crushed, can we suppose it to have been destroyed everywhere alike, or so thoroughly cancelled from the memory of the Latins, that, on seeing it reappear, we must attribute its resurrection to Germanic tribes, to whom all idea of a city was unknown until they had invaded our soil? Did not the resuscitation of the Greek cities of Southern Italy begin as far back as the seventh and eighth centuries--namely, in the time of the Longobards--and assuredly without the help of Germanic traditions? Did not the Roman Commune arise at the same period? And if the ancient municipalities, fallen beneath the Longobard yoke, and therefore more cruelly oppressed, delayed almost four centuries longer, did they not also follow the example of their fellow-cities at last? What is the meaning of the widely spread tradition, that only in that paragon of independent, free republics, Byzantine Amalfi, were preserved the Roman Pandects, which were then captured by Pisa, and cherished as her most valued treasure? Does not the whole subsequent history of the Commune consist of the continual struggle of the re-born Latin race against the descendants of Teuton hordes? If Latin civilisation had been utterly destroyed, how came it that the dead could rise again to combat the living? Therefore, it seems clear to us that, although the Longobards accorded no legal rights to the conquered people, they could not practically deprive them of all; they either tolerated or were unaware of many things, and the tradition, usage, and persistence of the race kept alive some remnants of Latin civilisation. Thus alone can it be explained how, after enduring a harsh and long-continued tyranny that apparently destroyed everything, no sooner were a few links snapped off the strong, barbaric chain, by which the Italian population was so straitly bound, than Latin institutions sprang to new life, and regained all the ground they had lost. Barbarian society, both in form and tendency, was essentially different from the Latin. Its predominant characteristic was the so-called Germanic individualism, as opposed to the Latin sociability. We note a prevalent tendency to divide into distinct and separate groups. As a body, it no sooner lost the force of cohesion and union induced by the progress and rush of conquest, than it immediately began to be scattered and disintegrated. Owing to their nomadic and savage life, as well as to the blood in their veins, the barbarians seemed to have inherited an exaggerated personality and independence, making it difficult for them to submit for long to a common authority. Thus, when peace was established, germs of enfeebling discord soon appeared among them. In fact, when the Longobards had completed the conquest of nearly the whole of Italy, they divided the land into thirty-six Duchies, governed by independent dukes enjoying absolute rule in their respective territories. Under the dukes were sometimes counts, residing in cities of secondary importance, and at the head of the _comitati_; while still smaller cities were often ruled by a _sculdascius_, or bailiff. Both dukes and bailies administered justice according to the Longobard code, together with the assistant judges, who, under the Franks, developed into _scabini_, or sheriffs. Little by little military leaders gained possession of the strongholds, and subsequently became almost independent chiefs. Then, too, the royal officials, styled _gasindi_, likewise exercised great power. And even as the dukes finally asserted their independence from the king, so counts and _sculdasci_ sought emancipation from the ducal sway, although without immediate success. In the first century, after the conquest, there was no law, no recognised protection for the vanquished, nor was the authority of the bishops and clergy in any way respected. The history of the Longobard rule shows it to have been so tremendously oppressive as to apparently crush the very life of the people, so that even at the most favourable moments no serious revolts were attempted. Even the example of the free cities in the South failed to excite them. Nevertheless, as we have already noted, the Church, having gained meanwhile a great increase of power, refused to tolerate the pride and arrogance of barbarians who showed her so little respect. Hence the Pope resolved to expel these strangers by the help of others, and called the Franks into Italy. Charlemagne, the founder of the new Empire, could not regard the Latins, to whom the growing civilisation of his states was so much indebted, with the inextinguishable barbarian contempt felt by the Longobards. He sought to extend his conquests and his power. He wished to assist the Pope, in order to be consecrated by him and obtain his moral support. Therefore he came to Italy, and the already disintegrated Longobards could ill withstand the firm unity of the Franks, strengthened as it was by the prestige of his own victories. In vain the Longobards had already chosen and sworn fealty to another monarch; in vain they prepared for defence. After two hundred and five years of assured and almost unchecked domination, their kingdom was overthrown for ever. In 774 Charlemagne became master of Italy, and in the year 800 was crowned emperor by the Pope in Rome. Thus the Western Empire became reconstituted and consecrated in a new shape, entirely separate and independent from the Empire of the East. The Franks deprived the Longobards of all their dominions, excepting the Duchy of Benevento in Southern Italy. The power of the Pope was greatly increased by his assumption of the right of anointing the emperor, who rewarded him with rich donations and promised additions of territory. Rome, however, was ruled as a free municipality; and Venice, after the manner of the Greek cities in the South, had already asserted her freedom. Such was the state of Italy after the last barbarian invasion--that, namely, of the Franks. As usual, the new masters appropriated one-third of the land; but the condition of the natives was now decidedly changed for the better. Roman law was recognised as the code of the vanquished, and this is an evident sign that it was never entirely obsolete during the two centuries of Longobard rule. Charlemagne greatly improved the condition of the Latins, and sometimes promoted them to _honours_, _i.e._, to offices of royal appointment. But the special characteristic of his reign in Italy was the new hierarchy he established there. He destroyed the power of the dukes, whose attitude was too threatening to the unity of the Empire, and raised instead the position of the counts. Even in the Marches, or border-provinces, he retained no dukes, but replaced them by marquises (Mark-grafen, Praefecti limitum). In this manner the ancient unity of the _comitatus_, or _Gau_, became likewise the basis of the new barbarian society. Nor did Charlemagne stop at this point, but began to distribute offices, lands, and possessions in _beneficio_--_i.e._, in fief--and therefore on condition of obligatory military service. This proved the beginning of a social revolution, possibly originated at an earlier date, but now carried to completion under the name of feudalism. Not the emperor only, but kings, counts, and marquises also granted lands, revenues, and offices in fief, in order to obtain a sufficient supply of vassals. Thus an infinite number of new potentates was created: _vassalli_, _valvassori_, and _valvassini_, the latter being lowest in degree. Gradually the whole society of the Middle Ages took a feudal shape; the recipient of a grant of land was bound to yield military service, at the head of the peasants employed on his ground. Similar privileges, similar obligations, accompanied every donation of land or bestowal of office; for even official posts were generally supplemented by a concession of land or of revenue. Thus the Germanic tendency to division and subdivision in small groups was satisfied, while, at the same time, the Empire, the cities, and even the Church itself, assumed a feudal form. The bishops in their turn soon began to possess benefices, and gradually rose to increased power, until we find them in the position of so many counts and barons. Both in their own persons, and those of their subordinates, they enjoy immunity from ordinary laws and tribunals--an inestimable advantage, serving to enhance their independence and unite large clusters of population beneath their sheltering sway. Feudalism, accordingly, is a new order, a new and thoroughly Germanic aristocracy, yet at the same time it is the root of a veritable revolution in barbaric society, the which revolution will continue to grow and extend through many vicissitudes. Step by step the Crown will begin to exempt the benefices or fiefs of the vassals from subjection to the count, and will then declare them hereditary by means of a series of laws, all designed for the purpose of irritating the lesser potentates against their superiors, and of giving increased strength to the royal authority; but which served, on the contrary, to open a way of redemption to the downtrodden people. All this, however, was still unforeseen in the days of Charlemagne. He organised the feudal system, and kept his realm united and flourishing, although soon after his death (814) the Empire was split into several kingdoms. The rule of the Franks in Italy lasted to the death of Charles the Fat, in 888. And throughout this rule of 115 years, the revolution to which we have alluded was steadily making way. On all sides the number of benefices or fiefs continually grew, and year by year exemptions increased at an equal rate. These were conceded more easily to prelates than to others, since when laymen received benefices they were entitled to leave them to their heirs, and thus became inconveniently powerful. This state of things proved very favourable to cities in which bishops held residence. At first the count was sole ruler of the city, save the portion appertaining to the Crown, and called _gastaldiale_, as being under the command of a _gastaldo_, or steward; then, as the power of the bishop increased, another portion was exempted from the count's jurisdiction, as being _vescovile_, _i.e._, the property of the bishop. Step by step this portion was enlarged until it included nearly the whole of the town: many cities, in fact, were ruled solely by the bishop. Thus the fibres of barbarian society were weakened, and we might almost say unknit, by a method that would have served to keep it in subjection to the supreme authority of the monarch, but for the fact that the people, deemed to be dead, was not only breathing, but on the point of asserting its strength against nobles, kings and emperors, prelates, and Popes. Two revolts in the cause of liberty successively took place, and both began under the Carlovingians, and continued during the reigns of their successors. The first enervated and enfeebled the barbarian society to which the soil of Italy was so ill suited; the second prepared the way for the rise of communes. With the death of Charles the Fat the rule of the Franks lapsed, and barbarian invasions likewise ceased. The Germanic tribes had settled down on Italian soil and were becoming civilised. Nevertheless, Italy had still to pass through a string of revolutions and years of ill fortune. At the dissolution of the Empire of the Franks, certain counts and marquises, especially the latter, who, by the union of several counties, had gained the power of dukes, were found asserting extravagant pretensions, even endeavouring to form independent states, and often with success. To this day, in fact, there are reigning families descended from Frankish marquises and counts. To compass their destruction benefices and immunities had been granted in vain: their power was not to be so easily extinguished. For, even in Italy, where, owing to the different character of the country, the ancient civilisation had tenaciously lingered on, and now began to awake to new life, and where, too, the Papacy and the Greeks of Byzantium had impeded the absolute triumph of Germanic institutions, feudal counts and marquises now arose to contest the crown. Next followed long years of renewed devastation and conflict, ending by the crown being retained in the grasp of German emperors and kings. The first wars and quarrels were carried on by Berengarius of Friuli and Guido of Spoleto, with other Italian and foreign nobles, a German king, two Burgundian monarchs, and finally by King Otho of Germany, who remained victor. It was during these seventy odd years of continued strife that Italian kings first reigned in Italy, though with an always uncertain and disputed rule. Then came a forty years' peace (961-1002), during which Otho I., II., III. reigned in turn, and another Italian marquis, Hardouin of Ivrea, disputed the crown of Italy with the German kings. But in 1014 Hardouin was vanquished by Henry of Germany, surnamed the _Saint_, to whom succeeded Conradin of the Franconian or Salic dynasty. These two German sovereigns completed the feudal revolution, already mentioned by us, the which, begun by the Carlovingians, and continued by the Othos, had failed nevertheless to assure the supremacy of kings and emperors over Italy. But, at all events, seeing that the Othos had purposely exempted numerous lesser vassals from rendering allegiance to the counts and barons, and had accorded many cities to prelates; also seeing that the renascence of communes was considerably promoted by all the aforesaid exemptions, some writers conceived the idea that this renascence was chiefly owed to the initiative of the Othos. But these emperors had a very different aim in view, and had failed to achieve it. They sought to undermine the strength of all possible assailants of the Crown, when threatened by revolts such as that of the Marquis of Ivrea. For this reason Henry the Saint continued to favour the greater feudatories at the expense of "holders of honours"--that is to say, of counts and marquises--and in fact almost annihilated the latter class. Conradin the Salic carried out the scheme more completely, by favouring even the minor feudatories and making benefices hereditary. From that moment the victory of the German sovereigns over the feudal lords was assured; for vassals once rendered masters of their fiefs owed obedience to the Crown alone, and thus the pride of the great nobles was permanently abased. Not so the new popular pride, which had grown to be a power unawares. Accordingly, we find a multitude of facts showing that the condition of the Roman race was continually improving; that feudal society, by the action of its own sovereigns, was daily losing substance and strength; that as the Latin civilisation revived by the natural force of events, it changed, assimilated, and absorbed the principles of Germanic society. Even before the two races came into conflict, the traditions of the conquered had frequently combated and overcome those of victors. The latter, indeed, had already accepted the Roman law to some extent, when the once subject race pleaded the sanction of their municipal statutes. Italians were in a state of ferment and of radical transformation when the first signs of a revival of the communes appeared. Neither the barbarian rule nor the Empire had ever really mastered the social order of the peninsula; and exactly when feudalism was first founded and seemed likely to spread everywhere and assure the quiet supremacy of the emperors over Italy, fresh causes of peril and strife suddenly sprang into existence. Papacy and clergy attained to loftier and more menacing power; the immunities lavished on prelates, from dread of the laity, rendered them temporal potentates dependent on the emperors, while as spiritual dignitaries they owed obedience to the Pope: thus practically enjoying a double investiture. This led to much disorder and scandalous corruption in the Church, since prelates were converted into feudal lords, holding sway over cities, making war on other territories, keeping open court, and indulging in every worldly pleasure. The Popes wished to re-establish discipline, to maintain absolute rule over the bishops, and nominate them unhindered; but this was opposed by the emperor, since the temporal authority of the prelates made them logically subject to his rule as well. Thus began the famous war of investitures between the Papacy and the Empire, the issue of which was so long undecided. Meanwhile neither the Church, the Empire, nor the feudal system could obtain complete mastery over the social movement, and the confusion was increased by their continual disputes. This state of things weakened even the authority of the prelates; and then the communes, having necessarily learnt the art of self-government during the period when dioceses were left vacant, having noted the prosperity of the Southern republics, and found their strength increased by the extension of commerce and the feudal disorganisation, finally saw that the moment to achieve freedom had arrived. Even in cities ruled by lay nobles, things followed the same course, since to side either with the Empire or the Church always served to excite much enmity against those in power, and procured many allies for the weaker party. Accordingly the eleventh century witnessed the arisal of communes throughout Italy, and the joy of independence once realised, it was impossible to return to a state of vassalage, whether under bishops, counts, or the Empire itself. At first these communes were hemmed in on all sides by a vast number of dukes, counts, and barons of various degrees of strength, inasmuch as the feudal order was still very powerful and still supreme in all country districts. Of German descent and trained to arms, these nobles fought in their own interest, although nominally for the Empire and its rights, against the new communal order that suddenly faced them with such menacing strength. They swooped down from their strongholds to bar the trade of the towns; they levied tolls, threatened violence, and tried to treat free men as their vassals. Thereupon the indignant citizens were stirred to vengeance from time to time, and often ended by razing great fortresses to the ground. On the other hand, the nobles still remaining in the cities became wearied of living among men who no longer respected the distinctions of class or race, and often departed to rejoin their friends. They frequently emigrated in such numbers that the citizens suffered injury by it, and issued decrees forbidding their exodus. The Pope gave encouragement to the communes, because the reduction of his prelates' temporal power did not displease him, and the abasement of the Empire was indispensable to his aims. Thus the struggle of the working classes against feudalism finally began, and with it the real history of our communes. But it should not be thought that the Commune arose to champion the rights of man or in the name of national independence. Nothing of the kind. The Empire was still held to be the sole and universal fount of right. Almost to the close of the fifteenth century, in fact, all cities, whether Guelph or Ghibelline, foes or friends of the Empire, continued to indite their State papers in its name.[12] The revived republics always acknowledged its supremacy, and their own dependence, almost, one might say, as though in claiming a new and more general exemption, they only sought to be, as it were, their own dukes or counts. They combated the nobles and combated the Empire; but victory once assured, they recognised the authority of the emperor, and prayed him to sanction the privileges they had won. Nor was the destruction of the Empire at any time desired by the Popes; its protection was often indispensable to them, and they too recognised it as the legitimate heir of ancient Rome, and consequently as the only source of political and civil rights. Their purpose was to subject the temporal to the spiritual power. Therefore, during the rise of the Commune, theocracy and feudalism, Papacy and Empire, still subsisted together and always in conflict. The Commune had to struggle long against obstacles of all kinds; but it was destined to triumph, and to create the third estate and people by whom alone modern society could be evolved from the chaos of the Middle Ages. This constitutes the chief historical importance of the Italian Commune. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. _THE ORIGIN OF FLORENCE._ I. The origin of Florence is wrapped in great obscurity, and little light is to be derived from chroniclers, who either avoided the subject altogether or clouded it over with legends. Much has been written of late touching these chroniclers and on the value and varying credibility of their accounts. But in endeavouring to ascertain everything, and push research too subtly, long and learned disputes have sometimes arisen on particulars which can never, perhaps, be verified and are scarcely worth knowing, while more significant and easily investigated points have been left untouched. By this method some risk is incurred of building up from those writers a species of occult science for the sole benefit of the initiated, whereas all that is absolutely known of the origin of Florence may be expressed in a few words. The Florentine Commune being of tardier birth than many others, its historians and chroniclers were likewise of later date, since no commune possesses a written history until conscious of its own personality. Thus, it was only in the twelfth century that yearly records were first started, registering some of the more important events of Florence, giving dates, and names of places and persons, while, at the same time, lists were made of the Consuls, the first magistrates of the Commune, and afterwards supplemented with the names of the Podestà, who succeeded to the Consuls. These magistrates being changed yearly, and even more frequently, this catalogue served as a chronological guide, and was soon converted into a register of contemporaneous events in the town. [Illustration: THE ARNO RIVER-GOD. (_Bas-relief now in the Etruscan Museum, Florence._) [_To face page 39._] A very early fragment of these annals is preserved in the Vatican, and is written on the back of a sheet forming part of a codex[13] of Longobard laws. It contains eighteen records, running from 1110 to 1173, in different handwritings, all, however, of the twelfth century, with some blunders and no chronological arrangement. Nevertheless these records are of much importance, being the earliest we possess. A similar and longer series of records of much later date, running from 1107 to 1247, is to be found in a thirteenth-century MS.[14] in the National Library at Florence. Both collections have been recently republished and illustrated by Dr. Hartwig, under the title of "Annales florentini," i. and "Annales florentini," ii.[15] The Codex containing the second series also comprises the oldest list extant of Consuls and Podestà, from 1196 to 1267, and has been rendered more complete by the results of fresh research.[16] Other and similar records must have been certainly made, first in Latin, then in Italian, and, in passing from this family to that, from hand to hand, enlarged, revised, and altered according to the taste, or even the fancy, of their transcribers. But, from the remains of those records and all matter copied from them by the chroniclers, it may be inferred with almost absolute certainty that they told little or nothing of the origin of the Commune. We are therefore inclined to believe that this was neither the outcome of virulent conflict nor of downright revolution, for either would have been undoubtedly registered in the annals, but that it gradually evolved and developed amid struggles of secondary importance. If in these days we desire to ascertain the origin of the Florentine Commune, it is only natural that older generations should have felt even a keener interest in the theme. They, however, lacked the art and critical method enabling us to track and often lay bare the darkest and most remote periods of history by means of public documents, although many now perished must have been at their disposal. But our forefathers were readier to draw on their own imagination, and thus a legend regarding the origin of the city was created, and soon became widely diffused. The primary germ from which this legend was developed and expanded must date from the twelfth century, seeing that it was known and recorded by the chronicler Sanzanome, who wrote during the first years of the thirteenth century. It cannot be much older than this, seeing that the events and dates to which it alludes, in however vague and shadowy a fashion, carry it down beyond the eleventh century. Several inedited copies of this legend are still to be found in Florentine libraries,[17] and it has been published in three different compilations. The most ancient of these, in Latin, is contained in a codex dating from the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century.[18] The second, in Italian, is in a Lucchese MS.,[19] compiled between 1290 and 1342; at one point it gives a record of 1264,[20] and was probably written at that time. The third and later version, known as the "Libro fiesolano", is comprised in an Italian codex dated 1382, in the Marucellian Library at Florence, was discovered by Signor Gargani and published by him in 1854.[21] Dr. Hartwig discovered the second, which is identical, save in language, with the first, and published all three under the title of "Chronica de Origine Civitatis,"[22] found in the Lucca MS.; although in other MSS. it is styled "Memoria del Nascimento di Firenze." Such was the material at the service of the old chroniclers, and all they had to rely upon regarding the origin of Florence. The earliest chronicler of whom any remains are extant is the judge and notary Sanzanome, who, as already noted by us, wrote his "Gesta Florentinorum" at the beginning of the thirteenth century. We find him mentioned more than once in Florentine documents from 1188-1245.[23] Although we cannot be certain that this name always referred to the same individual, it is certain that the same chronicler records his presence in the war of Semifonte in the year 1202, and in that of Montalto in 1207. Besides, his work is found in a Florentine codex of the thirteenth century, and if not in his own hand, in the character of about the same period.[24] This first attempt at Florentine history, written in Latin by a judge and notary, supposed by Milanesi and Hartwig to have been a native of a neighbouring town, but resident in Florence, has a stamp of its own, very different from that of all subsequent Florentine chronicles. Sanzanome says nothing as to the origin of the Commune and its internal constitution. After a vague and hasty allusion to the old legend,[25] he starts with the war and destruction of Fiesole in 1125, "cum eius occasione Florentia sumpsisset originem." Thus, from the beginning, he shows us the Commune already established, with its consuls and captains, and proceeds to recount its conflicts with neighbouring powers in a stilted, rhetorical fashion, with uncertain and often erroneous dates, and with speeches in strained imitation of ancient Roman historians. Consequently some writers refused to assign any historic value to his work. But, on the other hand, critics of greater weight and impartiality, such as Hartwig, Hegel, and Paoli, have recognised that the work of this notary, who was almost a precursor of the fifteenth-century humanists, is a literary phenomenon, and that the fact of its isolation makes it the more remarkable as a proof of ancient Florentine culture, and also because we find beneath its rhetorical flourishes much useful information on the early history of Florence. Hence all the other chroniclers had to face one and the same problem: how to write a history, or even a bare chronicle of the earliest beginnings of Florence, from the scant and fragmentary accounts at their disposal? The notary Sanzanome shirked the difficulty by saying nothing of the foundation of the town, and then expanding his narrative with rhetorical flights, fictitious speeches, and descriptions of battles, in which his own fancy and imitation of the classics played the main part. But this method was neither congenial nor possible to the simpler folk of a later day, who sought to write as they spoke, and whose culture was slighter, or at all events very different from the notary's. These chroniclers, therefore, had no basis to build upon save one legend and a few scraps of information that could not possibly satisfy their patriotic pride. Fortunately for their purpose, just at this time--namely, towards the middle of the thirteenth century--an event of great literary importance occurred, serving to put the Florentine chroniclers on a new track. A Dominican monk, one Martin of Troppau, in Bohemia, surnamed therefore _Oppaviensis_, vulgarly known as Martin Polono, chaplain, apostolic penitentiary, and afterwards archbishop, wrote an historical work which, although of no remarkable merit, had an extraordinary and rapid success. It was a species of manual of universal history, chronologically arranged under the names of the various emperors and Popes, down to the year 1268. Its author afterwards carried it down to a few years later, with an introduction treating of the times anterior to the Roman Empire.[26] This book was mechanically arranged, and stuffed with anecdotes, blunders, and fables; but was the work of an eminent prelate, inspired with the Guelphic spirit. The author's method of arranging the events of the Middle Ages under the headings of Popes and Emperors served as a leading thread through the vast labyrinth. It is certain that his book was rapidly diffused throughout Europe, especially in Italy, and above all in Florence. As Prof. Scheffer Boichorst remarks: "Its first translator was a Florentine, and another Florentine, Brunetto Latini, the first to make use of it." In fact, the Florence libraries have numerous copies of it in Latin MSS. of the fourteenth century, while others of the same period comprise an Italian translation that, according to the results of learned research,[27] must have been produced in Florence towards 1279.[28] This fact alone is a most luminous proof of the rapid popularity and diffusion of the work. As it was a common practice with the scribes of that period to insert alterations of their own in the works they copied out, it may have easily occurred to some transcriber of this translation to enrich it here and there with the more important of the few facts then known of the early history of their city. But as Martin Polono's work was only brought down to the end of the thirteenth century, and items of Florentine history had increased in number and extent, so it came about that all these additions forsook universal history and were solely devoted to that of Florence. In this way the former merely served, as it were, as an introduction to the latter; a result highly gratifying to municipal self-complacency. One of the first works introducing Martin Polono's book, translated, shortened, re-written, and with several interpolated Florentine items, is that entitled "Le Vite dei Pontefici et Imperatori Romani," once attributed to Petrarch, and existing in several Florentine fourteenth-century codices. In this work, however, Florentine history is still given very secondary importance, and indeed when at last, after various sequels and alterations, it finally appeared in print in 1478, Polono's primitive method was still maintained by giving summaries here and there of the lives of the other emperors and Popes. But other versions soon appeared in which Florentine history filled a larger space.[29] In a fourteenth-century MS. of the Naples National Library, first examined by Pertz, we find Martin Polono's share of the work considerably curtailed, and the history of Florence not only much extended, but likewise carried down to 1309.[30] Here one begins to see that the writer was chiefly interested in Florentine events. Professor Hartwig was so struck by this fact as to be at the pains to extract everything relating to Florence from the MS., and print it apart, as one of the authorities probably recurred to by Villani.[31] In a chronicle attributed to Brunetto Latini the same purpose is still more clearly indicated. Some of the Florentine news contained in it were long and frequently extracted, printed, and employed; notably the list of Consuls and Podestà used by Ammirato, and a narrative of the Buondelmonti tragedy (1215), differing considerably from Villani's version of the tale. It was speedily decided that the author must have written in 1293, since he records an event of that year, and says that he witnessed it with his own eyes.[32] Later, this Chronicle was attributed to Brunetto Latini, although the narrative is carried down to a date when Dante's master must have certainly ceased to exist.[33] During his learned researches in Florence Dr. Hartwig discovered a MS. that, in all probability, is the original autograph of the Chronicle.[34] Although mutilated--starting only from 1181--this Codex is doubly precious, as it clearly shows the method on which this and many similar works were compiled. There is a middle column containing the usual mangled version of Martin Polono[35]; and here on the margins, between the rubrics and sometimes even the lines, are added notices of general history, drawn from other sources, and special records of Florentine events. The history is thus brought down to 1249, where a gap occurs extending to 1285, from which year the author continues his narrative to 1303.[36] But in this second part the character of the work is entirely changed. Having no longer Martin Polono as a guide, he now forsakes that prelate's method. The affairs of the Empire and the Church are reduced to still smaller proportions, more space is given to those of Florence, and instead of being scattered haphazard over the narrative, they are now united and carried steadily on. Thus we see a real chronicle of Florence gradually developing before us and acquiring a special value of its own. Its discoverer, Dr. Hartwig, at first considered it an autograph, but finally conceived doubts on that score. The great disorder of the manuscript; its mutilated commencement; the gap between thirty-six years in the middle; the absence of certain records, comprised in certain excerpts from it, quoted by old writers; the discovery that many of these writers quoted from another MS. of the Chronicle belonging to the Gaddi Library; all this justified his statement that the problem could not be finally solved without the aid of the Gaddi Codex, which he had not yet been able to discover. On the other hand, Professor Santini maintained, in a prize essay, that the Gaddi Codex could only be a copy of that found by Hartwig, and that the latter must be the mutilated original manuscript. After a short time the question was ultimately decided by another student of our Istituto Superiore, Signor Alvisi, who, having unearthed the Gaddi Codex in the Laurentian Library, found it to be a fifteenth-century copy.[37] Here the various fragments--arranged in separate columns in the original MS.--are joined with the remainder of the text, though often in an arbitrary fashion. Here, too, there is the gap between 1249-85, but the Chronicle, instead of starting from 1181, begins, like Martin Polono's first compilation, with Jesus Christ--_primo e sommo Pontefice_--and the Emperor Octavian. Thus, it may now be affirmed, that the Codex in the Florence National Library is a genuine and, as it were, photographic representation of the method employed for the earliest compilations of Florentine historiography. It allows us to see the author at work, as it were, before our eyes. Another, but far less perfect, specimen of this kind of production is afforded by the Lucca MS., to which previous allusion has been made. The author carefully tells us that it was composed between the years 1290 and 1342. He transcribes the whole legend of the origin of Florence, and then gives his Italian _pasticcio_ of Martin Polono, beginning from the Emperor Octavian. But he intersperses it with "many things relating to the affairs of Tuscany, and especially of Florence ... the greater part being found in divers books on Tuscany, of which some contain more, some less" (_qual na più, qual na meno_). Having reached the year 1309 in this fashion, he continues his narrative by borrowing from Villani, several books of whose history had already appeared in 1341, and with this assistance carries his work down to 1342. He continues by reproducing a Latin description of Florence written in 1339, and then gives the Latin introduction that Martin Polono had added to his history. The compiler of this Lucca Codex avows that his method is neither logical nor chronological; but craves the reader's indulgence, saying that in this work he had first put together all the Italian and then all the Latin portions, with the intention of arranging them better afterwards, by fusing them together and writing the whole in Latin. This intention he seems to have found no time to fulfil. From this Codex also, all the portions relating to Florence were subsequently extracted and printed.[38] As may be seen, the compiler's method is always the same, although in this case heavier and more mechanical than usual, for lack of any inherent connection between the different parts. The only novelty consists in transcribing the entire legend to make it serve as an introduction to Florentine history; an example that, as will be seen, was afterwards followed by others. But however flattering to Florentine self-love this system of fusing the history of the Commune with that of the universe might be, it was clearly apparent that the former remained crushed, as it were, by the contact. Hence even the fourteenth century witnessed attempts to expound it apart. Paolo Pieri begins his Chronicle from 1080, the year from which the other writers also date their earliest historical account of Florence, and continues it, with slight allusions to the Popes and slighter to the emperors, down to 1305, including the scanty Florentine records "gleaned from many chronicles and books, with certain novel matters seen by me, Paolino di Piero, and written _ad memoriam_." On the other hand, Simone della Tosa, who died in 1380, begins his "Annals" with a list of Consuls and Podestà (1196-1278), and then passes to the death of Countess Matilda (1115) and on to 1346, supplementing towards the close his meagre account of Florentine affairs with details about his own family. But simple summaries such as these, consisting only of a few pages, were more inadequate than ever to satisfy the needs of a city that now, in the fourteenth century, had already won a foremost place in Italy, was proudly asserting equality with Rome, and aspired to have a history similar to that of the ancient metropolis of the world. Such was the ambitious problem that Giovanni Villani as shown by his own words, proposed to solve. In the year 1300, he says, "being in Rome for the Jubilee, admiring the grand memories of that city, reading the glorious deeds narrated by Virgil, Sallust, Lucan, Titus Livy, Paul Orosio, and other masters of history, who recounted, not the events of Rome alone, but likewise strange events of the universal world: I borrowed their style and form."[39] Reflecting that "our old Florentines had left few and confused records of past deeds in our city of Florence,[40] and that our city, the child and creature of Rome, was on the upward path, and about to achieve great things, whereas Rome was on the decline," I resolved "to bring into this volume and new chronicle all the events and beginnings of the city of Florence, ... and give henceforth _in full_ the deeds of the Florentines, and _briefly_ the notable affairs of the rest of the universe."[41] Thus, according to Villani, the course to be pursued was to connect the history of Florence with that of the world, as others had done before him, but in such wise that Florence should not be the loser, but rather play the chief part. Hence his work is no longer a mechanical mosaic; he arranges his history, dividing it in books and chapters, after the manner of the ancients. We do not know all the authorities from whom his work was derived, for this question has not yet been completely investigated. But we know that they were many in number. For general history, Martin Polono was still the main source; but Villani also drew from the "Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum" of Thomas Tuscus,[42] the "Vita di San Giovanni Gualberto," the "Cronache di San Dionigi" (an Italian translation of which was printed--1476--before the original text), and the "Libro del Conquisto d'Oltremare," which was a history of the Crusades, translated from the French into almost every other language during the Middle Ages.[43] That Villani is a very valuable authority in Florentine history dating from the end of the thirteenth century, is a fact well known to all, and need not be discussed here. As to the origin of the city, he has little that is genuinely historical to tell us. His accounts begin, as usual, from 1080, are more or less identical with those disseminated by other writers, not unfrequently charged with the same blunders, and often in the same words. This singular resemblance between many of the Florentine chroniclers when treating of early times, and remarked upon later, was easily explained so long as it was taken for granted that some chroniclers had copied from others. But when it could be proved, as was often the case, that the same resemblance existed even between totally independent writers, the problem was not so readily solved. For this reason, Prof. Scheffer-Boichorst, in noting the fact, after impartial and keen investigation, suggested the theory that all the different chroniclers had drawn from some common source, of which nothing was now known. Seeing that Tolomeo of Lucca, whose Annals were already concluded before Villani began to colour his design, often quotes from "Gesta" and "Acta Florentinorum," "Gesta" and "Acta Lucensium," the German critic assigned the name of "Gesta Florentinum" to what, in his opinion, must have been the original source used by all the chroniclers of Florence down to the beginning of the fourteenth century. This hypothesis became generally accepted as the most probable explanation of a fact that was otherwise inexplicable. But when attempts were made to precisely define the nature and limits of the "Gesta"--to define, not only its language, but in which year it was begun, in which ended, together with the style and exact character both of the work and its author--the question then stood on very disputable ground. Accordingly, I will leave discussions of this kind on one side, as beyond the sphere of a general outline. Besides, I must agree with Prof. C. Paoli[44] in considering that the "Gesta" cannot have been a strictly individual work, but rather a collection of Florentine news, originally of very meagre proportions, but gradually enriched by fresh annalistic matter and new additions, as it passed from hand to hand. Some compilation of this kind, but of greater weight and repute (now unluckily perished), must have fallen into the hands of various chroniclers, who made use of it in turn, unconscious that it had served others before them. And these chroniclers were again copied by several of a later period. Villani begins with the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues and then passes on to the legendary origin of Florence, dividing it in chapters and expounding it as though it were genuine history, but inserting various alterations, to which we shall refer later on. He then proceeds with a general history of the Middle Ages, and from the year 1080 engrafts on this stock all the accounts of Florence he had been able to collect, and even colours these by a variety of other legends much diffused among the people at the time, and often, also, by the addition of fantastic considerations of his own. What amount of accurate knowledge can be derived from all this? Substantially we find a single legend, and a small number of historical facts of undoubted value, though not free from errors, floating, as elsewhere, in an ocean of events quite unconnected with Florence, intermixed with scraps of misty traditions or legends, arbitrarily interpreted and explained. Therefore, the first question to be decided is that of the origin and value of the legend itself. Can any historical information be derived from it, either directly or indirectly? The second question is: Can it be ascertained with any certainty what original nucleus of authentic information the "Gesta Florentinorum" must have contained? The latter at least presents no serious difficulty, seeing that when we compare the various chroniclers, particularly those who worked independently, and extract what Florentine material they used in common and often gave in the same words, the main point is won. But, after all this, and after trying to extract some substance (scant enough, as will be seen) from the legend, very little genuine information is gained. It is therefore an absolute necessity to seek the aid of all public and private documents contained in our Archives, and of all learned modern investigations regarding mediæval history in general, and that of Florence in particular. Florentine historical research, first inaugurated by Ammirato, was diligently pursued in the eighteenth century by Borghini, Lami, and numerous other scholars, down to the present day. Nevertheless, the definite results of these prolonged inquiries, this vast display of learning, were still very few. For instance, we find that even the illustrious Gino Capponi, after a short introduction to his History of Florence, is compelled, like the ancients, to leap to the death of Countess Matilda, and makes his first mention, so to say, of the Commune after it had already existed for some time. Then the history of almost two centuries, to the year 1215, or thereabouts, is summed up in twelve pages, and only from the thirteenth forward are events related really in full. [Illustration: ETRUSCAN TOMBSTONES, FROM THE MERCATO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.] But in these days the study of mediæval documents has made extraordinary progress, above all in Germany, and accordingly the Florentine question has been again reopened. Dr. O. Hartwig was the first to apply his learning to the task, employing the scientific method. He not only examined all that was published on the subject, but made fresh researches in Italian libraries and archives, further aided by precious notes of documents newly discovered in Tuscany by D. Wüstenfeld. Thus, in the work from which we have frequently quoted, he was enabled to give a collection of valuable documents and of learned dissertations which have been already turned to account, will serve as a basis for future researches, and would be still better known and appreciated were they penned in a more popular style. Much has been found, very much read by Prof. Perrens, who has devoted his life to Florentine history, and already published eight volumes of his work. His first volume, of five hundred pages, only extends to the middle of the thirteenth century, and therefore treats of the origin of the city learnedly and at length. All Italians owe him gratitude for this; but it must be confessed that his untiring zeal, vast learning, and prodigious reading have not always resulted in a due amount of historical accuracy, and sureness of method. Treating of a period in which all has to be built up on a very scanty number of known facts, unless these facts are thoroughly ascertained disastrous consequences are apt to ensue. For example, in investigating the first origin of the Consuls, he still relies on the document of Pogna, dated March 4, 1101, in which they are named, and without remarking that Capponi, from whom, nevertheless, he continually quotes, had proved that, although long thought correct, this date was erroneous, and should be altered to March 4, 1181, Florentine style, the which signifies 1182 in the modern style. Thus Prof. Perrens introduces Consuls long before they were born.[45] Elsewhere he plunges into the very intricate dispute as to the jurisdiction exercised over their own territory by the Florentines of the twelfth century. He repeats with the old chroniclers that in 1186 Frederic I. deprived them of all jurisdiction beyond the city walls, but that they re-acquired it in 1188. He adds that on the Emperor Frederic's decease in 1190, his successor, Henry VI. "comme don de joyeux evènement, multiplie les privilèges." He fails to reflect that the patent quoted in support of the latter assertion bears the date of 1187, and that he gives the date in a note of his own.[46] How is the reader to disentangle this skein? As another example, we may add that the author gives as an historical fact the legendary tale of the origin of the Colombina festival held on Holy Saturday. The Florentines are sent to the Crusades by their archbishop, Ranieri, in 1099: that is several centuries before Florence possessed an archbishop. Pazzino de Pazzi, in reward for his feats of valour at the taking of Jerusalem, receives the _mural crown_ from Godfrey de Bouillon, together with the right to change his arms and adopt the crosses and dolphins, the which change was only effected by the Pazzi several centuries later.[47] Pazzino returns to Florence in triumph, mounted on a car, of which the description is given; and at a time when the Commune was not yet established,[48] is received in the style of a Roman conqueror by the people, the clergy, and the magistrates. He has brought three stones from the Holy Sepulchre, and these are the flints from which the sparks are still struck to fire the Car of the Dove. All this is derived from Gamurrini's "Storia genealogica," an utterly valueless work.[49] Readers may consider it strangely invidious on my part to be at the pains to refer to certain blunders contained in a work of which I am the first to recognise the merits, and by which I have often profited. But it seemed necessary to explain why, in spite of having praised, I should so seldom quote it. The work undeniably comprises abundant historic material, is written with vivacity and clearness, contains many keen observations, and does honour to an author to whom Italians are bound to be grateful. But although for all these reasons it is a book deserving attention, no possible use can be made of it, without continually verifying the authorities cited in it. Here a word must be said touching another and far less imposing work, to which we have been able to refer with far greater security. Already, in certain short papers appearing in the "Archivio Storico Italiano," Prof. Santini had proved his power of keen research on the early history of Florence, and has now had the happy idea of collecting all the documents on the subject, both published and unpublished, existing in the Florentine Archives. After copying and verifying them from the originals, he is now bringing them out in a bulky volume. It would be well if he or other writers could complete the same task in all cities, or at least in those of Tuscany, which had so many ties in common. Meanwhile, his book will form a new and solid foundation for Florentine historic research. We are doubly grateful for his kindness in allowing us to examine his press proofs. Thus we have been enabled to profit by his forthcoming book in advance of its publication, and shall have frequent occasion to quote from it. Other works, unmentioned in the text, will be recorded in the notes for our readers' benefit. [Illustration: SITE OF A ROMAN VILLA DISCOVERED NEAR S. ANDREA, FLORENCE.] II. Turning away for the moment from codices and chroniclers, we now come to the legend presenting the first problem that has to be solved, or at any rate discussed. Undoubtedly this legend was very widely circulated among the people. Even the "Divina Commedia" (Par. xv. 125) tells us how the Florentine dame at her spinning wheel-- "Favoleggiava con la sua famiglia De' Troiani di Fiesole e di Roma." Nevertheless, it appears to have had a literary rather than a purely popular origin. In fact, it is only a strange medley of classical and mediæval traditions, chiefly taken from books, and more or less arbitrarily altered, regarding the siege of Troy, the flight of Æneas, and the origin of Rome; and as municipal pride sought to connect the latter with that of Florence, all the scanty and vague notices, or rather traditions, existing on the subject had been carefully scraped together. The legend begins with Adam, but quickly leaving him aside, strides on to the foundation of Fiesole by Atlas and his spouse, aided by the counsels of Apollonius the astrologer. Fiesole was the first city built; it was erected on the healthiest spot in Europe, and hence its name--_Fie sola_. The children of Atlas spread over the land and populated it. The eldest son was called Italo, and gave Italy its name; the third was Sicano, who conquered and named Sicily. The second son, Dardano, wandered farther a-field, and founded the city of Troy.[50] The legend next passes rapidly to the Trojan war, the flight of Æneas, and the foundation of Rome, of which city Florence is the favourite offspring. It then goes on to speak at much greater length, of Catiline, regarding whom so many particulars are given, that he must have been the subject of a separate legend which either, when united with the rest, at a later date, formed the so-called "Chronica de origine Civitatis," or was, more probably, anterior to this, and only amalgamated with it in subsequent compilations. After conspiring against Rome Catiline came to Fiesole, whither the Romans pursued and attacked him, under their consuls Metellus and Fiorinus. The latter falling in battle, their army was totally defeated on the banks of the Arno. But Julius Cæsar came to avenge them, besieged and destroyed Fiesole; and then, on the same spot where Fiorinus had fallen, a new city was built, and called Fiorenza to commemorate his name. Catiline fled to the Pistorian Appennines, but was pursued there and routed. So great was the number of the killed, that a pestilence broke out, and from this Pistoia derived its name.[51] [Illustration: PAVEMENT OF ROMAN HOUSE UNDER THE MERCATO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.] [Illustration: MOSAIC PAVEMENT OF ROMAN BATHS, FLORENCE. [_To face page 59_.] In the legend the nomenclature of Tuscan cities is always explained on the same principles, Pisa, for instance, being derived from _pesare_ (to weigh). For the Romans received their tributes there, and these were so numerous that they had to be weighed in two different places. This is why they spoke of the city in the plural, _Pisae Pisarum_. Lucca comes from _lucere_ (to shine), because it was the first city converted to the light of Christianity. When the Franks[52] marched against the Longobards in the South they halted at a place in central Italy, and left all their aged people behind them. Thus the city built on that site received the name, likewise in the plural, of _Senae Senarum_. Florence, however, according to the legend, derived its name from Fiorinus, although later writers declared it to be taken from the word _Fluentia_, because it stood by the river Arno; others, again, from the numerous flowers springing from its soil. It was built in the likeness of Rome, with a capitol, forum, theatre, and baths, and was consequently called Little Rome. Its friends are always the friends of Rome; the foes of the one are foes of the other. After five hundred years, so runs the legend, _Totila flagellum Dei_ came and destroyed Florence, and immediately rebuilt the rival city of Fiesole. This clearly alludes to Attila, since he bore the title of _flagellum Dei_, and in the Middle Ages was the real type of the devastator and destroyer of cities. As he never came to Florence he was converted into Totila, who had been there, although never designated by the same appellation. This exchange of names was aided by their resemblance, nor is it the sole example the Middle Ages afford of the confusion of Attila with Totila. In the "Divina Commedia" ("Inferno," xiii. 148-9) we find Dante attributing the destruction of Florence to Attila, when he says: "Quei cittadin che poi la rifondarno Sovra il cener che d'Attila rimase." And hereby he doubly deserts the legend; for, according to that, Florence was rebuilt by the Romans and then, naturally, on the pattern of Christian Rome, with churches dedicated to St. Peter, St. John, St. Laurence, &c., as in the Eternal City. Thereupon more than 500 years[53] elapsed in peace; but then Florence, finally resolving to be revenged on its perpetual rival, suddenly attacked and destroyed Fiesole. At this point we may remark that, if Florence had been first founded in Cæsar's time, and adorned with Roman monuments at a later date; if, after 500 years,[54] it was destroyed by Totila, and then itself overthrew Fiesole after another interval of 500 years, the chronology of the legend clearly brings us to the eleventh century at least. If we also add that the assault and partial destruction of Fiesole really occurred in 1125, it follows that, as we have noted, the legend cannot have been framed before the twelfth century. Here, then, it should end and give place to history. In fact, Sanzanome, the earliest of the chroniclers, begins his work with the destruction of Fiesole. But the "Libro fiesolano" sometimes introduces capricious turns in the framework of the legend, and at this point makes an addition worthy of note as an evidence of the mode in which these fantastic stories were built up. The added portion refers to the Uberti, powerful citizens always opposed to popular government in Florence. According to tradition, they came originally from Germany with the Othos. Evidently, however, this theory was repugnant to the author of the "Libro fiesolano," possibly an adherent of the Uberti, and he therefore remarks, with some heat, that, on the contrary, the Uberti were descended from Catiline, "most noble king of Rome," with Trojan blood running in his veins. Catiline's son Uberto Cesare had a Fiesolan wife, who bore him sixteen children; and he was afterwards sent by Augustus to reconquer Saxony, which had risen in rebellion. While in that country Uberto Catilina married a German lady of high position, and from this union sprang "the lineage of the good Ceto [Otho] of Sansognia." Thus it is false that the Uberti were "born of the Emperor of Germany, the truth being that the emperor was born of their race."[55] This addition, posterior to the rest of the legend, shows that the author desired to exalt the Uberti; but, remembering their constant hostility to the Florentine government, declared them descended from Catiline and his Fiesolan bride. Also, being unable to deny outright their Ghibelline proclivities and Germanic origin, yet unwilling to acknowledge their descent from the Othos, he converts them into the latter's progenitors. Thus the legend is brought into harmony with its compiler's views, or rather, with his intent of magnifying his friends. Inquiry into the sources of this legend would only lead us astray, without throwing any new light on the origin of Florence, since the fable has no real historical value. We need only say that, besides Darses' "De excidio Troiae," the commentary to Virgil of Servius; Orosio's History, Paolo Diacono's Roman History, and the "Storia Miscella," &c., must have been consulted for its compilation.[56] Leaving the question aside, we may rather note that, although Villani and Malespini both give the legend as a preface to their histories, they not only refer to two separate compilations, but use them in a totally different way.[57] This is another proof that even if Malespini's chronicle were copied from Villani, it is not always an exact reproduction. He refers to the "Libro fiesolano,"[58] but enlarges it with two entire chapters of his own, containing a complete story, probably derived from some episode of the Catiline legend. And although teeming with the strangest anachronisms, it is better written and far livelier than the rest. In this tale we find Fiorino converted into a Roman king, married to the most beautiful woman ever seen, appropriately named Belisca. After the defeat and death of her husband, Queen Belisca remained the captive of a wicked knight named Pravus, but Catiline causes him to be put to death, and carries off Belisca, of whom he is desperately enamoured. The queen, however, is in despair concerning the fate of her lovely daughter Teverina, imprisoned in the house of one Centurione, and adored by him. In kissing Teverina's beautiful hair this man had exclaimed: "It is these that enchain me, for lovelier locks have I never seen." On the day of Pentecost the mother attended mass in the Fiesole church, and with bitter tears bemoaned the loss of her child. Her prayer was heard by a serving-maid, who knew where Teverina was hidden, and revealed it to the weeping mother. On receiving the news, Catiline instantly attacked Centurione's palace, and, after a fierce struggle, succeeded in capturing him. The prisoner owed his life to Belisca's intercession; for, having regained her child, she desired to save him, dressed his wounds, and urged him to fly from Catiline's wrath. Centurione consented to escape, and having mounted his horse, implored permission to bid a last farewell to Teverina. But when she appeared, he caught her in his arms, and galloped away, followed by his men. The mother fainted from grief, and Catiline, "with all his barons," a thousand horse and two thousand foot, pursued the traitor to the castle of Naldo, ten miles off, and proceeded to attack him there. But at that moment news came that the Romans were marching on Fiesole, so he was obliged to hasten back there before the siege should begin. Thus ends the singular episode annexed to the legend, when, having lost its primitive character, it became a fairy tale while pretending to be history. Villani, on the other hand, follows a more ancient compilation, and rejects the Belisca story. He, too, is acquainted with the "Libro fiesolano," makes some use of it, but considers it unauthentic exactly at the point where we find Malespini adhering to it. In fact, when recording the pretended descent of the Uberti from Catiline, Villani adds: "We find no proof of these matters in any authentic history."[59] Also, in trying, as far as possible, to give the legend a more genuine and historical appearance, he often inserts alterations drawn from the sources on which the legend itself was based, sometimes quoting Roman poets and historians such as Ovid, Lucan, Titus Livy, and, above all, Sallust, to whom he refers when adding certain historical particulars to the Catiline legends. A permanently instructive psychological fact is afforded us by the men of this period, and most of all by Villani. How was it that a contemporary of Dante--a man practised in affairs, cultivated, intellectual, and acutely observant--could mingle so much and such puerile credulity with great intelligence, culture, and common sense? In short, what substantial information can be gleaned from the "Chronica de origine civitatis"? Besides the ambitious aim, common to nearly all the cities of Italy, of trying to trace their origin back to the Romans and Trojans, the "Chronica" wishes to impress upon us that the Etruscan Fiesole was the constant rival of Roman Florence, which could not prosper until the former was destroyed. Therefore, Catiline, the enemy of Rome, is the defender of Fiesole, Cæsar, Augustus, the emperors, are the founders, champions, and restorers of Florence, which is always described as being in the likeness of Rome and styled little Rome, Augusta, Cesarea, &c. Totila or Attila--that is, barbarians who overthrew the Empire--are likewise destroyers of Florence. Another legend of later date attributes the rebuilding of the city to Charlemagne, the restorer of the Empire. So at least the tale runs in Villani and Malespini; but there is no trace of it either in the "De Origine," or the "Libro fiesolano," both impregnated with Roman traditions only, and the legends of chivalry being as yet unknown to Florence. In fact, Villani remarks, when repeating the tale: "We find (it) in the 'Chronicles of France.'"[60] We may accept as a certainty that the first origin of Florence was owed to Etruscan Fiesole, and that this was known even in the days of Dante is proved by his lines to the Florentines ("Inferno," xv. 61-3): "Ma quell' ingrato popolo maligno, Che discese da Fiesole ab antico, E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno." And Niccolò Machiavelli, leaving all legends aside (as Aretino had done before him), justly declared that the traders of Fiesole had begun from very remote times to form a commercial settlement on the Arno, at the point where the Mugnone runs into the river. So gradually a cluster of cabins arose, grew into houses, and finally became a rival city. But the city was entirely constructed by the Romans, though at what precise period is still unascertained. It is scarcely probable that the event can have occurred earlier than two centuries before Christ. Perhaps the city began to rise when, to protect Tuscany against Ligurian invaders, the Romans made a network of roads through the valley of the Arno; that is, when (according to Livy) C. Flaminius _viam a Bononia perduxit Arretium_, the which road crossed the Ponte Vecchio. Strabo says nothing of Florence; Tacitus and Pliny are the first to mention it. But in the second century of the Vulgar Era Florius already styles it _Municipium splendidissimum_, and records it among the cities which suffered most in the days of Sulla.[61] Recent excavations made in digging new sewers under Florence have furnished proofs that in Sulla's time the city must have already possessed buildings of no small importance, including an amphitheatre.[62] The restoration of Florence, after the serious injuries inflicted on it in Sulla's day, is generally attributed to Augustus, who is supposed to have made it the seat of one of the twenty-eight colonies founded by him, whence the name _Julia, Augusta, Florentia_. The "Liber Coloniarum" (p. 213, 6) numbers Florence among the colonies formed by the _Triumviri_ (45 B.C.), and it certainly must have been a colony in 15 B.C., when the city sent a deputation to Tiberius asking him to forbid the junction of the river Chiana with the Arno, on account of the damage this would cause (Tacitus, "Ann.," i. 79). But the weighty authority of Mommsen supports the view that, in spite of the testimony given by Florius, the colony of Florence was founded instead by Sulla.[63] The same date may be assigned to the construction of the oldest circuit of walls, existing during a great part of the Middle Ages, and some remains of which have been discovered in our own day. [Illustration: PISCINA FRIGIDARIA. _Discovered near the Campidoglio, Florence._ [_To face page 66._] Florence would seem to have been built in the form of the ancient Roman _Castrum_, a quadrangle traversed by two wide and perfectly straight streets, crossing it in the centre at right angles and dividing it into quarters. The Campidoglio stood in the middle on the site afterwards occupied by the Church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio, and the Forum was near at hand, on the site of the now demolished Mercato Vecchio. There was also the amphitheatre, known in the Middle Ages as the _Parlascio_, of which some traces exist near Borgo de' Greci; a theatre (in Via de' Gondi.); a temple of Isis (on the site of San Firenze); and baths in the street still known as Via delle Terme.[64] Accordingly, it is not surprising that the city, which was then very small and limited to this side of the Arno, should have been called Little Rome, and sought to base its origin on Roman traditions. The whole spirit of its monuments spoke of Rome, and the same spirit was echoed by the minds and imaginations of those who invented the legend. Even now, after so many centuries, so many changes, we still find remains of Roman buildings, and of so-called Byzantine architecture, but no single trace of the real Gothic or Longobard style. Florence gradually extended as time went on, and _borghi_ were built outside the walls, the largest of these suburban quarters being the _Borgo_, connected with the city proper by the Ponte Vecchio. In the second half of the eleventh century, and in the year 1078, if Villani's statement be correct (iv. 8), new walls were built to replace the palisades surrounding the _Borghi_. Villani may be accepted as an authority, now that he is known to have superintended the construction of the third and last circuit of walls begun in 1299 (viii. 2 and 31), and now almost entirely destroyed save for a fragment here and there. For a long time after the epoch of the barbarian invasions the history of Florence is involved in great obscurity, and what little information we have on the subject is either entirely legendary or jumbled with legends. In 405 Radagasius led a horde of Goths, mixed with other tribes, into Tuscany and lay siege to Florence. But the walls held out until the Roman general Stilicho came to the rescue, defeated the assailants, and put their leader to death. The resistance of Florence was greatly magnified, and Stilicho's victory attributed to a miracle. Tradition added that the battle having been fought on the 8th of October, the Feast of Santa Reparata, the Florentines inaugurated their Pallio races on that day, and founded the Church of Santa Reparata; but both these events were of later occurrence. The tradition merely serves to show how long Florence preserved the memory of its narrow escape from destruction. Regarding the next century there is an absolute blank; but then comes the legend that even Villani accepts, relating how Totila, _flagellum Dei_, destroyed Florence and re-built Fiesole.[65] To this the chronicler appends a second tale to the effect that after the city had remained thus devastated and ruined for 350 years, Charlemagne summoned the Romans to join him in rebuilding the city in the likeness of Rome, and that it thus arose anew, adorned with churches dedicated, like those of Rome, to San Pietro, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Maggiore, &c., and was also granted a territory extending three miles beyond the walls.[66] Here one sees that although the chronicler had already recorded, on the authority of the "De Origine," that Florence was rebuilt immediately after its pretended destruction by Totila, he thought that date premature, seeing that Florence really remained for long after in a very desolate and obscure condition, and therefore, to save trouble, he also jots down the posterior legend attributing instead the reconstruction of the city to Charlemagne, the saviour of the Empire. What germs of truth can be gleaned from all this? Totila really entered Tuscany in 542, and sent part of his host to besiege Florence. Justin, the commander of the Imperial garrison there, then sought aid from Ravenna; and when the relieving force approached the city, Totila raised the siege and withdrew towards Sienna. Pursued by the Imperial troops, he succeeded in routing them, but instead of returning against Florence, directed his march towards Southern Italy. So at least runs the account given by Procopius, and also followed by modern writers.[67] The Goths, it is true, made another descent later, easily mastered Tuscany and Florence, and committed much cruelty there, though without destroying the city. These are the facts; all the rest was a legendary excrescence signifying that the Florentines endured a long period of obscurity and oppression, and only began to emerge from it in the time of the Franks. In fact, the Longobard occupation of Tuscany took place towards 570, and we have two centuries of utter darkness. We find mention of one _Gudibrandus, Dux civitatis Florentinorum_, appointed by the conquerors; but nothing else is known to us. Amid the many calamities wrought by invasion, war, and harsh tyranny, not only was the trade, to which Florence owed its existence, entirely ruined, but many families escaped from the plains to safe places among the hills, and a good number accordingly took refuge in Fiesole, which city profited as usual by the ill fortune of Florence. And this to so great an extent, that during the latter half of the eighth century we find documents alluding to Florence as though it had become a suburb of Fiesole.[68] But soon, beneath Charlemagne's rule, times of greater order and tranquillity were inaugurated. Men began once more to forsake the hills for the valley; Florence began to prosper at Fiesole's expense. And as the Franks replaced the Longobard dukes by counts, so Florence too had its count, exercising jurisdiction throughout the territories of the bishopric that had been carved out of the old Roman division. This was the so-called _contado fiorentino_, stretching on the one side to a place called I Confini, near Prato, and thence towards Poggio a Caiano, sweeping round by the Empoli district, and conterminous with the borders of Lucca, Volterra, and the _contado_ of Fiesole.[69] Charlemagne halted in Florence, and celebrated Christmas there in 786; he likewise defended the property of the Florentine Church against Longobard aggressions. This gave rise to the legend that the rebuilding of the city was his work. Regardless of anachronisms, Villani not only adds that many imaginary privileges were conceded by him, but attributes to this period the birth of the Commune which only took place several centuries later. "Charles," he tells us, "created many knights, and granted privileges to the city by rendering free and independent the Commune, its inhabitants, and the _contado_, with all dwellers therein, for three miles round, inclusive of resident strangers from other parts. For this reason many men returned to the said city, and framed its government after the Roman mode, namely, with two consuls and a council of one hundred senators."[70] But this addition is made by the chronicler, and in a more arbitrary way than the legend itself. Nor was this all. Not Charlemagne only, but likewise Otho I., the regenerator of the German Empire, must be necessarily the patron of Florence, "because," continues the chronicler, "it had always appertained to the Romans and been faithful to the Empire."[71] In the year 955 the emperor halted in Florence on the way to Rome for his coronation, and on this occasion the chronicler makes him grant the city a territory of six miles in extent, that is, one as big again, but no less imaginary, than that bestowed by Charlemagne. Villani goes on to relate how Otho established peace in Italy, overthrew tyrants, and left many of his barons settled in Lombardy and Tuscany, the Counts Guidi and Uberti among the rest. He fails to reflect that some of these Tuscan families were of much earlier origin, and that even in his own day the leading nobles of the _contado_ bore the name of Cattani Lombardi, in remembrance of their Longobard descent. Also, he again forgets that Florence was not then a free city to whom the emperor could concede a portion of territory, which, as we have seen, already belonged to his own jurisdiction, and, towards Fiesole at least, could not possibly be of six miles in extent.[72] Another fabulous narrative, also given by Villani, is that of the destruction of Fiesole in 1010. On the day of St. Romolo's feast the Florentines, bent on revenge, are supposed to have entered the rival city with arms concealed under their clothes, and suddenly drawing their weapons and summoning comrades hidden in ambush, to have rushed through the streets, seizing everything and destroying all houses and buildings excepting the bishop's palace, the cathedral, two or three churches, and the fortress, which refused to surrender. After this, safety was promised to all disposed to migrate into Florence, and many profited by the offer. Thus the two peoples were made one, and even their flags united. That of the Florentines bore the white lily on a red field, that of Fiesole a demi lune azur on a white field; and thus was formed the red and white banner of the Commune.[73] According to Villani this union of two separate peoples proved the chief cause of the continual wars by which Florence was harassed, together with the fact of the city being built "under the sway and influence of the planet Mars, the which always leads to war and discord." Then again, as though forgetting he had already made the same statement regarding the times of Charlemagne, he repeats the almost equal anachronism that the Florentines "then made common laws and statutes, and lived under the rule of two consuls and a council of senators, consisting of a hundred men, the best of the city, according to the custom introduced in Florence by the Romans."[74] It is plain that he does not know how the Commune arose, but feels persuaded its origin was derived from Rome, and therefore records the fact as having occurred at the moment suiting him best, or seeming least improbable. But it is hard to see why he assigned the war and destruction of Fiesole to the year 1010 when aware that those events occurred, on the contrary, in 1125, as he afterwards relates in due place. The most probable explanation is, that finding the legend gave an account of the war and overthrow of Fiesole _more than five hundred years_ after the destruction of Florence by Totila, whose invasion occurred _five hundred years_ after the city was founded, the chronicler described the destruction twice over, namely, in 1010 and 1125; thus following first the legendary account, which had retraced its steps in a very vague fashion, and next the historical account, commonly known in his day. As for the causes of civil war being derived from the forced junction of two hostile nationalities, it may be observed that the diversity between the Germanic strain in the nobility and the Latin blood of the people, really constituted a strong element of discord, and this may have been felt, if not understood, by the chronicler. It is certain that from the Frankish times downward the prosperity of Florence slowly but surely increased. Nevertheless it is true that, as Villani says, its whole territory bristled with the castles of feudal barons of Germanic descent, all hostile to Florence, and many of whom, safely ensconced on the neighbouring hill of Fiesole, were always ready to swoop down on Florentine soil. In spite of this the geographical position of the city, on the road to Rome, proved increasingly advantageous to its commerce. As early as 825 the _Costitutiones olonenses_ of the Emperor Lothair proposed Florence, with seven other Italian cities, as the seat of a public school, thus attesting its importance even at that date. Besides, the German emperors nearly always halted there on their way to coronation in Rome. More often, and for longer periods, the Popes made sojourn there, whenever--a by no means uncommon occurrence--popular disturbances expelled them from Rome. Victor II. died in Florence in 1057, and had held a council there two years before; in 1058 Stephen IX. drew his last breath there; three years later Nicholas II. and his cardinals stayed in the town pending the election of Alexander II. Full of Roman traditions and monuments, in continual relation with the Eternal City, Florence was subject to its influence from the earliest times, and showed the Guelph and religious tendencies afterwards increasingly prominent in the course of her history. Towards the close of the tenth century many new churches arose within and without the city walls. At the beginning of the eleventh century the construction of an edifice such as San Miniato al Monte, in addition to the other churches built about the same period, affords indubitable proof of awakening prosperity and religious zeal. In fact, Florence now became one of the chief centres of the movement in favour of monastic reform that, after its first manifestation at Cluny, spread so widely on all sides. St. Giovanni Gualberto, of Florentine birth, who died in 1073, inaugurated the reformed Benedictine order known by the name of Vallombrosa, in which place he founded his celebrated cloister, and subjected many of the monasteries near Florence to the same rule. [Illustration: ATTACK ON THE MONKS OF S. SALVI. (_Bas-relief by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the National Museum, Florence._) [_To face page 74._] Before long this religious and monastic zeal burnt so fiercely in Florence, that when its bishop, Pietro da Pavia, was accused of simony, all the people rose against him. The friars declared that he owed his high office to the favour of the emperor, and of Duke Goffredo and Beatrice his wife, and that he had bought their protection at a very heavy price. The multitude sided with the friars, and the quarrel was carried on for five years (1063-68), and with so much heat as to lead to bloodshed. The bishop, enraged by these accusations, and emboldened by the duke's favour, caused an armed attack to be made on the monastery of San Salvi near Florence. The first promoter of the religious movement, St. Giovanni Gualberto, was, fortunately for him, elsewhere at the time; but his altars were pillaged and several of his monks injured. This incident naturally added fuel to the fire, and St. Giovanni Gualberto, who had already inflamed men's minds by preaching in the city streets, now cast aside all reserve, and openly declared that no priests consecrated by a simoniacal bishop were real members of the clergy. The popular excitement rose to so high a pitch, that it is asserted that about a thousand persons preferred to die unassoiled, rather than receive the sacrament from priests ordained by a bishop guilty of simony.[75] Strange though it seem, this was by no means incredible in times of earnest religious faith! Pope Alexander II. vainly endeavoured to pacify the people; vainly sent the pious, learned, and eloquent St. Pier Damiano to achieve that end. The holy man came with the words of peace, afterwards repeated in his letters addressed to _Dilectis in Christo civibus florentinis_. He censured simony, but likewise blamed too easy credence of the charge. It were better, he said, for the Florentines to send representatives to the Synod in Rome, whose authority would decide the quarrel; meanwhile they must remain quiet, without yielding to the blind and heinous illusion that had left so many to die without the "sacraments" to their souls' peril. Woe to those who seek to be juster than the just, wiser than the wise. Through too great zeal, they end by joining the foes of the Church. Croaking even as frogs (_velut ranae in paludibus_), they throw everything into confusion, and may be likened to the plague of locusts in Egypt, since they bring equal destruction on the Church.[76] This movement much resembled that carried on about the same time by the Patarini in Milan against the simony of the archbishop. There too, as in Florence, St. Pier Damiano played the part of peacemaker, and there also many preferred to die unassoiled, rather than take the sacrament from simoniacal priests.[77] But, despite the resemblance of the two insurrections, they led to different final results, owing to the different conditions of the two cities, and the very diverse attitude respectively assumed towards them by the Court of Rome. At any rate, the exhortations of St. Pier Damiano had no effect in Florence. The Vallombrosa monks sent representatives to Rome, but only to declare before the Council, then in session, their readiness to decide the question by appeal to the judgment of God. Not only was their proposal rejected by Pope and Council, but they were also severely censured for suggesting it, although the Archdeacon Hildebrand, there present, who had already risen to great authority in the Church, tried to defend them, as he had previously defended the Patarini of Milan. The Council ordered the monks to withdraw to their monasteries, and abide in them quietly, without daring again to inflame minds already unduly excited. St. Giovanni Gualberto would have obeyed willingly now; but it was too late: he could no longer quell the storm he had raised. For when the populace heard of what the monks had proposed in Rome, they insisted on the ordeal by fire. The champion chosen for the purpose, already prepared and impatient to stand the test, was a certain Brother Pietro, of Vallombrosa, afterwards known by the name of Pietro Igneo, who, according to some writers, had been cowherd to the monastery, although others assert him to have belonged to the noble family of the Counts Aldobrandeschi of Sovana. Guglielmo, surnamed Bulguro, of the Counts of Borgonuovo, offered the monks a free arena for the ordeal, close to the Abbey of San Salvatore, in his patronage, at Settimo, five miles from Florence.[78] The bishop, however, not only rejected the challenge with indignation, but obtained a decree to the effect that whoever, whether of the Church or the laity, should refuse to obey his authority, the same would be seized, bound, and _not led, but dragged_ before the chief of the city.[79] Likewise the goods of all persons having fled in alarm were to be confiscated by the _Potestà_, that is, by Duke Goffredo, who favoured the bishop. Meanwhile, certain rebellious ecclesiastics who had sought refuge in an oratory,[80] were driven from it by force. Naturally, these measures only increased the heat of the popular fury. Pietro Igneo declared his readiness to pass through the fire, and, if need be, alone. On February 13, 1068, an enormous crowd of men, women (some about to be mothers), old people, and children, set forth to Settimo, chanting prayers and psalms by the way. There, by the Badia, two piles of wood were fired, and, as related by one who claims to have witnessed the sight, the friar passed through the roaring flames miraculously unhurt. This aroused an indescribable enthusiasm; the sky echoed with cries of joy, and Pietro Igneo, though unscathed by the fire, was nearly crushed to death by the throng pressing round him to kiss the hem of his robe. With great difficulty, and only by main force, some ecclesiastics succeeded in rescuing him.[81] The news flew to Rome with lightning speed, and then, when all the details reached the Pope's ear, he was compelled to bow to the miracle. The bishop of Florence retired to a monastery; Pietro Igneo was named cardinal, made bishop of Albano, and worshipped as a saint after his death. [Illustration: MIRACLE OF SAN GIOVANNI GUALBERTO. (_Bas-relief by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the National Museum, Florence._) [_To face page 78._] This reminds us of the other ordeal by fire proposed in Florence in 1498, and that led to Savonarola's martyrdom, shortly before the fall of the Republic, of which the birth and death would thus seem to have been preluded by similar events. For, albeit the account of the affair may have been exaggerated by party feeling and superstition, and although the terms of "Preside" and "Podestà" employed in the old narrative only indicate in a general way the ruling powers in Florence at the time, all shows that a new state of society had begun. We find that there was a Duke of Tuscany, a military president, apparently his representative in the city, and, what is more, a people which, though only appearing as a fanatic mob, is plainly conscious at last of its own strength, since it struggles against the bishop, resists both the duke and the Pope, and finally obtains what it desires. In addressing the Pope it assumes the title of _populus florentinus_; and is addressed by St. Pier Damiano as _cives florentini_. It is true, of course, that these were mere forms of speech imitated from the ancients; assuredly the Commune was still unborn, and much time had yet to elapse before its rise; but an entirely new condition of things had begun, in which the elements conducing to its rise were already in course of preparation. Accordingly, we must now retrace our steps, in order to study the question more closely. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. _THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE._[82] I. When the Longobards became masters of nearly the whole of Italy, and subjected it to their long and cruel sway, they are known to have appointed a duke to every one of the principal cities they occupied. Rome remained free from them, having a Pope; Ravenna also escaped because an Exarch was soon to hold rule there, and almost all the cities by the sea were likewise exempted, inasmuch as the Longobards were ignorant of navigation, and needed assistance for their maritime trade. It was for the same reason that republics such as Venice, Amalfi, Pisa, Naples, and Gaeta, were of earlier origin than the rest. The dukes enjoyed great authority and independence; indeed, some of the duchies, especially on the borders, became so extended as to resemble small kingdoms--_e.g._, the dukedoms of Friuli, Spoleto, and Benevento. This circumstance greatly contributed to the decomposition of the kingdom and to the fall of the Longobards, whose strength and daring were never conjoined with any real political capacity. On the arrival of the Franks, counts took the place of dukes, but with less power and smaller territories. Charlemagne, with his genuine talent for statesmanship, refused to maintain lords who, in seeking their own independence, might endanger the existence of his empire. Nevertheless, as it was indispensable to keep his borders more strongly defended, he constituted _marches_, on the pattern of the greater Longobard duchies, and entrusted them to margraves, or marquises (_Mark-grafen_--frontier counts, marquises, or margraves). Thus too the marquisate of Tuscany was formed and the government centred in Lucca; for this city having had a duke of its own ever since the times of the Longobards, was already of considerable importance, while, as we have seen, Florence had fallen so low that the documents of the period merely refer to it as a suburb of Fiesole. Nearly all the margraves acquired great power, and aspired to still higher dignities. From their ranks in fact came men such as Hardouin and Berengarius, who, aspiring to form an Italian kingdom, became formidable opponents of the Empire, often wrought it much harm, and involved it in sanguinary wars. Hence it is not surprising if, later on, the policy of the German emperors should have constantly aimed at the enfeeblement of the leading Italian counts and margraves, and, by granting exemptions and benefices to prelates or lesser feudatories, and making all benefices conceded to the latter hereditary estates, rendered these independent of all greater and more dangerous potentates. Therefore, particularly in Lombardy, this class rose to importance, and so, too, the political authority of the bishops, who in point of fact held the position of counts. But in Tuscany things took a different turn. Whether feudalism there, having smaller strength and power of expansion, seemed less formidable to the Empire; whether the country, being more distant, proved less easy to govern; or because a strong state in central Italy was felt to be needed to arrest the growing power of the Papacy; whether the latter may have favoured its formation, as a possible check to the Empire; or again, as seems probable, for all these reasons combined, it is certain that the dukes or marquises of Tuscany (either title was borne by them) increased in power and consequence, and afterwards, in their turn, became a danger to the Empire. But in Tuscany the power of bishops and counts suffered more reduction than in Lombardy from the growing strength of the margraves, whose sway was extending on all sides, so that they sometimes appear to be virtual sovereigns of central Italy. The same reasons served to delay the rise of cities, and specially hindered that of Florence. Already, from the second part of the tenth century, a Marquis Ugo, surnamed the Great, of Salic descent, ruled over Tuscany, the duchy of Spoleto and the _march_ of Camerino. He reigned in Lucca almost in the guise of an independent monarch, and enjoyed the favour of the Othos. His successors continued to govern with much the same authority as the dukes of Benevento; and Bonifazio III. extended his State even to Northern Italy, thus giving umbrage to Henry III., whom he often outrivalled in cunning. Bonifazio being voracious for power, and of tyrannical temper, stripped many prelates, counts, and monasteries of their possessions, either to seize them in his own grasp or give them to better trusted vassals. He also tightened his grasp on all cities which, having risen to some importance, coveted increased freedom. This was specially the case with Lucca and Pisa. The former had prospered through being long the chief seat of the duchy, while the latter owed its prosperity to the sea, on which, as Amari happily phrased it, Pisa was already a free city, while still a subject city on land. Florence, however, still existed in humble obscurity, trading in a small way, and girt about on all sides by feudal strongholds. In 1037 Bonifazio had taken to wife Beatrice of Lorraine, who in 1046 gave birth to a daughter, Matilda, the celebrated countess or _comitissa_, as she is entitled by the chroniclers. After the death of Bonifazio, by assassination, in 1052, Matilda was soon associated with her mother in the government of Tuscany and of the whole duchy, and when left an orphan in 1076, became sole ruler of those extensive dominions. Beatrice had remarried, and as she was very religious, and her second husband, Goffredo of Lorraine, was brother to Pope Stephen IX., this served to increase their common zeal for the papal policy, afterwards so devotedly pursued by Matilda. When this high-minded, energetic woman became sole ruler, she held the reins of government in a firm grasp, and was often seen on battle-fields with a sword at her side. Her political position was one of great peril, for she was driven to take part in the fierce quarrel, recently begun, between the Church and the Empire. At first the great, high-tempered Hildebrand conducted the struggle as the inspiring genius of various Popes; later on, when raised to the pontifical Chair as Gregory VII., he fought in person against Henry IV. of Germany, and found Matilda his strongest and best ally. In this conflict, stirring and dividing all Europe, it was only natural that many opposing passions should be excited in Italy. All cities that, like Pisa and Lucca, considered themselves wronged by Duke Bonifazio, now declared for the Empire, and the Empire sided with them against Matilda. The same course was followed by all dissatisfied feudatories, especially by those whom Bonifazio had stripped of their possessions. More than once, it is true, Countess Matilda seized estates which had been arbitrarily alienated; but she seldom restored them to their original owners, preferring instead to bestow them on churches, convents, and trusty adherents of her own. This added fresh fuel to the flame. Hence an increasingly tangled web of opposing passions, of conflicting interests, from which at last some profit accrued to Florence. The Guelph spirit of the city and its commercial position, on the highway to Rome, had from the outset inclined it to the Church, and now, as a declared ally, was actively favoured by Beatrice and Matilda. II. It was long believed that Florence had had Consuls, and consequently an independent government, from the year 1102, since Consuls are mentioned in a treaty of that date, whereby the inhabitants of Pogna swore submission to the city. But it was difficult to reconcile this fact with the clearly proved dependence of Florence on Countess Matilda at the time. It was afterwards ascertained that the document in question bore a wrong date, and that the correct one was 1182, when the submission of Pogna really took place. Accordingly, the independence of the city was transferred to after 1115, the year of the countess's death. But it was still difficult to explain the wars previously carried on by the city on its own account, and other events of a like nature. The fact is that no fixed year can be assigned to the birth of the Florentine Commune, which took shape very slowly, and resulted from the conditions of Florence under the rule of the last dukes or marquises. We have already recorded the popular riots of 1063-68 against the bishop Mezzabarba, when accused of simony, and we have related how they ended with the ordeal of fire, braved by Pietro Igneo in 1068. On this head we have cited the letters of St. Pier Damiano addressed _civibus florentinis_. We also referred to a document[83] in which the _clerus et populus florentinus_ made appeal to the Pope, and, in narrating what had occurred, mentioned a _municipale praesidium_, a _praeses_ of the city, and a superior _potestas_. This proved, before all, that the civic body of the period was already conscious of its personality, and that there was already an embryo local government within the city walls. Doubtless the supreme _potestas_ was the Duke Goffredo, husband to Beatrice; the _praeses_, his representative in Florence. It was before him that, as we have seen, the bishop threatened to drag his adversaries, whose property was to be confiscated should they persist in disobedience. This _preside_ commanded the _praesidium_, designated _municipal_ even before the municipality had come into being, and at least the name shows that the majority of the _praesidium_ must have consisted of citizens. But all this makes it equally plain that, while Florence was still an integral part of the margraviate, Roman forms, traditions, and ideas already prevailed there to the extent of assigning Roman names to institutions of feudal origin. We must pause to consider this fact, since it gave rise to a question, not only of form, but of genuine historical importance. [Illustration: A ROMAN HYPO-CAUST, PARTLY CONSTRUCTED.] [Illustration: EXTERIOR VIEW OF CALIDARIUM AND FURNACE. [_To face page 85._] The employment of Roman terms need cause little surprise when we remember that the study of elementary Roman law, as well as of rhetoric,[84] the _ars dictandi_ then formed part of the _Trivium_, and was therefore widely taught in Italy. In the first half of the eleventh century a still more advanced study of law already flourished at the school of Ravenna, and as its influence increased, extended through Romagna into Tuscany. This system of law seemed to spring to life again spontaneously from the midst of Latin populations, with whom it had never entirely died out, and now in its new vigour brought modifications and changes into the different institutions and legislations with which it came in contact.[85] In fact, in the sentences pronounced by Beatrice and Matilda, we find occasional quotations from the _Digesto_, or Code, that, according to the procedure of the time, was carried to the tribunals by those basing their rights on its clauses.[86] The works of St. Pier Damiano afford satisfactory proof that the Florentines pursued the same study, and set great value on Roman law. The saint mentions a juridical dispute of the Florentines, regarding which, towards the middle of the eleventh century, they had asked the opinion of the _sapientes_ of Ravenna, who, much to his own disgust, presumed to alter the prescriptions of canonical law on the authority of the _Digesto_. Among those wise men, he adds, the most impetuous and subtle chanced to be a Florentine.[87] Another proof might be deduced from the remark previously made by Ficker,[88] namely, that the courts held in Florence and its territory were seldom attended by the Romagnol assessors, or _causidici_, frequenting other Tuscan tribunals. This would seem to imply that in this respect Florentines had no need to recur to Romagna. Later--that is towards the end of the century--the school of Irnerius (Werner) began to flourish at Bologna, the which school aimed at an exact reproduction of Roman law and promoted its genuine revival. But at the time of which we speak the Ravenna school represented, on the contrary, a continuation of the ancient jurisprudence, partly decayed and partly changed by the diverse elements of civilisation in the midst of which it had survived, and in which it was now producing radical changes.[89] One of these changes--leading to very remarkable consequences of a political as well as a legal kind--took place in the constitution and attributes of the margravial tribunal. We know that Matilda, after the fashion of her predecessors, administered justice in the name of the Empire, presiding in state over the tribunals. Indeed, this was one of her chief functions. Some sentences given by her have survived, and serve to show us how her tribunal was composed. Certain high feudatories had seats flanking her throne; next came the judges, assessors, pleaders (_causidici_), and witnesses, and lastly, the notary. Prof. Lami has observed that the judges, and more particularly the assessors, were changed as the countess moved from city to city, which would prove that not a few of them were inhabitants of the towns wherein they administered justice.[90] In fact, what names do we find among them in Florence? Those of the Gherardi, Caponsacchi, Uberti, Donati, Ughi, and a few others.[91] These were already the first and most influential citizens, the _boni homines_, the _sapientes_, the men we afterwards find officiating as Consuls. Thus there were certain families who first formed part of the margravial tribunal, and were afterwards at the head of the Commune. Political changes were facilitated and prepared by a juridical change, followed by the increased action of the revived Roman law. What was the nature of this change? The exact definition of the functions respectively assigned by the Germanic code to the president of the tribunal who gave sentence, or to the judges who led up to the same by administering the law, had been gradually lost sight of. Sometimes the countess pronounced sentence without the aid of judges; but more often they conducted the trial, applied the law, and formulated the verdict, to which the countess merely gave assent. Thus, as Ficker states, her office was reduced to that of a passive president.[92] This is confirmed on seeing that tribunals sometimes sat in her absence, when the trials were entirely managed by the judges. A method of this kind once adopted, Matilda's grave and numerous affairs of State, together with the continual warfare in which she was involved, must have augmented the number of the cases settled by local judges. This must have been a matter of weighty importance at a time when the administration of justice was one of the principal attributes of political sovereignty. Hence these citizen tribunals are a precursory sign of civic independence before the Commune had asserted its real autonomy and individual position. The strange dearth of documents certifying that any tribunal in Florence was presided over by Matilda during the last fifteen years of her life, serves to confirm our remarks. A similar fact is also verified in the Tuscan cities remaining faithful to the Empire; for these too had tribunals in which justice was administered, not by feudal potentates, but by citizens invested by the emperor with judicial authority.[93] These, too, served as a preliminary to communal independence, although hardly forming, as some thought, its actual beginning. [Illustration: DESCENT TO A ROMAN WELL. _Discovered beneath the Campidoglio, Florence_ [_To face page 89._] It is certain that in this and other ways, during the contest between Henry IV. and Matilda, many Tuscan cities, siding either with the Empire or the Church, and therefore highly favoured by the one or the other, were able to achieve a commencement of freedom. After Henry IV. had defeated Matilda near Mantua in 1081 he granted large privileges to Pisa and Lucca, in return for their proofs of goodwill to his cause. In a letter patent issued at Rome June 23, 1081, he not only guaranteed to Lucca the integrity of its walls, but also authorised it to forbid the construction of any castles in the city or territory within a circuit of six miles, and promised to exempt it from building an Imperial palace. He likewise declared that no Imperial envoy should be sent to give judgment in Lucca, but made a reservation in case of the personal presence there of the emperor, or his son, or his chancellor. In conclusion, he annulled the "evil customs" (_perverse consuetudini_) imposed by Bonifazio III.[94] to the hurt of Lucca, and granted it full permission to trade in the markets of San Donnino and Capannori, from which he expressly excluded the Florentines. This final clause not only proves the hostility of the Empire to Florence, but the importance the latter's trade must have assumed by that time. In the same year Pisa received a patent guaranteeing the maintenance of its ancient rights, and Henry declared that no Imperial envoy belonging to another territory should be sent to plead suits within the walls, or within the boundaries of its _contado_. And, what was still more to the point, he also declared that no marquis should be sent into Tuscany without the consent of twelve _buoni uomini_ chosen by the popular assembly, summoned in Pisa by sound of bell.[95] Here, if no Consuls yet appear on the scene, we already find their precursors in these worthies, or _sapientes_, elected of the people, and we have already a popular assembly. Even though the Commune be still unborn, its birth is now, as it were, in sight. Further (provided nothing was interpolated in the document), it is most remarkable to find the appointment of an Imperial margrave subject to the sanction of the people. There is also a hinted desire--unattainable during Matilda's life--to assume the government of the margraviate in person; after her death an attempt to this effect was actually made, but, as we shall see, with very brief and partial success. III. Nevertheless the condition of Florence was considerably different from that of Pisa or Lucca. These two cities, as we have seen, had long enjoyed greater prosperity. They had often fought against each other; Pisa, haughty and daring by sea, had begun, even in the middle of the tenth century, a long and arduous war against the Mussulmans[96] of Sicily, Spain, and Africa. Florence, on the other hand, in siding with Matilda, became necessarily the foe of all the great feudal nobles of the _contado_, surrounding the city on all sides, and who, disgusted by their treatment at the hands of the marquises of Tuscany, since the time of Bonifazio III., now, for the most part, adhered to the Empire. Their antagonism towards the Florentines was not only heightened by the fact of these nobles being of Germanic origin, even as feudal institutions were Germanic, whereas the population of Florence, consisting chiefly of artisans, was of Roman origin and full of Roman traditions; but it was likewise increased by the geographical position of the city. Had Florence been situated in a plain like Pisa and Lucca, or like Sienna and Arezzo on a height, the feudal nobility could have promoted their interests better by settling within its walls. But it lay in a valley in the midst of a girdle of hills bristling with feudal turrets, whence the nobles threatened it on all sides, raiding its lands and closing all outlets for its commerce. These geographical conditions had no slight effect on the future destiny of Florence; and, in fact, largely contributed to form the special character of its history. As a primary result, conflict between the feudal nobles and the city was more inevitable and more sanguinary than elsewhere, while the city being, from the first, of far more democratic temper than the rest, was therefore longer prevented from asserting its independence, since this result could only be achieved when Florence had gained sufficient strength to cope with the numerous enemies girding it about. Until that moment arrived its interests were best forwarded by remaining friendly and submissive to Countess Matilda, the only power able to hold the barons in check, and the loss of whose aid would have left Florence a prey to its foes. This explains not only the city's delay in asserting its independence, but also the total lack of documents concerning the origin of a commune that had already risen to considerable strength, and started wars on its own account before its existence was officially recognised. These wars were still carried on in the name of the Countess, who occasionally visited the camp in person; the city was unmentioned in public documents, because it had as yet no personal existence. Nevertheless, we are forced to recognise the first signs of its communal life in the campaigns undertaken by Florence in defence of its trade against the nobles of the _contado_; the which campaigns were continued on an increasing and more vigorous scale until they ended in the total annihilation of the feudal lords. This was both the starting point and the aim of all Florentine history. [Illustration: IMPLUVIUM OF ROMAN HOUSE, FLORENCE.] [Illustration: ROMAN CALIDARIUM, FLORENCE. [_To face page 96._] From the very beginning, it is true, we find that even Florence possessed some families that may be called noble. Such were the Donati, Caponsacchi, Uberti, Lamberti, and others whose names were included on the lists of the judges and soon to be found on those of the Consuls. These were the ruling, governing families at the head of the city. But they were neither counts, marquises, nor dukes; they were not as the Counts Cadolingi, Guidi, and Alberti, who dwelt in the outlying territory or _contado_; nor did they belong to those _Cattani Lombardi_ so-called at the time, in remembrance of their Germanic descent. Rather than veritable nobles, they were "worthies" (_boni homines_), "great ones" (_grandi_),[97] owning no feudal titles; natives of the city risen to high fortune, or scions of petty feudal lines, who, unable to hold their own against greater neighbours of the country side, had sought safety within the town. They quickly amalgamated with the people, sharing and taking the lead in all the latter's expeditions against the strongholds outside the city. Nor, as will be shown, was it a rare case, later on, to find some of these nobles engaged in trade, or heads of trade guilds, as soon as the latter became more firmly established. And it is by no means an insignificant fact that during disturbances at Pisa, Sienna, and elsewhere, we often see the names of real citizen-nobles, counts, viscounts, and so on, never to be met with in Florence. In documents concerning the Florentines the word _nobiles_ seldom occurs, whereas it is often used in speaking of the Pisans, Siennese, &c. The term _milites_, it is true, frequently occurs in Florentine records; but although the _milites_ could not be _popolani_, since the lower classes were not then admitted to knighthood, neither could they be feudal nobles in Florence: they were the leading citizens who exercised no trade, the _grandi_, in fact, to whom we have previously alluded. They were members of Matilda's courts, were employed by her in various ways; they commanded the _municipale praesidium_, probably filled the office of _praeses_, and they were leaders of the army. Richer, more cultivated and better fitted than other citizens for politics and warfare by their freedom from daily toil, they were the _boni viri_, the _sapientes_, the _milites_ found more or less in all cities, but of a separate stamp in Florence. Notwithstanding our knowledge of this _preside_ and _presidio_ and of these Florentine tribunals, very little is known as to the government and administration of the social body already beginning to prosper and to have varied interests of its own. Matilda's sway in Florence must have been of a shadowy kind, when the city was able to start wars on its own account and to its own profit, albeit still undertaken in her name. As its commercial prosperity increased and Matilda became more absorbed in her struggle with the Empire, the city must have been left more to itself. Consequently this is the time when the associations serving to classify and organise the citizens were formed, which we presently find flourishing and strongly established. Thus, being almost without a central government, a local one could assert its existence, and the strength of the Commune be developed long before its independence was proclaimed. The same fact explains why the Commune, its individuality once declared, should have made such rapid progress and leapt to the headship of Tuscany. At any rate, by the second half of the twelfth century we find on the one side the _grandi_, or nobles--if we prefer to give them that name--formed in Societies of Towers (_Società delle torri_), with statutes soon to be made known to us; while, on the other we find trade guilds or associations not only in existence, but sometimes with sufficient political importance to entitle them to the honour of representing the Republic. Can we possibly suppose that such results could be achieved without a long, preliminary course of preparation? Did not the _scholae_, progenitors of the guilds, survive during the Lower Empire and throughout the Middle Ages? do we not find them dividing all society, including both the soldiery and foreigners in Rome and in Ravenna? How could they be destroyed by barbarians ignorant of crafts which were nevertheless indispensable to their own needs? Florentine commerce and industry undoubtedly increased during the rule of Countess Matilda. This has been proved by the patent of 1081, and the first wars undertaken by the Florentines in the interest of their trade afford sure confirmation of the fact. Were we to exclude trade associations from the conditions of the period, we should have to admit the existence, at that day, of the modern workman, isolated and independent: a decided impossibility in the Middle Ages. Those were times in which every trade was exercised by distinct groups of families, and handed down by them as a tradition from father to son. Frequently, even offices of the State were the monopoly of certain families. It was from a society split into groups and castes that the Commune eventually developed the modern State, but in old times the very idea of the latter was unconceived. It is absurd to suppose--though a few writers accept the notion--that the guilds only began when they had regular statutes. These statutes only formulated what had already existed for some time, and undoubtedly in Florence everything conduces to the belief that the associations of the trades and of the towers, though still embryonic, must have preceded the formation of the Commune evolved in their midst. IV. For on all sides, if in diverse modes, we perceive that a long period of incubation was needed to form the Commune, which naturally owed its birth to pre-existing elements. The celebrated agreement or _concordia_ made at Pisa by Bishop Daiberto, about 1090, or even, perhaps, a year or so earlier,[98] shows that the nobles were organised and waging fierce war against one another from their towers. The bishop induced them to partly demolish these towers, and solemnly vow never to carry them above the height of thirty-six braccia (about one hundred feet), as previously decreed by the patent of Henry IV. in 1081.[99] And the agreement proceeded to set forth that any man believing his houses to have been unjustly damaged was to bear his complaint _ad commune Colloquium Civitatis_; nor could the dwelling of the offender be demolished without the general consent of the citizens.[100] [Illustration: MOUTH OF ROMAN FURNACE, _Discovered beneath the Mercato Vecchio._] [Illustration: CALIDARIUM. _Ibid._ [_To face page 96._] The whole tenor of this document not only proves that the Pisan nobles were already an organised body, but that they also boasted a civic importance never attained by the nobles of Florence.[101] Evidently Pisa had no Consuls as yet, or they would have been certainly mentioned in the document. But all the elements destined to make it a far more aristocratic commune than that of Florence were already existent.[102] We see that there was a _commune consilium_ of _sapientes_ or _boni homines_, which was a species of senate, and a _commune colloquium_, a general assembly of all the citizens, afterwards developing into a parliament or _arrengo_. Five _sapientes_, whose names are given, sat in council with the bishop.[103] These were the immediate precursors or, as Pawinski rightly calls them, the _vorbilder_ of the Consuls, who are actually mentioned shortly after this time, in 1094, in another agreement (_concordia_), also drawn up by Daiberto. He makes an explicit appeal to their authority (_huius civitatis consulibus_) in decreeing that all smiths engaged on work required for the Duomo should be left unmolested.[104] Thus the rise of the Pisan Commune was preceded by a conflict waged by belligerent nobles from their respective towers, and the Consuls of the town were first named as the protectors of the smiths. The existence of guilds in Venice as far back as the ninth century is certified by the Altino Chronicle, proving that, even then, there were some leading industries exercised by certain families only, and that humbler trades, or _ministeria_, were already constituted, as it were, in associations, the members of which pursued their avocation according to traditional and definite rules. These craft-guilds or _ministeria_ implied certain accompanying obligations, since all members of them were bound to yield some gratuitous service to the State. On the other hand, the higher trades, such as mosaic work, architecture, and so on, requiring more culture and talent, were exercised by the leading families, and members of these guilds remained eligible for the political offices of the State.[105] There is a document of the eleventh century showing that the guild of smiths was constituted under the rule of a _gastaldo_ (or steward), against whom one of the members appealed for justice to the doge, according to a custom as yet unwritten.[106] All this compels us to believe that the existence of art and trade guilds, and in general of all the associations into which the citizens of the communes were afterwards divided, dates from a very remote period, and that in Florence, as elsewhere, all similar associations were constituted before the Commune had proclaimed its independence. Otherwise it would be impossible to explain the existence of a city that, almost without any visible government, was already prosperous in commerce and able to make war on its own account. For otherwise all the ensuing facts, although beyond the reach of doubt, would remain unexplained. V. Therefore, even in the days of Countess Matilda, we find the mass of the citizens divided and arranged in groups. We see on the one side the ancient _scholae_ transformed into associations of arts and trades, containing the germ of future greater and lesser guilds; on the other, family associations and clans of the _grandi_ or leading citizens, embryos of future societies of the towers. All these associations already formed the practical government of the city, in which the principal offices were filled by _grandi_ of Matilda's choice. It is quite probable that the post of _preside_ was reserved, in accordance with mediæval usage, to a single family or clan, perhaps to that of the Uberti, who were, as we shall see, among the most powerful in the city, and boasting a Germanic descent. Nevertheless, there was then no hostility, no separation between the great folk or _grandi_ and the people, all being united by common bonds and interests. In fact, as we have said, there will be soon documentary evidence that some of the _grandi_ engaged in commerce were chiefs of guilds, and already beginning to fight, side by side with the people, against the outlying nobility. It is true that they owned lands and herds, but these were then the main source of that Florentine trade and commerce in defence of which the first wars were undertaken. The castles surrounding the city barred all outlets for commerce; armed men were always swooping down from them to attack and maltreat all pack trains issuing from the city to convey its products and merchandise to neighbouring towns. With continual wars on her hands, the Countess Matilda could seldom afford any help, and consequently the Florentines, although fighting in her name, were practically left to their own resources. It was this alliance of all classes of citizens, united by identity of interests and singleness of purpose against a common foe, that then constituted the strength of that Florentine people whose loyalty, purity, and valour were so fervently praised by Dante and the chroniclers. This was the moment when virtue laid the foundations of the Commune's future freedom and wealth. Villani is given to exaggerate, but there is a basis of truth in his words when he states in the year 1107 (iv. 25) that "the city being much risen and increased in population, men, and power, the Florentines determined to extend their outlying _contado_, and widen their authority, and that war should be waged against any castle refusing obedience." This year, in fact, they began military operations by attacking the fortress of Monte Orlando, near Lastra a Signa, also described by the chroniclers as the castle of Gangalandi or Gualandi, a fief of the Counts Cadolingi,[107] then a very powerful family, and soon becoming bitterly hostile to Florence. During the same year they captured and demolished the stronghold of Prato, owned by the Counts Alberti, also very formidable enemies. But as on this occasion the Countess was present in the camp, their success is more easily explained.[108] In 1110 we hear of another war. "Florentini iuxsta Pesa comites vicerunt," we read in the "Annales," i. which start with this event and date it the 26th of May. The _comites_ here mentioned cannot be the Counts Guidi, then on friendly terms with Matilda and Florence, although, when fighting against both at a much later date, they were specially designated as "The Counts." In 1110 Florence attacked and conquered the Cadolingi, also known as the _Cattani Lombardi_, whose lands extended from Pistoia, by the Val di Nievole, towards Lucca, and by the Lower Val d'Arno to the vicinity of Florence. If the city could rout these nobles, it must have acquired great strength, even admitting the probability that on this occasion also it had the aid of Matilda's troops. In 1113 there were two other military campaigns which, owing to the very different accounts narrated by the chroniclers, have given rise to an infinity of learned disputes. First of all came the assault and destruction of Monte Cascioli, assigned by some to the year 1113, by others to 1114, and postponed by a few to 1119, when it was supposed to have been defended by an Imperial German vicar named Rempoctus or Rabodo, who perished in the fight. Other chroniclers assign the overthrow of the castle to three different years, and Villani puts a climax to the confusion by jumbling together the various assaults described, assigning them all to 1113, and saying that the castle had revolted against Robert the German, vicar of the Empire, holding residence at San Miniato al Tedesco (iv. 29). But in 1113--that is, before the Countess's death--there was no Imperial vicar in Tuscany, and consequently none could be installed at San Miniato, to which the appellation "al Tedesco" was not yet applied. But the confusion can be cleared, the chroniclers made to agree, and the different narratives easily explained, if it is admitted that only the first attack upon Monte Cascioli took place in 1113, when the castle was held by the Cadolingi and could be vigorously defended.[109] As the walls on that occasion were only partially destroyed, it was necessary to renew the assault in 1114, when they were totally demolished. They were afterwards rebuilt by the Cadolingi, and therefore, in 1119, when Florence had achieved independence, two more attempts were made to capture the stronghold; the Imperial envoy was killed while assisting in its defence, and the building was finally demolished and burnt to the ground. But without anticipating events we may conclude that even before Matilda's death the Florentines had succeeded, by their expeditions against Monte Orlando, Prato, Val di Pesa, and Monte Cascioli, in opening the highways of Signa, Prato, and Val d'Elsa to their trade. Another event, likewise occurring in the years 1113-15, although dated by the chroniclers in 1117, namely, the Pisan expedition to the Balearic Isles, also led to a somewhat complicated dispute. As already related, the Pisans began to make war on the Mussulmans from the middle of the tenth century, and during the latter half of the next century the strife was pursued more hotly than ever. In 1087 Pisa and Genoa combined, displayed a fleet of forty sail in battle array before Mehdia, and in 1113 both cities joined in the more important expedition to the Balearic Isles. They were also accompanied by many counts and marquises from Lombardy and Central Italy, likewise including a few from the Florentine territory. Then, combining with the Counts of Barcelona and Montpellier, the Viscount of Narbonne, and others, they attacked the Balearic Isles, and, in spite of a very obstinate resistance, seized the castle of Majorca, and captured young Burabe, the last scion of the ruling dynasty there. Villani, in alluding to this war of 1113-15, assigns it, like the other chroniclers, to the year 1117, adding that the Pisans fearing, when about to set sail, that the Lucchese might, as once before, take advantage of their absence to attack their city, entrusted the Florentines with its defence. The latter immediately encamped two miles from the walls and forbade their men to enter Pisa, under penalty of death; for, seeing that scarcely any males were left in the city, they feared some attempts might be made on the honour of its women, to the grave discredit of Florentine loyalty. And this decree was rigorously enforced. One soldier who dared to violate the rules of discipline was condemned to death, notwithstanding the prayers of the Pisans, who, as the only chance of saving the man's life, protested that they could not permit a capital sentence to be executed on their territory. Whereupon the Florentines, showing even in this matter their scrupulous regard for others' rights, purchased a scrap of land, and there put the culprit to death. Meanwhile, the Pisans returning from Majorca, laden with spoil, offered in token of gratitude to their faithful friends the choice of accepting either two bronze doors or two porphyry columns. The Florentines preferred the latter. The columns were consigned to them wrapped in scarlet cloth, in token of their value, and now stand in the chief portal of San Giovanni. However, when the cloth was stripped off, it was seen that some envious person had injured the columns with fire. Evidently part of this account is legendary, and we also discern that something must have been added to it afterwards, when Pisa and Florence were separated by long and inextinguishable animosity.[110] But the wrong date repeated in Villani and many other chroniclers, regarding a war that lasted several years, and was apparently only recommenced in 1117, does not justify us in denying a fact so constantly affirmed by many writers.[111] The Balearic expedition certainly took place, and there is equal certainty that it was led by the Pisans, with the help of various friends and allies. Their fear lest the city should be attacked by the Lucchese in their absence was justified by the fact that this had really happened in former times. The Pisans were now foes of Lucca and friends of Florence, whose loyalty during that early period was very generally recognised. Why should it be incredible that these friendly Pisans should have entrusted the city to their care, or that they should have proved worthy of the confidence reposed in them? Paolino Pieri not only repeats the story as told by all the other chroniclers, but also adds that the bit of ground upon which the guilty soldier was executed had been purchased with the help of Bello the Syndic, and that even in his own day he saw that it was still left uncultivated in memory of the deed: "it was on the fourth day of July, three hundred and two years more than one thousand, when I saw that ground untouched." At any rate, this is a proof that the tradition of the fact still survived in the fourteenth century, and that every one had the fullest belief in it. VI. The death of Countess Matilda, in 1115, was followed by a period of so much disorder as to mark the beginning of a new era for all Central Italy, and more especially for Florence. The countess, as we know, left a will bequeathing all her possessions to the Church; but this donation could only affect her allodial estates, since all those held in fief naturally reverted to the Empire. It was not always easy to precisely distinguish these from those; often, indeed, impossible: hence an endless succession of disputes. And such disputes became increasingly complicated by the pretensions of the Pope and the emperor, each of whom asserted his right to the whole inheritance, the one as Matilda's universal legatee, and the other as the supreme head of the margraviate. Then, too, as we have seen, many considered themselves to have been unjustly deprived of their estates, in favour of others with no rightful claim. All this led to a real politico-social crisis that brought the disorder to a climax. Thereupon the emperor, Henry IV., sent a representative, bearing the title of _Marchio, Iudex, Praeses_, to assume the government of Tuscany in his name. Of course, no one could legally contest his right to do this; but the Papal opposition, the attitude of the cities now asserting their independence, and the general disorder split the margraviate into fragments. Accordingly the representatives of the Empire could only place themselves at the head of the feudal nobility of the various _contadi_ and, by gathering them together, form a Germanic party opposed to the cities. In the documents of the period the members of this party are continually designated by the name of Teutons (_Teutonici_).[112] Florence, surrounded by the castled nobility occupying her hills, could only decide on one of two courses. Either to yield to those who had always been her mortal enemies, and were now emboldened by Henry's favour, or to combat them openly, and thus declare enmity to the Empire, the which, in the present state of affairs, would amount to a proclamation of independence; and the latter was the course adopted. Florence was now conscious of her own strength, and recognised that safety could only be gained by force. The change was accomplished in a very simple and almost imperceptible way. The same worthies who had administered justice, governed the people, and commanded the garrison in Matilda's name, now that she was dead, and no one in her place, continued to rule in the name of the people, and asked its advice in all grave emergencies. Thus these _grandi_ became Consuls of the Commune that may be said to have leapt into existence unperceived. This is why no chroniclers mention its birth, no documents record it, and a plain and self-evident fact is made to appear extremely complicated and obscure. In endeavouring to discover unknown events and lost documents which had never existed, the solution of a very easy problem was hedged round with difficulties, while evident and well-established particulars best fitted to explain it were entirely lost sight of. Nevertheless, we are not to believe that the event was accomplished without any shock, for the change was of a very remarkable kind. It is true that the actual government remained almost intact; but its basis was altered, since it was now carried on in the name of the people, instead of that of the Countess. This, in itself, signified little, inasmuch as for some time past the city had been practically, if not legally, its own master, and the people beginning to feel and make felt its personality. But the social and political results of the change were neither few nor inconsiderable. Naturally, during Matilda's reign, the governing authorities were men of her choice; and although all official and judicial posts changed hands from time to time, they became increasingly monopolised by a small cluster of families, chief among whom, as we have already said, were most probably the Uberti and their clan. Now, however, that the authorities were to be elected by the people, there was a broader, although still somewhat limited, range of choice. Accordingly, there was more change of office, and men were removed in turn from one to another. This custom already prevailed in other communes, and had been adopted even in Florence both by popular associations and those of the _grandi_. Hence it necessarily prevailed in the formation of the new government. Nor can we believe that those always to the front in former times could have now withdrawn without resistance, or without attempting to maintain their position by favour of the Empire and the _Teutonici_; nor is it credible that those now entitled to a larger share in the government should have refrained from relying, in their turn, on the strength of the popular favour, backed by the most vital interests of the city. Friction between the leading families seems inevitable to us in this state of things, and Florence must have witnessed some such conflict as at Pisa in Daiberto's day, and in almost all other Italian communes. We learn from Villani (v. 30), from the "Annales," and many other works, that there was a great fire in Florence in 1115, a similar one in 1117, and that "what was left unburned in the first fire was consumed in the second." It was certainly an exaggeration to say that the whole city was destroyed, but the fact of the fire is generally affirmed.[113] We also know that in those times, before gunpowder was invented, fire and arson were the most efficacious weapons in popular riots. Villani says, farther, that "fighting went on among the citizens ... sword in hand, in many parts of Florence." It is true, that, in his opinion, the fight was _for the faith_, seeing that the city being given over to heresy, licence, and the sect of the Epicureans, God therefore chastised it with pestilence and civil war. But, although we find no certain traces in history of any widely diffused heresy in Florence at the time, it is undoubted that from 1068 the earliest gleams of Florentine freedom were mixed and confused, as we have seen, with a religious movement, and it is also certain that the "Annales," i., of the year 1120 record the fact of one named Petrus Mingardole being condemned for heresy to the ordeal by fire,[114] and also add that, between 1138 and 1173, the city was thrice smitten by an interdict, all of which goes to prove a continued religious agitation. Besides, Florence, and particularly her people, remained constantly faithful to the Church party, while the Uberti and their adherents, who sided with the Empire, were opposed to it, and consequently, in those days, may have easily incurred the charge of heresy. Even in Villani's time the general name of _Paterini_ was bestowed not only upon all heretics, but on Ghibellines as well.[115] Besides, as he had placed the origin of Florence before Charlemagne's day, and then again immediately after the imaginary destruction of Fiesole in 1010, he naturally refused to recognise that origin for the third time at the moment of the Commune's real birth. Accordingly, slurring over the political movement, that was undoubtedly the main factor in the change, he tried to exaggerate the religious movement that played a very minor part in it. At any rate, since it appears certain that the Uberti asked the support of the Empire, they must have been now necessarily driven to prove themselves foes of the Church. Therefore, it cannot have been unusual for them to be styled heretics or _Paterini_, especially by so pronounced a Guelph as Villani. We know that the Uberti were already powerful in Matilda's time, from the frequent appearance of their name in contemporary documents. That they also enjoyed a lion's share of the government, and that the revolt was chiefly directed against them, is explicitly proved by the words of a chronicler--so far little read, we might almost say unknown--whose work being derived from different sources than that of Villani, shows some events in a new light. The pseudo Brunetto Latini, in fact, agrees with the other chroniclers in ascribing the first fire to the year 1115, saying that it began at the Santi Apostoli, and spread as far as the bishop's palace, "whereby the greater part of the city was burnt, and many folk perished in the flames." He says nothing concerning heresy, but touching the second fire of 1117, he adds: "In this year a fire broke out in Florence in the houses of the Uberti, who _ruled_ the city, whereof little was saved from the burning, and many folk perished by fire and sword."[116] It is evident that there was a real outbreak, almost a revolution waged with fire and sword, against the Uberti, rulers of the city. Can we be surprised at the hatred roused by the Uberti, or at the civil war of which they were the cause? As we know, they were traditionally supposed to have come with the Othos from Germany; and we have seen how the legend of the _Libro fiesolano_, while refusing credence to this, spoke of them as descended from "the most noble race of Catiline," the enemy of Florence. Even on historical evidence, were they not the forefathers of those Uberti, who afterwards, in 1177, proved the first to attack the Consular government and begin the civil warfare by which the city was so long torn asunder? Were they not the forefathers of the Schiatta Uberti, ringleaders of the band that stabbed Buondelmonti to death, by the statue of Mars on the Ponte Vecchio, in 1215? Were they not the ancestors of the celebrated Farinata, who routed the Guelphs at Montaperti, and attended that Council of Empoli where such fierce measures were proposed against Florence, the perpetual nest of the Guelphs--the same Farinata described by Dante among the heretics in the bog of hell?[117] VII. Meanwhile, which party conquered in the struggle following Matilda's death? Facts prove it clearly enough. In the year 1119 the Florentines made that final assault on the castle of Monte Cascioli, to which reference has been already made. This is the moment when the before-mentioned _Rempoctus_,[118] or Rabodo, really comes upon the scene, although Villani (iv. 29) and other chroniclers make him appear in 1113, under the name of Robert the German, Imperial vicar, and suppose him to have fallen in fight that year while defending the castle. We have shown that there could be no Imperial vicar in Tuscany at that date, seeing that none was sent until after Matilda's decease. In fact, no documents mention any vicar before then, and only on September 11, 1116, we find one recorded as "Rabodo ex largitione Imperatoris Marchio Tuscia,"[119] and then in 1119, "Rabodo Dei gratia si quid est,"[120] the identical formula that had been employed in Matilda's patents. In 1120 Rabodo's name disappears, and is replaced by that of the Margrave Corrado. It may therefore be taken for granted that Rabodo really perished in 1119 during the defence of Monte Cascioli against the Florentines, who now succeeded in finally demolishing the stronghold and burning it to the ground.[121] Thus their first achievement, after Matilda's decease, was the destruction of a Cadolingi castle, together with the defeat and death in battle of the first Imperial vicar then established in Tuscany. This is more than enough to show the nature of their attitude with regard to the Empire and the Teutonic party. Shortly after, an event of even greater significance occurred in the capture and sack of Fiesole during 1125. Sanzanome, whose so-called modern history of Florence starts with this war, describes it at much length, in flights of wordy rhetoric. The gist of it is that the chief cause of the conflict was a commercial dispute. The people of Fiesole would seem to have maltreated and plundered a Florentine trader who was quietly passing through the city with his goods. This incident, added to the remembrance of past rancours and other recent depredations, seems to have stirred the Florentines to war. Instantly, "factum est Consilium per tunc dominantes Consules de processu." One of the leading citizens harangued the people, beginning his speech with these words: "Si de nobili Romanorum prosapia originem duximus ... decet nos patrum adherere vestigiis." Thereupon, "illico a Consulibus exivit edictum." A man of Fiesole, on the other hand, began his address by alluding to the legendary origin of his city: "Viri, frates, qui ab Ytalo sumpsistis originem, a quo tota Ytalia dicitur esse derivata." Although so much learned rhetoric in a writer of the early part of the thirteenth century is another proof of the strong influence of Roman tradition on ancient Florentines, both before and after the rise of their Commune, it cannot conceal the real cause of the war, as proved even by the evidence of Villani, whose chronicle begins to acquire greater historic value at this point. The latter relates that Fiesole had become a veritable nest of _Cattani_ and brigands, who infested the Florentine highways and territories.[122] As usual, the feudal barons were swooping down from their strongholds to hinder the trade and traffic of the Commune. At this moment also there were special causes tending to provoke a war of an unusually sanguinary kind. The counties, or _contadi_, of the two cities, as sometimes occurred elsewhere, had been carved out of the territories of bishoprics, based, in their turn, on ancient Roman partitions of the soil. Accordingly, these counties being not only adjacent, but wedged in and almost tangled one with the other, and their respective bishops having never wielded, as in Lombardy, the authority or power of counts they had ended by forming a single, combined jurisdiction. In fact, many documents refer to the county or jurisdiction of Fiesole and Florence, as though it were one and the same thing. Hence it was only natural that on becoming an independent Commune, after Matilda's death, Florence should seek to dominate over both counties, and equally natural that Fiesole should be violently opposed to the idea, and, notwithstanding the inferior size of the town, should have trusted to the superior strength of its fortified position, and, making alliance with the nobles of the _contado_, should have harboured them in the citadel, and joined them in continual attacks on Florentine traders or in raiding Florentine lands. This was the beginning of the war. Its details are unknown to us, those supplied by Sanzanome being too extravagant for belief,[123] and other chroniclers furnishing none at all. Seeing the strength of Fiesole's position, the campaign could have been neither short nor easy, and undoubtedly ended in cruel slaughter and the almost total destruction of the town. The chroniclers are not the only authorities for this fact. Shortly afterwards, the Abbot Atto of Vallombrosa implored a pardon from Pope Honorius II., _pro Florentinorum excessibus_, urging in their favour that there were many aged persons, women, and children, in Florence, who had assuredly taken no part in the _destruccio fesulana_, and also that many participants in the war now confessed the error of their ways, and sincerely repented all the excesses that "non meditata nequitia commisere."[124] The event was long remembered in Florence, is frequently recorded in documents,[125] and, together with the rout of the Imperial vicar at Monte Cascioli, undoubtedly contributed to establish the independence of the Commune on a firmer basis. VIII. It is certain that Florence now had a separate government under Consuls of her own, although there is no documentary proof to this effect earlier than 1138. Sanzanome, however, makes explicit allusion to it at the time of the Fiesole campaign, when, as we have seen, war was declared by the Consuls. But what was the real nature and origin of this new magistracy? Formerly it was opined by many writers that the Consuls were an institution derived in general from the judges of older days. In Lombardy they would have been merely another form of the Frankish _scabini_, and accordingly in Florence it was natural to suppose them to be an altered survival of those judges of the margravial tribunal to whom, for some time before her death, Matilda had accorded the right to give sentence. But this view can be no longer maintained, since it does not comprise the whole truth of the matter. For even when the Consuls are seen in the exercise of their functions, what are they, what do they do, according to chronicles and documents? They conduct wars, conclude treaties in the name of the people, of whom they are the representatives; they govern the city; they administer justice. And at Florence, as elsewhere, the latter is only one of their duties, and only undertaken by them because so closely connected with the exercise of the political power that is, above all, their genuine and principal function. Besides, what was it that really led to the birth of the Florentine Commune? What save the lack of the higher political authority hitherto ruling Tuscany, and the necessity of making war against old and new foes! Accordingly the military and political elements unavoidably prevailed. We are further confirmed in this idea by examining the constitution of the Consular bench. At first it would seem that all or some of the Consuls presided without distinction, while later, three members were chosen in turn, and entitled _Consules super facto iustitiae_, or even _Consules de iustitia_, to preside for one month; at a still later date two Consuls presided for a term of two months, and finally, after the nature of the primitive government has been changed, we find a single Consul acting as president throughout a whole year.[126] They might be, but were not necessarily, legal experts, since they only pronounced and confirmed the judgment decided upon without either preparing or formulating it. This duty fell to a real _iudex ordinarius pro Comune_, together with three proveditors or _provisores_, who examined the case and wrote the sentence. The Consuls merely sat as presidents of the tribunal, and when, as sometimes occurred, they failed to appear, the tribunal acted on its own account. Therefore their office was practically the same as that of Countess Matilda herself--_i.e._, to represent sovereignty without filling the place of judges.[127] The real nature of the new government will be best understood after investigating the different elements of the civic body from which that government was necessarily evolved. As we are aware, there were two leading classes and interests dividing the city between them--that is, the trade guilds, and the associations of worthies, or of the Towers. In numerical strength the people had greatly the advantage; but the worthies (_grandi_) were far more cultivated, trained to arms and politics, and already somewhat versed in the art of government. Therefore, the Consuls were recruited from this class, and at first always chosen from so small a number of families, that the office appeared to be almost an hereditary one. The misfortune of Florence, as indeed of all the other communes, Venice excepted, was that the _grandi_ were never agreed among themselves. Feudal nobility in Italy resembled an exotic plant transferred to uncongenial soil. Elsewhere, being of German origin, it formed part of an entire political system; it was under the orders of the emperor to whom it adhered; it had certain heroic qualities; it created a special form of civilisation, and a literature that flourished in France and Germany, but it never throve in Italy, and in Tuscany least of all. Our feudal lords, being solely dominated by personal interests, leant on the Empire, the better to combat the Pope; on the Pope, to combat the Empire; on the one or the other indiscriminately to combat the cities. Even on Florentine territory the same thing continually occurred. The _grandi_ established within the city walls were, it is true, of a very different temper, and much nearer to the people, whose life they shared; but they comprised very discordant elements; for whereas some of these _grandi_ had risen from the people, others were descended from feudal houses, with whom they maintained friendly relations and on whose aid they could rely. Thirst for power was a speedy cause of division among them, and the ease with which one party gained favour with the working classes, while the other was backed by the nobles of the _contado_, fostered the growth of civil strife. Then, later on, as more nobles deserted their castles for the city, a regularly aristocratic and Ghibelline party was formed in opposition to the Guelph and popular side. This point, however, was still far removed, for the common necessity of making head against the baronage of the _contado_ long prevailed over all other interests, since the very life of the Commune was involved in that struggle. All that we have so far related serves to show with increasing clearness that two quite distinct classes of citizens already existed in Florence--namely, that of the people or trades (_arti_), and that of the worthies (_grandi_). Had the new government been evolved from the trades alone, it would have assumed a form constituted on the basis of a trade guild. Had it issued from the _grandi_ alone, it would have given rise to a regional and local constitution, corresponding with the _sestieri_ of the city over which their abodes were scattered. In all Italian communes this double tendency is to be found. In Rome the constitution by districts, or _rioni_, prevailed; while at Florence, after a time, the constitution by guilds obtained in consequence of the enormous prosperity of commerce and industry in that city. Meanwhile, however, the moral predominance of the _grandi_ and the pressing exigencies of war favoured a division of the city in _sestieri_, whereby the first assembling and organising of the army was greatly facilitated. It was for this reason that the Consuls were elected by their respective _sestieri_.[128] That the _grandi_ were already organised in "Societies of the Towers" there is written evidence to prove. A document of 1165 alludes to these societies as having been in existence for some time,[129] and the parchments of the Florence Archives comprise actual fragments of their statutes dated only a few years later on.[130] The "Tower" was possessed in common by the partners or associates, and no share in it could be bequeathed to any one outside the society, or to any member elected by less than all votes save one. Women were naturally excluded. The expense of maintaining and fortifying the Tower, which always communicated with the houses of neighbouring members, and served for their common defence, was divided among them all. Three or more rectors, also sometimes called Consuls, managed the society, settled disputes, and named their own successors. These rectors and their companions are the men we now find at the head of the government; and there is clear documentary evidence that the Consuls of the Commune were almost invariably chosen from families belonging to the Societies of the Towers. When, too, we observe that some of them were occasionally nominated Consuls of the guilds,[131] as Cavalcanti, for example, and several others, we gain an undoubted proof of the friendly terms preserved, as we have previously noted, between these nobles and the people. The societies were organised somewhat after the fashion of the guilds, by which they may have been originally inspired, and were not on a strictly feudal basis.[132] Had the more aristocratic Uberti achieved sole predominance in the city, things would have assuredly taken a different turn; but these patricians were compelled, although reluctantly, to yield to the force of events frequently opposed to their views. In fact, they were seldom Consuls before the year 1177, when, after exciting a genuine revolution, they were more frequently named to that post. This confirms the fact of their previous defeat in 1115. The consular government had then fallen into the hands of several noble families on good terms with the people. And it was the popular voice that prevailed in the assemblies where all the chief questions and interests of the State were decided. The Consuls[133] were elected at the beginning of the year, two for each _sestieri_. At least, this seems to have been the ordinary number, although we cannot be quite certain, since the number was not invariably the same. Two of the twelve, chosen in rotation, acted as heads of the college, and were styled _Consules priores_. For this reason the chroniclers only mentioned two Consuls as a rule, and sometimes one alone. In documents two, three, or even more are mentioned, but always as representing the rest of their colleagues, whose names are often added. Most rarely and only at exceptional moments do we find record of a higher number than twelve.[134] Then perhaps because the retiring Consuls continued in office with the new ones for a few days, or from some other passing cause that is unknown to us. Such variations are not surprising if it is kept in mind that the constitution of Florence, being then in course of formation, must have been liable to uncertainty and change, as will often be seen further on. IX. Attention should now be called to the popular element in the constitution. That the guilds were solidly established by the early part of the twelfth century is indubitably proved. Villani says that towards the year 1150 the Consuls of the Merchants, or rather of the "Calimala Guild," were entrusted by the Commune of Florence with the building works of "San Giovanni" (i. 60). Of still greater significance is the fact that on February 3, 1182, the men of Empoli, in making submission to Florence, were bound to make a yearly payment of fifty pounds of "good money" (_buoni denari_) to the Consuls or Rectors of the city, and, failing these officials, to the Consuls of the Merchants,[135] as representing the Commune. Now, if these Consuls had reached so high a degree of importance in 1182, we are entitled to believe that the guild was of no recent origin. And remembering that the guild in question was the Calimala--_i.e._, that of finishers and dyers of woollen cloths manufactured abroad, and more especially in Flanders, imported by Florence, and thence despatched to foreign markets--we shall understand that Florentine commerce must have already attained a prodigious development, and consequently that many of the guilds must have been already long established. A solitary instance would naturally afford little proof, since it might be open to various interpretations; but others can be adduced to the same effect. In a treaty between Lucca and Florence of July 21, 1184, we find a stipulation according to which the terms might be modified by the Florentine Consuls _comuni populo electi_, and by twenty-five counsellors, provided, as was expressly declared, the Consuls of the merchants were comprised in the number.[136] Likewise, when the men of Trebbio made submission on July 14, 1193, the power of incorporating the agreement in the City Statutes was exclusively reserved to the seven _Rectores qui sunt super Capitibus Artium_.[137] But a final observation occurs to us at this point, again showing the very uncertain and changeable nature of this consular government. In mentioning the chief authorities of the Commune, almost all documents refer to them as "_Consules seu rectores vel rector_," with the addition, at a later date, of "_Potestas sive dominator_."[138] All these terms had a very general meaning at the period. Nevertheless, there must have been some reason for employing the formula--Consuls or Rectors or _Potestà_--in treaties of peace, or alliance, or state documents of high importance; and probably a special reason, seeing that we often find the formula ending as follows: "_Consules qui pro tempore erint, et si non erint_," the Rectors or the _Potestà_ or the Consuls of the guilds were to act in their stead. Why so much vagueness in indicating the chief magistrate of the Republic? Only one explanation is possible. The real practical government of the city was carried on by the various associations; the office of Consul had few attributes and never attained the power and importance due to a central government, as conceived in the modern sense. The same remark may be also applied to the Priors, the Ancients, and other officers of later date; but it is specially true as applied to the consuls, under whom the various civic societies were first united in a single government. Therefore, to meet the eventuality of no Consuls being in office at the moment, it was provided that the Rectors of the Towers or of the guilds should naturally assume the power directly emanating from them. But as no public acts performed in the name of the Rectors are extant, we may conclude that the contingency arranged for seldom arose. Frequent mention occurs of _counsellors_ (_consilarii_), and we note that representatives of the guilds were comprised among them. We know, in fact, that there was a council in Florence, as in other Italian communes, and Villani tells us (iv. 7, and v. 32) that this council was called a senate "according to the custom given by the Romans to the Florentines," and composed of one hundred worthies (_Buoni Uomini_). In documents, however, they are nearly always entitled _consiliarii_, the term "senator"[139] only occurring once; but in those days the term _senato_ or _consiglio_, _senatori_ or _consiglieri_, were often indiscriminately applied, particularly with regard to the limited or _Special_ Council, as it was afterwards called. No documents supply us with the precise number of the councillors; but we believe the one hundred recorded by Villani must be somewhat under the exact figure, since a form of oath sworn by 133 councillors is extant.[140] Perhaps each _sestiere_ elected about twenty or twenty-five members, without this being the invariable rule, and thus the Council might be approximately designated as that of the "Hundred." Then, too, there was the parliament, also known as the _Arengo_,[141] which was a general assembly of the people, held on great occasions for the gravest affairs of the State. X. Thus the Florentine Commune resembled a confederation of Trade Guilds and Societies of the Towers. Its directing authorities for affairs of war, finance, justice, and other matters of the highest importance, were the Consuls, elected yearly, with a senate or council of about a hundred worthies, likewise elected yearly, and lastly a parliament. The Consuls were almost invariably chosen from members of the Companies of the Towers, and if, for any reason, no election of Consuls took place, the rectors of the Towers or of the guilds were provisionally empowered to act in their stead. But the guilds predominated in the Council, and as a natural consequence the government assumed a popular character from that time, and the whole policy of Florence always tended to promote the trade and commerce of the city. Nevertheless, to obtain a still clearer idea of a government of this kind, it would be requisite to ascertain exactly who and what were the citizens entitled to a share in it, and this point is still somewhat doubtful. The outlying territory (_contado_) was entirely excluded from citizenship, nor was this privilege granted to all dwellers within the walls, the lower class of artisans and the populace being excluded from it.[142] Hence the government was concentrated in the hands of a few powerful families, the heads of the guilds, and their principal adherents. In fact, even down to the last days of the Republic real citizenship--the possessors of which alone were eligible to political posts--was a privilege conceded to few, and even in 1494 the number of citizens scarcely exceeded three thousand. For this reason, even at the present day, we may find a few humble families asserting their inheritance of old Florentine civic rights, as a rare privilege and almost as a title of nobility. At Venice, even in the eighteenth century, to the last days of the Republic there still existed different grades of citizenship, and the right of government was restricted to a small caste. This is one of the points in our history demanding closer investigation. It is true that the whole people met indistinctly in parliament; but such assemblies were mostly of a purely formal kind. For, seeing that the parliament was convoked either in some square, often of small extent, or inside a church, we are bound to infer that the privilege accorded to all the inhabitants of the city was nominal rather than real. It were likewise superfluous to add that the exact division of power, as in modern constitutions, was entirely ignored in those days. Affairs were divided according to their importance and the quality of the individuals concerned in them, rather than according to their nature. The Council of the Hundred was not, as might be supposed, at this day, a legislative assembly, nor was the executive power vested in the Consuls. The latter gave judgment, administered affairs, commanded armies, executed the will of the people, and occasionally completed legislative acts even without the aid of the Council. This, however, was always consulted regarding very important reforms, but often voted for or against them without any discussion. On questions of extraordinary moment the parliament gave its _placet_ without always understanding the nature of the question. On the other hand, not only affairs of some gravity, and particularly those for which money was needed, were referred to the Council; but this could also be consulted, at the Consul's pleasure, on any question whatever, from the proposed execution of some political offender to granting some citizen permission to transfer his abode from one _sestiere_ to another.[143] Although a question of the latter kind seems very insignificant to us nowadays, it was an important one then, since it altered the distribution of the inhabitants in different parts of the city, and consequently the relative strength of these parts and the proportional right of the citizens to fill public offices--a point that was very jealously watched. [Illustration: BELFRY OF S. ANDREA, MERCATO VECCHIO, FLORENCE. [_To face page 130._] Such was the first form of government adopted by the Florentine Commune. But the Commune was not yet consolidated nor sufficiently sure of its strength. The territory beneath its sway was very limited in extent, with ill-defined, disputable and disputed frontiers. Even within these borders the Commune had very little power, inasmuch as the castled nobility not only vaunted their independence of the city, refusing to acknowledge any authority save that of the Empire, to which they were not always submissive, but waged constant war on the Commune, and perpetually incited neighbouring lands to rebellion. Accordingly, the first thing to be done at this juncture was to seize the _contado_ by force of arms, reduce it to subjection and govern it, the which, as we shall see, led to many new and serious complications, both within and without the walls. These vicissitudes constitute the real civil history of Florence, which finally starts from this moment. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. _THE FIRST WARS AND FIRST REFORMS OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNE._[144] I. After Countess Matilda's death the envoys despatched from Germany to reassume the margraviate of Tuscany in the name of the Empire followed one another in rapid succession.[145] But almost all were men of small ability, pursuing a vacillating policy that led to no results. They tried to exercise the power of margraves, but were merely temporary officials of the emperor. Without resources, without knowledge of the country, they relied now on this party, now on that, incapable of distinguishing friends from foes, and never understanding the causes of the wars continually breaking out on every side. This state of things, well adapted to promote communal independence, lasted to 1162, when Frederic Barbarossa began to make the weight of his hand felt by initiating a clearer and more determined policy, although even his talent failed to obtain any notable results. The Florentines were those best able to profit by the weakness of the Empire. In 1129 they took possession of the Castle of Vignalo in the Val d'Elsa;[146] and in 1135 destroyed the stronghold of Monteboni, belonging to the Buondelmonti, whose name was derived from it, and who were now forced to submit to the Commune, yield it military service, and dwell in the city a certain part of the year.[147] On this head Villani remarks that the Commune now began to extend its borders "by violence rather than by reason, ... subjecting every noble of the _contado_, and demolishing fortresses." This was, in fact, the policy of Florence, and it led to two inevitable results. An increase of territory was the first; the second, that the always-increasing number of nobles brought into the city paved the way for the formation of an aristocratic party opposed to the people, and consequently promoting civil strife and future changes of government. In June, 1135, the Imperial envoy Engelbert entered Florence, and seemed amicable to the Commune.[148] He speedily moved on to Lucca, where he met with a serious defeat. The succeeding envoy, Errico of Bavaria, came with a considerable force, and appeared ill-disposed towards the Florentines. His stay, however, was short, and his successor, Ulrico d'Attems, showed friendly intentions, and in 1141 even aided the Florentines in a skirmishing expedition against Sienna.[149] But all these envoys came and disappeared like meteors. Florence was now beginning its great war with Count Guido, surnamed the Old, who had become their foe. A contested inheritance served as a pretext for the rupture; but the real cause must have lain in the increased power and menacing attitude of the count. His possessions hemmed in the Republic on all sides, and Sanzanome said of him, "Per se quasi civitas est et provincia."[150] The citizens first seized a castle of his near Ponte a Sieve, and then attacked his stronghold of Monte di Croce. But, aided by neighbouring towns, the count succeeded in defeating the Florentines on June 24, 1146. Nevertheless, they contrived even then to extort advantageous terms, namely: that part of the walls should be dismantled, and that the castle should hoist the banner of Florence.[151] All this was done, and there was truce for a time, while the count seems to have been engaged on distant expeditions. But later, the walls were restored, and thereupon the Florentines,[152] declaring that the agreement had been violated, suddenly stormed the castle in 1153, and rased it to the ground. And thus, wrote Sanzanome, "_Mons Crucis est cruciatus_." Certainly all this could not lead to peace. Count Guido ceded part of Poggibonsi to the Siennese on condition of their fortifying and defending it against the Florentines, who were preparing to make an assault. By accepting the gift Sienna stood pledged to play an active part in the war, which thus continued to spread.[153] II. Just at this time, however, the state of affairs changed, for Tuscany was beginning to feel the influence of Frederic I. (Barbarossa). This emperor, finding that Duke Guelfo was unable to make himself respected, despatched (1162-3) the Archbishop Reinhold of Cologne, a man of energy and brains, with the title of "Italiae archicancellarius et imperatoriae maiestatis legatus," and charged to reorganise the Imperial administration on a new plan. Frederic regarded the dissolution of the margraviate as an accomplished fact, and wished to assume the direct government of its various component parts by means of German counts or Podestà, in the manner already adopted by him in Lombardy. Reinhold set to the task with zeal, establishing German governors and garrisons in the principal castles of the _contado_; and where no castles remained new ones were erected.[154] San Miniato, with its tower on the hill, dominating the suburb of San Genesio below, was the headquarters of this new administration. Here Reinhold established Eberhard von Amern with the title of "_Comes et Federici imperatoris legatus_."[155] Frederic's scheme of policy was clear and precise; but in order to carry it into effect against the will of communes that were already emancipated, and against the interests of many native counts, would have required much time and a great army, both of which were lacking at the moment. Reinhold was soon called elsewhere for other undertakings, and although his successor, the Archbishop Christian of Mayence, was likewise a man of ability, their efforts led to few practical results. Their only success consisted in the amount of money squeezed from the people; for, as a chronicler puts it, "like good fishermen, they drew everything cleverly into their nets." But they established no firm political basis. It is true that the new German Podestà, or _Teutonici_, as they were called, were seen springing up on all sides. We now find, in fact, continual mention of the _Potestas Florentiae and Florentinorum_, and of the same dignitaries in Sienna, Arezzo, and many other towns. Nevertheless, they exercised little or no power in great cities: these being still governed by Consuls, who disputed the authority of the _Teutonici_ of the _contado_ outside the walls. This state of things could not be of long continuance. By special permission from the emperor, the Consuls of certain well-affected cities were allowed to exercise jurisdiction, in his name, not only within the walls, but even sometimes over part of the _contado_; always, however, with a reservation in favour of nobles, and often of churches and convents, who were to remain subject to the Imperial authority alone.[156] Everywhere else in Central Italy the Imperial Podestà were to take the entire command, for the emperor admitted no doubt as to the complete and absolute nature of his rights. But the question now hinged on facts rather than on rights, and was only to be solved by a greater force than that possessed by the Empire in Tuscany. Hence, an enormous confusion ensued. All the great cities, and more especially Florence, continued to rule themselves as before; while in the rural territories (_contadi_), Imperial Podestà, Tuscan counts, feudal lords, Consuls great and small, or other officers of the Commune, daily contested one another's authority, and the masses no longer knew whom to obey. Even the cities and nobles siding with the Empire not only failed to carry out Frederic's designs, but actually opposed them; for, in point of fact, this Teutonic over-lordship, wielded by grasping and tyrannous Imperial officials, was equally odious to all. A sufficiently accurate idea of this state of things may be gleaned from the accounts of contemporary witnesses, who were summoned at various times to furnish authentic details as to the condition of the country. Those sent to report upon the monastery of Rosano describe it as being subject to Count Guido, who was continually driven to defend it "against the warden of Montegrossoli, other Teutons, and the Florentine Consuls," all of whom tried to exercise authority there. They also describe how at Monte di Croce, the Consuls of that place and the _vice comites_ all held command simultaneously, and were compelled to defend themselves from the _Teutonici_, and against the encroachments of the Consuls and other officers of the Florentine Commune.[157] On another occasion an equally chaotic state of things is described in the reports on the castle and valley of Paterno, of which Florentines and Siennese disputed the dominion. One witness tells us that in his day he saw a certain Pipino, _Potestas Florentiae_, holding sway there, and over all the rest of the Florentine _contado_. Another records how he visited the Paterno valley and the whole of the _contado_, together with the consuls of the Commune and a _Teutonico_. Several declare to have gone there now with Pipino, now with other _Teutonici_, and at other times with the Consuls, and that all received obedience and levied taxes in the same way. Then we have the curious deposition of one Giovanni _de Citinaia_, who gives a long account of recent events in the district. He tells us how a big pillar was uprooted by a priest, who, not knowing for what purpose it had been planted, wanted to use it for the church he was building. But it was so heavy that even with a cart and two oxen he failed to remove it. And some peasants who were looking on, cried out to him: "Domini sacerdos, male fecisti, quia est terminus inter Florentinos et Senenses" ("Master priest, thou hast done ill, for this is the boundary stone between Florence and Sienna"). After this, the witness continues, two persons went to the warden of Montegrossoli, and said that if he would help them to rebuild the Castle of Paterno, they would furnish him with proofs of his right over it. The warden cheerfully hastened to Florence to get the permission of the authorities, but quickly returned, saying that the building could not go on, for the Florentines refused consent, because the Archbishop Christian of Mayence was already in Lombardy on the way to Tuscany. Thereupon the Siennese made use of the favourable opportunity to demolish the neglected works, and play the masters themselves. It is certainly impossible to conceive a greater multiplicity and confusion of contrasting rights and authorities.[158] Hence the only course open to Florence and the Tuscan communes in general was to seize every convenient occasion of asserting their rights either by craft or by violence. The war between Pisa and Lucca had already broken out, and as Count Guido, the foe of the Florentines, had joined with Lucca, they formed an alliance with Pisa. This treaty was very advantageous to their commerce, but it pledged them to an active share in the war.[159] They willingly undertook this, for it was an opportunity of fighting not only the Lucchese, but also the latter's patrons, Count Guido and Christian of Mayence. At first it seemed as though Pisa would be forced to make peace, for on March 23, 1173, Christian declared that city to be under ban of the Empire, thus stripping it of all the privileges it had previously enjoyed. In fact, on the 23rd of May an agreement was concluded (witnessed also by the Florentines) to the effect that Pisa and Lucca should proceed to an exchange of prisoners. The ban was raised on the 28th of the same month, and peace was solemnly proclaimed in Pisa on the 1st of June. But two months afterwards an unexpected event caused the war to be speedily renewed. The archbishop had invited the Consuls of Pisa and Florence to come to San Genesio on the 4th of August, and on their arrival had them promptly seized and cast into prison. What could have caused an act rendering war unavoidable, after such strenuous efforts to establish peace? Many explanations have been suggested, but one fact alone is well ascertained. Certain men of San Miniato, having been expelled as rebels to the Empire, had sought the Bishop of Florence[160] in his palace, and sworn not only to make common cause with the Pisans and Florentines, but to cede them the territory of San Miniato, should they succeed in retaking it, and even if the fortress remained in the hands of the Germans.[161] This is certainly true, for the document containing the agreement is still extant. It is no regular treaty, being unwitnessed by Consuls, and lacking the proper legal formulas. But the fact of its having been sworn to and signed in the bishop's palace; of some leading citizens, including one of the Uberti,[162] having been parties to it; and of the document being preserved in the Archives,[163] proves that the rulers of the two cities were not unaware of the agreement, but merely preferred to hide, or rather disguise the real importance of it. All this, joined to their reluctance and delay as to the exchange of prisoners, persuaded Christian that they were trying to trick and betray him by a fictitious peace. Accordingly, his patience being exhausted, he was led to commit an imprudent and ill-considered action, that destroyed all hope of the peace he was so anxious to conclude. In fact, by August the Florentines were already at Castel Fiorentino, and, reinforced by a contingent of 225 horse, accompanied by two Consuls from Pisa, encamped at Pontedera. Christian quickly marched against them, together with Guido and the Lucchese, but the latter were obliged to forsake him, for the Pisans, by advice of the Florentines, had entered the Lucca territory and were laying it waste. Notwithstanding his diminished force he attacked the enemy, and valiantly defended his banner, but was worsted in the fight. How the war went on is unknown to us; but it is certain that Christian soon took his departure, that in 1174 the rebels of San Miniato returned with honour to their native town, and that finally in the following year peace was concluded between the three hostile cities.[164] Meanwhile the Florentines continued to subject the towns and castles of the territory to their rule.[165] Before this, in 1170, they had wrung hard conditions from the Aretines,[166] who were friendly to Count Guido, and they now marched against Asciano, a walled town near Arezzo, partly under their rule and partly under that of the Siennese, who were now trying to get full possession of it. The latter were routed on July 7, 1174, and leaving a thousand prisoners in the enemy's hands were accordingly obliged to submit to very disadvantageous terms.[167] The negotiations were carried on slowly, but peace was concluded at last in 1176. The Florentines were acknowledged as the legitimate masters of the whole _contado_ of Fiesole and Florence, and obtained part of the Siennese possessions at Poggibonsi, the said Siennese being bound to help them in all wars,[168] save against the emperor or his envoys, and likewise pledged to use every endeavour to conciliate the latter in favour of Florence. Several more of the conditions were particularly harsh.[169] That the Florentines could extort such terms as these after the petty war of Asciano is an undeniable proof of their increased power; but it is equally certain that unless the Siennese were hopelessly ruined, this was only a fictitious peace, concluded after great hesitation, and for the sole purpose of securing the release of the prisoners. III. Nevertheless, these triumphs abroad were counteracted by unforeseen events in Florence itself. Owing to the prevalence of the popular party in the consular government, powerful houses in general, and the Uberti faction in particular, were increasingly excluded from public affairs, and naturally showed signs of discontent. At this moment we seldom find any of their names at the head of the Commune.[170] Meanwhile, however, many neighbouring castles and lands having been reduced to submission, the number of nobles of the _contado_ dwelling in the city had been greatly augmented. These, being merely counted as _assidui habitatores_ or _cives salvatichi_, could have no share in the government, but there was nothing to prevent them from joining the disaffected party and swelling its numbers and strength. And when, in course of time, they became full citizens, their power of action was enlarged. Accordingly, at last, in 1177, the Uberti were encouraged to hazard the revolution that first initiated civil war in Florence. All the chroniclers speak of this war, and it must have been of considerable importance, seeing that it was pursued for nearly two years with much bloodshed and the destruction by fire of the greater part of the city. Likewise, the river Arno overflowed and broke down the Ponte Vecchio. Villani describes the two fires of 1177, saying that the first extended from the bridge to the Old Market; the second, from San Martino del Vescovo to Santa Maria Ughi and the Cathedral. He also relates the fall of the bridge, adding, as usual, that all this was a righteous chastisement from Heaven on the proud, ungrateful, sinful city. He speaks of the revolution that occurred at the same time as though it had nothing to do with the burning of the town. He goes on to say that the Uberti, who were the "principal and most powerful citizens of Florence, with their followers, both noble and plebeian, began to make war against the Consuls, lords and rulers of the Commune, at a fixed moment and on a fixed plan, from hatred of the Signory, which was not to their liking. And the war was so fierce, that in many parts neighbours fought against neighbours from fortified towers, the which were 100 to 120 _braccia_ in height (150 to 180 feet). Likewise certain new towers were erected by the street companies with monies obtained from neighbours, and these were called the Towers of the Companies. For two years the fighting went on in this fashion, and with much slaughter; and the citizens became so inured to perpetual strife, that they would fight one day and eat and drink together the next, recounting one to another their various deeds and prowess. At last, tired out, they made peace, and the Consuls remained in power; but these things created and gave birth to the accursed factions which soon broke out in Florence."[171] On the other hand, the pseudo Brunetto Latini dates the first fire extending from the bridge to the Old Market, on August 4, 1177. But he quickly adds that in the same year began the "discord and war, for the space of twenty-seven months, between the Consuls and the Uberti, who refused to obey either the Consuls or the Signory, yet nevertheless formed no government of their own. This strife among the citizens caused great mortality, robbery, and arson. The city was set on fire at five different points; the Sesto d'Oltràrno, and the part between the Churches of San Martino, del Vescovo, and Sta. Maria, were burnt down."[172] According to the same chronicler, the fall of the bridge took place on November 4, 1178, and the civil war only came to an end in 1180, with the triumph of the Uberti, one of whom, Uberto degli Uberti, actually became Consul. "The which afterwards led to the creation of Podestà, who were nobles, powerful, and of foreign birth."[173] In spite of a few seeming contradictions on the part of both chroniclers, their evidence, joined to that of others, clearly proves that in 1177 a revolution led by the Uberti took place and lasted about two years, accompanied by rapine, murder, and arson. The Uberti did not gain a complete victory, since the consular government survived; but they and their friends were in power more frequently than before, and for this reason the pseudo Brunetto Latini considers them to have conquered. All this gave the government a more patrician tendency. It heralded the change that replaced the Consuls by a Podestà, and cast the first seed of the factions and civil wars destined to involve the city in long-continued strife and bloodshed. Such, in fact, is the gist of the chronicles, and all later documents and events serve to confirm it. Nevertheless, peace was re-established within the walls for the nonce, and the policy of Florence remained unaltered. The partial triumph of the aristocracy had at least one good effect; inasmuch as the nobles, being satisfied for the moment, lent efficacious assistance to the Commune, and enabled all its affairs to be pushed forward more briskly. In fact, on February 3, 1182, the people of Empoli were reduced to submission, bound over to pay annual tribute and to yield military service at the request of the Florentine Consuls, whether of the Commune or the Guilds, save in the event of a war against the Counts Guidi.[174] The people of Pogna, which was a fief of the Alberti,[175] were the next to make surrender on the 4th of March. And these Pognesi not only pledged themselves to take the field at the command of the Florentine Consuls, but to abstain from constructing new walls or fortresses, either on their own territory or the neighbouring lands of Semifonte. Also, should others attempt to fortify those places, they (the Pognesi) were bound to oppose it and give notice of the fact to the Florentines, who, on their side, promised friendship and protection.[176] In the same year the Castle of Montegrossoli was captured by the Florentines.[177] On July 21, 1184, they made an alliance with the people of Lucca, who promised to send them yearly a contingent of one hundred and fifty horse and five hundred foot, for at least twenty days' service, in all wars waged within Florentine territory.[178] In October the Florentines attacked the Castle of Mangona in the Mugello, but as this fortress belonged to the Alberti, the latter stirred Pogna to rebellion, and the Florentines quickly marched against that town.[179] Count Alberti seems to have taken part in the fight that ensued at Pogna, for it is known that by November he was in captivity and forced to accept very hard terms for himself, his wife and his children. He had to promise to dismantle his fortress of Pogna the following April, only retaining his own palace and tower; to demolish the tower of Certaldo, and never rebuild that of Semifonte. He was to cede to the Florentines whichever one of the Capraia towers they chose to take; he was to give them one-half of the ransom or tax to be levied on all his possessions in general between the Arno and the Elsa. Finally, as soon as he should be released from prison ("_postquam exiero de prescione_"), he was pledged to compel all his men to swear fealty, and to the payment of four hundred pounds of good Pisan money. His sons were to reside in Florence two months of the year in time of war, one month in time of peace.[180] The subjection and humiliation of this Count Alberto was a very significant fact in itself. And when we reflect that it occurred after Florence had already overthrown the Cadolingi, lowered the power of the Guidi house, and concluded most favourable alliances with Pisa, Sienna, and Lucca, it will be easily seen how quickly the Commune had been able to soar to a position of very great and almost menacing strength. IV. All this certainly contributed no little to hasten the coming of the Emperor Frederic I., and, in fact, we find him in Tuscany for the deliberate purpose of reducing the country to subjection in the year 1185. But he came without an army, reliant on the might of the Empire, on his own shrewdness, and his own reputation. He believed in the possibility of achieving his plans by alienating some of the Tuscan cities from Florence, and compelling them to side with the Empire against her. Above all, he counted upon Pistoia, situated between Lucca and Florence, and hostile to both; upon Pisa, whom he hoped, by means of large concessions, to win back to the Imperial cause, to which she had so often adhered before. He became still more hopeful of success when, on reaching San Miniato, in the summer of 1185, many nobles of the _contado_ came to do him homage, with loud complaints of the oppressive rule of the free cities. On the 25th of July he emancipated many of these nobles, and some of their fiefs, from the jurisdiction of Lucca.[181] On the 31st of the same month he entered Florence, still surrounded by nobles of the _contado_, who, as Villani says, complained bitterly of the city, "which had seized their castles, and thus grossly insulted the Empire."[182] Hereupon, the chroniclers affirm that Frederic deprived Florence of the right of jurisdiction over her own territory, even just outside the city walls; and even assert that he adopted the same measure with regard to all the Tuscan towns, excepting Pisa and Pistoia.[183] But this point has been seriously disputed, many refusing to admit the possibility of a fact unsupported by any documentary proof. On the other hand, some writers consider it to be proved by a later event, the which is not only related by several chroniclers, but also confirmed by existing documents. In fact, by a patent dated June 24, 1187, Henry VI., in reward, as he expressed it, for services rendered by the Florentines to his father and himself, granted them judicial rights over the city and the _contado_ beyond, to the distance of one mile in the direction of Fiesole, of three towards Settimo and Campi, and of ten in all other directions.[184] Even within these narrow limits, however, the nobles and soldiery were to be independent of the city. In token of gratitude for this liberality on the part of the emperor, the Florentines were bound to present him every year with a piece of good samite, _bonum examitum_.[185] Similar and equally limited concessions were granted to other cities also.[186] Accordingly, some have said, since Henry restored right of jurisdiction to the Florentines, it is clear that his father had deprived them of it. In fact, we know that throughout Tuscany Frederic established Imperial Podestà, who bore the names of their respective cities.[187] Also, reasoning in this style, those writers went so far as to suppose Florence to have been deprived of judicial powers even within the city walls. But, as we have seen, Henry's patent does not speak of restitution--only of the liberality shown in rewarding the services of the Florentines, although it is impossible to understand what those services could have been.[188] On the other hand, it is hard to believe that Florence, who had dared, in weaker times, to use violent measures against the Imperial envoys, murdering Rabodo and putting Christian of Mayence to flight, should now, when so much stronger, and the chief power in Tuscany, unresistingly submit to deprivation of judicial rights throughout her own territory, and even within the city walls. In addition to all this, there seems no doubt that there were Consuls of Florence during the same period, and therefore the theory of there being Imperial Podestà in the city itself naturally falls to the ground. In fact, the Consuls' names are recorded in documents of 1184. It is true that, for the three following years, the pseudo Brunetto Latini is the only authority by whom they are mentioned; but it is difficult to suppose that he invented them all, or that he could have been mistaken three consecutive times. Although during these three years no documents give the names of the Consuls, they afford, indirectly, continual hints of their existence.[189] Hence it is necessary, in my opinion, to begin by recognising that, according to the ideas and the policy of Frederic I., there was no question as to his right of exercising jurisdiction over Tuscany; and that if the cities had virtually exercised this right without a special grant to that effect, they had violated thereby the rights of the emperor, who was accordingly justified in resuming them. For this end, he had commissioned Reinhold and Christian to establish Podestà everywhere,[190] and to restore affairs to what he deemed their sole legal and normal condition. Only the difficulty here was not in proving his right, according to the Imperial theory, but in being able to enforce it. It was a question of fact, only to be resolved by force. As we have seen, Imperial Podestà were established on all sides; and while even in the _contado_ they could only obtain partial and somewhat contested obedience, in the greater cities, and particularly in Florence, they obtained none at all. The _Potestates Florentiae_, or _Florentinorum_, as of Sienna or the Siennese, whose names so often occur, are almost invariably--and in the case of Florence, one may say quite invariably--Imperial Podestà, established in the _contado_, and disputing its jurisdiction with the Consuls. Now, seeing that the commune considered the _contado_ to be its own territory, and therefore craved the sole command of it, while from the Imperial point of view city and _contado_ were equally subject to the Podestà of the Empire, it naturally followed that these dignitaries were commonly styled Podestà of Florence or of the Florentines; and in the same way, Podestà of Sienna or of the Siennese, of Arezzo or the Aretini, &c. But, as a matter of fact, they not only failed to command obedience within the gates of great cities, but even in the _contado_ outside were continually in conflict with the consular authority. We have already seen what a chaos was the result. Nevertheless, it seems natural to believe that the arrival of Frederic I. in Tuscany must have strengthened immensely the power of these Podestà, and that, at least for a time, they must have been enabled to enforce their judicial rights throughout the country, and to the very gates of the town. This made the chroniclers assert that the emperor had stripped Florence of its _contado_. It is certain, however, that on his departure things rapidly lapsed into their previous condition. That is to say, the consuls did their utmost to neutralise the action and authority of the Imperial officials. The rise of the communes had created a new state of things which the Empire was powerless to destroy, even while refusing to acknowledge its legal value. Therefore Henry was finally driven to accord a partial valuation, in the guise of a generous concession, to an actuality that by this means he might at least hope to keep within definite limits. And in reality his patent of 1187 granted Florence much less than she had possessed for some time before. If, in fact, the territory of the Commune was not to extend more than one mile in the direction of Fiesole, this latter city remained outside the border, although already subjected to Florence by force of arms, together with the whole of its _contado_, which, indeed, as proved by every treaty, had been incorporated in the Florentine territory since 1125. Also, as though this were not enough, Henry declared all nobles within the circumscribed area left to the city, to be exempted from its jurisdiction, even including those who had legally and officially made submission to it. Notwithstanding all this, Florence found it best to accept the Imperial grant. Thus things remained practically as before--that is to say, the Commune could continue to hold the virtual command, and snatch as much more as should be possible. The chronicler Paolino Pieri, in recording this concession, states that the Florentines regained the _contado_--"that is, they took it back," and by this phrase he unconsciously defines the real condition of things. Meanwhile, the Empire yielded the point legally by recognising the judicial rights of the Consuls within the city and over part of the _contado_ outside. As to the rest, it was left to be decided, as in the past, by force of arms. All this serves, in our opinion, to make things clear, and likewise to explain the inexactitude and confusion of the chroniclers, who, unable to distinguish between the practical and legal side of the question, continually jumbled both together. Undoubtedly it was hard to disentangle them, seeing that the fact was confronted by two, or rather three, separate rights, each refusing to acknowledge the others--namely, the right of the Empire, that of the Commune, and, lastly, that of the Pope, whose voice was always heard repeating--although always in vain--that the Church was Matilda's sole heir. V. Nevertheless, the presence in the _contado_ of German Podestà or counts exercised some influence, even if indirectly, on the city itself. Or rather, their presence contributed to modify its constitution by promoting in a certain way the creation of a new civic magistracy, bearing their own title. In fact, the Latin term of _potestas_, _potestà_, or _podestà_ was given to every chief authority during the Middle Ages; even in 1068 it was the title attributed to Duke Goffredo of Tuscany. Later, it was bestowed on the German counts governing the _contado_ in the name of Frederic I. From them it was afterwards transferred to municipal magistrates. It seems to have been given first to officials despatched by the Commune to the _contado_, when this was already occupied by German counts, in order to imitate and oppose them. At least, there is reason to believe that certain officials with Italian names, and bearing the title of Podestà of Florence--or of Florentine Podestà--before any such post had been created in the city, must have been of this class. Two of these officials, Renuccio da Stagia and Guerrieri, are known to us and mentioned more than once in the Rosano reports.[191] It seems probable enough that Renuccio may have been appointed before the year 1180[192]--that is, when there were assuredly Consuls in Florence.[193] Hence it is to be concluded that he held office in the _contado_. But whether or no this theory be admissible, it should be noted that all Florentine documents of the time, when mentioning the Consuls, always add the words: "sive Rector vel Potestas, vel Dominator." At first it is merely a generic formula, vaguely suggesting the possibility of another magistrature. But little by little the formula assumes a more concrete character; the term _Potestas_ becoming of so much more importance, as to often precede that of _Consules_.[194] Then, the new office is on the point of birth; and finally, in 1193, makes its appearance in the person of Gherardo Caponsacchi, a Florentine belonging to a consular family. Ammirato was mistaken in thinking that there had been a magistrate of this kind in the year 1184, because he found that the treaty of alliance between Florence and Lucca mentioned no individual in particular, but made a general allusion to the office of Podestà.[195] As we have observed, however, too many similar allusions occur in State papers, even when Florence was certainly ruled by Consuls, to allow us to draw the same conclusion. It may be that Florence had a Podestà even earlier than 1193, but until we find some document specifying the name of a person filling that office, we cannot venture to assert it as a fact. At any rate, the institution of the new magistracy was preceded by an increased influx of nobles within the city walls. This, indeed, was one of the chief causes of the change. Continual proofs to this effect are afforded by contemporary documents, and confirmed by the narratives of the chroniclers. The pseudo Brunetto Latini tells us that in 1192 the Consuls included "Messer Tegrino of the Counts Guidi, 'paladin' in Florence, and Chianni de' Fifanti." Now, to find a count and count palatine or paladine among the Florentine Consuls is an absolutely new thing. The same writer also says that in the same year "a decree was issued in Florence that the Counts Guidi and the Counts Alberti and the Counts da Certaldo, Ubaldini et Figiovanni, Pazzi and Ubertini, the Counts of Panago, and many other nobles, being citizens, were to dwell in the city of Florence during four months of the year." However much or little value this chronicler may have, his statement agrees with the information found in documents, and explains the origin of the new magistrature. Assuredly the nobles cannot have relished being subject to the popular consular government, against which they had struggled since the year 1177, and must have particularly disliked being under the jurisdiction of persons they deemed their inferiors in rank and dignity. Besides, as the elements composing the mass of the citizens became more heterogeneous, thus increasing the danger of civil war, so much the more the possibility of being judged by their political adversaries must have seemed unbearable to them. Hence the need was felt of a new magistrature of a different and, preferably, of an aristocratic character, and an Imperial institution, such as that of the Podestà, was chosen for a model. The holder of this office is no mere judge, as many believed and recorded; he is the positive head and representative of the Commune; he signs treaties, commands the army, and fills the place of the Consuls. In fact, when on July 14, 1193, the Castle of Trebbio made submission to Florence, the Commune was officially represented by Gherardo Caponsacchi _Potestas Florentie et eius consiliarii_, together with the seven rectors of the headships (_Capitudini_) of the guilds.[196] The councillors, whose names are inserted in the document, are likewise seven, and almost all of consular houses; two, indeed, are nobles--namely, a Count Arrigo (perhaps of Capraia) and a Tegghiaio Bundelmonti. It seems certain that Consuls were again chosen in 1194, since the pseudo Brunetto Latini names two, one of whom was an Uberti. In 1195 a Podestà reappears in the person of _Rainerius de Gaetano, cum suis consiliariis_, among whom a _Consul iustitiae_ is included.[197] It may be considered a certainty that these councillors, whose number is continually varying in the documents, were no other than the Consuls, who survived in this transitory form for some time, with the Podestà as their chief. Together with him they represent the Commune, sometimes even without him. But by degrees their importance diminishes, while that of the Podestà is increased. In short, there is a period of transformation during which the new, and as yet, ill-defined form of government alternates with that of the Consuls. In 1200 the Podestà is no longer a Florentine, but a foreigner, and already represents the government, unaided by councillors, who have disappeared altogether in 1207--namely, when the government has assumed its definite shape. Or, to express it more accurately, their function was continually changed and their number increased, until they were converted into a special council of the whole city, beside the ancient council or senate that was changed into a general council. On arriving at that time we shall find the government represented by the Podestà and two councils, sitting either separately or jointly, and styled in the latter case the general and special council. Thus the consular office may be considered to have been altogether extinguished. In fact, excepting one final attempt in 1211 and 1212, when Consuls were once more elected, we never meet with them again. What we have related will make it easier to understand why the chroniclers attribute the origin of the Podestà to various dates. The pseudo Brunetto Latini makes the office begin in 1200--namely, the year when it was first held by a foreigner, and alien birth considered an indispensable qualification for the post. Therefore, before that time, the chronicler seems to regard the Podestà chiefly as a head Consul.[198] We can also understand why Villani, on the contrary, should have dated the origin of the office from 1207. This, in fact, was the year in which it assumed a really definite shape, since the Podestà was not only a foreigner, but appears unescorted by councillors. Nevertheless, Villani makes a mistake in representing him as a magistrate chosen for the sole purpose of administering justice more impartially, and in adding that "the signory of the Consuls did not cease then, inasmuch as they continued to hold power over all other affairs of the Commune." He makes two blunders here, but the second is little more than a simple anachronism. In fact, although his statement cannot be true as regards 1207, it may have been at least partially true with reference to the preceding years, when the Consuls still survived their own decease, as it were, in the guise of councillors to the Podestà. VI. It is certain that there was a recurrence of consular government between 1196 and 1199.[199] But just at that time an event of considerable importance worked a radical change in the general policy of Tuscany, and is accordingly worthy of notice. The Emperor Frederic I. died on September 27, 1197, and his death led first to the abandonment and then to the total ruin of the Imperial system he had so persistently striven to establish throughout central Italy. The people of San Miniato destroyed the fortress held by the Germans, and subsequently the walls of St. Genesio.[200] The Florentines bought back the Castle of Montegrossoli, which had been re-occupied and fortified by nobles, who proved very troublesome.[201] After this Florence set a greater undertaking on foot, by forming a league of the Tuscan cities against the Empire. It was finally arranged at St. Genesio on November 11, 1197, when first the Lucchese, and then the Florentines, Siennese, the people of San Miniato, and the Bishop of Volterra made oath to maintain it, and the solemnity of the occasion was enhanced by the presence of two cardinals of the Church. The main terms of the treaty were, an alliance for the common defence against all opponents of the League, and a pledge that neither peace nor truce should be made "cum aliquo Imperatore vel Rege seu Principe, Duce vel Marchione," without the consent of the Rectors of the said League. It was also agreed to attack all cities, towns, counts, or bishops refusing to join the alliance when requested so to do.[202] What was the pressing danger? Why this alliance against the Empire at the moment when it was no longer a source of alarm? There is one stipulation that best explains the real object in view. It is to the effect that castles, towns, and small domains were only to be admitted to the League as dependents of the legitimate owners of the territory whereon these castles or domains might be situated; but a single exception was made in favour of Poggibonsi,[203] because its dominion was disputed by many claimants. Montepulciano was to be admitted as a dependence of Sienna whenever that city should be able to prove its right of dominion. It seems clear from all this that the genuine purpose of the League was to take advantage of the emperor's decease in order to secure to the cities the complete possession of their respective territories. To this end it was necessary that Tuscany should be united, and consequently adherence to the League was to be, as far as possible, obligatory. Its subsequent documents leave no doubt as to the true aim in view; indeed, they furnish very ample proof that Florence had promoted the League, in order that all Tuscany might aid her to regain speedy possession of the _contado_. But, although the League was against the Empire, it was by no means intended for the defence of the Pope, since it utterly disregarded his pretensions to Matilda's inheritance. For refusing to recognise any emperor, king, duke, or margrave, without the approval of the Roman Church, a proviso was added showing that should the Pope desire to join the League, he must accept its terms in order to win admittance. Should he request assistance to reconquer his own territories, everything was to be done according to the orders of the Rectors of the League. But should the territory he wished to reconquer be already in the hands of the communes, or of any of the allied cities, the League could afford him no help. It was impossible to speak more clearly. Accordingly, when Innocent III. became Pope, early in 1198, we soon find him manifesting much disapproval of the conduct of the League, in spite of being adverse to the Empire and favourable to the national Italian spirit. At Castel Fiorentino, on December 4, 1197, the Rectors of the League were sworn in. First among them were the Bishop of Volterra and the Florentine Consul Acerbo, who was practically the head, although that title was accorded to the bishop by reason of his ecclesiastical rank. For the moment Pisa and Pistoia held back; but these and other Tuscan cities had retained the right of adhering to the League.[204] Arezzo had already joined on the 2nd of December, Count Guido gave his oath on February 5, 1198, and Count Alberto on the seventh of the same month. Nevertheless, in signing the second of these two treaties, the Florentines expressly reserved their right to attach Semifonte, and procure the submission of the Alberti estates of Certaldo and Mangone, even by force if required.[205] Thus many other adhesions were obtained by means of stipulations virtually implying acts of submission to Florence. This was the moment chosen by the newly elected Pope Innocent, soon after his consecration in the same month of February, to write to the two cardinals who had witnessed the oath to the League, stating that on many points he considered the said treaty "nec utilitatem contineat, nec sapiat honestatem," inasmuch as it neglected the fact of the Duchy of Tuscany appertaining to the Church, "ad ius et dominium Ecclesiae Romanae pertineat." He intended, therefore, to enforce his rights. If the members of the League submitted to him, he would compel the Pisans, under threat of interdict, to likewise join them against the Empire; otherwise he would leave them at liberty to do as they chose.[206] But as no attention was paid to him, he had to make a virtue of necessity and considerably lower his tone.[207] Some slight concessions, though of what nature is unknown, seem, however, to have been made to him, for afterwards, when writing to the Pisans, he appeared to be better satisfied, and urged them to join the League. It is, however, certain that they persisted in their refusal, and although the Pope, grown shrewder by experience, afterwards became a declared and energetic champion of the League against the Empire, this fact only availed to augment his moral and political influence, without winning him a single handsbreadth of territory, or enabling him to enforce any one of his pretended rights over Tuscany. The Florentines, on the contrary, profited more and more by this state of things. On April 10, 1198, Figline entered the League, not only made submission to Florence, but paid a yearly tribute also[208]; and on the 11th of May Certaldo agreed to identical terms.[209] The Republic persevered in the course it had marked out with equal shrewdness and energy. It allowed the nobles to take an increasing part in the government, so as to secure their hearty co-operation in achieving the aim it had in view. The same Count Arrigo da Capraia, who in 1193 was on the council of Podestà Caponsacchi, was actually promoted to the consulship in 1199.[210] Finally, in 1200, a foreigner was elected Podestà,[211] in the person of Paganello Porcari of Lucca, a measure that, as we have already noted, the nobles had long desired to carry out. And as Porcari showed energy and daring in the conduct of the war he was again chosen the following year. Then, in February, 1201, Count Alberto made oath to cede the height of Semifonte, with its fortress and walls, to the Florentines; and to assist them, whenever required, to gain possession of Colle, Certaldo, and the town of Semifonte.[212] The Bishop of Volterra likewise made oath to assist them in these campaigns.[213] All this seemed to come about as an inherent consequence of the terms of the League, and before long the allies, finding themselves reduced to serve the interests of Florence alone, naturally began to show signs of weariness and suspicion. But, heedless of all else, the Commune made ready for the expedition against Semifonte, for which all these treaties had paved the way. Florence had long contemplated the seizure of that stronghold, for, owing to its strategic advantages and the ease with which the position could be reinforced by friendly neighbours, it had been a thorn in her side. Accordingly the now haughty Republic determined to make an end of it. We have already related how in 1184 Count Alberto had been compelled to accept the same terms exacted from the people of Pogna in 1182--namely, to give his solemn promise to build no defences. Nevertheless, profiting by the arrival of Frederic I. and the difficulties in which Florence was then involved, he had presently erected the Castle of Semifonte on the Petrognano rock, and Florence had never forgiven this offence. He had also assumed the title of _Comes de Summofonte_. Near the castle a town had sprung up, and, as many sought refuge there from neighbouring places conquered and taxed by Florence, its population had rapidly increased. Indeed there was already this rhyme afloat in the _contado_: "Firenze, fatti in là, Che Semifonte si fa città."[214] It was for these reasons that the Republic so persistently tried to secure pledges of help from its neighbours by the numerous treaties to which reference has been made, and likewise by others concluded through the efforts of the energetic Podestà. But Sienna had still to be reckoned with, and Sienna might do good service to the hostile Alberto, who was already prepared for defence. Accordingly the Florentines signed an alliance with that state on March 29, 1201, promising their aid against Montalcino, which showed as threatening a front to Sienna as the Semifonte position towards their own city.[215] Also Colle was made to swear to accord no help to the people of Semifonte.[216] Thereupon the war finally began. The chronicler Sanzanome, who witnessed it, declares, with his habitual exaggeration, that it lasted five years, but he may have counted in all the preliminary skirmishes.[217] At any rate, it was a hard struggle, for, treaties notwithstanding, Semifonte received help from all its neighbours, whose jealous dread of Florence had considerably increased. Then, too, owing to the strength of its position and the ability of Scoto, its valiant Podestà, the castle opposed so vigorous a resistance to the beleaguring army surrounding it on all sides, that the Florentines, seeing no hope of winning it by force, called treason to their aid. A certain Gonella, with some other fugitives, escaped from an adjoining territory, had taken refuge in the castle, and been entrusted with the defence of the Bagnuolo tower. This man made use of his post to betray the place to the enemy. But at the moment that he and his comrades were in the act of opening the gate, the defenders of Semifonte fell on them with fury and killed them all. Nevertheless, the evil deed had done its work, for Semifonte was speedily forced to surrender. Even if this was not brought about by treason alone, as Villani asserts (v. 30), the betrayal of the tower undoubtedly contributed to that result. In fact, on February 20, 1202, the Consuls, then returned to office in Florence, granted a perpetual exemption from all dues or taxes to the descendants of Gonella and his companions fallen in the cause of the Republic.[218] The same year, on the 3rd of April, the terms of the castle's surrender were subscribed and sworn. The Florentines assured pardon, protection, and the return of all prisoners to the people of Semifonte, but the latter were bound to demolish their fortress and walls; were to desert the hill and settle in the plain; and all save the soldiery and the churches were to pay a yearly tax of twenty-six _denari_ on every hearth.[219] The Pope expostulated strongly with the Florentines for their cruelty towards Semifonte, but after sending him a letter of justification in reply, the Consuls continued to follow their own course, and picked a quarrel with the Siennese.[220] The point of dispute was the Castle of Tornano, in the Paterno valley. Florence wished to get possession of it, and the Siennese declared that it was not theirs to give, seeing that it was the property of independent lords. Thereupon the Florentines set to work in their usual way, by persuading Montepulciano, a large town belonging to Sienna, to swear submission to them, and also promise an annual tribute.[221] Accordingly, war would have broken out at once, but for the intervention of Ogerio, the Podestà of Poggibonsi. Being accepted as arbiter, he carefully studied the question of border lines, and conscientiously defined them. His verdict was given on June 4, 1203.[222] According to the boundaries traced by Ogerio, Florence retained the whole of the Fiesolan and Florentine _contado_, and the valley of Paterno was comprised in these limits. The Siennese were to do their best to persuade the lords of the castle to cede that as well. Both sides agreed to this arrangement;[223] it was scrupulously respected by the Siennese, and on May 15, 1204, it was sanctioned by Pope Innocent III., at the express desire of the Florentines.[224] Nevertheless, the latter continued their secret practices with Montepulciano, and on the 30th and 31st of May induced that town to renew its oath of offensive and defensive alliance against Sienna.[225] As soon as this became known, there were fresh complaints, fresh protests from the Siennese. They brought the affair before the League, and the Rectors of the same were expressly assembled at San Quirico di Osenna, April 5, 1205, under the presidency of the Bishop of Volterra, the Florentines and Aretines having declined to appear. By the examination of witnesses, it was clearly proved that Montepulciano appertained to the Siennese.[226] We do not know whether the verdict was then pronounced, nor do we know the final result of the quarrel. But it seems clear that from this moment the League was virtually dissolved, and by the act of the Florentines, its original initiators. Their primary object was now achieved in the main, and henceforth they could expect nothing from their allies save impediments to the fulfilment of their ulterior designs. For, more or less, all distrusted their ambition, and were tired of playing the part of passive tools. But the Florentine Consuls allowed nothing to check their course of action, and quarrelled next with the Counts of Capraia owning a castle of the same name on the right bank of the Arno, near the Pistoian frontier. In conjunction with the Pistoiese, these nobles could easily bar the Arno against the Florentines. Accordingly, before this, in 1203, the latter had deemed it well to erect another castle on the opposite bank at a place called Malborghetto. The very significant name of Montelupo that they gave to the new building was sufficiently expressive of its purpose. In fact, men already repeated the saying, "To destroy this goat, there needs a wolf."[227] This affair also would have provoked strife had not the Florentines, with their accustomed diplomatic subtlety, profited by the friendly offices of the Lucchese to turn it to their own advantage, and avoid coming to blows. In fact, a treaty was arranged in June, 1204, by which Florence was bound to leave the right bank of the river unmolested, and the Counts of Capraia to respect the left bank of the same.[228] And before long the count decided to swear alliance and fealty to the Florentines, together with his dependents, all of whom, excepting the soldiery, became subject to a yearly hearth tax of twenty-six _denari_. He also ceded his castle and other possessions on the left side of the Arno, near Montelupo, being likewise pledged to the defence of this fort.[229] According to the pseudo Brunetto,[230] and one of the old lists of Consuls, although with no documentary evidence of the fact, Count Rodolfo, son of Count Guido di Capraia, became Podestà of Florence in 1205. Now, if this be true, it must be concluded that his nomination had been also stipulated in the treaty.[231] In the ensuing year the consular government seems to have been resumed, but in 1207 we come at last to the genuine Podestà of foreign birth, in the shape of Gualfredotto Grasselli of Milan, who henceforth represented the Commune without requiring the assistance of his _consiliarii_. Grasselli, too, was re-elected the following year, to enable him to carry on the campaigns the Florentines had planned with so much ardour some time before. An occasion for renewing hostilities was not long delayed. The Montepulciano question had become angrier; and accordingly the Siennese, considering that territory to be theirs by right, resolved to attack it. In the certainty of being reinforced, Montepulciano made a most obstinate defence; and the Florentines, after waiting awhile, also recurred to arms in 1207. In co-operation with Lombard, Romagnol, and Aretine allies, they marched with their _Carroccio_ to the assault of the Castle of Montalto della Berardenga, between the rivers Ambra and Ombrone, which the Siennese had guarded on all sides with their Pistoian, Lucchese, and Orvietan friends. These were all routed on the 20th of June, leaving many prisoners in the enemy's hands. According to Paolino Pieri the number taken was 1,254. The castle was destroyed, but the war went on, notwithstanding the Pope's efforts to bring about a peace. The Florentines then made a furious attack on the Castle of Rigomagno, and when the scaling ladders broke down they climbed on one another's shoulders and thus won the walls. The capture of this stronghold made them masters of the Ombrone valley.[232] Thereupon (February, 1208) the Siennese were forced to accept peace on very hard terms. By the treaty concluded between the 13th and 20th of October,[233] they were pledged to yield all their possessions at Poggibonsi, to cede Tornano and its tower, to observe the boundaries adjudged by Ogerio, in every direction, and to leave Montepulciano unmolested. The prisoners on either side were exchanged. But this war already betokens the advent of a new period in Florentine history. The conquest of the _contado_ was no longer in question, for the Republic already possessed it in full. With the growing prosperity born of its numerous victories, the city had now to open roads for its vast commerce. It was not only the vagueness of their respective frontiers and the wish to enlarge them that caused Sienna and Florence to be continually at strife; it was their commercial rivalry in the markets of Italy, and especially as regarded the trade with Rome; this near neighbour having become, through the widespread relations of the Church, the principal centre of financial affairs in the civilised world. For some time past it had been the aim of Florence to obtain a monopoly of these affairs, and this was one reason why she had always adhered to the Guelphs. She had had frequent disputes with Arezzo, Volterra, and above all with Sienna, as being the most powerful city on the road to Rome. So the two rivals were perpetually stirred to fresh and fiercer strife. So, too, before long, the irresistible need of Florence for free communication with the sea became the chief cause of her equally long and sanguinary wars with Pisa, the city barring her way to the coast. But as this conflict had not yet begun, the subject will be resumed in due time. In fact, the peace of Sienna was followed by some years of truce with foreign foes, although there was little peace within the city, where the seeds of civil war were already on the point of bursting forth. The foreign Podestà, unattended and unchecked by the former councillor-consuls, as they might be called, has now become a settled institution; and, save for their brief re-establishment during 1211 and 1212, the Consuls, as already related, have vanished for ever. This was undeniably a triumph for the patricians, to whom the working people had bent for the nonce, in order to secure their co-operation in the difficult task of reducing the _contado_ to submission. The achievement of this conquest gave an extraordinary impulse to trade, and by opening an increasingly wide field for commercial enterprise, induced the desire to develop it still more. Hence, it was not to be expected that a republic whose prosperity and strength were wholly based on its industry and commerce, could or would be satisfied, in the long run, with a government suited to nobles, whose constant tendency was to grow stronger, haughtier, and more overbearing. From this moment, therefore, a struggle between the people and the patricians (_grandi_) was inevitable. The long series of civil wars, lacerating the city and staining its stones with blood, is in fact on the point of beginning. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. _STATE OF PARTIES--CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST POPULAR GOVERNMENT AND OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE._[234] I. After the office of Podestà had been permanently established in 1207, its main favourers and promoters, the aristocrats, became more daring, and forming a military organisation, of which the Podestà was the head, took a more active part in all wars abroad. Everything seemed progressing rapidly and well, when the Buondelmonti affair in 1215 caused an outbreak of civil war. Dissension was already lurking among certain of the nobles, and particularly between the Buondelmonti on the one hand, the Uberti and Fifanti on the other, either side numbering many adherents. Accordingly, in the hope of pacifying the dispute, a marriage was arranged between Bundelmonte Buondelmonti and a maiden of the Amidei house. But when all the preliminaries were concluded, the wife of Forese Donati called Buondelmonti to her and said: "Oh! shameful knight, to take to wife a woman of the Uberti and Fifanti. 'Twere better and worthier to choose this bride." So saying, she pointed to her own daughter. Buondelmonti accepted the offer, and, forsaking his betrothed, speedily married the girl. Thereupon the kinsfolk and friends of the deserted maiden assembled in the Amidei palace and vowed to avenge her wrongs. It was then that Mosca Lamberti turned to those charged to execute revenge, saying, "Whoever deals a light blow or wound, may prepare for his own grave." And then, to show that the quarrel was to the death, he added the memorable words: "Once done, 'tis done with" ("_Cosa fatta, capo ha_"). So bloodshed was ordained. It was the Easter Day of 1215. The handsome young knight Buondelmonti, elegantly attired and with a wreath on his head, mounted his white horse and crossed from Oltrarno by the old bridge. He had reached the statue of Mars, when he was suddenly attacked. Schiatta degli Uberti hurled him to the ground with a blow from his mace, and the other conspirators quickly fell upon him and severed his veins with their knives. Afterwards the corpse was placed on a bier, the bride supporting the head of her murdered husband, and both carried in procession round the city, to move men to fresh deeds of hatred and revenge.[235] And this was the beginning of the series of internecine wars, from which many chroniclers date the origin of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence. No modern historian, however, will be apt to attribute so vast an importance to a private feud, nor to believe that a breach of promise to an Amidei maiden could be the real primary cause of the party strife that from the year 1177 had already more than once drenched the city in blood. Even Villani, although considering the Buondelmonti affair to be the origin of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, is careful to add: "Nevertheless, long before this, the noble citizens had split into sects and into the said parties, by reason of the quarrels and disputes between the Church and the Empire."[236] The Buondelmonti catastrophe, with all the private enmities it involved, undoubtedly served to inflame the political passions of two already existent parties, which now, in the days of Frederic II., acquired a political importance of a far wider nature by their connection with the general affairs of Italy. It was only then that the parties in Florence assumed the German appellations of Guelphs and Ghibellines. Also, it is worthy of remark that July, 1215, was the date of the second Frederic's state progress to Aix la Chapelle, to be crowned king of Germany, a fact of some significance, as regards the history of parties in Italy. This may easily explain why the chroniclers should have attributed to the Buondelmonti tragedy, occurring in the same year, the origin of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The names began then it is true, but the parties were of older date. Villani's Chronicle (v. 39) now gives a list of the principal Guelph and Ghibelline families, showing that the majority of the older houses was almost invariably Ghibellines, whereas the Guelph party included many "of no great antiquity," but "already beginning to be powerful." Later on, when the Ghibellines are destroyed, we shall find the Guelph nobles merged in the party of the well-to-do burghers (_popolo grasso_). At present these patricians, being hostile to the Uberti, begin to make advances to newly enriched families, and even to the people, by siding with the Church. Fortunately Pope Innocent III. started a Crusade at this time, and thus many powerful Florentines went to the East and employed their fighting powers in a better cause. At the siege of Damietta, in fact, they distinguished themselves greatly: Bonaguisa dei Bonaguisi the first to scale the walls, planted the banner of the Republic beside the Christian flag. In Giovanni Villani's time this banner was still preserved and held in the greatest honour. In 1218 Florence resumed hostilities in the _contado_, and by 1220 had subdued various castles and domains, and exacted oaths of fealty from all defeated foes. But immediately afterwards a far graver war broke out with Pisa. The jealousy of the two rival republics was always on the increase, and for some time past each had struggled against the other for absolute commercial supremacy in Tuscany. Pisa commanded the sea, Florence the mainland, therefore each city required the other's help. Hence, in spite of repeated agreements and treaties, their mutual jealousy remained undiminished. The Florentines adhered steadfastly to the Church; the Pisans to the Empire. Things had gradually become inflamed to so high a pitch that the smallest trifle was enough to excite war, or rather to provoke the endless series of wars destined to change the character of the Tuscan factions. In fact, the first pretext for strife, at least as related by Villani (vi. 2), is futile to the point of utter absurdity. Many ambassadors attended the coronation of the Emperor Frederic II. in Rome (1220), and among them, says the chronicler, were those of Pisa and Florence, who had long eyed one another with distrust. It chanced that one of the Florentine ambassadors, while feasting with a cardinal, begged the gift of a certain very beautiful dog, and his host promised to grant it. The next day the cardinal entertained the Pisans, and one of them, happening to make the same request, the animal was promised likewise to him. But the Florentine, being the first to send for the dog, he actually obtained it. This led to quarrels and violence, not only on the part of the ambassadors and their trains, but also between all the Pisans and Florentines in Rome at the time. We can hardly assign any historical value to this tale; but it shows that the amount of ill-feeling between the rival states rendered any trifle a sufficient pretext for bloodshed. The real fact, even according to the testimony of Sanzanome, is that Pisans and Florentines came to blows in Rome. The Pisans were the assailants, but had the worst of the bout. There was great wrath in Pisa at the news of the riot, and as a speedy reprisal all Florentine merchandise in the town was made confiscate. Florence then seems to have done her utmost to avoid open war, but to no purpose. Preparations went on for some time on either side, and then in 1222, when war had burst forth between the Lucchese and Pisans, the Florentines profited by the opportunity to attack the latter near Castel del Bosco, defeated them, and, according to the chroniclers, carried off thirteen hundred prisoners. Other attacks ensued, and various small castles were captured between this time and 1228, when we see the Florentines engaged in more serious strife with the Pistoians, and reducing them to accept their terms. It is in 1228 that we find the first mention of the _Carroccio_ on a Florentine battle-field.[237] The Milanese had been the first to use the _Carroccio_, but in course of time, and with slight modifications, the custom had been adopted by the other Italian cities, who, with increasing wars and larger forces, recognised the need of a rallying point in their midst. The _Carroccio_ was a chariot drawn by oxen with scarlet trappings and surmounted by two lofty poles bearing the great banner of the Republic, swinging its red and white folds on high. Behind, on a smaller car, came the bell, called the _Martinella_, to ring out military orders. For some time before a war was proclaimed the _Martinella_ was attached to the door of Sta Maria in the New Market, and rung there to warn both citizens and enemies to make ready for action. The _Carroccio_ was always surrounded by a guard of picked men; its surrender was considered as the final defeat and humiliation of the army. Another prolonged and sanguinary conflict with Sienna was undertaken and resumed almost yearly from 1227 to 1235. The Siennese suffered severe losses, but were able to seize Montepulciano, demolish its towers and ramparts, and do some damage to Montalcino, which had joined alliance with the Florentines. The latter, however, not only devastated the Siennese _contado_ time after time, and captured a large number of prisoners, but also besieged the hostile capital, and although failing to win it, pressed close enough to the walls to hurl donkeys over them with catapults, to prove their contempt for the town. Finally, through the mediation of the Pope, peace was concluded very advantageously for Florence. The Siennese had to forfeit a large sum of money for the rebuilding of the walls and towers of Montepulciano, were sworn to leave that territory for ever unmolested, and likewise compelled to repair the castle of Montalcino, at the pleasure of the Florentines, who still retained their hold on Poggibonsi. II. Thus, throughout all these wars, in which the influence of Pope and emperor was felt on this or the other side, we are enabled to trace the gradual formation of parties in Tuscany, and to witness the process by which the political and commercial supremacy of Florence was built up. Her present rivals, Sienna and Pisa, both adhere to the Empire; whereas Florence clings more and more closely to the Church. Pisa shuts her out from the sea: hence the origin of their mutual rivalry and continual strife. How, indeed, could war be avoided, when the commercial power of Florence felt the increasingly imperative need of free access to the coast? Sienna, on the other hand, competed with Florence by trying to get all the affairs of the Roman _curia_ into the hands of its own bankers, those affairs being so numerous and lucrative as to enrich all concerned with them. These continual jealousies invariably urged Pisa and Sienna to favour the Empire. Lucca, as the rival of Pisa, inclined towards Florence, and became Guelph. Pistoia, planted between two Guelph cities, and continually menaced by them, naturally adopted the Ghibelline cause. Thus, the division of parties in Tuscany afterwards reacted on the formation of Florentine sects, and as the latter began to assume a more general character, through the growing influence of Frederic II. in Italy, they adopted the German names of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Florentine Republic, having triumphed over Pisa, Sienna, and Pistoia, was virtually the chief power in Tuscany; but had one danger to face, in the possible augmentation of Frederic's power. Frederic II. was the enemy of the Pope, who had excommunicated him, and of all Guelphs! He had gone away for a time to lead the Crusade in the East; was now in Germany engaged in a struggle with his rebellious son, and all this had greatly advanced the fortunes of Florence. But he was about to return to Italy, and his presence might again embolden the foes of the Republic. Meanwhile, under the rule of successive Podestà, Florence had prospered in war, and devoted times of peace to internal organisation and embellishment. At the instance of the Podestà Torello da Strada (1233) all the male inhabitants of the _contado_ were summoned to inscribe their names and specify their condition, whether freemen, serfs, or dependents, with a view to ascertaining the real state of the population and providing for its better government. In 1237-38 the Podestà Rubaconte da Mandello built a new bridge over the Arno, which was first designated by his own name of Rubaconte, and afterwards as the Ponte alle Grazie, in honour of an adjoining church. It was also by order of the same Podestà that all the streets of Florence were first paved, and other works completed for the improvement of the public health, or the decoration of the city. Thus a magistrate originally appointed--according to the chroniclers--to do the work of an ordinary judge is seen gradually fulfilling the functions of the head of the Republic. And the patricians over whom he presided daily rose to greater power and daring, and particularly when the arrival of Frederic II. began to encourage the Ghibelline party throughout Italy. In fact, when Brescia was besieged by the Ghibellines in 1237, we find many Florentine nobles in their camp. Every day brought fresh proofs that the emperor might count on many friends and much assistance from Florence. Consequently numerous riots took place, for the Guelph nobles offered violent opposition and joined with the people, which was entirely Guelph.[238] In 1240 we find that three citizens were nominated to collect funds in aid of the Imperial army: surely a strange proceeding in a republic[239] where the mass of the population was thoroughly Guelph! But it is not surprising that such events should have inevitably caused a reaction. Already in 1246 Frederic II. had appointed his natural son, Frederic of Antioch, vicar-general of Tuscany, and also sent other vicars to Florence to fill the office of Podestà. This aroused discontent on the part of the Guelph nobles, who wished their own faction to regain the upper hand in the city. About this time, 1247, Frederic was in Lombardy,[240] and at almost open war with the Pope, who continued to launch excommunications at him, deprived him of the Imperial title, and stirred enemies from all sides against him. Accordingly, Frederic sent messengers to the Uberti in Florence, advising them that the moment had come for them to assume the government of Florence. Provided they had the courage to fly to arms, his succour would not be long delayed. The Uberti were not deaf to his words. The heads of the chief Ghibelline houses met in council and decided on immediate resort to violence. There was instant division in the city; the Ghibelline aristocracy on one side, the Guelph nobles, with all the people on the other; and the alarm bell was pealed. Fighting went on from street to street, by day and by night, behind barricades, from tower-roofs, and with catapults, rams, and other engines of war. As the popular excitement increased the strife became general. The Ghibellines had the advantage of superior military training; they were confident of receiving reinforcements; and, massed under one leader, took all their orders from the Uberti palaces. The people, on the contrary, fought at random, and were soon surrounded and repulsed. Nevertheless, at one moment their very defeat seemed about to win them the victory. Hard-pressed on all sides, they were gradually driven back towards the chain barricades (_serraglio_) of the Bagnesi and Guidalotti mansions; and being massed about this defence, fought so vigorously as almost to regain their former position. But just then the Imperial contingent appeared on the scene, and all was lost. The vicar-general Frederic, son of the emperor, entered Florence at the head of sixteen hundred German knights, and made furious charges on the people. The latter opposed a sturdy resistance, prolonging the fight for three days, but it was a vain struggle. The Ghibellines were victorious on all sides, and the emperor could have sent fresh reinforcements if required. One of the most valiant of the Guelphs, Rustico Marignolli, who had borne the standard of the people throughout the mêlée, fell wounded to the death by a shot in the face from a crossbow. Thereupon the leaders of the party finally decided to surrender and fly into exile on Candlemas night (February 2, 1249). All those resolved on flight gathered together fully armed, and taking possession of Marignolli's corpse, bore it away in a solemn procession with a crowd of _popolani_, and a great show of weapons and torches, to celebrate the funeral at San Lorenzo by night. The bier was carried on the shoulders of the worthiest cavaliers, and the defeated but not dishonoured banner hung trailing from it to the ground. The whole function resembled a pact of vengeance sworn on the body of the dead warrior rather than a mere burial ceremony. After this the leading Guelphs fled the city and took refuge in neighbouring castles; the same in fact from which, at the cost of much blood, they had once ousted the feudal lords. These latter, having been compelled to settle in the town, had now won their revenge for past injuries. Thirty-six Guelph houses were pulled down: among them the Tosinghi palace in the New Market, a building measuring one hundred and thirty-five feet in height, and faced with many tiers of marble columns. Party hatred reached such a pitch as to justify the belief expressed by many that the Ghibellines had positively decreed the destruction of San Giovanni, because the Guelphs had used that church as a place of assembly. It was affirmed that the victors had undermined the foundations of the adjoining Guardamorto tower, hoping that this might fall down on the temple and crush it. The failure of the attempt was attributed to the fact that the tower had miraculously fallen in another direction. A more credible account is given by Vasari. He says that the Guardamorto was only demolished in order to widen the Piazza, and that Niccolò Pisano, being charged with the work, cut the tower in two and arranged its fall in a way to avoid any damage to the church or neighbouring houses. At all events, this proved the beginning of the long list of savage reprisals darkening the history of Florence, when the winning faction not only destroyed the dwellings of the defeated, but banished their foes _en masse_. The Ghibellines were now masters of all, and for their greater security retained the services of Count Giordano Lancia and his eight hundred Germans. It seemed as though the party, being of Teutonic origin, could not yet grasp the reins of government without the support of German soldiery, and could only command the Republic in the emperor's name. This was the final result of admitting the Imperial feudal nobility within the walls of Florence, and allowing them to institute a political and military chief instead of an ordinary judge in the person of the Podestà. III. The Ghibelline victory over the Guelphs of Florence in 1249, with all its violence and bloodshed, was by no means an assured triumph. The Ghibellines had destroyed free institutions and exiled a vast number of adversaries; aided by the Imperial vicar, Giordano Lancia and his eight hundred men, they were absolute masters of Florence; nevertheless, the populace, the burghers, and the greater part of the citizens still remained Guelphs. Besides, Pope Innocent IV. roused so many enemies against the emperor in Italy, that the latter's success was destined to a speedy decline. The Florentine exiles were biding their time in neighbouring strongholds, and above all in the Castles of Montevarchi and Capraia in the upper and lower Val d'Arno. From these points they made frequent skirmishing expeditions, clearly showing that they had by no means lost hope of soon re-entering the city. Accordingly, the conquerors had to be perpetually on the alert against them to provide against some sudden attack restoring them to power. Therefore Ghibellines and Germans marched against Montevarchi; but almost the whole storming force was killed or captured. This defeat opened the eyes of the Florentine Ghibellines to the danger of their position, and decided them to lay regular siege to the Castle of Capraia, headquarters of the principal Guelphs, chiefs of the party or League, as it was called at the time, directing all the movements of the rest. Although the beleaguering force greatly outnumbered their own, the besieged decided on an obstinate defence, and the Ghibellines were bent on winning the castle either by violence or starvation. But they would have failed to accomplish this but for the arrival of reinforcements from the emperor, who, having been compelled to raise the siege of Parma, had now advanced into Tuscany. But, in spite of these fresh foes, hunger alone drove the Guelphs to surrender. Their leaders were given up to Frederic II., who was then at Fucecchio. He carried them with him to the kingdom of Naples, and, according to the Florentine chroniclers, had them barbarously blinded, beaten to death with clubs, or drowned in the sea, with the exception of one alone, whose life was spared after his eyes had been torn out. By this time the emperor was irritated and exhausted by the continual wars thrust on him by the Papacy. He had enjoyed no peace since the day (June 24, 1243) when Sinibaldo de Fieschi ascended the Chair of St. Peter as Pope Innocent IV. This pontiff had pronounced his deposition at the Council of Lyons in 1245. He had then secretly excited many conspiracies against him, and attempted more or less to ensure their success. The emperor had been led to suspect his most devoted friend and secretary, Pier delle Vigne, of complicity in one of these plots. Accordingly this faithful servant was thrown into the tower of San Miniato al Tedesco, condemned to lose his eyes, and then transferred to another prison in Pisa, where he dashed out his brains against the wall. Frederic's spirit was alternately cowed and irritated by the hostility he encountered; for, with all his philosophy and unbelief, he greatly dreaded the thunders of the Vatican. He sought reconciliation with the Pope, wished to return to the East to fight the infidels; and Innocent chose that moment to rouse all the Guelph cities against him, thus again forcing him to fly to arms to support the Ghibelline cause and maintain his own sway over Italy. This he was unable to effect without recurring, as we have seen, to incredible excesses of violence, which naturally increased the number of his enemies on all sides. The Guelphs of Germany had already refused to acknowledge the authority of his son Corrado, whom he had sent as his representative. The army commanded by the emperor in person had been routed at Parma. All the Guelph cities of Romagna, with Bölogna at their head, marched a powerful force against the Ghibellines under King Enzo, another of Frederic's natural sons, and defeated them at the battle of Fossalta on May 26, 1249. Enzo himself was captured and carried in triumph to Bologna, where he remained a prisoner till his death in 1271. But the emperor did not live long enough to feel this last blow. On December 13, 1250, he ceased to breathe in a castle near Lucera in Apulia, and his death completed the downfall of the Ghibelline party in Florence and throughout Italy. For religious hatred was now combined with political enmity against this party. Not only because the Ghibellines combated the Pope, but still more, because the various heresies gradually spreading through Italy found many followers in their ranks, in consequence of frequent marks of tolerance and favour received from the emperor. The heretical poison now slowly infecting the Italian social body was a grave anxiety to the Popes. The Albigenses had first roused attention and found adherents in Provence, where native bards had devoted their talents to attacking the Roman Court. But the religious orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic were bent on crushing the new creed. Innocent III. had founded the Holy Inquisition for the same purpose, and St. Dominic, at the head of mobs thirsting for heretic blood, had ordained the massacre of the Albigenses and ravaged all Provence. Some fugitives, however, had escaped into Italy, to spread the same hatred against Rome, the same poison of heresy. In fact, the _Paterini_, opposed to the Pope, denying the virginity of the Madonna, and having no belief in transubstantiation or other dogmas of the Catholic faith, found followers everywhere and held public gatherings. The Epicurean, Averrhoistic, and other philosophical tenets were rapidly propagated among Italian scholars. For some time, during the most brilliant period of the Imperial Court in Sicily, all this intellectual and religious turmoil seemed to be chiefly centred at Palermo. For there Frederic II. had gathered about him a throng of scholars, troubadours, poets of every kind, Mussulmans, Greek schismatics, Provençal Albigenses, and materialistic philosophers; and although a crusader and persecutor of heretics, took singular delight in this mixed society, in whose midst, and in a storm of sarcasm, doubt, and hatred of priests, Italian poetry first sprang to life, and later on, in the Divine Comedy, gave forth so great a wealth of earnest faith and lofty aspiration. In the meantime, however, heresy and scepticism were current throughout the Peninsula. The _Paterini_ quickly obtained many converts among the Ghibellines in Florence, and the Pope established the Inquisition there for the trial and punishment of backsliders. In 1244 Fra Pietro of Verona, moved by religious fury rather than zeal, came to stir the orthodox spirit by his inflammatory sermons; and founded the Society of the Captains of Holy Mary or of Faith, composed of men and women vowed to the extermination of heretics. Public feeling caught fire in 1245, and a real battle between Catholics and heretics raged in the Florence streets. Both at Santa Felicità and in the space by the Croce al Trebbio, where a column still commemorates the ill-fated event, the _Captains of the Faith_, robed in white, bearing the badge of the cross, and commanded by their big, strong, dare-devil chief, Friar Pietro of Verona, routed the _Paterini_ and drove them from Florence. In reward for this sanguinary triumph the friar was appointed Inquisitor of Tuscany, and subsequently of Lombardy as well. There in the north, between Milan and Como, he finally met his death at the hands of men wearied of his persecutions. This gained him the title of a martyred saint, and he was known henceforth as St. Peter--Martyr of Verona.[241] IV. Meanwhile, in 1250, the year now claiming our attention, Frederic II. passed away, his son Enzo lay captive in Bölogna, Innocent IV. was stirring the Guelphs to action, and Pietro of Verona had become the scourge of all heretics and foes of the Papacy in Tuscany and Lombardy. Accordingly the Ghibelline domination in Florence was approaching its end. In fact, from the moment that the emperor withdrew into Apulia, already stricken with mortal disease, the Guelphs showed so much boldness that the Ghibellines decided on a fresh expedition to oust them from the Castle of Ostina, in the Valdarno, where they had assembled in great force. But while laying siege to the stronghold the Ghibellines were compelled to keep a strong reserve at Figline to protect their rear from the many Guelph partisans lurking at Montevarchi. The latter, however, made a night attack on the force encamped at Figline, and routed it so thoroughly that when the news reached Ostina the Ghibellines raised the siege and marched back to the capital. Thereupon both the people and burghers of Florence, tired of the unbearable load of taxation imposed on them by the continual wars undertaken by the Ghibellines, and worn out by the "grave extortions and acts of violence of these tyrannical masters," felt that the moment for vengeance had come, and rose in open revolt. The rebels were led by the more influential citizens of the so-called middle class, then acting as heads of the people. These men first held their sittings in the Church of San Firenze, then in Santa Croce, and finally, still dreading attack from the Uberti, assembled in smaller numbers and with greater safety in the houses of the Anchioni family. Here, in October, 1250, they proclaimed the nomination of thirty-six "Corporals of the people," six to each _sestiere_, forming the basis of the third Florentine Constitution, known as the First Popular Government (_Primo Popolo_), because its main purpose was to organise and strengthen the people in opposition to the nobles, and by this time the latter being much disheartened, unresistingly submitted to the new government. The first measure adopted was the dismissal of all the magistrates in office, and reforms were then undertaken. The post of Podestà was retained, and henceforth this official became still more exclusively the head of the patricians, being now counterbalanced by the newly instituted Captain of the people, as chief of the _popolani_. But, as in this way the Republic was divided in two parts, a central, presiding body was established consisting of twelve elders (_anziani_) of the people, two for each _sestiere_. These _anziani_ had some of the attributes of the Consuls of former days, with this difference, however, that not only were they men of the people, but that the chief government of the city was now entrusted to the Podestà and the Captain. In fact, the new and most important part of the reform was this institution of a Captain as commander of the people, who were now organised on a military footing. The city was divided into twenty armed companies, with twenty gonfalons or banners, under as many gonfalonieri. The _contado_, on the contrary, was organised in ninety-six companies, corresponding with its ninety-six existing parishes (_pivieri_). These town and country companies combined formed a united popular militia, ready for action at any moment, either against foreign foes or to curb patrician tyranny at home. The whole of this armed multitude was under the orders of the Captain, and as he combined the functions of tribune, general, and judge, he afterwards bore the additional titles of _Defender of the Guilds and the People, Captain of all the Guelphs_, &c. Similarly to the Podestà, the Captain held office for one year, and it was indispensable that he should be a Guelph, a noble, and an alien. He came to Florence provided with his own judges, knights, and war-horses, inasmuch as he was leader of the people in war and administrator of justice in times of peace. But, as we have already stated, the Podestà still retained his civil and military importance. In right of his office, he had to give judgment in all civil and criminal cases, those reserved for the Captain's decision being usually acts of violence committed by the _grandi_ against the people, questions regarding taxes or valuations, and certain cases of extortion, perjury, and violence, provided these had not been already cited before the Podestà, or unless he should have refused them his attention.[242] Also, in the above-mentioned cases, the Captain was likewise empowered to adjudge capital punishment. The red and white gonfalon or banner of the people was in his charge, and by ringing the bell of the so-called Lion's Tower he summoned the people to assembly. He resided in the Badia, together with the elders, who acted as his counsellors in many respects. Messer Uberto of Lucca was the first Captain of the people. As to the Podestà, although certain writers, misled by the somewhat obscure statements of Villani and Malespini, believed his office to have been at least temporarily abolished, it is certain that he remained at the head of what was specially called the Commune.[243] He, too, had his companies of armed men, and likewise commanded the mounted bands composed almost exclusively of nobles, the bowmen and crossbowmen, bucklermen (_palvesari_), &c., forming conjointly the so-called host, or nucleus of regulars in the mass of the Republican army. The Podestà was often commander-in-chief of the whole army, but his special function was the command of the cavalry and the host (_oste_).[244] And for the further enhancement of his dignity, it was decided to build a great and monumental palace,[245] in which he was to hold residence with his attendant officers and counsellors. But, on the other hand, as nothing was neglected to increase the strength of the people against the patricians, it was decreed that the towers of all powerful houses should be cut down so that none should exceed the height of seventy-five feet (fifty _braccia_), and the superfluous material was used to wall in the city on the south side of the river (_oltr' Arno_).[246] This third constitution of Florence, known as the _Primo Popolo_, or First Popular Government, was in fact a politico-military constitution, dividing the Republic into two halves, the Commune and the people, and in which the aristocrats and democrats formed, as it were, two opposing camps. The army was marshalled under the banners both of the Commune and the people; all important measures required the sanction both of the Commune and the people. A similar division of authority may seem strange at this day, but it was common enough in the Middle Ages. It was customary to many Tuscan cities, and we find an example of it at Bölogna, where the nobility and people formed, as it were, two distinct republics, having different laws and statutes, and two separate palaces for their respective magistrates. At Milan we find a tripartite republic in the Credenza dei Consoli, the Motta, and the Credenza di Sant Ambrogio, consisting respectively of the greater and middle nobility and the people. This seemed a perfectly natural arrangement, seeing that social conditions are reflected in the institutions to which they give birth; the social body was divided, because it owed its origin to the struggle between the Latin and Teutonic races, between conquerors and conquered. Accordingly, the remote heirs of either race stood arrayed in two opposite camps, armed and prepared for conflict.[247] [Illustration: PALACE OF THE PODESTÀ, FLORENCE. [_To face page 192._] In this state of things it is easy to understand why the central government had so little authority in Florence, and why, during the continual clash of opposing interests and jealousies, the power of the Podestà and the Captain should have steadily increased. The former, although his functions were now shared by other magistrates, still remained the chief official representative of the Republic; for he signed treaties of peace, accepted concessions of territory in that capacity, received oaths of submission to Florence from other towns, and, as in times past, still continued to preside over two councils--_i.e._, the Special and the General, respectively composed of ninety and of three hundred members. The Captain had likewise two councils, the which, according to the usage of the time, consisted of a Special Council, or _credenza_, of eighty members, making, in junction with the Council-General, a total of three hundred. This body included the elders, the heads of guilds, the gonfaloniers of companies, and others, and, unlike the councils of the Podestà, to which nobles were admitted, solely consisted of plebeians. Members of the Special Council frequently sat in the General Assembly, which was therefore usually styled the General and Special Council of the Podestà, or the Captain, as the case might be. The elders had a privy council of their own, composed of thirty-six plebeian worthies; and the parliament must not be forgotten, although at the time of which we are treating it was only summoned on occasions of exceptional importance. But, as will be shown, some time elapsed before these councils were established on a definite basis; none for the moment, save those of the Podestà, which were of older origin, having any settled formation.[248] At any rate, the Republic, as regarded its general outline, was ordered in the following manner: the elders, the council of thirty-six, and the parliament, formed a central government, already much weakened, however, by the constitution and growing strength of the Commune and people, inasmuch as these latter, commanded by the Podestà and Captain, and with their respective greater and lesser councils, formed, as it were, two opposing republics. The Commune undoubtedly enjoyed superior authority and legal importance; but the popular party became daily bolder and more numerous. Before long, in fact, ancient families began to change their names and drop their titles, in order to join the ranks of the people. The great political writers of Florence differed in opinion with regard to the new constitution. Donato Giannotti censured it, declaring it to be "a cause of sedition, instead of a bond of peace and concord, because the founders of that government directed it entirely against the nobles, its former rulers in the days of Frederic, and who now being in constant fear of attack, were obliged to fly to arms on every occasion."[249] Machiavelli, on the contrary, praised the Constitution, and wound up by saying: "With these military and civil institutions the foundations of Florentine freedom were laid. Nor is it possible to imagine how much authority and strength Florence thereby gained in a short space. For she not only became the head of Tuscany, but was counted among the foremost of Italian cities, and might have risen to any height had she not been afflicted by new and frequent divisions."[250] Machiavelli judged rightly. Both contemporary chroniclers of these events and the impartial voice of history fully confirm the truth of his words. The city now began to be enriched by new public monuments. The Communal palace, otherwise known as the palace of the Podestà, rose from the ground, and the Santa Trinità bridge was built, chiefly at the expense of a private citizen. The gold florin was now issued, and, being mixed with the best alloy, speedily obtained currency[251] not only in all European markets, but even in the Levant, greatly to the advantage of Florentine commerce, which was daily becoming more widely extended. The nobles were discontented, of course, and hastened to show their ill-feeling, in 1251, by their almost unanimous refusal to join in the war against Pistoia. But when a few of them were sent into banishment the others soon quieted down. The Guelph exiles were recalled, adversaries within the city made peace, and now, that Frederic II. was dead, the aristocracy was kept in check by the strength and self-confidence of the popular party. Shortly afterwards external wars began, and these were carried on with so much success that the following ten years were known as the years of victory. V. This First, or Old Popular Government, as it was called, because it was in fact the first time that the people had a political and military organisation of their own, quickly asserted its strength. In order to give the spreading Florentine trade free access to the sea, without yet coming to blows with Pisa, the city concluded an agreement on April 30, 1251, with the Counts Aldobrandeschi, powerful lords of the Maremma, by which Florence was granted right of passage through their territories to Porto Talamone and Port' Ercole and the free use of these harbours for its merchandise.[252] Thereupon the Pisans, being naturally annoyed by this measure, hastened to contract an alliance with Sienna, to which Pistoia also adhered. Thus the three Ghibelline cities were banded together against the Florentine Guelphs. Nor was this the worst. On July 24, 1251, the Ghibellines of Florence joined the League by a secret agreement with Sienna, binding either side to cooperate towards their common aim--_i.e._, the triumph of their party throughout Tuscany. And as the other Ghibellines of the country-side naturally adhered to the treaty, the whole faction was united to the hurt of the Republic. Then the Florentines, finding themselves surrounded by so many foes, began their defence by a rapid march on Pistoia, but the Ghibellines of the city refused to take part in a war openly directed against their cause. Accordingly, when the army returned from a successful skirmishing expedition, many leading Ghibellines, including the Uberti and the Lamberti, were driven into banishment. The affair must have been really serious, for the exiles hoisted the banner of the Republic, whereupon the State banner was changed, and instead of bearing the white lily on a red field, henceforth displayed the red lily on a white field; but the flag of the people remained as before, half white and half red. During the summer of this year the Ubaldini, reinforced by a body of exiles, rose to arms in the Mugello, but suffered defeat. The Florentines at last realised the danger of their position. Therefore, with the help of their former friends the Lucchese, they concluded an alliance (August, 1251) with the town of San Miniato al Tedesco--where there was no Imperial vicar for the moment--renewed in September their former treaty with Orvieto, and in November made alliance with Genoa, which was still hostile to Pisa. Thus the whole of Tuscany was divided between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. The exiles, together with some German soldiers who had served under Frederic II., occupied the Castle of Montaia, belonging to Count Guido Novello, in the upper Val d'Arno. The Florentines marched to the assault of the stronghold towards the end of the year, but were ignominiously repulsed. On their return to the city, they rang the alarm-bell, collected a large force, again took the field, people and Commune combined, and pursued the war with energy during the month of January, regardless of frost and snow. The general condition of affairs in Tuscany enlarged the proportions of this war; for on the one side Lucchese troops co-operated with the Florentine army, while the exiles on the other received reinforcements from Pisa and Sienna. The First Popular Government now proved its mettle. The adversaries were driven off, the Castle of Mentaia captured and demolished, and its defenders were led captives to Florence in January, 1252.[253] The Florentines then marched into the Pistoian territory, laid it waste, and halted to attack the Castle of Tizzano on their return. But while thus engaged they heard that the Pisans, having routed the Lucchese, were moving homewards with prisoners and spoil. Accordingly, they raised the siege, hastened in pursuit, and giving battle to the Pisans at Pontedera on July 1, 1252, completely defeated them. Even the Podestà of Pisa was captured, and another curious incident took place. The Lucchese prisoners who were being dragged to Pisa in bonds not only regained their liberty, but were enabled, by the help of the Florentines, to convey to Lucca as captives the same Pisans by whom they had been previously seized. Meanwhile, profiting by the absence of the Florentine troops, the exiles and Count Guido Novello had taken refuge at Figline and made it the centre of continual skirmishing expeditions. Hence it was indispensable to unearth them all without delay. The town surrendered, but only on condition that the strangers defending its wall should be allowed to go free, and the exiles readmitted. This was granted but then, in violation of the stipulated terms, Figline itself was sacked and burnt (August, 1852).[254] But, the Siennese having simultaneously profited by the opportunity to lay siege to Montalcino, a border fortress always claimed by the Florentines, the latter hastened to its relief, and after routing its assailants and providing everything for the future defence of the stronghold, marched back to Florence in triumph. These successes were not unproductive of results. For when the Florentines next attacked Pistoia in 1253, the town surrendered after a brief resistance, and agreed (February 1, 1254) to forsake the Ghibelline League, to grant readmittance to the Guelphs, and to be entirely at the service of Florence.[255] Thereupon the Florentines hastened to defend Montalcino against another attack by the Siennese; and thus the war with the latter, begun at the end of 1253, was vigorously pursued in 1254, to the month of June. Then, having lost many strongholds--some captured by Florentine arms, others gained by purchase from the Counts Guidi--Sienna was forced to end the war and tender submission. On their way back to Florence the victors reduced Poggibonsi, a large and important territory adhering to Sienna and the Ghibellines. They next proceeded to devastate the lands about Volterra, although the city itself seemed impregnable from the strength of its position. But when the Volterrani, counting upon this, ventured to sally forth and give battle, they were defeated and pursued with so much vigour, that the Florentines found themselves inside the city before they had even conceived the possibility of storming its walls. There was such general alarm among the inhabitants that a great throng of old men, women, and children, with the bishop at their head, came as suppliants to make surrender. The Florentines showed much generosity, prohibiting pillage, and merely reforming the government of the city by transferring it to the Guelphs. And now Pisa, being bereft of all allies, finally agreed to surrender, and the terms were subscribed on August 4, 1254. As a result of this treaty the Florentines had right of passage through Pisa, with their merchandise, and exemption from all taxes, dues, or imposts, whether by sea or by land. Moreover, in all contracts made with them, the Pisans were bound to employ Florentine weights and measures, and also, to some extent, Florentine money. They yielded several districts and castles, that of Ripafratta included. And they were compelled to give 150 hostages to secure their observance of these conditions and of the friendship to which they were sworn. Shortly after this event Arezzo likewise made submission (25th of August), and accepted a Podestà from Florence.[256] These were the "victorious years" of the First Popular Government, whose merits and virtues received such high praise from the chroniclers. Villani tells us, in words afterwards repeated by his plagiarist, Malespini, that it took "much pride in great and lofty undertakings," and that its rulers "were very loyal and devoted to the Commune."[257] And he presently adds: "The citizens of Florence lived soberly, on coarse viands and at little expense; their manners were very good; they had courteous ways; they were plain and frugal; and used rough stuff for their own and their women's dress. And many wore skins uncovered by cloth, and caps on their heads; all were shod with leather; and the Florentine women wore plain hose, and only the greater among them donned very narrow petticoats of coarse scarlet Ipro or Camo cloth, gathered in at the waist by a leather belt in the old style,[258] and a fur-lined mantle with a hood attached to cover the head;[259] and common women wore gowns of coarse green Cambragio stuff, made in the same fashion. And one hundred _lire_ was the usual dowry for a bride, two or three hundred _lire_ being considered in those times a splendid sum, and even the most beautiful maidens were not given in marriage until they were aged twenty years, or more."[260] Even the evidence of the "Divina Commedia" fully corroborates this account of the goodness and honesty of the Florentines of old, and events continued to prove the truth of the verdict. Fortune favoured the city not only in war, but also in peace both within and without the walls. In addition to the many great public works we have already mentioned, and which were now completed, other buildings were in course of erection on various sites bought by the _anziani_ for the purpose in different parts of the city. These officials, together with the captain of the people, Lambertino di Guido Lambertini, likewise decreed (1252-53) that the register of all the communal deeds should be re-copied and carried on regularly, in order, as they said, that the _jura et rationes Communis_ might not be left unknown nor neglected, but open to the public in various places. These papers are the _capitoli_ still preserved at the present time, and affording so much useful information on the history of Florence.[261] Now, however, the state of affairs was about to take a fresh turn. In consequence of Conrad's decease, Manfred, the other son of Frederic II., succeeded to the Neapolitan throne. The new sovereign, being dauntless, ambitious, and full of talent, devoted all his powers to forwarding the interests of the Italian Ghibellines; and the Florentines, with their usual shrewdness, immediately became more cautious in their proceedings. In 1255 they made alliance with Sienna, the following year with Arezzo, severely blamed their captain, Count Guido Guerra, for expelling the Ghibellines from the latter city, and compelled him to recall them. They even treated their own exiles with greater indulgence and liberality, permitting some of them to return from time to time. But on either side these were false demonstrations, leading to no result. All were temporising, waiting to see what fresh turn the general affairs of Italy might take. Supposing Manfred's fortunes to be really restored, the Florentines would suffer severely, and of this they were perfectly aware. A first warning was received by them in 1256, when the Pisans, oblivious of sworn terms and promises, made an attack upon Ponte a Serchio, a castle held by the Lucchese, the allies of Florence. Accordingly the Florentines hastened to their friends' relief, and routed the assailants, many of whom were drowned in the river in their flight. After this victory the troops marched towards Pisa and coined money in sight of the walls, an act then considered to inflict deep humiliation on the enemy. In addition to this the Pisans were not only forced to renew (September 23, 1256) the ignominious peace concluded in 1254, but also to cede many castles to the Florentines, and some few to the Lucchese.[262] And another clause was added to the terms stipulating that the Castle of Mutrone, a position of great strategical importance both to Lucchese and Florentines, should be given up to the latter, with power to destroy or preserve it, as their magistrates might decide. Accordingly the question was discussed by a council of elders in Florence, and one of the number, Aldobrandino Ottobuoni, who, although poor and plebeian, had much influence as a patriot, asserted the necessity of demolishing the fortress. His proposal was carried, but with the proviso that it should be first submitted to the approval of the parliament. Meanwhile the Pisans, unaware of the result of the discussion and of Ottobuoni's amendment, but knowing that the castle, if held by the Lucchese, would be a serious menace to themselves, sent to offer Ottobuoni four thousand florins--in those days a prodigious sum--if he would address the council in favour of the very plan he had already pleaded with success. But this offer merely opened his eyes to the blunder he had committed, and returning to the council, he induced the elders to reverse their decision. Aldobrandino's reputation was so greatly enhanced by this affair, that on his death it was decreed that a monument should be erected to him in the Duomo of greater height than any other, and at the public expense.[263] Many men were famed for their virtue in the time of the First Popular Government; but this government only lasted ten years, and a period of new reforms and revolutions, costing much travail to the Republic, is already near at hand. VI. The seeds of revolt were already lurking in the Constitution, and, as we have seen, only waiting a convenient opportunity to break forth. Nor was the moment long delayed. The Ghibelline party, after declining in consequence of Frederic's decease, was now revived in Italy by the strenuous efforts of Manfred in its cause. This monarch's envoys finally came to Florence in 1258, and naturally made their abode with the Uberti, whom they found quite prepared to try the hazard of war. These nobles quickly assembled their adherents, and formed a plot for the overthrow of the popular government. But the times were not yet ripe, because, as Machiavelli has justly remarked, "In those days the Guelphs had much more power than the Ghibellines, partly because the people hated the latter for their arrogant conduct as rulers in Frederic's time; and partly because the side of the Church was in greater favour than that of the emperor, seeing that with the aid of the Church they [the Florentines] hoped to preserve their liberty, and feared to lose it under the emperor."[264] The conspiracy was soon discovered, in fact, and the Uberti were cited to appear before the elders. But, instead of obeying the summons, they barricaded themselves within their own dwellings by the advice of their chief, Farinata. Thereupon the enraged people flew to the assault; the houses of the Uberti were sacked; some of their friends captured, others killed, and no mercy shown even to those merely suspected of complicity. The Abbot of Vallombrosa, one of the Beccaria of Pavia, was beheaded, although his innocence was afterwards acknowledged by many.[265] The whole Uberti family and their principal followers had to seek safety in exile and fly to Sienna, the which city was the declared ally of Manfred, and the headquarters of all Tuscan Ghibellines. The exiles collected there chose Farinata, the most daring and influential member of the band, for their leader. Upon this the Florentines justly complained that the Siennese violated the treaty of 1255 by harbouring the fugitives; but Sienna, having been long the secret ally of the Ghibellines, was deaf to remonstrance. Hence collision was inevitable, and Florence dealt the first blow by speedily attacking several castles and villages in the Siennese Maremma.[266] Then the _Martinella_ was hung in the arch of the Mercato Nuovo, and repeatedly rang the alarm, announcing an expedition of far greater importance. Both sides began to prepare for war, and even summoned their friends to assemble. Florence had sent Brunetto Latini on an embassy to Alfonso of Castile, one of the aspirants to the Imperial crown, inviting him to march into Italy against Manfred. The Siennese, however, had already, and with greater hopes of success, applied for help, through the Florentine exiles, to Manfred in person. This monarch being much occupied with his own kingdom at the time, despatched Giordano d'Anglona, Count of San Severino, with about one hundred German knights, who reached Sienna in December, 1259, bearing the royal banner. At last, in April, 1260, the Florentines set forth with the _carroccio_, people and Commune in full array, with the _Podestà Iacopino Rangoni_, the elders and leaders of companies at their head, and encamped close to the walls of Sienna, near Porta Camollia. On the 17th of May a battle took place on the site of the monastery of Santa Petronilla. It is related that when Farinata degli Uberti, who, as chief of the exiles, had done much to promote the war, saw how small a contingent Manfred had sent with the standard, he exclaimed: "We will lead it into such straits, that he [the king] will fain be the enemy of the Florentines, and will give us more [knights] than we shall want."[267] It is also told that the German soldiers were purposely intoxicated to make them fight with blind fury.[268] What is certain is that the Siennese citizens marched out under the command of their Podestà, and that the Germans, jointly with the exiles, of whom Farinata was still the chief, were led by Count Guido Novello. The Germans began the engagement with so furious an onslaught that the Florentines, believing a formidable army was on them, scattered in dismay; but then, perceiving the hostile force to be inferior to their own, stood their ground valiantly, and after a sanguinary mêlée repulsed the foe, and capturing Manfred's flag, dragged it in the mud. There was much rejoicing in Florence, although the victory had been dearly bought, and it was seen that a small band of well-trained German cavalry had put to the rout, at least for a moment, a large army of peasants and artisans. The Siennese derived courage from the same fact, particularly now that their chief citizen, Provenzano Salvani, and other ambassadors, were returning from Naples with a stout contingent of eight hundred[269] Germans, also under the command of Count Giordano, now promoted to the post of vicar-royal to Manfred in Tuscany. Accordingly the war had to be pursued; for with the Siennese already in the field to subdue Staggia and Poggibonsi, and devastate Colle, Montalcino, and Montepulciano, the Florentines were compelled to resume hostilities. Farinata degli Uberti and his fellow-exiles continually cast fresh fuel on the flame by using every device of ingenuity to provoke their foes, and weave treasonable plots within the walls of Florence. In fact, two friars were sent there to inform the elders, with great affectation of secresy, that Sienna was weary of the Ghibellines and of Provenzano Salvani's domination, that accordingly it would be easy to have the gates opened to the Florentine army by means of a bribe of ten thousand florins. The friars, being deceived themselves, as it appears, had no difficulty in duping others. According to Villani's account, on arriving in the city, they asked leave to confer with two elders alone, under pledge of the strictest secresy. Two members were deputed to receive their proposals, who, believing the men to come from the exiles, sons of their own Republic, and forgetting how they had always been dominated by party hatred, accepted the false message in good faith. Although great mystery was observed in the affair, yet it was necessary to consult the citizens before deciding on war. For that purpose a numerous council of nobles and _popolani_ was assembled, and the elders, under more or less plausible pretexts, urged the necessity of quickly resuming the war against Sienna. Nevertheless, there was much disagreement. Although the Florentine laws opposed every possible check to general discussion, and especially when directed against any proposal brought forward by a magistrate,[270] the import of this question was seen to be so grave, that several speakers combated it, pointing out the enormous folly of plunging into war at this moment, when it was known that Sienna had no means of maintaining the Germans for long. The nobles were specially adverse to the proposal, for they had recognised the superiority of the German cavalry, and judged that no army composed of artisans and traders, little practised in war, could possibly make a stand against it, especially now that it was in much greater force. Also, seeing what progress had been already made in the art of war, battles could no more be won by deeds of personal prowess alone. Unluckily the opposition of the nobles inflamed the people in the contrary sense, and set them shouting that they must arm and march forth without delay. Tegghiaio Aldobrandi degli Adimari was one of the first patricians to speak against the proposal and in favour of delay. But an elder named Spedito, and, according to Villani, one of the two sharing the secret, replied to him in insulting terms, winding up with a coarse sneer at Adimari's supposed cowardice.[271] Whereupon Messer Tegghiaio retorted, exclaiming that Spedito would lack the courage to follow far at his heels in battle. After this squabble Cece Gherardini rose up and openly inveighed against the war proposed by the elders. The latter then insisted on his silence, in the name of the law, threatening to make him pay the fine of one hundred _lire_ imposed by the statutes on all venturing to speak without the permission of the magistrates; but Gherardini replied that he would pay it and speak. Accordingly they increased the fine to two hundred, then to three hundred _lire_, but only succeeded in silencing him by threats of capital punishment.[272] So the motion for war was finally carried, although even without the secret intrigues retailed and exaggerated by the chroniclers, the heated state of public feeling made hostilities unavoidable. The Florentine army was still commanded in 1260 by the same Podestà who had led it to battle the previous May. But it was now reinforced by all the Guelphs of Tuscany, from Perugia, Orvieto, Bölogna, and many other cities, so that its total strength amounted to thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse. This large force marched forth in the month of August, with all its chiefs, with the _Carroccio_, and a well-furnished baggage train, crossed the Siennese border, and reaching Pieve Asciata on September 2nd, halted there to rest. The intrigues carried on by the exiles had produced two results; for on the one hand they had inspired Florence with the vain hope that Sienna could be gained without bloodshed, merely by spending money and making a great show of strength; on the other hand there were traitors in the army itself, actually pledged to secret agreements with the enemy. The first measure adopted was to send messengers to the city haughtily demanding its surrender. But when these envoys entered Sienna they found the whole population burning for war and revenge. They were solemnly received by the Council of Twenty-four, the heads of the State; and these, on hearing their demands, made reply: "_That they should have an answer, by word of mouth, in the field_." Hence the only thing to do was to prepare for a decisive engagement. On the morning of the 3rd of September a herald went through the streets of Sienna calling on all men to hasten to join his own flag, "in the name of God and the Virgin Mary."[273] Thus a considerable army was collected and marched the same day to encounter the Florentines. The details supplied by the chroniclers are so discrepant that it is difficult to decide as to the exact strength of the force. The Germans, the exiled Ghibellines of Florence, and several contingents from allies swelled the Siennese ranks. Nevertheless the total number was certainly inferior to that of the enemy. According to custom, the Podestà, Francesco Troghisio, held the post of Commander-in-chief. But the actual leaders of the army were Count Giordano and Count D'Arras in command of the German horse and foot; Count Aldobrandino of Santa Fiora, and other valiant captains. The Florentine exiles, including Farinata degli Uberti, who was excited to the highest pitch, were under the command of Count Guido Novello. The army of Florence was also led by its Podestà, Jacopo Rangoni; but its captains were untrained men, who still clung to the hope of winning the victory without striking a blow. They advanced with the _Carroccio_ as far as Monselvoli in Val di Biena, and encamped at a short distance from the Arbia stream and the fortress of Montaperti, some four miles from Sienna. On the morning of the 4th of September the Siennese, and more especially the Germans, began the battle by a tremendous onslaught. The Count of Arras kept his men in ambush in order to fall on the enemy's flank at the best moment. Until the hour of vespers, the Florentines made a steadfast resistance, but then began to show signs of failing strength. Thereupon Arras led up his reserve with cries of "St. George," and attacked them so furiously in flank that they were speedily routed. At the same moment Bocca degli Abati, one of the Florentine traitors, severed at a blow the hand of Jacopo dei Pazzi, the standard-bearer of the cavalry. As the flag fell the troop, composed almost entirely of nobles, instantly took to flight, some from panic, others with treasonable intent. But the infantry, consisting of stout _popolani_ and faithful allies, stood its ground for a time; then wavered, gave way, and was involved in the general rout. Only the guards of the _Carroccio_, commanded by Giovanni Tornaquinci, a veteran of seventy years, who fought like a lion, maintained their position until the last man fell dead defending the banner. Then, finally, the _Carroccio_, the _Martinella_, and the flag of the Republic were captured by the foe, who bore their spoil to Sienna in triumph and reduced it to atoms.[274] Great slaughter took place, and although many Florentines sought safety in the castle of Montaperti, crying, "Mercy, I surrender!" no mercy was shown them. Finally the Siennese captain, Count Giordano, by the advice of Farinata degli Uberti and with the consent of the gonfaloniers of the people, gave orders that the slaughter should be stopped, and safety granted to all who surrendered.[275] It is difficult to decide how many were killed on that fatal day. Villani, keeping to the minimum, states that all the cavalry escaped by flight, the slaughter being confined to the infantry, of whom 2,500 were killed and 1,500 captured. The Siennese, reducing their own losses to 600 killed and 400 wounded, estimate those of the Florentines at 10,000 killed, 15,000 taken prisoner, 5,000 wounded, and 18,000 horses either killed or strayed. These figures may be exaggerated, but Villani's are certainly below the real number.[276] Nevertheless, the chronicler shows the true state of things when he says in conclusion, "and then the ancient Florentine people was put to rout and annihilated."[277] This, in fact, was the ultimate result of the battle "_that stained the Arbia red_" ("_che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso_"). Sienna triumphed with great rejoicing, great festivities; but there was a terrible outcry and lamentation in Florence, where no family had escaped loss. The leading Guelphs knew that their last chance of safety had vanished, and therefore many of their noble families fled into exile together with a considerable number of _popolani_. They escaped from the city on the 13th of September, and although a few of them were scattered among the Tuscan castles, the majority repaired to Lucca, this being still the chief centre of the Guelph faction. On the 16th of September Count Giordano entered Florence with his German troops, accompanied by the Ghibelline exiles laden with spoil and ready to play the conquerors. One of their first deeds was the destruction of the Ottobuoni monument in the Duomo, forgetful that whether Guelph or Ghibelline that virtuous citizen deserved honour as a patriot. Thus, from the beginning, the Ghibellines did their best to make themselves more detested and unbearable. Poggibonsi, Montalcino, and many of the castles which had cost so much strife, were given up to Sienna. The "ordinances of liberty" were annulled, and Count Giordano nominated Count Guido Novello Podestà of Florence for two years.[278] The latter immediately took possession of the Communal palace, and opened a road thence to the city walls, with the name it still bears of Via Ghibellina. Meanwhile sentences of banishment and persecution of all sorts befel the Guelphs. Their houses and towers were demolished, and their confiscated property devoted to the service of the Ghibelline cause, which was everywhere destined to triumph. Brunetto Latini was also condemned to exile. As we have seen, he had been an ambassador to Alphonso of Castile, and was now in France, where he wrote the "Tesoro" containing an account of his mission. Count Giordano, being recalled to Naples by Manfred, soon took his departure, leaving Guido Novello to replace him. Thereupon all the Ghibelline chiefs met in council at Empoli to arrange what was to be done. As an instance of the pitch of ferocity to which party hatred against Florence had attained, it was proposed at this meeting to demolish the city walls, pull down all the houses, and reduce this "nest of Guelphs" to a mere suburb, since otherwise they would be sure to revive there once more. But Farinata degli Uberti had the generosity to oppose the suggestion, and in the impulse of his wrath clapped his hand on his sword-hilt, and declared to Count Giordano and the other captains that he had fought to regain his country, not to lose it, and would defend it against all would-be destroyers even more zealously than he had fought against the Guelphs.[279] These words caused the wild proposal to be instantly rejected. Count Guido appointed several Ghibelline Podestà in Tuscany, while retaining the general government of that province in his own grasp, and likewise ruling Florence as vicar to King Manfred. He basely allowed himself to be the tool of Ghibelline vengeance, although his uncertainty of conduct and weakness of character did little service to the party. Nevertheless, the Guelphs continued to suffer persecution, not only in Florence, where confiscation of their property and destruction of their dwellings and towers were long the order of the day,[280] but also in the neighbouring castles and at Lucca, whence all fugitive Guelphs were expelled. It was on this occasion that Farinata degli Uberti, having seized Cece dei Buondelmonti, hoisted him on his saddle and carried him off, either to save his life, as some have said, or, according to another version, as prisoner of war. But his brother Pietro degli Uberti was so maddened at the sight, that he clubbed the captive to death on Farinata's horse. Such was the ferocity of party hatred at the time. After the defeat of 1260 many Guelphs wandered homeless about the world. Some devoted their swords to the service of their faction in Emilia, and became experts in the newest developments of military science; while others settled in France as traders, thus giving a fresh and much increased impulse to Florentine commerce. VII. From the close of 1260, the year of the battle of Montaperti, down to 1266, when the rule of Count Guido and King Manfred came to an end, the history of Florence records no remarkable event. The city's freedom is crushed, its wars reduced to petty and inglorious party strife, and its new institutions, if worthy to be so called, have no effect on the historical development of the Florentine constitution. In trying to discover the logical connection between the various forms assumed by it in the history of the Republic, no attention need be given to the checks suffered by freedom nor to the intervals wherein tyranny breaks the regular course of events and institutions, seeing that these resume their normal march as soon as liberty is restored to life. The Podestà ruling in Manfred's name retained the two councils, _i.e._, the general council of three hundred, and the special of ninety members, in both of which the nobles and the Ghibellines naturally prevailed. But we hear nothing more of the Captain of the people and his councils, nor of the elders and their assembly. But we find in their place a body of twenty-four citizens, four to each _sestiere_, privileged to sit in council with the Podestà.[281] Of the ancient Constitution a few fragments alone remain, and even these are ancient only in name. As a matter of fact the Ghibellines had succeeded, with Manfred's assistance, in establishing an aristocratic despotism, as strangely different from the constitution preceding it as from that destined to replace it, these being in perfect harmony and connection one with the other. Meanwhile the war against the Guelphs was carried on, not only by razing their houses and confiscating their goods, but by the imposition of repeated fines weighing heavily on the lower classes who were now deprived of all share in the government. But in 1264 Farinata degli Uberti died, in 1265 Dante Alighieri was born, and Italy began to be stirred by novel events soon to be echoed even in Florence. For some time past, in truth, Italian politics had showed signs of approaching to a radical change. Frederic II., although often cruelly despotic, had gathered about him, nevertheless, all the most cultured men of the country and was highly popular among them. His successor, Manfred, was an adventurous and unfortunate prince, whose loftiness of spirit deservedly gained him numerous admirers. It is true that the Papacy had combated both in their quality of Ghibellines; but the policy of Rome was gradually becoming no less hostile to communal freedom than to the Ghibelline cause, inasmuch as the Papal ambition daily increased and sought to strengthen the temporal power at the expense of the communes. Florence still remained Guelph; but with changed times the character and value, if not the names of parties were beginning to suffer alteration throughout Italy. Hence men often changed sides with small hesitation, nor was it always easy to say whether those who deserted their own party had changed, or whether the alteration of the party itself had caused it to be forsaken. Also the general confusion was greatly increased now that the Popes, with their usual anxiety and dread of losing their supremacy in Italy, resolved on calling fresh strangers to their aid and thus drew fresh miseries on the land. Alarmed by the great power and reputation gained by the Swabian line, they sought defence in the course of policy so well described by Machiavelli when he remarks that the Popes, "sometimes for the love of religion, at others to forward their own ambitions, never ceased to call fresh humours into Italy and stir fresh wars. And no sooner had they raised a prince to power than they repented and sought to compass his ruin, nor would they consent that any province their own weakness prevented them from seizing should be possessed by another."[282] Thus, after many persistent intrigues, they finally decided the Angevins to undertake an expedition against Manfred, and for the conquest of the Neapolitan kingdom. With the aid and benediction of Pope Clement IV., Charles of Anjou brought an army composed not only of his own subjects, but of many Italians, among whom the exiled Florentine Guelphs were some of the most distinguished for bravery.[283] He advanced to the Neapolitan frontier, and near Benevento, on February 26, 1266, gave battle to the foe. King Manfred fought valiantly, and when forsaken and betrayed by his soldiery, died the death of a hero on the field. For three days, vain search was made for his corpse among the slain, then it was found, and carried off on the back of an ass. The French monarch refused Manfred burial in consecrated ground, because the Pope had declared him excommunicate. Accordingly he was laid in a ditch by the bridge of Benevento, where the French soldiers, casting each a stone on the corpse, raised a pile that proved a fitting monument to the courage and ill fortune of a warrior slain sword in hand. But Pope Clement grudged him even this humble grave, and at his command the Archbishop of Cosenza persuaded the Angevin monarch to have the corpse exhumed, and thrown beyond the frontier of the Neapolitan kingdom, on the banks of the river Verde.[284] All these events completed the overthrow of the Ghibelline party in Italy. The Imperial throne stood vacant, the Suabians were crushed, and another foreign dynasty succeeded them in Naples, summoned thither by the Pope. If Frederic's decease had caused the decline of the Ghibellines in Florence, it is easy to imagine what was to befal them now that their evil sway had accumulated such increased detestation of their rule, and that the death of Manfred not only deprived them of a friendly sovereign, but extinguished in Italy the domination of an Imperial and royal line that had been their strongest support. In fact, when the result of the campaign was announced in Florence, the whole population was moved and stirred to fresh courage against the nobles still holding rule over them. And when it was known that the majority of the Florentine Guelphs, who had done such brave service in the ranks of King Charles, were returning to Florence under his flag, the populace seemed so ready to revolt that Count Guido and his followers were stricken with fear. Therefore, as Machiavelli says, "the Ghibellines judged it well to conciliate by some acts of beneficence the people they had hitherto overwhelmed with injuries; but although these remedies would have succeeded had they been applied before the emergency arose, now, on the contrary, being used too late, not only failed of effect, but hastened the party's ruin."[285] In fact, when Count Guido and the Ghibelline leaders sought to pacify the people by certain liberal concessions they knew not where to begin. The old laws had been annulled, and these men had so completely alienated the people by their arbitrary government and exactions, that no concession could now be made without yielding on all points. On the other hand, the people, being excluded from all share in the management of the State, had turned to trade and commerce, employing therein all the power and energy they were forbidden to bring to bear upon politics. Accordingly all branches of trade were marvellously developed and organised more firmly than before in the shape of politico-industrial associations, entitled Greater and Lesser Guilds (_Arti maggiori ed Arti minori_), the which, dating from the earliest years of the Middle Ages, had gradually become significant political forces, and exercised very great civic influence. Thus many new powerful families had arisen, constituting a new aristocracy, as it were, of wealthy traders, or, according to the designation already bestowed on them, of _popolani grassi_ (stout burghers) now the virtual masters of the Florentine citizens.[286] Gradually, therefore, the Ghibellines in power were reduced to an isolated caste, and only enabled to maintain their position by Manfred's friendly support and the help of his German contingent. Being accordingly in the attitude of invaders encamped on alien soil, their moral and political ascendency, their civil authority daily declined; while the burghers under their rule had won by means of trade and commerce a separate world for themselves and constituted a separate body, independent to some extent of the governing authorities. It was both difficult and dangerous to seek the help of the leading burghers, for these, being chiefs of the Guelph population, would undoubtedly insist on giving the latter a share in the government, the which would lead to the speedy downfall of the nobles and Ghibellines. Neither was it easy for the nobles to initiate partial reforms, since they neither knew what concessions to make, nor how to grant any at a moment when the people were conscious of sufficient strength to dominate the city. It was accordingly decided to summon from Bologna two knights of a new order known as the _Frati Gaudenti_, whose mission it was to succour widows and orphans and reconcile hostile parties. Also, as a visible sign of impartiality, one of the chosen knights was to be a Guelph, the other a Ghibelline. All this was arranged with the consent and almost at the instance of Pope Clement IV., who, being of Provençal birth and a strenuous supporter of Charles of Anjou, continually addressed imperious missives to the Florentines,[287] as though the Imperial throne being vacant, its authority had devolved upon himself, and the victory gained by King Charles had made him master of Florence. But, according to Villani's account, the short-lived order of Frati Gaudenti consisted of men chiefly devoted to their own pleasures, and little fitted for the serious task of acting as Podestà of Florence, and promoting novel reforms there. This was so evident that the two knights speedily saw the necessity of consulting and coming to an understanding with the guilds. Therefore, on reaching the city, they made their abode in the palace of the Commune, and convoked a council of thirty-six Guelph and Ghibelline merchants. The members soon began to hold daily discussions in their meeting-place, the court of the Calimala, or Clothdressers' Guild. The business of dressing foreign woollen stuffs had made great progress in Florence, and the guild was more powerful than any of the others. The council soon agreed that the first measure proposed should be the conversion of the seven greater guilds into an industrial and political body, with special banners, weapons, and chiefs of its own. So they began to organise all the details, assigning a gonfalon to each guild, and arranging them as follows: Judges and Notaries; Calimala, or Dressers of Foreign Cloth; Woollen Trade; Money-changers; Physicians and Druggists; Silk Trade, and Fur Trade. The Ghibellines, however, foresaw that this course would inevitably lead to the reconstruction of the _Primo Popolo_ under another name. Accordingly the Uberti, Lamberti, Fifanti, and Scolari decidedly opposed these innovations, and impressed Count Guido with the necessity of putting a stop to them at once if he wished to keep the government in his grasp. This being precisely what the count most desired, he instantly sent to demand aid from Ghibelline cities. Arezzo, Sienna, Pisa, Pistoia, Colle, and San Gimignano contributed some cavalry, which, with his German guard, raised his forces to fifteen hundred. But, although these troops were under Count Guido's command, they were also at his expense; his Germans were already clamouring for their pay, and all his money was spent. Accordingly, while still negotiating terms of agreement with the people, he decided to levy an additional income tax of ten per cent. in Florence. But the citizens were already so heavily burdened that this new impost was more than small fortunes could support. The people were already weary of misgovernment, and much irritated by the count's action in stripping the Communal palace of its armoury to enrich his own castle at Poppi; also being encouraged by commercial success and increasingly hostile to the Ghibellines, they now made vigorous protest, and clearly showed their readiness to fly to arms. Then the Council of Thirty-six tried to pacify the citizens, and acting as mediators, proposed to undertake the collection of the new tax, levying it in such wise as to make it fall chiefly on the rich and powerful. Just then, however, the nobles, emboldened by the arrival of reinforcements, thought the moment had arrived for a decisive blow, and rose to arms in the city. The Lamberti took the initiative by rushing to the Piazza, sword in hand, shouting, "Out with these thieves, the Thirty-six; let us cut them to pieces!" At this outcry all shops were closed; the Thirty-six broke up their council, and the people rising in revolt took their orders from them and from the consuls of the guilds, with Giovanni Soldanieri as their leader-in-chief. The latter was a patrician, urged by personal ambition to join the riot at the head of the people. Concentrating in Piazza St. Trinità, they were soon attacked by Count Guido and his cavalry, who thought to make short work of them. But, on the contrary, the crowd threw up barricades and made a stubborn resistance, while such a storm of stones and darts rained down from windows and roofs that the Germans began to lose heart, and the count, stricken with dismay, ordered his standards to withdraw, retreated to Piazza St. Giovanni, and then hurrying to the two _Gaudenti_ in the Communal palace, demanded the keys of the town in order to effect his escape. Neither his friends' supplications nor the wrath of his followers could persuade him that the danger was not serious, and that he might safely remain in the town. He was so bewildered by fear that, having obtained the keys, he insisted on being escorted by three of the Thirty-six, lest he should be shot from some window by the way. So, on St. Martin's Day, November 11, 1266, he left Florence by the so-called Gate of the Oxen, and fled with his followers to Prato. The following day, being cured of his panic, he perceived his mistake, and by the advice of the Florentine Ghibellines in his company tried, as Machiavelli puts it, "to recapture by force the city he had forsaken from cowardice."[288] He came with his men in order of battle as far as the Gate by the Carraia Bridge, on the site of the present Borgo Ognissanti; but the people who could have scarcely succeeded in expelling him before, save for his own exaggerated fears, had no difficulty in repulsing him now. When the count demanded admission with a mixture of threats and entreaties, the only reply was a shower of arrows from the walls. He was therefore compelled to retreat, and his men were so enraged and humiliated that on the way back they tried to capture a neighbouring castle in order to prove their strength. But even this small attempt failed, and they reached Prato more humbled than ever, and with much dissension in their ranks. The count, convinced of the hopelessness of recovering the state, sought refuge in the Casentino, and the Florentine Ghibellines dispersed to various fortresses and mansions about the _contado_. VIII. The Guelphs were now masters of Florence. They set to work at the changes required for the reorganisation of the popular government, and were favoured with much imperious advice from the Pope. However, they only gave heed to his epistles in sufficient measure to avoid exciting his wrath. Their first act was the dismissal of the two _Gaudenti_ friars, whose incapacity had been well proved; their next to request Orvieto to furnish them with a Captain of the people, a Podestà, and a body of knights to guard the safety of the Commune. Accordingly one hundred knights arrived, with Messer Ormanno Monaldeschi as Podestà, and a Messer Bernardini as Captain. For the sake of peace they allowed the Ghibellines to return to Florence, and arranged various reconciliations and marriages between them and the Guelphs, hoping thus to promote unity among the people and mitigate party hatred. But, in the still heated state of the public mind, these measures only excited fresh rancour. At this juncture Florence seemed to have lost all her former self-reliance, so that, in the midst of the grave complications of Italian politics, even the Guelphs felt the need of foreign support. It was a fatal habit, first owed to the Ghibellines, who, in token of respect toward the Empire, had requested the presence of an Imperial vicar in Florence. So, now that the people had won the victory because the Angevins had succeeded the Suabian line on the Neapolitan throne, recurrence to the same perilous measure seemed almost unavoidable. The Pope, with an assumption of Imperial prerogative, had nominated Charles of Anjou, first as peacemaker, and then as actual vicar-imperial, in Tuscany, for a term of ten years. The Florentines considering it a duty to conform with this new state of things, and even to accept it with a good grace, accordingly offered Charles the lordship of their city for six years, a term afterwards extended to ten. But either because the conditions attached to the offer were distasteful to the French monarch, or because he wished it to be pressed more energetically, he certainly showed much hesitation in deciding to accept it. Shortly afterwards he despatched to Florence Philip de Monfort, who made his entry with eight hundred knights on Easter Day, 1267, the anniversary, as it was remarked at the time, of Buondelmonti's assassination. The king subsequently sent Guy de Monfort as his vicar;[289] and at last came in person to lead the war against the Ghibellines in Tuscany. The Ghibellines being now expelled, and the supremacy of Charles accepted as an accomplished fact, the necessity remained of establishing the government of Florence on a definite basis, and endeavouring to secure its freedom amid new and hazardous complications. To this end the fourth constitution of the Republic was evolved. The state of Florentine society had undergone considerable change, and this implied a corresponding change in the character of the new constitution. The Ghibelline or patrician party was now reduced to a small number of nobles, soldiers by profession, and eager to exercise tyranny. But, as we have seen, almost a new aristocracy had come to the front, composed of nobles, who, renouncing their titles and altering their names, had joined the popular side, and likewise of well-to-do burghers (_popolo grasso_), who, having leapt to fortune as traders, had now entered a new sphere of civil life, and dominated the city.[290] Another point to be noted is that both burghers and populace were rapidly losing their aptitude for arms, and this not merely because in all wars of the period the superiority of trained soldiers was a recognised fact, and popular armies seen to be of small use, but also because commerce had become too important for busy traders, engaged in their shops or travelling about the world, to be able, as in past times, to spend two or three months of the year in the field. Commerce was now the chief occupation and almost the very life of the Florentines, so that they really deserved to be called a people of bankers and merchants. In addition to all this there was now a foreign power upheld by foreign soldiery in Florence. Whether in person or by means of other officials of his own nomination, Charles of Anjou filled the post of Podestà of the city, and even the Captain of the people was often a man of his choice. Therefore, with their usual sagacity, the Florentines re-established the twelve elders, two for each _sestiere_, under the name of the Twelve Worthies, as advisers to the Podestà. Also, in place of the Thirty-six, they constituted a council of one hundred worthies of the people, "without whose sanction no important measure nor any expenditure was to be undertaken." With this council and with the parliament, which legally, at all events, never ceased to exist in Florence, we see the reconstitution of a central and popular government, limiting the authority of the Angevin Podestà. It was, indeed, almost a revival of the old consular government by which the Podestà and Captain, now to be made subordinate to it, had been originally raised to power. Nor did matters stop at this point. The two councils, special and general, of the Podestà and Captain were likewise repristinated. With this difference, however, that whereas by the constitution of 1250 the Captain of the people had been second in command, and then almost abolished under the Ghibelline sway, now at this date he not only resumed his functions, but was given precedence over the Podestà. In fact, any Bill proposed by the Twelve to the Hundred and approved by the latter, was passed on to the Captain's two councils, in the first place to his special council of the _capitudini_--also known as the _credenza_--consisting, as formerly, of eighty members. Approved by this assembly, the Bill was then proposed to the council-general and special and of the _capitudini_, comprising three hundred members. As a rule, all the three councils put it to the vote the same day. Then, on the following day, the Bill was presented to both the councils of the Podestà, first to the special council of ninety, next to the general council of three hundred, sometimes increased to 390 by deliberating jointly with the special assembly. We know very little regarding the mode of election to these councils, but they usually lasted six months. Nevertheless, as they were very large and, on the other hand, the number of the citizens was small, we opine that all eligible persons--_abili a sedere_, namely, fully qualified citizens--must have been chosen in turn. It should also be added that projected motions were neither all nor invariably submitted to every one of these different councils. Both by law and usage the magistrates were often privileged to recur to certain councils only, even as they were allowed the right of assembling a preliminary and more restricted council of _richiesti_ (or invited persons), composed solely of officials or citizens whose experience might be useful in drawing up the required schemes. At other times even a few outsiders were invited to the councils. Thus, for instance, when affairs of war were under discussion the presence was requested of those charged to superintend them. The statutes were neither very precise nor very stringent on this point. Special efforts, however, seem to have been used to put checks on free discussion, possibly to prevent the multitude of councils from causing undue delay. The right of proposing any measure or decree was strictly reserved to magistrates, by whom some notary or other qualified person was commissioned to support it in their name. Save in very grave cases, the councillors only said a few words before voting. The opposition was never more than a small minority, partly because every project brought before the councils had been already sifted several times. Later on, while still allowing men to vote against the magisterial proposals, no one was permitted to speak save in their favour. Hence, in spite of possessing so many public assemblies, Italy produced no real political oratory, and in fact our literature is very poor in this branch of eloquence. And another point should also be noted here. The Council of One Hundred was entirely plebeian, so too those of the Captain; on the other hand, nobles, as well as plebeians, sat in the Podestà's councils. The _capitudini_, or guild-masters, were always admitted, as we have shown, to the Captain's councils, and very frequently also to those of the Podestà. All this plainly proves that the democratic party and the greater guilds constituting its main nucleus were decidedly predominant.[291] Thus, although King Charles obtained the lordship of Florence, his power was fettered by so many restrictions that all administrative authority remained vested in the people, and particularly in the well-to-do burgher class (_popolo grasso_). The new laws examined by us contain very few allusions to Guelphs and Ghibellines, many to nobles and people (_grandi_ and _popolani_); for party conflict was beginning to wear its real name, and plainly signified the struggle between the aristocracy and democracy. Nevertheless, the Ghibelline faction still survived and constituted in fact the aristocratic party. For this reason the people desired its total destruction, and another clause of the new constitution aimed at the same result. A list was drawn up of all who had suffered persecution from the Ghibellines between 1260 and 1266, together with an inventory of their confiscated property. The number of victims was found to be very great, and their losses to amount to the then enormous sum of 132,160,8,4 _lire_.[292] It was accordingly resolved to treat the Ghibellines in the same way, and during the years 1268 and 1269 about three thousand were condemned, including contumacious rebels, and as many sentences of confiscation pronounced, which remained enforced for a long period.[293] At first, all confiscated property was collected to form a so-called "_monte_," or fund; then afterwards it became the custom to divide this into three parts: one to the Commune; one to individual Guelphs as indemnity for past losses; and the other third to the party, in order to strengthen it at the Ghibellines' expense. In course of time, however, almost all confiscated estates were granted to the party alone, and their administration entrusted to six governors, chosen for the purpose, three of whom were nobles and three men of the people. These officials were originally styled consuls of the knights, then captains of the Guelph party, in deference to the ill-omened counsels of Pope Clement IV. and Charles of Anjou. As every important magistracy of the time was associated with two councils, so the Captains of the party also possessed a special or privy council of fourteen, and a council-general of sixty members.[294] The Captains kept office for two months, and held their sittings in the Church of Sta. Maria sopra Porta. Later on they had a palace of their own, and were entrusted with the superintendence of public works, of the officials of the Towers, and other functions of a similar kind. But their chief duty was always to promote the cause and persecute Ghibellines. They performed their task with so much zeal, pursuing their adversaries so fiercely, that at last the ruling spirit among the Captains of the party was the virtual ruler of Florence. By excluding all opponents from public posts, sentencing them to exile, and confiscating their goods, these functionaries rose to increasing power, and injured the Republic they served. Taking a general view of the new constitution, with all its intricate multiplicity of councils and magistracies, our first impression is that all was confusion and arbitrary rule. But on looking more closely into the purpose for which it had been formed, we are obliged to admit that this government was singularly well adapted for success. Civil war is not yet stamped out: on the contrary, must undoubtedly continue for a long time; democracy is pressing on towards the fulness of its triumph and the complete destruction of the aristocracy. Nor will democracy be satisfied with ousting the nobles from the government of the republics, but will seek to deprive them of life itself, and this is only to be accomplished by much bloodshed and many revolutions. In the new political organisation, the central power, soon to be changed every two months, occupies a very feeble position compared with the high importance, permanence, and strength now assigned to the Podestà and the Captain. These officers are at the head of the Commune and the people; each of them presides over two councils: they are, as it were, the chiefs of two armed and hostile republics. But in that of the people, hitherto the weaker, no patrician is admitted; while in that of the Commune, the people has assumed a very important position relatively to that of the nobles, and therefore has legally obtained the casting vote in all decisions, notwithstanding the supremacy virtually exercised by Charles of Anjou in moments of the gravest emergency. It is easy to foresee the bitterness of strife to be engendered by this state of things. If we likewise remember that this Republic, as though foredoomed to civil war, included so important a magistracy as the Captains of the party, apparently created for the sole purpose of perpetuating discord, as an engine of war, serving to keep all these heterogeneous forces in continual agitation and promote ceaseless bloodshed and destruction, we can understand the course of coming events in Florence. We must be prepared for continual struggles, restless changes of institutions and laws, prepared to behold webs carefully woven one month pulled to pieces before the next moon begins to wane. Nevertheless, the whole machinery of the government was singularly fitted to compass the end that the Republic from the first had constantly in view. IX. Much more, however, remains to be said in order to give our readers a lucid and adequate idea of the Constitution and society of Florence in the latter half of the thirteenth century. So far we have dwelt too slightly on the most important detail of the new reforms--_i.e._, the organisation of the guilds. The measures suggested for this purpose by the Thirty-six from their first meetings in the Calimala Court, and against which the nobles had most strongly protested, were speedily approved by the people, and from that moment became the chief basis of the Florentine statutes. Associations of arts and trades had existed throughout Italy from a very early date, and had soon attained greater development in Florence than in other communes. For, as we have had occasion to note, the whole life of the people was concentrated in these associations when the Ghibelline tyranny, upheld by Manfred, excluded the lower classes from participation in the government of the city. Therefore all that was done now was to embody naturally evolved results in a more regular and legal shape. Only the greater guilds, seven in number, had risen to any really great political importance in 1260; the others had to wait much longer before being reorganised on the same footing. What was the position attained by the seven greater guilds at the moment we are now studying? By devoting our attention to the guild that was first and foremost in the race it will serve as a model, and enlighten us as to the others. At the period of which we treat the fine arts flourished in Italy side by side with trade, and this was not only advantageous to the national culture, but already enabled our manufactures to dictate the laws of taste to all Europe. In those times Florence, Milan,[295] and Venice set the fashions, as Paris sets them now. The fine Italian taste helped to create the _Calimala_[296] trade, and secured its rapid prosperity. This trade was the art of dressing foreign cloths--from Flanders, France, and England--and dyeing them with colours known to Florence alone. Then, in their finished state, these stuffs were sent to all the European markets stamped with the mark of the Calimala Guild. This mark was highly prized as a proof of good quality, as showing that the exact length of the pieces had been scrupulously verified in Florence, and as a guarantee against any falsification of material. It is therefore easy to see why the Calimala merchants had trading relations with all Europe, and interests extending to every place where civilisation and luxury were known. Hence the necessity, even in early times, of choosing directors of the guild, framing statutes, and appointing consuls abroad as well as at home, to protect its undertakings. Now, however, with the newly inaugurated reforms, the Calimala, together with the other greater guilds, was constituted on the lines of a miniature republic.[297] Every six months, _i.e._, in June and December, the heads of warehouses and shops held a meeting, and this _Union_--exercising much the same function in the guild as that of the parliament in the Republic--chose the electors to be charged with the nomination of the magistrates. First came four consuls, who administered justice according to the statutes, acted as representatives of the guild, and ruled it with the assistance of two councils, one being a special council with a minimum of twelve members, and the other a general assembly often varying in number and sometimes limited to eighteen. With the consent of these councils the consuls were even empowered to alter the statutes. They carried the banner of the guild, and in emergencies the citizens assembled at arms under their command. Then there was the _camarlingo_, or chamberlain, holding office for one year, who administered the revenue and expenditure of the association. And even as the Republic had a foreign magistrate in the person of the Podestà, so the guild had one also in the person of its notary, likewise appointed for one year. He was chosen by the council-general, had to speak in both councils as the representative of the consuls; was often employed on missions for the guild, and was specially charged to enforce scrupulous observation of the statutes, with the power of inflicting severe punishment on all violators of the same, were they even the consuls themselves. All these officials were sworn adherents of the Guelph party. The notary's stipend was fixed from year to year. The consuls were bound to accept office if elected, and could not be re-elected under an interval of one year; their salary was first fixed at ten _lire_, and the product of certain fines; but was afterwards reduced to several pounds of pepper and saffron, and a few wooden baskets and spoons. The _camarlingo_, or _camerario_, was remunerated even more slightly, and much in the same way. Three accountants were chosen every year to investigate the actions of the outgoing consuls, _camarlingo_, and other magistrates. Twelve statutory merchants were similarly elected, with authority to revise and improve the statutes of the guild; but all reforms suggested by them had to be approved first by both councils, and then by the Captain of the people. The consuls who, under the title of _capitudini_, took part in the councils of the Captain and Podestà, were pledged to protect the interests of the guild and advocate laws in its favour. But what were these statutes for the good of the trade of which so many magistrates enforced the observance? They prescribed fixed rules and regulations for the exercise of the business. Very severe punishments were enacted when the merchandise was of bad quality, defective, or counterfeit. Every piece of cloth was bound to be labelled, and any stain or rent unrecorded by this label entailed punishment on the merchant concerned. Above all, there was great strictness as to exactness of measure. The officers of the guild frequently inspected the cloth, and made a bi-monthly examination of the measures used in all the shops. Models of the prescribed measures were exhibited to the public in certain parts of the city. Nor was this all. The consuls sent delegates to every counting-house to verify the merchants' books and accounts, and punished every deviation from established rules. Every guild had a tribunal composed either solely of its own members, or jointly with those of another, for the settlement of all disputes connected with the trade, and enforced severe penalties on all who referred such disputes to ordinary courts. It may be asked how the consuls were enabled to give effect to their verdicts? The punishments were generally fines, and persons refusing to pay them, after receiving several admonitions and increased fines if still recalcitrant, were excluded from the guild and practically ruined. From that moment their merchandise, being unstamped, was no longer guaranteed by the guild; they also lost many other notable advantages, and were finally unable to continue their business in Florence, and not often elsewhere. In fact, as we have seen, the consuls chosen in Florence guarded the interests of the guild even outside the State by deputing vice-consuls for that purpose to other parts of Italy and Europe, and increasing their number in proportion with the increase of their commercial relations. The two more important consuls abroad were those in France. All these delegates were charged with even the choice of the inns to be frequented by the members of the guild. Whenever, according to the usage of the day, any state exercised reprisals on the members' goods, the consuls were bound to assist and defend them. Thus, wherever he might be, a member of the guild was sure of protection from every sort of injury or loss. The guild was a jealous custodian of its members' rights, and, in order to defend them in foreign countries or to obtain justice for injuries received, often despatched ambassadors to the governments concerned.[298] This was an invaluable help at a time when no international law existed for the protection of foreigners, and reprisals were continually used. Accordingly merchants found it better to submit to any penalty rather than be dismissed from the guild; no worse threat was needed to enforce obedience to the statutes. The six other greater guilds were all governed on the same principle as the _Calimala_. Their united body of consuls formed the _capitudini_, and these were afterwards headed by a proconsul, a magistrate held in the highest esteem. Putting aside the immense commercial and industrial advantages that this organisation of the guilds afforded to the Republic during the thirteenth century, we shall see that they were equally useful from the political point of view. All these merchants, constituting a large majority of the citizens, were continually engaged in directing great undertakings, settling commercial disputes, discussing statutes and laws; they maintained relations with all parts of the known world, and travelled to all parts on special missions in defence of their common interests. We see that they all took a continuous and eager share in political life, inasmuch as every guild was an independent, self-ruling institution, with separate magistrates, laws, statutes, and councils, and that it became a centre of industrial, intellectual, and political activity. Thanks to this freedom of circulation, the pulse of the Florentine people was quickened to redoubled strength, and every faculty of the human mind, all moral and political energy of which man is capable, suddenly rose to a prodigious height in Florence. Choosing any one of these merchants almost at random, one might be sure to find him capable of governing the Republic; a man to be trusted with the most delicate of diplomatic missions, and honourably acquit himself of it; one able to command a respectful hearing from Pope, king, or emperor, without allowing himself to be duped, yet without failing to conform to the requirements of court ceremonial. Thus the Florentines rose to great fame throughout Europe for their shrewdness and subtlety, and as in the midst of all this extraordinary commercial and political activity Italian art and literature also developed, the small mercantile Republic soon shed its lustre over the whole world. The greater guilds also achieved another good result in Florence. At a time when the State organisation divided the city in two halves, as it were; at a time when the strife of factions was about to be fiercely renewed, when party leaders excited men's passions by nourishing the flame of discord, and the continual change of the supreme Council of Twelve transferred the direction of the government to citizens of all tempers, and all devoted to their respective parties, then the decentralisation of the government in a large number of small associations was indeed an inestimable benefit. If nobles or people rebelled against their rulers in order to change the Twelve, or the Podestà, the Captain, or even the statutes, the suspension of public business that inevitably ensued produced much less real than apparent confusion. Being split up into so many small associations, the Republic could exist without a government even for several months; since the armed, disciplined, and strongly constituted guilds, were now even better prepared than in past times to seize the reins, and prevent the troubles which would have certainly befallen the city had it been left without guidance. Thus the constitution of the guilds, as established in 1266, likewise serves to explain how it was that poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture were enabled to flourish among a people of traders; even as it explains why so much progress was possible amid such, apparently, enormous confusion, and how democracy succeeded in destroying every relic of feudalism in Florence, and in achieving absolute equality together with the highest degree of freedom known to the Middle Ages. The Florentine Commune was the centre of so much culture because it was also the seat of the largest freedom compatible with the times. Of this culture the best and loveliest fruits are owed to the democracy; for we find in Arnolfo's towers and churches, in the paintings of Cimabue and Giotto, as also in Dante's verse, the special stamp and characteristic of the Florentine people. During the Middle Ages in Provence, France, Germany, and England, many nobles rose to literary fame, and indeed nearly all the poets of those lands were of patrician birth. But Florentine art and letters, constituting the most fertile seeds of art and letters in Italy, were essentially republican; many writers, and most of the artists, of Florence were the offspring of traders or labouring men. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. _FLORENCE THE DOMINANT POWER IN TUSCANY._[299] I. After the death of Frederic II., the Imperial throne long remained vacant. For twenty-three years no king of the Romans was definitively proclaimed in Germany, and sixty-two years elapsed before any prince came to Rome to assume the crown of the Empire. Therefore during this interval the Ghibelline party was left to its own resources, and its leaders tried to maintain their feudal rights by employing their forces and prestige against all communes and small potentates enjoying no chance of gaining the Imperial protection. Hence petty tyrants began to arise on all sides, Ghibelline lords for the most part, who, notwithstanding the many defeats endured by the aristocracy in Italy, derived new and unexpected advantages from the changed conditions of the times. Another factor of this result was the new mode of warfare. Men-at-arms were now the chief strength of an army, and these mounted soldiers, cased as well as their horses, in heavy armour and armed with long spears, were able to overcome infantry before the latter's halberds could come into play. But a lengthy training was required for cavalry service, and it was increasingly difficult for artisans or merchants to pursue the military career to any effect, whereas war was becoming the chief occupation of the nobles. In fact, many of the leading patricians were acquiring a reputation in the new mode of war, gaining followers, and by taking the command of small companies gradually rising to power, and aspiring to become tyrants. For this and other reasons, to be made clearer farther on, nearly all the Lombard cities, and some of those in Central Italy, were now losing their independence. [Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE. [_To face page 241._] The same ambitions doubtless existed among the Guelphs, but the feudal aristocracy had far less influence in their party, the majority of which consisted of merchants and wealthy men of the people. Besides, the Pope was a near neighbour during the interregnum of the Empire, the Guelph cities were at the same time under the dangerous protection of an ambitious pontiff, and that of the equally ambitious Charles I. of Anjou, peacemaker and vicar-imperial of Tuscany. Charles nominated the Podestà of every Guelph Tuscan city, and whenever he failed to appear in person, sent a representative, called by the chroniclers a royal _maliscalco_, with an escort of some hundred horse and foot. Pisa, Arezzo, and all other Ghibelline cities refusing to acknowledge his authority, were exposed to continual threats from without, and lacerated within their walls by the attacks of would-be tyrants. On the other hand, the Guelph cities lived in continual terror of the king's ambitious designs; but Charles's position was not sufficiently assured for him to be able to use his temporary and limited office as a pretext for asserting sovereign power over Tuscany, although such was his secret aim. For the moment it was enough to play the part of high protector of all civic rights and privileges, so that the Guelph cities might be tricked into counting on his help both against Ghibelline attacks from without and internal treason in favour of tyranny. The Florentines, however, were not easily hoodwinked regarding either future or present events. They had asked Charles to accord them his protection, but only within certain limits, which, at any cost, they were determined should not be overstepped. They too nourished a secret aim--namely, to use the king's forces, not for the increase of his power, but towards the establishment of their own supremacy in Tuscany. The authority of the Empire was much diminished in Italy; the temporal strength of the Papacy was also on the wane, and the Communes, realising their greater independence, hastened to enlarge their respective territories. All Italian cities now had this end in view. But if one city waxed powerful, all its neighbours had either to pursue the same course or become its prey. Thus there was continual war between this and that city, less from party strife or jealousy than in necessary defence of their own interests. Besides, with the new custom of hiring foreign soldiers and captains of adventure, any one with gold at his command could quickly collect a powerful force and attack some of his neighbours. Hence every city or state had to be always on the alert and continually enlarging its strength and power. It was for this purpose that the Florentines now resolved to turn to account the authority, prestige, and forces of King Charles. Accordingly when (1267) his mandatories, the Podestà Emilio di Corbano,[300] and Marshal Philip de Montfort,[301] with eight hundred French knights, arrived in Florence, a Florentine army, composed of recruits from two _sestieri_ of the city, in junction with the French cavalry under Montfort, immediately marched to the siege of St. Ilario, or St. Ellero, in which castle a number of Ghibellines had sought refuge with their leader, Filippo da Volognano. The castle was taken, and its eight hundred Ghibelline defenders were all either killed or captured.[302] They comprised many members of the highest Florentine nobility, Uberti, Fifanti, Scolari, &c., and party hatred was then so fierce that a youthful scion of the Uberti, finding surrender inevitable, threw himself from the top of a tower to avoid falling into the hands of the Buondelmonti.[303] In the course of this campaign the castles of Campi and Gressa were captured; and many cities, including Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra, Prato, San Gimignano, and Colle, being won over to the Guelph cause by the expulsion of their Ghibellines, joined the Florentines in the League, or _Taglia_, commanded by the French marshal. Pisa and Sienna still remained Ghibelline; the former had always been and still continued to be the strongest bulwark of the party in Tuscany; the latter had, as usual, given refuge to the banished Ghibellines of Florence, and also to some of Manfred's Germans who had escaped the massacre of Benevento. The Florentines had not yet succeeded in revenging the rout of Montaperti, and were burning to pluck this thorn from their side; while King Charles, equally eager for the destruction of all surviving friends and supporters of the Suabian line, was preparing to come to Tuscany to lead the war against Sienna in person. Pending his arrival, the Florentines, after an abortive attack on the city, laid waste the surrounding territory, and finding that the exiles, the Germans and other Ghibellines, were entrenched at Poggibonsi, marched against that town with the French contingent and the Guelphs of the _Taglia_, and began preparations for a regular siege. At the same time King Charles entered Florence, and was naturally welcomed with great joy. All the chief citizens went forth to meet him, with the _Carroccio_, as a sign of the highest honour, and after spending a festal week in the city and raising several persons to the knighthood, the king repaired to the camp before Poggibonsi. The siege lasted four months, and then, towards the middle of December, 1267, the stronghold was driven to surrender by famine. Charles left a Podestà there to govern in his name, and began to build a fortress, providing for that expense, in his accustomed way, by levying heavy taxes from the cities of the League. Florence had to contribute 1,992 _lire_. After this, the army was immediately marched against Pisa. The reduction of this powerful and warlike republic proved no easy task; the king had to be satisfied for the time with humiliating it, by seizing Porto Pisano and levelling the towers there. In February, 1268, he repaired to Lucca, and marching thence to the siege of Mutrone, captured that castle and gave it to the Lucchese. Thus, by a series of small victories, which, although of slight importance, were achieved with dazzling rapidity, he greatly raised the authority and prestige of the Guelph party, which had not only contributed troops to the war, but borne its entire expense, granting all the large sums of money continually demanded by their imperious protector. In fact, by the end of February, 1268, Florence alone had disbursed no less than seventy-two thousand _lire_, twenty thousand of which were devoted to the reduction of Poggibonsi, although Charles had not fulfilled his promise of erecting a fortress there. But at this moment a war-cry was raised, stirring all Italy to alarm, and the monarch was suddenly threatened by so imminent a peril, that after some hesitation he was compelled to decide on flying to the defence of the Neapolitan kingdom. II. Prince Conradin, son of Conrad, and grandson of Frederic II., was the last representative of the Suabian line in Germany, and the last hope of the Ghibellines in Italy. He was rightful heir to the crown of Naples that Charles of Anjou had forcibly usurped; and in many quarters he was regarded as the future emperor of Germany. On attaining the age of fifteen years, numerous exiles, from Naples, Sicily and other parts of Italy, sought his presence, imploring him to reconquer his kingdom and restore the Imperial party in Italy. Conradin was a youth of precocious intelligence, full of ardour and ambition; so, fired by this flash of hope, he instantly resolved to cross the Alps. Selling what little property remained to him, and collecting the most devoted of his adherents, he gathered a small army and entered Verona on the 20th of October, with three thousand horse and a considerable number of infantry. From this city he despatched letters to all the Christian powers, recounting his misfortunes: the injuries inflicted on him by the usurpation of King Charles and the hatred of Pope Urban IV., who, not content with summoning a French pretender to trample on the Imperial rights, had gone to the length of excommunicating the legitimate heirs of the Empire itself. By way of reply, Pope Clement now renewed the sentence of excommunication on Conradin, tried to stir all the powers against him by means of violent and venomous epistles; and wrote pressingly to Charles, now waiting to give battle in Tuscany, bidding him hasten to defend his kingdom from the threatened and imminent danger. In fact, the Ghibelline movement was now spreading throughout Italy. Pisa and Sienna were roused to great hopes, for the cities of Romagna, Naples, and especially of Sicily, had all risen against the French. By April, 1268, Conradin was already in Pisa with his army, and numerous adherents flocked to his standard, although the emptiness of his purse had caused some of the Germans to desert. By this time Charles had reached Naples, was making preparations for defence, and laying siege to Lucera, where Manfred's Saracens had hoisted the Suabian flag. Conradin was ready to fly thither, without even halting in Tuscany to encourage the cities revolted in his favour. Pisa and Sienna openly sided with him; Poggibonsi had promptly thrown off the Florentine yoke; and other places were preparing to do the same. Meanwhile, the German troops at once directed their march on Rome, where the Senator Errico of Castile was awaiting them. The French in Florence sallied forth to intercept their passage, but were driven back with heavy loss, to the great encouragement of Conradin and his followers. But the prince's fate was to be decided by the battle of Tagliacozzo, fought near the banks of the Salto on August 23, 1268. At the beginning of the engagement Charles's inferior forces seemed almost routed, so that the German horse rode forward on all sides in pursuit. But while all were scattered, riding down and pillaging their retreating foes, Charles suddenly fell on them with the reserve of eight hundred horse he had kept in ambush, and quickly turned the fortunes of the day. The same evening, in a frenzy of delight, he announced his victory to the Pope, who was equally exultant. The prisoners were treated with unparalleled cruelty, being mutilated, beheaded, or even burnt alive. Conradin escaped with about five hundred men, and escorted by Henry of Austria, Galvano Lancia, Count Gherardo Donatico of Pisa, and other devoted friends, made for Rome. But being then deserted by most of his followers, he had to fly to the Maremma and seek shelter in the Castle of Astura. But here, by the sea, when on the point of embarking for Sicily with a handful of friends, he was seized by Giovanni Frangipani, lord of Astura, who handed him over to Charles, and was rewarded by grants of land. The French monarch hastened to manifest his joy by renewed acts of cruelty. It is said that one of the towers of Corneto was garlanded with the corpses of some of the most distinguished and valiant Ghibellines. In all the Neapolitan cities he excited the populace to the fiercest excesses against the nobles of Conradin's party. And his ministers in Sicily outrivalled one another in ferocity, for it is said that, among other barbarities, so many unhappy Sicilians were put to death in one day at Augusta, that the executioner became exhausted with fatigue, and wine was poured down his throat to give him strength to continue the slaughter. But the king's ferocious mind was chiefly devoted to considering what should be Conradin's fate. To murder thousands of fellow Christians, and let them die amid the worst torments, was a matter of very slight consequence to him; but where a victim of royal and Imperial blood was in question, he felt obliged to hesitate a little. In fact, it is said that he sought counsel from the Pope; but then, without waiting the reply, he sought to give an honest colour to his revenge by investing it with a false air of legality. He presumed to treat the rival whose throne he had usurped as one who had rebelled against a legitimate sovereign, and to treat a prisoner of war as a criminal guilty of high treason, and justly responsible for all the excesses of the German soldiery during the campaign. Yet, although the tribunal consisted of foes of the Hohenstauffen selected by the king, some of its members spoke nobly in Conradin's defence. It was affirmed that Guido du Suzzara, a juris-consult of Emilia, renowned in his day, pleaded the youthfulness of the accused, his belief in his own right to the Neapolitan crown, the motives of the campaign. It was also reported that many of the judges remained silent, and that one alone openly declared against the prisoner. But all was in vain. Charles, who had already put some of the barons to death, and forced one of them, Count Galvano Lancia, to witness the strangling of his own son before being executed, never intended the trial to be more than a sham, so, choosing to interpret the judges' silence as a sign of consent to the prince's death, gave sentence accordingly. The verdict was communicated to Conradin in prison while he was playing chess with his cousin Frederic of Austria. On October 29, 1268, both were led to the scaffold on the Market Place at Naples. The protonotary Roberto di Bari, counsel for the prosecution, read the sentence aloud, in the presence of the exultant King Charles. It is asserted that even many of the French were stirred to rage and humiliation by this cruel scene. An immense throng filled the Piazza, and many fell on their knees touched with pity. Conradin removed his cloak, glanced at the silent people, threw his glove to them, as an augury of vengeance in time to come, and then submitted his neck to the axe. Thus died the Emperor Frederic's heir, the last of the Suabian line. Frederic of Austria tried to kiss his cousin's head, but was instantly seized by the executioner and put to the same death. Many details, either historical or legendary, are added by the chroniclers in describing this dismal tragedy. Although a Guelph, Villani believed the false rumour (vii. 29) to the effect that Count Robert of Flanders, son-in-law to Charles, on hearing the sentence read by di Bari, was moved to such fury that he drew his sword and slew the protonotary forthwith before the king's eyes. At least, this tale serves to show what was the general impression produced by the deed. Opinions vary as to the Pope's share in the tragedy. It is certain that he beheld it in silence.[304] III. Although these events excited general and very severe condemnation in Italy, they wrought immediate benefit to Charles and the Guelphs. The Florentines profited by the opportunity to launch new sentences against the Ghibellines, and shortly afterwards prepared to make fresh attacks on their neighbours, and particularly on Sienna. For they still yearned to avenge the defeat at Montaperti, and were now additionally irritated by seeing their exiles again flocking to Sienna, and heartily welcomed there. They also held that city responsible for the recent revolt of Poggibonsi, and their action in devastating the latter's territory sufficed to start hostilities afresh. The hopes of the Siennese had been greatly inflamed by Conradin's passage, and even now they were not disposed to be easily worsted. The chief ruler of the city was still Provenzano Salvani, one of those who had advised the battle of Montaperti and given notable proofs of valour in the fight. Since then his fame had been increased by many noble deeds. It was said that when a friend of his was seized by King Charles and condemned to pay a fine of ten thousand crowns in exchange for his life, Provenzano came to the rescue, and as neither he nor the prisoner's kindred could contrive to pay the ransom, he stretched a carpet on the Piazza and stood there, asking public alms for his friend until the required sum was collected. Consequently he had great influence with the people, was a Ghibelline and the declared enemy of Florence. Sienna likewise contained a considerable number of Spaniards and Germans, old soldiers of the Ghibelline wars, and there was also Count Guido Novello, who, although of little worth, continually agitated in favour of hostilities. Thus an army was recruited, consisting, Villani says, of fourteen hundred horse and eight thousand foot, and this force besieged the Castle of Colle in Val d'Elsa, as a reprisal for the devastation of Poggibonsi. Thereupon the Florentines took the field with a small body of infantry, led by the vicar of King Charles, and eight hundred horse, and notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers advanced against the Siennese, gave them battle (June 17, 1269), and achieved their defeat. Count Guido Novello secured his safety, as usual, by flight; but Provenzano Salvani justified his fame by dying sword in hand. His head was carried round the field on the point of a spear. This was the fulfilment of a prophecy made to him before the battle: "Thy head shall be the highest in the field," although he had interpreted the saying as an omen of success. The Siennese received no quarter from their foes, who returned home in triumph, and thinking they had now avenged the rout of Montaperti, began negotiations for peace. The first condition exacted was that Sienna should no longer harbour Ghibelline refugees, who, in fact, were soon compelled to depart and wander from place to place, everywhere exposed to persecution and cruelty. Among others were the Pazzi, who, having excited the Castle of Ostina to revolt, were seized and hacked to pieces. After a devastating raid on Pisan territory, executed by the Florentines and Lucchese, Pisa signed a treaty of peace with Charles in April, 1270. Florence herself concluded an alliance with that republic on the 2nd of May, stipulating almost the identical terms and the same politico-commercial agreements previously arranged by the peace of 1256.[305] Just at that time Azzolino, Neracozzo, and Conticino degli Uberti, together with a knight named Bindo dei Grifoni, left Sienna to take refuge in the Casentino, and were captured by the Florentines on the way. The latter asked Charles what should be done with these prisoners, and he replied, that they were to be punished as traitors, save Conticino the youngest, who was to be sent to him. The others were speedily beheaded, by order of the Podestà Berardino d'Ariano (May 8, 1270). It is related that on nearing the scaffold Neracozzo said to Azzolino: "Whither are we going?" To which his kinsman quietly replied: "To pay a debt bequeathed us by our fathers." Conticino perished in a Capuan dungeon. This instance clearly proves the great supremacy exercised by Charles over the Commonwealth. But the Florentines were willing to tolerate anything from him in order to assure their predominance in Tuscany by his help, and restore the prestige of the Guelph party. The latter aim was already practically achieved, for all Tuscany now adhered to the Guelphs, and both old and recent injuries had been avenged. At this time Florence also demolished the Castle of Pian di Mezzo in the Val d'Arno and razed the walls of Poggibonsi. Meanwhile, however, the power of the Angevins had swelled to a formidable extent. Charles was firmly established on the Neapolitan throne; and during the interregnum had been nominated by the Popes senator of Rome and vicar-imperial of Romagna as well as Tuscany. Accordingly, while restoring the strength of the Guelph party, he had notably aggrandised his own authority. His lurking ambition to be master of all Italy was now clearly discernible, and accordingly the Florentines began to kick against his perpetual interference, and to object to every commune being subject to a Podestà of his choice exercising absolute judicial power in his name and under his authority. And as though this were not enough, there was also a royal marshal or vicar in Tuscany who jointly with the rest perpetually harassed the city by threatening demands for fresh subsidies. But even greater than elsewhere was the jealousy excited in Rome. The Popes had summoned the Angevins to the overthrow of the Suabians, less on account of these being Ghibellines, those Guelphs, than because the Suabians had entertained the identical ambition that Charles was now beginning to conceive. Accordingly, there was now the same motive for combating him. Niccolò Machiavelli has often repeated that the Popes "always feared every one who rose to great power in Italy, albeit his power was exercised by favour of the Church. And inasmuch as they [the Popes] sought to lower that power, frequent tumults would arise and frequent changes of power, since fear of a tyrant led to the exaltation of some feebler personage, and then, as his power became increased, he in turn was feared, and, being feared, his overthrow was desired. Thus, the government taken from Manfred was conceded to Charles; thus, later, when he excited fear, his ruin likewise was planned."[306] In fact, Urban IV. had invited Charles to seize the kingdom of Naples; Clement IV. had named him his vicar; Gregory X. was now beginning to oppose him, and succeeding pontiffs followed his example. Thus three different political games were now being played in Central Italy: the Angevins already yearning for the dominion of Italy; the Florentines scheming to use the French monarch's power to assure their own predominance in Tuscany; and the Popes seeking to check the king's ambition and resume their former supremacy over that state. IV. The first sign of this alteration in the Papal policy was quickly detected by Florence, although Rome used every device to conceal the real cause and object of the change; and, indeed, to prevent its change of purpose from appearing on the surface. Gregory X. began by expressing regret that a city so rich and powerful as Florence should still be divided by the party strife of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. He desired to see them at peace. No wish should have seemed more natural on the part of the Head of the Church; but it roused the king's suspicions to find the Pope suddenly inflamed by such unusual compassion towards the Ghibellines. His distrust was heightened on seeing how cheerfully the Florentines accepted the proposals of the Pope. They had already shown signs of wishing to shake off the royal yoke by requesting the king to give them an Italian Podestà, as their statutes required, and already in January, 1270,[307] he had felt obliged to make this concession in a graciously worded decree. Instantly divining the real intention of Rome, the Florentines now understood that the moment had come to second it for their own advantage. They were all the more willing to do so not only to impose a check on the growing tyranny of the king, but in order to remedy another evil wrought by his supremacy in Florence. Charles was always surrounded by his own barons and captains, whose foreign presence was unwelcome, and by Guelph nobles and knights not only of Tuscany, but from other parts of Italy as well. In Florence he constantly favoured the old Guelph nobility, and on every visit to the city created new knights. Thus, ennobled Guelph merchants were joined to the other aristocrats, and assuming the rank of _grandi_, soon became opposed to the people, and revived the old antipathy of the Florentine democrats, who, just as they had rebelled in past times against the feudal pride of the Ghibellines, now refused to tolerate that of the old and new Guelph patriciate. Therefore it was necessary to curb the _grandi_ at any cost, and it seemed the wisest plan to recall the Ghibellines, who were equally opposed to them and the king. Thus the people would be strengthened by the division of the nobles, and the latter, by quarrelling among themselves, would lessen the number of those most subservient to Charles. The king, however, could not be blind to the hidden purpose of these intrigues, and was quite awake to the Pope's real intentions. He knew that the latter was now urging the Germans to elect Rudolf of Hapsburg as King of the Romans, in order to put an end to the Imperial interregnum, and consequently to his own tenure of the vicariate. Why should the Pope desire the election of an emperor save for the purpose of weakening the Angevin power? Meanwhile both pontiff and king preserved a feint of amity, and seemed to be on the best possible terms, although their mutual distrust continually flashed forth. Gregory X. had decreed the convocation of a Council at Lyons in 1274 in order to promote a crusade against the infidels; and reaching Florence on June 18, 1273, suspended his journey for awhile for the purpose, as he said, of re-establishing the general peace. He arrived with his whole train of cardinals and prelates, accompanied by the Emperor of Byzantium, Baldwin II., who came to ask Christian aid against the Infidel, and escorted by Charles of Anjou, whose sense of the honour due to the pontiff, so he said, forbade leaving him alone in Florence. And as the Pope found the city to his liking, he decided to spend the whole summer there. The 2nd of July was the day fixed for the solemn reconciliation of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the syndics, or leaders, of either party were gathered in the town. On the waste of dry sand in the bed of the Arno by the Ponte alle Grazie wooden platforms had been erected, and here the Pope, the Emperor Baldwin, and Charles of Anjou were seated in state. The oath of peace was sworn in the presence of a great throng of spectators; the syndics exchanged kisses, and the Pope gave his benediction, threatening excommunication on all who should dare to break the peace. Both sides gave hostages and yielded castles as pledges of faith, and everything seemed to be arranged in accordance with the benevolent intentions of the Pope. The Holy Father was lodged in the palace of his bankers, the Mozzi, Baldwin in that of the bishop, while Charles occupied several houses in the Frescobaldi gardens. There was now time to enjoy life in Florence before the return of the banished Ghibellines and the festivals to be given in their honour. But suddenly it was learnt that the Ghibelline syndics, instead of carrying out the concluding terms of the peace, had hastily fled from Florence. And the reason alleged for this was, that the king's vicar had sent them an intimation that unless they left the city without delay, he would have them all cut to pieces at the request of the Guelph nobles. Thereupon the Pope instantly set out for the Mugello, much enraged not only with the king, but even more with the Florentines for their indifference to the whole farce, and he punished their violation of the oath by pronouncing an interdict on the city. Meanwhile Charles continued his aggressive policy with regard to the Ghibellines, and was seconded by the Florentines, who marched out under the banner of the Commune, sometimes alone, but oftener in junction with the French cavalry, to impose peace and assure the triumph of their party in all the neighbouring towns. But their arrogant daring was sometimes pushed too far. When the Ghibellines were expelled from Bölogna, the Florentines immediately set out to proffer their unrequested aid to that city. But, much to their amazement, on reaching the banks of the Reno, they found the Bölognese waiting to drive them back. The latter had achieved their purpose of banishing the Ghibellines, but had no intention of allowing the haughty Florentines to come to disseminate their own party rancours under pretence of assisting the city. The Podestà of the Florentines was killed in trying to push through the opposing force, and the humiliated expedition had to retrace its steps (1274). They were more fortunate with regard to Pisa. That city, being torn by party strife, had banished Giovanni Visconti, judge of Gallura, and Count Ugolino della Gherardesca di Donoratico, two ambitious Ghibelline nobles, who, deserting their own for the Guelph cause, applied to the Florentines for help. They immediately granted it, and joining forces with their new friends and the French, invaded the territories of their old rival, capturing the Castle of Asciano in September, 1275. The following June, at the instigation of the same exiled nobles, they resumed hostilities with a larger army, aided by the Lucchese and other Guelphs, and accompanied by the king's marshal. Again victorious, they compelled Pisa to make peace on June 13, 1276, and recall her exiles, especially the Count Ugolino, whose ambition was destined to bring fatal consequences on himself and his native town. Meanwhile Pope Gregory had returned from Lyons and reached Tuscany in December, 1275. Still highly irritated against Florence, he refused to enter its gates; but as the Arno was too swollen to be fordable, he was obliged to cross one of its bridges, and therefore raised the interdict from the city, although only during the time required for his passage. His death took place shortly afterwards, January 10, 1276, and in a single year three new Popes rapidly succeeded him: Innocent V., Adrian V., and John XXI. Then, on November 25, 1277, Nicholas III. was elected to the pontifical Chair, and during his three years' reign followed the same policy pursued by Gregory X., and with even greater zeal. Full of haughtiness and ambition, Nicholas sought to aggrandise his own family as well as the Papal power. He renewed the scandalous practice of nepotism and simony by making some of his kinsmen cardinals and appointing others to high offices of the State. But on trying to negotiate the marriage of one of his nieces with a nephew of King Charles, the latter mortally wounded his pride by the reply, that although the Pope had crimson hose, his blood had not been sufficiently ennobled to be mixed with that of French royalty.[308] Nicholas III., already disgusted with the king, and suspicious of his motives, could not easily pardon this affront. Hence he seized the first opportunity to let Charles know that although Rudolf of Hapsburg had not yet been crowned emperor in Rome, he had been already elected king of the Romans in Germany, and that accordingly it was no longer needful for Charles to fill the post of vicar-imperial, only granted him during the interregnum. Thus the French monarch was finally compelled to resign the vicariate of Tuscany, the title of Roman Senator, and even his jurisdiction over Romagna and the Marches, that had been partly accorded to, partly usurped by him. Perceiving that there was no possibility of evading this blow, the king instantly yielded the point without showing the slightest resentment, so that the Pope was driven to declare: "This prince may have inherited his fortune from the House of France, his cunning from Spain, but his shrewdness of address could only have been acquired by frequenting the Court of Rome."[309] Nevertheless, he was not in the least deceived by the king's apparent calmness, and neglected no chance of diminishing his power and aggrandising that of the Holy See. Thus, when Giovanni da Procida was going through Italy seeking help for the Sicilian revolution that was soon to burst forth, he received encouragement from the Pope. Then, after showing much favour to Rudolph of Hapsburg, Nicholas profited by the occasion to obtain his sanction for extending the states of the Church as far as the Neapolitan frontier on one side, and for including the March of Ancona, Romagna and the Pentapolis on the other. And down to our own day the states of the Church preserved these boundaries almost unaltered. Although at the time, the domination of the Popes was chiefly nominal over part of this territory, yet by dint of insistence they gradually achieved practical supremacy over the whole of it. V. As a first step in this direction, Nicholas III. sent his nephew, Cardinal Latino de' Frangipani, to establish peace in Romagna. As a Dominican monk, Frangipani had shown great powers of oratory, and was therefore fitted to enforce the new authority of the Church. Count Bertoldo Orsini was also sent with him. After a short stay in Romagna, the cardinal was transferred to Florence to renew with better success the reconciliation of hostile parties Gregory X. had failed to conclude. Now, however, the Florentines themselves seemed really desirous of peace. Although freed from the too oppressive protection of King Charles, they still suffered from the evil results of his policy. The _grandi_, turbulent as ever, and with increased numbers and strength, were threatening division even among the Guelphs. Villani says of them that, "Resting from victories and honours won in wars abroad, and fattening on the lands of exiled Ghibellines and other fruits of enterprise, they began from pride and envy to fall out with one another; so that many quarrels and feuds arose among the citizens of Florence, and much killing and wounding."[310] First the Adimari began to stir riots from hatred against the Tosinghi, next the Pazzi and Donati came to blows; and this was seen to be a prelude to greater evils. Accordingly the Guelphs sent messengers to the Pope, praying him to send some one to pacify the city, unless he wished to see the party divided against itself. The Ghibellines seemed equally anxious for peace. They were weary of prolonged exile and continual confiscation of their property, and cherished hopes that the popular hatred, being now inflamed against the Guelph nobles, would be softened towards themselves.[311] Accordingly Cardinal Latino entered Florence on October 8, 1279, with three hundred knights and prelates in his train, and was received with every token of honour. The Florentine clergy went to meet him in procession, and the Republic sent forth the _Carroccio_ with a great number of standard-bearers. Being a Dominican, he was lodged in the monastery of Santa Maria Novella, and laid the first stone of the celebrated church of that name. He immediately began the negotiations for the arrangement of peace. On the 19th of November platforms were raised in the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella Vecchia, and the parliament being assembled there in the presence of the magistrates and councils, the cardinal asked and obtained the power of concluding peace with the same authority possessed by the people--that is to say, the right of imposing fines, decreeing confiscations, and occupying castles, to guarantee the due performance of the terms about to be sworn. He next essayed to reconcile the bitterest foes: Guelphs who had come to a rupture, quarrelsome Ghibellines, and hostile Guelphs and Ghibellines. All went well until he came to the Buondelmonti and Uberti, whose ancient hatred was too deeply rooted. It was impossible to persuade them to be reconciled, for some of them indignantly rejected the proposal. Hence the Cardinal had to decree their excommunication, and banish the more obstinate from the Commune. Finally, January 18, 1280, was fixed for the conclusion of the general peace. Great preparations for the ceremony were made in the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella Vecchia; the platforms were hung with tapestries, and the whole square carpeted with cloth. Hither came the Twelve, the Podestà, the Captain of the people (then styled Captain of the mass of the Guelph party), and their councils, together with all the rest of the magistrates, and a great concourse of spectators. Lastly came the cardinal with his attendant prelates, and the general excitement was heightened by the expectation of his speech, since he was known to be one of the most eloquent orators of his time. He gave an address on the merit and necessity of making peace, and finally the treaty was read aloud. It was to put an end to all the old hatreds; it stipulated the restitution of confiscated property to the Ghibellines, with some interest on the capital; all sentences, oaths, leagues, and associations made by the one party to the hurt of the other were declared null and void, and every clause of the statutes tending to the perpetuation of strife was to be cancelled. Either party was to furnish fifty sureties, and bound to forfeit the sum of fifty thousand silver marks, in case of any violation of the peace. As an additional guarantee certain castles were to be given up, and the right was reserved of demanding more hostages should occasion require. Then came a long string of minute stipulations, all directed to the same end. Many of the chief families were to be confined to fixed places until they made peace with their foes and gave money and hostages in pledge of good faith. The delegates of both parties kissed one another on the mouth, the documents of the treaty were solemnly registered, and party decrees of banishment and other sentences cancelled or burnt. The exiles were authorised to return; and, without prejudice to the functions of the Podestà, the captains, and guild-masters, were charged with the strict maintenance of the terms of peace. For this reason the Captain was no longer to be entitled Captain of the Guelph party, but Captain of the city and conservator of peace. Also, the office of vicar-imperial granted to Charles having now lapsed, it was decreed that henceforward the Podestà and Captain were to be nominated for two years by the Pope, and have each the command of fifty horse and fifty foot soldiers. After two years the right of election would be resumed by the people, provided their nominees were not opposed to, but actually approved by, the Head of the Church. Each Captain would then have the command of one hundred horse and one hundred foot, but, for the better preservation of peace, the said troops must neither be citizens nor natives of the territory. The guilds were likewise sworn to assist in maintaining peace. It was farther decreed that the statutes should be revised, the government of the city reformed, and an estimate made of the property of all persons who had been condemned to pay fines or damages.[312] This would seem to show that the cardinal was almost in the position of a provisional dictator, with arbitrary power of decision. But he first consulted the magistrates as to many clauses proposed by him, while regarding other conditions of the agreement the Florentines obeyed them or not as they chose. The people desired peace for the reasons we have already described and the cardinal was therefore given full powers to conclude it on his own authority and that of the Church. But his success was far more apparent than real. In fact, the constitution of the Guelph party remained in force, and as soon as he had gone, the city was again torn by faction strife. He left Florence on April 24, 1280, after receiving a recompense of "mille floreni auri in pecunia numerata, et alie zoie empte pro Comuni Florentie." Nevertheless, during February and the beginning of March, he was so satisfied with his imagined success as to attempt the reconciliation of many adversaries confined to fixed domiciles. He likewise tried to give effect to the constitutional reforms prescribed by the peace; above all, that of replacing the twelve worthies by fourteen "good men," composed of eight Guelphs and six Ghibellines. These functionaries, in co-operation with the Captains and the councils, formed the government of the city, and were changed every second month. Nevertheless, the Podestà and Captain remained in office for one year more. The authority of the Podestà, as the nominee of King Charles, had been much diminished under the latter's rule; accordingly increased powers were now conferred on the Captain and Twelve, and the latter being augmented to fourteen,[313] constituted the supreme power or Signory of Florence. This custom of changing the Signory every second month--a custom maintained to the close of the Republic--has given rise to much discussion. Certainly, this rapid mutation of the highest power in the State could not be favourable to peace; but, as we have had frequent occasion to note, the new constitution of the guilds had reduced the attributes of the central government to a minimum. Besides, the manifest tendency of all Italian republics to degenerate into despotism made the Florentines distrustful of any Signory of longer duration. Now, too, the Ghibellines having returned, there was special cause to fear that the government might be induced to conspire in favour of some ambitious personage disposed to play the tyrant at a moment's notice. For these reasons, it was decided on the one hand to lessen the authority of the Podestà, and on the other to frequently change not only the heads of the government but even, as will be seen, other political functionaries as well. Later on, election by ballot was adopted as another means of preventing the carrying out of any prearranged design against freedom.[314] VI. Meanwhile the King of the Romans was sending his vicar to Italy, with an escort of three hundred men only, to ascertain the temper of the land, and whether the cities still acknowledged the suzerainty of the Empire. On arriving in Tuscany, the vicar made halt at San Miniato al Tedesco, and found the Pisans still Ghibellines, and eager to swear fealty. But when the other Tuscan cities refused to recognise the rights of the Empire the Florentines corrupted the vicar with bribes, and, showing him the futility of his mission, persuaded him to depart acknowledging the force of the privileges granted them by the Pope. Thus they dexterously contrived to make the altered policy of Rome a means of advancing their own interests and damaging those of King Charles, whose power over Central Italy was entirely lost. By once more calling the Empire to the front, and encouraging Rudolph of Hapsburg to assert himself against Charles, Nicholas III. succeeded in weakening both, while giving new strength to the Papacy. So, too, with equal sagacity, the Florentines had made use of the king to dominate Tuscany; of the Pope to enfeeble the king; and, finally, of both to avoid yielding submission to Rudolph. Nicholas III. died in 1280. He had compelled Charles to leave Tuscany, and be satisfied with receiving from Rudolph the investiture of Provence and the kingdom of Naples. To render this agreement more binding, by means of a family alliance, Rudolph gave his daughter in marriage to a grandson of King Charles. But naturally the latter accepted the arrangement most reluctantly, and took every opportunity of secretly exciting the Tuscan Guelphs against the Ghibellines, who were again coming to the front. Also, having learnt by his own experience the serious difference between having the Popes as friends or as foes, he hastened to Orvieto, where the new conclave was sitting, determined to use every means to procure the election of some candidate favouring his views. As usual, he pursued this purpose unhesitatingly and without scruple. Perceiving that the cardinals were temporising, and dreading the consequences of delay, he excited a revolt, during which the populace captured two cardinals of the Orsini house, relations of the deceased Pope, and decidedly opposed to the Angevin interests. After this event the election took place, and on February 22, 1281, Martin IV. was proclaimed. The new pontiff was French, and being very friendly to Charles, immediately undertook to forward his policy and support the Guelphs. But the general conditions of Italy were much changed, and therefore the king's triumph at Orvieto failed to prevent the consequences entailed by his cruelty in Naples, and by the policy of Nicholas III. from producing their natural effect. The latter's agreement with Rudolph was ratified by the new Pope, who counselled the cities of Italy to accord a hearty welcome to the emperor's daughter, when she came as the bride of the king's nephew. Even Florence was obliged to give the princess an honourable reception, although she was accompanied by an Imperial vicar, who, as usual, abode at San Miniato, in order to attempt to resuscitate the rights of the Empire in Tuscany. But a far graver change occurred in March, 1282, when the Sicilians, wearied of misgovernment, at last snatched up the gauntlet thrown by Conradin to the people, and with the sanguinary revolt of the Vespers began the long and glorious war that was to free Sicily for ever from the Angevin yoke. In order to keep faith with the Guelph party and avoid unnecessarily irritating the Pope or the king, the Florentines sent five hundred horse to the latter's aid; and this contingent, commanded by Count Guido di Battifolle of the Guidi house, and bearing the banner of Florence, took part in the siege of Messina. But the revolution was everywhere triumphant; the Florentines shared in the general defeat, and had to return, leaving their flag in the enemy's hands. The island was inevitably lost to the French. Even before the outbreak of the Sicilian Vespers the Florentines had naturally begun to be on the alert and watchful of their own interests. Noting that the vicar was only attended by a small force, and gained few adherents, they soon tried to win him with gold, and succeeded in persuading him to leave the country after confirming the concessions previously granted to them. At the same time, profiting by the emperor's weakness in consequence of troubles at home, and by the fact of Charles being at a distance in Naples and already gravely preoccupied concerning the approaching crisis in Sicily, they seized the opportunity to make some constitutional reforms. First of all, now that the Podestà and Captain were no longer elected by the king, but named instead by the Pope, they decided to grant them ampler powers, in order to keep the city quiet by checking the arrogance of the Ghibellines and tyranny of the _grandi_. Both factions were daily becoming more threatening; and particularly the latter, which cancelled magisterial decrees by absolute force, prevented the laws from being executed, committed murder either directly or indirectly for the sake of party revenge, and kept the city in a perpetual turmoil. It was therefore decreed to allow the Podestà greater freedom of action in the general repression of crime, and give the Captain a larger force with which to maintain order and punish criminals to whom the Podestà might have been too lenient. The _grandi_ were not only bound to swear obedience to the laws, but to give hostages for their good faith; so that even should they succeed in escaping from the city after committing any crime, those who had given surety, or stood hostage for them, would have to suffer in their stead all punishments or fines to which the contumacious were condemned. To ensure the execution of all these decrees a thousand armed men were chosen among the citizens. Of this number two hundred were contributed by the Sesto of St. Piero Scheraggio, as many by that of the Borgo, the four other Sesti each giving 150 men, and then the whole thousand being divided in companies with the banners of the different quarters, or rather _sestieri_ of the city, 450 men were placed at the orders of the Podestà, and 550 under the Captain's command. They bore colours given them by either magistrate in the presence of the public parliament, and whenever the bell rang the signal for their assembly no gatherings of the people were allowed in the city.[315] This reform seemed the more indispensable, seeing that under Charles's rule the employment of citizen soldiers commanded by the gonfaloniers of the guilds had fallen into disuse, and order was maintained by means of foreign troops. Thus the Captain had forfeited much of the authority that it was now sought to restore to him. Now, too, we find the Fourteen empowered to conduct the government without summoning the Council of One Hundred, of which the documents cease to make mention. Owing to this, and also to the lack of concord between the eight Guelph and six Ghibelline members, the authority of the Fourteen, instead of being strengthened, suffered decline. Accordingly, another reform was in course of arrangement, when the outbreak of the Sicilian Vespers gave the Florentines more freedom of action. They had three special objects in view. Firstly, to make the Republic independent of Pope, emperor and king; secondly, to close accounts with the Ghibellines, because they were nobles, and as constant adherents to the Empire supported its pretensions in Tuscany; thirdly, to lower the pride of the _grandi_, whether Guelphs or Ghibellines, because their tyrannous deeds kept the city in continual disturbance. This, indeed, was one reason why the terms of Cardinal Latino's peace were no longer observed; and why, above all, the promised indemnities to injured Ghibellines had never been paid. Also, on February 8, 1282, a Guelphic League was concluded with Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, Volterra, and Sienna, whose adherence was compulsory; and San Gimignano, Colle, and Poggibonsi were also given permission to join. The members of the League swore to remain united ten years for the common defence, and were each pledged to hire five hundred horse with the customary number of squires. Also, as usual, the allies joined in a species of convention touching the exchange and passage of merchandise. But the most important point for Florence was the internal reform of the city. All the guilds, and especially some of greater, were becoming more strongly organised, and acquiring increased political influence. In fact, the _capitudini_, or guild-masters, figure more frequently in the public records, side by side with the Fourteen, the Captain, and Podestà. It is at this period (1282-3) that we even find mentioned a _Defensor Artificum et Artium_, together with two councils, an indubitable sign of the growing power of the guilds.[316] For, although the _Defensor_ disappears later on, and his office is deputed to the Captain, this change only occurred when the government of the Republic was actually carried on by the guilds. Meanwhile they already shared in the election of the Fourteen, and aided them with their advice. The chroniclers tell us that by a reform enacted in June, 1282, the priors of the guilds were finally raised to office in place of the Fourteen; but in fact the change happened less suddenly than might be inferred from their account of the matter. For we find that--as was always the case with Florentine reforms--the Fourteen continued to govern in co-operation with the new priors, until, overshadowed by the growing importance of the latter, they gradually disappeared altogether. It is certain that on June 15, 1282, three _Priors of the Arts_ were made chiefs of the Republic--namely, the priors of the Calimala, Money Changers, and Woollen Guilds. They were attended by six guards (_berrovieri_), and had six heralds to summon the citizens to council; they dwelt in the Badia, without leaving it during their whole term of office, and generally deliberated in junction with the captain. The Fourteen remained in office with them for some time longer, but chiefly _pro forma_.[317] After the first two months it was deemed necessary to increase the number of the priors, not only because three were found to be insufficient; but also being necessarily chosen from one or the other half of the six _sestieri_, they invariably seemed to represent one division only of the citizens. Accordingly, to avoid delay, in the August of the same year, the three guilds of Doctors and Druggists, Silkweavers and Mercers, Skinners and Furriers, were added to the original number. Other guilds also were subsequently added, but the number of the priors remained restricted to six, one for each _sestiere_. Compagni says that "their laws [or functions] consisted in guarding the property of the Commune, and in seeing that the signories did justice to every one, and that petty and feeble folk were not oppressed by the great and powerful."[318] At the end of their two months' term the priors, assisted by the guild-masters and a few additional citizens, designated as _arroti_, elected their own successors to office. Villani affirms that the title of prior was derived from a verse of the Gospel, where Christ says to His disciples, "Vos estis priores." What is certain is that by means of this reform the guilds, or rather commerce and trade, had the whole government of the Republic in their hands; and it should also be noted that although the above-mentioned guilds, together with that of the jurists and notaries, constituted the seven greater arts, yet the legal guild--perhaps because it represented neither industry nor commerce--is left unnoticed by the chroniclers at this point. Henceforward the Commonwealth is a true republic of traders, and only to be governed by members of the guilds. Every title of nobility, whether old or new, becomes an impediment rather than a privilege. Consequently many of the principal families began to change their names in order to disguise their former rank. The Tornaquinci divided into Popoleschi, Tornabuoni, Giachinotti, &c.; the Cavalcanti became Malatesti and Ciampoli; and others assumed fresh names.[319] Nevertheless, many proudly clung to their ancient appellations and titles; and when King Charles' son, the Prince of Salerno, was summoned to Naples from Provence, he halted in Florence by the way on purpose to imitate his father by creating new knights. By these artificial devices it was hoped to give new strength to an aristocracy that was doomed to decline by the natural course of events; but the means employed were too utterly opposed to the political and social temper of Florence to have the slightest success there. No longer fettered by Pope and emperor, and emancipated from the oppressive patronage of King Charles, who was now absorbed in Sicilian matters, the Florentines had organised the constitution in the manner that suited them best, and by entrusting the greater guilds with the management of the State gained a real predominance in Tuscany that they turned most skilfully to account for the extension of their trade. The politico-commercial league, concluded in March, 1282, to which we have already alluded, proved most beneficial to their interests, and the subjection of neighbouring towns and territories was another means to the same end. Nevertheless, the two Ghibelline cities of Arezzo and Pisa still remained hostile to Florence. The former was a threatening presence in the upper Val d'Arno, while the latter, with its wealth, power, and command of the sea, was a danger to the lower valley, and, standing on the road to Leghorn and Porto Pisano, was an obstruction to the maritime trade of Florence. Hence it was obvious that sooner or later the Republic would be forced to combine with friendly neighbours and new allies against both these foes, and especially against Pisa. Free access to the sea-board was more indispensable than ever to the Florentine trade, and should Pisa continue to block the way, the Republic would reap nothing from the successes it had already achieved. Meanwhile the Florentines enjoyed the benefits of peace for two quiet years. During this time Charles' son, the Prince of Salerno, and other members of the royal house were received in the city with all due pomp and parade. In March, 1283, the king came in person to Florence on his way to Bordeaux, where he was to engage in single combat with Peter of Aragon, who had been proclaimed Lord of Sicily by the people of the island. By this much-talked-of duel, that never took place, the war desolating Southern Italy was to be brought to an end. Even on this occasion the king, although noisily welcomed in Florence, and probably oppressed by grave anxiety, insisted on creating more knights, regardless of the trouble he caused to the people. Nevertheless, after he had gone, the merrymakings were continued with greater zest than before. On St. John's Day, always a great festival in Florence, a company was formed of a thousand young men, who, clothed in white robes and led by one of their number representing the "Lord of Love,"[320] inaugurated games and diversions of every kind, giving dances in the streets and within doors to persons of all ranks--ladies, knights, and common folk. This Court of Love was in imitation of certain French customs first introduced into Florence by the Angevins. It now numbered three hundred knights, so-called _di corredo_, chiefly created by King Charles, according to the French mode. They gave banquets and had a train of pages, courtiers, and buffoons imported from various parts of Italy and France. But all this was a fruitless attempt to introduce customs opposed to the city's traditions, a childish means of asserting the existence of a new patrician order. The populace was enchanted with these gay doings; but the thriftier citizens at the head of the government, and constituting the real strength of the Republic, highly disapproved of them, and were disgusted to find that after struggling so long to repress the nobility fresh efforts were needed to stamp out its remains. Throughout Tuscany, indeed, fresh warfare was impending, for the Sicilian Vespers seemed to have roused the Imperialists to new vigour. For this reason Corso Donati had declared, at a _consulta_ held on February 26, 1285, that all districts appertaining to the Empire (_de Imperio_) and bordering the Florentine territory were to be subject _ad iurisdictionem Comunis Florentiae_.[321] New agreements were made to this effect with the other Guelph cities.[322] But the most urgent consideration of all was how to overcome the pride and power of Pisa, that obstinately Ghibelline city with whom Florence had always been compelled to struggle, and must now struggle anew. But how was success to be assured? Florence was neither willing nor able to depend on the help of the French king, and even with the combined aid of all its allies could not muster sufficient strength for the enterprise. Therefore much sagacity and diplomatic skill were required in order to multiply the resources of the Republic, and the Florentines proved equal to the occasion. VII. Although the city of Pisa derived all its strength and influence from its maritime trade, nevertheless--either from being always on the Imperial side, or because such was the predestined fate of all Italian sea-board republics--it was dominated by a powerful aristocracy to the same extent as were Genoa and Venice. With their usual astuteness, the Florentines had long sought to bring their influence to bear on the Pisan nobles, in order to create discord among them. Giovanni Visconti, entitled Judge of Gallura, from the high and remunerative post once held by him in Sardinia, as governor of several provinces, for the Pisan Republic, had been subsequently (1274) exiled on account of his Guelph proclivities, and had then joined the vicar of King Charles and the Guelph League against his native state. He died in 1275; and just at that time Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, one of the most powerful and ambitious nobles of Pisa, who aspired to establish a despotism there, was driven into banishment with other formidable Guelphs (1275). These exiles not only made alliance with the Florentines, but, in conjunction with the League, or _Taglia_, made war on Pisa and captured several castles, Vico Pisano included. In the September of the same year they returned to the attack in co-operation with the Angevin vicar-royal, Florentines, and Lucchese, and, defeating their fellow-citizens at three miles' distance from Pisa, seized the Castle of Asciano, which was handed over to the Lucchese. In 1276 the war was resumed by Florence and Lucca, and again at the instigation of Count Ugolino and his friends. This was the occasion alluded to at an earlier page, when both sides brought powerful armies into the field and came to a pitched battle between Pisa and Pontedera, on the banks of the so-called Fosso Arnonico, a canal into which the Pisans had formerly diverted the waters of the Arno for the better defence of their territory. Again the Pisans were worsted, and the bitterness of defeat enhanced by having to accept peace on the terms proposed by Florence, of which the first and hardest condition was the readmittance in their city of all the banished Guelphs, and particularly of the ambitious Count Ugolino, whom they hated so deeply. Pope Gregory X. was highly displeased by this war, and by the ardour and pertinacity with which it was pursued, for he considered the Ghibelline spirit of Pisa a barrier to the growing power of the Florentines, who, in spite of being Guelphs, used every effort to become wholly independent of the Papacy. Wherefore, after vainly enjoining them to put an end to the war, he excommunicated their city. But the Florentines offered slight excuses, and until 1276 paid no attention to his thunders. Then at last peace was declared, but during its very brief duration plans were arranged for new expeditions. After this the Republic of Pisa enjoyed a few tranquil years, and owing to the vastness of its trade and the extension of its colonies, its finances were rapidly restored to their former prosperity. Unfortunately, certain Pisan families had become so powerful by means of their wealth that, no longer satisfied with republican equality, they sought to dominate the internal affairs of the State and direct its foreign policy in favour of their personal ambition rather than of the interests of the State. The Judges of Gallura and Arborea, Counts Ugolino, Fazio, Neri, and Anselmo della Gherardesca, all had their own little courts and men-at-arms after the fashion of princes. Absorbed in covetous rivalries, they distracted the attention of the magistrates from the dangers threatening their republic, and daily becoming graver and more imminent. For, in fact, the strength of the Republic was not only almost exhausted by the continuous attacks of the Guelph League, but for some time past the rivalry of Genoa had been threatening to culminate in a still deadlier strife. As both these maritime cities were Ghibelline, they had every reason to be at peace with each other and combine in defending their interests against the far greater sea power of Venice. But, on the contrary, this only seemed to exasperate their reciprocal jealousy. Their fleets were constantly in collision in Levantine waters. They had a desperate encounter in 1277 near Constantinople and on the Black Sea. It ended in disaster for the Pisans, who had been the assailants, and from that moment they panted for revenge. Nor were opportunities lacking. While the Venetians were asserting absolute dominion over the Adriatic, the Genoese and Pisans, hard by on the Mediterranean, were always crossing each other's tracks, inasmuch as both were engaged in the same trading ventures, and both possessed colonies in the same islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Thus, they were involved in continual conflict. Then, too, as the Guelph League was specially hostile to Pisa, it supplied Genoa with perpetual pretexts for beginning the hostilities which the Florentines were seeking to incite by every political manoeuvre. At last their reciprocal hatred reached so high a pitch that the Pisans themselves were the first to provoke the war. Their burning desire for reprisals was continually kept aflame by the greed of the nobles, who hoped to convert the conflict into a ladder to power, and whose own ambitions were spurred by the crafty encouragement of Florence. Corsica was ruled by a certain Sinucello, bearing the title of Judge of Cinarca. He had been educated in Pisa, and the Republic had assisted him to regain and increase his hereditary possessions in the island. Governing there as a vassal of Pisa, he nevertheless transferred his allegiance to the Genoese, who occupied another part of the island. Later on, after perpetrating every species of cruel and tyrannous deeds, he turned against the Genoese and devastated their Corsican towns. Taking refuge at Pisa, that republic granted him protection as a former vassal, equally regardless of the subsequent treaties, by which he had sworn fealty to Genoa, and of all the barbarities he had committed. Pisa tried to reinstate Sinucello in Corsica by force, but as the Genoese were determined to keep him at a distance, this served to provoke hostilities. In fact, being sent back to the island with 120 horse and 200 foot, he was able to recapture his possessions; but from that moment (1282) the Genoese and Pisan ships were always chasing one another over the Mediterranean in order to engage. Accordingly, from the end of 1282 to the August of 1283, a continual series of sanguinary conflicts took place, sometimes attaining the proportions of real naval battles; and although the Pisans were generally defeated, they always rallied their forces, and prepared to resume the struggle. On one occasion half their fleet perished in a storm; nevertheless, shortly after this (1284) they sent twenty-four galleys to escort Count Fazio to Sardinia, where collisions with the Genoese were of constant occurrence. In fact, on the 1st of May, they encountered the latter's fleet, gave battle, and carried on an obstinate fight that lasted the whole day. Finally, however, the Pisans were beaten off, leaving thirteen galleys and a great number of prisoners in the enemy's hands. Notwithstanding this reverse, the same year witnessed another naval battle between the two republics, that proved one of the most memorable fights on record in the Middle Ages. Genoa, whose victories had cost her dear, caused vessels to be built and equipped in every port of the Riviera; while Pisa, although exhausted by so many conflicts on sea and land, made prodigious efforts of all kinds. By appealing to the patriotism of her noblest families, she elicited a worthy response. The Lanfranchi, a numerous Pisan clan, equipped no less than eleven galleys at their own expense; the Gualandi, Lei, and Gaetani, furnished six; the Sismondi three; the Orlandi four; the Upezzinghi five; the Visconti three; the Moschi two; and other families joined in equipping one. Andrea Morosini, the Venetian, one of the highest naval celebrities of the time, was chosen Podestà, with full powers to make all requisite preparations for the war, and to then assume the chief command of the fleet at sea. Thus both sides sent forth the most formidable armaments to be seen in those times. Genoese writers reckon their vessels to have been ninety-six in number, and those of Pisa seventy-two; whereas Pisan historians reckon their fleet at 103 sail against 130 of the Genoese. At any rate, both are agreed that the Genoese fleet outnumbered the Pisan, and that its superiority was enhanced by the greater skill of its commanders. The two armadas cruised in search of each other for some time, and then tacked about before giving battle, each trying to gain the better position. It is averred that the Pisans sailed to the entrance of the port of Genoa, discharging silver arrows and balls covered with purple cloth, in order to make a display of wealth, after the usage of the time. Anyhow, it is known that some of their galleys were anchored off Porto Pisano, and others lying in the Arno, between the two bridges of the city, when the news came that the Genoese fleet had been sighted. All Pisa was in a turmoil; scattered crews hastened on board, and the archbishop, attended by his clergy, and bearing the banner of the Republic, appeared on the Ponte Vecchio, and blessed the fleet. Thereupon, amid joyful shouts, the galleys weighed anchor, and swept down the river to the sea. It is related that at the moment the benediction was pronounced the crucifix on the standard fell down, which was judged a bad omen. The 6th of August, 1284, was a memorable day. The two fleets met off Meloria, at a short distance from Porto Pisano. Here in past times the Genoese had been severely defeated by the Pisans, and here they now sought revenge in the famous battle so fully recorded by our historians. The remoteness of the event, and the discrepancies between Tuscan and Genoese accounts, make it very difficult to obtain absolute knowledge of all the details of this fight. Accordingly it will be safer to fix our attention on the best ascertained and more remarkable points. The Pisan fleet consisted of three squadrons. Of these, Admiral Andrea Morosini commanded the first; while the second was under Count Ugolino, who, in spite of his courage, was no trustworthy leader, on account of the devouring personal ambition urging him to subordinate the interests of the State to his own greed for power. The third was commanded by Andreotto Saracini. Oberto Doria, an officer of great courage and experience, was high admiral of the Genoese fleet. As it first hove in sight, this armada seemed no greater than that of the Pisans, but only because a reserve of thirty galleys, commanded by Benedetto Zaccaria, lay hidden behind Meloria--or, according to other accounts, behind Montenero--ready to join in the fight when required. Soon after midday the battle began, and raged for some hours without any decisive result. But when the two flag-ships met, both fleets closed in a general engagement. On either side vast numbers of combatants, killed, wounded, or stunned, were hurled into the sea. The waves were crimsoned with blood; drowning men clutched at oars to save their lives, but were relentlessly thrust under by the rowers' next strokes, owing to the impossibility of checking the manoeuvres in the thick of the fight, and at the most critical moment. Just then Benedetto Zaccaria, having been signalled for, hove in sight, full sail, and with sweeping oars, in time to decide the fate of the day. Seeing him draw near, the Pisans knew they were outnumbered, and their courage began to fail, although they continued the fight with undiminished ardour. As Zaccaria dashed in, he contrived to bring his galley alongside Doria's, so as to wedge Morosini, whose flag-ship was making a gallant defence. At the same time the galley bearing the Pisan standard was also surrounded by the foe. On all sides the sudden arrival of the reserve squadron had given fresh courage to the Genoese and diminished the hopes of Pisa. The struggle was now too unequal; nevertheless, both sides were unwilling to end it, for each bitter enemy was seeking to destroy not only the other's fleet, but the very life of the rival Republic. But the conflict could not go on for ever. The Pisan banner, on its tall iron shaft, was suddenly seen to bend, and the next instant it fell with a horrible crash beneath a storm of blows, while at the same moment the admiral's flag-ship began to give way, and Morosini, who had been shockingly wounded in the face, was forced to surrender. At this juncture Count Ugolino, for his own treasonable purposes, gave the signal for flight, and thus completed the catastrophe. Seven Pisan galleys were sunk, twenty-eight captured by the foe, while, according to the inscription on the Church of St. Matteo at Genoa, no less than 9,272 prisoners were taken. Certain Pisan writers raise the number to eleven, and some even to fifteen thousand; but this may have included many of the slain, who may undoubtedly be reckoned at five thousand. At all events, after the battle of Meloria, it became a common saying in Tuscany that one must now go to Genoa in order to see Pisa. When those who had escaped returned to Pisa, all the town flocked into the streets to ask news of their kindred, and nearly all had to mourn the loss of some killed or captured relations. A host of old men, women, and children wandered about the city maddened with despair, so that at last the magistrates were forced to ordain that all should keep to their own homes. Soon all the inhabitants were clad in black, and only women were seen in the streets. Genoa, on the contrary, rejoiced and made glad; but victory had no wise softened its hatred against Pisa. This was proved when the fate of the prisoners came to be discussed. Some citizens proposed putting them to a heavy ransom; others to exchange them for the Castel di Castro in Sardinia, the key of the Pisan possessions there; but neither suggestion was approved. Orators raised their voices, crying that it were best to retain the prisoners until the war should be really at an end. Thus the women, being practically widowed, but unable to re-marry, population would be checked, and the Pisan army prevented from repairing its losses. In fact, the war continued sixteen years longer; and by the time the prisoners were released, their number was reduced to one thousand and odd, all the rest having succumbed to disease, old age, injuries, or hardships. VIII. It is difficult to decide which rose to greater proportions during these years--the heroic endurance of calamity on the part of the Pisans, or the insatiable hatred of their victors. Soon after the catastrophe of Meloria, Florence and Lucca proposed an alliance with Genoa, in order to join that power in completing the extermination of the rival republic. This alliance was to be maintained for twenty-five years from the conclusion of the war. Hostilities were to commence within fifteen days, Genoa being pledged to provide fifty galleys, and Florence and Lucca to furnish an army. Thus the allies could make combined attacks by sea and by land, and were bound to carry on the campaign for at least forty days every year. Pisa understood that her total overthrow was decreed, and her detestation of Lucca, and still more of Florence, was so keen that, to avoid yielding to those states, she professed her readiness to accept instead the terms of submission Genoa had sought to impose. But it was now too late. On the 13th of October the treaty of alliance was subscribed, in the Badia at Florence, by delegates from Lucca and Genoa, together with the representatives of Florence, of whom Brunetto Latini was one. An arrangement was also made allowing the other Tuscan cities to join the League, and, what was far more remarkable, another clause provided for the admission of Pisan prisoners of influential position who should have sworn to make war on their own state. Even Count Ugolino, his sons, and the Judge of Gallura, were to be admitted on the same terms, provided they became Genoese citizens and acknowledged the suzerainty of Genoa over their estates. Nevertheless, no prisoners were to be admitted without the general consent of the allies, and were not to exceed twenty in number. This clause clearly proves that many Pisans were traitorous, or disposed to treason. Nor was Florence forgetful of the aim she had constantly in view; for even on this occasion she took care to insert profitable commercial agreements in the treaty of political alliance.[323] Several other cities of Tuscany speedily adhered to the League, and preparations for war began. Pisa was soon surrounded on all sides. The Florentines marched into Val d'Era, the Lucchese captured several castles, while Spinola's Genoese squadron attacked Porto Pisano and wrought much damage there. Suddenly, however, the Florentines showed so much slackness in lending their aid, as to excite the grave discontent of Lucca and Genoa. Their chief object was to promote their own commerce; hence, while anxious to break Pisa's pride, and reduce the city to submission on the plan pursued with other Tuscan towns, it did not suit their views to let the Genoese usurp the chief share of the work, much less the lion's share of the profit. Yet, as things stood, the latter's naval superiority rendered this result only too certain. For, were Genoa once mistress of Pisa, the Mediterranean would be practically hers, and, with so much increased power, would be truly formidable to Florence. Accordingly, after raising such a host of enemies against Pisa, the Florentines now tried to turn things to their own exclusive advantage, and, with the usual double dealing of the period, paid little respect to the treaties they had sworn to observe. The Pisans instantly saw their opportunity and sought to profit by it; but in so bungling a fashion as to hasten their ruin. As we have already related, they had vainly attempted to come to terms with Genoa, and, their grievous calamities rendering them unable to cope with assailants equally formidable by land and by sea, they now made endeavours to conciliate Florence. For this purpose they nominated Count Ugolino to the office of Podestà, and even entrusted him subsequently with the direction of the war, in spite of the general belief that he had played the traitor at Meloria. For, knowing him to be Guelph, and secretly favourable to the Florentines, they considered him fitted to fulfil their purpose of detaching the latter from the Genoese interests. They knew, also, that the count was absorbed in the single idea of establishing his own domination in Pisa; therefore he would be ready to come to terms, if required, with the enemies of his country, and be capable of the worst crimes in order to gratify his enormous ambition. But, this ambition once sated, the Pisans believed that, possessing many friends among the Guelphs, his courage and astuteness would enable him to arrange satisfactory terms. This proved to be the case, but his intervention led to very unexpected results. The chroniclers relate that Ugolino sent the rectors of Florence a present of Vernaccia wine, with gold florins at the bottom of every flask as a bribe.[324] This legend merely signifies that he was considered capable of employing any means to attain his own ends. At all events, he was obliged to impose very cruel sacrifices on Pisa before the Florentines could be induced to suspend hostilities. It was necessary to cede important domains, castles such as Sta Maria a Monte, Fucecchio, Sta Croce, and Monte Calvoli, and to restore the city to the Guelphs by banishing all the Ghibellines--the direst humiliation to a republic that had always been steadfastly Ghibelline. But, with her very existence at stake, Pisa was bound to submit even to this. When, however, the Genoese and Lucchese discovered that the Florentines had deserted them and were siding with Pisa against Lucca, they complained so bitterly of this breach of faith, that Count Ugolino deemed it well to at least silence Lucca by the cession of Bientina, Ripafratta, and Viareggio. In this manner the haughty Pisan Republic was stripped of nearly all its territories outside the city gates, and deprived of all power of defending the coast, at a time when its ships were being chased and plundered by the Genoese on every sea. Amid the general ruin and desolation, however, Ugolino triumphed; for now, being absolute lord of Pisa, his dearest desire was fulfilled. Nevertheless, his power was much less secure than he supposed, for the fiery Pisan spirit was not entirely extinguished, and already the majority of the citizens were growing intolerant of a tyranny at home failing to spare them humiliations abroad. The smallest occasion served to show that public feeling was on the verge of an outbreak. Much discontent was also provoked in the course of negotiations with Genoa for the restitution of the prisoners, comprising many of Pisa's best sons. Their release was desired at any cost; but the count, knowing them to be Ghibellines, and consequently opposed to himself, daily invented fresh obstacles to prevent their return, and by proposing terms the Pisans could not accept, always caused fresh delays. Thus, as he intended, no conclusion could be arrived at. But his arrogance finally produced discord even among his own party. His nephew, Nino Visconti, judge of Gallura, and the natural head of the Guelph faction, began to make overtures to the Ghibellines for the purpose of combating his uncle. Thereupon Ugolino promptly sent many other Ghibellines into exile, and demolished ten of their grandest palaces. This produced an outburst of indignation. Nino made close alliance with the Gualandi and Sismondi, and all tried to hasten the prisoners' release, while the count found fresh pretexts for delay by reviving causes of dispute with Genoa. After vain attempts to rouse the people against him, Nino and his friends resorted to legal measures, hoping in this way to curb his tyrannous excesses. He had been nominated Captain-general of the people, but had illegally usurped the office of Podestà in addition, and fixed his residence in the palace of the Signory, where he had no right to dwell. His nephew and the others sued him for this before the _Anziani_, and obliged him to leave the palace in conformity with the law. He obeyed for a short time, but soon resumed his former supremacy by force. Meanwhile, party hatred grew stronger, the count fomenting discord with Genoa, while his enemies, as another means to his overthrow, were doing their utmost to conclude peace and deliver the prisoners. At last the count discerned his peril, and tried to find some way of escape. Seeing that certain Guelphs were no less hostile than the Ghibellines and had joined with them against him, he decided on conciliating the latter, in order to detach them from the Guelphs who had forsaken his cause. Thus he might at once defeat these deserters, and, having isolated the Ghibellines, find it easy to destroy them later on. But, in spite of these ingenious devices, both parties finally combined against him, under the command of Archbishop Ruggiero, one of the most powerful of the Ghibellines. Civil war raged in the city; the public palace was alternately seized by the archbishop, and re-captured by the count; while the latter, blinded by his fury for revenge, rejected the warnings and advice of even his closest adherents. One day, when the popular discontent had come to a climax, in consequence of the high price of provisions, and no one ventured to inform him of it, one of his nephews demanded audience, explained the state of things, and advised him to suspend the levying of customs, so as to lower the price of food. But this enraged the count to such a point that, drawing his dagger, he stabbed the speaker in the arm. A nephew of the archbishop chanced to be present, and being a friend of the wounded man, rushed forward to shield him from further attack. Thereupon the count, maddened with fury, caught up an axe that lay near, and with one blow stretched the intruder dead at his feet. The Archbishop Ruggieri dissimulated for a while, waiting his chance to take revenge. It came at last. On July 1, 1288, the council of the Republic was assembled in the Church of St. Sebastian to discuss the arrangement of peace with Genoa. Both the Ghibellines and people yearned for peace at any cost; but the count raised fresh obstacles, still relying on the support of his friends. As the meeting dispersed, the archbishop perceived that the favourable moment had arrived, and that no time must be lost. The Gualandi, Sismondi, Lanfranchi and other houses joined with him, and all proceeded to attack Ugolino. The latter made a valiant resistance, aided by two of his sons, two nephews, and a few devoted followers. After the first encounter, in which Ugolino's natural son was slain before his eyes, he took refuge in the palace of the people, and defended it from midday to dusk, when the besiegers decided to set it on fire. Then, forcing their way through the flames, they captured the count, with his two younger sons, Gaddo and Uguccione, and his nephews Nino, surnamed Brigata, and Anselmuccio. The prisoners were thrown into the Gualandi tower on the Piazza degli Anziani, and Ruggieri kept them most closely confined there for several months.[325] Finally the key of the tower was cast into the Arno, and all left to die of starvation, amid the torments immortalised by Dante's pen.[326] IX. These events, while still further reducing the strength of the unfortunate city, likewise caused the overthrow of the Pisan Guelphs, by once more driving them into exile, and promoted the hopes of the Ghibellines, who now seemed to have gained new life in Tuscany. Accordingly Florence was again compelled to recur to arms. Charles I of Anjou was no more, and Pope Honorius, being favourable to the Ghibellines, had instigated his kinsman, Prenzivalle del Fiesco, to assume the post of vicar-imperial in Tuscany, But as the cities of the League gave him a very rough reception, he retired to Arezzo, and vainly promulgated edicts against the Guelphs. By this time no one heeded the words of Imperial vicars. On realising this he went back to Germany, leaving Arezzo a prey to conflicts, in which the Ghibellines won the victory, with the help of numerous Florentine exiles. The Guelphs sought refuge in neighbouring castles, whither reinforcements reached them from the Florentine Signory. Thus the war spread even to the Upper Val d'Arno; for as the Ghibellines had returned to power, both in Arezzo and Pisa, led by the spiritual lord of either town, they had now to be encountered on two sides. In Pisa their chief was the Archbishop Ubaldini, in Arezzo, Guglielmo degli Ubertini, an equally Ghibelline prelate. The latter was also a better warrior than priest, the lord of many strongholds, and being of a very slippery nature, first attempted to betray the city to the Florentines, in return for an agreement guaranteeing him his possessions. The men of Arezzo contrived, however, to compel him to keep faith with his own party. On June 1, 1288, the army of the League took the field. It comprised nobles and _popolani_ from every part of Tuscany, and together with the mercenary troops reached a total of 2,600 horse and 12,000 foot. They carried on the campaign for twenty-two days, capturing and razing about forty castles, great and small, on the Aretine territory; but then a great storm wrought so much damage to their encampments, that they were forced to beat a retreat. As a mark of insult to the enemy, they had held races under the walls of Arezzo, naming twelve knights _di corredo_;[327] but then, raising the siege, they went back to Florence, leaving their foes unconquered and undismayed. In fact, when the Siennese separated from the main body on the way to their own city, they were surprised by a band of Aretines in ambush, and thoroughly routed. During the month of August the Florentines joined with the Pisan Guelph exile, Nino di Gallura, made raids on Pisan lands, and occupied the Castle of Asciano; then, in September, they marched against the Aretines, who had now gathered an army of seven hundred horse and eight thousand foot. No pitched battle, however, took place, for the enemy retreated before the Florentines, leaving them to devastate the country at their will, but afterwards made reprisal in the beginning of 1289, by laying waste the Florentine territory, and penetrating almost as far as San Donato. These variously important skirmishes paved the way for more serious hostilities. All Tuscany was now preparing for war. The captain elected by Pisa was Count Guido da Montefeltro, who had risen to the highest distinction by his victory over the French troops of Charles of Anjou at the battle of Forlì. He was undoubtedly one of the bravest warriors of the time, and on his arrival in Pisa quickly reorganised the militia, and created a new body of light infantry of three thousand crossbowmen, able to do good service against the heavy cavalry then considered the chief strength of an army. On the other hand, the Aretines increased their forces so much, that when Charles II. of Anjou passed through Florence on the way to his coronation in Naples, the Florentines were obliged to grant him an escort of their best horse and foot soldiers, to protect him from the attack threatened by the men of Arezzo. On this occasion they asked the king for a good leader, to enable them to pursue the campaign energetically, and Amerigo de Narbonne being appointed to the post, he joined them, accompanied by William de Durfort and one hundred men-at-arms. On June 2, 1289, the new captain, Narbonne, took the field with an army of one thousand horse and ten thousand foot soldiers of the League. It comprised the flower of the Florentine nobles and commons, including six hundred of the best-equipped knights ever furnished by the city. Prato, Pistoia, Sienna, and all the allies, including the Guelphs of Romagna, had sent their due contingents. Meanwhile the Aretines had collected all the Ghibellines from neighbouring cities, and were encamped at Bibbiena with eight hundred horse and eight thousand foot, under the command of their captains, the greatest of whom was the daring Bishop Guglielmo degli Ubertini. On finding that he could not make terms with Florence to secure his own strongholds, without being exposed to the vengeance of the Aretines, he had plunged into the war with youthful ardour. His conduct was arrogant and full of assurance; for he relied on his own courage and that of his men, and despised the Florentines, because, so he said, they were as sleek as womenfolk. On the 11th of June the two armies met in the plain of Poppi, near Campaldino, where the engagement began. The battle is known by that name, and rendered all the more celebrated by the fact of Dante Alighieri--then young and unknown--having fought in it. The Florentines had placed a mixed host of infantry, crossbowmen, and bucklermen in the van, and their wings were formed of 150 skirmishing light horse, who were all picked men. Vieri de' Cerchi was among the latter; for, having been entrusted with the choice of those of his _sestiere_, he insisted, in spite of illness, on accompanying his son and nephews to the battlefield. In the rear of the first division a stronger force of heavy cavalry and infantry was drawn up, with the baggage-train behind. Corso Donati led a band of about 250 foot and horse from Lucca, Pistoia, and foreign parts. He was Podestà of Pistoia at the time, and was directed to hold his reserve back until the commander-in-chief gave the signal to advance. On either side there was a fever of emulation between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and to gratify the ambition of their respective leaders, some were awarded the honour of knighthood that day, in order to spur them to greater feats. The Florentines were under orders to await the enemy's charge, and Messer Simone dei Mangiadori of San Miniato shouted to his men, "Signori! our Tuscan battles used to be won by vigorous assault, but are now to be won by standing still." The Aretines, on the contrary, trusting to their own courage and their leader's skill, made so impetuous a charge to the cry of "_Viva San Donato!_" that the Florentine army wavered, and gave way before the shock. Nearly all the light horse were hurled from their saddles, and the main body fell back. But the foot soldiers flanking the second corps moved forward to the cry of "_Narbona cavaliere!_" and by threatening to surround the enemy, checked its advance, and thus gave their comrades time to re-form. Count Guido Novello, in command of 150 Aretine mounted skirmishers, lost his presence of mind, and by failing to attack the foe at the moment when their ranks were in confusion, caused much harm by the delay. But this was his usual behaviour, and presently, as the fight grew hotter, he took to flight--also as usual. On the other hand, Corso Donati, although instructed to keep his men steady, and not to advance until expressly summoned, could not remain inert on beholding the Florentines waver at the first shock of encounter, and cried aloud, "If we lose, I will perish with my fellow-citizens; if we win, let who likes come to Pistoia to punish our disobedience;" and so saying, gave the command to take the enemy in flank. Thus the attacking Aretines were now charged in their turn. They made an admirable resistance, and their cavalry being insufficient, the infantry crawled on all fours among the advancing troops, and disembowelled their steeds. But no prodigies of personal courage could avail to decide the battle. There was a fierce and prolonged mêlée; the Florentines fought stubbornly, and nearly all the leaders of the Aretines were killed. Archbishop Ubertini fell, sword in hand; so, too, his nephew, Guglielmino dei Pazzi, held to be one of the bravest captains in Italy, and Buonconte, the Count of Montefeltro's son. Many Florentines perished, including three of the Uberti and one of the Abbati. Count Guido Novello alone saved his skin by flight. The Aretines were thoroughly routed, and, according to Villani, left seventeen hundred dead on the field, and two thousand prisoners in the enemy's hands. But of these only 740 reached Florence, the rest having escaped or been ransomed. This is not very surprising, when we remember that in these Guelph and Ghibelline wars fellow-citizens, and old friends or relations, often had to meet in combat; and that consequently leniency was more natural than hatred, although there are only too many instances of the ferocity to which the latter feeling was carried. The Florentine losses were slight and unimportant. Corso Donati, whose daring charge greatly contributed to decide the struggle, and Vieri de' Cerchi were both covered with glory. Many men previously deemed of little account won high reputation that day, while many others forfeited their fame. At any rate, all the best citizens and captains returned safely to Florence, and there was general rejoicing in the city.[328] The Florentines had felt assured of victory from the outset. In fact we are told that the priors, having fallen asleep on the day of the battle, worn out by their previous vigils, they were suddenly awakened by the sound of a voice seeming to cry: "Arise, for the Aretines are beaten." At that moment all the citizens were in the streets, waiting impatiently the arrival of news. At last the desired messenger appeared, and there was an outburst of joy and festivity. Later on discontent was excited by hearing that the army had failed to follow up the victory by giving pursuit to the foe. For had the latter been driven back into Arezzo, that town might have been easily seized. Instead of this, the forces captured Bibbiena, belonging to the bishop, plundered several castles, and devastated the country for twenty days. They ran races round the walls of Arezzo, and used their rams to drop asses crowned with mitres into the town, in order to insult its inhabitants. But they suspended all serious hostilities for the time, although, when the new priors had been chosen, the government at once despatched two of them to the camp, in order to push forward the war in person, and hasten the capture of the city. But the favourable moment had passed, for the Aretines made some successful sallies, and set fire to all the besiegers' engines of assault. Accordingly, leaving a sufficient force to guard the captured castles and unfinished siege-works, the Florentines returned home on the 23rd of July, much to the displeasure of the citizens, who murmured that the enemy's gold must have been poured into the camp. Nevertheless, a great victory had been won, and the soldiers were received with vast demonstrations of delight. All the people, with the banners and insignia of every guild, and the whole of the clergy, went forth in procession to welcome the conquerors. The Captain, Amerigo de Narbonne, and Ugolino de' Rossi, the Podestà, entered the town in state, beneath sumptuous canopies of cloth of gold, borne by the noblest of Florentine knights. The entire cost of the campaign was paid by levying a property tax of six _lire_, six _soldi_ per cent. in the city and its territory. This tax soon yielded a product of thirty-six thousand gold florins, owing, as Villani remarks (vii. 132), to the admirable administration and organisation of the financial affairs of the Commune at that time. After humiliating the two hostile cities of Arezzo and Pisa, the Florentine Republic had overthrown the Ghibellines and assured the triumph of the Guelphs throughout Tuscany, and thus gained almost unlimited influence, both political and commercial. Hence there was a vast and rapid increase of prosperity. Great festivities and banquets were held in all the wealthiest houses, and palace courtyards, covered with silken canopies and draped with gorgeous stuffs, served as places of entertainment for the citizens. In token of rejoicing the womenfolk paraded the streets wearing garlands of flowers. Nevertheless, there was a general wish to continue the war, in the hope of completing the overthrow of the two most powerful Ghibelline cities. This, however, was no easy task. In 1289 there were fresh skirmishes between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, although none of any importance. The Florentines made several attempts to capture Arezzo by force and by fraud, but always in vain. In November they had contrived a secret arrangement by means of which it was hoped to surprise the city. A decree was suddenly issued summoning all able-bodied men to assemble outside the walls before a candle lighted at one of the gates should have time to burn down. The army thus hastily gathered made a forced march on Arezzo; but the treason plotted there had been already discovered: a dying man, rumour said, having revealed it to his confessor. At any rate, the army was obliged to withdraw from a bootless errand. In the June of the ensuing year, 1290, the Florentines resumed the campaign with an army of 1,500 horse and 6,000 foot, furnished by the League. Surrounding Arezzo, they devastated the territory within a circuit of six miles, for the space of twenty-nine days, but without achieving any farther result. At that period all cities were fortified, and before the invention of gunpowder siege operations had no chance of success, save by treason, against a resolute defence. Now, too, the Florentines were trying to carry on a double campaign, against Arezzo on the one hand and Pisa on the other. In fact, presently leaving three hundred horse and a considerable number of foot soldiers to garrison the neighbouring strongholds, they transferred the rest of the army from the Upper to the Lower Val d'Arno, to act against Pisa. In the preceding year, aided by Florence and the League, Lucca had taken the field with four hundred horse and two thousand foot, in order to carry on the war with Pisa, while the Florentines were busied with Arezzo. This force encamped before Pisa, and, according to usage, held races there; harried the territory for twenty-five days, captured the Castle of Caprona, and made several assaults on Vico Pisano, but achieved no farther result. Now, in 1290, the Florentines resumed the attack in combination with all the great forces of the League. And while this army was making a general attack by land, the Genoese fleet swooped down on the coast with deadly effect. Leghorn and Porto Pisano were taken, the four towers guarding the harbour were thrown into the sea, and the Meloria lighthouse destroyed in the same way, together with its keepers. Before setting sail the Genoese blocked the mouth of the harbour by sinking four ships laden with ballast, and demolished all warehouses and palaces. But the havoc wrought by land was confined to the destruction of crops and the demolition of petty strongholds. Meanwhile the Pisans made a brave resistance on all sides. Guido di Montefeltro, their captain, used his newly invented troop of light horse to excellent effect against the Tuscan infantry of the League and the heavy cavalry in its pay. By his successful sallies he repeatedly achieved a bloody revenge for past losses. In December, 1291, the Pisans marched on the Castle of Pontedera, and finding it slackly defended, accomplished its capture, and shortly afterwards stirred the Castle of Vignale to revolt against San Miniato. Thereupon the Florentines decided on sending an army to provoke a fresh engagement; but the expedition was too long delayed, and the troops had hardly started before torrents of rain inundated the country and compelled them to retreat. Military operations now slackened more and more, for mischief was brewing in the city, and all men foresaw that worse troubles were at hand. Therefore, although urged to resume hostilities by their valiant and energetic leader, the Judge of Gallura, the Florentines so sorely needed tranquillity that they finally concluded a treaty of peace at Fucecchio on June 12, 1293. According to its stipulations, all prisoners of war were to be released; no duties were to be levied on inhabitants of the communes of the League in passing through Pisa, nor on Pisans passing through the said communes. The office of Podestà or Captain of Pisa was only to be held by a member of the League, and it was expressly forbidden to confer that post on any rebel or adversary of the said League, or any scion of the Montefeltro house. Further, Count Guido, the brave chief who had shown so much energy and daring in defence of the Pisan Republic, was to be dismissed, together with all the foreign Ghibellines; and twenty-five citizens of the best Pisan blood were to be given in hostage to secure the due observance of the terms. Such was the reward of the veteran leader's fidelity and heroism! On being paid off, he entered the council chamber, and after reproving the ingratitude of the Pisans in dignified words, took his leave without expressing any wish for revenge. Yet, being still in command of an experienced army devoted to himself, vengeance lay in his power, had he chosen to follow the fashion of the times. Another clause of the treaty provided that the descendants of Count Ugolino and the Judge of Gallura should be freed from outlawry and reinstated in all their possessions.[329] X. From this moment the Florentines devoted their chief attention to the affairs of the city, although these had not been altogether neglected, even during the last wars. Continual improvements had been made in the administration of the Republic, and in many respects it was a model administration, while there was also a notable increase of commerce, trade, and wealth. At the same time many public works had been completed under the direction of the famous architect Arnolfo di Cambio, the creator of some of the grandest public buildings in Florence. He planned the alterations for the enlargement of the city, first undertaken in 1285, and afterwards built the third circuit of walls, the which work was also superintended by the celebrated chronicler Giovanni Villani. It was likewise by Arnolfo's care that the Loggia of Or' San Michele, then used as a corn market, was built in and paved, the Piazza dei Signori supplied with a pavement, and the Badia embellished and restored. Folco Portinari, the father of Dante's Beatrice, founded, at his own expense, the church and hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The Piazza of Santa Maria Novella was laid out, and many other public works of a similar kind were begun.[330] Meanwhile political reforms were uninterruptedly carried on, and among them the notable measure passed in 1289, reducing the Podestà's term of office from twelve to six months.[331] The post was then conferred on Rosso Gabrielli of Gubbio, a city supplying many Podestàs and Captains of the people not only to Florence, but to all parts of Italy. At that period Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches seemed to be a nursery of these dignitaries, the inhabitants of those provinces being not only well trained to arms, as is proved by the horde of captains and soldiers of adventure they sent forth, but also well versed in the legal lore of the neighbouring university of Bologna. This reduction to six months of the Podestà's tenure of office was not long maintained, but had been decreed for the same motives as the change of Signory every two months. The power of a magistrate authorised to administer justice, in command of the army and invariably escorted by a body of armed followers in his private pay, might be easily transformed into a formidable despotism, as several Italian republics had already found to their cost. Hence it was endeavoured to avert this danger from Florence by changing the magistrates so frequently as to allow no time for hatching plots against the Commonwealth, or forming a party whose adherence could be counted on for any length of time. But political and social changes of a very different and far graver kind were now brewing among the citizens of Florence. Signs of a new and radical transformation were becoming daily more pronounced; hence the greater need of assuring peace in order to withstand the inevitable and imminent shock of coming revolutions. The presence of the Angevins in Florence, the example set by their nobles, and their continual creation of new knights, had swelled the arrogance of the leading Guelphs to a boundless extent. These patricians were now known by the name of _grandi_, and in imitation of the French nobility assumed manners ill-suited to a republican state, trying to rule everything and all men according to their will. A serious riot took place in 1287, because one of these chieftains, named Totto Mazzinghi, being condemned to death by the Podestà for murder and other crimes, Messer Corco Donati, one of the leading nobles of Florence, attempted to rescue him by force on the way to the scaffold. Thereupon the Podestà, resenting such open violation of the law, caused the alarm bell to be rung. The people flocked to the place of execution sword in hand, some mounted, some on foot, to the cry of "_Giustizia, Giustizia!_" and the sentence was then carried out with the uttermost rigour of the law. The condemned Mazzinghi was dragged through the streets before being hung; the promoters of the revolt against the magistrates were heavily fined, and order was re-established in the city. But these disturbances were indicative of deeper evils to come, and Florentine statesmen were full of anxiety. In order to check the arrogance of the _grandi_, and prevent them from combining with the populace, the middle-class Guelphs began to grant political rights on a continuously wider scale, while restricting the power of the nobles. As we have already seen, the latter had been obliged to provide sureties personally responsible for their actions, to swear to abstain from deeds of vengeance, from oppressing the people and so forth. The very remarkable law passed on August 6, 1289, served to overthrow the might of the nobles, both within and without the city walls, and to enhance that of the people by destroying the last lingering remains of the feudal system. Thanks to this decree, serfdom was entirely abolished throughout the territory; for in terms resembling a proclamation of the rights of man, it declared liberty to be an imprescriptible, natural right, a right never to be dependent on another's will; and that the Republic was determined not only to maintain liberty intact throughout its dominions, but likewise increase the same.[332] Thus every species of bondage, whether for a term or for life, was abolished, together with all contracts or agreements infringing on the liberty of the individual. It has been thought by some writers that the Commune of Bölogna had already achieved this most important reform in 1256, and that Florence only followed its example thirty-three years later. But this was an error induced by supposing that in the Italian communes the abolition of serfdom was completed at one stroke, whereas, on the contrary, it was carried out very slowly and in different degrees. In the territory there were not only _nobles_ and their _serfs_, but also _fideles_, whose personality was already recognised by law, but who still remained dependents of the _nobiles_ and bound to yield them service and tribute. At a later date the condition of the _fideles_ was further ameliorated; they could hold land in fee from their lords, or by payment of a yearly rent (a _livello_), but remained bound to them on terms of villeinage, and therefore bound to the soil. For this reason the lords believed, or feigned to believe themselves entitled to sell the soil, together with the _fideles_ attached to it, even when this was no longer in accordance with the spirit of the law. The Bölognese abolished serfdom in 1256, but the peasantry remained in their master's dependence, that is, more or less as _fideles_, and although these conditions were ameliorated in 1283 they were not altogether abrogated. But even earlier than 1289 serfs had ceased to exist in the Florentine territory, and, judicially, the _fideles_ had been long considered almost independent of their masters, although the latter, by the abuse of purely personal contracts, often compelled them to remain attached to the soil and claimed the right of disposing of them, as well as of the land. These were the abuses condemned and suppressed by the Florentines in 1289, as being adverse to liberty, "the which is a natural and therefore inalienable right." The new law likewise decreed that in consequence of this natural right all the above-mentioned sales became null and void; and cancelling every illegal contract, it finally guaranteed complete freedom to the peasantry. And by another clause every peasant was thenceforth enabled (irrespective of any sale of the land) to purchase his emancipation from any personal contract binding him to the proprietor of the soil. Thus the law of 1289 did not abolish serfdom, inasmuch as that institution had been already suppressed by the Florentines some time before, but it assured, for the first time, complete liberty to the cultivators of the soil. Economically, the new law was very advantageous to the Commune, by converting the peasantry into direct contributors, and no less advantageous to the democracy, inasmuch as it broke the last links of the feudal system, and weakened the power of the nobles throughout the _contado_.[333] Many other measures were also passed in 1289 and 1290 for the purpose of strengthening the position of the people in the city, and serving to show that Florence steadily pursued the work of political and social transformation. First of all, the number of legally constituted guilds was increased by adding five more to the seven greater guilds, and all having their special insignia, organisation, arms, and political attributes.[334] We now find records of twelve greater guilds in the archives of the Republic, whereas, previously to this date, seven only were mentioned. It is true that the number was very soon reduced again to seven; but then the five omitted were joined to nine others, these fourteen designated as the lesser guilds, and the total number of the guilds was finally fixed at twenty-one. In 1290 another law was passed, called _the law of prohibition_, decreeing that no prior could be re-elected to office until three years had elapsed. Later on this prohibition was partially extended even to the kinsmen of a prior.[335] The scope of these measures was always to prevent the rise of any future tyranny and to keep the growing arrogance of the nobles in check. Other laws were also framed for the same purpose. As, for instance, the two decrees carried almost unanimously on June 30, and July 3, 1290.[336] By these all guild-masters were prohibited, under severe penalties, from forming monopolies, agreements, compacts, fictitious sales, or other arrangements tending to the imposition of arbitrary prices, regardless of the rules prescribed by statute. And not only the individuals guilty of such infringement were subject to punishment and to be mulcted in the sum of 100 _lire_, but the guild to which they belonged was also subject to a fine of 500 _lire_ for neglecting to enforce obedience to the laws, and its rectors and consuls were to be mulcted in 200 _lire_. On January 2, 1291, another law was passed of a far weightier import, with the clearly expressed aim of curbing by force the wolfish rapacity of the nobles (volentes lupinas carnes salsamentis caninis involvi).[337] This decree rigorously prohibited recourse to any tribunal or magistrate save to the legally constituted authorities, such as the priors, the Captain, Podestà, or the judges in ordinary of the Commune. All persons having obtained from the Pope, Emperor, King Charles, or their respective vicars exemptions of any kind, or right of appeal to other magistrates, and pretending to exercise such right, and all persons who, with the same intent, should assert the power of exercising old feudal privileges, were warned to refrain from attempting to use such rights under penalty of the severest punishment. The new law minutely described different forms of similar fictitious exemptions, and determined the penalties incurred by their use. What seems strangest of all is, that this law decreed the punishment not only of persons asserting and trying to exercise the above-mentioned rights, of the notaries transcribing the acts, and the lawyers declaring them valid; but in cases where the real criminals should escape punishment, it likewise held responsible the relations and distant connections of the guilty, and even their labourers and tenants. At that period the populace, the well-to-do burghers and the nobles (_grandi_) formed as it were three classes of citizens, or, indeed, three distinct social bodies, who both for offence and defence, in all questions of party rancour, revenge or political privilege, acted as though every one was willingly and of necessity bound to be responsible for the deeds of his colleagues. Hence, recognising this state of things, certain extreme measures were decreed, which, although opportune and even imperative at the moment--in order to forward the democratic cause by assisting the weak to struggle against the powerful class--were none the less arbitrary. However, the necessity of employing the most stringent remedies was becoming daily more obvious. The nobles had been too much uplifted by the favours heaped on them by the Pope and the Angevins. And the brilliant success recently achieved at Campaldino, where victory had been decided by the prowess of Corso Donati and Vieri de' Cerchi, had so swelled their pride that they openly vaunted their contempt for the law, and constantly violated its prescriptions. This state of things finally produced the revolution of 1293, resulting in the constitution of the second popular government (_il secondo popolo_) and the total overthrow of the nobles. NOTE A. "In Dei nomine amen. Anno sue salutifere incarnationis millesimo ducetesimo octuagesimo nono, indictione secunda, die sexto intrante mense augusti. Cum libertas, qua cuiusque voluntas, non ex alieno, sed ex proprio dependet arbitrio, iure naturali multipliciter decoretur, qua etiam civitates et populi ab oppressionibus defenduntur, et ipsorum iura tuentur et augentur in melius, volentes ipsam et eius species non solum manutenere, sed etiam augmentare, per dominos Priores Artium civitatis Florentie, et alios Sapientes et bonos viros ad hoc habitos, et in domo Ghani Foresii et Consortum, in qua ipsi Priores pro Comuni morantur, occasione providendi super infrascriptis unanimiter congregatos, ex licentia, bailia et auctoritate in eos collata, et eisdem eshibita et concessa in Consiliis et per Consilia domini Defensoris et Capitanei et etiam Comunis Florentie, provisum, ordinatum extitit salubriter et firmatum: Quod nullus, undecumque sit et cuiuscumque conditioni dignitatis vel status existat, possit audeat vel presumat per se vel per alium tacite vel espresse emere, vel alio aliquo titulo, iure, modo vel causa adquirere in perpetuum vel ad tempus aliquos Fideles. Colonos perpetuos vel conditionales, Adscriptitios vel Censitos vel aliquos alios cuiuscumque conditionis existant, vel aliqua alia iura scilicet angharia vel perangharia, vel quevis alia contra libertatem et condictionem persone alicuius, in civitate vel comitatu vel districtu Florentie; et quod nullus, undecumque sit, et cuiusque condictionis, dignitatis vel status existat, possit, audeat vel presumat predicta vel aliquid predictorum vendere, vel quovis alio titulo alienare, iure modo vel causa concedere in perpetuum vel ad tempus alicui persone, undecumque sit, vel cuiusque condictionis dignitatis vel status, in Civitate vel comitatu vel districtu Florentie, decernentes irritum et inane et ipso iure non tenere, si quid in contrarium fieret in aliquo casu predictorum. Et tales contractus et alienationes quatenus procederent, de facto cassantes, ita quod nec emptoribus vel acquisitoribus ius aliquod acquiratur, nec etiam ad alienantes vel concedentes ins redeat, vel quomodolibet penes eos remaneat: sed sint tales Fideles, vel alterius conditionis astricti, et eorum bona, et filii et descendentes libere condictionis et status. Et nihilominus tales alienantes, vel quomodolibet in alios transferentes, in perpetuum vel ad tempus, per se vel per alium et quilibet eorum, et ipsorum et cuiusque eorum sindici, procuratores et nuntii, et tales emptores, vel alio quovis titulo, modo, causa vel iure acquirentes, per se vel per alium in perpetuum modo vel ad tempus, et eorum procuratores, sindici et nuntii et iudices et notarii et testes, qui predictis interfuerint vel ea scripserint, et quilibet eorum, condempnentur in libris mille f. p., que effectualiter exigantur, non obstantibus aliquibus pactis vel conventionibus, etiam iuramento vel pena vallatis, iam factis vel in posterum ineundis, super predictis vel aliquo predictorum vendendis, permutandis vel alio quovis modo vel titulo transferendis. Quos contractus supradicti domini Priores et Sapientes nullius valoris et roboris fore decreverunt, et quatenus de facto processissent vel procederent, totaliter cassaverunt et cassant. Decernentes etiam quod si aliquis non subiectus iurisdictioni Comunis Florentie, et qui non respondeat in civilibus et criminalibus regimini florentino, vel non solvat libras et factiones Comunis Florentie, undecunque sit, per se vel per alium, predictos contractus vel aliquem predictorum iniret aliquo modo iure vel causa, quod pater et fratres et alii propinquiores ipsius, si patrem vel fratrem non haberet, et quilibet eorum condempnentur in libris mille f. p., que pena effectualiter exigatur; reservantes etiam sibi et populo florentino potestatem super predictis et quolibet predictorum acrius providendi contra tales concedentes vel concessiones recipientes per se vel per alium in aliquibus casibus de predictis. Et quod in predictis omnibus et singulis et circa predicta domini Potestas et Defensor et Capitaneus presentes et futuri et quilibet eorum plenum, merum et liberum arbitrium habeant et exercere debeant contra illos, qui in predictis vel circa predicta committerent in personis et rebus, ita et taliter quod predicta omnia et singula effectualiter observentur et executioni mandentur. Salvo tamen quod Comuni Florentie quilibet possit licite vendere et in ipsum Comune predicta iura transferre; et etiam ipsi Fideles et alii supradicti se ipsos et eorum filios et descendentes et bona licite possint redimere sine pena; et illi tales qui talia iura haberent, possint ipsa iura ipsis fidelibus volentibus se redimere vendere et eos liberare a tali iure licite et impune. Et hec omnia et singula locum habeant ad futura et etiam ad preterita, a kallendis ianuarii proxime presentis citra, currentibus annis Domini millesimo CC^{o} LXXXVIII^{o} indictione secunda." This law was read and approved of in the general and special council of the captain and of the _capitudini_, as was the custom, but not in that of the Podestà. It has been published many times, but not without mistakes and omissions: by the lawyer Migliorotto Maccioni in a work of his in favour of the Counts of Gherardesca (vol. ii. p. 74); by C. F. Von Rumohr, "Ursprung der Besitzlosigkeit des Colonen in neuren Toscana" (Hamburg, 1830), pp. 100-103; and in the "Osservatore Fiorentino" (vol. iv. p. 179). Florence: Ricci, 1821. We give it as it is in the original text in the State Archives of Florence, _Provvisioni_ Registro 2, a. c. 24-25. NOTE B. The defender of the artisans and of the guilds, Captain and _Conservatore_ of the city and commune of Florence, brought forward the proposal in the special and general council on June 30, 1290, "presentibus et volentibus Dominis Prioribus Artium," and the proposal, carried almost unanimously (_placuit quasi omnibus_), ran as follows:--"Quia per quamplures homines civitatis Florentie fide dignos, relatum est coram officio dominorum Priorum Artium, quod multi sunt artifices et comunitates seu universitates Artium et earum Rectores, qui certum modum et formam indecentem, et certum precium incongruum imponunt in eorum mercantiis et rebus eorum Artium vendendis contra iustitiam et Rempublicam." It ended by strictly forbidding every sort of monopoly and every contract of sale arranged in a manner contrary to custom or to the laws, "et quod dogana aliqua vel compositio non fiat contra honorem et iurisdictionem Comunis Florentie, per quam vel quas prohibitum sit a Rectoribus vel Consulibus ipsorum Artis, quod aliqui vel aliquis ad certum modum et certam formam et certum precium vendant, vel vendere debeant mercantias," ec. To which Guidotto Canigiani added, that the signory should henceforward formulate other articles, not so as to weaken the said provision, but only to strengthen it more and more in the interest of the guilds. And his amendment was approved together with the provision itself (State Archives, Florence, _Provvisioni_, Registro iv. c. 29). And on the 3rd of July, by reason of the former amendment, the _priori_ of the guilds, together with the other wise men consulted by them, decreed: "Quod nulli Consules vel Rectores alicuius Artis, aut aliquis alius, vice et nomine alicuius Artis, vel aliqua singularis persona alicuius Artis, utatur aliquo ordinamento scripto vel non scripto, extra Constitutum Artis approbatum per Comune Florentie, vel aliter vel ultra quam contineatur in statuto talis Artis, ec.... Et siqua facta essent in contarium vel fierent in futuro tacite vel expresse, non valeant nec teneant ullo modo vel iure, sed sint cassa et irrita ipso iure ec. Et quod nullus notarius vel alius scriptor scribere debeat aliquid de predictis vel contra predicta, et nullus nuntius vel alius precipiat aliquid aliquibus artificibus contra predicta: sub pena Rectori et Consuli contrafacienti auferenda librarum cc. pro quolibet et qualibet vice; et Arti, librarum quingentarum; et sub pena librarum centum pro quolibet, qui observaret talia ordinamenta vel precepta prohibita; et sub pena libr. centum cuilibet qui de predictis ordinamentis prohibitis faceret precepta Arti seu artificibus alicuius Artis." This provision was to be read in the captain's council every month and cried about the city. (_Provvisioni_, Registro, iv. a. c. 30-31.) NOTE C. On the 31st of January (new style, 1291) a provision was made, beginning with this singular proemium:--"Ad honorem, ec. Ut cives et comitatini Florentie non opprimantur sicut hactenus oppressi sunt, et ut hominum fraudibus et malitiis que circa infrascripta committi solent, debitis remediis obvietur et resistatur, quod quidem videtur nullomodo fieri posse, nisi iuxta sapientis doctrinam, dicentis quod contraria suis purgantur contrariis; ideoquo volentes lupinas carnes salsamentis caninis involvi et castigari debere, ita quod lupi rapacitas et agni mansuetudo pari passu ambulent, et in eodem ovili vivant pacifice et quiete," ec. It goes on to severely forbid that any one should dare to: "aliquas litteras impetrare vel impetrari facere, aut privilegium vel rescriptum, per quas vel quod aliquis vel aliqui de civitate vel districtu Florentie citentur vel trahantur ad causam, questionem vel litigium aut examen alicuius indicis, nisi coram domino Potestate, Capitaneo et aliis officialibus Comunis Florentie;" and that he who, having falsified, did not cease from falsifying, when reprimanded, and failed to pay damages and interest within three days, was to be fined one hundred small _fiorini_, or more, according to the judgment of the _Podestà_ or of the captain, or of any other magistrate who had undertaken the prosecution. And if any one sought to disobey or escape from the jurisdiction of the magistrates, "teneantur Potestas et Capitaneus, qui de predictis requisitus esset, condemnare patrem vel filium vel fratrem carnalem vel cuginum ex parte patris vel patruum et nepotes eius, ec., in dicta pena, et dictam condemnationem exigere cum effectu, et etiam in maiori pena, ad arbitrium eorum et cuiuscunque eorum, si eis vel alteri eorum videbitur expedire. Et nichilominus compellat eos et quemlibet eorum dare et facere tali contra quem dicerentur tales littere vel privilegium vel rescriptum impetrata, omnes expensas quas faceret vel fecissit, occasione predicta, credendo de predictis expensis iuramento huiusmodi contra quem dicerentur predicta vel aliquod predictorum impetrata." Moreover, as we have said before, any one, who in the city, Commune, or district of Florence, directly or indirectly published such acts, together with the notary who wrote them out, and the lawyer who defended them, was subject to severe penalties. The Podestà and the captain could proceed as they pleased against any one who, "audeat vel presumat facere precipi eis vel alicui eorum, quod faciant aliquid vel ab aliquo desistant, vel citari Potestatem vel Capitaneum vel Priores vel Consiliarios vel aliquem officialem Comunis Florentie, vel eorum offitia impedire vel retardare coram aliquo vel aliquibus, ex autoritate aliquarum licterarum, privilegii vel rescripti, vel ex auctoritate alicuius indicii ordinarii, delegati vel subdelegati, vel vicarii." And as usual the penalties could be applied to relations. As it happened that many requested the support of civil justice (_brachium seculare_) "in deffectum iuris et in lesionem et in preiuditium personarum et locorum subdittorum Comuni Florentie," ec., it was decreed that this support should be given only when the suit was over, before competent magistrates, and after it had been examined. If in this case the magistrates refused, then action could be taken against them. But otherwise, those who should demand an unjust sentence were subject to penalties, together with their relations, according to the first paragraph of this law. "Verum si consanguineos, ut dictum est, non haberet, procedatur contra bona talis pretentis brachium seculare, et contra inquilinos, laboratores, pensionarios et fictaiuolos eiusdem potentis, et illorum cuius occasione petitur, et ad alia procedatur, prout ipsis dominis Potestati vel Capitaneo et Prioribus videbitur expedire." Two other paragraphs follow, of which there are ten in all, but at this point a gap occurs in the manuscript, (_Provvisioni_, Registro ii. a. c. 175-177). [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. _THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS AND POLICY OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE._[338] I. The end of the thirteenth century marks the opening of a new era in the history of Italy and of Europe. During the period of political disorder prevailing throughout Northern Europe ever since the days of Charlemagne, a literary culture was nevertheless developed, which, although little heeded in past times, has been most clearly elucidated by recent learned research. The literature of Provence, the romance of chivalry, the poems arranged in the cycles of Charlemagne, the Round Table, the Nibelungen Lied, the innumerable ballads, the splendid cathedrals reared on both banks of the Rhine and constituting an art never to be surpassed by its countless imitators, were one and all the offspring of the mighty, primitive culture of the Middle Ages, in which, for a long time, Italy had no share. In Northern Europe, where conquerors and conquered amalgamated with less difficulty, national art and literature were sooner able to spring into being. In Italy, on the contrary, the conquered were oppressed, but never entirely fused with their conquerors; gradually, rather, they began to assert their individuality and their rights. The original rise of the communes was the result of this struggle. Accordingly, at the time when France was composing love-songs and poems of chivalry, Italy was absorbed in founding political institutions and preparing to win freedom. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the scene was completely changed. Every branch of mediæval literature seemed smitten with an instantaneous decay, northern imagination and fancy to be suddenly withered. Even there, in the north, men begin to strive, slowly and painfully, at the task of political organisation. Meanwhile, the Italian communes being already constituted, our country had already given birth to a national literature, of so dazzling a splendour as to banish all others from view, and relegate to centuries of oblivion the fruits of earlier culture elsewhere. It was precisely at this moment that Florence, then the chief seat and centre of the new Italian culture, was subject to the rule of the greater guilds. The Empire seemed to have abandoned its pretensions with regard to Italy; the Papacy, weakened and menaced, no longer dared to impose its commands on the secular world in its former imperious fashion; the struggle between conquerors and conquered had come to an end, all distinction between the German and Latin races having utterly disappeared, and Italy being peopled by Italians alone. Now, too, the prolonged conflict waged by the democracy of Florence against the feudal aristocracy was about to terminate in the former's victory, and the Commonwealth could be justly entitled a Republic of merchants, whose trade was soon to enrich them to an apparently fabulous extent. All seemed to herald a new era of peace, prosperity, and concord. But in the light of after events we perceive that the Republic continued to be sorely harassed by internecine strife; also that, in spite of the splendid results achieved in art and commerce, political institutions were on the wane, and the loss of liberty becoming almost a foregone conclusion. How was it that a Commune, enabled to assert its existence at the beginning of the twelfth century and steadily progress in the face of tremendous obstacles, should now show symptoms of decline in the heyday of its triumph? How was it that civil war should still be carried on when all motive for discord seemed extinguished by the victory of the popular party now at the head of the State? We shall discover the answer to this problem by investigating more closely the new conditions of Florentine society, and more particularly the conditions of the trade guilds constituting its chief strength and nucleus. The number of the Florentine guilds welded in associations had been, after various changes, finally fixed at twenty-one: seven greater and fourteen lesser guilds, although often found otherwise divided into twelve greater and twelve lesser. At any rate, the guilds of first rank and decidedly highest importance were the following:-- 1. The Guild of Judges and Notaries. 2. The Guild of Calimala, or Dressers of Foreign Cloth. 3. The Guild of Wool. 4. The Guild of Silk, or of Porta Santa Maria. 5. The Guild of Money-changers. 6. The Guild of Doctors and Druggists. 7. The Guild of Skinners and Furriers. As every one can see, the first on the list is altogether outside the limits of trade and commerce, and seems rather to belong to the learned professions. But it may be remarked that in those days judges and notaries contributed very largely to the advancement of the guilds, and were continually employed in their service. Together with the consuls, they constituted the court or tribunal of every guild, and gave judgment in all commercial suits tried there; they arranged all disputes, pronounced or suggested penal sentences. Then, too, it was the peculiar function of the notaries to draw up new statutes, continually reform them, and provide for their due enforcement. They were likewise engaged to prepare contracts, and were frequently the mouthpieces of the consuls at the meetings of the greater and lesser guilds. Good judges and notaries were in great demand throughout Italy, and, as necessary instruments of prosperity, richly remunerated for their services. Accordingly, their guild became one of the most influential in Florence, and its notaries were reputed the best-skilled in the world. Goro Dati speaks of this guild in his "Storia di Firenze," saying that "it has a proconsul at the head of its consuls, wields great authority, and may be considered the parent stem of the whole notarial profession throughout Christendom, inasmuch as the great masters of that profession have been leaders and members of this Guild. Bologna is the fountain of doctors of the law, Florence of doctors of the notariate."[339] At public functions the proconsul took precedence over all the consuls, and came directly after the chief magistrate of the Republic. As head of the judges and notaries he held judicial authority, as it were, over all the guilds. The four next in order--_i.e._, the Calimala, Wool, Silk, and Exchange--commanded the largest share of Florentine commerce and industry. They were of very ancient origin. Ammirato remarks that the consuls of the guilds are mentioned in a Patent of 1204, but there is documentary record of them at a much earlier date. But, although boasting so old an existence, the guilds passed through a long period of gradual formation, only developing their strength much later, and each at a different time. The oldest and also the first to make progress were the Calimala and Wool Guilds, virtually exercising almost the same industry, inasmuch as both dressed woollen stuffs, and carried on an extensive business with them. Nevertheless, seeing that each pursued its trade in a way peculiar to itself, and achieved thereby a special individual importance, the two guilds always remained separate and distinct from each other. From the earliest mediæval times the manners and customs of the Italians had been more refined and civilised than those of barbarian peoples, and their handicraft far more advanced. We learn from a chronicler, quoted in Muratori, that when Charlemagne was in Italy he wished to go out hunting one day, and suddenly summoned his courtiers from Pavia. Precious Eastern stuffs having been already brought to that town by the Venetians, the courtiers were able to appear before the emperor clad in the richest attire. But during the hunt their precious stuffs and feathers were totally spoiled by rain and thorns, whereas the emperor's plain tunic of goatskin was as good as before. Thereupon Charlemagne turned to his followers and said, rather jeeringly: "Why do you throw away your money so fruitlessly, when you might wear skins, the most convenient, lasting, and least expensive of garments?"[340] We may certainly doubt the historic truth of this incident; but the chronicler's tale proves two things at all events, _i.e._, that the custom of wearing the skins of goats or lambs was so general in the ninth century, that even an emperor might not disdain their use; and that, although Italian industry was then very undeveloped, beautiful stuffs were procured from the Levant through the Venetian traders. II. The art of weaving coarse woollen stuffs is, however, so easy that it must have been soon revived in Italy, and was probably never completely abandoned. It would seem to have first begun to progress by imitating the simpler fabrics of the Eastern Empire, where cultivation and industry had survived to a much later date. In fact, all the earlier Italian stuffs bear names indicative of their Byzantine derivation, such, for instance, as _Velum holosericum_, _Fundathum alithinum_, _Vela tiria_, _bizantina_, _Crysoclava_, _&c._[341] Nevertheless, although the craft of woollen manufacture is of very early origin, and was even practised by pastoral tribes, there were many obstacles to its development in Italy. Improvement in the breeding of sheep, and consequently in pasturing and agriculture, was required for its progress. But, whereas the Italian communes showed great solicitude for the promotion of trade, they not only despised but often crushed agriculture. The Republic was constituted and governed by artisans, who, after overthrowing the feudal lords, rose to supremacy; but the agricultural class, although far better treated in Tuscany than elsewhere, remained long bound to the soil, and never enjoyed rights of citizenship. This fact alone serves to indicate the rest. All laws and decrees relating to trade are full of good sense and foresight; while all concerning agriculture seem dictated by prejudice or jealousy. Then, too, regarding pasturage and consequently the woollen industry, it should be added that Tuscany, being a mountainous country, is adapted to the culture of vines and olives and excellent cereals, but deficient in meadowland, whether natural or artificial. Accordingly, it was an exceedingly difficult task to improve the quality and quantity of the wool produced there. Although the Florentines soon succeeded in manufacturing the woollen stuffs called _pignolati_, _schiavini_, and _villaneschi_, these very coarse fabrics, the names of which sufficiently indicate their quality, only served for a limited trade in the territory or just beyond the borders of the Republic. And when it was attempted to improve the manufacture serious difficulties arose. To weave fine cloth from coarse wool was a fruitless labour; while to procure foreign wool from distant countries was no easy task in times when industry and commerce had scarcely any existence, and the cost of transport would have devoured the profits. Nevertheless, it was by conquering all these obstacles that the Florentines gave the first proofs of their genius for trade. In Flanders, Holland, and Brabant far better wool was obtainable, and the art of weaving it so long established there that, as in the case of the linen webs of North Germany, the origin of the craft is lost in the obscurity of almost pre-historic times. But, notwithstanding the good quality of the yarn, the woollen stuffs manufactured in those countries were decidedly coarse, sent to market undressed, badly-finished, and dyed in very ugly and evanescent colours. Accordingly the Florentine merchants conceived the idea of importing these foreign stuffs in order to dress and dye them in their own workshops. Hence the origin of the Calimala or Calimara craft.[342] Bales of cloth began to arrive from Flanders, Holland, and Brabant, and these so-called _Frankish_ or _ultramontane_ stuffs were carded, shaved, dressed, and cut in Florence. This treatment removed all the knots coarsening the surface, and as the material was much finer than Italian wool it could be easily dyed in very delicate tints, and the Florentines soon surpassed all competitors in this particular art. Then, after being carefully ironed, faced, and folded, the cloth was re-sold in a very different condition and at a much higher price. From the first there was a great demand for these goods in Italy, and they were afterwards sent to the East, and bartered for drugs, dyes, and other Asiatic products. Finally, as their quality went on improving, they found their way to France, England, and the same markets whence they had originally come, and where they were sold in exchange for undressed fabrics. Thus the lack of original material was not only supplied, but foreign manufactures served to swell Florentine gains. A very extensive trade was carried on with comparatively little trouble, and as the process of wool-dressing gave employment to many hands, the Calimala Guild attained a position of great influence that was naturally shared by the Guild of Wool.[343] In fact, the latter being stirred by emulation and greed for profit, used the utmost care to improve its manufactures. And the development of the craft was equally assisted by the labours of private individuals and the wise measures decreed by the State. At that time there was a monastic order in Italy known as the Humble Friars, originally founded by a few Lombard exiles, who, on being banished to North Germany in 1014 by Henry I., had learnt the very ancient craft of wool-weaving practised there. Later on, having formed a pious association, the exiles laboured at the trade for their bread, and after five years' absence returned home a united band of workers. Down to the year 1140 they remained laymen, but then decided to form a religious order, afterwards sanctioned by Pope Innocent III. Once admitted to the priesthood, they no longer worked with their own hands, but retained the management of the business, had it carried on by laymen under the direction of a _mercatore_, and continually introduced new improvements. It was natural that cultivated men, with members of their order scattered over various provinces, should be able to forward the progress of the trade they had founded. In fact, they acquired so much celebrity for their administrative talents that we find them engaged at Florence and elsewhere as treasurers of the public revenue (_camarlinghi_) and as army contractors in time of war. Wherever a house of their order was established the wool-weaving craft immediately made advance. Hence, with its usual sharpsighted wisdom touching all questions of trade and commerce, the Florentine Republic, considering the houses of the _Umiliati_ to be great industrial schools, invited the friars to establish a branch in the neighbourhood of Florence. Accordingly in 1239 the Humble Brethren arrived and settled near the city in the Church of San Donato a Torri, granted to them by the State. Their presence led to the expected result. Before long their house became one of the principal centres of Florentine industry, so that the guild-masters complained of the friars' distance from the town, and urged them to move their establishment nearer to the walls. In 1250 they obtained buildings and land in the suburb of Sta Lucia sul Prato, and exemption from all taxes on their property, the which privilege was usually accorded by the Florentines to any one introducing a new branch of trade in the city. Then, in 1256, the Umiliati founded the church and monastery of Sta Caterina, in Borgo Ognissanti, and carved their arms over the entrance, _i.e._, a wool-pack fastened crosswise by ropes. From that moment the wool craft made enormous advance in Florence, and in every European market Florentine cloths began to rank above all others. Efforts were made to improve the rough material and to use additional care in dressing it, finer wools being imported from Tunis, Barbary, Spain, Portugal, Flanders, and lastly even from England. Thus so vast a trade was established, such great wealth accumulated, that the wool craft rivalled and surpassed the Calimala itself. Both guilds became great commercial powers in Europe, while in Florence the government dared not oppose their decisions.[344] Giovanni Villani informs us, in his valuable account of Florentine statistics during the year 1338, that there were more than two hundred wool factories, turning out from seventy thousand to eighty thousand pieces of cloth, of the total value of one million two hundred thousand florins, "of the which sum a good third was kept at home for the works, without counting the earnings of the wool dressers in the said works, the which supplied a living to over thirty thousand persons." The chief profits of the trade were obtained by perfection of manufacture, rather than by any increase of produce. Even Villani remarked that thirty years earlier, that is, in 1308, the factories were more numerous, actually as many as three hundred, and producing one hundred thousand pieces of cloth: "but these stuffs were coarser, and of only half the value, having no intermixture of English wool, the which indeed they had not yet learnt to dress with the skill since acquired."[345] This clearly shows that the craft owed its first improvement in the thirteenth century to the Humble Friars, and was carried to perfection in the fifteenth century by the introduction of English woollens. In the same year of 1338 the Calimala Guild owned twenty warehouses in Florence, "yearly receiving more than ten thousand pieces of cloth, to the value of three hundred thousand florins, all sold in Florence, and without including those sent out of the city."[346] The Calimala craftsmen were exceedingly skilled as refiners and dyers, and particularly successful in preparing the crimson cloth for which there was a great demand in Florence, as it was used for the _lucco_, a hooded robe worn by all citizens entitled to enter the Public Palace and sit in the tribunals or councils of the Republic. The two guilds afterwards made a division of labour in order to avoid infringing each others rights. The statutes absolutely prohibited the Calimala from dying anything save foreign stuffs, and the Woollen Guild had dyers of its own, forming, as it were, a subordinate association. These dyers were bound to deposit three hundred florins with the guild as a warranty, and fines were deducted from this sum whenever the goods delivered were soiled or dyed a bad colour. The officers of the guilds were exceedingly severe on these points. Every inch of cloth underwent the minutest examination, and the least defect in colour, quality, or measure exposed the workman to heavy penalties. Some of these great Florentine guilds were not composed solely of one trade, but were often agglomerations of various crafts, particularly in the case of the Wool Guild, which included many kinds of workmen, ranging from carders of the rough material to dyers and finers of the most costly fabrics. Thus, the guild being able to carry on the manufacture in all its details, and the different craftsmen required for the common end being all bonded together, there was no fear that any one branch of the trade would raise its prices to the detriment of the rest. The emblem of the Wool Guild was a lamb bearing a flag (_Agnus Dei_), while the Calimala showed a red eagle on a white bale corded with many twists. During the whole of the fourteenth and a considerable part of the fifteenth century these two guilds continued to progress, and maintained their supremacy in the markets of Europe. Nevertheless, they were always in a difficult position, since Italy could not supply them with sufficient raw material, nor could they obtain the number of hands required to carry on all the work connected with their business. To establish branches of the trade in neighbouring states and subject cities was an idea that found no place in the economic and political theories of the Middle Ages. In those days trade formed the chief strength and social power of the communes: hence every commune wished to have the monopoly of its advantages, and the statutes bristled with decrees inspired by this blindly jealous exclusiveness. For this reason, while pursuing the system of keeping the finer and more profitable processes of the manufacture in their own hands, the Florentines had opened factories for the first and coarser stages of the work in every place where the best wool could be found, that is in Holland, Brabant, England, and France. And even in these factories they took care that the more difficult and profitable share of the process should be done only by Florentine hands. Their chronicles prove that they then spoke of foreigners in the same terms now used by the latter with regard to ourselves: jeering at the indolence and stupidity of the northerners, who even on their own soil allowed strangers to snatch the bread from their mouths. But this state of things could not last long. From very early times the Flemings had always been a strong, hard-working race, and were very soon equalled by the French and English. So gradually the eyes of the northerners were opened, and the Florentines saw new factories rising abroad, side by side with and soon rivalling their own, and were obliged to admit that, to their own despite, they had taught foreigners the very trade of which they had meant to preserve the monopoly. Nor was this the end of the matter. Being now on the alert, the northerners tried to check the exportation of their wools and of their uncut, or rather undressed, cloths; and from the end of the fifteenth century Henry VII. of England began to take measures to that effect. Thenceforth the Guilds of Wool and Calimala were doomed to decline in Florence. Fortunately, however, before this came about, the silk trade had assumed the same importance in Florentine commerce that was gradually slipping away from the other two crafts. As every one is aware, the art of silk-weaving, though of very early origin in the East, was only introduced much later to the Western world. The Romans obtained a few silk stuffs from Persia, India, and China at an enormous expense; they also had certain insects from which material for highly esteemed fabrics was procured; but until the closing years of the Middle Ages the real silkworm was unknown in Italy, and the details of its first introduction in the West have not yet been fully ascertained. It is related that during the sixth century B.C. two Persian monks concealed some silkworm seed inside their staffs, and thus succeeded in bearing it to Constantinople, where they taught the art of rearing the insects. In this wise the silk trade is supposed to have been originated in the dominions of the Byzantine Empire, and carried thence by Arabs and Mahomedans to Sicily and Greece. When Roger II., Count of Sicily, conquered the Ionian islands, he returned to Palermo with numerous prisoners (1147-48), who greatly assisted the progress of the silk trade there. Thence it easily penetrated to Lombardy and Tuscany; but was first established and perfected in Lucca, all the Florentines being still devoted to the profitable wool trade. The consuls of the Silk Guild--or of Por' Santa Maria, as it was designated in Florence, from the name of its street--are mentioned among other guild-masters in public treaties; but although this craft too may be of ancient date, it certainly began to flourish much later than the rest. Noting the fact that Giovanni Villani makes no allusion to the Silk Guild in his very minute account of Florentine trade and commerce in 1338, we are inclined to believe that it had made very little advance at that period.[347] We know that when Uguccioni della Faggiola besieged and took Lucca (1314), fugitives from that city brought their improved method of silk-weaving to Lombardy, Venice, and Tuscany, and the art being particularly undeveloped in Florence, many chroniclers gave the Lucchese the credit of having first introduced it there. Nevertheless, for many years afterwards the silk trade was carried on by importing the raw material from the East. But as the wool craft began to decline, Florence gave its whole attention to silk, and the trade speedily began to prosper. In the early years of the fifteenth century, Gino Capponi--he who was commissary to the camp at the siege of Pisa--taught the Florentines the art of spinning the gold thread they had hitherto imported from Cologne or from Cyprus to interweave with their silk. This was the beginning of that delicate manufacture of gold and silver brocades, in which by the combination of technical skill with artistic sense, the Florentines soon surpassed all rival manufacturers. The markets from which their woollen stuffs had been ousted, were speedily reconquered by their silken cloths and brocades. During the latter half of the fifteenth century, in fact, we find Benedetto Dei, a merchant of the Bardi Company, writing a letter to Venice praising the glory and greatness of Florentine commerce and saying: "We have two crafts worthier and greater than any four contained in your city of Venice." And the gist of his subsequent remarks was to this effect: "Our woollen stuffs go to Rome, Naples, Sicily, the Morea, Constantinople, Broussa, Pera, Gallipoli, Schio, Rhodes, and Salonica. Then, as to the silk and gold brocades, we produce more than Venice, Genoa, and Lucca combined, and you see that we have houses, banks, and warehouses at Lyons, Bruges, London, Antwerp, Avignon, Geneva, Marseilles, and in Provence."[348] This long list of cities plainly shows that in Dei's time Florentine woollens, though still prized in the East, had been driven from the principal markets of the West, and replaced by silk stuffs; and thus the two guilds shared commerce between them, one in the East, the other in the West. Also, according to Dei, Florence then possessed eighty-three factories, where various tissues of silk, gold, and silver were produced known by the names of damasks, velvets, satins, taffetas, and _maremmati_, and most of the raw silk used in their fabrication was still imported from the East by Florentine galleys.[349] This is one of the trades longest preserved in Florence and other parts of Italy, and to this day silk is among the most important of our products. With this difference, however, that whereas in past times the weaving of the silk was our chief source of profit, at present we frequently export the raw material, repurchasing at an enormously increased price the fabrics returned to us from foreign looms. In old times we imported woollen and silk yarn, and exported Italian cloth and brocade; in these days, on the contrary, we send no small portion of our raw silk to Lyons, and receive it back in a manufactured state. In the same way other raw materials, which we might easily work up ourselves, are despatched to foreign factories. III. There was one branch of industry, however, almost solely the product of human talent and energy, in which the Florentines stood positively first. From the opening of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century the money-changers' craft was an essentially Florentine business. For as soon as the merchants had established commercial relations with all the markets of the East and the West, they naturally put into circulation a large quantity of specie. Therefore it naturally ensued that if any trader of Antwerp or Bruges wished to forward money to Italy or Constantinople, the easiest and safest plan was to apply to some of the Florentine merchants in his own town. The latter bought up the wool and rough cloths, which, after being dressed in Florence, either returned to Northern Europe, or found their way to Constantinople, Caffa, or Tana (Azov), in exchange for silks, dyes, and spices. Accordingly the transmittal of any sum to any part of the then known world cost them little more trouble than the despatch of an ordinary letter, and was always a source of gain. For they received _agio_ on their money, and by sending it in the form of merchandise, reaped a second profit. When, on the contrary, any Florentine wished to send a hundred florins to London, he had only to walk a few steps to find some merchant of the Calimala or Por' Santa Maria, who, by a line to his correspondent in Lombard Street, caused the payment to be made. These so-called letters of exchange (_lettere di cambio_) proved one of the most useful of inventions for the advancement of modern trade. There has been much discussion as to whom this discovery was originally owed. Some attribute it to the fugitive, persecuted Jews in France and England; while others ascribe it, at a much later date, to the Guelphs banished from Florence in the thirteenth century. But it is very difficult to ascertain who was the first author of what cannot be justly styled a discovery, seeing that it is an arrangement so readily occurring to the mind, that examples of it are even to be found in very remote antiquity. Besides, the real importance of the letter of exchange consists not in its invention, but in its legally authorised value, its extensive use, and the thousand different ways in which it may be turned to account for the speedy transmission and increase of capital. On these points the Florentines of the period were altogether unforestalled and unsurpassed, being superior masters of the art of finance. When the exiled Guelphs went wandering about the world in the thirteenth century they strengthened the widespreading commercial ties established by Florence, and founding banks in all parts, gave a tremendous impulse to the money-changers' trade. Accordingly they were credited with the invention of the "letters of exchange," which now being widely circulated, gained added importance. In fact, all subtle and ingenious devices for multiplying gold, by despatching it to every market where, being scarce, it consequently commanded the highest price and interest, and almost all the complicated and difficult operations practised by our modern bankers, were already familiar to the Florentines. Whenever the Republic was obliged to borrow money it obtained loans from the bankers of Florence on precisely the same system and method in use at this day, no source of profit being unknown to those financiers. Also, when the total of these loans was formed into the so-called _Monte Comune_, paying interest on the consolidated capital, the _luoghi del Monte_, which would nowadays go by the name of "shares of the public debt," were negotiated precisely as at present. We find the Florentine merchants under the Arcades of the New Market, speculating on the rise and fall of stock, like modern men on "'Change" in great capitals.[350] And the profits of similar ventures were far greater at a time when lawful interest varied between 10 and 20 per cent., and few felt any scruples against carrying it up to 40 per cent. by means of fictitious contracts. For instance, the lenders would fix an impossibly early date for the receipt of the lawful interest, and after that date took 40 per cent. with the pretext that the extra amount was the fine agreed upon in case of non-payment. It should be kept in mind that the Florentines reaped great advantages in all these banking operations from the excellent quality of their coinage, for the Republican Mint always kept the best interests of commerce in view. To this end, in the year 1252, the gold florin of twenty carats was struck, with the figure of St. John on one side and the lily of Florence on the reverse; and, owing to the goodness of the metal and its alloy, soon obtained currency in every Eastern as well as European market. Eight of these florins weighed one ounce, and a single florin was valued at about twelve Italian _lire_. The Florentines, however, usually made their calculations in _lire_, _soldi_, and _denari_. The silver _lira_, then the conventional standard, consisted of twenty _soldi_, and the _soldo_ of twelve _denari_. The florin seldom altered in value, but the _lira_, either from the greater variability in the price of silver, or from other causes, was constantly altering its rate with regard to the florin. In 1252 the latter was equivalent to the _lira_, and therefore similarly divided into twenty _soldi_; in 1282 it already consisted of thirty-two _soldi_; in 1331, of sixty _soldi_, or three _lire_, and always changing in value, rose to four _lire_, eight _soldi_ by the year 1464. The Florentines had discerned how greatly their commerce was benefited by the use of a coin universally prized in all markets supplied with their goods. But in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when their trade penetrated farther into the East, they found themselves forestalled by the Venetians, whose gold ducat, somewhat larger and heavier than the florin, was already current there. Accordingly, in 1422, they decreed the issue of another florin, equivalent to the Venetian ducat in weight, size, and value, and therefore easily exchanged for it. And as this new and larger florin was to be carried to the Levant on board-ship, they named it the "broad florin," or the "galley florin," to distinguish it from the older "sealed florin" (_fiorino di suggello_). In 1471 the older coin only was re-issued, and kept in circulation down to 1530, when it was held equivalent to seven _lire_, and was then withdrawn for a time.[351] Thus we see that for a considerable period two different florins were in use, that the _lira_ altered in value from one year to another; and if we likewise remember that economists are still unagreed as to the exact difference between the present value of gold and silver and their value in the days of the Republic, we shall recognise the difficulty of making any calculation sufficiently exact to afford any precise idea of the relative prices of things. It is asserted by some writers that a given quantity of gold was only worth in those days double its present value; while others exaggerated its value to fortyfold. Sismondi believes that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries gold must have been worth four times as much as at present. Certainly the florin, or _zechin_, as it was called later, is worth about twelve Italian _lire_. But the difference in the value of gold remains involved in uncertainty. Besides, when old writers reckon by _lire_, it is needful to remember that these coins varied in value; that it is impossible to make even an approximative calculation without knowing the exact date referred to. Returning to the Guild of Changers, we must again insist on the point that, in addition to the extended commercial relations, the wise measures enforced by the Republic and the singular activity of the citizens, the rapid prosperity of the Florentine bankers was also greatly enhanced by their nearness to Rome. The revenues of the Holy See and of its prelates in all parts of Christendom were all poured into the Eternal City. There gathered the spiritual lords, bishops, and cardinals, holding rich benefices in the East or the West; thither from all the remotest ends of the known world believers sent sums of "St. Peter's pence," together with the costly offerings suited to a period of religious faith and fanaticism. The keen-witted Florentines quickly recognised the advantage of becoming bankers to the Pope; for thus the largest floating capital in the world would have to pass through their hands. So, from the first, they used the most persistent efforts to obtain that position. If we find them clinging to the Guelph cause through all changes of time and circumstance, and preserving the name of Guelphs, even when the term had lost all meaning, we must attribute no little weight to commercial as well as to political motives. Placed in the centre of Italy, and not far from Rome, they had to struggle chiefly against the Siennese, who were still nearer to the Eternal City. For this reason we soon find them engaged in warfare and jealous strife with Sienna, the which republic was subsequently worsted, not only in fight, but also by the wider-stretching enterprise of Florentine commerce. It is proved by the correspondence of Gregory IX. that even in 1233 the Tuscans were forwarding remittances to the Pope from various parts of the world; and gradually the monopoly of this business became more exclusively concentrated in Florentine hands. When the Pontifical Seat was transferred from Rome to Avignon (1305), and on its restoration later to Rome again, there occurred, twice at least, an enormous displacement of interest, a great movement of capital, and a necessity for large remittances in cash; and, according to the best authorities, this was the favourable moment when the Florentine contractors of the Papal revenues were enabled to become the principal bankers of Rome. From that time their fortune was assured, the greatest banking business in Europe passed through their hands, and they rose to so high a repute, that all sought their help and advice on matters of finance. We see the Florentines invited to manage the mints, and fix the weights and measures of various European states. In 1278 a convention between the King of France and the Lombard and Tuscan _Universitates_ invites both to find money for the former's government. In 1306 the Modenese people issued a decree, appealing for the same purpose, to the notaries and bankers of Florence. Then in 1302, when the King of France, lacking funds wherewith to make war, decided on repeated debasement of the coinage, this fatal step was attributed to the advice of two Florentines, Bicci and Musciatto Franzesi. These men were severely censured by their fellow-citizens, many of whom had been ruined by the bad French currency. On all occasions when the French sovereigns were on the eve of a great war, they were practically compelled to first secure the aid of some known Florentine banker in bearing the expense. Some of these bankers held the same position in Europe as the Rothschilds of the present day, and accumulated fortunes of apparently fabulous amounts. In 1260 the Salimbeni house lent twenty thousand florins to the Siennese. In 1338 we find the Bardi and Peruzzi creditors of King Edward III. of England for one million three hundred and sixty-five florins, the which, without reckoning the difference in the value of gold, would amount to about sixteen millions of Italian _lire_; and allowing for that difference, would amount, as Sismondi has calculated, to no less than sixty-four millions. Pagnini adds a list of many other loans, amounting to a positively enormous total. In 1321 the Peruzzi had a credit of 191,000 florins on the Order of Jerusalem alone, and the Bardi another of 133,000 florins. In 1348 the house of Tommaso di Carroccio degli Alberti and his kinsmen had banks at Avignon, Brussells, Paris, Sienna, Perugia, Rome, Naples, Barletta, Constantinople, and Venice.[352] And at the close of the fifteenth century Philippe de Commines declared that Edward IV. of England owed his crown to the help of Florentine bankers. The Money-changers' Guild was one of the oldest in Florence, its consuls being named on the same footing as the rest in all public records; and a copy of its statutes, dated 1299 (1300 new style), makes reference to an earlier code of 1280, that was not the earliest of all. This craft prospered and waned with the commerce of Florence. It was carried on in the New Market, where it had shops with counters or _tavoletti_, money-bags, and ledgers. All business had to be performed in the shop, and registered in the account book, and heavy penalties were exacted for any infringement of the rule; nor was any one allowed to exercise the craft without being inscribed on the matriculation list, a privilege only to be obtained by having given proofs of capacity and honesty during matriculation, and sworn to obey the statutes of the guild. In 1338 there were about eighty of these money-changers' stalls, and Florence coined from 350,000 to 400,000 gold florins.[353] In 1422 these stalls numbered seventy-two, while it was calculated that Florence had a capital of two million florins in circulation, without including the value of the merchandise in the city.[354] In 1472, partly because the first signs of the decline of trade were appearing, and partly because trade was becoming restricted to a more and more limited number of firms, the banks were already reduced to thirty-three,[355] although the chronicler Benedetto Dei still remarked with pride that these bankers did business in the East and the West, "as is well known to the Venetians and Genoese, and likewise to the Court of Rome."[356] They were everywhere known by the names of changers, lenders, usurers, Tuscans, and Lombards, and, together with other Italian houses, had a street of their own both in London and Paris. IV. In order to complete the list of the greater guilds, we must say a few words concerning the Doctors and Druggists, and Skinners and Furriers, and particularly the former. Although of less importance commercially than the guilds already described, they had a great share in promoting Florentine trade in the Levant, whence nearly all drugs and spices were received in exchange, and no less than twenty-two different qualities of fur, many of which, being the skins of rare animals, formed some of the dearest articles of luxury. Therefore these two guilds likewise rose to great influence, inasmuch as the Eastern trade has invariably proved the main source of wealth for all nations, and most of all for Italy. It served to sustain the high fortunes of Venice; it had enriched Amalfi, Genoa, and Pisa; and accordingly was constantly coveted by the Florentines, whose highest prosperity indeed was only attained when the Black Sea being opened to their galleys, they could enjoy the same rights as the Venetians in Egypt, Constantinople, and the Crimea. This, so long their principal aim, was not, however, quickly attained: they continued to wrestle for it throughout almost the whole of the fourteenth century. The struggles maintained by the Florentines for the extension of their trade play a very important part in the history of the Republic, not only demonstrating the progress of their wealth, but likewise the ruling motives of their policy. In fact, the moment they had won their first successes against the nobles of the _contado_ surrounding them on all sides, they immediately tried to monopolise the whole trade with Lombardy. One of the first treaties signed by them was with the Ubaldini, lords of the Mugello, for the purpose of opening that highway for their products; and shortly afterwards they made a treaty with the Bölognese (1203). But in course of time the latter, profiting by their position, exacted heavier tolls on the merchandise now continually passing through their territory; whereupon the Florentines promptly came to terms with Modena, opening a fresh road for their commerce, and thus compelling Bölogna to respect the original agreement. In 1282, at the time of the war against Pisa, they arranged treaties guaranteeing free passage to their merchandise through Lucca, Prato, Pistoia, and Volterra, and thus began their domination over the commerce of Tuscany. Nearly all their wars were undertaken for purposes of trade, and ended with trading agreements. In 1390 they entered into conventions with Faenza and Ravenna, and then step by step with the majority of the Italian cities. The continual increase of Florentine commerce by land made the necessity of free access to the sea ever more pressing and indispensable. But to reach either Porto Pisano or Leghorn, the only ports convenient for their trade, they must necessarily traverse the republic of Pisa, their powerful neighbour and rival. For if the Florentines were masters of nearly the whole Tuscan trade by land, the Pisans were lords of the sea, and had no intention of allowing their realm to be snatched from them by so industrious and energetic a race as their competing neighbours. Accordingly the Pisans had only to demand heavy tolls for the passage of those neighbours' goods, and the Florentines were left with no remedy save recourse to arms. Hence the continual warfare and perpetual rivalry of the two republics. After the capture of Volterra by the Florentines in 1254, the threatening attitude of their victorious troops drove the Pisans to grant free passage to their merchandise, and in 1273, 1293, 1327, and 1329 similarly compelled them to adhere to the same terms. Pisa, however, never yielded the point with a good grace, but merely to avoid war, or in consequence of defeat. Meanwhile the Florentines were continually extending their trade to remoter parts of the East, and concluding fresh treaties there. This, while increasing their desire to command the sea, fanned the jealousy of Pisa to a fiercer flame. In Pagnini's work on "La Decima" we find an essay on the "Practise of Trade" ("Pratica della Mercatura"), written early in the fourteenth century by an agent of the Bardi firm, one Balducci Pegolotti. Next to Marco Polo's "Milione," this work is one of our most important sources of information regarding Italian travels and trading enterprises in the Levant, and furnishes specially minute details of Florentine traffic. From what Pegolotti tells us of his own doings, we may judge what was done by his fellow-citizens in general. In 1315 he succeeded in securing for them in Antwerp and Brabant similar franchises to those already enjoyed by the Genoese, Germans, and English. He afterwards went to the Levant, and found at Cyprus that the Bardi and Peruzzi alone shared the privilege granted to the Pisans of only paying 2 per cent. import and export duty; whereas all other Florentines had either to pay 4 per cent., or feign to be Pisans, a device exposing them to many spiteful reprisals from the latter, who treated them _worse than slaves or Jews_. These proceedings aroused Pegolotti's wrath, so that, although he was one of the Bardi firm, he made great and successful efforts to have the same privilege of franchise extended to the rest of the Florentines (1324). Thus, their common interests being promoted no less by the energy of individuals than by that of their government, these merchants continued to make advance in the East, and stir the Pisans to greater envy. In fact, the latter decided in 1343 to reduce the exemptions allowed on Florentine merchandise, decreeing that goods only to the value of 200,000 florins might pass untaxed through their city; all the rest being charged two _soldi_ the _lira_--_i.e._, at the rate of 10 per cent. This left the Florentines no choice save to make war, or find some mode of avoiding the Pisan highway. To prove that their trade was not altogether at the mercy of Pisa, they preferred the second alternative. By making treaty with the Siennese, they obtained the concession of Porto Talamone, and at great expense, and in the teeth of many difficulties, finally succeeded in making it a vast emporium for their wares. The road to Talamone was long and inconvenient; but the Pisans, soon perceiving that they had done greater damage to themselves than to Florence, and that although they might inflict annoyance on the latter, there was no hope of destroying its trade, were therefore presently reduced to permit the free passage of merchandise. Accordingly the Florentines felt braced to more extensive enterprise in the Levant.[357] The Egyptian route was the easiest and most direct for trading purposes; but sultan and califs barred the road to Christians. The Venetians alone, from having concluded treaties, it was said, "in the holy name of God and Mahomet," had made some way in that country to the jealous exclusion of all other Italians, who therefore usually travelled by Constantinople and the Black Sea, where they, and more especially the Genoese, had founded some populous and flourishing cities. Farther on, by the Sea of Azoff, a mile or so from the mouth of the Don, stood the town of Tana (Azov), a great business centre for traders from Russia, Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Mogul, and Southern China; and the chief place of exchange for Eastern and Western products. The Italians brought silk or woollen fabrics, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and bartered them for precious stones, pearls, gold, spices, sweetmeats, sugar, Eastern tissues of silk, wool, or cotton, raw silk, goatskins, dye-woods, and likewise for Eastern slaves of either sex, who were to be seen in Italy down to the end of the fifteenth century.[358] All this varied commerce, originally started by Amalfi and other southern states, was afterwards carried on by the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans. The argosies of those republics traversed all parts of the Archipelago, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea. Italian was spoken in all the harbours of the East, where, besides Italian banks, workshops, and factories, there were cities founded and inhabited solely by Italians, with buildings in the Genoese or Venetian style, but where Italian, and especially Venetian, architecture became modified by Oriental influences. A great number of Genoese were settled in those parts. To give some idea of the naval strength of Venice, it will be enough to say that during the Crusade of 1202 that Republic equipped a fleet able to convey 4,500 horsemen, 9,000 squires, 30,000 infantry, and stores for nine months. Their galleys, never less than 80 feet in length, sometimes measured 110 by 70 in width, and in the fifteenth century were forty-five in number, with a total of 11,000 seamen. At the same time they also possessed 3,000 other vessels of from ten to one hundred tons, with 17,000 men, and 300 big ships with 8,000 men. In all, therefore, 3,345 vessels, with 36,000 seamen,[359] a strength that seems positively incredible, when we remember that the 'Serenissima' Republic of Venice was a city built on the sandbanks of the lagoons; that the entire management of its policy and trade was in the hands of men born within the narrow bounds of those lagoons. Accordingly we may imagine how great was the united strength of all the maritime republics, and how signal the courage of the Florentines in competing with them so obstinately for the Levantine trade. Before launching a single galley, the Florentines had already established many houses and banks in every place, and contrived to introduce their merchandise in all the principal Eastern ports. We not only find them doing a vast business at Tana with great energy and enterprise, but also pushing on thence to far remoter regions. Pegolotti minutely describes the route followed by them, their manner of travelling, and the time employed in it. They journeyed, he tells us, through Astracan (Gittarchan), to Saracanco (Sarai) on the Volga, thence by Organci in Zagataio,[360] not far from the Caspian Sea, and crossing Asia by many places of which the names cannot be identified with any known at this day, they penetrated as far as Gambaluc, or Gamulecco, the chief city of China, that is to say, the city of Pekin. They employed eight or ten months to go from Tana to Pekin. Thus a period of almost two years was required for the journey there and back and time of sojourn, and when we also calculate the voyage from Porto Pisano or Leghorn to Tana and back, it is plain that a Florentine bound for Pekin could rarely count on returning home within three years.[361] During the growth of this Eastern trade, carried on with such indomitable energy, amid difficulties of all kinds, the Florentines were always aiming at the command of the seaboard, and never losing sight of the necessity of having a port of their own. And when, by the capture of Pisa in 1406, that long-desired object was finally attained, a new era began for their commerce. All their business concerns became most rapidly extended, and the first half of the fifteenth century was the time in which their greatest wealth was accumulated. In 1421 they appointed "consuls of the sea," who were ordered to immediately build two wide-beamed merchant galleons (_galee di mercato_) and six narrow galleys, and to continue to launch one of either kind every six months, for the which purpose a monthly sum of one hundred florins was assigned from the revenues of the Pisan university. Accordingly Florence soon possessed a merchant fleet of eleven stout galleons and fifteen narrow galleys continually employed in the Eastern traffic by command of the Republic. All these vessels had strict sailing orders as to the course to be taken, the ports to be touched at, and the freight to be carried. Announcements of their departure and arrival were hung in the arcades of the New Market; and the vessels being chartered by private individuals, the government was enabled to keep the Eastern routes open to all, without any outlay. In 1422, when, as already related, the "galley florin" was coined, the Florentines, at the instance of one Taddeo Cenni, a merchant long established in Venice, despatched two envoys to Egypt to obtain the right of having a church, warehouses, dockmen, and porters of their own at Alexandria. The negotiation proving successful, in 1423 they instructed the "consuls of the sea" to appoint extra consuls at every port where their presence might be useful to Florentine trade. Some had been established for more or less time at Constantinople, Pera (1339), and London (1402); but from this moment we find them at Alexandria, Majorca, Naples, and other ports in all directions. These consuls had offices and clerks of their own, interpreters, men-at-arms, and places of worship; and all their expenses, salary included, were deducted from the freight dues received by them.[362] To fully understand to what extent and in what way the Florentines profited by the new conditions resulting from their conquest of Pisa, it is necessary to point out that this event not only marks the time of their highest commercial prosperity, and the beginning of their navy and merchant fleet, but also indicates the date of their first attention to nautical and astronomical studies. We gain another proof of their great intelligence and untiring activity when we see that their first efforts in a branch of learning of which they had no previous knowledge enabled them to initiate the era of scientific triumphs, opening with Paolo Toscanelli, the first inspirer of Christopher Columbus, continued by Amerigo Vespucci, and closing with Galileo Galilei and his imperishable school. V. The seven guilds, already described by us, were styled the greater guilds, as being those of most importance and having the chief trade and wealth of the State in their hands. Several of these guilds consisted, as we have seen, rather of different crafts banded together, than of a single branch of industry; they gave employment to many workers, gathered and made use of enormous funds. But Florence also possessed the so-called lesser guilds numbering fourteen in all, namely: Linenmakers and Mercers, Shoemakers, Smiths, Salters, Butchers and Slaughterers, Wine-dealers, Innkeepers, Harnessmakers, Leatherdressers, Armourers, Ironmongers, Masons, Carpenters, Bakers.[363] Certain smaller Florentine crafts had also obtained great repute in Italy: for instance, that of the wood and stone carvers, who were esteemed as some of the best in the world. In all work demanding any share of artistic ability the Tuscans stood unrivalled. Thus the Florentine moulders of waxen images were considered to have incomparable skill, and we even find this remarked by the chronicler Dei. But neither the carvers nor the wax moulders formed an association, and were artists rather than artizans. But, leaving this question aside, the lesser guilds, although numerous and energetic, failed to achieve any noteworthy influence. Their difference from the greater guilds mainly lay in the fact that, being solely concerned with the local trade of the Republic, they were confined to a very limited field of business and enterprise, while the others engaged in the trade with the East and the West, were enabled to attain a high position even in politics, and to finally become masters of the State. Looking back on the period in which the greater guilds rose to power, we shall see that they simultaneously held in their grasp the commerce, wealth, and government of the Florentine Republic. We shall also readily understand the enormous energy they must have displayed in order to use politics as a means for increasing the opulence that, in the existing conditions of Italy, had become the chief strength of our communes. The Florentine merchants, having long divined that the future would belong to them, were always the firmest supporters of the Guelph party against the Imperial Ghibellinism of the nobles and had vowed eternal hatred to the latter. We may now imagine Florence as a huge house of business, situated in the centre of Tuscany, and surrounded by others all competing with it in the race for success. International law and equity were unknown to the Middle Ages: hence when any State felt envious of its neighbour, the obvious course to adopt was to prohibit that neighbour from traversing its territory, and exact unbearably heavy dues from the rival it feared. Accordingly, the Republic of Florence, being the object of still fiercer jealousy on account of the continual increase of its commerce, and lacking room to breathe, as it were, without access to the sea, would have been speedily reduced to impotence had it not resisted its neighbours by force of arms. Hence, the necessity of defending its existence involved the State in an uninterrupted series of wars, invariably terminated by treaties of commerce, in which the unfailing subtlety of the Florentines always won the advantage. We have seen from the beginning how Florence combated the neighbouring barons in order to secure the progress of its dawning trade, and subsequently obtained a passage through the Mugello for its increased traffic with Romagna and Lombardy. Later on, we have seen it engaged in fiercer struggles, and, after many vicissitudes, subduing almost all the Ghibelline cities of Tuscany, as, for instance, Volterra, Sienna, and Arezzo. And when inquiring why Florence should have remained so obstinately Guelph, even in the face of Papal threats, and repeating the same question Farinata put to Dante-- "Dimmi, perchè quel popolo è si empio Incontro a' miei in ciascuna sua legge?"[364] the invariable reply has been that in addition to political motives of a more general nature, it must be kept in mind that the plutocracy now risen to power had first attained wealth by doing its chief business with Rome. Sienna, Arezzo, and Volterra being on the road and closer to Rome, were doomed to defeat in any competition with Florence. Then, as soon as the Republic had secured its hold on Roman affairs and the Lombard trade, we saw its irresistible need of access to the sea, and that a war of extermination with Pisa had become altogether inevitable. To suppose that this prolonged, constantly renewed and sanguinary conflict was solely caused by a blind instinctive hatred of Pisa, when other and more serious reasons were so plainly existent, would be to deny the evidence of facts. From beginning to end it was simply the clash of violently opposed interests. The Pisans were perfectly aware that to yield a free passage to the power already commanding the chief trade in the interior of Italy--the power that, without having as yet a single galley afloat, had already made its way to all the harbours of the East--the power so persistently struggling for absolute supremacy in Tuscany--could only lead to their own lasting subjection. Therefore they resisted to the utmost of their strength. Their resources were undoubtedly great, and as many other Italians were equally hostile to the supremacy of Florence, the latter could never have succeeded in reducing the Pisans, had it not constantly employed the shrewdest devices in addition to its efforts in the field. In fact there is no better proof of the political ability of the Florentines than their mode of conducting this war and the means they employed to attain the object that, throughout the whole course of their history, had been their chief and invariable aim. We find them steadfast in their friendship to Lucca, and always prompt to succour that city at all costs, because Lucca was never well disposed to the Pisans, and might prove a most useful ally in any campaign against them. So, too, we always find Florence on good terms with Genoa, and avoiding every risk of giving offence to a power that was Pisa's natural rival on the seas. Indeed, the Florentines always did their best to foster that rivalry, inasmuch as without an ally strong enough to assist them by crushing Pisa's power by sea, they could never hope to overthrow it by land. And at last the Pisans were defeated by the Genoese in the naval battle of Meloria (August 6, 1284). From that day the conquest of Pisa by the Florentines, although still to be long contested, was a foregone conclusion, and from that moment also their friendship for the Genoese began to lose warmth. While desiring assistance in overcoming Pisa, they wished to avoid aggrandising the power of a Ghibelline republic, already very mighty on the sea. Accordingly, after having so furiously attacked and enfeebled Pisa, we find them aiding that state to withstand the Genoese, until the moment came when the latter having abandoned the idea of conquering Pisa, they could successfully undertake its conquest on their own account. With equal sagacity they pursued the same course in the years during which they were menaced by the powerful Dukes of Milan who sought to become masters of all Italy, and also when threatened from the south by the enmity of King Ladislaus of Naples. The art of stirring division among their foes, of supporting the weaker party against overbearing neighbours, of constantly contriving to rouse half Italy against every potentate risen to sufficient strength to be a terror to their own Republic, was the invariable means by which Florence maintained her independence in the midst of States who were losing their liberty, and in the midst of the numerous and formidable foes pressing about her on all sides. And this successful policy was the work of the greater guilds, or rather of the prosperous trading class (_popolani grassi_). These mercantile aristocrats ruled the Republic with so much energy and zeal, precisely because the aggrandisement of Florence conduced at the same time to the increase of their own wealth and commerce. Thus a city whose population was seldom more than 100,000, and often shrank far below that number, and whose narrow territory was surrounded by so many enemies, was enabled to become a State feared by the rest of Italy, and respected throughout Europe. These Florentine merchants were so jealous of their liberty as to deem no sacrifice too vast for its preservation, and were neither bewildered nor daunted by any danger, even when their trade was at stake. In fact, although so obstinately Guelph, and connected with Rome by so many commercial interests and ties, we find them ready to combat the Pope himself, when he made attacks on their liberty, and see them giving the name of the _Eight Saints_ to the magistrates charged to conduct the campaign against Gregory XI. (1376). In the like manner we find them carrying on a war with the Visconti of Milan at a yearly cost of millions of florins, without the resources of the Republic being exhausted, or the courage of its rulers worn out. VI. Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that the domination of the greater guilds was assured and uncontested in the interior, at least, of the city. On the day when the scheme was first mooted, in the Calimala court, of placing these guilds at the head of the government, they speedily recognised that the possibility of success was solely owed to the fact of their having fought and conquered the nobles with the help of the lesser arts. Hence, on the one hand, they had to face their natural and inveterate foes, the survivors of the feudal order, and on the other the lesser guilds coveting a share in the government which they had helped to establish. Thus the Republic comprised three classes of citizens and three separate parties. It is true that the greater guilds constituted by far the stronger of the three factions, but the others might become, if united, a very formidable opposition. And their union was no impossible contingency. The difference, in fact, between the greater and lesser guilds was not merely one of degree as regarded their respective wealth and power; what divided them was the diversity of interests urging them to pursue an opposite policy. The wool-dresser or silk merchant was always ready to sacrifice his last florin, provided the Republic could gain possession of Leghorn or Porto Pisano. Accordingly he invariably kept a strict watch on the policy of Lucca and Genoa, to prevent them from making friendly advances to the Pisans. The Florentine banker was anxious that his Republic should always possess skilful ambassadors and consuls, able to supply full details of all that occurred in Rome, Antwerp, or Caffa, and impede the Siennese, Genoese, Venetians, and Lombards from gaining too much influence in those cities. Where any question of this kind was concerned the members of the greater guilds were always disposed to promote hostilities, no matter how prolonged, expensive, or dangerous, and to subject both themselves and the State to unlimited sacrifices. But financial and political interests weighed little with the blacksmiths, masons, carpenters, and other members of the fourteen lesser guilds, which nevertheless formed so considerable a part of the Florentine population. It mattered far more to them that Florence should be inhabited by rich and splendid gentry; that sumptuous palaces, villas, and monumental churches should have to be built; that there should be a continual increase of luxury and good living among the citizens of rank and wealth, by whom they earned their subsistence. Warfare, on the contrary, put a check upon luxury, and the greater guilds were always issuing decrees against it, precisely on account of the exigences of the wars they so constantly had on hand. Hence the poorer classes detested the opulent burghers, whom they had helped to raise to power, who had subsequently excluded them, as well as the nobles, from the government, and who, while accumulating untold millions, often lived in the city on a footing of Spartan frugality; the men daily promulgating new edicts against female luxury in dress; forbidding the use of gold and silver ornaments, prohibiting all lavish expenditure for entertainments or wedding banquets, even going so far as to limit the number and choice of viands, and exclude gold and silver plate from festive tables; but who, nevertheless, were always very ready to squander millions in attacks on the Pisans, the King of Naples, the Visconti of Milan, or even for a church, or an additional consul at Caffa or Pera. This difference of temper generated party hatred. Nor should it be omitted that some of the bitterest outcries against the greater guilds came from the women of Florence, who, being naturally opposed to warfare, and addicted to extravagance, objected to the vexatious restrictions imposed by law, while yet contriving to evade them with indescribable ingenuity.[365] It is very easy to realise how good an opportunity this afforded the nobles of gaining the favour of the populace by stirring these germs of discord. They exercised no trade, lived on their revenues, but spent freely and lavishly in Florence. Accordingly, whenever engaged in fresh attempts to seize the government, or preserve their remaining share in it, they always allied themselves with the mob that lived--or at least believed itself to live--solely at their expense, and roused its resentment against the _popolani grassi_--or well-to-do burghers--by dwelling on the fact that whereas all the guilds were equally engaged in trade and commerce, a considerable number of them had no share in the power exclusively monopolised by the rest. The democratic spirit was far too lively in Florence for these devices to assure the safety of the nobles, much less their return to power; but they had the effect of stirring the masses to a burning and irresistible thirst for power, and of awakening revolutionary passions in the mob. Thus, at the moment of finally losing their old supremacy in the city, the nobles achieved the revenge of bequeathing to Florence a prolonged inheritance of strife that kept the Republic divided, and hastened its fall. In fact, when at last the lesser guilds obtained a share in the government, they were never at one with the greater trades. Their hostility was continually shown in all councils, tribunals, and public gatherings; and they sometimes resorted to the perilous means of inflaming the worst passions of the mob which, as usual, served as a ready tool for ambitious aims. In this way a spirit of anarchy was unloosed, leading first to the revolt of the Ciompi, then to the necessity of seeking a protector for the Republic, and finally to the rule of the Medici. But before arriving at these extremities, there were two centuries of struggle, during which Florentine affairs were almost invariably in the hands of the burghers. On several occasions the reins of power seemed to have slipped from their grasp, but they always managed to retain enough influence to secure the election of magistrates of their own choice. In this way victory was restored to them, and they again took possession of the government. When, on the other hand, the triumph of anarchy made it requisite to seek a protector, and this protector, summoned to the defence of the Republic, sided with the malcontents and tried to establish a tyranny, the burghers then contrived to unite every faction in the interest of their common freedom and reinstate the Republican government, thus giving it a fresh lease of life. By dint of incredible sagacity, daring, and steadfastness, they managed to struggle on amid a thousand dangers, both within and without the walls. Although plunged in perpetual conflict with those who desired peace and claimed ever wider rights; although surrounded by most powerful external foes now attempting to destroy their trade, now their Republic, their energy and patriotism never wearied, never failed to be on the alert. It was a feverish time of unceasing stress and strain, and freedom, though always on the verge of annihilation, was kept alive for two centuries in the midst of communities where it was perishing. And even as the burghers had managed to create all sorts of financial combinations for the increase of trade and multiplication of wealth, so they showed inexhaustible ingenuity in devising new schemes and institutions to prolong the life of their Republic. In matters of foreign policy Florentine diplomats became so renowned for sagacity and quick-wittedness, that on certain points they enjoyed even higher repute than the famed ambassadors of Venice. The latter, in fact, with their old traditions of statecraft, pursued the invariable policy of a strong, calm and self-reliant government. Their strength was the outcome of the strength and wisdom of a republic commanding both fear and respect, and whose voice seemed to be heard in the speech of its envoys. Every Florentine ambassador exercised, on the contrary, a direct personal influence, due to his own sharpness of intellect, extraordinary knowledge of mankind, and marvellous aptitude for comprehending everything and making everything clearly understood. Undoubtedly the State acted in him and by him; but less because he served as its mouthpiece than because it had succeeded in evoking and training all his mental powers and rendering him an intelligent and independent personality. Florentine merchants, notaries, administrators, and diplomats were universally prized, and seemed at home in every corner of the globe. Hence it is said that one day Pope Boniface VIII., seeing that the ambassadors sent to him from different parts of the world were one and all Florentines, quietly remarked, "You Florentines are the fifth element in creation." It was in the midst of these political conflicts, of this ferment of the human mind, that art and literature rose to such splendour, that the whole world was, as it were, illuminated by the radiance shed by Italian cities, and shining most brightly from Florence. The far-reaching energy of this city of commerce and trade was felt almost everywhere; but even at points where this had failed to penetrate, the genius of Florentine literature and art seems to have asserted its power and initiated modern culture in Europe. VII. All this, however, was carried on in the face of continual and new dangers, threatening the very life of the Republic, and sometimes only to be averted by super-human efforts. Memory instinctively carries us back to the Florence of old with its council and its Consuls, yearly taking the field united and agreed, for the purpose of abasing the nobles and clearing the highways for the march of its trade; and then, having reduced the hostile barons one by one, compelling them to live within the walls, subject to the equal pressure of republican laws;--to the times when the State could only overcome its more powerful neighbours by emancipating the slaves of the soil and granting political privileges to traders hitherto unpossessed of any such rights. On recalling those times, we easily recognise that they contained the germs of future greatness for the Commune that by dint of continual warfare succeeded in augmenting its resources in every direction. Later, however, things were radically changed, owing to many causes, and above all in consequence of the new method of warfare to which we have already alluded and which must now be more fully described. Down to the fourteenth century republican armies were composed of foot soldiers, lightly equipped with sword, shield, and helmet, and some slight defensive armour for leg or breast. The horse were few in number and never decided the fate of a battle. All barbarian armies had been composed much on the same plan, excepting those of the Huns and Moors, who were almost always mounted, and of the Byzantines, whose cavalry had frequently defeated the Goths. Frederic Barbarossa's Italian campaigns had been chiefly carried on by infantry and withstood by the infantry of our communes, who could then turn all able-bodied citizens into soldiers at a moment's notice. But in the campaigns of Frederic II., Manfred and Charles of Anjou, a new method of war had been imported into Italy from Germany and France. The Florentines had learnt this to their cost at the battle of Montaperti, when their numerous army was routed by the charge of a few German horse. From that moment the issue of all Italian battles began to be decided by heavy cavalry or by men-at-arms. The mounted soldier was clad in steel from head to foot, although not yet, as at the close of the fifteenth century, encased, together with his steed, in such ponderous armour, that, once fallen, neither could rise from the ground without help. Armed with a very long lance, the horseman could overthrow the foot soldier before the latter could approach him with his short sword. Besides, this weapon never served to pierce the armour either of man or horse; and the arrows of the bowmen were equally useless. Accordingly, a few hundred men-at-arms pushed forward like a movable and impregnable fortress into the midst of a host of infantry sufficed to rout it in a very short time. This state of things lasted until the invention of powder and firearms produced a radical change in the condition of the Italian communes. For mounted troops required much training and great expenditure. It was not enough to maintain great arsenals, to create and train a new breed of horses, but every trooper had also to be kept in steady practice, devote his whole time to warfare, and keep two or three squires continuously drilled and employed. These squires carried all the armour and weapons and led the knight's charger, which was only used in battle. Only then, too, were knight and steed in full harness, otherwise both would have been exhausted in the hour of danger. Hence it was impossible for our republics to raise cavalry, seeing that citizens, earning their living by trade and commerce, could not forsake their daily work to acquire the art of war. Therefore, soldiering became a regular trade, and all choosing it for their career speedily began to put a price on their swords. Thus from the closing years of the thirteenth century we begin to find _soldiers_ of various nationalities--Catalans, Burgundians, Germans, and other foreign horse--in the ranks of republican armies, and the number of these mercenaries was continually on the increase. Gradually, also, tradesmen were obliged to recognise that they had become personally useless in the field. Accordingly, whenever the republics were threatened with attack, they no longer ventured to give battle without hiring some captain with a band of foreign horse. Italian valour rapidly lost its prestige, and "Companies of Adventure"--soon to be the cause of our direst calamities--began to be formed. Later on, it is true that when Alberico da Barbiano, Attendolo Sforza, Braccio da Montone, and others adopted the same career, they rivalled and even surpassed the foreign adventurers, who had now often to yield the palm to Italian courage. Soon, in fact, many came from afar to learn the new art of war under these Italian captains whose skill first reduced it to a science. Nevertheless, few citizens of free states were able to devote their whole life to war. It was the nobles, the exiles, the unemployed--knowing no other trade--and the subjects of petty tyrants who joined the "Companies of Adventure." And whether small bands or large, Italian or foreign, they invariably hastened the ruin of all our communes, and more especially of Florence. The continual wars in which this State was now engaged no longer served to foster the military spirit and energy of its people. Always compelled to rely on the help of foreign mercenaries, it soon lost all confidence in its own resources, the which therefore rapidly declined. A campaign simply implied some financial operation, or the levying of fresh taxes to furnish sufficient capital for the hire of one of the captains of adventure, who always closed with the highest bid. The money found, it was often enough to send it to the State's surest and most powerful ally, who undertook to complete the affair by engaging the captain best able to hire the largest number of men. So the chief thing was to know how to gain friends and excite enemies against the foe, and in this the Florentines always showed masterly skill. But these devices were no proof of military capacity. The most important personages despatched by them to the seat of war were commissioners charged to superintend the general proceedings, the administration of the army, and the political object of the campaign, and although we sometimes find these commissioners suddenly transformed into captains, taking command of the forces and deciding the fate of a battle with singular daring, their functions were always civil and diplomatic rather than military. It is easy to foresee the final results of this method with regard to the future of the Republic, and the morals of its inhabitants. The stout burghers at the head of the government were engaged in the continual practice of cunning and craft. It was requisite to show adroitness in the council chamber; to thwart the nobles; to remain constantly on the alert to prevent the populace from growing unruly, while persuading it to furnish funds to carry on wars which were indispensable to secure the safety and prosperity of the foreign trade. Hence, still greater subtlety was needed in diplomatic negotiations to avoid being isolated, and to continually maintain the equilibrium of Italian States in the way most advantageous for the Republic. Even actual warfare being now reduced, as we have seen, to a financial operation, had come to be a fresh proof of ingenuity. There were no longer any of those vast sacrifices of citizens' blood and citizens' lives which serve towards the continued regeneration of a people, no longer any deeds of open and generous violence. And at times when the rich burghers were not absorbed in politics, they and all the rest of the citizens were devoted heart and soul to commerce, employing their leisure moments in the study of Tacitus, Virgil, or Homer, kept ready to hand under their counters. But, invariably, it was only the intelligence that was kept always in training, while the nobler faculties remained strangled and atrophied by the constant use of cunning and trickery. This was destined to lead, sooner or later, to the inevitable decay of the Republic's moral and political life, and to the decline of the highest mental culture. If the manner in which wars were planned and conducted caused fatal results, no less fatal were the ulterior consequences of victorious campaigns. For the hired troops once paid off, changed from friends into foes, and instantly sought to sell their services to some other employer. Failing to find one, and therefore receiving no pay, they dispersed in armed bands, ravaging town and country, by a species of military brigandage. Generally, it was found requisite to come to terms with them, and bribe them to keep the peace. But the most important point to be noted at this juncture is that the conquest of fresh territory, although become an absolute necessity to the Republic, now began to be a serious danger and the source of future calamities. During the Middle Ages the Italian Commune had been a fertile cause of progress; but as its possessions outside the walls began to increase, it proved wholly powerless to convert the free city into what we call a State without working radical changes in its constitution. In fact, even in Florence, the most democratic of our communes, citizens were only to be found within the circuit of the walls. Laws were framed to ameliorate the condition of the territory outside and to abolish serfdom there, but no one contemplated endowing inhabitants of the _contado_ with political rights. The title of citizens always remained, as it were, a privilege only granted to a minority, even of dwellers within the walls, and was never extended to the people at large. Whenever a new city was conquered and subjected to the Republic, it was governed more or less harshly; allowed to retain more or fewer local privileges; sometimes even permitted to retain a republican form of government, subject to the authority of a Podestà, captain, or commissary, and paying the taxes imposed by them; but its inhabitants never enjoyed the freedom of the City, nor were their representatives by any chance admitted to the councils or political offices of Florence. Accordingly, as the State became enlarged by fresh conquests, the cluster of citizens monopolising the government, and already very limited in number, sank to a still smaller minority compared with the ever-increasing population subject to their rule. Similarly to all other republicans of the Middle Ages, the Florentines were altogether unable to conceive the idea of a State governed with a view to the general welfare. On the contrary, the prosperity and grandeur of Florence formed the one object and aim to which every other consideration had to be subservient. Nor had the lower classes and populace, who were always clamouring for increased freedom, any different or wider views on the subject. Their ideas, indeed, being restricted in a narrower circle, were even more prejudiced, as their passions were blinder. Consequently it was considered at that time a greater calamity to be subjugated by a fellow republic than by a monarchy; inasmuch as princes brought their tyranny to bear equally on all alike, and thus, at any rate as regarded politics, the chief majority of the conquered suffered less injury. When Florence, however, by achieving the long-desired conquest of Pisa, at last became mistress of the sea, and witnessed the rapid increase of her commerce, she discovered that the annexation of a great and powerful republic, full of life and strength and possessed of so large a trade, brought her none of the advantages which might have ensued from a union of a freer kind with an equal distribution of political rights. The chief citizens of Pisa and all the wealthier families left the country, preferring to live in Lombardy, France, or even in Sicily under the Aragonese, where at least they enjoyed civil equality, rather than remain in their own city subject to the harsh and tyrannous rule of Florentine shopkeepers. The commerce and industry of Pisa, her navy, her merchant-fleet, all vanished when freedom fell; while her _Studio_, or university, one of the old glories of Italy, and afterwards reconstituted by the Medici, was done away with, and the city soon reduced to a state of squalid desolation. All conquered cities suffered this fate; those once of the richest and most powerful in the days of their freedom being treated with still greater harshness than the rest.[366] This makes it easy to understand why, when Florence was in danger, all conquered cities in which life was not altogether extinguished invariably seized the opportunity to try to regain their independence, and always preferred a native or foreign tyrant to cowering beneath the yoke of a republic that refused to learn from experience the wisdom of changing its policy. Nor could it have effected such change without radically altering its whole constitution and manner of existence. Thus, in accumulating riches and power, Florence was only multiplying the causes of her approaching and unavoidable decline. The Commune seemed increasingly incapable of giving birth to the modern State, and accordingly, when its chief support, commerce, began to decay, the strength of the burghers was sapped, and the oppressed multitude, now a formidable majority, speedily looked to monarchical rule for their relief. Thus the Medici were enabled to attain supremacy in the name of freedom, and with the support of people and populace. Thus, likewise, by violence, or fraud, or by both combined, the communes of Italy were all reduced to principalities; and wherever, from exceptional causes, the republican order still lingered on for a while, it was only as a shadow of its former self, and no longer rendering any of the advantages for which it had been originally designed. Populations which had failed to establish equality by means of free institutions, were now forced to learn the lesson of equality beneath the undiscriminating oppression of a despotic prince. Signories formed the necessary link of transition between the mediæval commune and the modern state. For these Signories traced a way towards the just administration and method pursued by the vast kingdoms then in course of formation on the continent of Europe, and which also remained absolute and despotic monarchies until the French revolution effected in town, country, and throughout every class that work of social emancipation which the Italian communes had so admirably initiated, but had never learnt to extend beyond the circuit of their walls. Florence maintained a prolonged resistance, but finally shared the fate of her fellow republics. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII.[367] _THE FAMILY AND THE STATE IN ITALIAN COMMUNES._[368] I.[369] It is certain that no real national history of Italy can be written until the statutes and laws of our communes have been published, studied, and thoroughly investigated by the light not merely of historical but of legal research. The necessity for such investigation was first proclaimed by the learned Savigny, subsequently recognised by many Italian scholars, but has never yet been entirely satisfied. An accurate study of those old laws and statutes would make us acquainted with the public law of the communes, and place before our eyes a clear and exact picture of their political institutions which have been hitherto very imperfectly understood. Moreover, what is certainly of no less importance--it would enlarge our knowledge of our ancient private law, to which many learned authorities, among others Francesco Forti, attribute the origin of modern jurisprudence, and the germs of many jural provisions, afterwards accepted by us as novelties derived from the French Code. Public and private law have far more affinity than is generally supposed, and each conduces to the plainer and more exact comprehension of the other. Society and the State have both their birth in the family, reacting upon and modifying it in turn. No student therefore who seeks to discover the true key to political institutions developing themselves in a country spontaneously, should neglect the constitution of the family wherein are to be found the earliest beginnings of civil law, with which political law also is more or less connected. Cases, it is true, frequently occur of one people adopting the civil law of another, without altering its own political institutions; while in other instances both are imposed simultaneously by a superior foreign force. This has led many to question the reality of the connection which in fact subsists between them. But these cases have nothing to do with that natural and spontaneous development of law of which we are now speaking. In this development, politics and jurisprudence, the State and the family, are found to be closely interconnected. In the course of Florentine history we often see political revolutions break out suddenly and apparently without warning; but on closer examination we perceive them to be the result of deep social changes which have been maturing for a long time, and although imperceptible at first, afterwards assuming such proportions as to become suddenly visible to all eyes and productive of political reforms. Thus it happens that private law, which always accompanies social movements and changes with them, not unfrequently enables us to trace the sources and unfold the true tendency and inexorable necessity of revolutions, even before they come to pass. Accordingly, the habitual neglect of this particular study in connection with the history of Italy has proved a serious defect. No one at the present day would venture to write the political history of Rome without giving attention to the Roman jurisprudence. Nevertheless, we have written the history of our republics over and over again, without bestowing a thought on their civil and penal legislation. It is true that the investigation required presents very great difficulties, inasmuch as our history was subject, during the Middle Ages, to a series of changes, always rapid and always different. The number of our republics is infinite. Every province of Italy, every fragment of Italian territory is divided and subdivided into communes, every one of which has a distinct history, and political institutions which are constantly changing. This perpetual mutation is faithfully reflected in the statutes of the Commune. On the margins of these statutes we find alterations and corrections registered from year to year, and formulated, not unfrequently, after the streets of the city had begun to run with blood. When annotations and corrections reach a certain number, the statutes are drafted anew, and of these re-drafts also many copies are still extant. It was the duty of the officials in charge of the statutes (_statutari_) to enter from time to time such farther modifications as were afterwards approved of in the Councils of the People. Hence it sometimes happens that on referring to the statutes of a given year, we may find the duties of some chief magistrate of the Republic set forth in their text with the most minute detail, whereas if we look to the notes it will appear that these duties have already been changed. If we next consult the remodelled statute it will be found that the magistracy itself no longer exists. How is it possible, therefore, to give any idea of the political form of a municipality fashioned in such wise? This can only be done by gleaning from the mass of the statutes the history of the constitution through all its successive changes of form. In a word, we must recognise that, instead of being confronted by a system crystallised, fixed and immutable, we are watching a living organism develop under our eyes in obedience to a settled law. This law alone is uniform, and it is this we must endeavour to trace, since it alone can solve the mystery and supply exact ideas. Turning from public law to private legislation, our difficulties rather increase than diminish. For, in perusing this, by no means less important portion of the statutes, we come upon a confused medley of legal systems differing from and often opposed to one another. When we meet with such terms as _meta_ and _mundium_, _wergild_ and _morgengab_, _dos_ and _tutela_, testamentary succession and succession by agreement, we recognise that Longobard law, Roman law, feudal law, and canon law are all present, and perceive that they are blended in constantly varying proportions. These diverse legal systems act and react one upon the other, producing reciprocal changes. Into the Roman law, provisions are constantly filtering which indubitably belong to the Longobard law, while the latter in its turn is profoundly modified ("mutilated and castrated," as Gans expresses it) by the Roman law. How are we to explain this congeries of different laws? Is there any new and original principle that assimilates the heterogeneous elements and constitutes a new law? If so, what is it? This is the knotty problem which Savigny encouraged us to attack, but which we have hitherto failed to unravel. But although the question remains unsolved, its importance is now universally acknowledged; it has been carefully studied, and many treatises, including some of the highest value, have been published on the subject. Accordingly certain observations may at last be offered to the public. The constitution of the family and its relation with the State are, as it were, the chief centre round which all fresh researches must revolve, and these form the subject of this short and summary essay. As a preliminary step towards the solution of the problem, an accurate investigation is required of the various forms that the family assumed under the various systems of law which succeeded one another in Italy, in order to ascertain how it was that from the combination of those various forms, another and widely different one should have resulted. The first question therefore that presents itself has reference to the condition of the Roman law and the Roman family at the time of the barbarian invasion. As regards the Italian communes, it is only natural that the Roman jurisprudence should strike the deepest and strongest root in their social system, and that the history of our laws should originally find in it their first beginning. Here, however, we are forced to enter on a digression which, although seemingly apart from the point, will presently help us to a clearer understanding of the new society in course of development. With regard to this digression it should also be said that so much learning and research have been directed to the study of Roman law, that we are able to arrive at certain trustworthy conclusions which, by affording evidence of the close connection between the Roman family, and the political society derived from it, will show us what path to take in pursuit of the same connection in the history of Italy. II. Every student of the Pandects knows that the words "Roman law" denote the outcome of long preliminary labours, and the ultimate form of a jurisprudence which cannot be rightly understood without analysing all the historical elements employed in preparing and building it up. Treated in this way, the history of Roman law becomes, as it were, instantly transformed into a history of many different legislations following one another at intervals. From the Twelve Tables down to Justinian, this law never halts for an hour in its constant course of development. Even during the Middle Ages, when the compilations made at Constantinople were studied with religious zeal by expounders and commentators whose sole object was to faithfully reproduce and diffuse this law, even thus, in the hands of those interpreters, influenced by the altered spirit of the times and by new social developments, it underwent changes of which they were not themselves conscious. It is not until the fifteenth century that this historic development can be said to have ceased among us, and Roman law become mainly a subject of learned research. It is at this time that a new and modern system of jurisprudence first reveals itself to history, endowed with a separate life, and with a form of its own, though borrowing much from the Roman law, which in consequence continues to be of the utmost value to us, and still deserves our most assiduous attention, although for a very different purpose from that with which it was studied during the Middle Ages. Our object is now to familiarise ourselves with an immortal monument of ancient wisdom, to shape our legal education by it, to be helped by it to a clearer understanding of our own codes, and to contemplate it in its successive manifestations, while we search for its regulating law. It is in fact the discovery of this law that has at once thrown a new light upon the whole history of Roman jurisprudence, which we perceive to have been always and unceasingly governed by it, and thus forced to assume a character so constant and continuous through all its various transformations, that what had before seemed to be a series of distinct legislations takes an entirely new aspect, making us spectators, as it were, of the evolution of a single idea, the progressive development of a work of Nature. All this continuous progress or evolution was the result of two forces, of two different elements. The true, primitive law of Rome was the special law of the Quirites, of which we find the remains in the Twelve Tables: a severe and restricted law abounding in formulas which had to be sacredly observed, and its administration was entrusted to a small number of citizens who alone were acquainted with its rules, whose authority was sanctioned by religion. The smallest mistake of form made void the most just decree, and where the law omitted to define the formula to be observed, no valid action could be brought. When the due formula, making the contract binding, had once been pronounced, no proof of mistake or fraud could annul it. "Uti lingua nuncupassit ita ius esto." A slave to forms, the judge could not listen to the voice of morality or rectitude; the most just complaint failed to move him, unless supported by a text of law. The defendant dared not stir a step without the continual guidance of the legislator, inasmuch as every juridical formula was sacred and inviolable; and as the science of law was monopolised by the College of Pontiffs, the most aristocratic and conservative body in Rome, it became a kind of occult science. It was this very character, however, apparently so restricted and pedantic, that gave its great force to the law in Rome. For law, being now freed for the first time from every extraneous element belonging to morals and good faith, became firm and inexorable. Any one who had the law in his favour was safe to see it promptly carried out. History affords no example elsewhere of legal sanction and redress being applied so swiftly and surely as in Rome. In Athens, indeed, where the laws were more philosophical, and the popular conscience gave judgment, investigating motives, despising formulas, and looking only to substantial justice, caprice often prevailed, and law never attained the iron strength and tenacity of the Roman jurisprudence. But with changing times, all things changed in Rome. This jurisprudence revered as sacred, but described by Vico as _made up of formulas and phrases_, was well adapted to a rude and primitive people. Ideas had greatly altered in the days of Cicero, who in his speech _pro Murena_ severely satirises a science which, in his eyes, had become ridiculous: "res enim sunt parvæ, prope in singulis literis atque interpunctionibus occupatæ." He looked upon the whole thing as a fraud designed by the priests to secure themselves a monopoly. Was he in the right or the wrong? Vico, in examining a similar question, showed that Cicero was mistaken on this score. Cicero and his contemporaries, he said, lived in too cultivated an age to comprehend rude and primitive jurisprudence; they could not grasp its true significance, but formed their judgment of the ancient laws according to the ideas and principles of their own times. This view, which was first broached in the _Scienza Nuova_, was afterwards accepted by many other writers; and it is now placed beyond a doubt that the primitive Roman law was not the artifice of a learned few, but was a spontaneous and necessary growth among the people with whom it had its origin. At first, custom, clearly distinguished from the law formulated and written, tempered its rigid severity. Good faith and equity, disregarded and rejected by the law, found their sanction in custom, were administered by a separate tribunal, and were always respected, inasmuch as the sentence pronounced by the officiating magistrate was morally, though not legally, binding, and was therefore of great efficacy as the genuine expression of public opinion. The sentence of condemnation could not be carried out by force; but it made the condemned man infamous, and, as a last resort, the magistrate could cite the accused before the people, as the supreme legislator and judge. But at a later date customs grew corrupt, and no longer sufficed to protect public good faith and morality, which were driven to seek asylum and sanction in the law, and so began gradually to modify its primitive character. Substance now prevailed over form, equity over the ancient text of the law, the intention of the contracting parties over words uttered by mistake; the law became more moral as customs grew more degraded. This transformation, though very gradual at the beginning, was afterward, accelerated by the new conditions of the Republics in which a change took place not unlike that occurring in the history of jurisprudence, towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. At that time the various European States, with their various systems of law, having contracted new relations with one another, came to recognise the necessity of establishing some fixed rules by which all should be bound, and thus, under the auspices of Hugh Grotius, the so-called School of Natural Law was built up. The same occurred in Rome, if not in the science, at any rate in the practice of law. As the dominion of the Republic became extended in Italy, its relations increased with neighbouring nations, among whom the more philosophical and less severe laws and principles of the Greek jurisprudence prevailed. It was impossible to impose upon all these nations, without modification, the rigid law of the Roman patriciate. Accordingly a new system of law, of a simpler character and wider reach, took shape and rapidly grew. This was named the _jus gentium_, to distinguish it from the other, the _jus civile_. "Jus gentium est quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit." This system, however, was not deduced from philosophic theories concerning human nature, as was the, appropriately styled, natural law of the eighteenth century; it originated in the practical needs of the Romans and their new relations with other Italian peoples: it was fostered by the principles of Greek jurisprudence that had been transplanted into Southern Italy; it met the new requirements of the Romans themselves; and taking the place that custom had previously filled in the Roman courts, grew side by side with the law of the Patricians with which it long maintained its union. There were thus two systems of law in force in Rome; and we accordingly find on the one hand judges and courts faithful to the ancient formalism, on the other, judges and courts taking cognizance of equity and good faith, and almost discharging the duties of the Censor. The continuous onward progress of the _jus gentium_, the reciprocal action of the two legal systems ultimately fusing them into one, wherein the old Roman formation gradually lost its rigidity, and equity, becoming incorporated with the civil law, began to assume a more definite and regular form, were all consequences of the principle which dominates the life and history of the Roman law, and may even be said to constitute it. For it has been moulded and diffused through the world, inheriting from the old Quirites its frame of iron; from contact with other races and from such germs as it could assimilate of Greek civilisation, its more comprehensive and human spirit. Assuming thus a character at once exact and philosophical, it seemed as though destined to become, from its superiority, the universal jurisprudence, the indispensable foundation, as it were, of all future legislation. This union of legal systems was effected by the Prætor. He it was who represented both the modern spirit and the ancient, enlarging the old law with the defences of equity which he strengthened by submitting it to the trammels of a formal procedure. This in substance was what took place with regard to customs, letters, and everything else. The fusion of Greek civilisation with the Roman constitutes the history of the ancient world. III. As is natural, we also meet with the same phenomena in the history of the family, from which the civil law is to a great extent derived. In fact, whoever contemplates the primitive Roman family, at once recognises it as the basis upon which the future juridical and political greatness of Rome was erected. The family is sacred; the father is absolute master of the goods, the liberty and the life both of his wife and of his children. He is priest, judge, supreme arbiter: wife, children, and grandchildren form with him a single joint society, one legal entity of which he is the representative. The woman may be bartered away, killed, or sold in execution; freed by marriage from the despotic control of her father, she at once falls under that of her husband; her legal incapacity lasts through her whole life. But primitive customs so temper this harsh law that we find no other people of antiquity so observant of the sanctity of family, or showing so much respect to woman. Matrimony is styled "consortium omnis vitæ, divini et humani iuris communicatio." Divorce on the part of the husband (_repudium_) is not forbidden by law, but any man who repudiates his wife is dishonoured by the Censor, excommunicated by the priest, and for a period of five centuries few cases of repudiation are recorded. In ancient Greece some traces of oriental polygamy are still discernible, but in Italy monogamy is coeval with Rome itself. Natural children, as such, never rank as members of the family, but they may be legitimated. Adoption is a solemn act, the moral propriety of which is referred to the decision of the pontifex, as the guardian of the sanctity of the family, and is thus submitted to the popular sanction. The woman is never seen in places of public resort, nor does she attend popular gathering; but within doors she is _domina_, and the husband addresses her by that title. The _Atrium_ is the centre and sanctuary of the house. Here relations, friends, and strangers meet together; here stand the domestic hearth, the altar dedicated to the _Lares_, and all those objects which the family holds sacred: the nuptial coach, the ancestral likenesses moulded in wax from the faces of the dead, the matron's rock and spindle, the chest containing the household records and monies. All these possessions are entrusted to the care and superintendence of the mother of the family, who, together with her husband, sacrifices to the gods and assists him in the management of the common patrimony: she directs all domestic work, and watches over the education of her children. In the annals and legends of Rome the name of some heroine, such as Virginia or Lucretia, is indissolubly linked with the chief glories of the Eternal City. It is not so in Greece. In instituting and sanctifying the family, the Romans laid the foundation-stone of the Capitol. But to maintain this primitive nucleus of Roman society firm and compact, the law must always watch with vigilance and multiply its ordinances. The property of the family must be kept together as strictly as possible and for the longest possible time. The father is its sole master and arbiter; but on his death the patrimony is equally divided between sons and daughters. The _unity_ of the family must also be guarded and defended by the law, since there is serious danger that a woman marrying may carry away from the family an interest in the family property. She is accordingly subjected by the law to a perpetual tutelage which prevents her from disposing at will of her own property. On the death of her father the woman comes under the tutelage of the agnati. In Cicero's day, when as Vico has noted, the true significance of primitive Roman law had been lost, lawyers believed that this tutelage of women had been established on account of the weakness of the sex, _propter sexus infirmitatem_. But Gaius refers to this opinion as a plausible and prevalent error, and maintains that the restriction was instituted in the interest of the agnati, so that the woman, whose presumptive heirs they were, should have no power to alienate, diminish, or otherwise defraud them of their inheritance.[370] So long as the woman remained under the tutelage of her father, inasmuch as she had not yet inherited, the law allowed her to incur legal obligations. The danger for the family began when, on her father's death, she became an heir. It was from that precise moment, accordingly, that she came under the tutelage of her own heirs the agnati, and could no longer bind herself without their consent. This tutelage, therefore, became not merely a duty on the part of the agnati, but was also a right and privilege. Where the agnate was a minor, of weak mind, or otherwise incapacitated, he did not forfeit this right, but it had to be exercised by a third party. The tutor fixed the dowry to be given with the woman on her marriage; but the remainder of her patrimony had to be preserved intact, that it might return afterwards to the agnati. No woman could make a will, that she might not have it in her power to defraud the family. On passing _in manus viri_, the woman underwent a _capitis diminutio_. She entered another family, as it were, _loco filiæ_, and her new relations became her lawful heirs. Under these circumstances the law permitted her to make a testamentary disposition, whereby, notwithstanding her new relationships, she might restore her patrimony to her own original family. When the woman was under the _manus_ of her husband, she was emancipated from the paternal authority and from the tutelage of her agnates. The displeasure thereby caused to her own family was so great that, before long, marriage by simple consent was resorted to, according to which the woman became personally subject to her husband's authority, but he had no right of _manus_ over her, and consequently no power over her property. In this way the woman remained under the power of her father or of the agnates, and at the same time came under the authority of her husband, an arrangement that inevitably led to many collisions, and hastened the advent of the most radical change in the Roman family--the complete independence of woman. But, before reaching this point, disputes were for a long time kept in check and efficaciously remedied by the mediating influence of a most important institution--the domestic tribunal. This family council, regulated by usage, not law, was composed of agnates, cognates, relations, and sometimes also of friends. It presided at espousals and at the assumption of the _toga virilis_; it protected orphans; it aided the head of the family in adjudicating and in awarding punishment, and acted as a restraint on his authority. By law, the father could act even without the co-operation of the Council; but by doing so, he exposed himself to being publicly blamed and noted with ignominy by the Censor, who, if necessary, might accuse him before the people. The marriageable maiden was subject to and protected by this Council. Becoming a wife by that form of marriage which brought her _in manus viri_, she left her own family to become member of another; but if not married under that form, she still remained subject to the family Council, in which her husband was now included. IV. In the age of Cæsar, the Roman family is no longer what it was at first. Laws, usages, ideas, all are changed; and everything is moving onward to a still more radical transformation. The _jus gentium_ seems to have become identical with the more rigorous _jus civile_. The _fideicommissum_ has almost the force of a testament in solemn form, and has become part, as it were, of the _jus civile_; _verbal contract_, the ancient _stipulatio_, once so hampered by formulas, is grown so flexible as to resemble a contract under the _jus gentium_. But the greatest change of all has taken place in the family. The domestic hearth is no longer the household sanctuary. The _Atrium_ is transformed into an open courtyard, enlivened with flowers and limpid fountains, ornamented with gilded busts and statues, often of an obscene character. Sacrifices are no longer offered there to the gods amid the stillness and purity of domestic and religious affection; it now serves the enriched and corrupt patrician as a place of reception for his numerous friends and clients. The family of former days, once almost a State within the State, is now dissolved, and, as it were, swallowed up by the political power. The agnates no longer cleave together, the domestic tribunal has either lost its strength or has entirely disappeared. Paternal authority, though less absolute, is more oppressive, being no longer in harmony with the changed customs. If a father disinherits his son, the judge cancels the will. Should he refuse consent to his son's marriage, the State compels him to grant it; should he punish his son with death, the emperor sends him into exile; he cannot ill-use even his slaves without being punished by the law, for the law has grown moral as manners become more corrupt. By gradual degrees woman escapes from tutelage, and from _manus_, and ultimately attains her independence. But the more she is emancipated from her family and relations, the greater becomes her subjection to the State. In her new independence she incurs new disabilities, no longer resulting from her position as daughter or wife, but from the fact of her sex, disabilities no longer imposed in the interest of the family, but created as a protection for her infirmity. This explains how it was that the lawyers of later days were mistaken as to the significance of the old law touching the _tutela_ of woman. The wife's dowry is guaranteed to her more and more strictly, until it finally becomes her almost inseparable property. It must neither be alienated nor diminished. On her becoming a widow, being divorced, or returning to the paternal roof, she remains absolute mistress of it. A husband who surprises his wife in adultery can no longer--hiding his dishonour within his own walls--judge and put her to death with the consent of the domestic tribunal. He must now leave the State to avenge his wrongs, and must resort to the courts, even though seeking only minor penalties. Divorce has become a public act of not unfrequent occurrence. The woman, in short, is no longer under her husband's _manus_, no longer subject to the _patria potestas_, no longer under the tutelage of the _agnati_: she is protected by the State. When the law still requires her to have a _tutor_ or procurator, she can choose a stranger who becomes her servant rather than her master. Eventually even this last shadow of subjection disappears. Absolutely her own mistress, the woman may now hold property, increase her fortune, make her will, lose her virtue; but her dowry, guaranteed and kept intact by law, remains hers to the end of her life. Nevertheless, as regards succession, the woman's rights are not yet the same as the man's. It is true, that should her father die intestate, she takes an equal share with her brothers of the inheritance; but in all other cases of intestacy the nearest female agnate stands after the most distant male. The woman cannot now do any legal act for others, though this had not been forbidden previously; she cannot be a witness; she cannot stand security for the debts of others. The _Senatus-consultum Velleianum_ lays it down as a fixed rule, which, to a certain extent, has remained in force to our own days--that the woman must not undertake any obligation on behalf of others. She may alienate her possessions in others' favour, may incur a direct obligation, contract a debt, and transfer the money to others; but she cannot bind herself to pay another's debt, nor guarantee its payment. In the legislator's opinion, the infirmity of her sex leaves her enough intelligence to escape danger in assuming direct obligations, or by alienating her property, but not enough to guard her from lightly undertaking remote and indirect liabilities which are often no less serious. But the progressive changes in the Roman family are not yet at an end. To the numberless causes for change already in existence another is added, when Christianity finds its way into the Empire, into literature and law, and subverts all things. According to the law of Christ, man and woman are equal; father and mother have equal rights and duties in respect of their children, for whose advantage all things must be ordered; whereas, by the old law, the rights of the children were subordinated to the interests of the family. A new element is now introduced into Roman law which further changes its character, already much modified by Greek philosophy and by Byzantine despotism. The Canon law accepts the principles of the Roman, recognises the wife's absolute interest in her marriage portion, and rejects the pretensions of the husband. Woman remains excluded from every office which the ancients deemed proper to man; she cannot enter into obligations for others, nor arbitrate, nor lay an accusation, nor bear witness in court; her evidence has no legal effect. On the other hand, Roman law tends inexorably to democratic equality, natural equity, and to the absolute predominance of the State. The public authority deprives domestic authority of its last remnant of power; it may almost be said that the family, as a body-politic, disappears, to be reconstituted on the footing of reciprocal affection. The final seal to these alterations was imposed by the famous law of succession (Nov. 118 and 127) enacted by Justinian in the years 543 and 547, which, suppressing every privilege of sex and agnation, fixes rights according to the degree of relationship, and makes them reciprocal. It moreover enlarges the amount of the legitim, and ordains that the dowry of the wife should be met by a _donatio propter nuptias_ of equal value from the husband, and that, in the interest of the children, both should be inalienable. Even with the consent of his wife, the husband cannot sell the dowry; he may only administer it, and there must be complete reciprocity. The wife is not only the owner of the dowry, she has besides a general charge over her husband's property for its restitution, with a right of action to enforce it as against all his other creditors. In inheriting from their children the mother has equal right with the father, and she is now qualified to be their guardian. Even the _Senatus-consultum Velleianum_, which forbade women to incur obligations on behalf of others, is modified with the same scope. Justinian, indeed, from his desire to protect the property of the woman against all danger, is strenuously opposed to her incurring obligations on behalf of her husband; but he is much more indulgent in respect to obligations undertaken on behalf of a stranger. These, if incurred for manifestly good cause, are valid if renewed after two years. Thus modified, the _Senatus-consultum Velleianum_ is treated with respect throughout the Middle Ages. Reciprocal equality is now achieved, but the ancient unity of the family is dissolved; the compact and iron nucleus of Roman society is broken to fragments by the continual and increasing action of the State. In all her institutions, Rome has succeeded in arriving at democracy and equality, but at the cost of complete individual liberty, and by sacrificing the development of special associations and of local life to the unity of the State. How to conciliate these two elements without destroying the one in the interest of the other will be the problem of a new era and a new civilisation. However highly we may rate the amazing and indisputable greatness of the labours of Imperial legislators and juris-consults collected in the _Corpus iuris_ in the time of Justinian, it is nevertheless certain that the ancient and primitive character of Roman law has been profoundly changed by it, and that the despotism of the State, always prevalent in Rome, has been enormously increased. It is for this reason that Tocqueville, and others with him, go so far as to maintain that the great diffusion of the Justinian law among the Latin races has more than once proved hurtful to political freedom. To many, such an assertion may seem absurd; but granting that there is a close bond of connection between private and public law, and that the final changes in Roman law were introduced by the action of the growing despotism of the State, the opinion advanced by the French writer is not without its value. V. However that may be, it is undeniable that the family, as we now find it constituted, or, more correctly speaking, weakened, by the Justinian law has not the qualities which would enable it, in the ages of barbarism now at hand, to withstand the violent onset of the advancing Germanic peoples, much less to be the nucleus and germ from which the new society of the Italian Commune may take birth. In fact, in the statutes we find the family constituted on a very different footing. Agnation has recovered its ascendancy. The woman is under a new species of guardianship; and although the dotal system is rigorously observed, there are innumerable regulations designed to keep family property together, or make it revert to the family, so as to preserve the domestic patrimony intact. Here an important question arises, namely, whether this new constitution of the family, which stands in close relation with the public law of the communes, is a return to the pre-Justinian law, or derived from Germanic institutions and the Longobard law, in which we find, in fact, precedence accorded to agnate kin and a more stable family organisation? Italian writers, the earlier writers more especially, adhered for the most part to the former theory, while the majority of German authors, who have recently found disciples even among ourselves, adopt the second view. Thus, on either side we find theories propounded as to the constitution of the Italian family in the Middle Ages, analogous to those concerning the origin of the communes.[371] The persistence of Roman law in the Middle Ages, even when the condition of the Italians was most wretched, and when all things seemed to be subject to the law of the Longobard, was maintained with marvellous learning and acumen in the immortal work of Savigny. But, in truth, though public law and penal law might readily be altered under the rule of the conqueror, there was little likelihood that the civil law which, for so many centuries, had filtered into the usages and into the very blood of the Romans, which had regulated the manifold relations of a civilised people and satisfied its countless requirements, should perish utterly beneath the sword of barbarians unconscious of those requirements and not always able to comprehend those relations. Matters of which they were to a great extent ignorant, or as to which they were indifferent, must often have been passed over without notice in the laws framed by the barbarians, or have evaded their action. Various provisions, therefore, of the Roman law--those, for instance, relating to marriage, to succession, and to contract--must often have continued to be applied by the Italians in conformity with ancient usage. This will be more readily understood if we reflect that while the Roman law had become the law of _all_ in those countries in which the Roman conquest had taken deep root, the laws of the barbarians, on the contrary, according to Teutonic usage, always presented a personal character--that is to say, extended only to the people with whom they originated, and were not easily communicated to others. In fact, when, as a consequence of successive invasions, different Germanic tribes, whether independent of each other or in subjection one to another, came together in the same country, each of them continued to be governed by its own peculiar laws. The Romans, on the contrary, regarding their law as universal in character, communicated it to, and imposed it upon all. It was almost the first germ of the greatness and the civilisation of Rome, and for that reason its diffusion was considered the most sacred of duties by this sovereign people. Thus it was that, even under the harshest barbaric oppression, the Roman law continued to be the private law of the Italians in all those cases, and they were not few, in which the German laws failed to notice it, and neither abrogated it directly nor substituted another in its place. But the presence of two diverse legislations, the one imposed by force, the other preserved by custom, the radical change of conditions occasioned by the destruction of the old Roman State and the formation of a new society, could not fail to originate a new life, a new history for the Italian law. In the statute books of our communes we find Roman and Longobard law confronted and almost contending, each modified in turn by the action of the other. But under which of the many forms through which it has passed is the Roman law found among us at the moment when it seemed on the point of being overcome by the Germanic law? Was it in the literary and philosophic form given to it by Justinian, or was it in the _pre_-Justinian form, which, while less systematic, was also less altered by Byzantine ideas, and more in accordance with usage? Savigny roundly asserts that the Pandects on their completion were at once sent into Italy, and that immediately after the power of the Goths had been shattered by the Greeks Justinian hastened to issue the Constitution (534), whereby legal effect was given to them in the land. In consequence of this, he continues, the Pandects were then to be met with in every corner of Italy, where they were at once received with favour, inasmuch as the Justinian law was specially adapted to the requirements of the land. This, he goes on to say, likewise explains why it was that all the earliest Italian commentators or glossators devoted themselves exclusively to the study of the _Corpus iuris_. The reader, however, may easily discover that, on this head, Savigny has pushed his inferences too far. More than once, indeed, he is compelled to put a false interpretation on documents that they may not contradict his theories; and more than once the documents themselves seem to warn him that, even in the Middle Ages, vestiges of a _pre_-Justinian law are to be traced; but he persists still more resolutely in considering all this to be only a survival of antiquated forms. Many new documents have recently been published, and the question again presents itself, always with the same urgency. As a German writer, well versed in the subject, has recently observed, everything tends to show that the history of Roman law in the Middle Ages should be divided into two entirely distinct periods.[372] During the first it endured by force of custom, and accordingly many pre-Justinian formulas survived with it; in the second and much later period the Justinian law prevailed, promoted still further by the literary study of the Pandects undertaken by the Bolognese professors; it was only then that the most ancient formulas wholly disappeared. This view is supported by documentary evidence and harmonises with the character of the times and with the requirements of society, and is confirmed by our old writers and our literary traditions. [Illustration: SUPPOSED PALACE OF THEODORIC, IN RAVENNA. [_To face page 383._] In fact, Savigny himself examines and recognises the full importance of the various sources of _pre_-Justinian law diffused in the Middle Ages. The code of Theodosius (438) which then possessed great authority, and the edict drawn up by order of Theodoric the Ostrogoth (500), were direct compilations of the old Roman Jurisprudence. If in these compilations we turn our attention to the constitution of the family, more particularly as regards succession, we find it exactly as it was before the law was interwoven with the Imperial edicts.[373] The Breviary of Alaric ("Lex Romana Visigothorum") and the so-called _Papian_ code ("Lex Romana Burgundioram"), both posterior to the year 500, are likewise compilations of _pre_-Justinian law, and are found to be diffused in several provinces of the Empire. The often-mentioned "Lex Romana Utiniensis, seu Curiensis," which seems to be ninth century _rimpasto_ of Alaric's Breviary for the use of Italians in lands previously under Longobard rule, also shows the same characteristics. It is true that, according to the hypothesis of Savigny, the Breviary of Alaric must have been in use among the Franks and brought by them to Italy after the expulsion of the Longobards. In this case we should find the old law to have been in force among us only before and after the period of the Longobards; while during their oppressive rule we should discover no certain trace of it. But it is very difficult to suppose that the ancient law, based as it was upon custom, should have died out precisely when custom might have preserved it, or that Roman law should at that time have assumed the literary Justinian form and afterwards have returned to a form more primitive. Had the legislation of Justinian in its genuine form been once accepted, it must have continued to gain ground with the advance of civilisation and under the less severe rule of the Franks, whose mode of life approached much nearer to that of the Latins. The fact is, that throughout the Middle Ages we meet with pre-Justinian legal forms, more or less modified, even among the laws of the Longobards.[374] As to the remark that the earliest Italian commentators, the _glossators_, directed their studies to the Pandects and the whole of the _Corpus iuris_--this only shows that on the revival of the communes and of letters they turned, as was natural, to the most authoritative and literary source of jurisprudence. From that time, in fact, no other is looked for.[375] [Illustration: THE TOMB OF THEODORIC, RAVENNA. [_To face page 384._] It should also be remembered that, when the Greeks came into Italy to combat the Goths, they found the ancient Roman customary laws in force and sanctioned by the edict of Theodoric; that the Goths were definitely vanquished in 553; that in 568 the Greek domination was followed by that of the Longobards; that the latter confined their rivals to Southern Italy, whence they were afterwards expelled by the Normans. There, in the south, the corrupt Byzantine despotism proved no less fatal than the oppression of the barbarians, and was perhaps the prime cause of the many disasters and prolonged neglect into which those provinces afterwards fell. But was it possible for a dominion so brief and troubled to diffuse the law of Justinian in Italy with such effect as not only to make it universally accepted, but also so thoroughly incorporated with customary law, that it could survive even when its binding legal effect was no longer recognised by the barbarians? Such an hypothesis will seem even less tenable as regards everything relating to the family and to succession, if we reflect that the reforms introduced into this branch of the law by Justinian at Constantinople in no way corresponded to the conditions in which Italy then stood. Notwithstanding the diffusion of Greek philosophy among us, the spirit of Byzantium was by no means identical with that of Rome, and there was still less identity in their social conditions. In Constantinople Oriental despotism corrupted, nay, suffocated society by excess of luxury and over-refinement of culture; the State assuming everything to itself, imparted a new character to the laws. In Italy, on the other hand, society, no less corrupt, had become disintegrated, and was already falling to pieces; the ancient unity and strength of the State were continually diminishing and losing strength, and less and less resistance was opposed to the assaults of the barbarians. At Constantinople the State was omnipotent, while in Italy its vigour was on the wane. Among us, accordingly women and all who were weak were naturally driven to seek refuge in private associations, and above all in the bosom of the family. And if the natural force of events had power to urge in any direction, and determine any new tendency, it certainly could not have aimed at enfeebling the family bond by subjecting it to the authority of a tottering State, but must rather have sought to strengthen it as the only possible safeguard amid the dangers that were threatening on every side. This, in fact, is the course always followed in barbaric societies, where, the State being powerless, the care of the weak and the punishment of injuries are entrusted to the kinsmen. In short, both the disordered condition of Latin society and the example of the barbarians themselves combined to offer grave obstacles to the diffusion of Justinian's laws, more especially when the old Roman customs were seen to be better suited to the new and increasing needs of society, and useful for the reconstruction, on a firmer basis, of the old family system, now become more essential than before to the common welfare. No other way was left for beginning anew the social task and advancing afterwards to new methods and institutions. Nor need we attach much importance to the constitution of the year 534, knowing how wide is the difference between the promulgation of a law (especially when it is passed by a short-lived and feeble Government in a society that is lapsing into disorder) and its actual enforcement and incorporation with custom. Even under the Roman Republic, or under the Empire, old laws did not at once disappear when new ones were proclaimed. Even in modern societies we may note how tenaciously ancient customs continue to be observed when they are more in harmony with the character and requirements of the people. The principles of the Napoleonic code were proclaimed in our Southern provinces during the French domination and afterwards confirmed by subsequent legislation; and according to that code, every patrimony was bound to be divided equally among the children. Nevertheless, in the two Calabrias and many other Southern provinces, property is still kept undivided in the family, since, by common consent, only one of the sons marries, the others remaining single. For the same reason, the smallest possible sum is assigned to the daughters; nor do all of them marry, some being persuaded or forced to take the veil. Social progress alone will slowly give real effect to the principles of equality sanctioned by the codes. Everything therefore points to the conclusion that Roman law survived among us to the downfall of the Western Empire, preserving by usage many of the forms that had belonged to it before the compilation of the _Corpus iuris_. While in this state it came into contact with the Germanic code, and thereupon began the series of mutual alterations, from which the Italian family emerged, reconstituted in a totally new way, and together with it the Commune. It was a slow transformation, during which Latin ideas and traditions steadily gained ground, and gradually fused or destroyed the barbarian laws and institutions. When communal liberties were finally proclaimed, a new culture was inaugurated, and with it a new epoch in the history of Roman law. The university of Bologna became the centre for the diffusion and study of the Pandects, and the _Corpus iuris_ became speedily regarded as the primary and perennial source of common law in our country. The tradition, according to which the Pandects of Amalfi, carried off by the Pisans, were by them discovered and made known for the first time to the Western world, dates this event about the year 1135, that is to say in the same age that witnessed the rise of the communes, and in which, as related by another tradition, Guarnerius founded the Bolognese school at the request of Countess Matilda.[376] Thus our conclusions are supported alike by history, legend, and logic. VI. In Italy, therefore, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, the family accorded a preference to the agnates, and, in consequence of the continuous weakening of the State, was obliged to seek in itself for increased strength. The inroads of the barbarians brought with them a different constitution of the family, but this could effect no great change in our own family system until the Longobards had firmly established their dominion over us. There then began a great change in the social condition of Italy, which was forcibly compelled to assume a form more or less barbaric. Hence it concerns us to study the Longobard family system, that we may see how far and in what way it could thus alter ours. [Illustration: ANCIENT SHRINE, RAVENNA. [_To face page 388._] Like every other barbaric society, that of the Longobards was founded upon force; in time of war it was compactly united under a king; during peace it split into groups, from want of vigour in the central authority, and from the excessive independence of subordinate chiefs. Hardly had barbarian kingdoms begun to be erected in the West with a certain degree of stability, than we find them subdividing into marquisates, dukedoms, separate groups, and at a later period into feudal holdings. If we look to the primitive conditions of these barbarians before they come among us, we find them scattered over the country, without any city properly so-called, and with no true conception of the State, which for them seems to consist in a confederation of secondary groups. The social unity of the barbarians is to be found in the villages or even in the tribes, which are societies originally derived perhaps from a single family. Everywhere the State assumes family forms. The social strength of the Germans is more manifest in the lesser groups, and consequently in the family. We ought not to be surprised, therefore, at finding the family constituted more solidly with them than among the Latins, who now, for many centuries, had been altering and modifying it under the growing pressure of State control. Originally the barbarian family had been, like the Roman, an association consecrated by religion. A tutelary goddess presided over the domestic hearth; the father was priest and protector of the family. In Rome the control was in the hand of a single person, who ruled with an iron authority, but in Germany this authority was shared by all male members of the family fit to bear arms. At Rome the family was an absolute monarchy, its senior members being always regarded as the most powerful; but in Germany it more resembled a Republic, consisting of all the adult male members, except such as were disqualified by bodily infirmity. The family council aided the Roman father and tempered his rigid despotism; whereas in Germany the council predominated and assumed to itself the chief share of the family power. The Roman father could rupture every domestic tie at his will; he could remove his son from the family, sell him, or put him to death. The German son, on the contrary, when able to bear arms and fight by his father's side, might, if he chose, separate himself from his original family and join another tribe. Among the Germans bodily strength, property held in common, and natural ties of blood constituted the family; in Rome it was the conception of the family in itself that dominated over everything and made it authoritative and sacred. In Rome the individual was merged in the State, the son in the father; whereas, among the Germanic tribes, individual liberty was much greater, and if to us the State has the appearance of a confederation, the family seems a society of more independent members united by mutual agreement. Punishments, transgressions, property, all were in common; if any member of the family suffered wrong, it was the kinsmen's part to avenge him and obtain retribution. For sales and donations, as well as for acts of revenge, the consent of every member was required, inasmuch as the property belonged to the whole family, and ought to stay with it: whence the inutility of testamentary dispositions, which were in fact unknown to the barbarians. Property was sacred; it constituted the family, conferred social rights and obligations, and rested chiefly in the hands of the males. In this family, and in this society founded wholly on force, the woman, being incapable of bearing arms, was committed, like all other weaklings, to the defence and protection of her armed kinsmen, and so came under their perpetual guardianship (_mundium_, _munt_, _manus_). This tutelage being established on account of the weakness and infirmity of the sex, could never come to an end, as it might in Rome, where it had been constituted wholly in the interest of the family. But the Germanic woman, although oppressed, liable to be deprived of her property, to be sold, or made a slave, was under a power which, being divided among many, was feebler and less despotic than the Roman domestic rule. She was a dependent member of the family, but the authority of her father, brothers, or sons was shared by all her other kinsmen. Hence it was easy for the woman to find a protector. Her incapacity by reason of her infirmity did not entail incapacity in the eye of the law. She could appear in court, choose some one to represent her there; she could own property; she could inherit, although taking a less share than would have come to her had she been a man. The man listened to her advice, and treated her with religious respect; but it was the respect due to her weaker sex, not as in Rome, where respect was offered to the mother, to the wife, to the sacred character which was the foundation at once of the Roman family and of Roman greatness. Longobard law, essentially Germanic, prevailed long in Italy, where plain traces of its survival are to be recognised as late as the fourteenth century. Under the stronger influence of the Roman jurisprudence it very soon lost its native rudeness and originality. As to this change, Gans, in his "History of the Law of Succession," has observed: "The fact that after the historical redaction of this law, another and systematic compilation of it was made, should prove to us how it was that the more confused, but at the same time more natural, spontaneous, and vigorous character of the Germanic law must necessarily have been altered, and as it were crystallised into a form that rather belongs to the Roman." It was precisely this form that so greatly promoted its diffusion among us. VII. With the Longobards, as with all the Germanic nations, woman was never released from tutelage (_mundium_), never became her own mistress (_selbmundia_). The man who desired to make her his wife must first of all pay the price of the _mundium_ or guardianship which the marriage would give him over her; next he must bind himself to make good the _meta_, a species of dowry noticed by Tacitus when he remarks that, among the Germans, the husband brought the dower to the wife, instead of the wife bringing it to the husband. To the _meta_, also known afterwards under the name of _dotalitium_, _dos_, _sponsalicium_, &c., there was added the _faderfium_, which the father might, if he chose, give to his daughter. On the morning of the day after the wedding the husband presented his bride with a gift (_morgengab_), attended, according to a very questionable interpretation, as the price of her virginity. When Longobard customs came to be affected by the growing influence of the Roman law, the amount of the _meta_ and of the _morgengab_ was restricted. In the age of the communes, the _faderfium_, now transformed into a dower, was also limited by law. The _meta_, _faderfium_, and _morgengab_ belonged to the wife, who could require them to be given up to her on her husband's death. But by a peculiarity of the Germanic law, retained in its entirety even by the Longobards, the Roman regulation, which made the dower the separate and independent property of the wife [even during her husband's lifetime], was never accepted. The only property owned absolutely and exclusively by the woman was what was given her by the husband. The Germanic law favoured the principle of common ownership. As to this, Gans observes:--"It is not necessary with us, as with the Romans, that a woman should have separate property of her own in order to assert her juridical personality, and prove her equality with her husband. She possesses what her husband possesses, and her equality rests on the mutual affection which makes all differences disappear." In the ordeal by combat the husband represented the wife, since she was under the protection of his sword; if she were taken in adultery he might put her to death. All her possessions, movable or immovable, including even nuptial gifts made to her by friends, became the property of her husband, who had only to provide against the contingency of the marriage being dissolved by death: whence the necessity of the _meta_ and the _donatium_. If the wife died without issue, everything went to the husband; on the husband's death, the wife was entitled to receive the _meta_ and _morgengab_ (donation). For anything more she was entirely dependent on the generosity of her husband, who, at a later period, was permitted to leave her the half, and, eventually, the whole usufruct of his possessions. While the marriage laws of the Longobards and the Romans differed thus widely, their laws relating to guardianship were also different. The _mundium_ of the Longobards, as we have seen, is not to be confounded with the _tutela_ to which the Roman woman was subjected. Originating in the incapacity to bear arms, it was of limited duration in the case of males, and ceased with their incapacity. At first the limit was fixed at the age of twelve, at a later period of eighteen years. But for the woman, who could never become capable of bearing arms, it was perpetual. From the _mundium_ of her father, she passed, on marriage, under that of her husband; and on the death of her father, if then a widow, under the _mundium_ of her own son, or of the agnates, who were also her heirs. In default of other guardians she was protected by the _Curtis Regia_. But in every case, whether under father, husband, son, agnates, or _Curtis Regia_, the _mundium_ was identical in character, having for its object the protection of the weak. This could not be said of the Roman _tutela_, which had its origin in the Roman conception of the family. The _tutela_ of the Roman father over his children lasted all his life; but he could divest himself of it. The _mundium_ of the Longobard father lasted while his children were incapable of bearing arms, and, as a logical consequence, ceased when the incapacity terminated. While it cannot be positively asserted that emancipation was unknown to the Longobards, it may be believed, from the tendency of their law, to have been of rare occurrence. When the Roman woman was subjected to the _potestas_ of her father, the _manus_ of her husband, the _tutela_ of the agnates, there were three kinds of guardianship very different from each other, corresponding with the difference in the domestic relations of those who exercised the right. No one of them had anything in common with the _mundium_. The Longobard father had the right to sell his sons; he represented them in courts of law; whatever they acquired was his. But, as we have already shown, his authority was tempered by the family council, in which the brothers of the mother--the children's natural protectress--had much to say. The Longobard family law has marked peculiarities in regard to succession as well as to marriage. And first, it should be noted that the disposal of property by will was recognised by the Longobards. This seems contrary to the usage of the Germanic tribes, among whom wills were unknown, but may be referred to the modifying action of the Roman on the Longobard law. The fact, however, that with the Longobards donations and wills were irrevocable, indicates a Germanic character, or rather the trace of it, for the main feature of the Roman will consisted in its revocability. Of the essential principles of the Roman _Testamenti factio_ the Longobards were ignorant. Legitimate children came first in the order of inheritance, and with them came natural children also, the latter--though not in strictness forming part of the family--being admitted to succeed along with the former, though taking a less share. They might, however, be put on an equal footing by being legitimated. At a later period this essentially Germanic peculiarity of the laws of succession was done away with by the action of the Roman and Canon laws, which exclude natural children. Originally, by the Longobard law, a legitimate child took two-thirds of the inheritance, leaving one-third only to the natural children. If there were two legitimate children, the natural children took only a fifth; if three, a seventh. It was forbidden to leave more than the prescribed share to natural children, and no child could be disinherited without just and manifest cause. The reasons for disinheriting a child were borrowed from the Roman code. It was allowable, however, to favour one son more than the rest. The preference accorded to males over females is a point of much importance, and is another of the special characteristics of the Longobard law. When the testator had one son and one or more unmarried daughters he was obliged to leave a fourth of the inheritance to the latter, but when there were several sons the daughters only received a seventh part. Married daughters had no right to any share in the inheritance, but had to be content with what they had received on the day of their marriage, and could claim nothing more. Failing male issue, daughters were next heirs, and whether married or single inherited as though they were males. Another peculiarity of Longobard law was the great favour shown to daughters or sisters of the testator domiciled in his house--_in capillo_. A brother is excluded in favour of a daughter or niece--a remarkable instance of this strange and singular preference accorded to females. We likewise find that unmarried daughters and sisters inherit on equal terms when living under the parental or fraternal roof. We have already noticed that the statutes of the Italian communes accord, as does also the Longobard law, a decided preference to _agnates_ over _cognates_, and that this circumstance has given rise to keen discussion. Many persons, indeed, insist on detecting in this preference an absolutely Germanic characteristic transfused into the statutes from the Longobard law. But we have seen that through the greater part of its history the Roman law also gave a preference to the agnates, and that it was only at a very late period that it lost this feature, which was still to some extent retained in Italy at the time of the barbarian invasions. That the preference of the agnates was not borrowed by the statutes from the Longobard law will be even more conclusively shown if we consider the manifest differences which prevail on this very point between the Germanic and the Italian laws; and bear in mind the important fact that the preference continued to increase in strength, at the very time when the action and influence of the Roman law are increasingly apparent in the statutes. In truth, the more closely we examine the matter, the more we are compelled to recognise that it was political reasons altogether peculiar to the Italian communes and to Italian society in the Middle Ages that led to this preference of the agnates. But even here the reciprocal action of the one law upon the other is clearly traceable, for we can perceive that the succession of the agnates, under the Longobard law, has itself been modified by the Roman, which has made it careless of the nature of the property of which the inheritance consists; whereas it is the peculiar and constant characteristic of the Germanic law that such succession should be ruled according both to the degree of kinship and the nature of the inheritance. In conclusion, it may be said generally that with the Longobards the ties of blood predominate; that in their family there is greater individual freedom, and the family itself is much less affected by the action of the State. With the Romans, on the contrary, the conception of the family is stronger than the ties of blood; the unity of the family depends at first on an absolute paternal despotism, afterwards destroyed by the authority of the State, which to a great extent assumes its place. From this time the State is predominant in all things; it reduces the family to fragments, and aims at the complete equality of all without having the strength to consolidate a society in which neither individual liberty, local activity, nor free associations were allowed sufficient scope for their development. Yet all these were absolutely necessary for the preservation of a huge social structure made up of distinct races, and consequently destitute of the national character and unity which the Republic and the Empire had imposed. It was precisely these new elements that were introduced among us by the barbarians. And thus it was that two peoples, two forms of family and society, I might almost say two ideas, two wholly different types of society were brought together, of which the one had become the necessary complement of the other. From their forests the Germans brought individual freedom, personal independence, the force of small associations; the Latins had already discovered the unity of the State, the wider and more organic conception of society, and the political idea of the family which we shall see hereafter triumphing in the Commune. From the fusion of these two different societies that modern society is to arise in which the action of the one is seldom dissociated from that of the other, and it becomes impossible to ascribe the result exclusively to either. VIII. But while the co-existing and contending laws of the Romans and Longobards are the two juridical elements most plainly to be recognised in the Italian statutes, there are others also claiming remembrance, and among these the feudal and the Canon law must be noticed. Feudalism is one of the most important institutions in the history of the Middle Ages; it is the first form that society assumes on emerging from the chaos of barbarism, and it is stamped with a character essentially Germanic. With it, property and the family take a new and peculiar shape. We may pronounce it to be the first and chief political and social manifestation of Germanic individualism. The barbarian tribe had a natural tendency to split into small groups, into families solely united by the bond of common danger. During invasions the tribe transformed itself into an armed band, left behind all weak or incapable members, accepted recruits even from neighbouring tribes, and being under the command of one chief, was forced by the exigencies of war to be firmly and compactly united. The attacks previously made on them by the Romans had, for like reasons, the effect of creating among the barbarians certain strong and powerful kingdoms by the union of different tribes; but these never lasted long, since as soon as peace was restored they began anew to fall apart and dissolve. Scarcely had the barbarians begun to settle themselves in the West, than their incapacity to establish the unity of a State was made clearly manifest. The moment peace was declared the leaders of the various armed bands proceeded to divide the conquered territory. They then separated, and their king, or supreme chief, remained, as it were, isolated, and with very scant authority. Every leader tried to possess himself of some stronghold where he might rule as an absolute lord, barely acknowledging his dependence on the king. In the fief thus created, ownership and sovereignty became confused, but were both considered to be held (_per beneficium_) as of favour from a more powerful lord, subject to certain burthens and obligations. Originally a temporary grant, the _benefice_ or _fief_ only became hereditary at a later time. At first it could be resumed by the donor; it reverted to him on the death of the feudatory, that it might be transmitted by a new grant to the feudatory's heirs; it then gradually, by use, abuse, or special act of concession, became an hereditary estate. Eventually all property, possession, or ownership came to be held, during the Middle Ages, on feudal tenure. The want of vigour in the supreme political power obliged the weak to seek protection elsewhere. Many independent landowners voluntarily accepted the position of vassals; while, on the other hand, the obstacles encountered by the great lords in enforcing their authority over wide territories compelled them to cede part of their land in _benefice_ to lesser vassals. In this way the State, the Church, all things assumed a feudal form. This system was completely established in the eleventh century, when the communes arose in Italy to combat and overthrow it. In a fortified castle it was natural that the ties of the family should become continually stronger: a fortress must suffice for itself. It was, as it were, the independent world of the lord who dwelt in it, and divided his time between perilous adventures and domestic life. All historians have noted that feudalism produced increased respect, affection, and chivalrous regard for woman, and made man more resolute and energetic. Save in times of war, the baron was almost absolute and independent lord of his small realm, wherein all were his subjects. From him his vassals received the posts of seneschal, count of the palace, equerry, and the like, which offices, being granted in a form more or less feudal to persons of noble birth, had a tendency to become hereditary. A numerous retinue somewhat relieved the loneliness of the castle. The sons of subordinate nobles frequented the court of their liege lord, to be trained to polite manners and the arts of chivalry, and finally to receive the sword from his hands and be proclaimed knights. All this gave prestige to the castle, and secured the fidelity of the vassals to their lord, while at the same time it flattered the pride of the inferior nobility. The Longobard feudal law is found to have points of connection with the laws of Rome which, though very different in spirit, are often called to its aid. Often, however, they are found to be in opposition. There can be no doubt that the Roman law manifests in Italy its persistent action on the feudal law. The fief, as is well known, not being absolute independent property, but only a limited and conditional grant, cannot, from its nature, be subject to the hereditary principle. On the contrary, the right of the heir must be recognised anew in his person, since, as we have seen, he does not derive it from any right in his predecessor. And this continued to be the practice even after custom had begun to make the tenure hereditary. According to feudal law, the successor was not then considered to represent the person whose heir he was; the original grant was renewed in his behalf. Moreover, when a fief has once become hereditary, the whole family has a right to it, not derived from the will of the last holder at his death, but already existent during his life. It is therefore necessary to establish an order of succession to determine which member of the family shall be preferred, and this order of succession begins to be borrowed from the Roman code. Although differing from the true and correct order of succession, it is gradually confounded with it, and finally alters and dissolves the fief. Thus the Roman law penetrates and modifies the feudal. [Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN VITALE, RAVENNA. [_To face page 401._] From the very nature of a fief, female descendants cannot inherit, and the male descendants of deceased sons succeed equally with surviving sons. Nevertheless there are certain fiefs which, having been originally bestowed upon females, must, in default of heirs male, naturally pass to females; but as soon as the male line is established, male heirs have the preference. Ascendants cannot succeed, because succession is determined, not by relationship, but by the original grant; accordingly the reversion falls, not to the ascendant, but to the original granter of the fief. Collaterals of the last holder, unless descendants of the first, are not entitled to succeed; nor can brothers, as such, succeed, unless their father has held the fief. Nor can husband and wife succeed to each other. But under the growing influence of common law all these primitive characteristics likewise disappear. Feudal law has little importance in the Italian statutes; but the political and social importance of feudalism in the history of our communes is immense. It represents a society distinguished by laws and usages of its own, and that appeals to the Emperor, whose judgments and judges it always prefers to the laws and magistrates of the Republic which it despises, and would fain ignore. The Republic in consequence looks on the nobility as a foe to be destroyed, but this it can only effect after sanguinary struggles in the course of which it will be itself profoundly changed. Canon law undoubtedly plays a part in the history and formation of the communes that should not be overlooked, though by no means corresponding with the greatness of the political, social, and religious influence of the Church. Made up of fragments from the writings of the Fathers, ordinances of ecclesiastical councils, papal decretals, and with a large admixture of Roman law, it appeals also to the authority of reason and of Holy Writ. It thus declared itself favourable to natural equity, as opposed to legal sophistry, tempered the harshness of barbaric laws, protected the weak, upheld the sanctity of the family, and aided the triumph of the Roman law over that of the Longobards. But it also sought to subordinate the civil power to the ecclesiastical; it added to the number of exceptional tribunals; it favoured inquisitorial jurisdiction, torture, and trial by ordeal. Moreover, its constant tendency to encroach on the field of civil law found an open door in the oath which every magistrate, the Podestà included, had to take, with the prescribed formula: "saving conscience" (_salva la coscienza_) expressed or understood. As it rested with the clergy to determine cases of conscience, so also it was for them to decide on the validity of oaths. This naturally fostered the diffusion of canon law. The exclusion of natural children from succession and the suppression of divorce are not a little due to the operation of this law. Its action is to be seen plainly enough in the statutes, but still more clearly in the struggle between the civil authority and the ecclesiastical, wherein the latter endeavours to maintain its inviolable privileges, its exceptional tribunals, its supremacy even in causes civil and political. IX. In the statutes therefore, we find four different legislations, contending, as it were, with one another: the Longobard, the Roman, the Feudal and the Canon law. These, however, may almost be reduced to two, seeing that feudal law is Germanic, and canon law, in so far as it affects the statutes, is mainly Roman. So that here again we are met by the old hostility between Germans and Latins. The two races are opposed, as also their institutions, laws, and ideas; their minds seem to challenge one another wherever they meet, whether in the field of letters, politics, or art. Yet each has need of the other, and both must disappear to make way for a new social system and a more comprehensive spirit which, resulting from the fusion of two warring elements, will remain sole victor in this prolonged contest. In Italy, however, the Latin strain always predominates, as we see even in the statutes, wherein Roman law forms the keystone of the whole juridical structure. [Illustration: EMPEROR JUSTINIAN. (_From a Mosaic, Ravenna._) [_To face page 403._] The earliest compilation of the statutes dates from the very time when a knowledge of the _Corpus iuris_ begins to be diffused throughout Italy from the University of Bologna. From that time forth the legislation of Justinian was regarded as an epitome of juridical philosophy, as the law _par excellence_, and is recognised by all our Republics as the common law, the law to be applied whenever the statutes are silent. For this reason that part of the statutes which relates to the civil law is very much less developed than the political part; and for this reason those teachers whose studies have been directed chiefly to civil jurisprudence occupy themselves much more with Roman, canon, feudal, and Longobard law than with the law of the statutes. These they examined, especially at first, rather as a result of the study of the Roman law, than as deserving careful attention on their own account; they regarded them as the written expression of popular custom to which no great scientific value could be attached, as something outside the one legal system which alone merited universal admiration. A long period elapsed before writers on law began to apply their minds to the consideration of the statutes, the great importance of which has been only completely recognised in our day. Venice is perhaps the only Commune in which it was customary, in the absence of statutory provisions, to appeal to natural reason: whence Bartolo's remark that the Venetian magistrate gave judgment _manu regia et arbitrio suo_.[377] But even in Venice such decisions must always have been inspired or guided by a knowledge and admiration of the Roman law. [Illustration: EMPRESS THEODORA AND COURT, RAVENNA. [_To face page 404._] What has been said will put in a clear light the extraordinary importance accorded to the University and the professors of Bologna in connection with their labours in annotating and interpreting the _Corpus iuris_ so as to make it intelligible to all, and an instrument for instructing and training all those who sought to follow the legal profession, whether as notaries, judges, Podestàs, or captains of the people. That these teachers possessed a very slender knowledge of history is seen from their writings. Their merit lay in the intelligent exposition of a system of law which had never become extinct. It was a precept of theirs that "as the unskilled rider must hold on by the pommel, so the judge should stick to the gloss." In this way the school of Bologna became, as it were, the depository of an universal law which was looked upon as almost sacred. Thither popes sent their decretals, emperors their edicts for registry or revision. The Emperor was, however, regarded as the living source of legislation, as alone entitled to add new laws to the Roman. Any one speaking evil of the Emperor met with condign punishment. Any one who questioned his universal authority was declared heretical by the jurists themselves. This authority belonged to him as lord of all nations, and was transmitted to him from the Roman Empire as its rightful heir. It was natural, therefore, that to determine the extent and limits of this authority, recourse should again be had to the professors of Bologna, the veritable depositaries of the Roman law, who accordingly acquired a constantly increasing importance. The _ratio scripta_ was what was always called for; and the communes, even while avowing their determination to preserve their ancient liberties undiminished, never forgot to profess their willingness to leave the Emperor all the _veteres justitias_ which belonged to him, and which they declared themselves desirous to respect. The only question was to ascertain what these were, and hence fresh occasion to consult the professors of Bologna. Before the great contest between the Lombards and Frederic Barbarossa, a genuine judicial trial was held, ending with the condemnation of the Milanese, who were declared rebels, _adstipulantibus judicibus et primis de Italia_. At Roncaglia, Frederic exercised judicial and legislative authority, with the assistance of four professors from Bologna, who maintained the Emperor's rights, not from any hostility to their own country, but because, as professors of Roman law, they were the natural champions of the Holy Roman Empire. Nor did the communes themselves raise any objection to these claims. After Frederic's defeat they continued to draw up their statutes, laws, and public instruments in his name. Even as late as the fifteenth century, we find that notaries still gave validity to public documents by making them run in the name of the Empire. At the peace of Constance the power to appoint magistrates, civil and criminal, consuls, Podestà, and notaries, was expressly reserved to the Emperor, whose prerogative in such matters, as well as of deciding causes of serious importance on final appeal, was fully recognised. If, in fact, the Milanese paid little regard to the Emperor's authority, his right was not questioned. The Lombards acknowledged themselves his lawful subjects, though they afterwards chose to act as if free and independent. When Henry VII. came to Italy, in Dante's time, he too, brought the Italian cities to trial, pronounced sentence on them, exacted fines on men and money, and cited King Robert of Naples to appear before him. At that time many must have deemed these proceedings farcical; but they were echoes of a bygone age, of a past which even Alighieri's immortal genius thought to recall to life, as his letters and his book, "De Monarchia," serve to show. The Church, it is true, constantly withstood the Empire, but during the whole of the Middle Ages the Emperor's political and juridical authority was never called in question, was invariably recognised. While the continual struggle between Church and Empire, communes and feudal lords, Guelphs and Ghibellines, was being waged, the statutes were framed. In these were recorded, not only new customs written down as they were formed, but also all the old customs that had been modified by the new. Although the jurists of Bologna thought it no concern of theirs to study a system of law, which being in common use was then well known, and which had its source in that Roman jurisprudence which engaged their attention through their whole lives, for us it is certainly a study of grave importance, as a means of accurately estimating the value and character of this communal life in the Middle Ages. We may have very long to wait before we can completely solve the problem. Nevertheless we may make a beginning by examining the various statutes, comparing them with one another, and also comparing the different forms which each of them received at different stages of drafting, in order to discern the evolution of the new law, to ascertain and understand the principle which governs it. X. The whole life of the Commune is embraced in the statutes: the election and functions of political magistrates; public, civil, criminal, administrative, and commercial law. Public law is the subject most fully dealt with; while, for reasons already explained, civil law is left very incomplete. Nevertheless the statutes handle, with more or less detail, such matters as personal _status_, dowers, contracts, judicial procedure, succession, wills, rights arising in respect of contiguous lands or houses, and, above all, the family. They aim at a simple and summary procedure, free from chicanery, whereby causes may be settled fairly and promptly; but from defective drafting, from admitting a running commentary, altogether out of place in legal enactments, and from leaving too much to the discretion of the judge, they generally lead to a contrary result. It is indeed astonishing to observe how, during those centuries in which a splendid literature was growing up, when the most unpretentious writings offer us an example of good style, and when judges, notaries, and professors of law had the imperishable model of the _Corpus iuris_ constantly before their eyes, the statutes should have been written in a form so illiterate that we may often pronounce it barbarous, and always involved and confused. The statutes constitute a legislation based upon custom, mutable, popular, still uncertain of itself, which, taking its birth in the midst of civil wars, always retained their likeness, and never arrived at classical elegances, which in any case would have been made impossible by the scholastic jargon that still prevailed in our Universities and among our jurists. Petrarch's animadversions, directed chiefly against the obscure phraseology of the professors of law in his time, were fully justified. The classical revival which sought to introduce a purer and more elegant latinity had to make a beginning outside, and often in opposition to the Universities. It spread far and wide during the fifteenth century, but always retained a literary and philosophical rather than a juridical character. Notwithstanding the greatness of its merits and aims, the Italian Commune has in it something of the transitory and mediæval; it constantly indicates a period of change. It is the germ from which, at a later time, modern society is to issue, but the birth cannot be accomplished until the germ itself is destroyed; consequently it always remained in a state of incessant transformation. Sprung from the conjunction of two different societies, the Roman and Germanic, it derived from the former the general idea of the State, from the latter individual liberty, local activity, and the force of special associations. The problem it had to solve, and that constitutes its essential life and history, lies precisely in its ceaseless efforts to harmonise those two elements which long remained not only separate but often opposed. Until complete fusion was effected by the destruction of the Commune itself, the contest continued to be waged, and was accompanied by inevitable disorder. In the Commune, government and public policy have an importance unknown to barbaric society, but the Commune still wears the character of a powerful assemblage of small associations rather than of a single society, or of a State in the true and strict sense of the word. Life indeed courses more swiftly through these numberless groups, and is quickened by their activity. Social vigour is chiefly to be looked for in family cliques, and in the Companies of the Arts and Trades, of the Nobles and of the Burghers, all of whom have laws, statutes, magistrates, and tribunals of their own. Hence arises an extraordinary interlacing of ordinances, of conflicting passions, of diverging or clashing interests. True individual liberty, true equality before the law is not yet understood; but the individual is trained and protected by the association to which he belongs, which lends him a certain degree of strength, and secures him an increasing share of freedom. These subsidiary groups, however, unlike those which we have already met with in the Germanic societies, cannot be separated, but must live together in the State, outside of which there is no reason for their existence. The infinite multiplication of these groups, their jealousies and continual jarrings and collisions, made the Republic all the more indispensable to them, all the more the object of their hopes and love. Every one of these merchant-citizens was ready to give his life for this Republic, on which, both in peace and in war, his own welfare and that of the various associations depended. The heads and leading members of these associations were privileged to sit in the Councils of the State, governed it as masters, and found it their only sure defence against the countless rivals with whom each of them had to contend. Individual and general interests thus worked in concert, and the fragmentary power divided among so many hands, was nevertheless able to guard the liberty of all, at a time when no true conception of the State or of general equality had yet arisen. Still, it is easy to imagine how ill-arranged and inconclusive must have been the legislation of republics thus divided and subdivided, in which at every step some new special statute or tribunal was encountered. And this at a time when judicial and political power were so strangely intermixed, that whoever had a share in the one necessarily shared in the other. The dominant feature in all the civil enactments of the statutes seems to be a jealousy of neighbouring communes, and a fear lest, as a result of marriage, property should be withdrawn from the city, the society, or the family. To guard against this, both law and custom provided so efficaciously, that even in a Republic as democratic as that of Florence, wherein every vestige of aristocracy was destroyed, and the Ciompi obtained the upper hand, we find landed property so strictly tied up that there are families who, to this day, own the same estates which were held by their ancestors in the fourteenth century. The necessity for keeping families, associations, and party-circles intimately united, and making each member of them bound for the rest, is so strikingly apparent, that it is these political and social considerations which determine the tendency of the civil law, and often impede its natural development. So that even here, notwithstanding the weakness of the State, we again recognise the old Latin tradition, which always accords an excessive importance to political considerations, and consequently a preponderating influence to public over private law. The Italian statutes, therefore, can only be explained and understood in connection with the history of the communes, which they illustrate in their turn. And this is another reason why the professors of Bologna, accustomed to the philosophical character of Justinian's legislation, and unfamiliar with the methods of historical exposition, so long neglected the statutes. Also, as might be expected, the predominating action of political considerations is most clearly shown in the constitution of the family. Here the rights which flow from the Commune's conception of the family prevail over the ties of blood which by the Germanic law are much more respected. The regulations of the Roman law as to dower are fully accepted, but the dower itself is restricted to a small amount. Males have a marked precedence over females, and over descendants in the female line. But in all circumstances the woman is entitled to alimony. It is not meant that she should be rich, or should divide the domestic patrimony, and transfer it to another family, much less to another Commune; but in any event she must be assured of a suitable maintenance, according to her rank of life. She remains under the perpetual protection of the _mondualdo_ (legal guardian), but the _mundium_ assumes in the statutes the character of the later Roman _tutela_, with which it almost seems to be confounded. The woman may call upon the judge to assign her a _mondualdo_, and may choose him herself when she requires him for any special business. Everywhere, indeed, we see this tendency to transform Longobard institutions into Roman, so that often nothing is left to the former save the name. Immovable property was so strictly settled that a very small part of it could be disposed of by the father at his death. No one, therefore, born of a family in easy circumstances was exposed to any anxiety as to his future. It is to be noted, however, that in our communes, all of which resembled great commercial houses, the proportion of immovable to movable property was extremely small; and that if, as regards the former, there was much security and stability, for the latter there were rapid gains, unforeseen fortunes, and sudden fluctuations of capital. The father's authority was held in veneration, and the utmost confidence reposed in guardians of his choice; but we do not find in the statutes any great development of the _patria potestas_. On the contrary, as in other cities, the marked characteristic of the family is their doing everything in common. All affairs of moment are settled by the family council, by an assembly of relations. Both law and custom continue to follow this course. In the family, the party-circle, or _clique_, and the association, the community of interests is sometimes carried to extraordinary lengths. Not only may a father or brother be summoned to pay the debts of a son or brother, but every creditor of a consociation can sue its individual members, and one associate may be made liable even for the crimes of another. Within the circle of the family or association, disputes were settled by arbiters, whose awards had the validity of legal sentences. The trade associations, as we have already stated, had regularly constituted, special tribunals of their own. These incidents and characteristics of statutory law certainly cannot be referred to the Roman legislation, but find their explanation in the very beginnings of Italian history to which Germanic races and institutions undoubtedly contributed in no small degree. The distinctive character of the Commune remains always the same. On the one hand particular associations attain great development; on the other the action of the political power is sometimes too feeble, but at times exercises a pressure such as would seem excessive even at this day. In a society in which the State is so feeble that its very existence seems continually threatened, it is certainly strange to find it interfering so directly and extensively in the private affairs of the citizens. The emancipation of sons is to be effected with due solemnity at a full meeting of the Council of the People, in the presence of the heads of the Republic. Should a noble citizen desire to change his abode and move to another quarter of the city, the matter must be brought before the same Councils of the People and the Commune, and decided by a special Act.[378] We find the chief magistrates of the Florentine commonwealth continually altering the boundaries and extent of the Quartieri or Sestieri of the city, enlarging or contracting now one and now another in order to preserve the balance which is always being threatened by parties and sects, and prevent any one quarter from winning undue predominance. A change of abode from one district of the town to another might drag a citizen into a different sect or party, and so become of political importance. All this shows more and more clearly that society had not yet found its natural and permanent basis. The manifold new and varied elements entering into its composition were being developed on all sides; but the synthetic power which unites and assimilates could never be attained by the Italian Commune. XI. Coming now to a particular examination of the statutory provisions which most nearly concern the subject in hand, we shall direct our attention more especially to the Florentine statutes which, for us, have a twofold importance. We have undertaken this study as an aid to the clearer comprehension of certain political reforms in Florence, which are only to be explained by the social conditions of the Republic. In this study of the Florentine Commune it is necessary to bear in mind that in no other Commune was aristocracy so radically destroyed and democracy so thoroughly triumphant. Every trace of feudalism, every foreign element disappears from its statute book, which consequently, in spite of perennial alterations, preserves a uniform and consistent character, and tends always towards the scope that it finally attains. Other statute books, on the contrary, are no less copiously altered; but the alterations are due to less permanent causes, to elements most extraneous to the life of the Commune, and which therefore make it still more difficult to understand what are the true principles moulding the laws and determining their historical character. If we begin by examining the paternal authority as set forth in the statutes, we at once perceive the uncertainty that prevails in this legislation. At first we find the Longobard _mundium_, but this gradually takes the shape of the Roman _patria potestas_, as regulated by Justinian's legislation, which finally prevails, although never absolutely. In the various provisions of the statutes, which, even on this point, are always defective, we sometimes find the son placed under a stricter subjection than by Roman law, while at other times, the Longobard law predominating, he enjoys the greatest independence. Generally there are special political or commercial reasons at the root of this illogical inconsistency. By the Roman statutes the son is entitled to appear in criminal cases, without permission from his father, who is not held liable for crimes committed by his son. The son, however, may be punished by his parents at their discretion. The natural children of magnates are in an inferior position, both civilly and politically, to sons born in wedlock, inasmuch as they are never eligible to any public office.[379] According to the Pesaro statutes, a son may dispose by will of all his earnings, provided he leaves the obligatory usufruct to his father; but sons marrying without their father's consent may be disinherited.[380] When a son is condemned to pay a fine, the father must give him his share of the inheritance wherewith to pay it. Should a father beat his sons or grandsons or their wives, _in nihilo puniatur, nisi pro enormi delicto_.[381] In Lucca, a son who is eighteen years of age, may contract a loan, even without his father's leave. But a father may send his son, whether emancipated or under tutelage, to prison if he has dissipated his private means or led an evil life. The magistrates must execute the father's decision without calling for proofs.[382] A son may thus be arbitrarily confined to the house, fettered and imprisoned by his father, who is only bound to supply him with the necessaries of life. The same rule obtains with regard to other descendants. If in all this great variety of laws we try to discover any one characteristic peculiar to the statutes, we must seek it in the _unitas personæ_ between father and son, which is often carried to a great length. This, too, is a result of the general conception of the family recognised by the statutes. In Urbino and elsewhere the father may be punished for the son, the master for the servant.[383] As to the liabilities of commerce, these are shared, not only by father and son, but by the whole body of the relations, as we find was the case in Genoa, Florence, and many of the principal trading cities. In Florence, the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather incur the same liability for a descendant (even if under guardianship) who engages in trade, as though they stood surety for him. To escape this responsibility they must make a public and formal disclaimer of liability.[384] Thus, if an unemancipated son is agent or factor of a company or house of business, the father is responsible for him, unless he has given the parties legal notice to the contrary. For the same reason the emancipation of the son must be publicly performed and communicated to the Society of Merchants.[385] When a daughter marries, she ceases to be subject to the paternal authority, and can no longer be held in any way responsible for her father, either as regards civil obligations or criminal, should the father have evaded punishment by flight. In Florence, the woman is under the perpetual protection of the _Mondualdo_. The term was still retained in the eighteenth century, but under the statutes the _mundio_ soon becomes almost identical with the Roman tutelage; as time goes on it gradually falls into disuse, but the rights of women are never made equal with those of men. In respect of marriage the intermixture of different legal systems is most marked. Professor Gans has noted how the Pisans, finding that the Roman law forbade a woman to re-marry within a year from her husband's death, that the Canon law (interpreting the apostle's words as an unqualified permission) contained no such prohibition, and that the Longobard law forbade re-marriage only for thirty days, fixed by their statutes the prohibited period at six months. But this rough compromise neither met the object intended by the Roman law, namely, that a second marriage should not take place during the pregnancy which might possibly result from the first, nor conceded the liberty allowed by the Canon law and the Longobard. More commonly, however, the union of different laws is brought about by the gradual transformation of one into another. The Pisan statutes, for instance, regulate marriage almost entirely according to the Roman Code. To the dower (_dos_) brought by the wife, and the donation (_donatio propter nuptias_, called also _antefactum_) given by the husband, they join other gifts, to which they give the name "_corredo_," which, on the dissolution of the marriage, belong to the wife: should they then be found to have been consumed or made away with, she would be entitled to two-thirds of their value. As a rule Pisan husbands and wives hold their property entirely separate, so that marriage seems sometimes to involve a hostile relation, rather than a community of interests.[386] Certain statutes admit the _dos_ and _donatio propter nuptias_ together with the _meta_ and the Longobard donation. The Florentine statute speaks of a dowry, of a donation that must be equal to one half of the dowry--provided this does not exceed the sum of fifty _lire_--and of an augmentation. Failing sons, grandsons, or grandsons of sons, the wife, at her husband's death, recovered possession of her dowry, with the donation and augmentation; otherwise she had her dowry alone, and whatever her husband might leave her by will. If the husband died before receiving the dowry, the wife took the promised donation, limited however to one-eighth of her husband's estate, over which, to the extent of her dower, she had a preferential mortgage. Nor had the wife's consent to the sale or alienation of her husband's property the effect of releasing her right to the subjects so sold or alienated. This regulation, however, only comes into force from the year 1388.[387] This date, which is given in the printed Florentine statute of 1415, shows that the dotal system and the separation of property had by this time made great progress, a fact farther confirmed by the statutes. The wife could not maintain her right to her husband's property (_defendere bona viri_) against her husband's creditors at large, but only against those who were liable for the restitution of the dower. Dotal property, of which no valuation had been made, might be claimed by her as against any creditor, and if her husband fell into difficulties, she could always demand restitution of her dower.[388] Property acquired or inherited by the wife during the husband's life, belonged to her; but she could not alienate it without the consent of the husband, who was also entitled to the usufruct. On the decease of the husband, whatever remained of the usufruct might be claimed by the wife, or, if she too were dead, by the children. XII. The dotal system and separation of conjugal property are not only recognised in all the statutes,[389] but are often enacted in an exaggerated form, as seems to be the case in the statutes of Pisa. Thus gifts between husband and wife are forbidden, sometimes even gifts from them to strangers, where there is ground to suspect that these are meant to disguise a gift between the spouses. Zealous precautions to hinder property being withdrawn from the family, still more from the city, are universal. In Urbino, for instance, no alien could inherit _ab intestato_, without first pledging his word to reside within the city or territory.[390] At Pesaro a similar pledge was exacted from any alien who sought a bride in that city; he had also to obtain the consent of the Podestà. In Verona,[391] women might, under a will, share equally with their brothers; but _ab intestato_, they had only their dower. In Pisa, testate succession was regulated in accordance with the Roman law: _de ultimis voluntatibus pen legem romanum iudicetur_. The lawful share, however, was fixed on almost the same scale as by Longobard law; and, as provided by that law, one child might be favoured more than the rest. As regards intestate succession, male heirs had, as always, marked preference. Failing descendants in the male line, females inherited, but even in the succession to maternal estate, male descendants had priority when there were no surviving daughters.[392] This rule prevails in all statute books, not excluding the "Consuetudini" of Naples, of Amalfi, and of Sorrento, although in these cities the influence of the Longobard law was much less felt.[393] The real object of these regulations is clearly expressed in the statutes themselves. In the statutes of Mantua it is thus set forth: "Ut familiarum dignitas, nomen et ordo serventur, et bona morientium in eorum agnatos et posteros transmittantur, per quos nomina generis conservantur, statuimus et ordinamus,"[394] &c. It would seem that in Ravenna the prolonged continuance of the Byzantine rule had the effect of suppressing this preference of the agnates, and that there the Novel of Justinian was in force. The same was the case at Osimo. Adoption was of rare occurrence; legitimated children were postponed to legitimate; natural children who, under the influence of the Longobard law, had been favoured in earlier statutes, were afterwards neglected, in consequence of the growing ascendancy of Canon and Roman law. The whole statutory law of succession is so dominated by the political conception which, so far from losing, is constantly gaining ground, that the disposing power of the testator--always extremely restricted--can only arrive at a result slightly more equitable and natural, but never attains to absolute freedom of decision in the Roman sense of the word. In this, as in every branch of civil law, the Florentine Statute Book, like all the others, does not present us with a complete treatise, but only with fragments, the statutes making constant reference to the Roman law. No woman succeeds _ab intestato_ to her sons or daughters, when there are direct descendants or ascendants even in the third degree; and uncle, brother, sister, son, or grandson of a brother are preferred to her. Though excluded from succession, she can nevertheless claim alimony from those who by law exclude her. If there be no such relatives, she inherits _ab intestato_ one-fourth of her son's estate, provided it does not amount to more than five hundred _lire_. In any case, she only receives money, not real property. If there is no money, she will be entitled to the price of the lands forming her inheritance. The same provisions apply when a grandmother, great-grandmother, or descendants in the maternal line succeed _ab intestato_. A woman could not succeed _ab intestato_ to a brother leaving children, grandchildren, or brothers; but when thus excluded from the succession, she was still entitled to alimony. She could not succeed even to her father; but was entitled to receive her dowry from the agnates, and could meanwhile, even if a widow, claim alimony from them.[395] It is plain from all these provisions that the woman's rights of succession were very limited; but she was always insured of the wherewithal to live. We find, indeed, from the Florentine statutes, that while the preference given to the agnates increases as time goes on, so too the woman's rights to alimony increase. The statute of 1355 concedes to her the usufruct of the paternal inheritance, on failure of male issue, while under the same circumstances, later statutes deny her this right, allowing her alimony instead.[396] Speaking of aliment, and of those bound to supply it, the statute of 1324 says: "Si filius, nepos vel pronepos facultatis abundarent,"[397] so that they can _commode subvenire_, &c.; and the statute of 1355 imposes the same obligation, with the same conditions.[398] But the printed statute of 1415 is far more explicit; the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather, and great-grandmother are all entitled to alimony, and the Podestà is bound to enforce the law. The female inherits _ab intestato_ from her mother or other female ascendants, but only on failure of male issue. Uterine brothers, being of the female line, cannot succeed one another should there be relations of the deceased in the male line as far as the fourth degree,[399] these being preferred to the mother and relations in the female line. The Florentine statute goes on to declare that the wife is to be preferred to the public treasury, _uxor mariti defuncti præferatur fisco_; showing how little the woman's rights were considered, when an express enactment was needed to prevent the revenue authorities from depriving her of her husband's estate. Natural children were also preferred to the treasury, which only succeeded on failure of relations as far as the fourth degree. Relations, however, could succeed to bastards, as though these had been legitimate.[400] It should be added that Florentine custom did not allow natural children to be left without some means of support, or without provision for their education, as is shown by many still existing wills. In the case of males, the father generally tried to obtain employment for them; in the case of females, to find them husbands, and he recommended them to the care of his legitimate heirs. The husband succeeded to his wife's dowry, failing children or other near descendants. Of her extra-dotal property he was entitled to one-third, and the wife could not dispose of her dowry either by will or donation, so as to exclude her husband or children.[401] XIII. Besides the law of succession, there is another branch of the Italian statutes in which the action of the political idea upon civil law is equally apparent, namely, that which treats of rights between neighbours, and of the obligations _in solidum_ attaching not only to the members of families, but likewise to the members of sects and associations. We have already observed that these are carried so far as to make one member responsible for another's debts, and even for his delicts: this is a law to which we shall have more than once to return and give our attention. When real property is sold, we find that the agnates and cognates have always a preferential right of purchase. In the March of Ancona, the blood-relations of a prisoner condemned to death may be compelled to purchase his estate.[402] At Bologna, relations are often made legally responsible for one another, and, by the rules of the corporations of merchants in that city, the brothers of any bankrupt, who have lived in community with him within a month before his failure, are held responsible for his debts--even if they have separated from him since that time.[403] According to the Florentine statute, the creditor of any Commune or of any _Universitas_ (corporation) might proceed against it, _sicut procedi potest contra alias singulares personas debitrices, in persona_. This was carried so far, that it was permissible to proceed against every individual member of the association, and even to have him arrested, _liceat ipsi creditori capi et detinere omnes et singulares personas dicti Communis vel Universitatis, quousque fuerit integre satisfactum_.[404] If landed property had been laid waste or houses burnt, the proprietor was entitled to compensation from the author of the deed; from his associates (_consorti_), were he a noble, or from his relations, even to the fourth degree, if a commoner. Nay more, the injured person might also proceed against the Commune, University, or district (_plebatum_) in which the crime had been committed; he was at liberty to follow any of these modes of redress, and if unsuccessful in one to try another.[405] The statute prescribed the form of procedure and the terms of the sentence.[406] The Commune, University, or district was thus compelled to be always ready to raise the alarm, when similar acts were perpetrated, and to pursue and arrest the criminal, since, in case of failure, they were held responsible.[407] In all matters, even such as purchases or sales, great importance was assigned to the condition of the persons concerned. In some cases, where land was to be sold, the law required that it should be sold to a neighbour; commoners, however, were not compelled to sell to magnates.[408] Similarly no one might buy, sell, or acquire the usufruct of lands held in common, or any piece of land or house touching another man's wall, without according the joint-owner, associate, or neighbour the right of pre-emption.[409] In case of a dispute between relations or associates, _qui consortes sint de eadem stirpe, per lineam masculinam usque ad infinitum_,[410] the judge was bound, at the request of one of the parties concerned, to leave the matter to the decision of arbiters chosen by the parties themselves; but no plebeian could act as arbiter between nobles.[411] In reviving a law of much earlier date, the statute of 1355 informs us that arbiters were therein mentioned, as blood-relations.[412] Whence it may be inferred that similar compromises began to be customary, at a very remote period, between relations and associates who voluntarily selected arbiters from their own group. Down to the year 1324, the custom had been sanctioned by law; at a later time it lost its primitive character of a voluntary and domestic agreement, and assumed the shape of a regular legal trial. XIV. If we now compare the Florentine Statute Book with those of other Italian cities, we shall find it marked by various distinguishing characteristics, chiefly resulting from the fact that in it democratic freedom was carried to the farthest point obtainable during the Middle Ages. Not only had every feudal privilege gradually disappeared from it, but the great nobles had ended by finding themselves in a position inferior to that of the commonalty. Florence, as we have already seen, was one of the first Italian cities to abolish serfdom in her outlying territory by the law of 1289.[413] And although her rural population was always treated much worse than the inhabitants of the city, it nevertheless enjoyed far better conditions than prevailed in a great number of communes. We have proof of this in the contract of _Mezzeria_, which makes the cultivator of the soil an actual partner with the proprietor, and which still remains a great monument of civilisation and the cynosure of modern economists who have never been able to devise any better system.[414] The freedom and strength of associations, the extraordinary ease with which any one might participate in the government of the Commune, all contributed to the triumph of democracy on the widest basis. Another general characteristic to be noted, not only in the Florentine, but in almost all the Italian statutes, is the constant endeavour to shake off the intervention of the ecclesiastical authority, which labours with incredible obstinacy to maintain its privileges undiminished, and even seeks to increase them; but which, nevertheless, finds them gradually reduced almost to zero. The statute of 1415 ordains that "no person, university, or church, no religious or clerical house shall presume to question the jurisdiction of the Commune under pretence of 'benefice' or privilege, and that any one who opposes this enactment shall be imprisoned until he renounce such privilege.[415] No excommunication nor interdict shall hinder or diminish the action of the magistrates or the effect of their decrees.[416] Every man may freely exercise his rights over all Church property derived from secular sources."[417] XV. Turning now to a general view of the Italian statutes, we must remark that although the history of statutory law presents many difficulties, owing to the infinite number of different provisions to be found in it, the diversity of these provisions is chiefly due to accidental and temporary causes, extraneous to the natural and spontaneous development of the law itself, which, examined apart and with reference to its essential characteristics, presents a striking uniformity. It may, however, be noted that in the republics of Northern Italy the Longobard law is far more predominant; while in those of Central and Southern Italy Roman law obtains an early and rapid ascendancy, and, subject to the changes which have been indicated, ends by dominating at all points. This progress becomes more apparent from year to year, so that even in examining the statutes, the very same conflict of antagonistic elements which we have already noted, throughout the entire history of the communes and of Italian civilisation, is brought before our eyes in civil wars, in sanguinary struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, in art, in literature, in all things. It is true that the statutes only treat of juridical ideas and enactments; but these seem to strive with the same ardour, and to aim at the same ends, as the men whom they control. Towards the close of the fourteenth century Italian commerce began to make enormous advance, and this gave a new impetus to Italian legislation. In fact, we find a series of enactments enabling all mercantile affairs to be transacted with much greater celerity, avoiding legal quibbles, releasing merchant's credits from mortgage or sequestration, and severely punishing all frauds and fraudulent bankruptcies. In a word, we clearly discern the inchoation of the modern commercial code with which these enactments are frequently in unison. But in all these laws we always recognise the consequences of commerce being divided and split into a multitude of separate associations with statutes of their own, judges of their own, and an exuberance of vitality. At the same time, we recognise that the central authority, though aware that its natural rights are threatened and usurped on all sides, continues to exert its influence, without method, indeed, or uniformity, but not without vigour, and occasionally even with violence. At one moment it seems to be vanquished; at another it comes forth victorious. The entire history of the Commune demonstrates a constant tendency to harmonise all these distinct and often jarring elements--political, social, and legislative--but this problem it never succeeds in solving, and ends by relapsing into despotism. A true conception of social unity was wanting; the idea of a due distribution of authority was still unknown, either in real life or in theory; accordingly whoever happened to have a share in the executive authority, also assumed, as necessarily connected with it, a share not only in judicial, but likewise in administrative and legislative functions. Wherefore it seemed that the only way to preserve liberty was to parcel out the government among an infinity of hands, and so to contrive that parties, associations, _cliques_ (_consorterie_), families, and quarters of the town should each and severally serve as checks upon all the others. In this process of division and subdivision all the elements afterwards constituting modern society were prepared, but the State, in its true sense, was never discovered. Without ballast to steady her, the ship of the Commune, driven hither and thither in a ceaseless storm and buffeted by winds from all quarters, could neither find anchorage nor keep a settled course. No clear and certain conception was ever reached of that law which, by limiting and defining the amount of liberty guaranteed to each individual, secures freedom to all. The political life of communes, moreover, was always confined within the walls of the dominant cities, since not only the outlying territory was excluded from it, but likewise all towns that had been annexed or conquered. Every form of representative government was as yet unknown. All who enjoyed political rights entered, each in his turn, the Councils of the Republic, and sooner or later nearly all rose to power. This made it necessary that the States should have very circumscribed borders, as otherwise it would have been impossible to govern them at all. The French Revolution, by achieving for the first time, in behalf of the nation at large, what the Italian communes had effected for the cities, was able to proclaim the civil and political equality of all who formed part of the nation, and who were in consequence to be recognised as citizens. From that time democracy became the predominant characteristic of modern societies which, by means of representative institutions, have found it possible to secure freedom, even in large states, reconciling the unity and vigorous action of the central government with personal independence and with local liberty and activity. But the Commune always wavered between the opposing elements of which it was made up and which it never succeeded in fusing into a true political organism. The history of our republics may, in fact, be summed up in an account of the varying predominance of one or other of the great associations of which they were composed. In Florence, we have, first of all, the conflict of nobles and commons which is maintained with changing fortunes. When the fraternities (_consorterie_) of the leading magnates obtained such ascendancy as to menace popular liberties and destroy the social balance, notable reforms were made in the statutes; the Commune was completely transformed, and by means of the Ordinances of Justice (of which we shall soon have to speak), the nobles were overthrown and their associations broken up. But as these associations were an integral part of the State, their downfall was followed by a phase of rapid corruption and decay. To the passions and interests of caste succeeded personal ambitions, hatreds and passions of a still more dangerous character. Families began to be at strife; men who were at once powerful and ambitious, came to the front; and Corso Donati, or some other like him, would have soon become master and tyrant of the Republic, save for the fact that a mighty people, enriched by the speedy gains of an extended commerce, devoted to freedom and opposed to the nobility, had first to be disarmed. Thus to the supremacy of the leagues of the magnates succeeded the predominance of the Greater Guilds, between whom and the Lesser Guilds a struggle was entered upon in the course of which the latter obtained, in their turn, a share of power. At a later period, the populace, represented by the plebeian Ciompi, comes to the front, and threatens the utter dissolution of the old social form of the Republic. Then new personal ambitions, more fatal to freedom because more fortunate, occupy the scene. The struggle between the Albizzi, Pitti, and Medici terminates in the triumph of the last-named family in the person of Cosimo the Elder, who slew the Republic. Yet nothing of all this should cause us much surprise. For if we bear in mind the beginnings of the Commune and the elements out of which it was constituted, we may readily see that all that happened was, in the main, unavoidably bound to occur. CHAPTER VIII. _THE ENACTMENTS OF JUSTICE._[418] I. There are many reasons why the history of Florence in the closing years of the thirteenth century should demand our fullest attention. It was the period of the very important political revolution resulting in the establishment of those Enactments of Justice of which the authorship is attributed to Giano della Bella, and which Bonaini has entitled the Magna Charta of the Florentine Republic. Even should this comparison seem strained, it is certain that those enactments, sometimes strengthened, sometimes modified, and occasionally suspended, remained in vigour nevertheless for more than a century--a fact of no small weight in so mutable a commonwealth as that of Florence. Sooner or later many neighbouring cities imitated these enactments, and in 1338 the Romans sent to request a copy of them, in order to re-organise their city by the same means. On this subject Villani wrote as follows: "It is known how times and conditions change, for the Romans, who of old built the city of Florence and gave it their own laws, now, in our days, have sent to ask laws from the Florentines."[419] It is likewise during this period that we behold arts and letters suddenly blossoming to the greatest splendour in the bosom of the Republic. Language, poetry, painting, architecture, sculpture had already put forth their first shoots in various Italian cities; but all are now permanently rooted in Florence, and initiating a new era in the history of the national intellect, suddenly flash forth into a glory of light, irradiating all Europe as well as Italy. Hence it behoves us to investigate most minutely the nature of the favourable conditions, both political and social, which rendered Florence the centre of such marvellous activity and the focus of all those far-spreading beams. The remark might certainly occur, that although this period has such undoubted claims upon our attention, its history is already very familiar to us; it has been recounted by contemporary writers such as Compagni and Villani, who were not only eye-witnesses, but often active participants in the events they described; it has been corroborated by many original documents, and recently expounded afresh by some most illustrious modern writers. Nevertheless, the attentive student is compelled to recognise that those times are less well known than might be supposed; for even in perusing the works of the newest historians we are perplexed by numerous difficulties and doubts. In point of fact, what is it we learn from Machiavelli, Ammirato, Sismondi, and Napier, and even from Vannucci, Giudici, and Trollope, who wrote subsequently to the publication of many newly discovered original documents? That, after the battle of Campaldino the arrogance of the nobles in Florence exceeded all bounds; that they insulted, oppressed, and trampled on the people; that there arose a daring and generous man named Giano della Bella, a noble devoted to the popular party, who when holding the office of Prior proposed a new law as a permanent remedy for these evils; that this law was passed and sanctioned under the name of Enactments of Justice, and that it excluded the nobles--or, rather, the magnates--from every political post; that it only permitted those really engaged in some trade or craft to share in the government of the Republic; that it punished every grave offence against the people, on the part of the nobles, with exceptionally severe sentences and penalties, such as chopping off hands, death at the block, and, more frequently, by confiscation of property; that slighter offences were only punished by fines; that the magistrates were empowered to chastise any man of the people (_popolano_) showing hostility to the Republic or breaking its laws, by proclaiming him a noble, and that this sentence immediately excluded him from the government and placed him under the same restrictions to which aristocrats were subject. Furthermore, that if any magnate convicted of offence should escape justice, one of his relations or associates would have to expiate the crime in his stead.[420] "A fact without parallel in the world's history!" Giudici exclaims. For truly, although a fundamental law of the Republic, this decree seems rather a freak of revenge solely inspired by the blindest party spirit. Accordingly almost every word of the decree excites our suspicion. How can it be explained that Dante was one of the Priors in office at the time, together with others who undoubtedly were not artisans, or only so in name, if it were true that the enactments excluded all who were not _practically exercising_ some trade? And apart from a thousand lesser doubts, the fact that innocent men were then condemned to death merely because they were relations or fellow associates of criminals who had escaped justice, is a point that we cannot possibly understand. In a period of the densest barbarism, it would be barely comprehensible; in Dante's age, it is a mystery and a contradiction, confusing all our ideas concerning those times. Therefore renewed investigation of the subject cannot be altogether futile. It is requisite to penetrate the true nature of the revolution that had then been accomplished, and of the law that resulted from it, and to bring both into harmony with the times and with the history of Florence. II. Towards the end of the thirteenth century the Republic had acquired very high importance throughout Italy as well as Tuscany. The fall of the Hohenstauffens, the coming of the Angevins, the vacancy of the Imperial throne had given an enormous ascendancy to the Guelph party which in Florence was that of the democracy. Its three great Ghibelline rivals, Pisa, Sienna, and Arezzo, had been humiliated and conquered by the subtle diplomacy of Florence and Florentine arms; and these victories had not only re-established the Republic's political authority in Tuscany, but opened and secured to it all the chief highways of commerce. Through Pisa it had access to the sea; through Sienna and Arezzo, to Rome, Umbria, and Southern Italy; it could pass to the north through distant Bologna, peopled with friendly Guelphs. Accordingly the commerce of Florence was then rapidly increased, and this republic of merchants, surrounded by other republics equally devoted to trade and industry, stood at the head of all Tuscany. On the other hand, however, the augmented power of the Angevins was beginning to excite the jealousy of the Popes who had first called them to Italy, and who now turned their eyes towards Germany in order to revive the Imperial pretensions, and thus check the growing ambition of the French king. For Charles of Anjou, whom they had named Senator of Rome and Vicar-Imperial of Tuscany, now seemed determined to follow the daring policy of the Swabian line by aspiring to supremacy over Italy. During this state of things, the Florentines managed to keep their balance with marvellous _finesse_, and by leaning this way, or that, frequently turned the scales on the side they preferred. They utilised the king's soldiery to crush Ghibelline cities and Ghibelline nobles; they leaned on the Pope, to check Charles's arrogance; and they showed readiness to favour the Empire, when the Pope tried to assert temporal supremacy, as though, in the present _interregnum_, he were the natural inheritor of the imperial rights. By this means, the Republic not only preserved its independence, but became a State commanding the fear and respect of all Italy.[421] This was all the result of the shrewdness, energy, and intelligence of its burghers, who governed with so much thriftiness and wisdom as to achieve an unparalleled prosperity. "It is a known thing," says Villani, "that down to this time and for long past, such was the tranquillity of Florence, that the City gates stood unlocked by night,[422] no duties were exacted in Florence;[423] and rather than impose burdens, when money was needed, old walls and bits of land within and without the City were sold to the owners of conterminous portions of the soil."[424] With few taxes and no debts, the administration was excellently conducted; it left the citizens unhampered, and increased the general well-being. III. Nevertheless, beneath this tranquil surface the seeds of deep-rooted discord lurked in the bosom of the State, and occasionally broke forth in sanguinary conflicts, of which the discontent of the nobles was the principal cause. It would be a serious mistake to believe that they were first excluded from the government in virtue of the Enactments of Justice. The measure had been prepared long before, and although not then rigorously carried out, may be said to have been already sanctioned in 1282, by the decree placing the Priors of the Guild at the head of the Republic. But it should not be thought on this account, that the nobles had lost all actual power in the city at the time. First of all, the new system of warfare, in which municipal armies, composed of artisans, unprovided with cavalry or men-at-arms, proved very incompetent, had made the assistance of the nobles indispensable, and also began to render it necessary to employ foreigners: soldiers of adventure from Germany, France, and Spain, who earned their living by war alone. At Montaperti (1260) the terrible defeat of the Republic's Guelph host had been achieved by Manfred's Germans, and the Ghibelline nobles banished from Florence. At Campaldino (1289) it was Corso Donati, Vieri de' Cerchi, and other Florentine nobles or potentates who had decided the fate of the day. The nobles knew this, and constantly boasted of it, in their contempt for the artisans and people. Being trained to arms, and undisturbed by commercial cares, they sorely chafed against being excluded from the government by rougher folk far less fitted for war than themselves. Accordingly, political animosities became more and more heated; the nobles could neither be still nor leave others in peace. It should also be remarked that the nobles of the period were no longer the feudal lords of former times, who, isolated in their well-guarded strongholds, like so many sovereigns, depended solely from the Empire and were foes to the Republic. Having been ousted from the territory, and obliged for some time back to reside in the city, they now clung to the latter, but desired to hold rule over it. Being surrounded on all sides by a powerful population banded in trade guilds and masters of the Government; being forcibly made subject to Republican laws refusing all recognition of feudal rights, the nobles had been obliged, in self-defence, to form Associations or Societies of the Towers, which being ruled by custom rather than law, were all the more firmly knit together. Originally, the nobles had been chiefly united by family ties which were still more closely respected on the disintegration of the feudal order, when, in order to maintain their strength, kinsmen banded together in separate castes or associations and gave admittance to a widening circle of members. They clustered together in neighbouring palaces, often lining one or more of the city streets; they lived in the midst of their adherents, squires, domestics, and grooms, and in moments of danger even summoned to their aid the peasantry of their rural estates. Their possessions were always handed down to their families or the Society to which they belonged, and their disputes were settled by chosen arbiters.[425] Besides all this, their deeds of vengeance were decided upon in common, and the individuals charged to execute them were always placed in safety by their comrades, the whole association assuming the responsibility of every deed of this kind. Often, between one house and another, or in one of their palace yards, there was an archway under which they administered torture to any one they chose. In fact, speaking of the Bostichi family, Compagni tells us that: "They committed many evil deeds, and continued to do them for long. In their own palaces, situated in the New Market, in the centre of the city, they would string men up, and put them to the torture at mid-day. And it was a common saying in the land that there were too many tribunals; and in counting the places where torture was applied, people said: 'In the Bostichi house, by the Market.'"[426] All this continued to be done, notwithstanding the very severe laws already promulgated against the nobles. A man of the people could be flogged, stabbed, or tortured, without the author of the misdeed being brought within the grasp of the law. Out in the country these same nobles used all sorts of devices to perpetuate serfdom, although for many years it had been legally abolished, and by threats or open violence induced their peasants, by means of fictitious contracts, to acknowledge obligations from which they were lawfully exempt.[427] Thus citizens, already powerful in virtue of their social position, contrived to retain much strength and great political influence in the Republic, notwithstanding the laws designed to keep them in check. Being excluded from the Signory they could neither enter the Council of One Hundred nor the Councils of the Captain, in which the more important questions were discussed. But they were admitted to those of the Podestà, and this official, being of necessity a knight, often gave judgment in favour of the nobles. Also, they were continually employed as ambassadors, and given the first posts in war; but they enjoyed most prominence in the institution entitled the Guelph Society (_Parte Guelfa_), and were specially appointed to all its chief offices. This Society, founded, as we have previously shown, in 1267, after the expulsion of Count Guido Novello, was charged with the administration of all confiscated Ghibelline property which had been formed into a _monte_ or _mobile_, or, as would now be said, capitalised. This property was to be employed for the subjection of the Ghibellines and the support of the Guelphs, of whom Florence was the Tuscan headquarters. It was on this account that Cardinal Ottavio degli Ubandini had exclaimed: "Now that the Guelphs have formed a fund in Florence, the Ghibellines will never return there;" and his prophecy was fulfilled.[428] In fact, the Ghibelline party was gradually swept away by the steady persecution to which it was subjected on the complete overthrow of the Suabian line; and Florence, having become exclusively Guelph, was divided between the parties of burghers and populace, and that of the nobles and magnates or _grandi_. The latter, although excluded from the government, or from _honours_, to use the phraseology of the time, could never be ousted from the Guelph Society, and continued to administer its large revenues. This Society was ordered in the fashion of a miniature republic, and notwithstanding numerous attempts to introduce an increasing burgher element within its pale, these efforts proved so fruitless and were so invariably thwarted, that the statutes compiled in 1335, and now extant in print, record the fact that money premiums were offered to promote the nomination of new knights. To each of the six knights elected during the year the sum of fifty gold florins were awarded, "so that a city of such great magnificence may be duly glorified by the number of its knights." Thus while, on the one hand, every means was taken to abase the great nobles, almost to the extent of securing their extermination, on the other, this threatened class continually gained reinforcement and support.[429] IV. With all these advantages, had the nobles been united, they might have regained their position even after the defeats of '66 and '82 and succeeded in dominating the people. But they were divided, and hotly at strife even among themselves. "There was much warfare" (Villani says) "between the Adimari and Tosinghi, between the Rossi and Tornaquinci, between the Bardi and Mozzi, between the Gherardini and Manieri, between the Cavalcanti and Buondelmonti, and likewise between certain of the Buondelmonti and Giandonati; between the Visdomini and Falconieri, between the Bostichi and Foraboschi, between the Foraboschi and Malespini, and among the Frescobaldi themselves, and between the members of the Donati family, and also among those of many other houses."[430] Nor is it surprising that such strong and powerful cliques should have felt jealous of one another. Added to this, the Guelph nobles included the remains of the Ghibelline party, which cherished Imperial tendencies; thus another germ of discord was sown that encouraged and excited the people to prosecute the war of extermination it had already set on foot. The popular party was far better organised and united; it was banded in various guilds forming part of the general constitution of the State, and on every occasion showed an energy and singleness of purpose never possessed by nobles. It is true, that even at this juncture, some seeds of jealousy were beginning to be discernible between the greater and lesser guilds and the populace; but open discord was long delayed. For the moment there was no hint of it. Certain special conventions, drawn up in regular documentary form, had been arranged between the members of one or more of the guilds, and these agreements were designated at the time _Legbe_, _Posture_, or _Convegni_. But their object was chiefly commercial, being designed to keep the price of certain commodities up to a forced standard, and create illegal monopolies, and was seldom the result of political interests or animosities. They were not sanctioned by law, they certainly did not promote concord, but their importance was slight. Thus the city became increasingly divided and subdivided into groups, and was apparently in danger of falling to pieces. The lower classes were still undoubted rulers of the government, but the nobles were also powerful, if in a different way; hence unity and concord were continually and seriously imperilled. Necessarily, therefore, the chief aim to be pursued, in order to avert a catastrophe, was the attainment of greater equality among the citizens, of greater union and strength in the various societies as well as in the government itself. In fact, for a long time past, Florentine legislation and successive revolutions had alike kept this object in view. The law of August 6, 1289, abolishing serfdom in order to emancipate the peasantry, was also another step towards equality. Those of June 30, and July 3, 1290, prohibited all agreements in any way opposed to the lawful constitution of the guilds. The law of January 31, 1291, imposed a fresh check on the nobles, by obliging all citizens, without any exception, to submit to the jurisdiction of the regular courts, and decreeing the severest penalties on any one asserting, or trying to obtain, the privilege of trial by special tribunals.[431] But a more notable point is the fact that every fine decreed in such cases fell upon the fellow-associate or relation of the criminal, should the latter contrive to evade justice. However strange this rule may appear to the modern mind, its explanation is to be found in the account we have already given of the mode in which property was held at the time, and of the constitution of families and associations. When almost the whole of the patrimony was shared by the family in common, it would have been very difficult, and even dangerous, to inflict a fine on any one member of the house while exempting the rest, and for this reason the invariable tendency of the law was to insist on their solidarity. This principle seemed still more logical when it was a question of inflicting fines on nobles banded in closely united associations, and who, keeping all their interests in common, decided on acts of vengeance, and proved their intention of holding all things in common and dividing one another's responsibilities. Where property belonged to the whole family, it was only just that the whole family should be liable for the fine; where an act of vengeance was done in common, and the gravest offences committed in the name, and with the sanction, of the whole kindred, there could be nothing extraordinary in the law compelling one associate or kinsman to be mulcted in lieu of another, beginning with his nearest relations. Precisely for these reasons, it had long been customary in drawing out the list of the nobles, for the law to compel the said nobles to _sodare_, that is, to compel every one of them to stand surety not merely for himself alone, but also for his relations, by depositing the sum of two thousand _lire_. In this way, since money-penalties seldom exceeded the said amount, whenever a noble was fined he could use the money he had already deposited, or it could be employed for the same end by the kinsman bound surety for him, in case he should have escaped or contrived to evade the law by some unauthorised device.[432] These were exclusively and precisely the principles upon which the Enactments of Justice were also founded. Accordingly it is impossible to consider them the personal invention of Giano della Bella, seeing that they were merely a logical consequence and natural result, inevitably evolved from preceding revolutions, institutions, and laws. Indeed, for the most part they only sum up and arrange older laws, so as to accentuate more plainly their primary and enduring intent. V. Giano della Bella was neither a legislator nor a politician, but a man of action. A noble by birth, he had fought at Campaldino, where his horse was killed under him; he afterwards joined the popular side, by reason, it was averred, of a quarrel at San Piero Scheraggio with Piero Frescobaldi, who had dared to strike him in the face, and threaten to cut off his nose.[433] Whether this tale were true or not, it is certain that Giano was a man of violent disposition, great daring, small prudence, and disinterested love of freedom; but he was by no means devoid of the passion for revenge that even his admirers laid to his charge. "A forcible and very spirited man" (says Compagni), "he was so daring, that he defended matters forsaken by others, said things others left unspoken, did his utmost to bring justice to bear on the guilty, and was so much feared by the Rectors that they dared not conceal evil deeds."[434] According to Villani "he was a most loyal and upright _popolano_, and more devoted to the public good than any man in Florence, one that gave help to the Commune without seeking his own profit. He was overbearing and obstinate in wreaking revenge, and also achieved some deeds of vengeance on his neighbours, the Abati, by using the authority of the Commune,"[435] for which the worthy chronicler severely blames him. When appointed Podestà of Pistoia, he immediately plunged into party strife, persecuting one side and favouring the other, with so much ardour that, instead of fulfilling his duty of pacifying the different factions, he inflamed their hatred to such a pitch that it was impossible for him to remain there to the end of his official term.[436] The whole course of his conduct in Florence proves, as we shall see, that he must have been a man of scant prudence and great impulsiveness. It was precisely these characteristics which made him a leader of the people instead of a legislator, and likewise an implacable enemy of the nobles. After the battle of Campaldino the latter showed more audacity and growing insolence. "It was we who won the victory at Campaldino," they continually repeated, "and yet you seek our ruin." Bent on forcing their way to the front and gaining command, they daily insulted or injured some man of the people. The law was powerless against them, inasmuch as the offenders could never be unearthed; the latter were carefully sheltered, and no one desired or dared to testify against them. A _popolano_ could be surrounded, attacked, even stabbed, yet nobody had seen the doer of the crime. Or some one would be dragged into the houses of an association, maltreated, beaten or tortured on the cord, yet all that occurred in those places remained unrevealed. If some noble was condemned to a fine, he made haste to declare that he possessed no separate estate, and by his own negligence, or that of the magistrates, had failed to give surety, while his relations repeated the same story.[437] Hence it was necessary to recall the old laws into vigour, make them still stricter, and decide on new and sterner measures. So at last the priors in office from the 15th of December, 1292, to the 15th of February, 1293, urged on by the public voice, under Giano's guidance, commissioned three citizens, Donato Ristori, Ubertino della Strozza, and Baldo Aguglioni, to frame a new law fitted, not only to meet present dangers, but to assure greater stability to the Republic in the future. On the 10th of January, the Bill being then drawn up, the Captain of the People assembled the Council of One Hundred, and proposed that the required Councils should be asked to grant them full powers (_balìa_)[438] to proclaim it, if it were approved by the magistrates and by certain citizen worthies. Some proposed, in amendment, that it should be first read and discussed by the councils; but this would have entailed a risk of the whole thing coming to nothing. Accordingly the more practical course was chosen, and by seventy-two votes, against two negatives only, the requested _balìa_ was granted. On the 18th of January the new law, entitled "Ordinamenti," or "Ordini di Giustizia," was proclaimed in the names of the Podestà, captain, and priors, and with the concurrence of the Heads of the Twenty-one Guilds and certain citizen worthies.[439] There is every reason to believe that Giano della Bella was one of the worthies in question; but although historians suppose him to have been the creator and initiator of the law, since, as leader of public opinion, he compelled the Signory to pass it, yet he was not in the government at the time, nor does his name appear in any official decree.[440] Therefore he was by no means the sole author or compiler of the new law. VI. What, then, are these enactments? In replying to this question it is requisite to leave the historians aside and turn to the law itself. But there are several old compilations of it, differing so much from each other, that one form only comprises twenty-two rubrics, whereas some have more than a hundred. Accordingly, the first thing to be done is to ascertain which is the genuine and primary law passed on the 18th of January, 1293, since on this alone can an accurate judgment be based, and no other starting-point is possible. There are six of these very different compilations--four in print, and two still inedited. Two of the number may be summarily dealt with as unnecessary to our purpose. One is included in the general collection of Florentine statistics, formed in 1415 by Bartolommeo Volpi and Paolo de Castro, and printed with the false date of Friburg, towards the close of the eighteenth century (1778-1783). This consists of laws of entirely different periods arranged haphazard, without regard to chronology, and including the enactments, but these are given with all the modifications and changes introduced at a later date, and are also confusedly jumbled. No historian engaged on the times of Giano della Bella can make any use of a collection of this kind, since it shows no proof of authenticity. For the same reason we may also reject the Miscellany preserved in the Florence Archives, and that Bonaini calls "a _huge medley_," containing unconnected laws of different periods, and different tendencies, some enforcing and others modifying the Enactments of Justice. Hence, while possibly of some importance with regard to the history of the "Ordinamenti," this Miscellany cannot help us to discover their primary form. Four other compilations remain, one of which only is inedited. Examination quickly shows that the one brought out by Bonaini comprises no more than twenty-one rubrics, and that the last of these, forming a general summary, is mutilated; the other compilations contain a greater number of rubrics, but, in all three, the general special enactments of January, 1293, are invariably given under the first twenty-eight rubrics.[441] In fact, from the twenty-ninth forward, appendices and posterior laws begin to occur, often separately dated, and seemingly tacked on to the enactments, in order sometimes to modify, sometimes to strengthen them, or again to diminish their effect, or because of their relation to cognate matters. All the laws and statutes of the Republic suffered more or less the same fate. Thus the notable divergences found in the various compilations are reduced to very narrow limits as regards the original body of enactments. Certain doubts still assail us, however, seeing that we not only find twenty-two rubrics on the one hand against twenty-eight on the other, but because these rubrics clash on various points. First of all, then, let us remark that the oldest compilation is undoubtedly the one published by Bonaini in 1855, from the original MS. in the State Archives. The editor felt assured of having discovered the original document of the enactments, but conscientiously preferred to entitle it the original draft,[442] seeing that, as Hegel has since ascertained, it is not the actual law that was approved and proclaimed by the magistrates. The codex is of great antiquity, and may be ascribed to Giano della Bella's day. In fact, in one heading, first inscribed and then cancelled, we find the date of 1292 _de mense ianuarii_ (1293, new style).[443] The usual formula heading all decrees of the Republic is missing, and the said formula not only gave the date and title, but occasionally added the names of the magistrates promulgating the law. The codex is of small size, full of erasures, alterations, and additions written by different hands: often, too, there are empty spaces left between one rubric and another to allow room for future additions or corrections. Everything plainly shows that this old codex is only a rough copy of the law, standing exactly as it was drawn up, at the request of the magistrates, by the three previously mentioned citizens, and before it had been cast in its final form, or legally sanctioned by those charged to discuss and approve it, prior to its promulgation. Accordingly it is impossible to decide with any certainty whether it was modified at all, or in what degree. But although this rough draft is somewhat anterior to the actual law itself, the existing compilations are all posterior to it, and may consequently include later appendices and modifications. Thus, on examining the Latin compilation edited by Fineschi in 1790, and the Italian one brought out by Giudici in 1853, both derived from old and authentic manuscripts, we find each to have all the characteristics of a regularly proclaimed law. Both begin with the official formula, and are dated the 18th of January, 1292 (1293, new style). On reading the rubrics appended to the second (the Italian copy), which is much longer than the other, we find various dates given, including that of 1324; whereas the first (the Latin version) contains none later than the 6th of July, 1295. Therefore the latter is the older of the two, and the occasional divergences existing even among its first twenty-eight rubrics are undoubtedly caused by amendments introduced at a subsequent time. Nevertheless, even the first rubrics of the Latin compilation evidently contain modifications of an earlier date than the 6th of July, 1295. For instance, in rubric vi. we find the number of witnesses--a point left undecided in the rough draft (rubric v.)--fixed at three in the two posterior compilations, and this point (as we shall see) can be proved on documentary evidence to have been settled by law in July, 1295. Therefore we are justified in concluding that it is the Latin and older compilation that gives the enactments as they stood in July, 1295; while the Italian copy, although proved, by examination of the codex, to be an official translation, occasionally includes alterations of even a later date than 1295. If, however, we only keep in view their first twenty-eight rubrics, and collate these with Bonaini's draft, it will be seen that, saving for the non-appearance in the latter of six rubrics, chiefly of a very insignificant kind, all other divergences are rather formal than substantial. In any case, wherever the three versions are found to agree, we may be sure of possessing the law passed on the 18th of January, 1293, in the precise shape it wore at the time; but wherever, on the contrary, divergences exist, we must seek the aid of the chroniclers and of any new documents, should such be found, before arriving at a definite conclusion. Following these rules, we may therefore proceed to examine the law.[444] VII. What, then, were these Enactments of Justice, as originally framed, and what is to be learnt from them? They work a political and social change in the Republic, for the evident purpose of promoting civil equality, giving greater unity to the government and increased strength to the guilds; also of assuring the harmony and concord of the people, and curbing the arrogance of the nobles. The more strictly political reform is confined to establishing safe rules for the election of Priors, and creating a new and more powerful magistrate, the Gonfalonier of Justice, to sit in junction with the Priors. By request of the Captain of the People, the Priors authorised him to call a meeting of the Heads, or Consuls of the Twelve Guilds, in order to deliberate as to the safest and most fitting mode of choosing their own successors. All candidates to the priorate had to be enrolled in some guild, and to exercise its trade, as the surest means of proving that they were not of the aristocracy--always the chief point to be ascertained. In fact no one remaining a noble could be eligible to the Signory, even if engaged in trade.[445] By means of subtle and often quibbling interpretations of the law, it was possible to compromise as to the actual practice of a craft, but never as to being absolutely free from all taint of aristocracy.[446] Thus Giano della Bella, in spite of merely having, as Villani relates, some slight commercial interests in France, was qualified, on discarding his rank and becoming one of the people, to enter the Signory in February, 1293. In July, 1295, as we shall see, the enactments were modified, and it was sufficient for candidates to be enrolled in some guild without practically exercising its trade, always providing they did not belong to the nobility. Many regulations were added to assure an equal division of public posts among all the Sestieri of the city and all the guilds, while prohibiting the nomination of several Priors belonging to the same Sestiere, family, or guild. None leaving office could be re-elected to it within two years, and this prohibition was extended to his relations as well. The office of Prior was held for two months; no one was allowed to ask or intrigue for it, but neither might one refuse to accept it. The Priors had to dwell altogether in one house, where they lived and ate in common, without accepting invitations elsewhere or giving private audiences.[447] The next subject considered was the election of the new magistrate, namely, the Gonfalonier of Justice. He was chosen every two months from a different Sestiere of the city, and his electors were the incoming Priors, captains, and guild-masters, with the addition of two worthies of each Sestiere. He was elected on precisely the same terms as the Priors, saving that he might return to office after one year instead of two; he lived with the Priors as _primus inter pares_; he received the same honorarium of ten _soldi_ per day, expenses included, so that he was practically unremunerated. But having higher attributes in the eyes of the law, he became speedily and of necessity the chief of the Signory.[448] At the public parliament the Gonfalon of the People was solemnly consigned to him, and one hundred _pavesi_, or shields, and twenty-five cross-bows with bolts were placed at his disposal, for the better equipment of part of the thousand _popolani_ yearly selected to serve under him, the Podestà and Captain to preserve order and enforce the execution of the new laws.[449] No relation of the Priors in office could be elected to the Gonfaloniership. The creation of this new post certainly serves to prove that the necessity of giving increased unity and supremacy to the Government was already acknowledged. But at that period Republican jealousy was too strong to sanction anything more than a mere show of supremacy. Accordingly, the Gonfalonier was only the most influential of the Priors, and liable to be changed on the same terms, albeit the fact of having the free disposal, at given moments, of the citizen army undoubtedly endued him with higher authority. In treating of the branch of the enactments bearing on social rather than political cases, we should remark first of all that to these enactments was owed the settled constitution of the Florentine guilds, which now hastened to reframe or renew their own special statutes. The normal number of the guilds was likewise established by the enactments, and from that moment remained fixed at twenty-one.[450] In fact, the first rubric decreed that the guilds should take a solemn oath to maintain union and concord among the people. The second rubric annulled and forbade, under heavy penalties, all _companies_, _leagues_, _promises_, _conventions_, _obligations_, and _sworn pacts_, that is, all agreements among the people unprovided or unsanctioned by the laws, and opposed or alien to the constitution of the guilds. Both procurators and stipulators of similar agreements were liable even to capital punishment; and any guild known to be concerned in such agreement would be mulcted in one thousand _lire_; the consuls of the said guild, and the notary who had drawn the deed, in five hundred _lire_.[451] All this plainly proves that the law was not devised, as once believed and asserted, for the sole purpose of wreaking vengeance on the nobles, but was also framed with the intent of reforming the city and government by solidly organising the guilds and granting them higher political importance. Nevertheless, the humiliation of the leading nobles was certainly one of the principal objects of the law. Therefore we may now proceed to examine the clauses directed to that end. VIII. First of all, to punish the nobles for their continual attacks on the people it was requisite to make them guarantee their collective responsibility, since, in defiance of preceding laws, they frequently contrived to shirk that obligation. Most offences being punishable by fines, persons bound by no guarantees could easily evade the prescribed penalty on some pretext or another: therefore the enactments were framed to prevent such evasion of justice.[452] They likewise gave fresh force to old laws which had been too often violated. "Further, to prevent the numerous frauds daily committed by certain leading nobles of the city and territory of Florence with regard to the guarantees pledged, or rather, bound to be pledged by the said nobles according to the terms of the statute of the Florentine Commune, as decreed under the rubric: 'De la securtadi che si debbono fare da' grandi de la città di Firenze,' and beginning with the words: 'Acciò che la isfrenata spezialmente de' grandi,' &c.--it is provided and ordained," &c.[453] Consequently, all the nobles already enumerated in the above-mentioned statute, and of whom a new list was then made, were ordered to give guaranty, from the age of fifteen years to seventy, without exception, by the payment of two thousand _lire_, a sum generally sufficient to cover the highest fines exacted, apart from confiscation, which penalty was not only commonly, but abusively employed. The fact of being enrolled in a guild did not suffice to exempt any of these nobles from the duty of giving guarantees; the privilege of exemption being solely granted to him whose entire family, for this or that reason, even by special indulgence, had been spared the duty of giving guarantees for five years at least, or declared absolutely free (_francata_). In either case the family was considered to be thoroughly of the people, and entitled to all the advantages deriving therefrom. The Signory was empowered to reduce the sum guaranteed (_il sodamento_) in the case of the poorer nobles, but it was precisely this clause that opened the door to partiality and fraud.[454] The law proceeded to state that the fixed time for giving guarantees was the month of January or February at the latest: any one refusing or delaying obedience, no matter in what way, would be banished, and his nearest kin in the male line compelled to give surety in his stead. The penalty of any crime committed by an unguaranteed person was to fall on that person's relations. But when the penalty was death, and the criminal had fled, his relations must pay three thousand _lire_ instead of the guaranteed two thousand. But in case of mortal feud between the members of a family their obligation of giving surety for one another was cancelled. This plainly shows that when community of interests and passions had ceased to exist the law no longer insisted on the collective responsibility of kinsmen or associates. This assists our better comprehension of the real scope of the enactment.[455] When, however, the members of associations acted in common, as one entity, the law framed for the purpose of dissolving those associations made the members reciprocally responsible, obliging them to guarantee and pay for one another. But no penalties save fines, and these only within certain limits, were exacted from relations and fellow associates, since an association was only fined as a collective body. This will explain what Compagni and Villani meant by saying that according to the enactments, "one associate was bound for the other."[456] We may see how Machiavelli blundered, or at least exaggerated, in his interpretation of their words when he stated in general terms that "the associates of a criminal were made to suffer the same penalty to which the latter was condemned;"[457] and we can also note the mistake committed by modern writers in clinging to an interpretation, that is totally contradicted by the terms of the enactments, which would be otherwise in opposition to the culture of the period and the most fundamental principles of law. The measures specially directed against the nobles may be reduced to two leading clauses, namely the revival in a more rigorous shape of the old laws excluding the nobles from office and obliging them to guarantee and pay one another's fines; and the increased severity of the punishments inflicted on them by--to use Villani's words--"a different mode of doubling ordinary penalties."[458] Let us now see what these penalties were in their aggravated form. According to the enactments, should a noble murder or procure the murder of one of the people, both the noble and the doer of the deed are to be condemned to death by the Podestà, and their property destroyed and made confiscate.[459] Should they escape by flight, they are to be sentenced in contumacy, and their property confiscated. Nevertheless their guarantor will have to pay the sum for which he stood surety, but with right of reimbursement from the confiscated and demolished property of the fugitive criminal. All other nobles who, without being direct accomplices in the crime, have had any share in it, are sentenced to a fine of two thousand _lire_; if failing to pay this, their property is confiscated, and their kinsmen or guarantors bound to pay it in their stead. But when the crime in question was that of inflicting serious bodily hurt, the doer of the deed and its instigators were sentenced to a fine of two thousand _lire_. If refusing to pay the penalty, their hands were chopped off; if escaping the reach of justice, their possessions were sacked, their funds confiscated, and their guarantors bound to pay the fine, but with the usual right of reimbursement from the sums confiscated by the State. For slighter offences, slighter penalties were adjudged. In every case the guilty were forbidden to hold any public office until five years had elapsed. For murderous attempts, the sworn testimony of the injured person or his nearest relation, together with that of two witnesses to the public voice on the matter (_testimoni di pubblica fama_), was considered sufficient proof of the crime; nor was it necessary for the two witnesses to have seen the crime actually committed. This was the clause most obnoxious to the nobles. In general they were little disturbed by threatened punishment, even of the severest kind, since they always hoped to escape it. But they were roused to fury as well as alarm, when measures were taken for the rigorous enforcement of the penalties prescribed. And this was precisely the chief intent and soul of the enactments. The whole course of procedure enjoined by them was almost as summary as that of martial law, and allowed much weight to public opinion, which, in the midst of party strife, was no trustworthy guide. The close union prevailing in associations had made ordinary legal procedure very difficult, if not impossible. Hence it was ordained that whenever a crime was perpetrated, the Podestà was bound to discover its author within five, or at most eight days, according to the gravity of the deed, under pain, in case of neglect of loss of office and a fine of five hundred _lire_ for minor offences. In such case, however, the Captain was charged to take the matter in hand, and subject to the same penalties. All shops were then to be closed, the artisans called to arms, and the Gonfalonier to be on the alert to punish all recusants. But when the Podestà discovered the criminal, and it was a case of homicide, he and the Gonfalonier together were to ring the tocsin without waiting for the sentence of the court, and assembling the thousand select men, proceed to demolish the houses belonging to the criminal. The guild-masters were prompt to obey the Captain's summons. When slighter offences were in question the criminal's houses were not destroyed until sentence had been passed.[460] It should be remarked that this pulling down of houses was never carried to the point of total demolition, and, particularly in cases of petty crimes, the Gonfalonier and Podestà always settled beforehand what damage should be wrought.[461] Very severe penalties were imposed both on injured persons failing to denounce crime,[462] and on the makers of false accusations.[463] When one of the people received hurt through joining in some quarrel of the nobles, or in cases of conflict between master and man, the enactments were not applied, and the common law was again enforced.[464] Other clauses followed touching unjust appropriation of the people's property on the part of the nobles, and obstacles interposed by them to bar the former from due receipt of income, for which offences, fines varying between one thousand and five hundred _lire_ were prescribed in the customary way.[465] A noble sentenced to any fine was forbidden to beg or collect the amount from others, since this would have made it easier to commit deeds of vengeance in common and pay the penalty by means of a general subscription. Therefore any noble begging contributions from others was condemned to a special fine of five hundred _lire_; while all trying to collect money for him, as well as those supplying it, were mulcted in one hundred _lire_.[466] No appeal of any sort was permitted against sentences pronounced according to the enactments,[467] since these overruled all ordinary statutes, and it was forbidden either to prorogue, suspend, or alter them, under penalty of incurring the severe punishment prescribed in the _General Conclusion_.[468] IX. Thus the Enactments of Justice were framed. As already stated, their object was to fortify the guilds, give greater unity to the Government and the people, humble the nobles, and promote the dispersal of associations. Only it was to be doubted whether a law of this kind could be fully carried out, or would not rather be violated by the nobles, thus sharing the fate of many earlier laws promulgated for the same purpose. Giano della Bella used his best efforts to avert this danger. He had not compiled the enactments, nor was he in office when they were discussed and passed; but he undoubtedly assisted in promoting them. On the 15th of February, 1293, shortly after they were proclaimed, he was elected to the "Priors," and on the 10th of April--namely, ten days before his term of office expired--we find that a new law, devised for the purpose of "fortifying" the enactments among which it was subsequently incorporated, was presented, discussed, and passed by all the State Councils. This additional law, one decidedly accordant with the spirit of action rather than of debate, possessed by Giano della Bella, was of a very simple kind. It ordained that another thousand men, together with one hundred and fifty _magistri de lapide et lignamine_ and fifty _piconarii fortes et robusti, cum bonis picconibus_,[469] should be added to the force of one thousand _popolani_ at the disposition of the Gonfalonier of Justice, of the Captain and Podestà. The object of this new measure was self-evident: it was intended to inflict real punishment; to thoroughly confiscate the property and demolish the abodes of all nobles doing injury to the people. Accordingly the aristocrats were provoked to fury, and their hatred of Giano could no longer be restrained. But he was nowise alarmed; on the contrary, it spurred him to new efforts, and he planned another measure, that, if carried into effect, would have proved a deathblow to the nobles. As we have seen, the latter's position as magistrates of the Guelph Society still kept their power intact; so, in order to humble them, Giano proposed to deprive their captains "of the Seal of the Society, and of its property, which was considerable, and hand these over to the Commune. Although a Guelph, and of Guelph nationality, he hoped, by this measure, to humble the power of the magnates."[470] In fact, once deprived of the seal, that was the symbol, as it were, of their separate entity; once their movable property, or funds, transferred to the Commune, their caste would have been notably enfeebled, if not destroyed, and the last stronghold of nobility lost. Giano's proposal was likewise justified by a law established by the Guelph Society, decreeing the latter to be only entitled to one-third of the property confiscated from the Ghibellines, while as matter of fact it had appropriated the whole. Hence there was some reason for compelling the Society to disgorge at least the two-thirds it had unduly usurped. To what extent Giano's plan was fulfilled, the absence of documents leaves us in ignorance. Although the incident is recorded by historians,[471] the Guelph Society long continued to exercise tyrannous rule. At any rate the mere fact of proposing this law suffices to explain the increasing hatred developed against Giano, and the speedily visible signs of approaching disaster in the city. X. Thereupon the people rose to the emergency, and in order to be prepared for events, hastened to avert all risk of foreign war by concluding peace with the Pisans, in spite of the latter being already reduced to such extremities, that the continuation of the war would have certainly led to their still deeper humiliation and abasement. But the Florentines decided for peace in order to "fortify the position of the people, and lower the power of nobles and potentates, who often acquire renewed strength and vitality by war."[472] Negotiations were set on foot during the Gonfaloniership of Migliore Guadagni (April 15 to June 15, 1293), and concluded soon afterwards during that of Dino Compagni. The terms arranged were: the restitution of prisoners; free passage through Pisa for the merchandise of all communes included in the Tuscan League, and the same right of passage, free of duty, for Pisan merchandise through the States of the League. For the term of four years the Pisans were to contrive the election of their Podestà and Captain, in such wise that one of the pair should always belong to one of the communes of the League, the other to some house not rebelled against the same, and no member of the family of the Counts of Montefeltro was ever to be chosen. Now the Pisan leader who had defended the city so valiantly, and filled the offices of Podestà, Captain of the people and of war, was precisely Count Guido Montefeltro. Hence, by the terms of the treaty, he was now forced to leave Pisa, together with all the foreign Ghibellines; and twenty-five leading citizens were also to be given in hostage. Thus the Pisans were compelled to behave with the harshest ingratitude. The count, indeed, might have made them pay dearly for it, being still in command of a numerous and most devoted army; but he preferred to bear the insult with dignity. Appearing before the Council, he recounted his services to Pisa, the ill return made for them, and then, having received the monies due to him, instantly went away. The Pisans were likewise pledged to dismantle the walls of the fortress of Pontedera, and to fill up the trenches; farther, to recall to the city all the leading Guelph exiles. On the other hand, Florence was to give back their castle of Monte-Cuccoli, and all their other possessions in Val d'Era.[473] Having thus put an end to what seemed for the moment their wealthiest concern, the Florentines devoted more energy to the less important undertakings on hand. Various districts or castles, such as Poggibonsi, Certaldo, Gambassi, and Cutignano were reduced to submission. The Counts Guidi were deprived of jurisdiction over numerous domains in the upper valley of the Arno. Also possession was resumed of many others in the Mugello, which had been illegally usurped by the said Counts Guidi, the Ubaldini, and other powerful lords. A commission of three burghers of the lower class was then appointed to estimate all possessions appertaining to the city and its territory. These commissioners likewise cleared the lands of the St. Eustachio Hospital, near Florence, of many unlawful occupants, and put the estate under the direct protection of the Consuls of the Calimala Guild.[474] Another fact should also be noted, if only to prove what universal energy was displayed at this juncture by the Florentine people who, as Villani phrases it, "were heated with presumption and consciousness of power." A certain man fled to Prato after committing some crime, and was given refuge there. The Republic immediately demanded his extradition, and on Prato's refusal, sentenced the Commune to a fine of ten thousand _lire_ and the surrender of the criminal, despatching a single messenger with a letter to this effect. As the authorities of Prato were still recalcitrant, war was promptly declared, horse and foot called to arms, and the town was finally compelled to yield the point. "And this is how the hot-blooded Florentines managed their affairs."[475] XI. Just when all was safe and tranquil outside the walls, the worst of dangers began in the city. The nobles were determined to prevent the Enactments of Justice from taking effect, and accordingly contrived that after all attacks upon the people, the offenders should be cited before judges belonging to their own party. These conducted the trial to their advantage, and thus the Podestà, without being aware of it, punished the innocent instead of the guilty. For the nobles sheltered evildoers, protected their fellow associates, and on every attempt to enforce the law, did their best to raise riots. All these proceedings were fiercely combated by the people, under the guidance of Giano della Bella, who was always reiterating the cry, "Perish the city rather than justice!" Accordingly public feeling became so inflamed that the most sanguinary measures were threatened in retaliation on the nobles. The first family to incur the worst penalties decreed by the enactments were the Galli. One of that line having mortally wounded a Florentine merchant in France, their dwellings in Florence were demolished.[476] This instance easily prepared the way for sterner measures. The people clamoured for new and more vigorous sentences; therefore it was feared, says Compagni, "that were the accused left unpunished, the rector would be left to bear the brunt, and thus no accused person was granted impunity." The fury of the nobles reached its climax, and they complained, with some show of reason, that "if a horse at full gallop chanced to whisk its tail in the face of a _popolano_, or some one in a crowd pushed against another man's breast, or small children came to blows, there was no reason why their property should be ruined on such slender pretext."[477] Accordingly they conceived the idea of conspiring to the bodily hurt of Giano, the ringleader and head of the people, and thus getting rid of him for ever. To compass his assassination seemed easy, by reason of his straightforward impetuosity and incautiousness. He had great influence over the populace, but even this was a point open to attack. As we have seen, the Lesser Guilds and the populace lived by petty industry and small trades carried on within the city; and their chief profits being derived from noble customers, the latter had much ascendancy over them and no few adherents in their ranks. Besides this, a certain amount of jealousy had already sprung up between the lowest class and the well-to-do burghers, who, being mainly concerned in the export and import trade,[478] were independent of the nobles, hated them, and sought their destruction. Nevertheless these burghers could not approve of Giano's attempts to rouse the ambition and increase the strength of the lowest class, which was disgusted at being excluded from the Government and yearning to have a share in it. Another element of strife was soon to be introduced by the election of Pope Boniface VIII. (December, 1294). This Pontiff had an immoderate appetite for temporal power, and believed that owing to the interregnum of the Empire, its rights could now be assumed by the Papacy throughout Italy and Europe. He was particularly anxious to increase his power in Florence, the leading city of Tuscany, where his own predecessors had appointed Charles of Anjou to the post of imperial vicar. Therefore he quickly began to open negotiations with the nobles, whose present weakness increased their readiness to come to terms with him, and who would have willingly resumed the government of the city in his name, just as their Ghibelline ancestors had often held it in the name of the emperor. But this was naturally opposed by the burghers, who being determined, on the contrary, to maintain the liberty and independence of the Republic, could not, albeit staunch Guelphs, side with the Pope at that moment. Secret intrigues between Boniface and the nobles were now carried on through the Spini, rich Florentine merchants, who, as bankers to the Curia, had agents in Rome. The first step hazarded was to call to Tuscany a certain Giovanni di Celona,[479] who was already on the march towards Italy with several hundred men, in response to a summons from the Pope and the nobles. The latter, intending to use his force for their own ends, had made him many promises, and with the concurrence, it would seem, of certain of the burghers. But the affair dragged, and men's passions were now outstripping the political manoeuvres employed to feed the flame. Accordingly, without further delay, it was decided to hatch a scheme for the murder of Giano della Bella. "The shepherd struck down, his flock will be scattered," so said the nobles. Only, as it fell out, the party in favour of craft prevailed over the side preferring violence. At this moment frequent excesses, perpetrated by the people, remained unpunished through the pusillanimity of the judges. The butchers in particular, led by one Pecora, an audacious ruffian, who had publicly threatened the Signory, committed worse outrages from day to day. Hence, at the popular meetings frequently held by Giano, the nobles, knowing his love of justice, would whet his indignation by saying, "Dost not see the violence of the butchers? Dost not see the insolence of the judges, who, by threatening to punish the rectors when the time of investigation arrives,[480] wrest unjust favours from them? Suits are suspended for three or four years, and sentences never pronounced." Thereupon the loyal Giano would promptly reply, "May the city perish, rather than this state of things be continued! Let laws be framed to repress all this wickedness." And then the nobles would maliciously hasten to inform judges and butchers that Giano meant to crush them with new laws.[481] In pursuance of this cunning scheme, they suggested a law against exiles, in the hope of soon being able to apply it to Giano himself. It seems that he was on the point of falling into the trap, but received timely warning. So then, refusing to hear another word, either from friends or foes, he forbade that any law whatever should be proposed, and threatened his enemies with death. Accordingly the meeting only served to increase the general heat and ferment.[482] The nobles were not to be checked so easily. Seeing that Giano still retained many friends, and that there was no hope of conquering by craft, they held a private sitting in the church of San Jacopo Oltrarno, to discuss what should be done; and violent measures were once more suggested. Giano's personal enemy, Betto Frescobaldi, the same who had once struck him in the face at San Piero Scheraggio, spoke to this effect: "Let us cast off this slavery; let us arm and rush to the Piazza; let us kill both friends and enemies of the popular class, as many as we find of them, so that neither ourselves nor our sons may ever be crushed by them." But the promoters of intrigue were again in opposition, and Baldo della Tosa replied very quietly, "The wise knight's counsel is good, but too risky, since, should the scheme fail, we should all perish. First let us conquer (our enemies) by cunning, and excommunicate them with soft words.... And when thus excommunicated, let us harry them in such sort that they can never lift their heads again."[483] But quite suddenly a fitting opportunity for violence spontaneously arose. Corso Donati, one of the most powerful and arrogant of Florentines, induced some of his followers to assault Messer Simone Galastroni, and a riot ensued in which one man was killed and two wounded. Both sides laid complaints; but when the affair was brought before the judges charged to try the case, one of them, influenced by the usual party spirit, arranged that the notary should reverse the depositions of the witnesses. When the case, thus garbled, was brought before the Podestà, Giano di Lucino, he acquitted Donati, and condemned Galastroni. Thereupon the people who had witnessed the riot, and knew all the circumstances, rose to arms, shouting through the streets: "Perish the Podestà; he shall perish by fire!" They made for the palace, faggots in hand, to burn down the door, and expecting to be actively assisted by Giano della Bella. But, on the contrary, he sided with the magistrates, whose authority he invariably held in respect. Nevertheless, the door of the Podestà's palace was consumed, his horses and chattels were stolen, his men captured, and his papers scattered and torn. And as many persons knew him to possess indictments against them, they took care to destroy his official documents. He and his wife contrived to escape to an adjoining house, and obtained refuge there. Corso Donati, who was in the palace at the time, saved his life by flying from roof to roof. The Councils assembled the next day, and for the honour of the Republic decided to restore all the Podestà's stolen property to pay him his salary and send him away. Thus order was re-established at once, but public feeling was still very inflamed, and the nobles saw that the moment for wreaking vengeance on Giano had finally arrived. In fact, some of the people were his foes, owing to the numerous calumnies purposely launched against him, and among others the charge of having promoted decrees to the hurt of the judges and butchers; some, again, were furious because he had sided with the Podestà, while others denounced him as the author of the riot. Accordingly, profiting by the general confusion and uncertainty, his enemies succeeded in obtaining the premature election of a Signory opposed to his views; and he was speedily cited before the new magistrates on the charge of having caused the disturbance. At this the whole city rose in tumult. Some desired his condemnation; but the populace hastened to assume his defence. Thereupon he decided to go away, and left Florence on the 5th of March, 1295, for he shrank from being the cause of civil strife, hoped that his departure would open the eyes of the wiser citizens, and that the latter would speedily procure his recall. However, in this his calculations were at fault, for he had many more enemies than he imagined. Accordingly he was sentenced in contumacy in the name of the enactments he had urged, and of which he was held to be the author. The Pope hastened to congratulate the Florentines, and Giano realised that his star had set. So, acting with his usual impetuosity, he unhesitatingly removed to France, where he possessed some share in the Pazzi bank, and died there in exile. His Florentine houses were demolished, his friends and relations condemned to punishment, but the Enactments of Justice long remained in force.[484] With regard to Giano, Villani remarks that "every one who became a leader of the people or the masses in Florence was invariably deserted." He adds that "on account of this novelty, there was great perturbation and change in the people and city of Florence, and that henceforth the artisans and populace had little power over the Commune; and that the government remained in the grasp of rich and powerful burghers."[485] [Illustration: SCENE IN CORN MARKET, FLORENCE. (_From early XIV. Century MS. in the Laurentian Library._) [_To face page 475._] XII. These concluding words from the chronicle of a skilled observer such as Villani enable us to understand more completely the general character of the revolution described; for as this was the natural outcome of many preceding disturbances, its study throws a new light on earlier events. When the Florentines succeeded in destroying the castles of feudal and Ghibelline nobles scattered over their territory, and in forcing the conquered to inhabit the city, the Republic became split, as we have seen, in two parties, constantly at strife: the one composed of Ghibelline lords, the other of Guelph _popolani_. When the Hohenstauffens of Naples and Palermo called all the Ghibellines of Italy to arms, the magnates of the party took the lead in Tuscany, with Frederic and Manfred to back them, again dominated Florence and drove out the Guelphs. But when the Swabians fell and were replaced by the House of Anjou, the Empire became weakened, and Italian policy took a new turn. The Guelphs once more triumphed in Florence, and the democratic element, already constituting the real strength of the State, wreaked vengeance on the Ghibellines, who seemed to be almost annihilated. Only as it chanced, at this moment, the Guelphs were split into two factions, the nobles on one side, the people on the other; and this division led to another and equally bitter struggle, undertaken for the purpose of crushing the magnates outright. Thus the latter were driven to crave admission to the guilds, to assume democratic habits, and even to discard their old family names, unless resigned to exclusion from the government. After a prolonged series of different legal measures and revolutions, the Enactments of Justice finally achieved the aim that the Florentine Republic had so long--and, indeed, from its birth--kept in view, namely, the triumph of democracy. [Illustration: RIOT IN CORN MARKET, FLORENCE. (_From an old MS. in the Laurentian Library._) [_To face page 476._] But the Republic comprised the populace as well as the people; and although both orders were united in fighting the nobles, they split apart as soon as their common victory was assured. Thus the party of the rich burghers, or Greater Guilds, gradually sprang into being. At first there were twelve of these guilds, and they seemed to be at one with the nine Lesser Trades, afterwards increased to fourteen; but, as time went on, these fell more widely apart from the remaining seven, and strictly Greater, Guilds, and began to struggle against them, thus constituting the party of the rich burghers or _popolo grasso_. The formation and successful career of this party, so long at the head of the Government, dates, as Villani tells us, from the defeat of Giano della Bella, whose downfall was caused by the temporary alliance of the nobles and the more powerful section of the people. The latter soon divided both from the nobles and lower class, was equally victorious over either party, and constituted one of the most energetic, sharp-witted, and intelligent democracies of which history has record. It comprised the richest and most vigorous section of the people, known for that reason as the _popolo grasso_, and gradually became master of the city. And albeit this state of things was a natural result of past revolutions, it was undoubtedly precipitated by the Enactments of Justice. These had been promoted by Giano, with the aid of the people, to be used as a weapon against the nobles. He fell a victim to the latter, when they hoodwinked the people by feigning to unite with them for the nonce. It was certainly altogether against his own will that Giano helped to promote the formation of a party, that, issuing from the wreck of the nobles and populace, finally excluded both alike from all participation in the government of Florence. For a long time, at any rate, this party raised the power of the Republic to a very lofty height, and directed its policy for more than a century. The moment of its consolidation coincided with that in which Florence became the seat of Italian culture, and hence of the general culture of Europe. Nor is there any cause to be surprised by the vast intellectual, political, and moral success of the commercial democracy of Florence. In the days of the Hohenstauffen, the Italian aristocracy undoubtedly constituted the most cultivated and civilised part of the nation; all great political questions, and the great struggles between the Papacy and the Empire, in which the whole of Europe took so lively a share, were alike carried on by that class. The Court of Frederic II. had been the headquarters of those contests, and the most dazzling centre of mental light in the world at the time. The language spoken there was the language of courtiers; the Court was sceptical, and the first poets were princes or barons. The Emperor Frederic, his son Enzo, and his secretary, Pier della Vigna, gave voice to the first notes of the Italian muse. It was a privileged and limited order, in which literature and science still retained the characteristics of chivalry and scholasticism. In imitation of their French and Provençal masters, these poets lauded some imaginary woman or some fantastic and unreal love in obstinately artificial verse. They were never able to cast off mediæval and conventional forms. At the same time, however, the merchants and working men of our republics, more especially of Florence, were scouring the world, founding banks and business firms throughout the East and the West; they were studying jurisprudence, always and everywhere demonstrating a special aptitude for framing laws, creating new institutions, and directing vast concerns. By this means they acquired that practical knowledge of mankind and the universe, that sense of truth and reality, so entirely absent from pre-existent literatures, and precisely required to originate the first literature of the modern world. Naturally, however, those merchants, solely versed in commerce and petty local politics, lacked the breadth and loftiness of thought, the mental culture and refinement needed to solve the hard problem without help. At the same moment, Florence, the most active and intelligent of Italian republics, was enduring the series of great and radical changes, already described, which after much sanguinary strife and a new rearrangement of social conditions, suddenly raised her to a truly fortunate position. Owing to her successes in war, Florence now commanded every highway of commerce, and, by the amazingly rapid extension of her trade, was enabled to acquire mighty and no longer contested preponderance in Tuscany and become its chief as well as its central city. The actual antagonism between the Pope and the Angevins, together with the altered conditions of the Empire, enabled her to steer cautiously between those rival powers and assume for the first time great and genuine political importance in Italy. Thus the extent of her concerns and the circle of her ideas were simultaneously enlarged. The two most intelligent and most hostile classes of her citizens, namely, the now powerful traders and the nobles now reduced to equality with them, became transformed and definitely fused in one class during the course of their fierce conflict, excluding, on the one hand, the lowest order of the people, and on the other, those of the nobles who, whether aspiring to absolute rule or obstinately clinging to feudal customs and the authority of the Empire, remained blindly opposed to municipal institutions which were nevertheless predestined to triumph. Need we then feel surprised if at this moment art and literature put forth their fairest blossoms, and in the life-giving air of freedom were seen to expand their leaves and shed their fragrance through the world? It is enough to read the records and glance at the laws of the Republic in order to discern that in the closing years of the fourteenth century a new spirit was stirring the people and a new sun, as it were, rising in the sky. Every page of the chronicles records the undertaking of very important public works, the erection of city squares, canals, bridges, and walls. And simultaneously with these, the most enduring monuments of modern art were springing up from the ground. During the same period Arnolfo di Cambio worked on the Baptistery, began the church of Santa Croce, and, according to the chroniclers, received from the Signory a solemnly worded order to reconstruct the old cathedral from the foundations by erecting a new one "of the most magnificent design the mind of man could conceive, rendering it worthy of a heart expanded to much greatness by the union of many spirits in one."[486] Undoubtedly it was then that Arnolfo laid the first stone of the fane considered by many the finest church in the world. At the same time a great number of monumental buildings and public works were being also carried on: Santo Spirito, for instance, Orsammichele, and Santa Maria Novella. In 1299 Arnolfo likewise began the Palace of the Signoria, another marvel of modern architecture, that seems to be so thoroughly in character with the Republic and expressive of the youthful vigour then animating the Florentine people. In the same year the construction of new walls, suspended since 1285, was also resumed. And while churches, public buildings, and private palaces were rising on all sides, Giotto's brush was employed to cover their walls with a lavish profusion of lofty and immortal compositions; sculpture rivalled painting in decorating temples with imperishable works, and gave birth to the Tuscan school that was afterwards to culminate in Donatello, Ghiberti, the Della Robbia, and Michelangelo. What, too, are the names most frequently occurring in the records of those times, and amid the struggles promoting or following the Enactments of Justice? At every turn, among the Priors, the Gonfaloniers, and ambassadors, or at hot debates in council, we meet with Dante Alighieri, Brunetto Latini, Giovanni Villani, Dino Compagni, and Guido Cavalcanti, the creators of Italian poetry and prose. The Divine Comedy bristles with continual allusions to the events, amid which it was conceived, and which all seem to be informed by the same spirit, since, even in a thousand varying garbs, it always asserts its identity. Therefore the Enactments of Justice are neither the work of a single individual, nor suddenly improvised by Giano della Bella, but rather the outcome of many revolutions: a body of statutes proving and explaining the definite form and character of the Florentine Republic. The same character, albeit less splendidly displayed, appertained in varying degree to the other Italian communes. But of them all Florence was ever the most original and brilliant example. NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII. At this point it is necessary to allude to a question that has recently arisen concerning the Enactments of Justice. Signor Salvioli and Prof. Pertile, when describing certain Bolognese statutes of 1271 for keeping the nobles in check, took it for granted that the Florentine enactments of 1293 had been copied from those. But the Bolognese statutes of 1271 having never been unearthed, the hypothesis met with little favour. When Prof. Gaudenzi edited the "Ordinamenta sacrata et sacratissima" of Bologna in 1282-84 (Bologna, the Merlani Press, 1888), he noted their marked resemblance to the Enactments of Justice of 1293, and considered it to be beyond a doubt that the latter had been derived from the former. Indeed, he went to the point of asserting as a fact "Che in genere i rivolgimenti e gli ordini di Firenze non furono che l'imitazione di quelli di Bologna" (Preface, p. v.). The decided injustice of this last assertion has been already pointed out by Dr. Hartwig, in his recent precious work on Florentine history ("Ein Menschenalter Florentinische Geschichte, 1250-1293" (Freiburg, 1889-91), extracted from vols. i., ii., and v. of the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtwissenschaft"). For in truth Florentine laws and institutions issue very directly from the history of Florentine society and Florentine revolutions, which are very different from those of Bologna. As to the other question, that is, whether the Florentine enactments, of 1293 were really derived from the Bologna statutes of 1282, I feel considerable doubt, and believe that no definite solution can be reached until fresh researches in the Florence Archives have corroborated the result of Prof. Gaudenzi's studies of Bolognese documents. Meanwhile I need merely remark--That the people's struggles with the magnates, and the harsh and often cruel laws promulgated against them, were not exclusively confined to Florence, but incidents of very common occurrence in the history of our communes. Notwithstanding many points of general resemblance, these conflicts and laws varied very much in different communes. Hence, in order to prove to what extent the Bolognese enactments served as models for those of Florence, it is not enough to compare the two codes and note their respective dates. As plainly proved by the events we have related, and additionally confirmed by all the later researches of Hartwig, Del Lungo, and Perrens, the Florentine ordinances are found to be a synthesis of other and much earlier laws against the nobles, and sometimes literal reproductions of them. The enactments themselves quote a law of 1286 frequently mentioned by historians, and, as we have seen, even the "Consulte" of 1282 refer to an earlier law against the nobles. These anterior laws are the veritable source of the Florentine enactments, which, however, are not solely designed, like the Bolognese ordinances, for the repression of the nobles, but to promote the transfer of the government to the Greater Guilds, a change already inaugurated in Florence as far back as 1250. It is this double purpose that constitutes their specific character. It behoves us to unearth more of these laws in the Florence Archives and collate them with those of Bologna before deciding that the Enactments of Justice, so peculiarly connected with the whole course of Florentine history, were mere copies of the Bolognese ordinances. Professor Gaudenzi's publications do honour to his historical research. But I venture to repeat that, in my opinion, the question cannot be really settled without fresh investigation of the Florentine rolls. This task is now being carried on by Signor Salvemini, and I hope that he may make some new and profitable discovery. The problem is interesting enough to claim solution. DOCUMENTO.[487] V. In nomine domini amen. Liber defensionum et excusationum Magnatum Civitatis et comitatus Florentie, qui se excusare volunt a satisdationibus Magnatum non prestandis, receptarum per me Bax. de Amgnetello notarium nobilis Militis domini Amtonii de Fuxiraga de Laude, potestatis Florentie. In anno currente Millesimo ducentesimo ottuagesimo septimo. Ad defensionem Absoluti { Dardoccii quondam domini Uguicionis } de Sachettis { Manni fratris sui } producta fuit intentio singnata per Credo (_sic_), et ad ipsam probandam producti fuerunt infradicti testes. Baldus Brode populi sancti Stephani de Abatia, iuratus die suprascripta de veritate dicenda, et lecta sibi intentione per me Bax., dixit quod bene vidit dictum Dardocium et Mannum eius fratrem facere artem cambii in Civitate Florentie, iam sunt xx anni, et ab eo tempore citra, et credit eos fecisse. Set propter guerram et brigam quam nunc habent, predicti fratres Dardocci non tenent tabulam in mercato, set stat in doma sua, et ibi facet (_sic_) artem canbii. Interrogatus si ipsi palam tenent banchum et tapetum ante dischum domus sue sicut faciunt alii campsores, respondit non, quia est consuetudo prestatorum et non campsorum tenere tapetum. Interrogatus, dixit quod predictus senper cotidie exercuit. Lapus Benvenuti qui vocatur Borrectus populi sancti Petri Maioris iuratus die suprascripto (?) ut supra, lecta sibi intentione per Be., dixit quod ipse testis est consocius predictorum Dardoccii et fratris in arte canbii; et vidit dictum Dardoccium et fratrem dictam artem in civitate Florentie continue [exercere], et predictum Mannum vidit in Borgongna facere dictam artem per decem annos et plus, quibus stetit in Borgongna; set dixit quod predictus Dardocius[488] propter guerram quam ad presens habet, non audet uti ipsa arte in mercato sive in pubblico, set ea continue utitur in domo sua, et vidit ipse testis; et vox et fama est in populo dictorum fratrum et in civitate Florentie, quod ipsi fratres fuerunt et sunt campsores. L. S. Ego Ruffus Guidi notarius predicta ex actibus Communis Florentie exemplando transcripsi, pubblicavi rogatus. CHAPTER IX.[489] _THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC IN DANTE'S TIME._ I. After the enforcement of the Enactments of Justice (1293) and the expulsion of Giano della Bella, the Florentine Republic passed through a phase of extraordinary and almost delirious confusion. Its incidents are very familiar to us, owing to the splendid series of chroniclers and historians who, from that moment, began to record the minutest particulars of all that occurred under their eyes. Modern writers have also studied that period and ransacked its archives; more especially Professor Del Lungo, who has recently given proofs of an industry and learning which cannot be sufficiently praised. Nevertheless, I believe that some useful work may be done by trying to bring all those facts together and scrutinising their organic unity, in order to ascertain whence they proceeded, whither they tended, and thus explain, if possible, the primary cause of so much disorder and the real significance of the new revolutions undertaken. I may also add that such investigation might prove to have much historical importance, since it concerns the time in which not only a new art, new literature, and new civilisation first sprang into being, but when the old mediæval social order was decaying and fading away, and the society of the Renaissance beginning to take shape. In the midst of these events the figure of Dante Alighieri stands forth in giant mould, instantaneously arousing the most earnest attention, and enhancing the value of all his surroundings. As we have frequently observed and repeated, the history of Florence runs a very plain course down to the year 1293, through the series of wars and revolutions, during which the Guelph inhabitants of the city first attacked the Ghibelline feudal lords, who, castled on every surrounding hill, impeded all trade; and then, having conquered them, demolished their strongholds, and forced them to dwell inside the city walls, subject to the laws of the Commune. Next, the people were compelled to combat and break down the surviving feudal element that sought to assert itself in the city. Before the year 1293 this too had been destroyed, and only the _Grandi_ were left, namely, nobles stripped of their titles and of the old feudal privileges of their class. The Enactments of Justice, which dissolved their associations and excluded them from all share in the government, had increased, on the other hand, the strength of the guilds and the people. These accordingly were the masters of Florence, and the new law supplied them with a most efficacious means of continuing the persecution and routing the nobles in the tribunals of the State. The terms Guelph and Ghibelline were still retained, but had lost their original meaning. The old aristocracy, constituting the real nucleus of the Ghibelline party, having now disappeared, the city was wholly Guelph. The general condition of Italy also fostered this state of things. In fact, owing to the fall of the Hohenstauffens and the success of the Angevins, summoned to Italy by the Pope, the Guelph party had triumphed throughout the Peninsula. The murder of Conradin (1298) had proved the death knell of the Ghibellines. The triumph of France was more and more assured, and during the interregnum of the Empire Philip the Beautiful played almost the part of an emperor. At the same time Boniface VIII. loudly declared that the Pope stood above all kings and princes of the earth, and that all were bound to yield him submission. But division still reigned in Florence. First of all, germs of future discord were lurking in the bosom of the people itself, owing to its subdivision into rich people (_popolo grasso_), or the Greater Guilds, and small people (_popolo minuto_), or Lesser Guilds, having the populace at their back. The Greater Guilds, at the head of the principal manufacturing business and the vast export and import trade, were always ready to undertake fresh wars, which, by burdening the city with taxes, greatly diminished the internal luxury upon which the Lesser Guilds, engaged in small crafts, depended for their daily support. It needed little to convert this clash of material interests into a political conflict, especially when we remember that the Greater Guilds had taken possession of the government without allowing the Smaller Crafts any share in it. For the moment, however, the lower class, although so turbulent and numerically strong, lacked cohesion and experience, and had no leading men at its head. But although without real elements of political strength, and still incapable of forming a party, it was excellently suited to swell the ranks of already constituted parties having the wit to use its aid in their progress to power. The nobles, on the other hand, although defeated, persecuted, and oppressed, were by no means stamped out, and still retained some measure of influence and skill. The expulsion of Giano della Bella was an instance in point; for, by contriving to make the people believe him its foe, they induced it to desert him and then provoked the mob to attack him. Although deprived of legal authority, the nobles were still practically strong. Always boasting of their victory of Campaldino, they had undoubtedly played a prominent part in all the greater wars of the Republic in past times, and even now made far better soldiers than the popular class. As the wealthy proprietors of town and country mansions, castles, and farms, they were undistracted by commercial cares, and had more leisure for military pursuits; while the material independence they enjoyed made them all the more sensitive to the sting of political ambition. It was natural that they should seek and obtain the co-operation of the populace in their contest with the burghers. Thus, in junction with the former, they constituted a vast and dangerous body of agitators, but without organic cohesion, and all equally ineligible to office, inasmuch as the nobles had been excluded from power in 1293, and the populace had never been allowed any share of it. II. At this time the world began to perceive what results the subtle craft of the Florentines was capable of achieving. The art of secretly becoming masters of the State, that, at a later period, gave Cosimo and Lorenzo dei Medici such triumphant supremacy in the Republic, enabling them to hold sovereign rule while remaining private citizens in the eyes of the law, this art was now discovered by the nobles. It consisted in leaving republican institutions untouched, and showing no desire to be concerned in them, yet contriving that none save personal adherents should be admitted to power. The offices of the Guelph Society afforded an efficacious means to this end, for, as we know, the nobles were eligible to those offices, and when holding them could declare any citizen a Ghibelline, confiscate his property, and exclude him from the government at their own pleasure. Thus, without being members of the Signory, they had found a more or less legal method of preventing their worst enemies from entering it. Giano della Bella was fully awake to this danger, and had tried to avert it; but the nobles had frustrated his purpose by compassing his expulsion from the city. As another useful means of regaining their forfeited power, the nobles managed to obtain the right of choosing the magistrates, in order to exercise a personal influence over them. Many of the magistrates were foreigners who came provided with foreign notaries, chancellors, and subordinate judges, while certain others, as, for instance, the Podestà and the Captain of the People, were necessarily bound to be knights--that is to say, nobles. They gave judgment in political as well as civil and criminal cases. In fact, it was the function of the Podestà and Captain, in junction with the Gonfalonier, to enforce the enactments; and besides this, political and common law were so intermixed at the time, that it was impossible to separate the one from the other. Originally, as we have already seen, the Podestà was the virtual head of the Commune. He commanded the army, signed treaties of peace; and even as ancient historians recorded Roman events in the name of the Consuls in office, so the Florentine chroniclers registered the events of their city under the name of its Podestà and even occasionally of its Consuls. But towards the close of the thirteenth century things were changed. With the destroyal of feudalism, the development of civil equality and increased recognition of Roman law, the political importance of those offices was lessened. The Podestà and Captains of the People were gradually lowered to the status of ordinary high judges. Hence both they and their subordinates steadily declined in authority and strength; and being worse paid and less feared, became more open to bribery, and more easily subjected to the influence of the nobles. Many of these officers came from Romagna, and the Marches, and the greater number from Gubbio. Reared under tyrannical governments and trained to Roman law in the school of Bologna, they had no previous knowledge of the real significance of party conflicts in Florence, and seldom succeeded in acquiring it; hence they also failed to discern the true meaning of laws such as the Enactments of Justice, which were mainly political laws. All this contributed to render them easily and blindly subservient to those desiring to use them as tools. In fact, the whole literature of the period teems with fierce invectives against "the wicked, accursed, and perverted judges bringing ruin upon cities."[490] Thus by favour of the lower class and the mob, by the unjust verdicts of the Captains of the Guelph Society and the corruption of alien judges, the nobles endeavoured to regain their lost ground and again seize possession of the government. Nor was it an altogether impossible plan, seeing that at this moment (as will be presently shown) they received powerful foreign aid. But unity was indispensably required, and no unity was to be secured among a party composed of not only different, but heterogeneous elements. Accordingly it was already easy to foresee that, sooner or later, the fiercest discord must inevitably break out in their midst. Dino Compagni remarks in his Chronicle, that "the powerful citizens were not all nobles by birth, but were sometimes styled _Grandi_ for other reasons."[491] The _Grandi_, in fact, were composed of ancient aristocratic families, despoiled of feudal privileges and titles; of old-established burghers raised to a higher position on the score of their wealth and of those proclaimed _Grandi_ by the people for the sole purpose of subjecting them to the penalty of exclusion from power. Naturally the old aristocracy were full of distrust and contempt for new-comers, who often continued (if not personally, by means of their kinsmen) to carry on trades and manufactures, and thus maintain their relations with the rich burghers opposed to the lower classes, whereas the latter were more in sympathy with the really influential and aristocratic section of the _Grandi_. Nor was this all. The latter party likewise comprised country nobles, such as the Ubertini, the Pazzi of Valdarno, and more particularly the Ubaldini owning nearly the whole of the Mugello and dominating it with their fortified castles. The fortress of Montaccenico, one of their main strongholds, guarded by a triple circuit of walls, had been founded by the Cardinal Ottavio degli Ubaldini, who has a place in Dante's "Inferno," and who once said, "If I ever had a soul, I have lost it, for the sake of the Ghibelline cause." All these territorial lords clung to their feudal traditions with far greater tenacity than the rest, and being very hostile to the people, were equally opposed to the Republic, which was always at strife with them. When residing in the city they were undoubtedly compelled, like the others, to obey the common laws; but in their own castles they and their kindred still asserted the rights of feudal barons. In order to sap the strength of the Pazzi and Ubertini, the Florentines, in 1296, established the two colonies of San Giovanni and Castelfranco between Figline and Montevarchi in the Upper Valdarno. All adherents of the nobles willing to settle on these domains were freed from vassalage and exempted from taxation for ten years.[492] But measures of this kind would have been useless against the Ubaldini, and prolonged and sanguinary hostilities had to be engaged with them. By logical rule these territorial lords should have been Ghibellines and imperialists; but the Empire was now distant and feeble, France and the Pope were menacing close at hand. Accordingly they rather tended to combine with the Guelph nobles of Florence, and more particularly with those of ancient descent, thus forming a new element in that curious agglomeration of diverse forces. Also, seeing that private jealousies and hates are always readier to burst into flame when unrestrained by the organic unity and common interest of a well-organised party, it will be easy to understand what confusion and disorder prevailed. III. Notwithstanding the powerful support of one kind or another furnished to the nobles from abroad, and in spite of their really menacing attitude, there remained one inexorable truth that must be always kept in view, since it affords the best explanation of the phase of Florentine history. It consisted in the fact that the aristocratic faction, doomed to decay and dissolution, was confronted by the young and vigorous party united in the Greater Guilds, bound by common interests, and constituting the real motive power and future of the Commune. The history of those times is nothing more, in short, than the history of the process by which the Greater Guilds succeeded in becoming the very core of the Republic, in spite of the numerous obstacles in their path, and likewise succeeded in eliminating all hostile or alien elements. For some time past these guilds, and especially the first five, on which all the others were more or less dependent,[493] had been prospering to an extraordinary degree. And when their position was farther strengthened by the Enactments of Justice, their statutes, with the amendments then introduced, very clearly showed that in augmenting their own wealth they purposed not only to enrich the Republic, but also to heighten its power. Before long the five leading guilds jointly constituted an _Universitas Mercatorum_ that rose to the authority of a regular commercial tribunal in 1308, and issued a definite set of statutes in 1312. Indeed all this may be considered the main part of the reforms promoted by Giano della Bella,[494] and the point on which, favoured by the conditions of the period, he was most successful. We have the best proof of this in the fact that incessant party strife notwithstanding, the prosperity of Florence increased, at that time, to a positively prodigious extent. Villani repeatedly alludes to this state of prosperity and general well-being, adding that continual festivities were then held in Florence, and that the Republic could call to arms as many as 30,000 men in the city, and 70,000 in the territory.[495] What was of still greater moment, its bankers manipulated the chief trade of the world, and flooded all markets with Florentine goods. They conducted the affairs of the Roman Curia; they managed nearly the whole commerce of France and Southern Italy; all the sovereigns of Europe came to these bankers for aid, and frequently employed keen-witted, enterprising Florentines in their mints, their treasuries, and their embassies. Thus money flowed into the city from all sides; and it was at this moment, so it is said, that Boniface VIII., giving audience to the ambassadors of various powers, and finding to his surprise that all of them were Florentines, cried out, "You Florentines must be the fifth element!" As a natural result of this state of things the petty Republic became a first-class power, wielding everywhere, and over Italy in particular, a preponderating influence. All neighbouring cities, great and small, tried to copy the laws and institutions they deemed the source of its amazing prosperity. Even Rome herself seemed desirous to organise her magistracies, councils, and Commune on the Florentine pattern.[496] It was this that most irritated the Popes in their perpetual struggle with the Roman municipality, and now specially irritated Boniface VIII., who seemed determined to crush the Commune. But he was strenuously opposed by the nobility and people, who gave him no truce, and drove him to wander, almost a fugitive, from town to town. Of haughty temper and boundless ambition, his conception of the papal authority rose to the height of craving universal rule. Hence he could not be resigned to the stubbornness of the Romans, and still less to the example and encouragement afforded them by Florence. He therefore conceived the plan of subduing the latter city and reducing it almost to the condition of a fief of the Church, under a governor of his own choice. Having once formed this scheme, he began to prosecute it with his customary ardour. There was certainly a good chance of success, save for one insurmountable obstacle that he omitted to take into account. The chance in his favour was the fact that Florence, being now a republic of traders, had small means of offering armed resistance. The army of 100,000 men, so proudly enumerated by Villani, consisted of a species of national guard of artisans and peasants having the barest smattering of military training, with no officers and no generals fitted to take command. It comprised no mounted troops, since nobles alone could find time for the requisite cavalry training. The Commune naturally feared to place any trust in the nobles of the town, while those of the territory were avowedly hostile. The Companies of Adventure, afterwards open to hire, had not yet begun to be established. Nevertheless, an army was needed, and, moreover, one commanded by competent leaders, if the Republic wished to preserve its authority in Italy, and protect its trade from the growing jealousy of its neighbours. This was the reason formerly inducing its rash acceptance of Vicars nominated by the Popes, and that had also induced it to confer supremacy for ten years on Charles of Anjou, who had accordingly supplied the State with captains and soldiery. Why should not Boniface be able to clench a similar bargain on even more effective and permanent terms? The Republic's need of a military leader was as urgent, nay, more urgent than before; while the consent and support of the nobles might be considered assured. But the insurmountable obstacle, unforeseen by the Pope, was that the Florentines had always wanted and still wanted defenders, but refused to have rulers; nor would it be easy to induce them to yield this point, either by craft or persuasion. The subject on which they were most tenacious, and would never give way, was the popular government of the guilds, and this government would have to be destroyed or reduced to submission before the Pope's scheme could be carried into effect. The task certainly had its difficulties. In fact, the problem could only be solved by force, and Boniface was not the man to shrink from employing it; hence collision was unavoidable. As an additional complication, the Republic, about to bear the brunt of the Pope's fury, was thoroughly and determinately Guelph, not only Guelph from sentiment or by force of old traditions, but even more from motives of interest. In fact, it had risen to existence by centuries of struggle with powerful Ghibellines and aristocrats, and had finally built up the government of the guilds on the ruins of those adversaries' strength, and greatly assisted therein by the success of the Angevins summoned to Italy by the Popes. The chief trade of the Republic, and main source of its vitality and power, was that carried on with France, with Southern Italy--now held by the Angevins--and with Rome. Hence it could not entertain the idea of rousing the enmity of the French king, Pope, and Angevins, who were all allied at the time. Besides, the Ghibelline party in Tuscany was then represented by all the cities hostile to Florence. Sienna, Arezzo, and Pistoia inclined more or less openly to the Ghibelline side. The Pisan Republic, which had so zealously assisted Conradin's cause, still flaunted the Ghibelline flag. This State was in perpetual rivalry with Florence, and sought to bar her from access to the sea, the command of which was now more pressingly needed than before. The strife between these republics could only end in the annihilation of the one or the other. Therefore the Florentines were compelled to keep on good terms with the Pope, yet at the same time forced into opposition against him. In this condition of affairs all will understand why Florentine history should be so complicated and obscure. IV. After the expulsion of Giano della Bella, the nobles seemed again masters of the city for a time; and their spirits were immoderately raised by their success in procuring the election of a Signory (June 15, 1295) exclusively composed of their own friends. By the beginning of July they had concerted their plans, and repaired to the Piazza armed for the fray. But the people were already gathered there and in superior force, so that civil war would have instantly broken out had not certain friars and citizens intervened, and fortunately contrived to pacify the public excitement. Nevertheless, the Signory being favourable to the nobles, determined to turn the opportunity to account, and on July 6, 1295, managed to get the Bill passed that, as we have previously related, was incorporated in the enactments for the purpose of modifying them and considerably attenuating their severity.[497] Some of these modifications were of a purely formal kind, but others encroached on the substance of the law. As the enactments now stood, accomplices in the offences decreed punishable were no longer classed with the direct authors of crimes, a single _Capitanus homicidii_ now being recognised. Nor was the testimony of two witnesses of good repute any longer considered sufficient proof of the crime, the testimony of three witnesses now being required. Finally it was no longer indispensable that candidates to the Signory should be practically engaged in some trade, _continue artem exercentes_; their enrolment in the guild of the trade being decreed sufficient proof of their eligibility, _qui scripti sint in libro seu matricola alicuius artis_. This last concession was, in fact, slighter than it appeared, seeing that even before then the _practical_ exercise of trade had been more often apparent than real. But the principle for which men had fought was now cast aside, and putting together the various concessions granted in 1295, we plainly see that the amendment of the law was a genuine victory for the nobles. In fact, the popular discontent ran high at the passing of this Bill, and Villani tells us that the Signory who had proposed and carried it were treated with much contumely and scorn on leaving office, and even greeted with volleys of stones in the public streets.[498] Accordingly a popular reaction ensued that proved to be the germ of new and serious discord among the citizens. The first step taken was to deprive the nobles of certain of their weapons; the next to proclaim some of the less factious aristocrats members of the popular class, in order to weaken their party.[499] Besides this, fresh laws were soon decreed to restore the pristine force of the enactments, followed by other measures of the same kind, culminating in the creation of a new magistrate for the express purpose, as will be seen, of ensuring the strict fulfilment of the law. But it was impossible for these changes to be effected without fresh discord and bloodshed in the city. For there was not only fiercer strife just then between the nobles and the people, but the former now split into two divisions, formed respectively of those bent on doing away with the enactments, and those who had renounced that idea. These new factions were designated by the names of the two families acting as leaders, namely, the Donati and the Cerchi. The latter were of humble origin, but had made their way up and were now counted among the richest merchants in the world. They boasted a wide-spreading kindred, numerous friends, owned vast estates both in town and country, and lived in grand style. They had recently purchased many palaces of the Counts Guidi, members of the oldest Florentine nobility; and by lending their houses at St. Procolo to the Signory, to whom no palace had yet been assigned, were more easily enabled to keep in favour with the heads of the State. Villani, being of the opposite party, says that the Cerchi were "easy-going, innocent, and savage." They were, in fact, business folk, unpractised in warfare, and with small aptitude for political intrigue. The term "savage" was applied to them on account of their humble descent, and Dante himself, though an adherent of their party, speaks of it as "savage" (_selvaggia_). In virtue of their origin and continued practice of trade, they were liked and esteemed by the people, and their avowed opposition to the Donati[500] won them still higher favour. Besides the advantages of wealth and of wide-spreading family ties, their courtesy of manner helped to advance their popularity. On the contrary, the "gentle-born and warlike" Donati, as Villani calls them, were of old feudal descent. Messer Corso, the head of the family, was a daring, shrewd, hard-hitting man, of moderate means, but so immoderately haughty and ambitious as to tolerate no equals, and least of all among the enriched merchants. He was known as the baron, and Compagni, who was on the Cerchi side, says that whenever Corso rode through the streets, "he seemed the lord of the earth" ("_che la terra fosse sua_"). Many magnates of the city, many nobles of the territory, and particularly the Pazzi of the Upper Valdarno, considered him their leader. Some of the merchants also adhered to him, and among others the Spini, who owned a bank in Rome, and as business agents for the Pope and the Curia, drove a very profitable trade. This Donati faction was detested by the burghers, but in favour with the populace, who greeted the baron with shouts of applause as he passed through the streets. But although Corso's courage and subtlety stood him in good stead during the struggle now impending, his arrogance alienated many followers and disposed them to join the Cerchi. The Cavalcanti were among his opponents, and that graceful poet and valorous knight, young Guido Cavalcanti, had conceived so special and deadly a hatred for him that the two never met in the streets without drawing their swords. The Donati's influence in the city was chiefly owed to the favour of the captains of the party, while that of the Cerchi was maintained by the support of the Signory. Thus the palace of the Guelph Society and of the Priors became the headquarters, as it were, of the two opposing camps. The two families likewise owned neighbouring estates in the country and dwelt near each other in town. Their respective houses were situated in the St. Piero quarter or _sesto_ of the city, which, on account of the continual disturbances occurring there at the time, was known by the name of "The Scandalous Sesto" (_Sesto dello Scandalo_). Everything served as fuel to the flame. Words uttered by either party were reported and exaggerated to the other. How Corso Donati always spoke of Guido Cavalcanti as Guido Cavicchia; how, when alluding to the head of the family and party chief, Vieri de' Cerchi, he would ask, "Has the ass of Porta brayed to-day?" On the other hand, the Donati were styled by their adversaries "The Ill-famed," as being men of bad repute and doers of evil. It is not easy to exactly ascertain how and when these parties first became known as _Bianchi_ and _Neri_, for the chroniclers are rather vague and not altogether agreed upon the point. Both names were of old usage in Florence as distinctive family appellations; in fact, there had already been White Cerchi and Black Cerchi, but the latter afterwards became the chiefs of the White party.[501] The same names had then been employed to designate two opposite factions of the Cancellieri house waging fierce strife in Pistoia. The Florentines, who exercised great authority in that town, mediated between the two sides to bring them to make peace; and to achieve this intent sent some members of the Pistoian, Bianchi, and Neri to Florence. The Whites were quartered in the Frescobaldi palace, the Blacks in the house of certain Cerchi, to whom they were related. But this measure had a very unexpected result, for, as Villani[502] remarks, even as one sick sheep infects another with disease, so the Pistoians communicated their party hatred to the Florentines, who thus became increasingly divided. At all events, from that time the Donati were Blacks, the Cerchi Whites. Hence it may be clearly seen that this division of parties no longer corresponds with that of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Principles are set aside and personal passions and hatreds more and more dominant. But, in the nature of things, no Florentine family at the time could have a better claim to be entitled Ghibellines than the Donati, a line boasting feudal descent, and connected with the oldest nobility of the city and its territory. The head of the house was Messer Corso, who, after the death of his first wife, contracted a second marriage with one of the Ubertini, an old Ghibelline family that had been always opposed to the popular government, and seemed to have the very blood of the tyrants of Romagna and Lombardy in its veins. Yet it was principally through Corso Donati that events again took another unexpected turn. Spurred by his devouring ambition, he started a secret intrigue with Boniface VIII. through his Roman agents, the Spini, and the Pope believed that at last he had found a man after his own heart.[503] And before very long these secret practices produced visible results. V. The Pope's purpose of exercising undue interference in Florentine affairs was plainly seen when the question was discussed as to revoking the banishment of Giano della Bella. Though without any lawful voice in the matter, he not only made violent opposition to the proposal, but also, on January 23, 1296, addressed a letter to the Florentines, threatening them with interdict, unless they abandoned the idea.[504] No one, however, was yet aware that he had already formed a scheme, and was secretly plotting to carry it into effect; nor did any one imagine that _Papa Bonifacius volebat sibi dari totam Tusciam_,[505] although this was afterwards ascertained to be the case, and written proof of it is extant in an old document that serves to explain his real aims.[506] These were also formulated clearly enough by the chronicler Ferreto, when he wrote that Boniface meditated "faesulanum popolum iugo supprimere, et sic Thusciam ipsam, servire desuetam, tyrannico more comprehendere."[507] In fact, in May, 1300, the Pope had already sent word to the Duke of Saxony that the Tuscan factions having infected his own States, it was impossible for him to achieve any result without first reducing Tuscany to subjection. And he continued that although able to do this on his own authority, he nevertheless preferred to gain the consent of the electoral princes, and likewise that of Albert of Austria, king of the Romans, to whom he forwarded a minute of the act of renunciation.[508] Donati, being privy to the scheme, had hastened to assume the attitude of the most Guelph of all Guelphs, and denounce the Cerchi as Ghibellines. Consequently all who distrusted the Pope were increasingly willing to join the Cerchi side. Suddenly Florence was startled by receiving well certified news of the clandestine intrigues Donati was carrying on in Rome through the agency of the Spini. Messer Lapo Salterelli, an advocate of much skill but doubtful integrity, and always ready to go with the tide, came before the magistrates accompanied by two personal friends,[509] and publicly accused of treasonable attempts against the State three Florentines domiciled in Rome at Spini's bank, three "mercatores Romanam Curiam sequentes."[510] Corso Donati was not in Florence at the time, but at Massa Trabaria, a city in the States of the Church and close to the Tuscan frontier, where he had just been appointed rector by the Pope, a circumstance that heightened suspicion, and made the danger appear all the more serious and imminent. Determined to be on the alert, without giving undue provocation to the Pope, the magistrates immediately sentenced the three citizens in question to pay heavy fines, but awaited fresh intelligence before proceeding against all the other persons undoubtedly concerned in the plot. To allay the suspicions roused against him, the Pope should have now maintained a prudent silence, but his impetuous nature brooked no restraint. Therefore, giving vent to his fury, he wrote on April 24, 1300, threatening excommunication on the city for daring to sentence _his own familiars_, and summoned the three accusers to come to Rome without delay.[511] He gained nothing by this move--on the contrary, Lapo Salterelli, having just been elected a prior, raised the question of jurisdiction by denying his right of interference with the internal affairs of the Republic. Meanwhile Boniface had called Vieri de' Cerchi to Rome, for the purpose of inducing him to make peace with Donati, who had already arrived there. But Cerchi, without betraying any knowledge of the trial, merely declared that he bore no hatred to any man, and alleging other vague excuses, declined the proposed reconciliation, thus stirring the Pope's wrath to the highest degree.[512] It was naturally very important for him to pacify the nobles, since this was the only means of compassing the subjection of the people. But precisely on that account the people preferred to keep them divided, and therefore throwing its weight on the side of the Cerchi, vehemently urged the latter to oppose the Donati. VI. Such was the state of public feeling on the day known to some as the fatal May Kalend. According to an old custom, the maidens of Florence greeted the coming of spring in the year 1300 by performing a dance in the S^{ta} Trinità Square. Crowds flocked to the spot, struggling for a better sight of the festivity. Certain youths on horseback, both of the Bianchi and Neri factions, came into collision while pressing to the front. Hot words were exchanged followed by blows, swords flashed out, and many wounds were inflicted. Ricoverino de' Cerchi had his nose slashed off, an injury naturally demanding mortal revenge. So, in the same way that the Buondelmonti tragedy was declared by the chroniclers to have given birth to the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, this May-day festival was now considered by others to be the origin of the White and Black factions.[513] Yet this, too, was only the sudden outburst of long repressed passions, now raised to boiling point by the plots of the Pope. In consequence of these disturbances, the councils immediately passed a decree (4th of May), granting the Signory full powers to reduce the city to order; to enforce the Enactments of Justice; to guard "the ancient, customary, and continued independence of the Florentine Commune and people, in present danger of being changed to servitude by many perilous innovations _tam introrsum, quam etiam de foris venientes_."[514] The concluding words clearly referred to Boniface, and accordingly on the 15th of May the Pope despatched from Anagni a most violent letter to the bishop and the inquisitor of Florence. He made complaint against those "children of iniquity who, in order to turn the people from their submission to the Keys of St. Peter, were spreading the rumour that he sought to deprive the city of its power of jurisdiction, and diminish its independence, whereas, on the contrary, he wished to enlarge its freedom." But he then proceeded to cry: "Is not the Pontiff supreme lord over all, and particularly over Florence, which for special reasons is bound to be subject to him? Do not emperors and kings of the Romans yield submission to us, yet are they not superior to Florence? During the vacancy of the Imperial throne, did not the Holy See appoint King Charles of Anjou Vicar-general of Tuscany? Was he not recognised as such by themselves? The Empire is now vacant, inasmuch as the Holy See has not yet confirmed the election of the noble Albert of Austria." And thus, in a rising _crescendo_, he threatened the Florentines that, failing obedience, "he would not only launch his interdict and excommunication against them, but inflict the utmost injury on their citizens and merchants, cause their property to be pillaged and confiscated in all parts of the world and release all their debtors from the duty of payment." He again inveighed against the three audacious informers, vowing to have them treated and punished as heretics, and wrote with special acrimony of Lapo Salterelli for having dared to declare that the Pope had no right to meddle with the tribunals of the Commune. And he wound up by insisting that the sentence on his three familiars should be annulled.[515] The Florentines refused to heed his words, and the Neri then began to feel anxious, dreading lest the White, or, as they already called it, the Ghibelline party, "should be exalted in Florence, which, under pretence of good government, already wore a Ghibelline aspect."[516] They accordingly induced the Pope to send the Cardinal of Acquasparta to arrange the pacification of the nobles. The Cardinal arrived at the beginning of June, at once requested full powers to conclude the agreement, and likewise proposed that the Signory should be chosen by lot, in order to avert the disturbances always accompanying their election.[517] The Florentines lavished verbal promises on him, but refused to invest him with the desired Balia. Previous experience had warned them that peace between the nobles meant "ruin to the people," and a fresh proof to this effect was afforded at the moment. In fact, the Cardinal had barely begun to dispose the nobles towards reconciliation, than they rose to arms, and on St. John's Eve (23rd of June), almost under the Cardinal's eyes, made a violent assault on the Consuls of the Guilds, who were bearing offerings to the shrine of the saint, and shouted while raining blows on them: "We are the men that routed the foe at Campaldino, yet you have driven us from office and power in our own city."[518] So enormous an outrage demanded heavy punishment, and as the Signory was then composed of burghers of the White party, including Dante Alighieri, it exiled several nobles of either side within twenty-four hours.[519] The Bianchi promptly obeyed the decree and withdrew to Sarzana; but the Neri rebelled against it, and only when threatened with worse chastisement, removed to Castel della Pieve in the Perugian territory. It was said that they had ventured to resist because they had the Cardinal's permission to await help from Lucca, which after all was never sent. And it was added that this succour was withheld because the Florentines, gaining some inkling of the scheme, had prepared for defence, and advised Lucca to that effect. Whether this were true or false, it is an ascertained fact that the public wrath was so hot against the Cardinal, that the people aimed their crossbows at the windows of the bishop's palace where he was lodged. One of the bolts actually struck the beam of his ceiling, and so greatly alarmed him, that after first removing to another house he took his departure, leaving the city under interdict and excommunication.[520] Nevertheless, animosity and riot continued to prevail; and before long the exiled Bianchi were permitted to return. This indulgence was accorded them, partly because the climate of Sarzana was so unhealthy that Guido Cavalcanti contracted an illness there, of which he subsequently died, but partly too because the Bianchi nobles were on far better terms with the people. The Neri, on the contrary, joined more actively than before in the Pope's plots, and seconded by the Captains of the Party, conspired for the purpose of trying conclusions by force. Meanwhile Boniface was pressingly urging Charles of Valois, the king's brother, to march into Tuscany from France, and Charles II. of Anjou had already implored that prince to come to aid him in his struggle with the Sicilians. The Valois was an enterprising and cruel leader. During the Gascon campaign of 1294 he had hung sixty citizens, and slaughtered the inhabitants of Rèole after they had laid down their arms. He had fought in Flanders at the beginning of the year 1300, and after capturing various cities, had compelled the reigning Court to open to him the gates of Ghent. Then, after swearing in the name of the king to restore his States, he nevertheless sent him to Paris, and in violation of the oath he had taken, annexed the county to France.[521] This was the man now summoned to Florence by the Pope. To induce him to come promptly and with good will, the Pope even dazzled him with hopes of the imperial crown. In any case, by right of the authority he asserted during the interregnum, he would appoint him vicar-general and peacemaker in Tuscany, "to enforce the execution of his purpose there."[522] In what that purpose consisted, even Villani, who was on his side, admits that Boniface intended "to crush the people and the Whites."[523] Accordingly the Blacks own displayed great activity, with the aid of their adherents in town and country. They held various meetings, of which the most notorious and turbulent was that assembled in June at Santa Trinità, for the purpose of urging the Pope to send Charles of Valois to straighten their affairs, and declaring that, for their own part, they were ready to join him at any cost.[524] Naturally all this could not be kept secret, and in fact the Signory immediately sentenced the conspirators to various penalties. Messer Corso, being absent, was condemned in contumacy to confiscation as well as personal punishment; some of the Blacks were relegated to a fixed domicile; others mulcted in 2,000 lire each, and even their friends at Pistoia expelled from that city, for the greater enfeeblement of the party. Meanwhile Charles of Valois marched across the Alps, and the same summer was already in occupation of Parma, "cum magno arnese equorum et somariorum."[525] Reaching Bologna on the 1st of August he found convoys from the Bianchi and the Neri awaiting him there. The latter party had already handed over to the "curia domini Papæ" the large sum of 70,000 florins to assist the expedition which was now absolutely decided.[526] As a preliminary step, Valois went to Anagni with 500 knights, saw King Charles of Naples, and made arrangements with him concerning the Sicilian campaign. The Pope hastened to create Valois Count of Romagna, and afterwards, in the name of the vacant Empire, Mediator (_Paciaro_) in Tuscany.[527] So, without farther delay, the Court started for Florence, joined on the road by the exiles who flocked to his ranks. His mission was to crush the Bianchi and the people and to uplift the Neri. He had deliberately undertaken the task, but rather for the purpose of satisfying the Pope, of whose support in Sicily the Angevins had now pressing need, than from any personal motive. In fact, knowing that he could never hope to be lord of Florence, he felt very little interest in the matter. Nevertheless he counted on being able to extort a considerable sum of money from the city, and to this end brought Messer Musciatto Franzesi with him to serve, Villani tells us, as his _pedotto_, _i.e._, as guide and factotum. This man was a well-known merchant of the Florentine territory, who had made his fortune in France by illegal as well as lawful means and had been knighted by the French king in reward for many services, among others for having suggested a device for replenishing the treasury during the war in Flanders by debasing the coinage.[528] Charles of Valois hoped to gain much by this man's assistance; whereas the Florentines regarded the said _pedotto_ with great distrust. On the 13th of September all the councils assembled in the palace of the Podestà--Dante Alighieri sitting among them that day--to decide "quid sit providendum et faciendum super conservatione Ordinamentorum Iustitiæ et Statutorum Populi."[529] This, and not the struggle between the Bianchi and Neri, was always the main point with the Florentines. Hence it was resolved that, for the present, everything should remain in the hands of the magistrates of the Republic, and that it would be advisable to dispatch an embassy to the Pope. Whether Dante Alighieri was one of the ambassadors sent, as asserted by the historians, has been no less disputed than all other incidents of the poet's life. At that time he was ardently devoted to politics, and although belonging to the old nobility, was not only enrolled in the guilds and a partisan of the Bianchi, but thoroughly at one with the people, a supporter of the Enactments of Justice, and opposed to the Pope's designs. From the 15th of June to the 15th of August, 1300, he had been one of the Priors who had exiled the leaders of the Bianchi and the Neri. In the "Consulte" of 1296 we find him combating the proposal of furnishing a subsidy to Charles of Anjou, to assist his Sicilian campaign. In 1301 he took an even more prominent share in the debates of the councils, and always manifested unchanged opinions. In fact, during the debates of the 14th of April, when it was proposed to supply a hundred soldiers at the expense of the Commune, for the Pope's service, Dante twice, at least, made reply, "Quod de servitio faciendo domino Papæ nihil fiat."[530] He had been also frequently employed in other public posts: accordingly it is quite possible that he may have been sent to Rome at this time, as many of his biographers have stated. What could be said to the Pope? It was now hopeless to expect him to refrain from sending Charles of Valois; but in addition to soothing him with fair words, it might be neither inopportune nor useless to endeavour to make him understand that it could not serve his purpose to expel the Bianchi and aggrandise the Neri, seeing that the government of the city would still remain in the hands of the guilds. It would, therefore, be wiser for him to come to terms with the people, which was steadfastly Guelph, and, once pacified, might consent, as in past times, to accept from him, in the future, a provisional Vicar, always provided that the freedom of its popular government, its statutes and enactments, were left intact. But this popular government was precisely what the Pope was determined not to tolerate any longer. Therefore, without many words, and almost without giving any heed to the ambassadors, he only replied to their arguments by saying, so Compagni relates: "Make humiliation to us." According to the same chronicler, two of the ambassadors returned to Florence without delay, but Dante, who was the third, lingered in Rome for a while.[531] VIII. Meanwhile Valois, with his usual deceit, and to hoodwink every one more completely, wrote to the Commune of San Gimignano on the 20th of September in the following terms: "Be assured that neither the Pope nor I have the slightest intention 'de juribus iurisdictionibus seu libertatibus, quæ per comunitatis Tusciæ tenentur et possidentur, in aliquo nos intromictere, sed potius ... favorare.'"[532] The Florentines, however, were not to be tricked by these false promises, and on the 7th of October elected a new Signory, in advance of the usual time, trying to assign either faction an equal share in it, in the hope of effecting some mitigation of party rancour. But, as justly observed by Compagni, this was rather the time "for the sharpening of swords." Valois, being at Sienna on the 14th, dispatched ambassadors thence to announce his arrival, and these envoys were received by the councils in full assembly, including that of the Guelph Society. Accordingly many Neri and Grandi being present, and joining with those who at every time and everywhere invariably go with the winning side, they all vied warmly with one another in proposing to welcome the stranger with open arms.[533] In point of fact, no one was inclined to oppose what had now become an unavoidable necessity, particularly as Charles had again given the Florentine envoys at Sienna written as well as verbal assurances of his intention to respect the city's laws and rights of jurisdiction.[534] So, on All Souls' Day, 1st of November, welcomed with great pomp and display of force, Valois entered Florence as "Peacemaker," and, as Villani says, "with his men disarmed." But in the "Divina Commedia" Dante describes his entry thus:-- "Per far conoscere meglio sè e i suoi, Senz 'armi n'esce solo con la lancia Con la qual giostrò Giuda, e quella ponta Si che a Fiorenza fa scoppiar la pancia."[535] His troops had gained so many recruits by the way as to now amount to about 800 foreign and 1,400 Italian horse. They were certainly too few to besiege or enslave Florence; but Valois had the influence of Rome and France at his back, and the Neri were ready to fly to arms. Hence, assured of safety, he established his quarters across the river (Oltrarno) in the house of the Frescobaldi, once friends, but now foes of the Cerchi. After resting there quietly for a few days, in order to mature his plans, he demanded the lordship and custody of the city, with a view to its pacification. Accordingly a solemn meeting was held in Santa Maria Novella on the 5th of November, attended by all the leading citizens and magistrates of Florence. Valois's request was granted when he pledged his princely word to preserve the city in good order, peace, and independence. Villani, who was present at the ceremony, and favourable to Charles, relates, nevertheless, that "he" (Valois) "and his troops immediately began to do the contrary." In fact, by the advice of Musciatto Franzesi, who had connived with the Neri to that effect, violence was resorted to without delay, and all Florence rose in a tumult, perceiving that the moment for assault and treachery had now arrived. The Signory being attacked by the Neri, betrayed by Charles and forsaken by the Bianchi on the charge of having allowed itself to be surprised unprepared for defence, was utterly powerless, and the Republic was left without a government. The new Podestà, Messer Cante dei Gabrielli of Gubbio, had entered the city with Charles de Valois, and for what purpose may be easily divined. At this juncture Corso Donati appeared, sword in hand, with his followers at the Pinti gate. Finding it closed, he managed to break through the postern door, with the help of friends within, and, entering the city, was hailed by the mob with the usual cries of "Viva Messer Corso, viva il Barone!" Hastening first to throw open the prisons, he then went to the Public Palace, and driving out the Signory, compelled them to return to their homes. Villani relates that "during all this laceration of the city, Charles, violating the terms he had just sworn to observe, never attempted to check the fray, but only looked on."[536] The Bianchi were speedily overpowered, many wounded and killed, and their houses sacked. This "pestilence lasted for five days in Florence, and for eight in the territory, armed bands scouring the country, maltreating the inhabitants, and plundering and burning their dwellings. Some of the worst and most ferocious excesses were committed by the Medici family.[537] By the 7th of November the Signory were so overwhelmed with terror as to suggest a decree authorising them to withdraw before the legal expiration of their term. Therefore on the following day a new Signory was appointed to hold office until the 14th of December, when, according to the law, another one would have to be elected in regular course. The existing Signory hastened to announce to all the fortunate triumph of the Church party under the auspices of the Pope and Valois, by whose means "Populus roboratus, Status et Ordinamenta Iustitiæ, iurisdictiones, honores et possessiones Populi et Comunis Florentiæ suorumque civium observata."[538] In spite of these very hypocritical words, we know that even then no one dared attempt to annul the enactments, or to remove the government from the grasp of the people; while it was equally true that with a Signory composed of Neri, a Podestà such as Cante dei Gabrielli and Valois, with Musciatto Franzesi and Corso Donati at his elbow, the Bianchi were doomed to destruction. In fact, the work of pillage never ceased; exiled friends were recalled, the banishment of adversaries was rigidly maintained, and Charles began to extort money from the citizens by threat.[539] His first victims were the members of the late Signory, who were given the choice of opening their purses or being sent as prisoners to Puglia, an alternative of which the meaning was clear.[540] Meanwhile, the Pope having little confidence in Valois, or in the latter's scanty knowledge of Florence, and still adhering to his plan of reconciling the magnates in order to crush the people, again sent the Cardinal of Acquasparta, for the purpose--as stated in his letter dated 2nd of December, 1301--"of seconding Charles's efforts, by checking dissension among the citizens and converting them to peace and charity."[541] These were vain hopes, however. The Cardinal did his utmost, and arranged a few reconciliations and even some marriages between Bianchi and Neri; but when he proposed that either party should have an equal share in the government, the Neri, backed by Charles, made the most vehement opposition. And as the Cardinal persisted in his fruitless endeavours, Messer Niccolò de' Cerchi, when riding out to the country for a day's pleasuring with his friends, was attacked in Piazza Santa Croce, pursued by Corso Donati's son Simone, and murdered by him on the Africo bridge. But in the course of the struggle the victim dealt his assailant a mortal wound that soon brought him also to the grave. As Simone was Corso's favourite son, it may be imagined how this effected the peace that the Pope had hoped to establish through the Cardinal's mediation. Messer Cante dei Gabrielli had already begun to pronounce sentences on the Bianchi, which were subsequently transcribed on the first pages of the still extant "Libro del Chiodo." Four of the Bianchi faction were exiled on the 18th of January, 1302; five more, including Dante Alighieri, on the 27th. In February four other verdicts were issued for the banishment of over one hundred nobles and burghers of the city and territory.[542] Enraged by these proceedings, the Cardinal hurried off, again leaving Florence under interdict, but not before he had received the 1,100 florins assigned to him on the 27th of February, 1302, in remuneration of his abortive efforts. In the meantime Charles of Valois had gone to Rome, though for what purpose is scarcely ascertained. Compagni says that he went to seek money from the Pope, who replied to him: "I have sent thee to the source of gold; now profit by it as best thou canst." It is, therefore, highly probable that he went to convince the Pope of the impossibility of the pacification His Holiness had dreamt of arranging, and that the only thing to be done was to exalt the Neri and crush the Bianchi, together with the people abetting them. Knowing little of the Italian communes in general or of Florence in particular, he failed to discern, that though the Bianchi might be crushed, not so the people. To quell the latter, nothing short of wholesale slaughter could suffice, and even this would have failed in the long run. At any rate, on returning to Florence on the 19th of March, Valois feigned to have discovered that the Bianchi had formed a plot against him with the connivance of one of his barons, Pietro Ferrando of Provence; and an agreement signed and sealed by the conspirators was actually produced.[543] The chroniclers, Villani included, declare that the plot was entirely fictitious; nevertheless, the agreement in question, dated 26th of March, is still extant in the Florentine Archives.[544] Either it was forged at the time to furnish an excuse for fresh arrangements, or was drafted by Pietro Ferrando for the purpose of entrapping the Bianchi and giving Charles another weapon against them. In fact, he immediately subjected them to fresh persecutions. The heads of the party were cited to appear; but disregarding the summons, they hastily fled to Pistoia, Arezzo, and Pisa, there reinforcing, the Ghibellines and all other enemies of Florence. Eleven of their number were outlawed as rebels; their houses and property confiscated or destroyed. Having dealt the Bianchi this fresh blow, and secured the triumph of the Neri, Valois took his departure, but not without obtaining a promise of further subsidies from his friends. In fact 20,000 florins were awarded him in December, and 5,000 more sent in October, 1303.[545] Meanwhile the Podestà, Messer Cante, continued to rain penalties on the town. By May no fewer than 250 condemnations had been pronounced, and as his successor pursued the same course, more than 600 sentences of confiscation, exile, and death were issued during the year 1302.[546] Villani says in conclusion: "Thus by the agency of Charles and the orders of Boniface VIII., the hated Bianchi faction was defeated and expelled, wherefrom great trouble ensued later on."[547] Up to this point the succession of events may be traced with sufficient ease. But from the moment the exiles sought friends abroad, and waged war on their native city, it became increasingly difficult to disentangle the chaos of parties, and comprehend the real meaning of all that took place. Therefore this is the moment to test whether our previous remarks have served to cast any new light upon a period of history that is still somewhat obscure, in spite of the close study and deep learning devoted by so many writers to its investigation. CHAPTER X.[548] _DANTE, FLORENTINE EXILES AND HENRY VII._ I. After Valois's departure and the events by which it was followed, the history of Florence enters on a new phase. The exiles united with the nobles of the territory and the Ghibelline cities in raising a rebellion against the Republic, in order to pave the way for their own recall. This naturally brought about a temporary reconciliation and agreement between the magnates of the Black party, who made greater boast than ever of being the only genuine Guelphs, and stigmatised all the exiles as Ghibellines. Pistoia and the fortress of Piantravigne were the first to revolt, but were speedily reduced to submission. Then, on the 8th of June, 1302, the leading exiles, of whom Dante Alighieri was one, assembled in the church of St. Godenzio among the Apennines, and arranged explicit terms of alliance with the Ubaldini, undertaking to compensate them at their own expense for the injuries caused by the war to that family's possessions in the Mugello, where the stronghold of Montaccenico was to serve as headquarters for the adversaries of Florence. Thereupon the Florentines at once proceeded to ravage all the lands of the Ubaldini on either side of the Apennines.[549] By tremendous exertions, and with the support of Pisa and Bologna, the exiles managed to collect an army of 800 horse and 6,000 foot, and in the spring of 1303 beleaguered the Castle of Pulicciano, appertaining to the Florentines. But even there they had little success. The "people and knights" of Florence took arms and hastily marched against them. The Pisans failed to send the promised succour, the Ubaldini remained inert, and as the Bolognese withdrew declaring themselves betrayed, the Bianchi, being left unassisted, ignominiously dispersed. So the Neri returned to the city in triumph, after taking many prisoners, some of whom were killed on the way and others beheaded by the Podestà. They afterwards surprised the Castle of Montale near Pistoia, and ravaged the surrounding territory. Thus the war seemed at an end, and the hopes of the exiles fallen. But at this juncture discord again broke out in Florence. Preliminary manifestations of turbulence and rebellion had already led to some fresh sentences of exile and a few executions. But matters now grew more serious. Corso Donati's arrogance once more produced its usual results. By disgusting his friends he drove them to side with the rich burghers they despised. Being alienated from the nobles of the territory who had made common cause with the exiles, he tried again to become the leader of the more intolerant section of the magnates, and curried favour with the populace, declaring it to be unjustly overtaxed, merely to fill the pockets of certain fat burghers. "Let the people see where that great sum has gone, for no such amount can have been expended on the war." And he demanded an inquiry, thus beginning, as Villani remarks, "to sow discord by a feint of justice and compassion."[550] Much discussion, great turmoil ensued, but nothing was done, although a law was actually passed (24th of July, 1303) granting the Podestà and captain full powers of inquiry and decision. Meanwhile much irritation was felt by the "fat burghers" against whom the accusation had been launched, and in order to strike a fresh blow at the magnates, they obtained the recall of certain exiles belonging to the popular party, who had not broken bounds. They likewise recalled a few of the Cerchi family, thereby gaining the approbation of the Pope, who was much troubled by the disturbances the Bianchi were exciting on all sides and even in cities belonging to the Church.[551] Thus, as Del Lungo happily expresses it, "by dint of fishing magnates out of the crucible,"[552] Corso Donati was enabled to gather about him more than thirty families, including some of the burgher class and a few returned exiles. Several members of the Tosinghi house were adherents of the Bianchi, and amongst them the valiant Baschiera della Tosa was one of the exiles. There were also Donati's former foes, the Cavalcanti, a very wealthy and numerous clan, comprising members of all parties, although more Bianchi than Neri, and who, as the owners of a mass of houses, shops, and magazines in the centre of the city and tenanted by merchants, were naturally on good terms with the trading class. Accordingly the Donati no longer commanded a party, but rather an ill-assorted crowd, only united by the common bond of hatred against the people. In fact, Messer Corso was wont to say that they were all "captive and enslaved to a herd of fat burghers, or rather dogs, who tyrannised over them and robbed them of power."[553] Nevertheless, the real magnates, namely, noblemen by birth and temper, mostly leaned to his side, while those unable to tolerate his insolence preferred to play the part of spectators. Another of Corso's allies was Messer Lottieri della Tosa, Archbishop of Florence, who was making warlike preparations within the walls of his palace. In opposition to these confederates, several families, such as the Spini, Pazzi, Gherardini, and certain of the Frescobaldi had banded together under the lead of Messer Rosso della Tosa, another man of soaring ambition, who, in pursuance of the policy formerly employed by Vieri dei Cerchi, inclined to the burghers' side. And by means of some of his bravest followers, more particularly certain democrats of the Neri party, named Bordoni, "serving him," Compagni says, "as pincers to seize hot iron,"[554] he daily harassed the Donati in the councils of the State. II. Thus matters seemed again at the same point as before the arrival of Valois. In fact, we see Rosso della Tosa and his following combining with the people in defence of the Signory; while, on the other hand, Donati, backed by the captains of the party, was continually threatening and attacking it. Again, the citizens daily drew swords and came to blows; again, robbery, bloodshed, murder, and arson were rife in the town and throughout the territory. Even from the tower of the bishop's palace a mangonel hurled stones on Corso Donati's foes. Both the Signory and Podestà were reduced to impotence. Things reached at last such a pitch that recourse was had to the very strange plan of transferring the government to the Lucchese for sixteen days to see whether they could succeed in quieting the city. They re-established order, but without punishing the guilty; consequently, as soon as they were gone everything went on as before. It was even endeavoured to choose a Signory (solely of the people, however) approved by both parties, but the attempt came to nothing.[555] What brought the confusion to a climax, and rendered it permanent, was the fact that whereas the split between the magnates and the people had caused two genuine parties to be formed, the division among the magnates now convulsing the city, solely proceeded from the ambition of Corso Donati and a few others, had no political motive, and no basis of general principle or general interest. As we have seen, in fact, Donati's following comprised magnates of every shade, returned exiles owning friends and relations still in banishment, together with a sprinkling of the lower class. Nor could there be much cohesion in the ranks of the adverse party supporting the Signory, since this was also made up of aristocrats and men of the people, conflicting elements whose union could never be permanently assured. If the foes of the Signory were held together by Corso's energy and ambition, its supporters were chiefly united by their common hatred for him. Therefore, owing to this predominance of the personal element, both the parties were exposed to perpetual division, subdivision, and change, to a perpetual shifting of the pieces, and restless passing and repassing from one group to another. Confusion was now to be heightened by the death of Boniface VIII. (October 11, 1303) and the election of Pope Benedict XI., a man of gentler fibre and uncertain will. The new pontiff yearned to re-establish peace in Florence at all costs, and procure the recall of its exiles; for the latter were keeping his own states in a turmoil, and even in Rome itself he had already encountered so much opposition from the nobles and people, that shortly after his election he had been compelled to seek refuge at Perugia, namely, on the borders of disturbed, restless Tuscany. Nor was it now possible, amid all these calamities, to count on any help from France, inasmuch as he had brought a suit against the authors of the criminal attempt at Anagni causing the death of Pope Boniface, that had been actually devised by the king of the French. For these reasons, and at the earnest solicitation of the Bianchi in Florence and elsewhere, Pope Benedict dispatched a peacemaker to the city on the 31st of January, 1304, in the person of Cardinal da Prato, a supposed Ghibelline. The Cardinal arrived on the 10th of March, and tried to conciliate all alike; magnates, people, exiles, Bianchi, the Neri led by Corso Donati and the Neri under Rosso della Tosa. But what chiefly disturbed public feeling and brought confusion to a climax was his scheme of recalling banished men and reconciling them with the city. Nevertheless the popular class was less opposed than others to the plan, discerning in it a possible means of enfeebling the magnates by promoting fresh discord in their ranks. Rosso della Tosa, on the contrary, was decidedly hostile to the exiles' return, considering that this would strengthen the opposite party, which was already favourable to many of the banished men. These views were shared by some of his faction. On the excuse of suffering from an attack of gout, Corso Donati remained a passive spectator for the nonce. But the Cavalcanti warmly approved of the suggested treaty, and were seemingly the first to promote it. Having received full powers from the people, the Cardinal at once began to arrange reconciliations, and with success as regarded the Bishop and his former comrade, Messer Rosso della Tosa. He next appointed Corso Donati Captain of the Guelph Society, and reorganised the old popular militia, on the original plan, under nineteen Gonfaloniers of Companies. But in spite of bestowing commands on some of the magnates, the latter murmured bitterly against his reforms, saying that they tended to increase the people's strength, that the Cardinal was a Ghibelline, would end by leaving the city in the hands of the Bianchi, and that the latter would forthwith claim restitution of all property and estates made confiscate for the benefit of the Guelph Society. Regardless of these complaints, the Cardinal persisted in holding meetings to ratify the agreement. In fact, on the 26th of April, several Neri of the Donati and Tosa factions exchanged pledges of amity in the Square of Santa Maria Novella. Great festivities were given in honour of the occasion, among others a grand performance arranged by the Company of Borgo San Frediano, who announced throughout Florence that all persons desiring news of the other world might obtain it by assembling on the banks of the Arno on the evening of the 1st of May. Blazing fireworks represented the infernal regions, while boatloads of masks figured as condemned souls undergoing various torments. The people flocked in vast numbers to the river and on to the Carraia Bridge, which being only a wooden structure at the time, gave way beneath their weight. Many were seriously injured, and many others really went to the next world. The catastrophe was regarded by all as a bad omen, and was truly the prelude of fresh calamity. III. Meanwhile, those most opposed to the recall of the exiles craftily advised the Cardinal to begin by undertaking a mission of peace to Pistoia, declaring that so long as that city remained in the power of the Bianchi, Florence could never be really pacified. But the Pistoians resisted his efforts so vigorously, that not only was he compelled to leave the town without concluding any arrangement, but on seeking to enter Prato, found the gates of his native city closed in his face. The Pope, being highly enraged by all this, addressed an indignant letter to the Florentines on the 29th of May.[556] But they were in so disorderly and riotous a state, that after imploring the Pontiff to find them a Podestà, they refused to accept either of the four individuals proposed by him. Yet the Cardinal obstinately clung to his idea of re-establishing peace. At his instance, safe conducts were given to twelve delegates from the exiles, six Ghibellines and six Bianchi, in order that they might come to Florence to settle terms with as many representatives appointed by the City, each Sesto contributing one of the Donati and one of the adverse faction.[557] These twenty-four citizens were all magnates, and felt so much reciprocal distrust that the twelve exiles, although well received by the people and quartered under State protection in the Cardinal's own residence at the Mozzi Palace, were most anxious to depart, fearing to be cut to pieces at any moment. But they were advised by their friends to take arms and seek refuge in the houses of the Cavalcanti, seeing that with the latter's help they would be enabled, if necessary, to repulse and overcome their enemies by force. The Cavalcanti seemed well disposed to the plan, and began to arrange preliminaries. But after thus rousing the suspicion and increasing the animosity of their foes, they suddenly drew back, thereby disgusting even their friends. Accordingly on the 8th of June, 1304, the exiles hurried away from Florence as though flying for their lives.[558] Thereupon there was a loud outcry against the Cardinal; he was charged with having betrayed the city by his stealthy manoeuvres, and it was even added that he had encouraged the exiles to appear before the walls in warlike array. Letters bearing his seal were shown, and it was affirmed that the exiles had marched from the Mugello as far as Trespiano, and only beaten a retreat on learning the failure of the meditated scheme. Villani declares that these reports were mere slanders;[559] but even the epistles attributed to Dante Alighieri lead us to infer that the Cardinal really desired the exiles' return and had negotiated with them to that effect.[560] But his patience being now exhausted, he departed on the 10th of June, again leaving the city under interdict, and exclaiming: "Since ye prefer to be at war and accursed, will neither hear nor obey the messenger of God's Vicar, nor be at rest and at peace among yourselves, remain under the curse of Heaven, under the curse of Holy Church."[561] At this moment the Cavalcanti and their friends were at a truly terrible pass. Their present junction with the Donati was insufficient to blot out old animosities, which had been only laid aside for a while in order to second the return of the Bianchi, at the expense of the Tosinghi faction. The latter remained practically isolated, forsaken even by the rich trading class, who, wearied of perpetual civil war, had been persuaded by the Cardinal to promote a reconciliation between the Cavalcanti and Donati. But the former's unexpected withdrawal at the last moment, and when all seemed arranged, had stirred the old hatred to new fury, and the Cavalcanti were now between two fires. Messer Corso, being unwilling to join hands with the Tosinghi, kept his rage in check for the nonce, and feigning to be ill with gout, still remained passive, leaving his followers to do as they chose. But Rosso della Tosa was a ferocious enemy of the Cavalcanti, by whom he had been brought to the verge of ruin, and his hatred was not to be restrained. So the Cardinal had scarcely disappeared before a catastrophe became imminent in Florence. The Cavalcanti recognised their peril; but they were numerous, courageous, and powerful. They could count on the Gherardini, Pulci, and Cerchi del Garbo; they owned many friends even outside the walls and among the exiled Bianchi; they had also adherents of the burgher class, no few of whom tenanted their houses in the centre of Florence. The foes now arming against the Cavalcanti were aristocrats, not _popolani_. The Cerchi del Garbo began to scuffle day and night with the Giugni. The Cavalcanti and their friends hastened to the former's assistance, and so effectively as to be able to press on from Or San Michele to Piazza San Giovanni almost unopposed. But while at this distance from their own quarter a serious fire broke out there. Their enemies had set the Cavalcanti houses ablaze with combustibles kept in readiness for some days past. The first man to start the fire, beginning with the dwellings of fellow associates, was Neri degli Abati, prior of San Piero Scheraggio; and his incendiary example was followed by many accomplices, including Simone della Tosa and Sinibaldo Donati, Messer Corso's son.[562] It was the 10th of June, 1304, and a strong north wind was blowing. Accordingly, the fire spread with great rapidity to the Calimala street, the Old Market, and Or San Michele, thus destroying the whole centre of Florence as well as the Cavalcanti houses--in fact, as Villani expresses it, "all the marrow, the yolk, and dearest spots of our city of Florence."[563] He adds, that the palaces, houses and towers consumed amounted to more than seventeen hundred, with enormous loss of property and merchandise, seeing that everything saved from the fire was stolen when carried away, and that fighting and pillage went on even in the midst of the flames.[564] Paolino Pieri relates in his chronicle, that one-tenth of the city was burnt, and one-sixth of its whole property. Many families and associations were ruined, but the worst sufferers were the Cavalcanti, who seemed paralysed with terror on beholding all their possessions devoured by the flames. Yet so ferocious was the hatred cherished against them, that even after these cruel calamities they were driven from Florence as rebels. IV. Let us see what were the political consequences of these events. The Donati and Della Tosa factions having combined for the undoing of the Cavalcanti and their friends, it was decided at first that the magnates, emboldened by union and victory, should next attempt to annul the Enactments of Justice, and take the government in their hands. And, in the midst of the General dismay, the project might have succeeded, Villani says, had the nobles been really in unison. Instead, "they were all at strife, and split into sects, wherefore either side courted the people so as not to lose ground."[565] The division of parties remained substantially the same. That is, on the one hand, there were the quarrelsome magnates seeking support from the people against their personal foes, and, on the other, the people trying to profit by the magnates' dissensions. Of course the merchants had also suffered heavily by the fire; but their wealth was of a kind to be rapidly replaced, whereas the nobles had no means of repairing their still greater losses. For the prosperity of the Florentine people was so prodigious at the time that, even after this wholesale destruction, their riches seemed nowise diminished. But there was a notable decline in the power of the magnates, who disappeared almost entirely from the first circuit, or centre of the city, where the old families had their dwellings. Therefore Capponi has some reason to say in his history: "From that moment the supremacy of the nobles seems to have been uprooted, and new social orders established."[566] Thus, as always happened in Florence, even this great calamity proved advantageous to the people. In consequence of these lamentable events, added to the reports sent by Cardinal da Prato to the Pope in Perugia, the Holy Father cited twelve leading magnates of Florence to appear before him there. Among the persons thus summoned were Corso Donati and Rosso della Tosa, once bitter enemies but now friends for the moment. They set out towards Perugia with a great train of followers, forming a mounted company of five hundred men in all. So the exiles considered this a most favourable opportunity for making a fresh attempt to re-enter their native city. As usual, it was rumoured that the Cardinal had encouraged them to expect a good reception; and it was further announced that he had instigated Pisa, Bologna, Arezzo, Pistoia, and the whole of Romagna to come to their aid. But although some of the exiles' direst foes were absent from Florence at the time, on the other hand, the position of their adversaries must have been considerably strengthened by the slaughter of the Cavalcanti and Gherardini. Likewise, although the Greater Guilds had once been induced to favour the return of banished men, and particularly those of the popular class, it was not to be expected that they would now be disposed to welcome exiles advancing on Florence under the wing of the Pisans, and joined with the Ghibellines of Tuscany and Romagna. This league with the enemies of the State naturally roused all Florence against them. Nevertheless the exiles seemed very hopeful. Thanks to their new allies, they had contrived to collect an army of 9,000 foot and 1,600 horse, and on the 19th of July marched into Lastra, to await other reinforcements from Pistoia. These were to be commanded by Tolosato degli Uberti, a valiant Ghibelline leader, of an ancient Florentine house, persistently hated by the Guelphs, in memory of the rout at Montaperti. As Uberti failed to appear, the exiles resolved to move on without him; but the twenty-four hours' delay had sufficed to destroy their chance of taking Florence by surprise. In fact, only twelve hundred horse rode to the city in peaceful array, bearing olive boughs in their hands; and passing the unfinished girdle of new walls, halted beneath the old bastions, in the Cafaggio fields, between St. Mark's and the Church of the Servi. There, on the 20th of July, panting from fatigue, without water, and exposed to the burning sun, they vainly waited for the gates to be opened to them. Meanwhile a small band of their men had managed to enter the city by forcing the Spadai gate, and advanced as far as Piazza San Giovanni. But instead of finding friends there, they were met by 200 horse and 500 foot, who drove them back, capturing some of their number, and leaving a good many wounded and slain. This gave the signal for a retreat, soon converted into a general flight. The force waiting at Cafaggio, exhausted from hunger and heat combined, had already thrown down their weapons and dispersed with "bands of volunteers" in pursuit. Many were killed or died of fatigue, others were stripped, seized and strung up on trees. News of the defeat reached Lastra before the fugitives returned; accordingly those encamped there took to flight, and although Tolosato degli Uberti met them on the way, he found it impossible to rally them to the attack. Among other narratives of the affair we have that of Villani, who witnessed all that occurred in Florence.[567] Dante Alighieri was not with the army at Lastra, having separated from his companions in exile shortly before, and almost in anger. He was probably disgusted by their hybrid alliance with all the enemies of Florence, by the secret agreements set on foot between Donati and the Cavalcanti, and saddened by the internecine slaughter so blindly provoked in the vain expectation of compassing the recall of a few banished men.[568] The victory at Lastra must have undoubtedly augmented the daring and power of the magnates. It may have been on this account that certain of their number now insisted on their names being erased from the rolls of the guilds.[569] Additional proof to this effect is furnished by another important event occurring on the 5th of August, 1304. One of the Adimari having perpetrated a crime, was brought before the Podestà to be judged. But his associates made a violent assault on that magistrate as he was leaving the Priors' palace, and after wounding or killing several of his escort, broke into the prison and rescued the criminal. Thereupon the Captain of the People, Messer Gigliolo da Prato, temporarily acting as Podestà (since the continual disturbances in the city had deterred every one from assuming that office), departed from Florence in high indignation. Accordingly, to provide for the due administration of justice, the Florentines were obliged to elect a committee of twelve citizens, one noble and one _popolano_, from every Sesto, to fulfil the duties of a Podestà.[570] Presently, however, the resumption of hostilities outside the walls reduced the city to quiet for a time. V. The exiles had again begun to scour the land, stirring neighbouring strongholds to revolt; and the Florentines instantly marched against them. The first place to be attacked was the castle of Stinche, which had been incited to rebel by the Cavalcanti. Its reduction was easily effected (August, 1304), and all the captives were lodged in the new prisons, henceforth entitled the "Stinche." A more serious expedition had to be undertaken in 1305 against Pistoia, when it rose to arms in the Bianchi cause, aided by Arezzo and Pisa, and under the command of Tolosato degli Uberti. A long and vigorous siege was the result. The beleaguering force of Florentines and Lucchese was led by Duke Robert of Calabria, who, as Captain of the League, had furnished a large contingent of foot and 300 Catalan horse.[571] The town held out during the whole winter, but in April, 1306, the Pistoiese were compelled to surrender from famine. Their walls and towers were demolished, their territory divided between the Florentines and Lucchese. Pope Clement V. had vainly endeavoured to put an end to this war which dealt another cruel blow to the Tuscan Ghibellines. He was a native of France, had transferred the papal see to Avignon, and had no knowledge of Italy. Nor could Italy feel any love for an alien Pope who had deserted Rome. In fact, the Florentines declined to listen to the messengers of peace he despatched to their camp, and paid no heed to the interdict he launched against them. For although the Duke of Calabria withdrew, this was only a feint, seeing that he left them all his men under the command of Captain Pietro de la Rat. So the campaign was carried on to the end. Nor did the other envoy of peace, Cardinal Napoleon Orsini, meet with any better fortune, for he was not only ill received in Tuscany and Romagna, but robbed of his goods and even in danger of his life. As for his excommunications, interdicts, and counsels of peace, every one laughed at them. The Florentines were determined to do the work thoroughly, and even before the conclusion of the war with Pistoia, started another expedition against the formidable castle of Montaccenico, chief stronghold of the Ubaldini, dominating the whole of the Mugello and serving as the exiles' headquarters. By dint of scattering bribes among the Ubaldini themselves, the Florentines finally won the castle by treason, and, after reducing it to ruin, immediately resolved to plant the towns of Scarperia and Firenzuola in its vicinity, "to serve as scarecrows to the Ubaldini, and harbours of refuge to faithful subjects." All willing to inhabit the little town founded for that purpose, were to be exempt from every form of vassalage. The first stone of Scarperia was laid, without delay, on the 7th of September, 1307; but the construction of Firenzuola was postponed to a much later date (1332). We must now consider what was the object the Republic had in view, and what it achieved by means of these continual campaigns, in which even the magnates took a part; what too by the reduction of Ghibelline cities, and the destruction of castles throughout the whole territory? On the one hand, its political predominance in Tuscany was rapidly increased, and new outlets of commerce acquired; while, on the other, the power of the magnates outside Florence was overthrown by the aid of those within the walls, who, in their blind fury against the exiles, did not realise what they were doing. The Florentines of old had demolished the castles, which at one time reached nearly to their gates; they had forced the barons to dwell in the city, had subjected them to republican laws, and lowered their pride by excluding them from the government. Profiting by their disputes, the citizens had next spurred them to destroy one another; and, in conclusion, were now making them turn their weapons against more distant nobles, and overthrow the latter's strongholds in the Casentino, Mugello, and valley of the Arno. All this was invariably advantageous to the guilds and the people. Therefore, in 1306, while the Pistoian campaign was still going on, the Florentines reorganised citizen-armed bands under nineteen Gonfalonieri. This was the constitution of "the good Guelph people," a reform made, according to Villani, "in order to prevent the 'Grandi' and other powerful folk from presuming to show arrogance on the strength of having gained many victories over the Bianchi and Ghibellines."[572] But this was not all, for the real gist of the new reform consisted in the law of the 23rd of December, 1306, by which the enactments were strengthened and an Executor of Justice was appointed to enforce their more rigorous application. The object of the law was clearly expressed by the introductory words explaining that it was intended "to preserve the liberties of the Florentine people, and break the pride of iniquitous men, which has swollen to such extent that our eyes fail to discern its limits." In point of fact, the guilds showed no mercy to the magnates, even when fighting side by side with them against common foes. The "Executor" was required to be a Guelph, a man of the people, and a foreigner, _i.e._, of non-Tuscan birth, from some city or place, subject to no lord, and not less than eighty miles from Florence. He was neither to be a knight nor a _law judge_, a prohibition caused by the growing hatred against _perverse judges_ and fatal experience of recent Podestàs. The "Executor" was to remain in office for six months, and he was to bring with him one judge, two notaries, twenty _masnadieri_, or guards--all of whom were to be Guelphs and aliens--and two war-horses. His office was to protect the people and all the weak against powerful personages, and to call the companies to arms whenever any crime should be committed, for the prompt enforcement of the penalties prescribed. It was to be his special duty to ensure the due execution of the Enactments of Justice, and whenever the Podestà or Captain failed to do their part, he was instantly to assume their functions according to the rules minutely laid down in the new law, that was henceforth an integral portion of the enactments.[573] He was likewise to deal punishment on all frauds and dishonest tricks practised in the offices of the Commune. Should the Podestà fail to demolish buildings (churches always excepted) in which conventicles or meetings had been illegally held, he was to enforce the said demolition, and impose a fine of 500 _lire_ on the Podestà. Capital punishment was to be inflicted on all who held meetings, to plot treason against liberty or the popular government. In such case, if nobles were concerned the penalty was to be adjudged by the Podestà, and should the Podestà hesitate to act, the Executor was to mulct him as usual, and assume his functions. When the guilty were _popolani_ the Executor alone was to condemn them to death and degrade their descendants to the rank of nobles. Likewise all _popolani_ accessory to crimes perpetrated by nobles were to be condemned by the Executor to double the penalty prescribed by the common law. It was also the Executor's task to examine the actions of the outgoing Podestà and Captain, and he, in due turn, was subjected to investigation by persons appointed by the Priors and Gonfaloniers of the Companies.[574] VI. Meanwhile the Pope's anxiety being stirred by the increasing agitation provoked by the Florentine exiles, throughout Romagna and the Marches, as well as in Tuscany, again began to insist upon peace. But the person charged to open negotiations to this effect was Cardinal Orsini, a man of strong party feeling and doubtful integrity. For when at Arezzo in 1307, he had called there, in addition to the Florentine exiles, many adherents of his own from the adjoining States of the Church, thus assembling a force of 1,700 cavalry and a great number of foot soldiers. It appears that he had come to terms with Corso Donati and received money from him for the undertaking in view. Messer Corso, whose ambition was still unassuaged, had married a third time, and was now related, through his wife, with the Ghibelline lord, Uguccione della Faggiuola. This circumstance naturally exposed him to much suspicion on the part of the Guelphs, and accordingly, being even more angered and discontented than before, he was again bitterly hostile to Messer Rosso della Tosa and his followers, who in their turn, and as an inevitable consequence, had again combined with the wealthier burghers. Hence, the latter, on noting the Cardinal's preparations, and Donati's new manoeuvres, speedily collected an army of 3,000 horse and 15,000 foot, and without further hesitation marched towards Arezzo, ravaging the enemies' lands by the way. Thereupon, by way of displaying his military tactics, the Cardinal directed his march on Florence through the Casentino. But as the Florentines outwitted him, by doubling back and reaching the city before him, he was obliged to retreat to Arezzo in a very crestfallen mood. He then opened negotiations with the Florentines, who, feigning willingness to entertain his proposals, despatched two ambassadors to gull him with fair words. Compagni remarks that "no woman was ever more flattered and then abused by betrayers than he (the Cardinal) by those two knights."[575] So that all he could do was to go off with his tail between his legs, once more leaving the city under sentence of excommunication.[576] In revenge for this, the Florentines imposed fresh taxes on the clergy, punishing those who refused to pay.[577] The worst sufferer was Corso Donati, for the Cardinal, after extracting money from him by promising to come to Florence to crush Della Tosa and his Black faction, had not even dared to approach the walls. But without acknowledging his defeat, Donati immediately plunged into fresh and more daring schemes. After a short absence from Florence, probably to gain funds and allies, he returned there in 1308. Increasingly blinded by party passion, counting on assistance from his father-in-law, Uguccione della Faggiuola, now lord of Arezzo, as well as from Prato and Pistoia, he called a meeting of his adherents in Florence. After explaining his hopes and vowing to do away with the Enactments of Justice, he urged them to draw their swords and make an end of those Neri, who, after receiving so much help from him and gaining victory by his means, now treated him so iniquitously. But the rumour being already abroad that he expected aid from that bitterest foe of Florence--the formidable Uguccione--the popular feeling against him was excited to the highest pitch.[578] After being repressed for some time the general fury burst out all at once, and took Donati unawares. Suddenly, on the 6th of October, 1308, the Signory sounded the alarm-bell, and the people, rising to arms, united with the Della Tosa faction, other friendly magnates, and De la Rat's Catalan troops. Donati was denounced to the Podestà, Piero della Branca of Gubbio, as a traitor to his country, and in less than an hour he was accused, tried, and condemned. Immediately afterwards, the Signory, Podestà, Captain, and Executor, with their respective familiars, the Catalan troops, knights, and citizen-trained bands, marched to St. Piero Maggiore to attack the Donati houses. But Messer Corso and his friends resisted so valiantly, that had Uguccione and the others fulfilled their promise of coming to the rescue in time, the affair might have taken an ugly turn. It is supposed that the Aretines were already on the march, when, hearing that all Florence had risen against Donati, they decided to turn back. At all events, no succour arrived, and Messer Corso soon found that even many of his Florentine friends had ceased to defend the chain barricades, and relinquished the struggle. Thereupon the people broke through, and soon demolished the houses he had been forced to abandon. Accompanied by a few devoted adherents, he fled from the town by the Croce gate, with the citizens and Catalans in hot pursuit. The first man captured on the banks of the Africo was Gherardo dei Bordoni, who was instantly slain. Next, the crowd cut off his hand and nailed it on the door of the Adimari house, because Tedici degli Adimari had first instigated the dead man to join with Donati. A few moments later the Catalans overtook Donati himself at San Salvi, and in obedience to orders killed him on the spot. According to another version of the tale, he first tried to bribe them to spare his life, but without success; so, to avoid falling into the hands of his Florentine foes, he cast himself on the ground and was dispatched by a spear-thrust in the throat. The monks of San Salvi bore away his dead body, and the following day buried him in the Badia without any pomp for fear of provoking the public wrath.[579] The cause of this sudden and irresistible burst of popular fury is clearly explained by the letters which the Commune shortly addressed to the Lucchese, in whose territory the Bordoni had found refuge. "It is known to all Tuscany that the Donati had planned a war to the death, in order to give the city of Florence and the Guelph party into the hands of the Ghibellines, and subject to their yoke, to the utter extermination and destruction of the Guelph Government. Those rebels intended to break all bounds, and subdue the city to their rule, although Messer Corso and his followers shamelessly styled the Signory Ghibelline instead."[580] These words were written by the Signory in March, 1309. In fact, the Neri being split into Donati and Tosinghi factions, and the latter having united with the wealthier burghers, from whom could the Donati hope assistance, save from the Ghibellines? The lower class of the people was weak, and the distant Pope increasingly urged the return of the exiles. The latter had now combined with Donati's whilom allies, the nobles of the _contado_, standing aloof from many of the burgher Bianchi, who had been expelled at the same moment, but were gradually permitted to return; and they had also separated from all independent men, such as Dante Alighieri. The poet, in fact, being opposed to Donati, and a promoter of the Enactments of Justice, had been finally driven to adopt an individual attitude. Thus the Bianchi, though exiled for having sided with the people, were now on the side of the magnates, the Ghibellines, Uguccione, and even of Corso Donati, the only person likely to profit by so hybrid an alliance. Accordingly his death had the immediate result of giving another terrible shock to the magnates' power, both within and without the city. Speedy proof was afforded of this when, at the beginning of 1309, the proud Ubaldini came to make submission to the Florentine Commune, promising to guard the passes of the Apennines, and supporting their offer by fitting guarantees of good faith. In consequence of this they were accepted as friends, with the condition, "that in every act and deed they should behave as good subjects and citizens."[581] Throughout the whole of its history the Florentine Commune invariably adopted this plan when admitting nobles to its midst. But it had also the effect of enabling conquered and subject magnates to gain increased strength in the city itself. Therefore, first without and then within the walls, they unceasingly combated the people and the Republic, down to the distant time when they were finally crushed by the State. If Florentine prosperity as yet showed no signs of diminution during the sanguinary struggle now described, it was for two reasons which should be duly kept in mind. The successive conflicts we have narrated, all proceeded from the constant necessity of preserving the merchant-republic from the impact of the extraneous feudal body threatening to check its natural growth. These civil wars, however, were carried by a comparatively small number of citizens, eager to gain possession of a government that had far less influence on society than is generally supposed. The true motive-power of the Republic proceeded less from the Signory, which was changed every two months, than from the commercial and political constitution of the guilds, which were firmly organised and, so far, thoroughly in unison. The conditions of an all-absorbing modern State, wherein every shock affects society at large, had not yet sprung to life in the Middle Ages. The Italian republics were miniature confederacies of separate associations, under a central government of so feeble a kind, that even when totally suppressed for a time, no great harm seemed to result from its loss. VII. Corso Donati's death put an end to the tragedy of which the expulsion of the Bianchi had formed the first act; and now the condition of all Italy, as well as Florence, was changed by a new event. This was the murder of Albert of Hapsburg by his nephew, on the 1st of May, 1308. Therefore the election of a new king of the Romans and future emperor was now imminent. Philip the Beautiful aspired to win the Imperial crown, if not for himself, at least for his brother, Charles of Valois, through the help of Clement V. As the Pope was residing in France, he could not directly oppose the design, but had certainly no intention of favouring it. With the Angevins at Naples, the Holy See transferred to Avignon, and Rome in revolt against him, the choice of a French emperor would have placed him entirely at Philip's mercy. Accordingly he gave secret support to Henry of Luxembourg, who was elected to the throne as Henry VII. on the 27th of November, 1308. This emperor, born on the French frontier, and educated in France, presented a combination of Germanic and Latin characteristics. As lord of a petty State, he had no real strength or power of his own; but having great nobility of mind and an imagination disposed to mysticism, he had formed a lofty idea of the dignity and might of the universal Empire that he hoped to restore to Rome. He seemed totally unable to comprehend that the feudal union of Germany and Italy, which had missed success even at the beginning of the Middle Ages, had become totally impossible now that feudalism itself, the principal basis of the Holy Roman Empire, was almost annihilated in Italy. Nevertheless, when Henry first raised the Imperial flag, enormous hopes were conceived by the Ghibellines, and rapidly spread throughout the peninsula. All men seemed to be suddenly stirred to genuine enthusiasm. The Ghibellines of that day were no longer the Ghibellines of old, and in Italy the conception of the Empire had undergone a total change. The hostile attitude of the Popes towards republican freedom and independence; their persistent struggle against the Roman Commune; the fact of Clement V. being at a distance, in France, and weakly dependent on the French monarch; the necessity, now beginning to be generally recognised, of building up, from the ruins of old municipalities, new forms of government, such as were now arising in France and elsewhere; the revival of classical studies, enabling men to glean from the Republic and Empire of ancient Rome some literary conception of the unity and strength of the secular State required to meet present needs;--had all combined to transform the mediæval idea of the Empire. For now that France and other countries were detached from it, the Empire was no longer universal, but simply Germanico-Roman; while to Italian eyes it was beginning, though still very vaguely, to seem a revival of the old Rome that had always been the spiritual head of the civilised world, and the possible centre of an Italian confederated State. This idea was clearly expressed for the first time in Dante's "Monarchia," which then served as the manifesto of the Ghibelline party. The same idea was afterwards more widely developed in the "Defensor Pacis" of Marsilio da Padova, and at a subsequent date inspired the fantastic enthusiasm of Cola di Rienzo. The latter's attempt--so lauded by Petrarch--to create a new Roman, Italian, Imperial Republic was a confused dream of scholastic, classico-humanistic, feudal, and mediæval ideas, but nevertheless a dream containing in embryo some vague conception of the future Italian State as it was already dimly foreseen, although with no comprehension of its real nature. Such as it was, however, this incoherent jumble of ideas became the standard of the Italian Ghibellines. The Guelphs had no philosophical programme of their own to flaunt in return. The force of events, and the pressing need of maintaining the independence of Italian cities against Pope and emperor, was then the war-cry of the Florentine Guelphs. To Florence, the coming of the emperor signified the revival of the old Ghibelline party, consequently the revival of Arezzo, Pistoia, Pisa, and other hostile cities, all ready to compress her within a circle of steel, and strangle her commerce. For this reason she called on the Guelph cities, and all seeking to preserve freedom and escape foreign tyranny, to join in an Italian confederation, with herself at its head. It was, therefore, at this moment that the small merchant-republic initiated a true national policy, and became a great power in Italy. So, in the mediæval shape of a feudal and universal Empire, on the one hand, and in that of a municipal confederation on the other, a gleam of the national idea first began to appear, though still in the far distance and veiled in clouds. Both sides fought eagerly for the interests of the moment, and both were inspired with the presentiment of a new future; but neither discerned that this future was only to be attained by the destruction of both parties alike. At this juncture the Pope seemed favourable to Henry VII., for he encouraged his project of going to Rome to assume the Imperial crown, and urged the Italians to accord him a good reception. Nevertheless--as the Florentines had known from the first--he could not wish to see Italy subject to the Empire, having too keen a remembrance of all that the Church had endured at the hands of Frederic II. Following, therefore, the traditional policy of the Roman Court, he simultaneously encouraged Robert of Naples, formerly Duke of Calabria, who, having succeeded to the throne at the death of King Charles II. (May 3, 1309), was naturally prepared to resist Henry's pretensions to the utmost. At first the Florentines appeared disposed to be passive lookers on, but were not deceived by the Pope's pretence of encouraging Emperor Henry. They desired a closer alliance with Clement, but he too was very resentful with regard to their past conduct, and with some reason, secretly echoed the words of Benedict XI.: "Who could imagine that those men" (the Florentines) "should presume to be sons of the Church, while fighting against her?" But nowise dismayed by this, they treated with King Robert, who still allowed them to retain the services of Captain De la Rat and his Catalan horse, and now sent them his flag in addition. With the help of this contingent the Florentines made repeated attacks on Arezzo, refusing to desist even when Henry warned them to respect that city as a fief of the Empire. Their attacks were invariably successful, and they even forced their way into the town, but were prevented from holding it by the treachery of the magnates, as it was rumoured at the time.[582] All acts and decrees of the Commune bore the heading: "In honour of Holy Church and His Majesty King Robert, and to the defeat of the German king."[583] VIII. In 1310 Henry set out for Italy, leaving the affairs of Germany to his son's care. Louis of Savoy, the newly elected Senator of Rome, was sent on in advance, and reached Florence on the 3rd of July, accompanied by two German prelates. The latter were admitted to the council; but in answer to their request that Florence should prepare to receive the emperor with due honour, Betto Brunelleschi replied: "That the Florentines had never lowered their horns before any lord whatsoever;" and this somewhat indecorous response was sufficiently indicative of the public feeling. In fact, the Imperial envoys, though everywhere well received, obtained nothing from Florence, and even failed to put a stop to the war with Arezzo. And when ambassadors from nearly every city of Italy sought audience of Henry at Lausanne, no Florentine envoys appeared. On the contrary, Florence was energetically preparing for defence; the new walls were raised about sixteen feet higher, and surrounded by moats from the Prato gate to that of San Gallo, and thence to the Arno.[584] On the 30th of September Robert arrived in Florence from Avignon, where the Pope had crowned him King of Naples, and likewise appointed him Vicar of Romagna, to prevent Henry from seizing that province which had recently seceded from the Empire. King Robert soon came to an understanding with the Florentines, and arranged measures with them for their common defence. Notwithstanding this, Henry continued to advance, heading all his decrees with the phrase, _in nomine regis pacifici_, and assuming the part of a just and impartial judge. He summoned both Guelphs and Ghibellines to his side, promising equal welcome to all. He reached Susa by the 24th of October, and on the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6, 1311) assumed the Iron Crown in the Church of St. Ambrogio at Milan. But in this city his dream of peace was disturbed by a sudden outburst of civil war. The Guelph Torriani were expelled by the Visconti before his eyes; and from that moment, being forcibly dragged into the vortex of party strife, Henry renounced his mission as peacemaker, and was again a German, foreign, and _barbarian_ emperor. It was averred that the Florentines had bribed Guido della Torre to raise a rebellion, and that this was the cause of his expulsion. We have no certainty that this was the case, but it is an ascertained fact that they sent money, despatches, and envoys to Cremona, Lodi, Brescia, Pavia, and other Lombard cities, and succeeded in stirring them to rise against Henry.[585] They also sent ambassadors to Naples, France, and more particularly to Avignon, where they lavished heavy bribes on the officials of the Curia, for the purpose of learning when the Pope spoke truly or falsely. On all sides they displayed such feverish activity that one day the Cardinal da Prato exclaimed in the presence of the French king: "How great is the insolence of these Florentines in daring to tempt every lord with their lousy small coin!"[586] Even in crises such as these the magnates of Florence could not lay aside their animosities, but continued to disturb the city by fresh riots now and then. In February, 1311, the Donati murdered Betto Brunelleschi, whom they considered responsible for Messer Corso's death, and immediately afterwards disinterred the latter's corpse at San Salvi, and reburied him with due pomp now that he had been avenged.[587] Nevertheless, order was quickly restored, since there was little leisure for private feuds, and men's minds were absorbed in graver concerns. At the beginning of June, 1311, Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Sienna, and Volterra gave their formal adherence to the Guelph League, and swore to combine in armed defence against Henry. On the 26th of June, the Florentines despatched De la Rat to Bologna with 400 Catalan horse, while the Siennese and Lucchese forwarded another contingent to King Robert in Romagna, where that monarch was harrying and incarcerating all the Ghibellines and exiled Florentine Bianchi who were then trying to stir the Papal cities to revolt.[588] And when it was rumoured that the king was seeking to make terms with Henry, the Florentines wrote to him, insisting on his entering Rome at once, according to his promise, and likewise warning him that they would stand no half-measures, and that if he delayed, or attempted any pact with the emperor, they would instantly withdraw their forces from the League. "Inasmuch as your Royal Majesty has repeatedly promised us to make no terms with the German king, but to supply us with an armed force and go in person to Rome to exterminate our common foe."[589] This missive had some effect, for Robert speedily despatched 400 horse to Rome under his brother John, who, with the help of the Orsini, soon won the chief vantage-points of the city. The king still feigned to act in the interests of the Empire; but no one was deceived by this pretence, and the Florentines were satisfied. Meanwhile Henry, still faithful to his original plan, and quite unconscious of the extraordinary change that was going on, had reduced Cremona to submission, and was now besieging Brescia, which opposed a more stubborn resistance. The "peaceful" monarch vented his rage on his prisoners and put one of the Guelph leaders to a most atrociously cruel death. But the Brescians still refused to surrender; the flower of the German army was perishing from sickness and wounds, and Henry's brother died of his hurts. During these days of slaughter, Florence wrote to the Brescians, saying, "Remember that the safety of all Italy and all Guelphs depends on your resistance. The Latins must always hold the Germans in enmity, seeing that they are opposed in act and deed, in manners and soul; not only is it impossible to serve, but even to hold any intercourse with that race."[590] At the same time they wrote to encourage other cities to make a stand and rise to arms. They summoned the Perugians "to shake off their bonds of vassalage, and proclaim the sweets of liberty"; repeating to all that, for their own part, they would unceasingly devote their arms, men, and gold to the task of resistance.[591] Also, for the greater reinforcement of the citizens and the Guelph party, they removed the ban from all exiles, probably well disposed to the Guelphs, only maintaining it against several hundred supposed Ghibellines, Dante Alighieri among the number. This modification of the Law of Banishment was known as the Amendment of Baldo d'Aguglione, one of the Priors by whom it was passed on September 2, 1311.[592] Meanwhile, after an heroic defence, Brescia was forced to accept terms of surrender, whereupon Henry immediately set out towards Genoa, entering that city on October 21, 1311. Here, though deeply grieved by the death of his wife, he allowed no delay in the necessary preparations for continuing his journey to Rome by the Pisan route. And, being informed of this, the Florentines redoubled their efforts. They strengthened the garrison of San Miniato al Tedesco, recalled from Bologna De la Rat and his troops, despatched reinforcements to Lucca, Sarzana, Pietrasanta, and the fortresses in Lunigiana, and the western Valdarno.[593] But remarkable as it may seem, they never neglected the interests of their trade, even at this critical time. In fact, they chose this moment to address the King of France, explaining the serious difficulties in which Henry's descent had involved them, and lamenting that the present war should have led His Majesty to take measures hurtful to the interests of their merchants, upon whom the prosperity of Florence so largely depended, "_cum Civitas nostra ex predictis Florentinis ex maiori parte consistat_. You have always hitherto protected them," they said in conclusion, "and our chief hopes are placed, after God, in your Majesty, especially now that Henry threatens to go to Pisa and march against us, _qui firmavimus et parati sumus nostram quam a vobis et a vestris recognovimus, defendere libertatem_." They likewise besought the king to order matters in such wise, that their trade with France might be pursued without interruption, even during the war.[594] Meanwhile the emperor had despatched another embassy to Florence, composed of Bishop Niccolò of Botrintò, and Pandolfo Savelli; but when these envoys finally reached Lastra, after encountering many mishaps by the way, they were not only robbed, but placed in mortal danger. The bells rang the alarm at their approach, armed men poured into their lodging, and the Podestà and Captain of Florence arrived barely in time to save their lives. Accordingly, by the advice of those functionaries, the strangers quitted the town in the utmost haste.[595] Thereupon (20th of November, 1311) the emperor cited the Florentines to appear before him in Genoa to tender apology and submission. Then, finding that--as was to be expected--they disregarded his summons, he placed their city under the ban of the Empire.[596] Even this was received with the same indifference as the interdicts of the Pope. But recalling their merchants from Genoa, they hastened their preparations for war. The magnates now gave another proof of their irrepressible turbulence. Precisely at this moment, and heedless of the grave danger menacing the Republic, they plunged the city in disorder with their private feuds. On the 11th of January, 1312, Pazzino de' Pazzi, one of the leading men, and much beloved by the people, was set upon and killed, as he rode to the chase, by Paffiera dei Cavalcanti, to avenge the loss of Masino de' Cavalcanti and Betto Brunelleschi, whose murder was attributed to Pazzi. The victim's body was carried to the Priors' Palace, and the indignant people rising to arms, marched under their own banner to the Cavalcanti houses, and burnt them to the ground. As the speediest way of checking these tumults, the Signory exiled the Cavalcanti at once, conferred knighthood on four of the Pazzi family, and presented them with certain lands and property in the gift of the Commune.[597] Thus, even at this juncture, order was soon re-established. IX. During this time Henry was preparing to go to Rome. In the Imperial camp minstrels were chanting the piteous tale of Conradin's death, and the popular muse of the Ghibellines continued to shower laudatory greetings on the just judge, the celestial peacemaker. Men of letters, poets, jurisconsults, and philosophers persisted in regarding Henry as the new redeemer who was to restore the Imperial crown to Rome, give Italy freedom and peace. Cino da Pistoia cried, "Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum."[598] But Dante Alighieri was the most exultant of all, for at this moment he was virtually the chief representative of the Imperial party in Italy. On Henry's first approach to the Alps he had addressed an epistle to the princes and governments of Italy, exclaiming, "Hosanna to thee, suffering Italy, now wilt thou be envied of all, for 'Sponsus tuus et mundi solatium et gloria plebis tuæ, clementissimus Henricus, Divus et Augustus et Cæsar, ad nuptias properat.' Let the oppressed rejoice, for their redemption draweth near. Let all who have endured injuries like unto mine forgive and grant pardon, for now the Shepherd that cometh from God will lead us all back to the fold."[599] Afterwards, however, when Henry was about to march on Cremona, and the Florentines had already declared openly against him, Alighieri's joy turned to wrath, and from the source of the Arno in the Casentino hills, he wrote another epistle, dated 31st of March, 1311, and addressed, "_Scelestissimis Florentinis._ Know ye not, God hath ordained that the human race be under the rule of one emperor, for the defence of justice, peace, and civilisation, inasmuch as Italy was always a prey to civil war whenever the Empire lapsed? Do ye dare, ye alone, to cast off the yoke of freedom and seek for new kingdoms, even as though _alia sit florentina civitas, alia sit romana_? Most foolish and insensate men, ye shall succumb perforce to the Imperial eagle. Know ye not that true liberty consisteth in voluntary obedience to Divine and human laws? Yet while presuming to claim liberty, ye conspire against all laws!"[600] Then, when instead of marching forward, Henry tarried in Lombardy, to attack the cities stirred to revolt against him by Florence, Dante's indignation rose to its highest pitch, and on the 16th of April of the same year he addressed another epistle to the emperor, saying, "Men declare that thou dost waver in thy purpose, and wouldst turn back from it, disheartened. Art not, then, the man expected by us all? When my hands touched thy feet, I exultantly cried, 'Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui abstulit peccata mundi.' Why tarriest thou? If thine own glory move thee not, let thy son's, at least, stir thee. "Ascanium surgentem, et spes hæredis Tuli Respice, cui _regnum Italiæ_, romanaque tellus Debetur.... (Æn. iv. 272.) What may it profit thee to subdue Cremona? Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia, and other cities will continue to revolt until thou hast extirpated the root of the evil. Art ignorant mayhap where the rank fox lurketh in hiding? The beast drinketh from the Arno, polluting the waters with its jaws. Knowest thou not that Florence is its name? Florence is the viper that stings its mother's breast, the black sheep that corrupts the whole flock, the Myrrha guilty of incest with her father. In fact it is Florence who rends the bosom of the mother--Rome, that created her in the likeness of herself, and violates the commands of the Father of the Faithful, who is agreed with thee. And Florence, while contemning her own sovereign, sides with an alien monarch and others' rights. Delay no more, but haste to slay the new Goliath with the sling of thy wisdom and the stone of thy might."[601] This semi-scholastic, semi-Biblico-classical, and often inflated language, admirably represents the ideas of the period, and proves the excited state of Dante's mind. He was undoubtedly the first to put clearly into words the new Ghibelline theory that had been gradually developing and maturing in his mind ever since he had indignantly parted from his fellow-exiles, and turned to solitary study. Although, as we have already remarked, this new conception--more amply developed in Dante's "Monarchia"--was certainly theoretical and literary rather than practical, it was deeply rooted nevertheless in the thought of the period, and the work devoted to its disclosure already shows, by unmistakable signs, that the spirit of the age was about to be transformed. In reading the "Monarchia" we are often plunged back in the Middle Ages, but the pale gleaming of a new dawn often shimmers before our eyes. "The Empire represents the law upon which human society is firmly based; it is derived accordingly from God, the source of the Imperial, as of the Papal power." In this we may already discern the conception of an independent secular society emancipated from the Church, and thus the idea of a State founded upon law--an idea inspired by ancient Rome, and suggested by new practical needs--is first put into words at the close of the Middle Ages which had denied its possibility. But even Dante failed to see that the new State must be intrinsically national, neither could he perceive that the universal Empire he invoked, and now represented by Henry VII., was precisely what made it impossible for that State to be formed. Thus the novel and almost prophetic portion of his book is neutralised by its theoretic and scholastic elements. The independent secular State, foreseen by his lofty intellect, was indeed bound to triumph; but its victory implied the destruction of the mediæval Empire of which his book was intended to be the apotheosis. On the contrary, the "Monarchia" became its epitaph, as some one has justly remarked. Nevertheless, some vaguely distant conception of the State, and even of the national State, occasionally flashes forth in Dante's book, though still battling with the mists of revived classic lore. The Empire is not, in fact, to be separated from the Eternal City that gave it birth, and of which it is the heir. Rome, the natural and permanent seat of empire, was to be restored to her ancient grandeur by the coming of the emperor. Also, were not Rome and Italy one and the same thing? Henry VII. was the representative, not only of law but of peace, freedom, and civilisation, therefore by him Italy's woes would be brought to an end, and Italy's freedom guaranteed. Was not Henry the master of the world? Hence he could desire nothing more, and could not fail to be the just lord and father of all, respecting every legally acquired right and jurisdiction. But it was precisely the emperor's yearning to be lord of all men and all things that was so opposed to the national spirit that was already beginning to stir many minds, and that--if almost unawares--Alighieri was so earnestly lauding, while practically denying it by imploring the resurrection of the Empire. This contradiction gave a truly tragic hue to Dante's mental state at the time. He was profoundly sincere, profoundly persuaded of the truth of his ideas. Inflamed with holy wrath against all supporters of the Pope and the Angevins, mindful of the deeds he had seen committed in Florence by Boniface VIII. and Charles of Valois, he had a premonition, amounting almost to second sight, of the numerous calamities to be wrought upon all Italy by the obstinacy of his opponents. But he failed to see that his own political theory would have thrust Italy back into the feudal Middle Ages, neutralising the work of the communes and the result of the prolonged struggles, in which he himself had been recently involved. The conflicting emotions stirring within him found vent in the "Divine Comedy" depicting two different and often contrasting worlds, and wherein the past is touched and transformed by a new spirit, made the source of a new future, new art, new literature and new civilisation. In this great poem the reality of human passion and human life breaks through the mystic clouds of the Middle Ages, and finally disperses them for ever. Therefore philosophers and historians may find in the poem all the constituents of an age in which one form of society was dying out, and another springing, almost visibly, to life. But although the conflict of thought in Dante's mind might produce immortal verse, it could not possibly create any efficient political system. On the latter point the advantage lay with the Florentines, inasmuch as they always clung to actualities and the needs of the moment. They weighed and counted their bales of silks and woollens, and calculated the probable damage to their import and export trade from the triumph of the Empire in Italy. They saw that it would inevitably ruin their commerce; and by assuring victory to their foes, _i.e._, to the magnates, Pisans, and many petty Italian tyrants, would overthrow their own freedom and the government of the guilds. Was not this belief justified by the fate of Milan, Cremona, and Brescia? This was why the Florentines called the Guelph cities to their side, and in the name of Italy, freedom, and their common independence, united them all in a defensive alliance against the foreign foe. Nevertheless they had also leagued with King Robert and espoused the cause of France and the Pope, whose triumph was destined to prove fatal to Italian liberty and independence. As we have previously shown, the nation could only be built up on the ruins and by the destruction of both parties. The long and difficult course of historic evolution requisite to prepare the way for a distant future was then unknown to all. The Florentines only thought of securing present safety, and in this they were well advised and fortunate. X. Meanwhile that "crowned victim of his own fate," as Del Lungo calls Henry VII., continued his advance with untroubled self-confidence. The royal peacemaker felt no remorse at having drenched Italian cities in blood and disseminated discord. Not even the loss of wife and brother, the slaughter of his best soldiers, the desertion of numerous adherents, nor the scathing contempt of his foes availed to shake his self-assurance and certainty of success. Calm and composed as ever, he entered Pisa on the 6th of March, 1312, was welcomed with great pomp, and remained amid this truly friendly population until the 23rd of April. While at Lausanne he had already received sixty thousand florins from the Pisans, and they now showed the sincerity of their submission to him by accepting new magistrates at his hands and promising a second gift of money equal to the first.[602] Neither did he feel the slightest alarm on hearing that the army of Robert's brother, Prince John, had gained reinforcements in Rome. That prince had brought with him a force of over six hundred Catalan and Apulian horse, and had now been joined by two hundred of the best Florentine cavalry, led by De la Rat, who, in addition to his Catalan troops, had also collected one thousand foot. Fresh contingents had poured in from Lucca, Sienna, and other towns. The Capitol, the Castle of St. Angelo, and Trastevere, and all the fortresses were therefore held by the prince. And as a final stroke, the Neapolitan king, after first stating that he occupied Rome for the Empire, now declared openly against Henry. Nevertheless the latter continued his march with only one thousand horse and a body of infantry, and on the 7th of May, 1312, entered the Eternal City. He quickly attacked and won the Capitol; but in seeking to force his way to St. Peter's to grasp the Imperial crown, a real battle took place in the streets; and a _sortie_ from Castle St. Angelo repulsed him with heavy loss. Nor would his coronation have been accomplished at all, had not the Roman people declared in his favour and by threats of violence compelled the prelates to disregard custom and perform the solemn rite in the Lateran Church on the 29th of June. But Henry was now obliged to recognise that even the Pope was adverse, when the latter commanded him to refrain from attacking Naples, to make a twelvemonth's truce with the king, to leave Rome on the day of his coronation, to renounce all rights over the Eternal City, and never re-enter it without permission. At last the Pope had dropped his mask, and the Florentines were proved good prophets. But at the very moment in which their Guelph policy triumphed, and the breach between Pope and emperor was so plainly revealed, the people proclaimed Rome an Imperial city and their Capitol the permanent seat of the emperor, whose authority was to be acknowledged as emanating from the Roman people alone. "Dum sola tribunitia, exterminatis Patribus, potestas adolevisset illo sub magistratu ... omnia hæc parari Cæsari, ipsum evocandum in Urbem, vehendumque triumphaliter in Capitolium, principatum ab sola plebe recogniturum."[603] Dante's own idea was now uttered by the voice of Rome. At last, and after much hesitation, Henry decided to adopt the advice proffered by the great poet some time before, and went to lay siege to Florence. Crossing the Roman Campagna in August, his army was decimated by fever, and after the capture of Montevarchi and San Giovanni, he halted at Figline.[604] The Florentines, without good commanders and with most disorderly haste, marched a large force of infantry and 1,800 horse to the Castle of Incisa. But they then declined to accept battle, and the emperor continued his journey by another route, vigorously repulsing every _sortie_ made from Incisa for the purpose of arresting his passage. On the 19th of September he invested Florence on all sides, establishing his headquarters at San Salvi. The citizens, having received no news from the army, were almost taken by surprise, but, snatching their weapons, hurried to the walls under the banners of the people, and accompanied by their bishop, sword in hand, together with all his clergy. Two days later the troops sent to take the field against the emperor made their way back to Florence across country; reinforcements arrived from Lucca, Sienna, Pistoia, Bologna, Romagna, and in short from all the cities of the League. Thus, Villani tells us, an army was collected of 4,000 horse and innumerable infantry. The emperor having only a force of 800 German knights, 1,000 Italian horse, and a considerable body of foot, was merely able to ravage the land. Fortunately for him, the year's harvest had been so abundant that there was no difficulty in provisioning his troops. Even now, in spite of their great numerical superiority, the Florentines still shrank from attempting a pitched battle; but inside the town they felt so completely secure that they only closed the gates facing the emperor's camp, leaving the others open to traffic as in times of peace. This state of things lasted to the month of November, but then Henry's patience being altogether exhausted, he raised the siege and set out for Poggibonsi and Pisa. The Florentines started in pursuit, and attacked him several times on the road, with varying results. The emperor tarried at Poggibonsi to the 6th of March, 1313, without provisions, or funds, and his army was so reduced that his cavalry had dwindled to 1,000 horse. Nevertheless he continued his march, and although, according to Villani, his assailants were four to one, he contrived to fight his way to Pisa, and arrived there on the 9th of March. At this time, although his health was ruined by mental worry and bodily hardship, his purse emptied, and his army melted away, the emperor was still calm and hopeful. In Pisa he made many attempts to pursue the war by legal devices: depriving the Florentines of their judicial rights, dismissing their judges and notaries, imposing heavy fines, and condemning many of their citizens to confiscation and punishment. And regardless of the fact that these sentences had no effect, he continued to launch them as before. He prohibited the Florentines from coining money, while permitting Ubizzo Spinola of Genoa and the Marquis of Monferrato to fabricate within their own territories false florins marked with the Florentine stamp. Naturally an act so damaging to the public credit provoked severe blame.[605] He condemned King Robert as a traitor to the Empire, and made alliance with Frederic of Sicily and the Genoese. He also determined to march against Naples, although the Pope had threatened excommunication on any one attacking that kingdom, which was considered a fief of the Church. Burning with zeal for this new enterprise, he demanded money and men from Lombardy and Germany. He was thus enabled to collect 2,500 foreign and 1,500 Italian horse, besides an army of foot soldiers. Seventy galleys were equipped by the Genoese; fifty by King Frederic. The Pisans, who had already sacrificed everything to his cause, managed to furnish twenty galleys. He also obtained a certain amount of money, and set off on the 8th of August, 1313, with some reasonable hope of success. But his sudden death at Buonconvento, on the 24th of May, brought everything to an end. On the 27th of the same month the Florentines exultantly announced to their allies that "Jesus Christ had procured the death of that most haughty tyrant, Henry, entitled King of the Romans and Emperor, by the rebel persecutors of Holy Church, to wit, your Ghibellines and our foes."[606] During Henry's life they had conferred the lordship of Florence on Robert for five years, and now stretched the term to three more, on the well-understood condition that their free, Guelph, and popular government should be left intact. All they asked from him was a military leader bearing the king's flag, acting in his name, contributing a few sturdy men at arms, and competent to take command of the citizen army in order to protect the Republic from possible attacks on the part of Pisa or Genoa, and against Ghibelline captains such as Uguccione della Fagguiola and others. Pisa and Uguccione were their most dreaded foes. The latter, indeed, had already hired one thousand of Henry's soldiers, composing the first of those Free Companies destined to speedily become the real scourge of Italy.[607] The Pope, now reduced to be the slave of France, threw himself into the arms of King Robert, and named him Senator of Rome, thus causing the return thither of Angevin vicars. As the Pontiff hoped to be able to assume the authority of the Empire during the interregnum, he annulled Henry's decree against Robert, and appointed him Imperial Vicar in Italy for a term extending to two months after the election of the next emperor. Notwithstanding Robert's augmented power and his lordship over their city, the Florentines were now vastly improved in strength, both morally and materially, since they had foreseen future events far more accurately than others, had been the chief authors of all that had occurred, and were the friends and allies of those who had triumphed with them. The people were substantially supreme; the magnates were overthrown; and trade which had gone on uninterruptedly during the war, attained more vigorous development now that peace was restored. But what had become of the Guelph Federation, and of the name of Italy invoked to call it into being? All had vanished in a flash. The very fact of the Florentines now feeling compelled to crave protection from a king, clearly proves that their vast prosperity, notwithstanding the Republic, had neither sufficient self-reliance nor strength to preserve its independence unaided. This state of things necessarily involved new complications and new dangers which could be in no case long averted. The Italian Commune was doomed to decay; the modern State destined to be born; but the moment of its birth lay beyond a period of oppression. The same fate was already distantly impending over Florence. After Henry VII. was dead, both the nature of the Empire and its relations with Italy were changed. So, too, the Pope's alliance with France radically transformed the attitude of the Papal power towards the Italian communes, for it became increasingly hostile to their freedom and independence. The Middle Ages had come to an end, and an entirely new epoch was now opening in the history of Florence and of Italy in general. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [1] Originally published in the Milan _Politecnico_, March, 1866. [2] "Lettres sur l'hist. de France." close of Letter xxv. [3] See, for example, Goro Dati's "Storia di Firenze." [4] Since this paper first appeared many important researches have been made on the origin of Florence and its Commune, particularly by Professor D. O. Hartwig, of whose estimable work we shall speak later on. Several general histories of Florence have also been published, of which the more noteworthy are the "Storia della Repubblica di Firenze," by the Marquis Gino Capponi (Florence, Barbera, 1875, 2 vols.), and "L'Histoire de Florence," by Mons. Perrens (Paris, 1877-90, 9 vols.), both to be mentioned farther on. [5] At the time when this sentence was written Malespini was held to be anterior to Villani, and the latter his plagiarist. Later, the contrary was proved by Scheffer-Boichorst, many of whose arguments admit of no reply. But Marchese G. Capponi refused to be convinced, on the strength of certain indications establishing, as he thought, that Malespini had written at an earlier date than Villani. Later again the diligent researches begun by Professor Lami confirmed the fact that Malespini's work is a compilation, chiefly, from Villani, and perhaps, though only here and there, from some other chronicler of possibly earlier date. The latter hypothesis would explain the deductions of Gino Capponi. [6] Published in Florence, 1838, 2 vols., at "The Sign of Dante" printing office. See also Gervinus, "Geschichte der florentinischen Historiographie." Frankfurt, 1833. [7] Capellæ, "Commentarii," of which eleven editions appeared between 1531 and 1542. Ranke, "Zur Kritik neurer Geschichtschreiber." I may now add that in my opinion Ranke was exaggeratedly hostile to Guicciardini, whose historic merits are proved by documentary evidence. _Vide_ my work on Machiavelli, end of vol. iii. [8] Here allusion is made to Capponi's "History," which was still unpublished at the time. [9] _Vide_ "Discorso Storico," chap. i. [10] Gino Capponi, "Lettere sui Longobardi." [11] Everything connected with the division of the land has been the theme of much dispute, both in Italy and abroad. It was learnedly treated by Troya, in his work on the "Condizione dei Romani vinti dai Longobardi"; Capponi and Capei discussed it with much subtlety in their "Lettere sui Longobardi" (appendix of the "Archivio Storico Italiano," vols. i. and ii.); so too Manzoni, Balbo, &c. The question turns on the interpretation of two passages in "Paulus Diaconus." The passage alluding to the first division made, when the Longobards seized one-third of the revenues of the land, is clear enough: "His diebus multi nobilium Romanorum ob cupiditatem interfecti sunt. Reliqui vero per hospites divisi, ut terciam partem suarum frugum Langobardis persolverent, tributarii efficiuntur." But the other is much less clear, and has been variously interpreted. This is the reading most generally adopted: "Hujus in diebus" (_i.e._, in Autari's reign) "ob restaurationem Regni, duces qui tunc erunt, omnem substantiarum suarum mediatatem regalibus usibus tribuunt; populi tamen agravati per langobardos hospites, partiuntur." But a tenth-century version, in the Ambrosian Codex, runs as follows: "Aggravati pro Longobardis, hospitia partiuntur." The division of the land (_hospitia_), and not of the fruits of the land, would seem more clearly indicated in this second reading, accepted by Balbo. Prof. Capei, on the other hand, while accepting the first reading, asserts that the word _partiuntur_ should be interpreted in an active sense. The conquered _divided_ their lands with their conquerors, and therefore were oppressed (_aggravati_), being compelled to yield one-half of their estates, but they had at least the advantage of retaining the other half in their own possession. [12] Among other authorities, _vide_ Gino Capponi, note to doc. 3, vol. i. of the "Archivio Storico Italiano." [13] Codex 772 of the Vatican Palatine Library, containing the so-called Lombard collection of Longobard laws. The discovery of the Florentine annals on the back of sheet 71 is owed to the librarian Foggini. He communicated his find to Professor Lami, who published part of the fragment, with notes. The whole was afterwards edited by Professors Pertz and Hartwig, and finally Professor C. Paoli issued an exact photo-type of the fragment in No. 1 of the "Archivio paleografico Italiano," edited by Prof. Monaci, of Rome. [14] This is a codex from Santa Maria Novella, now No. 776, E. A. (Suppressed Monasteries section), of the Magliabecchian Library. It consists of forty-six records, part of which (the first twenty-five, down to the year 1217) were published by Fineschi in his "Memorie Storiche degli uomini illustri di S. M. Novella," vol. i. pp. 330-332. [15] D. O. Hartwig, "Quellen und Forschungen zur Altesten Geschichte der Stadt Florenz." Part i. of this work was published in Marburg, 1875; part ii., containing both series of annals, at Halle, 1880. [16] First published by Fineschi (op. cit., vol. i. p. 257) and afterwards by Hartwig (ii. 185 and fol.), with many notes and additions. Some new names of Consuls are contained in the so-called "Chronicle" of Brunetto Latini, to be mentioned later on. [17] One was discovered by Pro. C. Paoli in the Laurentian Library, Codex xxviii. 8, _vide_ his paper "Di un libro del Dr. O. Hartwig," in the "Archivio Storico It.," tom. ix., anno 1882. Other copies were discovered by the late Prof. Lami, who intended to mention them in an essay on Malespini. [18] Discovered, but not published, by Follini, the editor of Malespini, in a codex of the Magliabecchian Library at Florence, shelf ii. No. 67. [19] In the Archives of Lucca, in a codex of the Orsucci Collection, O. 40. [20] This date (Hartwig i. 64) is not found in the Latin version, which is consequently held to be of earlier date. [21] "Appendice alle Letture di famiglia," vol. i. Florence: Cellini, 1854. [22] Hartwig, "Quellen und Forschungen," etc. [23] _Vide_ Professor Santini, in pt. i. doc. 18 of his forthcoming work, gives a document dated June 14, 1188, with the signature, "Ego Sanzanome index et notarius." In the Acts of the Tuscan League of 1197 (Santini, vol. i. 21, p. 37) we find the name of "Sanzanome de Sancto Miniato" among the signatures following that of the Consul of San Miniato. [24] Professor Paoli makes the same statement in his before-mentioned work. The Codex in question is the Magliab.-Strozz., Cl. xxv. 571. The "Gesta" were published about the same time by Hartwig (op. cit.) and by the Tuscan "Deputazione di Storia patria" (Cellini, 1876). [25] Just at this point there are several gaps in the Codex. [26] _Vide_ Weiland's edition in the Mon^{ta.}-Germ^{a.} xxii. 377-475, and the same editor's remarks in the "Archiv. der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichte," vol. xii. p. 1 and fol. [27] Ciampi, the editor of one part of it, and Scheffer Boichorst in his "Florentiner Studien." [28] Prof. Santini, who gave much attention to the subject, discovered in Florence twelve copies of Martin Polono, and three of its translations, all of the fourteenth century. Other copies have been found since by Prof. Lami. [29] "Impressum Florentiæ apud Sanctum Jacobum de Ripoli, Anno Domini mcccclxxviii." Other editions were produced in the sixteenth century. Prof. Santini has discovered three fourteenth-century MSS. of this work in Florence. [30] The Naples Codex is marked xiii.-F. 16. A similar codex of the fifteenth century, carried down to the death of Henry of Luxemburg, is in the Laurentian-Gaddiano Collection, cxix. [31] In pt. ii. of his "Quellen," &c., where these extracts are given under the title of "Gesta Florentinorum und deren Ableitungen und Fortsetzungen." [32] In mentioning certain Saracen nobles, sent as prisoners that year _alla Chiesa di Roma_, he adds: "_et io gli viddi_" ("and I beheld them"). [33] It comes down to 1303, but the concluding paragraph seems to be written by a later hand. But the preceding paragraph narrates events of 1297, and Brunetto Latini certainly died before then (1294). [34] Florence National Library, cl. xxv. Cod. 566. [35] This has also been clearly proved by Prof. Santini's numerous verifications. [36] Two very short records, or rather notes, were added by another hand where the gap occurs, namely: "Pope Adrian V., born of the Fiesco family of Genoa, 1276, reigned as Pope thirty days; the Chair vacant twenty-eight days. Pope Innocent VI. elected, who came from Portugal." The second note is certainly erroneous. Innocent VI. (Etienne d'Albert) was a Frenchman of Limousin birth, and was raised to the Papacy in 1352. But Adrian's successor was John XXI., a Portuguese. The author mistook _Johannes_ (probably written in an abbreviated form) for _Innocentius_, XXI. for VI. Even in other chronicles the two records stand together, and almost in the same words, but without the same blunder. [37] Codex Laur. Gadd. 77. On the back are these words: "Cronica romanorum Pontificum et Imperatorum." This title explains the connection of the Chronicle with Martin Polono, and why the MS. so long escaped the researches of students of Florentine history. The work of Professor Santini from which we have quoted being an essay sent in for his B.A. examination, was discussed at the Istituto Superiore, and an account given of it in the "Arch. Stor. It.," Series iv. vol. xii. No. iv. p. 483 and fol., 1883. The paper itself has remained unpublished, as Alvisi's discovery made its demonstrations superfluous. Santini regarded the Chronicle as one of great importance, since it records the names of certain consuls, omitted in all the others, but contained in newly discovered documents, now in type, and forming part of the work that will soon, we hope, be published by Signor Santini. [38] Baluzio Manzi, "Miscellanea," tom. iv. This Orsucci Codex, in the Lucca Archives, has been very minutely described by Hartwig (vol. i. xxx. and fol.), who, as before mentioned, brought out the Italian version of the legend he had extracted from it. [39] VIII. 36. [40] I. 1. [41] VIII. 36. [42] In the Acta Sanctorum. [43] "L'estoire de Eracles empereur, et la conqueste de la terre d'outremer (Receuil des historiens des Croisades)," translated into Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, Italian. For the sources consulted by Villani, _vide_ Busson, "Die florentinische Geschichte der Malespini" (Innsbrück, 1869), and Scheffer-Boichorst, "Die Geschichte Malespini, eine Fälschung," in his "Florentiner Studien." [44] _Vide_ Paoli's article on Hartwig's work. [45] "II y en eut (des consuls) tout au moins en 1101." And after quoting the document he adds this note:--"Devant de fait si positif, il serait oiseux de S'arrêter aux conjectures des auteurs même presque contemporains," p. 209. [46] Perrens, pp. 152-4. [47] Borghini, "Discorsi," vol. ii. pp. 27 and 93. Florence, 1755. [48] The ninth and last volume is now published, and extends to the fall of the Republic (1530-32). [49] Concerning the numerous errors contained in this first volume, Dr. Hartwig has written at some length in Sybil's "Historiche Zeitschrift," vol. iii. No. 3, anno 1868. Of the other volumes nothing need be said at this point. [50] Servius writes, in his Commentary on the Ænead (bk. iii. v. 104): "Dardanus Iovis filius et Electrae, profectus de Corytho [Cortona], civitate Tusciae, primus venit ad Troyam." And farther on (Com., bk. iii. v. 187), he says that "Dardanus et Iasius fratres ... cum ex Etruria proposuissent sedes exteras petere ecc." In tracing the genealogy of Æneas, he begins thus: "Ex Electra Atalantis filia et Iove Dardanus nascitur." This must have partly inspired the legend, although, according to the latter, Electra is the wife of Atlas and the daughter of Jove. _Vide_ Hartwig, vol. i. xxi. [51] Even Brunetto Latini, in bk. i. of his "Tesoro," makes the Catiline legend relate to the origin of Florence, records the great slaughter occurring at the battle wherein Catiline was routed, and also the subsequent pestilence. "E per quella grande peste di quella grande uccisione, fu appellata la città di Pistoia" (bk. i. chap. 37, in the vulgate of Bono Giamboni). The principal authorities for the historical information in the "Tesoro" are Dictys of Crete, and the "De excidio Troie," attributed to Dares the Phrygian. Undoubtedly the latter is also one of the sources of our legend. _Vide_ Thor Sundy, "Della vita e delle opere di Brunetto Latini," translated, with many additions, by Prof. R. Renier. Florence: Le Monnier, 1884. [52] The "Libro fiesolano" styles them Africans instead of Franks, _una compagnia venuta d'Africa_, as elsewhere, instead of _Ottone_ or _Otto_, it says _Ceto_, a blunder also found in the MS. that was printed. The blunders probably originated from some ignorant copyist of the legend, and were frequently repeated by later scribes. John of Salisbury ("Polikratikus," vi. 17, edit. Giles), in mentioning the cities built by Brennus, according to history, repeats the same story of Siena contained in the legend. He remarks that all this is not real history, _sed celebris traditio est_, adding, however, that tradition is confirmed by the fact that in their constitution, beauty and customs, the Siennese resemble "ad gallos et Britones a quibus originem contraxerunt." John of Salisbury's words are also recorded by Benvenuto da Imola in his Commentary on the "Divina Commedia," where he mentions that Dante intended to allude to this resemblance ("Inferno," xxix. 121) in the lines: "Or fu giammai Gente si vana come la senese? Certo non la francesca si d'assai." Boccaccio's "Commento" gives the same explanation of these lines. [53] The Latin compilation says: _quingentos annos et plus_; the Italian, and more modern versions, merely say, "five hundred years." [54] Even history tells us that Totila was in Tuscany towards the middle of the sixth century. [55] "Libro fiesolano", chap. xv. [56] This is also mentioned by Hartwig, i., xxiv., and fol. [57] The first to note this was Hegel: "Ueber die Anfange der florentinischen Geschichtschreibung," in Sybel's Historical Journal, No. 1, anno 1876. [58] Chaps. xvi. and xvii. of Follini's edition. [59] Villani, i. 41. [60] Villani, iii. 3. [61] _Vide_ G. Rosa, "Delle Origini di Firenze," in the "Archivio Storico Ital.," Series iii., vol. ii. p. 62 and fol. Hartwig, op. cit., and Milani, "Scavi di Mercato Vecchio," in the "Notizie degli scavi nel mese d' Aprile, 1887, Atti dell' Accademia dei Lincei." [62] In digging a sewer in the street called Borgo dei Greci, in 1886, the discovery was made in Professor Milani's presence, "at the depth of about three metres beneath the street level, and exactly beneath the pavement of the first circuit of the Amphitheatre, ... of a half _asse onciale_, weighing 12 grammes 25, undoubtedly coeval with the construction of the Florentine Amphitheatre. This kind of coin assuredly dates from 89 B.C., and was issued after the Plautian-Papirian decree reducing the weight of the aes from 1 oz. to 1/2 oz. The aes cut with a chisel were only in currency for a short time, and were withdrawn when the new coins were issued. Accordingly they must have ceased by the date of the second triumvirate (43 B.C.), when the aes was further reduced to the third of an ounce. We may therefore accept the conclusion that the Florence Amphitheatre was of the Sullian period. Opposed to this conclusion is the fact that, according to the report of Dione (li. 23), the first stone amphitheatre built in Rome was that of Taurus, dating from anno 30 B.C. But recalling how Cicero accused Sulla of having wasted treasures on magnificent buildings, exactly when he was under Fiesole, one is justified in assigning the construction of the Florence amphitheatre, and also of that of Pompei, to Sulla's day. Likewise the basements of the _Tuscanic_ columns, found _in situ_ near the Amphitheatre, and some architectural fragments discovered in 1887 on the south side of Santa Maria del Fiore, confirmed the opinion that some of the chief public buildings of Florence were connected with the times of Sulla and also with the last days of the Republic." (From a letter by Prof. Milani addressed to myself.) [63] The inscription (now lost) beginning thus: "Col[_onia_] Iul[_ia_] Aug[_usta_], Flor[_entia_]", should be differently interpreted, according to Mommsen, as referring to Vienne in Dauphiny. _Vide_ "Hermes," 1883, p. 176 and p. 180, note 1. Prof. Milani takes the same view regarding the new and important inscription recently found in the excavation of the Mercato Vecchio, containing the following words: "... Genio Coloniae ... Florentiae." _Vide_ "Scoperte epigrafiche nel Centro di Firenze," in the "Nazione," April 15, 1890. [64] Milani, "Relazione degli scavi," &c. [65] Villani, ii. 1 and 2, and also the "Chronica de Origine Civitatis." [66] Ibid., ii. 1, 2, 3. [67] _Vide_ Hodgkin, "Italy and her Invaders," vol. iv. p. 446 and fol. [68] Lami, "Lezioni," pt. i. p. 293. From a document also quoted by Maratori and Tiraboschi, it would seem that Florence was included, as it were, in the _city of Fiesole_; and therefore some of the Florentine churches were described as being in Fiesole. _Vide_ also pt. ii. p. 429 of the same work. [69] This is described in detail by Lami, Borghini, and Hartwig. [70] Villani, iii. 3. [71] Ibid., iv. 1. [72] Lami, "Lezioni," at preface to pts. cvi.-viii; Hartwig, i. 85, 86. [73] Villani, iv. 6. [74] Villani, iv. 7. [75] It is related by St. Pier Damiano in the letter quoted farther on. [76] Petri Damiani, "Epistolarum libri viii." Parisiis ex-officina nivelliana, 1610, _vide_ p. 727. The epistle (p. 721 and fol.) is addressed: "Dilectis in Christo civibus florentinis, Petrus peccator, monachus, fraternae charitatis obsequium." [77] Tocco, "L'Eresia nel Medio Evo," bk. i. chap. iii. pp. 207-228. [78] Passerini, "Arch. Storico Italiano," New Series, vol. iii. pp. 43, 44; Perrens, i. 85 and fol.; Hartwig, i. 88, 89; Capecelatro, "Vita di S. Pier Damiano," bk. vii. two vols. Florence: Barbera, 1862. [79] "Ad hec ille se inquit, neutrum jubere, neutrum velle, neutrum recipere. Quin etiam edictum a Preside per legatos suos impetravit, ut quicumque laicorum, quicumque clericorum se ut episcopum non coleret suique imperio non obediret, ad Presidem victus non duceretur, sed traeretur: si quis autem his minis territus, de civitate fugeret, ad dominium Potestatis assumeretur quicquid possedisset." Thus runs the letter dated _Millesimo lxviii idus februari_, and beginning, "Alexandro prime sedis reverentissimo, ac universali episcopo, clerus et populus Florentinus sincere devotionis obsequium." It was repeatedly, but incorrectly printed (_vide_ Brocchi, "Vite di Santi e Beati," p. 145. Florence, 1742; "Acta Sanctorum," iii. luglio, pp. 359, 379), in the two lives of St. G. Gualberto; included in the Laurentian Cod. xx. 22, in sec. xi. The letter placed at the end of the Codex itself is written in a different and somewhat later hand; but, according to the opinion of Prof. Paoli, who examined it at my request, the writing has every characteristic of the eleventh century, "and could not possibly be of later date than the first half, or rather first quarter of the twelfth century." It more resembles a narrative in an epistolary form than a genuine letter. The title given it in the Codex also supports this view: "Incipit textus miraculi quod Dominus," &c. We shall have to recur to the subject later on. At any rate, it is plain that the _Potestas_ above-mentioned has no relation with the Podestà of a later period. Here the term signifies _superior authority_--_i.e._, that of the Duke Goffredo. The _Preside_ I consider to mean Goffredo's representative in Florence. Both are old-fashioned, rhetorical terms, similar to those afterwards employed by Sanzanome. [80] The same letter, after narrating how certain persons, having taken refuge in an oratory, were threatened with expulsion, "extra Civitatem pellerentur," unless they made submission, also adds that those persons refused to obey. "Hincque factum est ut ... municipal. presid ... illos extra emunitatem oratori ... eiceret." The two abbreviated words in the Codex were printed in many different ways, changing the verb and often altering the whole phrase, to the reader's great confusion. Several colleagues I have consulted agree with my view, that the words should be rendered _municipale praesidium_. [81] This description is also taken from the same document. [82] The _Nuova Antologia_ of Rome, June 1, 1890. [83] In the Laurentian Codex previously referred to. [84] _Rhetor_ was then synonymous with _causidicus_. [85] Ficker's work pays great attention to this point, and is also treated by Fitting. _Vide_ "Die Anfänge der Rechtsschule zu Bologna." Berlin and Leipzig, 1888. [86] "Lege Digestorum libris inserta, considerata." So styled in a _placito_ of 1076, pronounced by an envoy of Beatrice at Marturi, near Poggibonsi ("prope plebem Sancte Marie, territurio fiorentino"), where the presence is also noted of Pepone, the precursor of Irnerius (Werner). A Florentine, who was contesting certain lands with the monastery, adduced the _temperis praescripto_, on the authority of the Digest, that, according to the legal custom of the time, he produced in court. _Vide_ Fitting, op. cit., p. 88. Zdekauer, "Sull' Origine del manoscritto Pisano delle Pandette Giustiniane." Sienna: Torrini, 1890. In a document of 1061, treating of a dispute between two Florentine Churches (_vide_ Della Rena e Camici, vols. ii. 2, p. 99), we find "Indices secundum romanae legis tenorem, utramque ceperunt inquirere partem." According to Ficker, the judges in question were Florentines: "und zwar schienen das die gewöhnlichen städtischen Iudices von Florenz zu sein." Ficker, iii. par. 469, at p. 90. Goro Dati, a chronicler who died at the beginning of the fifteenth century, stated in his Chronicle that the Florence notaries were the best reputed of all, although the most celebrated doctors of law were those of Bologna. _Vide_ Dati, "Storia di Firenze," Florentine edition of 1735, at p. 133. [87] Petrus Damiani, "De parentelae gradibus," in his "Opera, Opusc, viii," chaps. i. and vii. He combats here the opinion expressed by the _sapientes_ of Ravenna, in contradiction to the canonical law, as to the degrees of relationship prohibiting marriage. Touching a wise man he asserts to be a Florentine, he adds: "promptulus cerebrosus ac dicax, scilicet acer ingenio, mordax eloquio vehemens argumento." [88] Ficker says, in mentioning the before-quoted document of 1061: "Diese Romagnolen scheinen nun weiter kaum nur zufällig zu Florenz gewesen zu sein." [89] As regards the ever-increasing action of Roman law in Tuscany there is a very remarkable passage in the Pisan Statutes of 1161, in which it is said of that city, "a multis retro temporibus, vivendo lege romana, retentis quibusdam de lege longobarda." In a Siennese document of 1176, edited by Ficker (vol. iv. doc. 148), the Consuls declare: "Item nos professi sumus lege romana cum tota Civitate vivere." The mixture of Roman with Longobard or other legal systems is very frequent throughout the whole of the eleventh century, and even later on. Often, women who professed to live according to the Roman law, declared themselves at the same time as being under the _mundium_ of their sons or of others. [90] Lami, "Lezioni," preface, p. cxv and fol. _Vide_ also the documents published in Fiorentini's "Memorie delle gran Contessa Matilde" (Lucca, 1756); Della Rena e Camici, "Serie cronologica-diplomatica degli antichi duchi e marchesi di Toscana," pt. ii. These documents clearly show in what manner Matilda's tribunal was composed. [91] _Vide_ Fiorentini, doc. at p. 168; Della Rena e Camici, pt. ii. vol. ii. docs. xv. and xvi. pp. 106 and 108; vol. iii. p. 9; vol. iv. doc. xiv. p. 61. [92] "_Unthätiger Vorsitzende_," says Ficker, when clearly proving this fact. Vol. iii. par. 573, p. 294 and fol. [93] On this head Ficker remarks: "Dass schon früher die Gerichtsbarheit in der Stadt nicht durch die Feudalgewalt, sondern durch Bürger der Stadt als rechtskundige Königsboten geübt wurde." Vol. iii. par. 584, pp. 315-16. [94] "Consuetudines etiam perversas a tempore Bonifactii Marchionis duriter eisdem impositas, omnino interdicimus." Ficker, vol. i. par. 136, pp. 255-6, and the text of the document in vol. iv. pp. 124-5; Pawinski, "Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Consulats in den Comunen Nord und Mittel-Italiens." Berlin, 1867, p. 29. [95] "Nec Marchionem aliquem in Tusciam mittemus sine laudatione hominum duodecim electorum in Colloquio facto sonantibus campaniis." Murat., "Antiq." iv. 20. Also _vide_ Ficker and Giesebrecht, before cited, and Pawinski at p. 31. It has been suggested that some interpolations have been made in these patents (of which only an ancient copy survives, not the original), and especially in the second, but Ficker and Pawinski oppose this view. At any rate, the substance of both documents is now accepted by all the most competent writers. _Vide_ Ficker, vol. iii. p. 408; Giesebrecht (4th ed.), vol. iii. pp. 537-8. [96] Amari, "Storia dei Musulmani in Sicilia," vol. iii. p. 1 and fol. [97] We use the word _grandi_ here for the sake of clearness, although in this particular sense it only came into general use in Florence at a later date, and more particularly in 1293 in the days of Giano della Bella. [98] Pawinski, p. 31, note 3. [99] "Nec domum in predictis terminis relevari, neque ad triginta sex brachia interdici, permittemus" (Pawinski, p. 34). [100] Bonaini, "Statuti inediti della città di Pisa," vol. i. p. 16. [101] Frequent mention is made of counts and viscounts of whom, so far, there was no record in Florence. Later on, from causes that will be related, some few were found there. [102] But I cannot agree with Pawinski when, in noting this characteristic of Pisa and other similar communes, he neglects the popular, commercial element, that even in Pisa, as elsewhere, was very influential, and considers that the birth of the Italian Commune should be solely attributed to the nobles. [103] "Nisi fortitan communi Consilio Civitatis, vel maioris partis Bonorum vel Sapientum ... ad commune Colloquium Civitatis ... supra-dictorum hominum consensu et omnibus Pisae habitantibus" (Bonaini, op. cit., vol. i. p. 16). [104] Murat., "Antiq.," iii., 1099. A poem attributed to Guido da Pisa narrates the campaign of 1087 carried on by the Pisans, in alliance with Genoa, Amalfi, and Rome, against the Saracens in Africa, and cites the names of four Pisans:-- "Vocat ad se Petrum et Sismundum Principales Consules, Lambertum et Glandulfum Cives cari [clari?] nobiles." This, however, is a poetical work, and in order to accept it as a proof that these Consuls existed in 1087 it would be necessary to carry back to that year, at least, the first _concordia_ of Bishop Daiberto. This might not be impossible, seeing that he held the bishopric from 1085 to 1092, when he was named archbishop. _Vide_ Pawinski, p. 31, note 3. Leonardo Vernese recounts the expedition to the Balearic Isles (1113-15) in his "Carmen," and says:-- "Inde duo et denos de culmine nobilitatis Constituere viros, quibus est permissa potestas Consulis atque ducis." But the existence of Consuls at that time has been already proved by other documents. _Vide_ Pawinski, pp. 38-9. [105] The chronicler designates the chief families as _anteriores_, possibly because they were the first to settle in Venice; he represents them as a supreme and governing class, and in the list he gives of them mentions what trades they carried on. "Cerbani de Cerbia venerunt, anteriores fuerunt de omni artificio ingeniosi. Signati (variant: Cugnati) Tribuni Ianni appellati sunt, anteriores fuerunt, mirabilia artificia facere sciebant caliditate ingenii. Aberorlini ... anteriores fuerunt; non aliud operabantur nisi negocia, sed advari et increduli." And so on regarding other families exercising from generation to generation the same trade, commerce, or liberal profession. As to the guilds or _ministeria_, we find many expressions affording hints of their embryo organisation. "Hetolus autem appellatus est, quia ipse erat princeps de his qui ministerii erant retinendis." They were sadlers, cattle-herds, &c. Many more of these families are named in the list given in the Chronicle, and all seems to denote the continuation of a state of things that had existed during the lower Empire. [106] This document is in the Vatican (Urb. 440), and has also been examined by Gfrôrer. The ironsmith, Giovanni Sagornino, "insimul cum cunctis meis parentibus," appeals first to the Doge Pietro Barbolano (1026-31), and then to the Doge Domenico Flabiabico (1032-43), against the _gastaldo_ of the guild, who sought to compel him to labour at iron-work for the prisons in the palace yard, whereas Sagornino asserted his right, according to custom, of making the iron-work at his own house, when fulfilling his gratuitous task for the State. A regular suit was carried on; and being decided in favour of the appellant, the latter was permitted to do the work in his own shop. All this proves that well-defined traditional customs prevailed before the guild possessed written statutes (sec. xiii.), since these would have been mentioned had they existed at the time. The document we have quoted speaks at one point of the _gastaldo of the doge_, and at another alludes to him as the _gastaldo of the smiths_, because the director of the guild held his nomination from the doge. This is clearly evidenced in the thirteenth century by a decree (_pro-missione_) of the Doge Jacopo Tiepolo, dated March 6, 1229, and by another of the Doge Marco Morosini (June 13, 1249). Thus we see, on the one hand, how much the organisation of the Venetian guilds differed from that of the Florentine, while, on the other, we note how ancient and persistent in all Italian communes was the character of their institutions in general and of the trade guilds in particular. For the details given in this and the preceding note we are indebted to Prof. Monticolo, a man of great learning, and now engaged in important researches on Venetian history, of which the results will soon be published. Meanwhile we seize this occasion to express our thanks in print. P.S.--We may now add that Prof. Monticolo has already begun to publish his discoveries in "Le Fonti della Storia d'Italia," issued by the Istituto Storico Italiano. [107] Repetti, article on Gangalandi and Monte Orlando. [108] "Dum in Dei nomine, Domina inclita Comitissa Matilda, Ducatrix, stante ea in obsedione Prati," &c. Anno 1107. _Vide_ "Fiorentini," op. cit., bk. ii. p. 299. Villani, vol. iv. pp. 25 and 26; Hartwig, vol. ii. pp. 45 and 47; Repetti, art. "Prato"; "Arch. Stor. It.," Storie v. vol. v. disp. i., p. 108 and fol. Villani's narrative, however, is crammed with fantastic details concerning Prato. The destruction of Monte Orlando is not mentioned in vol. i. of the "Annales," which only begin with the year 1110; but is recorded in the Codex Neap. and in Tolomeo da Lucca. [109] The "Annales florentini," ii., followed by Villani, merely relate the destruction of the castle in 1113, without any comments, for the next event they mention relates to the year 1135. The "Annales florentini," i., say nothing about it in 1113, and place the "secunda et ultima destruccio murorum" in 1114. In 1119 they record two other attacks on the castle, "quem marchio Rempoctus defendebat": by the second of which the Florentines "Monte Cascioli ignem (_sic_) consumpserunt." It seems clear that three attacks were made in succession, and farther dispute on the point would be superfluous. [110] The "Annales," i. and ii., omit this event. The Neap. Codex assigns it, as does Villani, to the year 1117, but only says that the Pisans went to the Balearic Isles, and that "the Florentines guarded the city of Pisa" (Hartwig, ii. 272). The same account is given by Tolomeo da Lucca, but he dates the event in 1118; so, too, the pseudo Brunetto Latini, who records the gift of two porphyry columns, "by reason that the Florentines guarded their lands, while they were at the war," but adds nothing more to this statement. As to the error of date, we will merely remark that Capmany, in his "Memorias historicas sobra la marina ... de Barcelona," vol. i. p. 10, after narrating the expedition of 1113-15, goes on to say that Raimondo Berengario III. came to Pisa and Genoa in 1118, in order to promote another campaign. Perhaps the remembrance of this visit contributed to the mistake, the which, once made, was repeated by many subsequent writers. [111] Dr. Hartwig quotes particulars received from Dr. Wüstenfeld of a patent dated 1114, which would seem to show that the Florentines also took part in the expedition, in which case, he observes, the columns might have been the gift of the Pisans, and nevertheless part of the spoil taken in common. I caused a search to be made for the diploma in the Pisan Archives, and obtained it through the courtesy of Prof. Lupi. It is inserted in another patent, dated _vi. idus Augusti, 1233_, whereby King James of Aragon confirms the Pisans in the privileges conferred on them by the preceding diploma that "Berengarius Barchinione gloriosissimus Comes Pisanis fecit." This older patent is reproduced in the document, and bears this date: "M.C. quarto decimo ... septimo idus septembris, indictione sexta." Although several other words stand between those of decimo and septimo, this mode of writing the date may have been another cause of the blunder committed by the chroniclers who dated the event in 1117. Whatever may be thought of these very disputable theories, it is certain, on the other hand, that the privileges were conferred on the _populo pisano_, and that three of their Consuls were invested with them, and received "vice aliorum Consulum tociusque pisani populi," and that this concession was made "coram marchionibus, comitibus, principibus romanis, lucensibus, florentinis, senensibus, volterranis, pistoriensibus, longobardis, sardis et corsis, aliisque innumerabilis gentibus, que in predicto exercitu aderant." Therefore it was no mere alliance between one or two cities: it was the Pisan people in conjunction with many potentates from different parts of Italy. The chancellor of the Pisan Consuls drew up the diploma, in the presence of the Archbishop of Pisa, "qui Dompni apostolici in predicto exercitu vicem gerebat," of two _vice comites_ and nine Consuls, the names of the latter being given. This diploma had never been published in Italy; therefore Amari, who was much interested in the subject, wished to print, just before his decease, the copy I had sent him, although he had ascertained that it was already published in Spain by Moragues y Bover in the notes to a "Historia de Mallorca," by Don Vincente Mut, printed at Palma in 1841. [112] _Vide_ "Documenti che illustrano la memoria di una monaca del secolo xiii." ("Arch. Stor. It.," Series iii. vol. xxiii.). These documents are among the earliest of the thirteenth century, and contain the depositions of witnesses, alluding almost always to events of the twelfth century, and continually mentioning the monastery of Rosano, and of one who "defendit ipsum monasterium a Teutonicis" (_vide_ pages 206, 391-2, and other parts also). [113] The "Annales," i., record two fires (1115 and 1117), which destroyed the whole place; the Neap. Codex only mentions the second. Thomas Tuscus, writing in Florence about 1279, speaks of both the fires in his "Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum," attributing to that cause the destruction of many chronicles which he supposes to have existed, but which probably never existed at all. Villani adopted the same theory, being equally unable to understand that the Commune might have had no historians of earlier date. [114] Petrus f. Mingardole, who, "_ad defendendum se de crucifixo_," passed through the fire unhurt. Certain historians, unwilling to credit the existence of heresy in Florence at that time, have disputed as to the words _de crucifixo_, and proposed this reading instead: _cum crucifixo_ or _de crimine infixo_. But the facsimile of the Codex, published by Prof. Paoli, leaves no doubt on the point. [115] In fact, Simone della Tosa, a later chronicler, who may have copied from Villani at this point, after relating the second burning of the city in 1117, goes on to say that "the heresy of the _Paterini_ was then abroad in Florence." Pope Innocent III. (1198-1216), in discoursing on heretics, wrote: "Impii Manichaei qui se Catharos vel Paterenos appellant" (Ep. lib. x. ep. 54, in Migne's ed. vol. ii. p. 1147). Also, in the "Annales Camaldulenses" (vol. iii. app. p. 396) there is a sentence pronounced at Sutri, in 1141, running as follows: "Igitur universi qui vulgo Paterenses vocantur, eo quia, sub iugo peccati, retinebant omnia que de predicta ecclesia sancte Fortunate accipiebant." Therefore it is plain that the name of _Paterini_ (although strictly speaking that of a special sect, quite separate from others) was here applied to all those occupying Church lands, or opposed in any way to the Church. Hartwig, vol. ii. pp. 17 and 21. [116] _Vide_ the Chronicle, _ad annum_. As we have already observed, all information regarding this period is derived from the Gaddi Codex, discovered in the Laurentian Library a few years ago. The part beginning from 1181 is also contained in the autograph Chronicle that has been longer known to us; but being very difficult to decipher has not been much studied. [117] "Would to God that Ghibellines were declared to be _Paterini_!" So says the pseudo Brunetto Latini in the year 1215. [118] The MS. of the "Annales," i., writes, _Rempoctus_, not _Remperoctus_, as it was printed elsewhere. [119] Ficker, vol. ii. pp. 223, 224, par. 310; Murat., "Antiq.," iii. 1125. [120] Murat., "Antiq.," i. 315. [121] The "Annales," i., say that, "deo auctore, Florentini Monte Cascioli igne consumpserunt." The MS. really seems to run, _de auctore_, but this would be nonsense. Lami proposed the reading, _des auctoritate_, but this too would lack sense. The interpretation preferred and adopted by ourselves was suggested by Prof. Paoli. In combating the Empire and fighting for the Church, the Florentines believed themselves to be under Divine protection, and considering their adversaries as enemies of God, accordingly named them heretics and _Paterini_. [122] "Teneanla certi gentiluomini Cattani, stati della città di Fiesole, e dentro vi si riducevano masnadieri e sbanditi e mala gente, che alcuna volta faceano danno alle strade e al contado di Firenze" (iv. 32). [123] According to the "Annales," i., the war lasted less than three months, while Sanzanome stretches it to three years. Possibly the latter included all the attacks and skirmishes by which the war may have been prefaced. [124] Soldani, "Historia Monasterii S. Michaelis de Passiniano," p. 109, quoted by Lami, "Lezioni," i. 288. [125] In Passerini's collection of documents, quoted above, one finds, at p. 211, the following words: "Domina Sofia dixit et dicit quod est lxxx. annorum et plus, et recordatur de destructione Fesularum." Others give testimony to the same effect. [126] In a sentence given on December 30, 1172, we find seven Consuls named, a judge in ordinary, and three proveditors. The Consuls instal the judge, "huic missioni in possessum auctoritatem prestans." This document and many similar ones are in the Florence Archives, Curia di S. Michele. Some have been printed separately by Prof. Santini, in pt. ii. of a volume soon, we hope, to be given to the world. We call the reader's attention to the fact that we quote from his work not only with regard to documents which are still inedited, but also touching those already edited by other writers, because we know that he has carefully collated all with their originals. In his forthcoming work he will probably indicate which documents were discovered by himself, which simply reproduced. _Vide_ Santini, pt. ii. doc. i. In October, 1181, three Consuls preside "super facto iustitiae, nominatim in mense octobris." The judge _Restauransdampnum_ confirms the sentence (ibid., doc. ii.). There are other documents to the same effect, though we also sometimes find two Consuls for one month. On January 27, 1197, there are two Consuls of justice for January and February (Santini, pt. ii. doc. ix.), and so on for some time, two Consuls for two months. On February 28, 1198, the two Consuls are judges by profession; but, nevertheless, the assistance of a judge in ordinary--one _Spinello Spada_--is still required (ibid., doc. x.). This is an additional proof that the Consuls of justice did not exactly fulfil the function of real judges. From 1201 downwards we find one Consul of justice _per totum annum_ (ibid., docs. xiii., xv.). [127] On April 18, 1201--there being then a _Potestà_--we only find "Gerardus ordinarium iudex cognitor controversiae ... hanc sententiam tuli ideoque subscripsi," without a Consul of justice, who reappears soon afterwards (Santini, pt. ii. doc. xi.). It would seem that at Pisa it was the rule to nominate special judges, _electi_, or _dati a Consulibus et universo populo_, who pronounced judgment on their own account, sometimes in the presence of the Consuls. Elsewhere we find _Consules de placitis_, or _Assessores Consulum_ (as at Parma, for instance), who pronounced judgment without the intervention of the Consuls of the Commune (Ficker, iii. pars. 584 and 585). [128] Originally, Florence was divided in quarters (_quartieri_). The old city did not then comprise the part beyond the Arno, Oltrarno, which was only inhabited by a few "low folk of small account" (Villani, iv. 14). Afterwards, but from the earliest days of the Commune, the city was arranged in _sestieri_, of which the Oltrarno formed one. In the year 1343 (Villani, xii. 18) the division in four quarters was resumed. [129] It is dated January, 1165, and is to be found in the Florentine Archives (S. Appendix ii. doc. i. p. 517). It is an act of donation, giving part of a house to the members of the _Società della Torre_ of Capo di Ponte: "Tam qui modo sunt, aut in antea fuerunt ex Societate vestre turris de Capite Pontis." [130] On two scraps of parchment dated 1179 and 1180, together with a document, part of which dates from May 16, 1209, and part from an older period, in the Florence Archives. The Statute of the Podestà (in 1324) also mentions the Societies of the Towers. The whole question has been minutely studied by Prof. Santini in his learned work on the "Società delle Torri in Firenze," first published in the "Arch. Stor. It.," Series iv. t. xx. 1887, and subsequently in a separate form. In Appendix ii. of his previously quoted work the author includes several documents relating to these societies. They are respectively dated 1165, 1179, 1180, 1181, 1183, 1201, 1209, &c. [131] In the above-quoted, separate, work, at p. 55, and fol. Prof. Santini names many of these families, and supports his statements by documentary evidence. [132] On this point I differ from Santini. The rural societies he has been able to discover are few in number, of a different nature from the others, and of less ancient date. Out in the country the principal basis of the society was lacking--_i.e._, the tower surrounded by houses belonging to different members. [133] Villani (v. 32) also tells us that Florence was under "the rule of Consuls chosen from the greatest and best of the city, with a council of the senate", that is of one hundred worthies, and that, as in Rome, all these Consuls "guided and governed the city, holding office for one year." He arbitrarily fixes their number at four or six, according to the division of the city in quarters or sixths, and adds that, whenever mentioned, only the chief Consul was named. January seems to have been the time fixed for the election. In 1202 we find the same Consuls in the first and second half of the year (March 1 and October 1). This would likewise prove that the year was not then begun on the 25th of March, according to Florentine style (Santini, doc. v.). In Sienna, January was the time of the election, and on the evidence of the chroniclers one may infer that it was the same in Florence. [134] The first document recording the names of consuls is dated March 19, 1138 (quoted by Hartwig, ii. 185, from the "Memorie di Lucca," vol. iv. p. 173, doc. 122), and states that "_Broccardus et Selvorus_" promise "_pro se et pro sociis suis_." The second is dated June 4, 1138 (Santini, pt. i. doc. ii.), and in this a Count Ugicio (or Egicio) receives "launechild et meritum a Burello et Florenzito Consulibus, vice totius populi." These two documents of the same year do not contain identical names, perhaps because they only give those of the _Consules priores_, who sat in turn, as we have before remarked. Even in Sienna the _Consules priores_ seem to have been continually changed. _Vide_ Caleffo Vecchio for June, August, October, 1202; Caleffo dell' Assunta, 1202. And when Consuls were replaced by Governors, each of these was _Prior_ for one week. In two Florentine documents, among the Capitoli, dated April 7, 1174, and April 4, 1176 (Santini, pt. i. docs. vi. and ix.), all the Consuls--ten in number--are named, possibly the Consuls of justice being omitted. But, on the other hand, in an oath sworn by the men of Mangona to Florence (October 28, 1184, in Santini, pt. i. doc. xv.) we read: "Annualiter dabimus unam albergariam xij. Consulibus Florentie." Even in 1204 we find twelve; but more than twelve are recorded in the documents of the League (1197-8), and likewise in the year 1203. We have already given the probable explanation of this fact. The _Consules priores_, also existing in other communes, are seldom mentioned in Florence by the name of _Priores_, especially in early days. But there is one doc. dated October 24, and November 7, 1204 (S. pt. i. doc. liii.) saying: "Potestas Florentie vel Consules eiusdem civitatis, omnes vel maior pars vel Priores aut Prior eorum." So, too, another document dated October 15, 1200. [135] Santini, pt. i. doc. xii. [136] Ibid., pt. i. doc. xv. [137] There were, in fact, Consuls of the Commune, of the guilds, of the Arno, of the city gates, of the Societies of the Towers, and the latter were more specially styled Rectors. Yet even "Rectors" was a generic term, indicating all who governed, and there were Rectors of the Towers, of the city, and of the guilds. _Potestas_ then indicated the supreme authority in general, and was only converted later on into a special and separate office. [138] There are so many examples of this, that quotation is unneeded. It was the usual formula in other cities as well as in Florence. In the treaty drawn up between Lucca and Florence (July 24, 1184), from which we have already quoted, there was a proviso in case there might be no Consuls at Lucca, no _Lucana Potestas_, and this addition was accordingly made "aut bonos viros lucensis civitatis, si Consules vel Rector aut Potestas tunc ibi non fuerit." [139] "Forte Belicocci Senator eiusdem [Florentiae] Civitatis" (in a document dated April 15, 1204, Santini pt. i. doc. li). Another document of November 13 and 14, 1197, in the Acts of the Tuscan League, we find the name _Bilicozus_ among the _consiliarii_ present. In the "Breve Consulum Pisane Civitatis," of 1162, edited by Bonaini, the councillors are styled _senatores_. [140] This document (Santini, pt. i. doc. xxii.) is that of November 13 and 14, 1197, and also one of those of the Tuscan League. It should be remarked, however, that even at this grave juncture there were more than twelve Consuls; so, too, for similar reasons, either the number of the councillors was augmented, or else (being towards the end of the year) some of the newly elected members sat together with those about to retire. [141] The term _arengo_, _arrengo_, _aringo_, or _arringo_, was derived from the verb _arringare_, to harangue, in the same way as parliament from the verb _parlare_, to speak. [142] In Italian communes _habitatores_, and even _assidui habitatores_, are clearly distinguished both from _cives_ and foreigners. Florentine documents often mention _cives salvatichi_, a term that indicates, I believe, the quasi citizenship of persons living in the country, but bound to dwell in the city during part of the year. These greatly increased in number later on, and in course of time became real and entire citizens, in accordance with certain rules not yet fully known to us. [143] Many examples of this have been found by us among _provvisioni_ (or decrees) of later date. [144] _Nuova Antologia._ Rome, July 1, 1890. [145] Ficker, vol. ii. par. 310, p. 223. Here the names of many of these envoys are given, and what scanty details are known concerning them. To Rabodo (died 1119) succeeded a Corrado (1120-27), afterwards a Rampret (1131), then an Englebert (1134), then Errico of Bavaria (1137), immediately followed by Ulrico d'Attems, then the Duke Guelfo (1160-62), uncle to the Emperor Frederic I., by whom he was sent. [146] "Annales," i. [147] "Annales," i.; Sanzanome, Florentine ed., p. 128; Villani, iv. 36. [148] "Annales, i.; 16 kal. Iulii. Ingelbertus Florentiam est ingressus." [149] "Annales," i.; Otho of Friesland, _vide_ Pertz, xx. 264, and the Annali Senesi. [150] Sanzanome, Florentine ed., p. 129. [151] This is related by an eye witness in the Passerini collection of documents (often quoted to us) at p. 389. The "Annales," i., manifestly err in assigning precisely this date of 1147 to the capture of Monte Orlando, which really happened in 1107. The erasures in the Codex just where the date and places of the event narrated are written--_i.e._, before the entry in Florence of Henry IV., 1111--also serve to prove that a blunder had been made. [152] The above-quoted Passerini Documents make repeated mention of the reconstruction of the walls, both at p. 394 and p. 217. It records at the same point the subsequent destruction of Monte di Croce: "Et dixit quod sunt lx. annos quod fuit destructus Mons Crucis." Both Villani (iv. 37) and the pseudo Brunetto Latini give the date of 1154; the "Annales," ii., the Neapolitan Codex, and Paolino Pieri, that of 1153. Sanzanome, according to his frequent practice, gives no precise date even here (at p. 130). He merely says that the first attack on the castle took place in 1146. [153] Santini, i. doc. iii. dated April 4, 1156. [154] "Constituit etiam Teutonicos principes ac dominatores super Lombardos et Tuscos, ut de caetero eius voluntati nullus Ytalicus resistendi locum habere ullatenus posset. Vita Alexandri," in the year 1164. In the "Cronica Urspergense," of the year 1186, we read that: "Coepit Imperator in partibus Tusciae et terrae romanae castra ad se spectantia, suae potestati vendicare, et quaedam nova construere, in quorum presidiis Teutonicos praecipue collocavit." _Vide_ Ficker, vol. ii. par. 311, p. 227. [155] "Nullus enim Marchio et nullus nuntius Imperii fuit, qui tam honorifice civitates Italiae tributaret, et romano subiceret Imperio." _Vide_ the Annali Pisani, in Pertz's Mon^{ta.} Ger^{ma.} xx. 249. Ficker, vol. i. par. 137, p. 259. [156] Ficker, vol. i. par. 122-4. [157] _Vide_ the Passerini Documents, pp. 208, 394-400. [158] Some of these depositions have been printed before, but the whole collection is now given in Santini, i. doc. xlv. They are dated May, 1203, but naturally refer to a much earlier period. _Vide_ Santini, pp. 115, 117-19. [159] _Vide_ the treaty given in Santini, i. doc. iv. [160] Count Macharius was the Imperial representative at San Miniato. Ficker gives a list of other German counts in that castle (vol. ii. par. 311, p. 227 and fol.). [161] "Castrum autem intelligimus recuperatum etiam sine superiori incastellatura." [162] At this moment many former partisans of the Empire were fighting against it. Pisa is one example. [163] Nevertheless it was not kept among the _Capitoli_ comprising real official documents, but among papers of an almost private nature. Hartwig was the first to bring it to light (ii. 61); and it was afterwards reprinted verbatim in Santini, pt. iii. doc. i. [164] Tommasi, "Storia di Lucca," in the "Arch. Stor. It.," vol. x. _ad annum_; Roncioni, "Istorie Pisane," in the "Arch. Stor. It.," vol. vi. _ad annum_; Marangoni, i. 285; Ottoboni, "Annales," i. 95; Hartwig, ii. 58-63. [165] _Vide_ Santini, i. docs, v., vi., vii., viii. The first of these is dated Feb. 23, 1173; the others are of April 7, 1174. [166] "Annales," ii., year 1170; Villani, v. 5. [167] "Annales," ii.; Sanzanome; Villani, v. 6; Neapolitan Codex (here, however, the event is ascribed to the year 1175); Repetti, art. "Asciano"; Hartwig, ii. 64-5. [168] This treaty (in which not only the emperor, but also Christian of Mayence, and Count Macharius, who was then at San Miniato, are expressly named) is in the Siennese Archives, Caleffo Vecchio, at c. 9, and Caleffo dell' Assunta, at c. 53. Dr. Hartwig published a large summary of it, made by Wüstenfeld. Thanks to the kindness of Cavaliere Lisini, Director of the Sienna Archives, we were enabled to obtain a copy of the treaty, and of other documents connected with the peace. Some belonging to Florence are comprised in Santini's work, i. docs. ix., x., xi. (April 4 and 8, and December 11, 1176). [169] "Et quod Comunis Senensis acquisierit extra eorum episcopatus et comitatus, dabo medietatem Florentinis." In the above-quoted treaty among the Siennese Archives. [170] Nevertheless, in the year 1174, we find a Guido Uberti on the list of Consuls. Santini, i. doc. vi. [171] Villani, v. 8. The "Annales," ii., of 1177, say that "Orta est guerra inter Consules et filios Uberti; eodem anno combusta est civitas florentina." The Neapolitan Codex dates the first fire the 4th of August, as Villani also does, and gives the commencement of the civil war immediately afterwards, the which "filled two years." Paolino Pieri dates the first fire August 4, 1174, and the fall of the bridge and the second fire in 1178. Tolomeo da Lucca merely states that a revolution broke out in 1177 and lasted for two years. [172] Chronicle of the pseudo Brunetto Latini, _ad annum_. [173] We subjoin an extract from the pseudo Brunetto Latini, as it stands in the Gaddi Codex, with all its blunders. After giving an account of the revolution, the chronicler goes on to say: "Then in the year 1180 the Uberti gained the victory, and Messer Uberto degli Uberti and Messer Lamberto Lamberti were consul and rector of the city of Florence, together with their companions, and these formed the first consulate of the city, the which was brought about by violence, only afterwards they began to rule the city according to reason and justice, every one preserving his own position, so that it was decided by the citizen Consuls to summon powerful nobles of foreign birth to fill the post of Podestà, as will be shown to you in writing farther on." It is strange that the chronicler should ascribe the origin of the Consuls to so late a date. But, seeing that his list of these magistrates only begins at this point, it would seem that he really believed them to have no earlier origin. Nevertheless, shortly before, in writing of 1177, he had stated that the Uberti began to make war on the Consuls; hence it is clear that even in his opinion they had existed before the year 1180. Still, blunders and incongruities of this sort are frequently found even in Villani and other chroniclers of the same period. [174] Santini, i. doc. xii. This is the document stating that the tribute of fifty pounds of "good money" was to be paid to the Consuls of the city, or, failing these, to the Consuls of the merchants, authorised to receive it for the Commune. [175] This had been granted them in an Imperial patent, given at Pavia _iv. Idus Augusti_, 1164, the which has been published several times, and is also included in the "Storia della guerra di Semifonte," by Messer Pace da Certaldo (p. 5). As all know, this is a counterfeit "Storia" dating from the beginning of the seventeenth century. [176] Santini, i. doc. xiii. This is the document with the erroneous date, 1101, rectified by Marquis Capponi to 1181 (modern style, 1182). [177] Villani, Paolino Pieri, the Neapolitan Codex, and the pseudo Brunetto Latini. The "Annales," ii., wrongly assign the event to 1172. [178] Santini, i. doc. xiv. The terms were not to be altered without the consent of the Consuls of either city, together with that of at least twenty-five councillors on either side; and the Consuls of the soldiery and of the merchants were to be included in the number. We note that in naming the Consuls a hint is already given of the possible election of a Podestà, although none had as yet been chosen in Florence. This subject will be resumed later on. Meanwhile, the words of the document run as follows: "Inquisitis florentinis Consulibus, vel florentina Potestate, sive Rectori vel Dominatore a comuni populo electo." On Lucca's side mention is also made of the "bonos viros lucensis civitatis, si Consules vel Rector aut Potestas ibi non fuerint." [179] The "Annales," ii., the pseudo Brunetto Latini, and the Neap. Cod. date the event in 1185; Villani (v. ii.) dates it instead 1184, and says that Pogna was occupied by nobles, who were _cattani_ and hostile to Florence. We follow Villani, for otherwise it would be impossible to explain the captivity of Count Alberto in 1184, an event confirmed by documentary evidence. [180] Santini, i. doc. xvi. and xvii.; the first dated November, 1184, and the second, November 29, 1184. [181] Hartwig, ii. 79. [182] Villani, v. 12. [183] The "Annales," ii., and Paolino Pieri except Pisa alone; Villani, the Neap. Cod., and the pseudo Brunetto Latini except both Pisa and Pistoia. [184] The chroniclers only say, with obvious inexactitude, for ten miles round. [185] This diploma is given in Ficker, iv. doc. 170, p. 213. Henry (then Henry VI., King of the Romans, afterwards, as emperor, also called Henry V.), after granting the concession, adds: "Excepto ac salvo iure nobilium et militum, a quibus etiam volumus ut Florentini nihil exigant." The diploma only refers in general terms to the services rendered by the Florentines to Henry and to his father, Frederic I. Villani considers the grant a reward for their prowess in the Crusade; but the Crusade took place in 1189, and the grant was made in 1187; for although he wrongly dates the latter in 1188, this blunder does not suffice to remove the anachronism. Besides, he also states that the concession was granted through the intervention of Pope Gregory VIII., who was elected in 1187, and died the same year. [186] In 1186 Perugia was granted judicial rights over the _contado_ beyond the walls: "Exceptis domibus et possessionibus, quas habent marchiones et monasterium S. Salvatoris," and, excepting several nobles, specified by name, "in quibus nihil iuris Perusinis relinquitur." Ficker, i. par. 128, p. 242. Sienna, after being deprived of the _contado_ in June, 1186, received it back in October, under the same conditions, and so, too, Lucca in the same year. Ficker, i. par. 125. p. 239, and par. 128, p. 2 2. [187] Ficker often gives the names of these Imperial Podestà, as gleaned from the depositions of witnesses. _Vide_ Ficker, vol. iii. p. 440. Hartwig (ii. 192) cites one _Henricus comes florentinus_, also mentioned by Stumpf and who seems to have been a Podestà of the _contado_ in September, 1186. After all this, it is not surprising that the Imperial authority should be often referred to in documents of the latter half of the twelfth century. We may cite some instances from the rolls of the Florence Archives: October 14, 1175 (Passignano), "Sub obligo Consulum Florentinorum vel Nuntio Regis"; October 9, 1185 (Passignano), "Sub duplice pena Imperatoris et eius Missi aut quicumque habuerint dominium pro tempore." (Reference is here made to the _contado_, and is another proof of the uncertain rule previously described by us.) [188] "Liberalitate benefica ipsos respicere volentes, concedimus," &c. ... "huius munifice nostre concessionis." [189] In 1184, _vide_ in addition to the chroniclers, Santini, i. docs. xiv., xv., xvii. and Hartwig, ii. 191. For the years 1185, 1186, and 1187, besides the names recorded by the pseudo Brunetto Latini, the documents furnish frequent allusions of the following kind: April 30, 1185 (Passignano), "Sub obligo Consulum Florentie resarcire promitto"; December 13, 1185 (Santa Felicità), "Sub obligo Consulum Florentie"; April 26, 1186 (Passignano), "Penam ad Consules Florentie"; September 21, 1187 (Arch. Capitolare, 629), "Consulum vel Rectorum pro tempore Florentie existentium (Actum Florentie)." The rolls of the Arch. Capitolare were examined by Santini, to whom we are indebted for the information; those of the Florence Archives we have personally examined, but some of these were first brought under our notice by Santini. In 1189 there were undoubtedly Consuls. Not only are the names of three of them recorded by the pseudo Brunetto Latini, but documents give the names of the Consuls of justice. Santini, ii. docs. v. and vi. [190] Ficker (ii. par. 313, p. 234) cites the words of Pillius, a jurist of the period: "Ut quando faciunt castellanos vel comites in Tuscia"; and, further on: "Sicut fit hodie illis, qui pracficiuntur in singulis provinciis, vel in parte alicuius provinciae, ut in comitatu senensi, florentino vel aretino." [191] They are both named in the Passerini documents, from which we have frequently quoted. [192] According to the results of Hartwig's inquiries, between 1150 and 1180. [193] We find in the Passerini documents (p. 206) that one of the witnesses states that Count Guidi "defendit ipsum monasterium [of Rosano] a Teutonicis et a Renuccio de Stagia, quando erat Potestas Florentinorum, et a Consulibus Florentinis." [194] October 14, 1175 (Passignano), "Sub potestate consulum Florentinorum vel Nuntio Regis"; July 5, 1191 (Arch. Capitolare, 347), "Sub pena Consulum Florentie vel Potestatis"; April 15, 1192 (Arch. Capitolare, 449), "Sub obligo Potestatis vel Rectorum pro tempore Florentie existentibus"; November 7, 1192 (Passignano, in the Church of St. Biagio), "Sub obligo Potestatis in hac terra existentis" (here allusion is possibly made to some Podestà of the _contado_); May 9, 1193 (Passerini documents in the Florence Archives), "Sub obligo Potestatis vel Consulum Florentinorum ... Actum Florentie." According to these and other rolls examined by me in the Florence Archives, the change is seen to have been carried out in a regular and steady manner. The ancient formulas reappear from time to time. [195] "Inquisitis florentinis Consulibus, vel florentina Potestate, sive Rectore vel Dominatore ... florentini Consules vel florentina Potestate sive Rector vel Dominator" (Santini, i. doc. xiv). [196] Santini, i. doc. xx. [197] Santini, ii. doc. viii. His name is _Corsus_, and at one point he is styled a councillor _super facto iustitie_, at another, _consul iustitie_. [198] In the years 1193 and 1195 he still mentions the Consuls, and even by name. These may have been the _consiliarii_ of the two Podestà known to have existed in those years. It is well to observe here that all this would have been impossible in the case of Imperial Podestà, had there ever been any in Florence. They could never have appeared in the light of chief Consuls. [199] Florence Archives, "Bullettone," c. 131. July 10, 1196: "Dominus Petrus episcopus habuit tenutam a consulibus curie Communis Florentie." In the years 1197-99, _vide_ the documents of the Tuscan League, quoted later on, and Hartwig, ii. 194. [200] In the year 1197, Paolino Pieri tells us: "San Miniato al Tedesco, or rather its fortress, was destroyed." In 1198, he tells how "San Genesio was pulled down by the inhabitants" (_terrazzani_), who then returned to the hill-top, and rebuilt San Miniato. Villani (v. 21) says that San Miniato was destroyed, and its inhabitants came down to St. Genesio in the plain. _Vide_ also the "Annales," ii., and the Neap. Cod., _ad annum_. Hartwig (ii. 93) has examined the question minutely, and swept away all inaccuracies and exaggerations. [201] "Annales," ii., Neap. Cod., _ad annum_, Villani (v. 22). From the reports of eye witnesses, published by Passerini, one sees that Montegrossoli was troublesome to its neighbours, and even Villani says that it was held by _cattani_, who made continual attacks on the Florentines. [202] _Vide_ the "Acts of the League" (November 11 and December 14, 1197; February 5 and 7, 1198), in Santini, i. doc. xxi., and in Ficker, vol. iv. p. 242, doc. 196. Ficker uses some of the documents preserved in Florence, and also some of those at Sienna which are more complete and correct at certain points. [203] Sed Podiumbonizi possit recipi per capud. [204] _Vide_ the "Acts of the League" in Ficker, vol. iv. p. 246. [205] "Atti della Lega." The Florentines swore to the League on November 13 and 14, 1197. The document in Santini, i. doc. xxiii. gives the names of sixteen Consuls and 133 councillors who took the oath. In a preceding document, also relating to February 5 and 17, 1198, there are the names of ten Consuls, but three of them are not the same on both days, so that there must have been more than twelve Consuls in February, 1198. Some, too, were already in office even in November, 1197, and this confirms our previous hypothesis that, on the great occasion of the League, all or part of the withdrawing Consuls remained in office with those just elected. Nor is this a solitary instance. On April 2, 1212, the Commune of Prato, in arranging a treaty with Florence, sent three _Consules veteri_, and three _Consules novi eiusdem terre_ to conclude it. Santini, i. doc. lx. [206] Innocentii III., "Epistolae," i. 15, 27, 34, 35; Ficker, vol. ii. par. 363, p. 384. [207] Instead of mentioning the _Ducatus Tusciae_, he now spoke of the _magna pars Tusciae, quae in nostris privilegiis continetur_. To the Pisans he wrote, "Post correctionem adhibitam, nihil invenimus quod in ecclesiastici iuris vel cuiusquam maioris vel minoris personae praeiudicium redundaret." And in February, 1199, he urged them to join the League. Innocentii, "Ep.," bk. i. 401 and 555; "Gesta Innocentii," c. ii.; Ficker, vol. ii. par. 363, pp. 385-6. [208] Santini, i. docs. xxiii., xxiv., xxv. The first is dated the 10th; the second, April 15, 1198; and the third, giving the names of the men of Figline swearing fealty to the League, is also dated the 15th of April. The second alludes to the chief Consuls: "Comandamenta Consulum florentine civitatis omnium vel maioris partis aut priorum ex eis." The third informs us (pp. 43 and 44) that the oath was sworn: "In Florentia, in ecclesia S. Reparate et Parlamento, coram florentino populo iuraverunt." Also further on: "In ecclesia S. Reparate, in Aringo." This is another instance of the parliament being convened in a church. [209] Santini, i. doc. xxvi. Obedience was sworn to the Consuls or Rectors _vel segnoratico aliquo extante_. This, too, is an expression having very little savour of the more democratic temper of former times. [210] In Villani (v. 26) he is wrongly styled Count Arrigo della Tosa. The Della Tosa family were not counts. The pseudo Brunetto Latini speaks of him in an undated paragraph, anterior to his record of 1200, as "Messer Arrigo, count of Capraia." [211] As we have stated, it seems to be for this reason that the pseudo Brunetto Latini dates the office of Podestà from this moment: "A novel thing was done, and for the first time a Potestade was elected in Florence, from jealousy of the Consuls, the which Potestade was Paganello Porcaro of Lucca." [212] Santini, i. doc. xxvii. (February 12 and 23, 1200); doc. xxviii. (February 12 and 19); doc. xxix. (February 12 and 23, and March 25). In these papers the Podestà is always mentioned with the councillors, and the office of the Consuls is also invariably recorded: "Sive parabola Potestatis et Consiliariorum vel Consulum sive Rectorum Florentie" (p. 49). "A Potestate vel Consiliariis eius, sive a Consulibus Florentie vel Rectoribus" (p. 48). In a posterior document (Santini, i. doc. xxxvii., dated August 14, 1201), we find the councillors representing the Podestà: "Sitio filio condam Butrighelli, Melio filio Catalani Consiliarii domini Potestatis Florentie, recipienti (_sic_) vice et nomine dicte Potestatis et totius Comunis Florentie" (p. 72). These councillors did not yet form a special council, but were on the way to it, since the council or senate of the city being already called the general council, the existence of a special one is implied: "In Florentia, in ecclesia S. Reparate, coram generali consilio civitatis, iuraverunt." Santini, i. doc. xxviii. p. 53. [213] Santini, i. doc. xxx. [214] It may be roughly rendered: "Florence, get out of the way, Semifonte's a city to-day." [215] Santini, i. doc. xxxiv. [216] This treaty was concluded April 27, 1201; about five hundred inhabitants of Colle swearing adhesion to it on the 28th, 29th, and 30th of April. Santini, i. docs. xxxv. and xxxvi. [217] "Per quinquennium guerra durante et eidem omnibus de Tuscia prestantibus patrocinium.... Tacere tamen nolo magnalia quae inter caetera vidi, guerra durante." Sanzanome, Florentine ed., pp. 134-5. [218] The document is given in the "Delizie," of Ildefonso di San Luigi, vii. 178. Perpetual exemption from all taxes was decreed to Gonella and his comrades, "qui mortui fuere in turre de Bagunolo et in muris apud Summumfontem, in servitio Communis Florentie." _Vide_ also in Hartwig, ii. 100. [219] Santini, i. xxxviii., xxxix. The treaty of peace was concluded between Alberto da Montauto, lord of San Gimignano, for the people of Semifonte, and Claritus Pillii, Consul of the merchants for Florence. [220] This letter, published by Winkelmann (Philipp von Schwaben, i. 556), is taken from a MS. of the Florentine Boncompagni, in the Archives of Berne, No. 322, fol. 18, and part of it is referred to by Hartwig, ii. 102. [221] About eight hundred men of Montepulciano swore to these terms on the hand of the Florentine Consul. Santini, i. doc. xl. October 19, 24, 1202. [222] Santini, i. docs. xlii., xliii., xliv., and xlv. These papers, dated April and May, 1203, give the names of all the Siennese citizens and country people sanctioning the arbitration in the name of their city. The last document contains the depositions of the witnesses examined by Ogerio. Doc. xlvii., June 4, 1203, is the verdict pronounced by him. [223] On the days 4th, 7th, and 8th of June, the Bishop and Commune of Sienna gave up all that was due to Florence, in accordance with the verdict. Santini, i. doc. xlviii. On the 6th of the same month one hundred and fifty Siennese councillors swore observance to the terms. Santini, i. doc. xlix. [224] Santini, i. doc. lii. [225] Ibid., i. doc. xlvi. [226] Murat., "Antiq. It.," iv. 576-83. _Vide_ also Ficker (vol. ii. par. 312, p. 229 and fol.), who gleaned from this important document the list of the Podestà established as Imperial envoys in the Siennese territory. These Podestà are mentioned by the witnesses as "Comites teutonici, Comites comitatus senensis pro imperatore Federigo," and occasionally even as "Comites contadini." [227] "Per distruggere questa capra, non ci vuol altro che un lupo." _Vide_ Repetti, art. "Capraia e Montelupo"; Hartwig (ii. 106-9) rectifies some chronological and other blunders made by Villani. [228] The treaty is probably extant in the Archives of Pistoia. Repetti, in citing it from the "Aneddoti" of Zaccaria, dates it the 3rd of June; other writers date it July. [229] Dated October 29, November 17, 1204, in Santini, i. doc. liii. The oath sworn before the Consul Guido Uberto was of obedience to the commands "que ... fecerint Potestas Florentie vel Consules Civitatis vel maior pars vel priores aut prior eorum." Thus the Podestà's name came first, even at a time when there were Consuls in office, before whom the oath was sworn, in presence of "Angiolerii Beati, Doratini et Burniti Paganiti sexcalcorum Comunis Florentie." Even the office of _sexcalcus_ is new (it is also mentioned in another document of the 30-31st of May, in Santini, i. xlvi.), and seems to us a sign of the change tending to a more aristocratic form of government in Florence. The communal oath sworn on October 29, 1204 (Santini, i. doc. liv.) began thus, "Hec sunt sacramenta, quae Potestas et Consules Comunis et Consules militum, mercatorum et Priores Artium et generale Consilium, ad sonum campane coadunatum, fecerunt Guidoni Borgognoni comiti et filiis et Caprolensibus." The Consuls took the oath, not the Podestà, for there was none, although nominally heading the formula. [230] Recorded in the "Acta Sanctorum," the 1st of May, at p. 14, and also in the list (known as that of Sta. Maria Novella) of the Consuls and Podestà. _Vide_ Hartwig, ii. 197. But the documents of this year only refer in general to the Consuls and Podestà without giving any names. [231] Sizio Butrigelli, or Butticelli, is mentioned in the Sta. Maria Novella Catalogue. Hartwig, ii. 197. [232] Sanzanome, pp. 139-40; Hartwig, ii. 111-12. [233] Santini, i. doc. lviii. and lix. A great number of Siennese swore to the treaty in the presence of the Podestà Gualfredotto Grasselli, _vice et nomine Comunis Florentie recipienti_, without the _consiliarii_. But the ceremony being very lengthy, he delegated Ildebrandino Cavalcanti to represent him, _procuratoris nomine_. Some of the documents of this peace are in Florence, the others in Sienna. The former were discovered by Santini, and all are mentioned by Hartwig, ii. 113-14. [234] This chapter was originally published in the _Politecnico_ of Milan, numbers for July and September, 1866. [235] The details of this event are differently told by Villani (v. 38), by the pseudo Brunetto Latini (_ad annum_), and by Dino Compagni at the beginning of his Chronicle. But the gist is the same in all three, and we have mainly adhered to the first and second authorities, whose accounts are longer and more detailed than that of Compagni. [236] Villani, v. 38. [237] Villani, vi. 5. [238] Villani (vi. 33) says: "Albeit the said parties existed among the nobles of Florence, and they oftentimes came to blows from private enmities, and were split into factions by the said parties," nevertheless the people "remained united, for the good and honour and dignity of the Republic" (vol. i. p. 253). The "Annales," ii., of the year 1236 relate that the palaces of the Commune and of the Galigai were destroyed, which would certainly seem to be a proof of a genuine revolution. [239] Ammirato, "Storie," lib. xi. (with additions made by Ammirato the younger). Anno 1240. [240] In this year we find the first official mention of the Florentine Guelphs. Frederic II. complains of their conduct, saying: "Pars Guelforum Florentiae, cui dudum nostra Maiestas pepercerat." The "Annales," ii., first name the Guelphs in 1239, and in 1242 mention the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. _Vide_ Hartwig, "Quellen," &c., vol. ii. pp. 159-60 and 164. This author believes that the names of the two Florentine parties first came into use in the year 1239. [241] Lami, "Antichità Toscane," lesson xv.; Passerini, "Istituti di Beneficenza--Il Bigallo." Florence: Le Monnier, 1853. [242] _Vide_ "Statuta Populi et Communis Florentiae," published in Florence, but with the mark of the Friburg press, vol. i.; Cantini, "Saggi," vol. iii. chap. xvi.; "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," vol. ix. p. 256 and fol. [243] Villani says: "They stripped all power from the Podestà then in Florence, and dismissed all the officers" (vi. 39). As usual, Malespini copies from Villani (chap. cxxxvii.). But reading farther we see clearly that the Podestà was elected as before, and that a palace was built for his use. The chronicler's real meaning was that the form of government was changed, and the actual governors dismissed from office. The term Podestà was used in its general sense of magistrate-in-chief. [244] Villani, vol. vi. pp. 39 and 40. _Vide_ also Coppo Stefani. [245] It is thought to be the work of Lapo or Jacopo, the supposed master of Arnolfo Brunelleschi. [246] Villani, vi. 39. [247] _Vide_ Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, "Storia Fiorentina," bk. ii. rubric 63. In relating the first rupture of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the author says: "Almost all the families on the Ghibelline, or Imperial side, were nobles of the _contado_, because these held lands or castles in fief from the Empire." Also Ammirato, who was well versed in contemporary chronicles and documents, in relating what was said by men of the people as to the reforms of 1250, makes them continue their statement that the Uberti, as leaders of the nobles, were the authors of all the misfortunes of Florence, with the following words: "Who but the Uberti waste our substance and our strength by exorbitant taxes and imposts? These haughty men deemed it an honourable thing, among their other grand and noble usages, to be our foes; inasmuch as, exulting in their descent from the princes of Germany, they consider us to be churls and peasants, and despise us, as though we were of a different clay from their own." Ammirato, "Storie," bk. ii. _ad annum_. [248] In fact, Villani only mentions them at a much later date. But there is documentary evidence of their previous existence. _Vide_, for instance, the "Arch. Stor. Ital.," Series iii. vol. xxiii. p. 222. Doc. dated April 30, 1251. _Vide_ M. di Coppo Stefani, rub. 90. [249] Giannotti, "Opere," ed. Le Monnier, vol. i. p. 82. [250] Machiavelli, "Storie," bk. ii. On this point it may be well to repeat our former remarks, to the effect that Machiavelli is often as inaccurate in his definition of facts as profound in his intuition of their character and tendency. After the first book of his "Storie," giving a general introduction to the Middle Ages, he begins to narrate the history of Florence in the second book. He was the first writer, after L. Aretino, to put aside nearly all the fabulous tales of the chroniclers touching the origins of Florence, and start from well-authenticated facts. For although he, too, believes that Florence was destroyed by Totila and rebuilt by Charlemagne, and even credits the destruction of Fiesole by the Florentines in 1010, it is easy to condone these blunders, remembering how many other legendary tales were rejected by him, and how much time elapsed before some germ of historic truth could be gleaned from the less incredible traditions to which he adhered. But why did Machiavelli pass over almost at one bound the interval between 1010 and 1215 without saying anything of the first and second Florentine constitutions, or alluding to the numerous deeds of war and political revolutions occurring during that period? Regarding these events, he might have derived information from the chroniclers. But he clings to the theory that the Buondelmonti tragedy was the primary cause and origin of all internecine strife in Florence, although the evidence of contemporary chroniclers and his own historical acumen might have saved him from this error. Continuing with the same strangely unaccountable negligence, he skips another period--from 1215 to 1250--saying that then at last Guelphs and Ghibellines came to an agreement, and "deemed the moment come to establish free institutions," almost as though this were the first time that the Florentines had contemplated organising a free government. Yet we have seen that Florentine liberties were assured, and the first constitution founded in 1115; that the constitution of 1250 was the third, not the first, and established by the Guelph _popolani_, to the hurt of the Ghibelline nobles, instead of being formed, as Machiavelli states, by the united efforts of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Nor is this the last of his blunders, for Machiavelli goes on to say: "Likewise to remove causes of enmity arising from judgments delivered, they [the Florentines] decreed the establishment of two foreign judges, with the respective titles of Captain and Podestà, authorised to administer justice to the citizens in all cases, whether civil or criminal." In this manner he converts the two chief political authorities into ordinary judges, places both on the same level, and fails to remark that, although the Captain was a newly created functionary, the Podestà had been in existence for more than half a century. He also states that the _carroccio_ was instituted in 1250, to give prestige, or _maestà_, to the army, although the Florentines had adopted the use of the _carroccio_ long before this date. He shows equal negligence in his account of the organisation of the army, and without drawing any distinction between the forces of the Commune and those of the people, although this point is fully elucidated by the chroniclers. Villani, for instance, tells us: "Inasmuch as we have treated of the gonfalons and banners of the people," it is fitting to make mention of those "of the knights and the army proper" (_guerra_). Nevertheless, whenever Machiavelli pauses to consider the general character of Florentine revolutions, and particularly of those subsequent to 1250, his definitions excel those of any other writer. [251] November, 1252. [252] "Arch. Stor. It." Series iii. vol. xxiii. p. 220. [253] Villani and Ammirato, _ad annum_. [254] Villani, vi. 51. Ammirato, _ad annum_. [255] Ammirato, _ad annum_, contains a summary of the treaty of peace. [256] Villani and Ammirato, _ad annum_. [257] VI. 70. [258] _Scaggiale_--a leathern belt with a buckle. [259] _Tassello_--a square of cloth attached to the cloak so as to be used as a hood. [260] Villani, vi. 70. [261] _Vide_ "I Capitoli del Comune di Firenze, inventario e regesto," vol. i., edited by C. Guasti. Florence: Cellini, 1866. [262] Ammirato, _ad annum_, gives a summary of the treaty. [263] Villani, vi. 62. This incident, highly praised by Villani as a magnanimous example, has been quoted by others as a proof that the Florentine people must have been corrupt at a time when so exceptional a monument could be decreed to one of the citizens simply because he had refused to betray his country. But it should be noted, first of all, that he was not honoured with a monument merely because he had rejected a bribe, but, as Villani goes on to say, because "Aldobrandino died in such excellent repute for his virtuous deeds for the good of the Commune." Even should Villani's praises of the deed in itself seem too marked and consequently indicative of general corruption, this corruption might be more fitly attributed to Villani's own days than to the earlier period of Aldobrandino and the _Primo Popolo_, when genuine virtue and true patriotism were undoubtedly predominant. [264] "Storie," lib. ii. [265] Villani, vi. 65. [266] C. Paoli, "La battagali di Montaperti" (extract from vol. ii. of the "Bollettino della Società Senese di Storia patria"). Sienna, 1869. In 1889 Prof. Paolo added another very important publication to this work, _i.e._, "Il libro di Montaperti," in the "Documenti di Storia Italiana," brought out by the Royal Commission for Tuscany, Umbria, and the Marches, vol. ix. [267] Marchionni di Coppo Stefani, "Stor. fior.," rubric 120. [268] Villani and other Florentine chroniclers. [269] The figures given by Florentine chroniclers are never exact, and must be therefore regarded as approximate ones only. [270] Here is an instance extracted from a law of 1284: "Item quod nullus presumat consulere, vel arengare super aliquo quod non sit principaliter propositum per dominum Potestatem, vel aliquem loco sui. Et qui contrafacerit, in soldos sexaginta florenorum parvorum vice qualibet puniatur, et plus et minus ad voluntatem domini Potestatis. Et quicquid dictum vel consultum contra propositionem, non valeat, nec teneat." "Consigli Maggiori, Provvisioni e Registri," i., sheets 12 _retro._ Archivio di Stato, Florence. [271] Too coarse to be translated.--_Translator's note._ [272] Villani, vi. 78. [273] Aldobrandini, "Chroniche," p. 9; Paoli, "La battaglia di Montaperti," p. 46. [274] In the cathedral of Sienna certain poles are shown traditionally believed to have belonged to the Florentine _Carroccio_. But Siennese scholars now justly maintain that these poles formed part of their own _Carroccio_ instead. [275] Paoli, op. cit., p. 58. [276] Sismondi, after comparison of the chroniclers' accounts, raises the number of killed to 10,000 and the wounded to the same figure. [277] VI. 19. [278] Lord of the Castle of Poppi in the Casentino. He had separated from the other Counts Guidi, who were Guelphs. [279] All this is narrated by Villani and other chroniclers, and is likewise recorded by Dante in the "Divina Commedia." A few writers have tried to throw doubt on the incident, but, as Dr. Hartwig justly observes, it is difficult to suppose that Guelph chroniclers would have invented a legend so entirely favourable to the Ghibelline chief. [280] Prof. Del Lungo gives a full account of these demolitions in his paper, "Una vendetta in Firenze," in the "Arch. Stor. It.," Series iv. vol. 18, p. 355 and fol. [281] P. Ildefonso, "Delizie," &c., vol. ix. p. 19 and fol. [282] Machiavelli, "Storie," lib. i. p. 37. [283] It is said that Manfred, on witnessing their attack, showed his admiration for their courage by exclaiming, "Whoever may win the victory, these Guelphs will not lose it." [284] Dante (Purgatorio, iii. 121-32). The poet places Manfred in purgatory, although at the period he was classed as a heretic together with the Emperor Frederic, Farinata, and many other Ghibellines: "Orribili furon li peccati miei, Ma la bontà infinita ha si gran braccia Che prende ciò che si rivolve a lei. Se il pastor di Cosenza, che alla caccia Di me fu messo per Clemente, allora Avesse in Dio ben letta questa faccia, L'ossa del corpo mio sarieno ancora In co' del ponte presso a Benevento, Sotto la guardia della grave mora. Or le bagna la pioggia e move il vento, Di fuor del Regno, quasi lungo il Verde, Ove le trasmutò a lume spento." [285] Machiavelli, "Storie," lib. ii. p. 73. [286] This result had come to pass at a much earlier period, was of frequent occurrence in Florentine history, and was now more assured than at any previous time. Malespini's Chronicle, chap. 104, even before the coronation of Frederic II., refers to certain families who "were beginning to be prominent, although too obscure to be mentioned a short while ago.... The Mozzi, Bardi, Jacopi detti Rossi, Frescobaldi, all these were of recent creation, inasmuch as they were still merchants and of petty origin: likewise the Tornaquinci and Cavalcanti, also traders, were of petty origin, and the same may be said of the Cerchi, who shortly began to rise higher than the aforesaid." [287] Most of these letters are given in Martène, others are published by Del Giudice in his "Codice diplomatico di Carlo I. and Carlo II d'Angiò." [288] Machiavelli, "Storie," lib. ii. p. 75. [289] "Il Codice diplomatico di Carlo I. e II. d'Angiò," published by Del Giudice, in Naples, serves to rectify many blunders made by the chroniclers on this point. [290] "The citizens of ancient times being either entirely extinguished, or, at least decayed by age, another race began to spring up, as it were, in a new city." Ammirato, "Storie." [291] There are so many discrepancies among Florentine authorities regarding this question that, after careful study and comparison of the different accounts given by the chroniclers, we have chosen Villani as our guide. He is the most celebrated of the old writers and the nearest to the times described. On close consideration of his words (_vide_ Villani, lib. vii. chap. xvi.) we see that the councils are to be specified as those of the Twelve, of the Captain and of the Podestà. But reference to the State Archives, the _Consulte_, or first volume of _Provvisioni_--dated a few years after the reform of which we speak--will serve to prove that sometimes the Council of One Hundred was assembled; at others both the special council of the Captain and his council-general and special were summoned; sometimes again the Podestà's special council--likewise styled the Council of Ninety--with his council-general and special, amounting in all to 390 members (300 + 90). We also find that admittance to these four last-mentioned councils was usually granted to the seven masters (_capitudini_) of the greater guilds, and that in course of time the number of the masters increased, and that they were sometimes summoned to meet as a separate council. By studying the number of votes given at the councils, we find sufficient proof of the accuracy of Villani's statements. In special councils the voting was done with black and white balls, a record being kept of their respective numbers. But at that period general councils only signified their verdict by standing up or remaining seated, and the votes were not recorded in writing. But regarding these points the rules changed as circumstances required, for the magistrates were frequently authorised to consult _whichever councils they preferred_. In affairs of the highest importance, and in discussions carried on in a strictly legal way, every measure proposed had to be first approved by the twelve worthies, who were likewise allowed to ask the advice of confidential private persons, afterwards denominated _advisers_ (_richiesti_). The proposal was next submitted to the One Hundred, then to the Captain's two councils, and finally to those of the Podestà. All these details are confirmed by the documents in the Archives; and as a more easily verified instance, although of later date than the period now described, we may quote the opening sentence of the "Statuto dell' Esecutore di Giustizia," given in the Appendix to Signor Giudici's "Storia de' Municipi Italiani," p. 402 (1st edition). "In the name of God, _Amen_. In the year of His Holy Incarnation, 1306, &c., firstly, in the Council of One Hundred, and subsequently in the council and through the special council of _Messere lo Capitano_ and the masters of the twelve greater guilds (these having already increased in number) ... and farthermore, at once, without delay, in the council and through the general and special council of _Messere lo Capitano_ and of the people of Florence, and of the masters of the guilds ... done, confirmed, and carried the vote by sitting and rising, as prescribed by the same Statutes.... Likewise after these proceedings, in the same year, same '_indiction_' and day, in the council and by the general council of three hundred and special council of ninety men of the Florentine Commune, with the aforesaid guild-masters, by order of the noble gentleman, Messere Count Gabrielli d'Agobbio of the same city and Commune of Florence, Podestà, &c." Here it should also be noted that although in this case the councils of the Podestà assembled on the same day as those of the captain, yet according to law and usage the former should not have been convoked until one or two days had elapsed. [292] _Vide_ "Delizie degli eruditi Toscani," by P. Ildefonso, vol. vii. pp. 203-286. [293] Del Lungo "Una Vendetta," in "Firenze Arch. Stor. It.," Series iv. vol. xviii. p. 354 and fol. [294] The _Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani_, anno i., No. 1, contains "Lo Statuto di Parte Guelfa," of 1335, edited by Bonaini, whose learned commentary on the same appeared in subsequent numbers. Villani tells us (vii. 17) that, "by mandate from the Pope and the king, the said Guelphs _nominated three_ knights as rectors of the party." But this must be a blunder, since, according to the statutes of the party, three knights and three men of the people were named to the office. A document dated December 12, 1268, appended to Del Lungo's "Una Vendetta in Firenze," mentions, "_Unus de sex Capitaneis Partis Guelforum_." Villani, in the same chap. xvii., confuses Pope Clement with Pope Urban, deceased in 1264. The statute of 1335 adds a third council, of one hundred, to the others, and this probably served the same purpose with regard to the councils as that fulfilled by the parliament to the Republic. [295] The English word "milliner" is derived from _Milan_. [296] The term _calimala_ seems to have been taken from the name of the street in which the guild was situated. The street led to a house of ill-fame, hence the name _Calis malus_, in the sense of _Via mala_--evil road or lane. [297] A statute of the Calimala Guild, dated 1332, is given in the appendix of Giudici's "Storia dei Municipi Italiani." Another, dated 1301-2, has been published, with a commentary by Dr. Filippi, "Il più antico Statuto dell' Arte di Calimala." Turin: Bocca, 1889. The statutes formulated regulations already long in vigour by means of special laws. [298] All these details of the Calimala Guild are to be found in the statutes cited above. We have quoted from the earliest statutes. [299] Originally published in the Milan _Politecnico_, Nos. for November and December, 1867. [300] Ammirato (ed. of 1846; Florence, Batelli), i. 248. [301] The chroniclers say Guy de Montfort, but the latter only came in 1269. _Vide_ Del Giudice, Cod. Dipl. ii. 23. [302] Villani, vii. 19. The frequent mention of eight hundred knights by the chroniclers of this period excites doubts as to their accuracy. It is never safe to accept their statements regarding the number of this or that army. Probably eight hundred horse was a species of regulation number, signifying a squadron of French men-at-arms. [303] Villani, vii. 19; Marchionne Stefani, rubric 138; Ammirato, lib. iii. [304] Gregorovius, vol. v. chap. 8: Cherrier, "Storia della lotta dei Papi e degli Imperatori di Casa Sveva," lib. x. [305] Ammirato, i. 262; "Delizie degli Eruditi," vol. ix. p. 41. [306] Machiavelli, "Storie," vol. i. p. 77. Italy, 1813. [307] "Ipsas petitiones benigne accessimus et audivimus cum effectu, primo de conservando iure et honore Comunis Florentie; contra Pisanos et Senenses invasores et Gibellinos et exiticios terre vestra et infideles Podiibonizi proditores nostros proponimus, cum Dei auxilio atque vestro, facere vivam guerram, donec peniteant de commissis, et vos de factis vestris habeatis comodum et honorem.... Vicarium Ytalicum virum providum discretum et fidelem, cuius devotionem, fidem et probitatem in magnis factis nostris cognovimus, firmiter et ab experto vobis concessimus secundum quod vestra postulatio continebat, et volumus quod sit contentus salario et expensis et emendis, prout in ipsius Civitatis statutis continetur, nec ultra aliquid exigat." Del Giudice, "Codice Diplomatico," ii. 116-17. We find that several Italian Podestà were afterwards appointed in Florence by Charles. [308] Villani, vii. 54. [309] Raynaldi, anno 1278; Sismondi, vol. ii. chap. vii. [310] Villani, vii. 56. [311] Ammirato, vol. i. p. 274. [312] Ammirato the younger was the first writer to give an exact report of this agreement, with minute details derived from State papers, in his additions to the elder Ammirato's "History" (Anno 1279 and 1280). Several documents are given in the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," by Padre Ildefonso, vol. ix. p. 63 and fol. Still ampler details are given by Bonaini ("Della Parte Guelfa in Firenze") in the _Giornale Storico degli Archivi Toscani_, vol. iii. p. 167 and fol. _Vide_ also A. Gherardi's recent and very important work, "Le Consulte della Repubblica Fiorentina" (Firenze, Sansoni). The original document of the Peace is to be found (mutilated) in the State Archives of Florence. [313] The Fourteen are mentioned together with the Twelve in the cardinal's treaty of peace, and for some time later both bodies are simultaneously mentioned in the "Consulte," according to the usual Florentine custom of enumerating the old as well as the new magistrates. Subsequently the Fourteen alone are recorded, and the Twelve disappear entirely. [314] Villani, vii. 56; Ammirato (Florentine edition of 1846), lib. iii. p. 275, &c. [315] The old chronicles contain indications of these particulars, but for the minute description of them, corroborated by documentary evidence, _vide_ Ammirato the younger, in his appendices to the "Storie" of Ammirato the elder. [316] Dr. Hartwig, who first called attention to this point, also remarked that the office of _Defensor_ is first recorded in the "Consulte," in November, 1282, and that the first Defender mentioned by name is Bernardino della Porta. "Consulte," pp. 116, 132, 133, 140, from November 6, 1282 to February 6, 1283. [317] Dr. Hartwig also ascertained that in the "Consulte" the first mention of the priors occurs on June 26, 1282. Their names are recorded after those of the Fourteen; on April 24, 1283, they are given precedence over the latter; and from December forwards they are mentioned alone, without the Fourteen. [318] Bk. i. p. 25 and fol. (the Del Lungo edition). [319] Villani, vii, 79; Ammirato, iii. pp. 288-90. [320] Villani says (vii. 89) that this "was the most noble and renowned _court_ ever held in the city of Florence." [321] "Consulte," vol. i. pp. 169-70. [322] Hartwig, "Ein menschenalter florentinische Geschichte" (1250-93). Freiburgi B., 1889-91, p. 111. [323] Ammirato gives full details of this treaty. A summary of the original document was afterwards included by Canale, in his "Nuova Istoria della Repubblica di Genova" (the Le Monnier edition), vol. iii. p. 34. [324] Villani, vii. 98; Malespini, ccxliii. [325] Some of the chroniclers assert that the archbishop hoped to extract large sums of money from his captives before making an end of them. [326] For details of the Pisan war with Genoa and Florence, _vide_ "Storie e Cronache Pisane," edited by Bonaini and others in vol. vi. (pts. i. and ii.) of the "Archivio Storico Italiano"; Canale, "Nuova Istoria della Repubblica di Genova"; Villani; Flaminio dal Borgo; Muratori Script., vol. xv.; Sismondi; "Hist. des Rep. It.," T. ii. chap. 8. [327] An order of knighthood limited to the nobility. [328] G. Villani, Dino Compagni, and the other Florentine chroniclers. [329] Villani, Compagni, Ammirato, and the Pisan historians previously quoted. [330] Villani, vii. 99; Vasari, "Vita di Arnolfo"; Ammirato (Florence: Batelli and Co., 1846), vol. i. pp. 310-11. [331] Ammirato, vol. i. p. 337. [332] _Vide_ Note A at the end of this chapter. [333] Prof. P. Santini has treated of this question in his article entitled "Condizione personale degli abitanti del contado nel secolo xiii.," "Arch. Stor. It." (Series iv. vol. xvii. p. 178 and fol.). He justly remarks that there is no basis of comparison between the Bolognese law of 1256 and the Florentine law of 1289, seeing that they relate to persons of a different class and to two different periods of the movement set on foot in every commune for ameliorating the conditions of the inhabitants of the _contado_ (p. 188 and fol.). [334] Villani, vii. 132. [335] Ammirato, bk. iii. _ad annum_. [336] _Vide_ Note B at the end of this chapter. [337] _Vide_ Note C at the end of this chapter. [338] Originally published in the _Politecnico_ of Milan; Nos. for June and July, 1867. [339] _Vide_ the Florentine edition of 1755, p. 133. [340] This anecdote is related by the Friar of St. Gall, "De rebus bellicis Caroli Magni." _Vide_ Muratori, Dissertazione xxv. [341] Muratori, Dissertazione xxv. _Vide_ likewise Pignotti, "Storia della Toscana," vol. iv. Saggio iii. Florence, 1824. [342] We have already mentioned the probable derivation of this term. [343] _Vide_ Pagnini, "Della Decima," vol. ii. sec. 4 and 5. [344] Pagnini, "Della Decima," ibid. [345] Villani, lib. xi. chap. 94. [346] Villani, lib. xi. chap. 94. [347] It would seem that the Guild of Por' Santa Maria originally traded in Florentine woollen stuffs, and that the silk merchants formed a secondary and separate branch. Gradually, however, they became amalgamated with the guild (early in the thirteenth century), and then became its principal components, until at last the Silk Guild and Por' Santa Maria were entirely fused in one. [348] _Vide_ the "Cronaca" of Benedetto Dei (1470-92), preserved among the MSS. of the Magliabecchian Library. Many interesting portions of this "Cronaca" have been published in the appendix to vol. ii. of Pagnini's "Decima." [349] _Vide_ the same "Cronaca" of Dei. [350] "Again, a law was passed in 1371, inasmuch as many men traded the shares of the Monte in this wise: One said to another: 'the shares of the Monte are at thirty; I wish to do some business with you to-day. This time next year I'll sell to you, or you to me, at what price shall we say?' At thirty-one the share [of one hundred]? 'What premium do you ask for this?' So they bargained, and the terms were fixed. When shares fell, the merchant bought, if they rose, he sold out, and the stock changed hands twenty times in the year. Accordingly a tax was charged of two florins in the hundred for every transfer." Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, vol. viii. p. 97, in the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," vol. xiv. [351] Vettori, "Il Fiorino d'oro"; Orsini, "Storia delle Monete." Florence, 1760. [352] Pagnini, "Della Decima," vol. ii. sec. iii. chaps. i.-iv. Other details are supplied by Ammirato, Dei, and more especially by Villani (xi. 88, and xii. 55). [353] G. Villani, xl. 54. [354] Ammirato, lib. 18, _ad annum_. [355] "Cronaca" of Benedetto Dei, given in Pagnini. [356] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 275. [357] Ammirato, _ad annum_; Pagnini, loc. cit. [358] This led some writers to believe that slavery still existed in Italy many centuries after it had disappeared. A praiseworthy article on this theme, by Signor Salvatore Bongi, was published in the _Nuova Antologia_, anno I. No. 6. [359] _Vide_ the Speech of Tommaso Mocenigo, so often reproduced by chroniclers and historians; Pagnini, "Della Decima," vol. ii. p. 7 and fol.; Romanin, "Storia documentata di Venezia," vol. ii. pp. 156-7. [360] Urghanj, the chief city of Khwarezm, the country now called Khiva. New Urghanj, the present commercial capital of Khiva, is sixty miles from the ancient city. [361] Balducci Pegolotti, in Pagnini's book. Colonel H. Yule's "Cathay, and the Way Thither, being a Collection of Mediæval Notices of China" (London, printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1866), is a very important work, includes a series of documents translated by the author, and is prefaced by a learned dissertation from his pen. [362] Pagnini, vol. ii. sec. i. K. Sieveking, "Geschichte von Florenz." This very brief but excellent work was published anonymously at Hamburg in 1844. It has furnished many of the details given in this chapter. [363] The first five were frequently joined to the greater guilds, which were then increased to twelve. [364] "Inferno," Canto x. [365] Franco Sacchetti tells us that while he was a member of the government the magistrates of the Republic never succeeded in enforcing the laws against luxury. One of them, having been severely reprimanded on this score and threatened with dismissal from office, gives the following account of the devices by which Florentine women evaded the regulations established by law: "_Signori miei_,--All my life I have sought to acquire reason; and now, when methought I knew something, I find I know nothing; inasmuch as when searching for forbidden ornaments, according to your orders, the women bring forward arguments of a kind never found by me in any law; and among others I will quote these: There comes a woman with an embroidered trimming turned down over her hood, and the notary says, 'Give me your name, since you wear an embroidered trimming.' The good woman takes off this trimming, which is fastened to the hood by a pin, and, holding it in her hand, declares it is a garland. He goes to another woman and says, 'I find you have too many buttons on the front of your gown; you must not wear those buttons.' But she replies, 'Yes, Messere, I can, for these are not buttons, but bosses; and if you do not believe me, see, they have no shanks, and neither are there button-holes.' The notary passes on to another woman wearing ermine fur, saying to himself, 'What excuse can she allege for that? You wear ermine,' and he begins to write her name. The woman says, 'Do not write me down, for this is not ermine, but _lattizzi_ fur.' Says the notary, 'What are these _lattizzi_?' 'They are animals....' One of the magistrates says, 'We are trying to fight against a wall.' And another remarks, 'It were better to attend to affairs of more importance!'" (Novella, 137.) [366] Guicciardini, "Considerazioni sui Discorsi del Machiavelli" (Opere inedite, vol. i., Barbéra, Florence). Full confirmation of the above statements are to be found in this work. In treating of chap. xii. bk. i., where Machiavelli charges the Popes with having prevented the unity of Italy, the author qualifies his approval of the remark by adding: "But I feel uncertain whether it were a good or an ill chance for this province to escape being absorbed in a kingdom; for although to be subject to a republic might prove a glory to the name of Italy and a happiness to the dominant city, it could only bring calamity to all other cities, seeing that, oppressed by the latter's shadow, they were unable to rise to any greatness, it being the wont of republics 'to give no share of the fruits of their independence and power to any save their own citizens.... This reason does not hold good in a monarchy wherein all subjects enjoy more equality, and therefore we behold France and many other provinces living contentedly under a king.'" [367] Originally published in the Milan Politecnico, July and August, 1868. [368] To avoid the addition of too many notes to a chapter treating of the general course of events, and only purposing to throw some light on the political conditions of our communes, more especially of Florence, I may say once for all, that besides the statutes, quoted in due place, the authorities most frequently referred to are: Savigny, "Storia del Diritto Romano nel Medio Evo"; Francesco Forti, "Istituzioni Civili e Trattati inediti di giurisprudenza"; Gans, "Il Diritto di Successione nella Storia Italiana," translated by A. Torchiarulo: Naples (Pedone, Lauriel, 1853); Gide, "Etude sur la condition privée de la femme": Paris, 1868; Schupfer, "La Famiglia Longobarda," in the Law Archives of Bologna, Nos. 1, 2. At this date it is scarcely necessary to remark that since 1868 these studies have made enormous progress in Italy, and that many works of signal importance have been produced which were naturally unknown to me while engaged on these pages, only intended--at the moment--to assist my pupils to a clearer comprehension of the Florentine revolution of 1293, and the "Ordinamenti di Giustizia," which were its inevitable and long needed results. [369] _Translator's note to Chapter VII._--With regard to this chapter, I am greatly indebted to the kindness of my learned friend Mr. Ninian Thompson, late judge at Calcutta, since without his skilled collaboration and revision it would have been impossible to cope with the legal technicalities of the text. My thanks are also due to Signor Del Vecchio, Professor of Jurisprudence, for his valuable explanation of ancient terminology.--LINDA VILLARI. [370] Gaius, i. pp. 890-2. [371] Comitis Gabriellis Verri, "De ortu et progressu iuris mediolanensis," &c. In Book I. of this work we find, among others, the following words: "Quæ omnia manifeste demonstrant, maiores nostros maximum atque perpetuum studium, contulisse ad agnationem conservandam pro veteri xii. tabularum iure, a Justiniano postea immutato, quo certe nihil ad servandum augendumque familiarum splendorem ... utilius, commodius, aptius, commendabilius potuit afferri." Another of those old writers on law who steadfastly maintain this view is Cardinal De Luca, who, in his "Theatrum veritatis et iustitiæ," makes a singularly angry attack upon Justinian and all agreeing with his views on the subject of agnation. According to De Luca, the Italians never accepted the reforms, or, rather, as he calls them, the _destructions and corruptions_, favoured by Justinian. Even Giannone, in his "Storia Civile del Regno di Napoli" (bk. iii. paragraph v.), says that Justinian's works met with no favour among us. "They found no acceptance either in Italy or in our provinces, nor could they be planted and strike deep roots here, as on foreign soil; on the contrary, the ancient books of the juris-consults were retained, and the code of Theodosius lost neither its reputation nor its authority." Here it may be well to remark that the persistence of the Roman law in Italy during the Middle Ages, maintained by Savigny, but combated by others, is now admitted on all hands. [372] Dr. J. Ficker, "Forschungen zur Reichs und Rechtgeschicte Italiens," 4 vols. Innsbruck, 1868-74. [373] Gans, while accepting the ideas of Savigny as to the diffusion of the Justinian law in Italy, also takes this view, which is in accordance with his own theory that the new forms of the Italian law were derived from the laws of the Longobards. [374] Baudi de Vesme, in his notes on the Longobard laws, repeatedly remarks: "Theodosiani juris vestigia hic agnoscere mihi vedetur." Del Giudice has recently proved that certain passages are taken from the Justinian law and others from the Theodosian code. [375] This discussion may now be considered superfluous, it being generally acknowledged at the present day, that even subsequently to Justinian's constitution, the Theodosian code continued in force. In this way the Justinian and pre-Justinian forms had a contemporaneous existence, only the Pandects were longer neglected. [376] According to Savigny, the school of Guarnerius was already flourishing in 1113-18. It is now well ascertained that this school was preceded by others adhering far less closely to Justinian forms. [377] The ancient statute of Giacomo Tiepolo, of which the MS. is extant in the Archives of the Frari, in Venice, and which has been frequently printed, concludes its first prologue with these words: "Et se alguna fiada occorresse cosse che per quelli statuti non fossero ordinade, perchè l'è de plui i facti che li statuti, s'el occorresse question stranie, et in quele alcuna cossa simela se trovasse, de simel cosse a simele è da proceder. Aver, secondo la consuetudine approvada, oltremente, se al tuto sia diverso, over si facta consuetudine non se trovase, despona i nostri iudexi come zusto et raxionevole a la so providentia apparèrà, habiendo Dio avanti i ochi de la soa mente, si fatamente che, al di del zudixio, de la streta examination davanti el tremante (_tremendo_) Iudexe render possa degna raxione." [378] Many examples to this effect will be found in the volumes of "Provvisioni" in the Florence Archives. [379] "Statuta Romæ," Romæ, 1519, ii. 110, 111, and iii. 17. [380] "Statuta Pisauri, noviter impressa," 1531, ii. 79, 84, 106, 107. [381] "Statuta Pisauri, noviter impressa," 1531, ii. 79, 84, 106, 107. [382] "Etiam nullis probationibus, _quia volumus quod_ nuda patris assertio plenam probationem faciat." _Vide_ "Statuta Civitatis Lucensis," 1539, ii. 66, 67, 68. [383] "Statuta Civitatis Urbini, impressa, Pisauri," 1519, vi. 30. _Quod pater pro filis, dominus pro famulo teneatur in damnis datis._ [384] "Statuta Florentiæ" (edition dated from Friburg), ii. 110. [385] "Statuta Florentiæ" (edition dated from Friburg), ii. 110. [386] _Vide_ "Statuti Pisani," edited by Bonaini. [387] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 61, 62, 63. [388] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 64. [389] Ibid. ii. 65. _Vide_ also the statutes of 1324 (ii. 36 and 74) and of 1355 (ii. 39) in the State Archives. [390] "Nisi promiserit de continuo habitando in dicta civitate, vel comitatu Urbini" ("Statuta Urbini," Pisauri, 1519, ii. 54). [391] "Liber juris civilis urbis Veronæ," chap. xliv. Verona, 1728. [392] See Gans, _op. cit._ This author made a very careful examination of the Pisan law in the statutes (then unpublished) contained in a MS. Codex at Berlin. [393] _Vide_ the "Consuetudini della città d'Amalfi," edited and annotated by Scipione Volpicella, p. 22; and the "Consuetudini della città di Napoli," under the heading, "De successionibus ab intestato." The same provisions are found also in the "Consuetudini Sorrentine." See also Dr. Otto Hartwig's work, "Codex iuris municipalis Siciliæ." Heft 1, "Das Stadtrecht von Messina." Cassel und Göttingen, 1867. [394] "Statuta Comunis Mantuæ," Rubric li., "De successionibus ab intestato." _Cod._ MS. F. T., 1, fourteenth century, Mantua Archives. Similar terms are used in the Veronese statutes ("Statuta Veronæ." Veronæ, 1588, bk. ii. chap. 82). "_Ut bona parentum in filios masculos et cæteros per lineam masculinam descendentes conserventur_, pro conservandis domibus et oneribus Communis Veronæ sustinendis, _statuimus_," &c. [395] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 130. [396] Statutes 4 (of 1324), ii. 70, and 9 (of 1355), ii. 73, in the State Archives, declare in fact that when there are no surviving sons, but only brothers or their sons, the woman is entitled to have the usufruct of her father's, grandfather's, or great-grandfather's estate: "Tunc ipsa mulier habeat usufructum omnium bonorum talis patris, avi, vel proavi defuncti." This is the usufruct for which alimony is afterwards substituted. [397] State Archives, "Statuti," 4, bk. ii. 50, and 9, bk. ii. 51. [398] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 32. [399] Ibid. ii. 130. [400] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 126. [401] Ibid. ii. 129. [402] "Constitutiones Marchiæ Anconitanæ." Forolivii, 1507. [403] "Statuti della honoranda Universitate deli Mercanti de la Citade di Bologna," 1530, file 98 and following. [404] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 51. [405] Ibid. ii. 76. [406] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 75. [407] Ibid. ii. 77. [408] Ibid. ii. 108. [409] Ibid. ii. 109. [410] The frequent repetition of this phrase is worthy of note, since it enables us to understand the manner in which associations were usually constituted. [411] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 66. [412] State Archives, "Statuti" 9, ii. 30. The same provision is found in the statutes of 1324 (ii. 87), and was already comprised in those of Pistoia dated 1296 (ii. 6), having been copied from another Florentine statute of earlier date. [413] The _Mezzeria_ system obtains not only throughout Tuscany and Lucca, but over a considerable part of Romagna. But the terms and contracts most favourable to the peasantry are to be found near Florence and in the Pistoian district. Contracts implying a system of _Mezzeria_ more or less rudimentary, and dating from about the close of the twelfth century, are still extant. [414] Two of 1250 and 1251, in the Florentine territory, have been edited by Ruhmor (_vide_ also Capei in the "Atti dei Georgofili," vol. xiv. p. 228); other hardly less ancient examples have been found at Cortona by the Notary L. Ticciati, and published by him in the "Archivio Storico Italiano," Series v., vol. x., No. 4, 1892. Nevertheless, contracts on the true _Mezzeria_ system cannot have been in general use earlier than the commencement of the fourteenth century. A common contract drawn up in 1331 on Siennese territory was communicated by Prof. C. Paoli to Baron S. Sonnino, and published by the latter in 1875 Florence, in his work "Sulla Mezzeria in Toscana." In a review, entitled "L'Agricoltura Italiana," nineteenth year (1893), Nos. 274-5, Marquis L. Ridolfi justly remarks that the difficulty in finding old _Mezzeria_ contracts in the Florentine territory proceeds from the custom prevailing there of seldom referring to a public notary for the purpose. As a rule, the parties concerned merely exchange written copies of the agreement. [415] "Statuta Florentiæ," ii. 18. [416] Ibid. ii. 21. [417] Ibid. ii. 23. _Vide_, on this subject, Salvetti, "Antiquitates Florentinæ." [418] "Nuova Antologia," Florence, July, 1869. [419] G. Villani, "Cronica," xi. 96. [420] P. E. Giudici, "Storia dei Comuni Italiani," bk. vi., paragraphs 53 and 54. Florence, Le Monnier, 1866. Vannucci, "I primi tempi della libertà fiorentina," chap. iv. p. 161 and fol. Florence, Le Monnier, 1861. Napier's "Florentine History," vol. i. chap. xiii. p. 342. London, 1846. T. A. Trollope, "A History of the Commonwealth of Florence," bk. ii. chap. iii. p. 212. London, 1865. It should be noted that although Mr. Trollope failed to overcome every difficulty, he was enabled to avoid various blunders on this head by merely translating certain parts of the enactments without explaining the more obscure items. Mons. Perrens, in a recent work, written after the first publication of this chapter, has generally accepted its conclusions and corroborated them by fresh researches of his own. [421] _Vide_ chaps. v. and vi. of the present work. [422] It is impossible to believe that there were no duties of any kind. Villani himself (bk. xi. chap. xcii.) enumerates a great many imposed between 1336 and 1338, and certain of these were unquestionably of earlier origin. Perhaps he meant to express that the duties were few and slight. [423] "Per non mettere gravezza." Whenever taxes were imposed on the property of citizens, an estimate was made of it, as the tax in question was paid in _lire_ or _libbre_, the term _far libbra, allibbrare_, was often used to signify making valuations of property as well as the imposition of taxes. [424] G. Villani, viii. 2. [425] _Vide_ the preceding chapter. [426] Dino Compagni, bk. ii. p. 201, the Del Lungo edition. I quote from this edition, as being far more correct than the others, although it was only published in 1879, ten years after the first appearance of this chapter in the form of a separate essay. [427] _Vide_ in Padre Ildefonso's "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," the document appended to vol. viii. It consists of a petition presented by certain inhabitants of Castelnuovo after having been attacked by the Pazzi and others, _armata manu, cum militibus et peditibus_, who had burnt their houses, killed several persons, and compelled others to sign a contract, under false pretence of a law suit, that had never occurred, _et scribi faciendo litem contra eos esse super renovationem servitiorum_. [428] G. Villani, vii. 16. [429] _Vide_ the "Statuto della Parte Guelfa," chap. xxxix. It may be found in vol. i. (1857) of the "Giornale storico degli Archivi Toscani," that was published for some years jointly with the "Arch. Stor. It." This statute of 1355 (edited by Bonaini) is the earliest known statute of the _Parte Guelfa_, but does not appear to be the first that was compiled. In the above-mentioned "Giornale," vol. iii. (1859), Bonaini began a monograph, entitled, "Della Parte Guelfa in Firenze," which was continued in several numbers, but then left incomplete. _Vide_ also G. Villani, vii. 17, describing the original formation of the Society. Its precise condition in 1293 is as yet imperfectly known, but this may be inferred from what it was shortly before and after that period. [430] G. Villani, viii. 1. [431] The first of these laws, already known to the public, and the others which were then inedited, have been fully examined in chap. v. of this work and are printed in the appendix to the same. [432] In fact the "Ordinamenti" (rubric xviii. of the Bonaini edition) refer to this law, dated October 2, 1286 ("Provvisioni," i. 27), and comprised in the statute. Both the rubric and title are quoted in the "Ordinamenti." A _Consulta_ (or decree) of March 20, 1280 (81), given in Gherardi's collection, p. 33, had also cited a similar and still older law: "De securitatibus prestandis a magnatibus," which was afterwards amended by that of 1286. [433] Ammirato, at commencement of bk. iv.; also in "Provvisioni," ii. 72, Florentine Archives. [434] Dino Compagni, bk. i. p. 56. [435] G. Villani, viii. 8. [436] Ammirato, bk. iv. p. 348. [437] In fact, many neglected to give surety (_sodare_), and several laws were framed to compel the contumacious to obey. [438] This is known from the terms of the debate, which has been published by Bonaini in the "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. p. 78, document B. [439] At the period there were twelve Greater and nine Lesser Guilds. [440] Many historians assert that he was among the priors when the "Ordinamenti" were compiled. But these are officially dated the 18th of January, and Compagni states that Giano entered the Signory on the 15th of February. This statement is supported by the list of priors given by Coppo Stefani, in his "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," and likewise by documentary evidence. [441] Another inedited compilation also exists in the Florence Archives. Certain new rubrics were inserted in this at a later date, and even, as we shall show further on, among the first twenty-eight. [442] Dr. K. Hegel, "Die Ordnungen der Gerechtigheit," Erlangen, 1867. This is a _Prolusion_, in which the learned author of the "Storia della Costituzione dei Municipi Italiani," very carefully examines the code edited by Bonaini, and compares it with others. But he does not investigate the value or intrinsic importance of the enactments, and merely gives a brief summary of them. [443] "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. (1855) p. 38, note 1. [444] Until this draft was published, we could only refer to posterior compilations, and had no means of ascertaining to what extent they differed from the law in its original form. Although Bonaini had failed to discover the original document of the law as approved, his publication of the first draft brings us very near to the real thing. And this is a point of no small importance, seeing that the laws of the Florentine Republic underwent such radical changes from one day to another, that a compilation, dated only two or three years after the original law, might be very different from it. For instance, Document A, published by Bonaini ("Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. p. 72), contains a rider or addendum to the Ordinamenti passed on the 9th and 10th of April, 1293. This was inserted as part of the original law in the compilations edited by Fineschi and Giudici. In the following bibliographical notices I shall be obliged, for the sake of greater clearness, to occasionally repeat or sum up previously related facts. 1. Of the various compilations of the enactments, that included among the printed statutes was the first to be published. 2. P. F. Vincenzo Fineschi published a second compilation in his "Memorie storiche, che possono servire alle vite degli uomini illustri di Santa Maria Novella," &c., Florence, 1790. 3. The third published compilation was given by Prof. P. E. Giudici in the appendix to his "Storia dei Municipi Italiani," Florence, Poligrafia italiana, 1853; reprinted in 3 vols., Florence, Le Monnier, 1864-66. The Italian compilation, divided in 118 rubrics, the last of which is mutilated, was published from a codex in the State Archives of Florence ("Statuti," No. 8). By some oversight the author chanced to omit the three concluding rubrics. 4. The last published compilation is that brought out by Bonaini in the "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i, No. 1, 1855, of which we have already spoken, and shall have to mention again farther on. 5. Another compilation, to which previous allusion has been made (p. 89, note 92), is also deserving of notice. It is among the MSS. of the Florence Archives (ch. ii., dist. i., No. 1), and is still inedited. Padre Ildefonso published certain fragments of it, however, in vol. ix. of the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," and Bonaini published an index of its rubrics, 134 in number. 6. In conclusion, we may mention the Miscellany or "Zibaldone," likewise referred to before, which in addition to many decrees issued between 1274 and 1465, some of which augment the force of the enactments, also includes a petition presented by the people of Florence in June, 1378--namely, the year in which the Revolt of the Ciompi occurred, imploring that the Enactments of Justice should be again enforced, the which request was granted. This codex is also a useful contribution to the history of the enactments. Recently both Prof. Del Lungo (_vide_ "Bullettino della Società Dantesca," Nos. 10, 11, of July, 1892) and Sig. G. Salvemini, undergraduate of the Instituto Superior, Florence (_vide_ "Arch. Stor. It.," Series v., vol. x. 1892), have published the provision of July 6, 1295, introducing several modifications and mitigations in the enactments. Although this provision was already known to the world, by Prof. Del Lungo's previous careful examination of it in his work on "Dino Compagni" (vol i., 1078-80), Salvemini's clever commentary has gleaned fresh information from it. This provision includes all the modifications made in the enactments in 1295, and often gives fragments of the law as it previously stood, together with the changes then introduced. Hegel, having examined all the documents edited in his day, was the first to prove, on assured evidence, that the rough draft edited by Bonaini, although, as he thinks, omitting certain rubrics and comprising some disparities, mostly of form, contained the real gist of the original enactments. This in itself was an important result. Regarding the disparities noted by Hegel, and the missing rubrics, Salvemini was enabled, by studying the document of July 6, 1295, to make some novel remarks, to which we shall refer later on. [445] Rubric iii. of the draft states that "De prudentioribus, melioribus et legalioribus artificibus civitatis Florentiæ, continue artem exercentibus, dummodo non sint milites." Also farther on: "Aliquis qui continue artem non exerceat, vel aliquis miles non possit nec debeat modo aliqui eligi, vel esse in dicto officio Prioratus." "Arch. Stor. It.," New Series, vol. i. pp. 44, 45. Rubric xviii., p. 66, enumerates the persons bound to give guaranty as nobles, although exercising a trade, "non obstante quod ipsi vel aliquis eorum de dictis domibus et casatis ... sint artifices vel artem seu mercantiam exerceant." [446] _Vide_ on this point a document of 1287 appended to this chapter. It proves that the practical exercise of a trade or craft was held indispensable before 1293, and shows what precautions were required to prevent the law from being easily evaded. [447] Rubric iii., G. We generally quote from Giudici's Italian compilation as being more widely known than the others. But we are careful to collate it with the versions of Fineschi and Bonaini, taking note of significant divergences. The letters B. G. F. are used to indicate the respective editions of Bonaini, Giudici, and Fineschi. [448] Mons. Perrens (vol. ii. p. 385, note 2) doubts this fact, and states that it only occurred in 1305. It is certain that the Gonfalonier's function was to enforce the enactments, and that when released from this duty by the creation of an "Executor" in 1306, he then began to be more specially considered as the chief of the Signory; but it is none the less certain, that among seven magistrates, all of the same legal standing, the one possessed from the first of loftier attributes and more direct command of the army, was virtually, if not nominally, their president and chief. [449] Rubric iv., G. and F. We should note that the Latin draft reduces the Gonfalonier's interval of ineligibility to one year only, while the other compilations extend it to two years, as in the case of the Priors and as subsequently enforced. We have followed the Latin draft, for the additional reason that, in the law of 1293, edited by Bonaini (Doc. A. at p. 74), we find it ordained that Priors and Gonfalonier should share the same benefits and privileges, "salvo et excepto quod quæ in Ordinamento iustitie, loquente de electione Vexilliferi, continentur circa devetum et tempus deveti ipsius Vexilliferi, et circa alia omnia in ipso ordinamento descripta, in sua permaneant firmitate." This is repeated even under rubric xxxi., G. and F., whence we are forced to conclude that the prescribed interval before re-election to the Gonfaloniership was originally different from that established with regard to the Priorate, and only equalised with the latter at a subsequent time. Besides, in Compilations F. and G. no thought was given to correcting the rule laid down in rubric xxxi., where it is taken for granted that the original diversity was still in force. Florentine laws were always made and amended bit by bit. All doubts, however, are solved by the document from which we have quoted, dated July 6, 1295, extending the term of prohibition, as regarded the Gonfalonier, from one to two years. Salvemini has found proofs in the "Provvisioni" and "Consulte" that this rule had been already applied in December, 1294. [450] As we shall see farther on, Dr. Lastig was the first writer to point this out. [451] Rubrics i. and ii. in Compilations B., F., and G. [452] Rubrics lxiii.-lxv., which, as we have noted, were added by another hand in 1297, to the codex edited by Fineschi, and correspond with rubrics lxxxii.-lxxxiv. of the codex edited by Giudici, there is renewed reference to the tricks employed in order to avoid giving guarantees or nullifying their effect. When a noble committed a crime and refused to pay the prescribed fine, his nearest relation was legally bound to pay it in his stead. But in this case the said relation frequently made declaration, "that the guilty person who had either failed to give guarantees or offered pledges unsuited to the case, possessed one or more legitimate or natural children, aged one year, or more or less; and that for this reason the next of kin, or those supposed to be responsible in virtue of the said enactment, are exempt from the penalty prescribed by the same." (Rubric lxxxii., G., lxv., F.) [453] Rubric xvii., G. The law quoted here is of October 2, 1286 ("Provvisioni," i. 27). [454] Rubric xvii., B., F., G. The two later compilations have an addition tacked on at the end, that is not included in Compilation B. In the Italian codex (G.) this addition is undated, but in the Fineschi compilation is dated July 6, 1295. Its purpose is that of attenuating the law by declaring that all omitted from the list of nobles in the statute, or who have changed their name, and are known by another, are not to be considered nobles. This addition was contemporaneous with the extension of the legal number of witnesses from two to three. [455] Rubrics xviii. and xix., F., G. These and rubric xx. also are not in the Latin draft, as we shall have again to remark farther on. [456] Compagni, i. 11; Villani, viii. 1. [457] "Storie," bk. ii. p. 80, Italy, 1813. [458] viii. 1. [459] The nobles frequently employed friends or dependents to execute their deeds of vengeance or assault--hence the enactments nearly always refer to authors of crime in the plural as those chiefly charged with the deed. The law of the 6th of July, 1295, was attenuated on this point, as we shall see, by its recognition of a single leader or "captain" of the crime, the others being only punished as accessories. [460] Rubric vi., F. G. and V. B. [461] This is derived both from the terms of the enactments and from the chroniclers. According to the latter, criminals occasionally obtained partial compensation because the destruction of their property had been carried too far. [462] Rubric xii., F. G., vii., B. [463] Rubric xiii., F. G. This being a codicil added in 1295, it is not comprised in Compilation B. [464] Rubrics vi., vii., F. and G. Not comprised in B, having been added in 1295. It should be remarked that in the legal phraseology of the time "common law" signified Roman law; the law as prescribed by the statutes being held almost in the light of a special or exceptional code. But as the enactments constituted in themselves an exception, with regard to the statutes, the latter are referred to wherever _common law_ is mentioned. When the question was of two municipalities, one of which was subject to the other, the subject municipality was always allowed (excepting in political concerns) to retain its own statutes; but in cases where these proved insufficient, it had recourse to those of the dominant city, as though these constituted the common law. [465] Rubric ix., F. G., and vi., B. In this case two witnesses were always needed to prove the offence, and on this point all the compilations, including the rough draft, are agreed. Regarding the other cases, Compilation B (rubric v.) only says _per testes_, meaning more than one, that is, two or three. On the 6th of July, 1295, _per testes_ was changed to _per tres testes_, and so it stands also in rubric vi., F. and G. It should be remarked that in the Italian compilation this rubric ix. has a codicil that is neither comprised in the draft nor even in Fineschi's compilation, and this is an additional proof that the Italian compilation was of later date than the Latin text, of which it is generally the faithful translation. The codicil decrees that the fine is to be paid to the Commune either by the offending party himself or his nearest relation. Rubric xi., F. and G., answering to rubric xvi., B., treats of the rights acquired by nobles over real property appertaining to the people, and alludes in this connection to the _associates_ or _relatives of the popolani_. This proves that the custom of joining in associations was very general at the time, and likewise shows how nearly the ties of association resembled ties of relationship. [466] Rubric xvi., F. and G., rubric ix., B. [467] Rubric xxvi., G., xxi., B. [468] This "Conclusion" is mutilated in the xxii. and final rubric of Compilation B. It exists in full in rubric xxvii., F., and rubric xxv., G. It should be noted at this point that, leaving aside other partial disparities, those rubrics, included in Compilations G. and F., and entirely omitted from Compilation B. (whether as the results of later decrees, or actually passed at the time when the draft was engrossed in its definite official shape, we have no means of really ascertaining), were those indicated in Compilations G. and F. by the numbers xviii., xix., and xx. [469] This law, drawn up in full official form, is contained in Document A. of the Bonaini Compilation, but still as a separate law. On the other hand, in Compilations F. and G. we find it incorporated with the enactments it was designed to strengthen. In Compilation G. it is dated April 10, 1293, so also in the Latin Codex, but is undated in Compilation G. We should remark in this connection that the law edited by Bonaini is not only incorporated with the enactments in Compilations F. and G., but in both comprises codicils of a later date--such, for instance, as giving power to call nearly the whole of the city and territory to arms, up to the number of 12,200 men. Had this clause been passed in Giano's time, the chroniclers could not have failed to record it. Villani states that at first one thousand men only were enrolled--that is, the same number authorised by the earlier enactments; the number was afterwards raised to two thousand, as enjoined by the new law, and later still to four thousand (viii. 1). Therefore, even according to Villani, the number was progressively enlarged. [470] Villani, viii. 8. [471] After Villani, Ammirato wrote: "For in addition to the measures ordained, Giano had deprived the Captains of the Society of their seal; and had provided that the funds of the said Society, which amounted to a large sum, should be consigned to the Commune" (vol i. bk. iv. p. 346, Batelli edition, Florence, 1846-49). [472] Villani, viii. 2. [473] Villani, viii. 2; Ammirato, _ad annum_, vol. i. pp. 339. [474] Ibid. viii. 2; Ammirato, vol. i. pp. 340, 341. [475] Villani, viii. 2; and "Cronica" of the pseudo B. Latini, _ad annum_. [476] Ibid. viii. 1. Compagni gives a different version in vol. i. 12. He relates that the offenders were of the Galigai family, and that he, being Gonfalonier at the time, had to demolish their dwellings. We have adhered to Villani, who states the fact to have occurred under the first Gonfalonier, Baldo Ruffoli (in office from February 15th to April 15th), whereas Compagni held the Gonfaloniership from June 15th to August 15, 1293, and it is scarcely probable this could have been the first occasion on which the enactments were enforced. It is known that Compagni's Chronicle is only extant in copies dated after his time, and therefore probably containing blunders, alterations, and additions made by its transcribers. Compagni's chronology is often extremely vague. While Gonfalonier he may have undoubtedly seen some sentences executed; but the first sentence on the nobles seems to have been carried out as related by Villani, and also corroborated by Coppo Stefani, bk. iii., rubric 198, Ammirato, vol. i. p. 338, and other historians of weight. Some years after the first publication of this essay, Professor Scheffer Boichorst produced the famous work (_vide_ "Historische Zeitschrift," xxiv. p. 313, 1870) that raised the very heated controversy as to the authenticity of Dino Compagni's Chronicle. At a later period Professor Del Lungo's learned volumes induced the German scholar to cede many of the points in dispute. Accordingly we may still continue to refer to Dino Compagni, although not without careful sifting and discrimination. [477] Compagni, i. 12, p. 55. [478] _Vide_ chap. vi. of this work. [479] Jean of Châlons in Burgundy. [480] It is known that the Podestà, Captain, and many other magistrates were subjected to an investigation or _sindacato_, on retiring from office. [481] Dino Compagni, i. 13; Villani, viii. 10. [482] Dino Compagni, i. 13. The author does not explain the nature of these meetings in which nobles and people were brought together. They may have been private or preliminary assemblies. But even at the Councils of the Guelph Society, as also at those of the Podestà, nobles and people sat together, and therefore had continual opportunities for talking over affairs of the State and discussing proposed bills. [483] Dino Compagni, i. 15. [484] We have gleaned this narrative from Villani and Compagni, endeavouring to make their accounts agree, although this is no easy task, seeing that the two are at odds on many points. Accordingly we have tried to collect all the details given by both which are not in contradiction. Compagni, i. 16, 17; Villani, viii. 8. [485] Villani, _loc. cit._ [486] This famed decree, quoted in Del Migliore's "Firenze Illustrata" (Florence, Ricci, 1821), vol. i. p. 6, and repeated by numerous writers, is certainly a very beautiful one; but the original document of it has never been discovered, and the form in which it has come down to us leads to the belief that some changes at least must have been made in it by a modern hand. [487] Florence Archives, the Strozzi-Uguccioni Collection, 127. This document was discovered by Signor Salvemini, who has kindly placed it at our disposal. [488] This Daddoccio was admitted into the Money-Changers' Guild on the 14th of December, 1283, and on the 1st of December, 1287, paid his rate as member of the same (Strozzi-Uguccioni Collection, 1283, 14th of December). [489] Originally published in the "Nuova Antologia" of Rome, December 1, 1888. [490] Many just observations and important notes on this subject are to be found in L. Chiapelli's work, "L'Amministrazione della Giustizia in Firenze" ("Arch. Stor. It.," Series iv., vol. xv. p. 35 and fol.); and Francesco Novati's "La Giovinezza di Coluccio Salutati" (Turin, Loescher, 1888, chap. iii. p. 66 and fol.). But in my opinion both writers have devoted all their acuteness and learning to proving the corrupt state of justice at the time, without dwelling on the origin of that corruption and its notable increase during the fourteenth century. Its origin should, I think, be sought in the changed conditions of the Podestà, Captains of the People, chancellors, notaries, judges, &c. What was said of judges in the fourteenth century, certainly could not have applied to those of the times of Piero della Vigna, Rolandino dei Passeggieri, or of the numerous mediæval Podestà wielding so much power, that they tried, and often with success, to become absolute tyrants of the communes. These were not men to act as blind tools of others' party passions; on the contrary, they strove for their own ends alone. It may have been owing to the political decline of the Podestà's office, and to his consequent inclination to serve party strife, that, dating from 1290, his term of power was reduced from one year to six months (_vide_ Ammirato, _ad annum_). Naturally the Captain's term also had to be similarly shortened. [491] "Cronica," i. 13, p. 57. [492] G. Villani, viii. 17. [493] The Calimala, or Guild of Dressers, Finers and Dyers of foreign woollen stuffs; the Changers or Bankers, the Guild of Wool; the Porta Sta Maria, or Silk Guild; lastly, the Guild of Physicians, Druggists, and Mercers, with whom the Painters were also joined. Dante Alighieri was a member of this guild. [494] Lastig, "Entwicklungswege und Quellen des Handelsrechts," Stuttgart, Enke, 1877, p. 251 and fol. Among many other just observations, the author notes that the enactments fixed the number of the guilds at twenty-one, that this number remained unchanged from that time, and that in the statutes of the guilds, the year 1293 is continually referred to as their "normal year," "wiederholt geradezu als Normaljahr" (p. 244). _Vide_ also p. 267 and fol. [495] Villani, bk. viii. chaps. 2 and 39. [496] _Vide_ "Il Comune di Roma nel Medio Evo," in my "Saggi Storici e Critici," Bologna, Zanichelli, 1890. [497] Villani, viii. 12. _Vide_ also the Provision of July 6, 1295, that has been previously quoted. [498] Villani, viii. 12. [499] Del Lungo, "Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica," i. p. 162. The author believes that Dante Alighieri may have been one of the nobles proclaimed men of the people. [500] The chroniclers have much to relate on this subject. Compagni says (pp. 86-7) that the Cerchi "made friends with the people and the rulers;" farther on he remarks that "all holding the views of Giano della Bella gathered round them" (the Cerchi) (p. 106). Stefani (iv. p. 220) states that the people "adhered to the Cerchi from party spirit, and chiefly because they were merchants." [501] Professor Del Lungo supplies special information on this subject in several passages of his work. [502] Villani, viii. 38. [503] The aims of Pope Boniface and his plots with the Blacks have been placed in a new light by the careful researches of Signor Guido Levi and the documents discovered by him. _Vide_ his excellent work, "Bonifazio VIII. e la sue Relazioni col Comune di Firenze," first published in vol. iv. of the "Archivio Storico della Società Romana di Storia Patria," and subsequently in separate form. Rome, Forzani, 1882. My quotations are taken from the latter. [504] Levi, Doc. i. [505] _Vide_ Ficker, "Forschungen," iv. n. 499, p. 506; Levi, p. 49. [506] The words quoted above form the heading of a copy of the document mentioned by Signor Levi (p. 49, note 2), and were taken as a motto for his work. [507] Levi gives the whole passage at p. 51, note 2. [508] Levi, pp. 48, 49, and Doc. iii. [509] Bondone Gherardi and Lippo, son of Ranuccio del Becca. [510] Levi, pp. 39, 40. According to a letter of the Pope, published by Signor Levi, in Doc. iv., the three persons accused were: "Simonem Gherardi familiarem nostrum, nostræque Cameræ mercatorem; Cambium de Sexto procuratorem in audientia nostra; Noffum de Quintavallis, qui tunc ad Curiam nostram accesserat." [511] Levi, Doc. ii. [512] Ibid. p. 66. [513] Villani, too, compares it with the Buondelmonti affair (viii. 39). [514] Levi, p. 42; Dino Compagni, "Cronica," i., xxii. note 9. [515] G. Levi, Doc. iv. [516] Villani, viii. 40. [517] Ibid. viii. 40. [518] Dino Compagni, i. pp. 96-7. [519] Prof. Del Lungo, with his usual careful research, notes that all the exiled were Grandi. Levi, in repeating the remark (at p. 59), considers this a singular fact, "seeing that the evil germs of discord had then spread through the mass of the citizens." Yet the fact seems easily accounted for by the circumstances related above. [520] Villani, viii. 40; Compagni, i. 21. [521] Perrens, "Histoire de Florence," vol. iii. p. 31. [522] Villani, viii. 43. [523] Villani, viii. 42. [524] Signor Levi gives a very clear explanation of the case by distinguishing between various facts confused together by the chroniclers. [525] "Chronicon Parmense," in Muratori, r. i., ix. 843. [526] Del Lungo, vol. i. p. 230; Dino Compagni, bk. ii. 8, note 3. [527] Villani, viii. 43 and 49; Del Lungo, vol. i. p. 206. [528] Villani, viii. 56. Boccaccio also alludes to Franzesi as "a trader turned knight." [529] Fraticelli's "Storia della Vita di Dante" (Florence, Barbèra, 1861) includes at p. 135 and fol. fragments of the debates in which Dante took a part, and the same were republished more correctly and completely in Imbriani's work, "Sulla Rubrica Dantesca del Villani," first published in the "Propugnatore" of Bologna for 1879 and 1880, and afterwards in a separate volume. Bologna, 1880; Del Lungo, p. 209. [530] Fraticelli and Imbriani, _op. cit._ [531] One of the first writers refusing belief in this embassy was Professor V. Imbriani in his already mentioned essay, "Sulla Rubrica Dantesca del Villani." Subsequently, my colleague and friend, the late Professor Bartoli, applied his learning to a re-examination of Dante's entire career, in vol. v. of his "Storia della Letteratura Italiana," and without explicitly denying that the embassy in question had been sent, expounded the doubts which might be raised about it. He included in the volume an essay by Professor Papa, who, with youthful daring, decidedly disbelieves in the embassy. But that learned scholar, Professor Del Lungo, asserts that it really took place. This is a very important question with reference to Dante's career, but very unimportant as regards the general history of Florence, since even if the embassy were really sent, it produced no practical result. Nevertheless, without presuming to decide the lengthy dispute, I will show my reasons for crediting the fact of the embassy. Although Villani says nothing on the subject, it is mentioned by Dino Compagni (ii. 25), the authenticity of whose chronicle is maintained by Bartoli, Papa, and Del Lungo. Hence, if any of these writers intends to deny the fact of the embassy, without denying Compagni's authenticity, he must suppose this special passage to be an interpolation. Yet it is impossible that such interpolation could have been made at a later date in the fifteenth century manuscript containing the passage. Besides, the testimony of nearly all Dante's biographers has still to be dealt with. Leonardo Bruno (born 1369) makes very explicit mention of the embassy; Filippo Villani, Giovanni Villani's grandson, who expounded the Divine Comedy in 1401, by order of the government, speaks of a mission undertaken by Dante "ad summum Pontificem, urgentibus Reipublicæ necessitatibus." Boccaccio also alludes to it, but far more indirectly and vaguely. Certainly the latter is no trustworthy historian, nor were the other two contemporaries of Dante. But after acknowledging all this, and even granting that some one of those writers may have borrowed from the others, and likewise admitting the theory of an interpolation inserted during the fifteenth century, in Compagni's chronicle, we are still met by the undisputed fact, that those who studied Dante's works, and wrote Dante's life at a period little removed from his own day, and therefore enjoying better opportunities than we possess for learning its details, all believed in the fact of his mission to Rome. Until fresh documents are found, what reasons can be alleged to justify us in denying it at this distant date? In no case, says Professor Papa, could such an adversary as the author of the "Monarchia" have gone as ambassador to Boniface VIII. First of all, however, the period in which the "Monarchia" was written is still disputable and disputed. Professor Del Lungo and many others ascribe the work to a much later period. As far as we know, Dante was still a Guelph then, but certainly no favourer of the Papal pretensions against which the Florentine Government sent him to protest. Hence, so far there is nothing to make us think his mission incredible. But Professor Papa winds up with an argument that, as he thinks, should finally dispose of the question. If, as asserted by Compagni and Aretino, Dante was really sent ambassador to Rome, and departed thence, after a time, without returning to Florence, how is it that the decree sentencing him to banishment should set forth, as it does, that he had been cited by the Nuncio to appear in Rome? According to the statute, _forenses_, or absent persons, had to be cited by letter. Therefore, if the citation was made through the Nuncio, it proves that Dante was undoubtedly in Florence, and had not gone to Rome. But _forensis_ does not signify an absent person, _i.e._, one who _extra civitatem manet_, but, on the contrary, signifies--according to the statute--one having no domicile either in the city, _contado_, or district. Accordingly Dante, having a domicile in Florence, was not _forensis_, and if he went to Rome was only _absent_; his embassy, decreed in September, must have been speedily ended, since a new and adverse government came into office the 8th of November; and Dante's banishment was only proclaimed on the 27th of January of the following year. Together with three other persons he was cited to appear and be heard in his own defence and exculpation. As neither he nor the others appeared, and none of them would have consented to appear, even if in Florence, they were condemned, as they would have been in any case. Thus, strictly speaking, it cannot be said that even in this instance there was any violation of legal procedure, although in those days legality, justice, and humanity were trampled under foot without the slightest scruple. Therefore, as Professor Bartoli admits, there is no absolute proof of the impossibility of the embassy in question. Even if Villani's silence may seem strange, Compagni's statement to be considered an interpolation, the fact remains that the embassy was credited at a time little removed from Dante's day, and credited by men better acquainted than we can be with the circumstances of his career. For these reasons, while admitting the weight of often reiterated doubts, pending absolute proof to the contrary, I shall retain my belief in the embassy. [532] _Vide_ Del Lungo, vol. i., Letter in appendix vi. pp. xlv. and xlvi. [533] Compagni, ii. 8. [534] Villani, viii. 49. Compagni says that he saw the sealed (_bollate_) letters. [535] "Purgatorio," xx. 72-5. [536] Villani, viii. 49, p. 53. [537] Ibid. viii. 49. Many other details are given in the Chronicles of Compagni, Paolino Pieri, Neri degli Strinati, &c., &c. [538] _Vide_ Del Lungo (vol. i., Appendix, Doc. vi. p. xlv.) in the Letter dated 12th of November, sent to the Commune of San Gimignano. [539] _Vide_ the "Provvisione" in Del Lungo, vol. i. p. 290. [540] Compagni, "Cronica," ii. 20 and 21. [541] Potthast, Boniface's Letter in the Regesta Pont. Rom., p. 2006. [542] _Vide_ the notices and documents collected in Professor Del Lungo's monograph, "Sull' Esilio di Dante," Florence, Le Monnier, 1881. Some fragmentary information on this subject had been already published in the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani." [543] Bk. viii. chap. 49, p. 53. [544] Dino Compagni, ii. 25; Prof. Del Lungo, pp. 212-13, note 3. [545] Del Lungo, i. p. 305. [546] _Vide_ the "Libro del Chiodo." [547] G. Villani, bk. viii. chap. 49, p. 54. [548] First published in the "Nuova Antologia" of Rome, in issue of 16th of December, 1888, and 16th of January, 1889. [549] Villani, viii. 52, 53; Del Lungo, Appendix xii. to Compagni's "Cronica," p. 562, and fol.; "Le guerre Mugellane e i primi anni dell' esilio di Dante." [550] Villani, viii. 58. Dino Compagni, "Cronica," ii., xxxiv., and notes 13 and 14. [551] Dino Compagni, "Cronica," ii., xxxiv., note 20 (document). [552] Del Lungo, p. 546. [553] Compagni, iii. 11. [554] Ibid. iii. 11. [555] Villani, viii. 68. [556] _Vide_ the letter given by Del Lungo at pp. 556-7. [557] Dino Compagni, iii., vii. [558] Villani, viii. 69; Compagni iii., vii. [559] Villani, viii. chap. 69, p. 87. [560] An anonymous and undated epistle addressed to Cardinal Da Prato by the Captain Alessandro (supposed to be Alessandro da Romena) and the council and university of the Bianchi party, was published among Dante's Letters as one composed by him for the use of his fellow-exiles, and was long attributed to him by his biographers. But the Captain's name is not given in the old manuscript from which the letter was printed, but merely indicated thus: _A. ca._ (Epistle I. of the Fraticelli edition, Florence, Barbèra, 1863). This epistle says in reply to letters and advice from the Cardinal that the Bianchi are grateful to him and disposed to peace. "Ad quid aliud in civile bellum corruimus? Quid aliud candida nostra signa petebant? Et ad quid aliud enses et tela nostra rubebant, nisi ut qui civilia iura, temeraria voluptate truncaverunt, et iugo piæ legis colla submitterent, et ad pacem patriæ cogerentur?" Therefore the gist of Dante's words would have been: The desire to have our laws and liberties respected was the sole cause of our rebellion; all that we now wish is to see justice and peace again triumphant. This language is worthy of the poet, we think. But doubts have lately arisen as to his authorship. Professor Bartoli, after examining the subject from all points, and ingeniously discussing all different theories respecting it, concludes his prolonged and careful inquiry by stating that there is no historical evidence to prove whether the letter were really by Dante or not ("Storia della Letteratura Italiana," vol. v. chaps. 8-10). Professor Del Lungo says that the style of the letter is Dantesque, in its merits as well as in certain defects; but that this fact does not justify him in decidedly attributing it to the poet's pen, since it may have proceeded from some contemporary in similar circumstances. Indeed, after examining the contents of the letter, he considers that it cannot have been written by Dante, and, among other reasons, chiefly because the words _candida nostra signa_, and _enses et tela nostra rubebant_, &c., are almost identical with those used by Compagni in describing the fight that occurred at Lastra on the 20th of July, 1304. Hence, he is of opinion that the letter undoubtedly refers to that event, and was therefore only written after that date. And seeing that Dante had separated from the exiles before that time, Del Lungo considers that the letter cannot be by him. For my own part, I doubt whether the letter really referred to the Lastra affair. Surely the words in question: "Our white ensigns were displayed, and our weapons flashed," may have been used either in reference to Lastra or any other battle fought by the exiles, in spite of their resemblance to, and apparent translation from the passage in Compagni relative to the fight at Lastra. This being the case, without altogether rejecting Del Lungo's view, I will merely remark that his argument is insufficient to disprove Dante's authorship, since the poet may have written the letter in the name of the exiles, when they were carrying on those negotiations with the Cardinal on the subject of peace, afterwards leading, as we have seen, to the despatch of twelve delegates to Florence. The failure of those negotiations, the cruel slaughter of the Cavalcanti and their friends, the wholesale destruction by fire and pillage, the partial junction of the Bianchi with Corso Donati, and the union of the exiles with the Bolognese, Pistoiese, Pisans, and all foes of Florence, immediately followed up by the foolish attempt at Lastra, may well suffice to explain, not only Dante's indignant withdrawal from the exiled Bianchi, but likewise the withdrawal of many other citizens. In fact, the latter's non-appearance at Lastra may be perhaps assigned to the same motive, as we shall have occasion to show later on. [561] Villani, viii. 69. This chronicler dates the Cardinal's departure the 4th of June; Dino Compagni, the 9th; Paolino Pieri and the "Cronica," designated by Del Lungo as the "Cronica Marciana-Magliabecchiana," give the date of the 10th. This is also adopted by Del Lungo, p. 563. _Vide_ Dino Compagni, "Cronica," iii. 7, note 26. [562] Compagni, iii. 8. [563] Villani, viii. 71. [564] Ibid. [565] Villani, viii. 71. [566] "Storia della Repubblica Fiorentina," vol. i. chap. 6, p. 116 (edition of 1875). [567] Villani, viii. 72. [568] _Vide_ the well-known words pronounced by Cacciaguida in Canto xvii. of the "Paradiso": "E quel che più ti graverà le spalle Sarà la compagnia malvagia e scempia, Con la qual tu cadrai in questa valle; Che tutta ingrata, tutta matta ed empia, Si farà contra te; ma poco appresso Ella, non tu, n'avrà rotta la tempia. Di sua bestialitade il suo processo Farà la pruova, si che a te fia bello L'averti fatta parte per te stesso." ("Paradiso," xvii. 61-69.) [569] Del Lungo notes this fact (vol. i. p. 577), and observes that it was frequently repeated between 1301 and 1304. [570] Villani, viii. 74; Del Lungo, pp. 578-9. [571] These Catalans, after fighting the Moors in Spain, scattered to different parts of the world, and refused to return to their own country. [572] Villani, viii. 87. [573] This law is placed under rubric lxxxiii. of the enactments. _Vide_ Giudici, "Storia dei Comuni Italiani," vol. iii. p. 119 and fol. Florence, Le Monnier, 1864-66. [574] Other clauses tending to increase the rigour of this law were added on to it in 1307, 1309, and 1324, as may be seen in Bonaini's edition, published in the "Archivio Storico Italiano," new series, vol. i., 1885. [575] Dino Compagni, iii. 18, p. 326. [576] Villani, viii. 89. [577] Ibid. [578] Ibid. viii. 96. [579] Villani, viii. 96; Dino Compagni, iii. 20, 21. [580] Dino Compagni, iii. 20, note 29; Del Lungo, Introduction, p. 607. Prof. Del Lungo, the editor of these documents, does not believe that Corso was favourable at that time to the exiles and Ghibellines. Besides, the latter were no longer the genuine Ghibellines of older days. Therefore the Signory could have no motive for deceiving their friends, the Lucchese, and their letters are likewise corroborated by the previous events we have described. [581] Villani, viii. 100. [582] Villani, iii. 118, 119. [583] Compagni, "Cronica," iii. 35, note. 26. [584] Villani, ix. 10. [585] Villani, ix. 11. [586] Compagni, iii. 32. [587] Villani, ix. 12. [588] Ibid. ix. 18. [589] _Vide_ the letter sent by Florence, June 17, 1311, in Gregorovius (3rd edition), vol. vi. p. 39, note 2. [590] Bonaini, "Acta Enrici VII.," ii., lv., lxxxvi., Florence, Cellini, 1877. [591] Ibid. ii., xcviii., xcix. [592] Published in the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," and given more completely in Prof. Del Lungo's "Dell' Esilio di Dante," &c., p. 107 and fol. [593] Villani, ix. 21, 24, 26, 29. [594] "Ita quod ipsi Florentini possint uti, pro eorum faciendis negotiis et mercationibus, regno vestro, non obstantibus novitatibus antedictis." This letter is dated 1311, and though the month is not indicated, it alludes to Henry's arrival in Genoa as a recent event. _Vide_ Desjardins, "Négociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane," vol. i. p. 12. and fol. [595] The Bishop of Botrintò gives an account of his strange and perilous journey in his work, "De Henrici VII. imperatoris itinere italico." This is to be found in Muratori, R. I., and has been recently republished by Doctor Heyck (Innsbrück, 1888). [596] Villani, ix. 26-29; Del Lungo, p. 632. [597] Villani, ix. 33. The fact of making the Pazzi knights by way of compensation, serves to prove that the title of _cavaliere_ was already losing its former significance. For, at the close of the thirteenth century, when used as a sign of nobility, possession of this title helped to exclude a man from the Government. [598] Perrens, vol. iii. p. 145. [599] This letter was written about the end of 1310 and beginning of 1311. It is No. v. of the Fraticelli edition. [600] Epistola vi. of the Fraticelli edition. [601] Epistle vii. [602] Gregorovius, vol. vi. p. 40; Perrens, iii. 172; "Cronaca di Pisa," R. T. S., xv. 985; Malavolti, par. ii. bk. iv. f. 66; Mussato, bk. i. rub. 10. [603] Mussato, in Gregorovius, vi. 73, note 1. [604] Villani, ix. 45, p. 170. [605] Villani, ix. 49. [606] Bonaini, _op. cit._, ii., ccclxv. [607] Gregorovius, vi. 89. INDEX Abati, 210, 445 Acquasparta, Cardinal of, 506, 517 Adimari, 208, 441, 543 Adrian V., Pope, 46, 257 Agnati, 372, 373, 375, 376, 388, 393, 394, 396, 419, 421, 423 Aguglioni, Baldo, 446 Albert of Austria, 503, 506 Albert of Hapsburg, 546 Alberti, House of, 101, 145, 146, 155, 160, 163, 331 Albizzi, 430 Aldobrandeschi, House of, 196 Aldobrandino, Count, 210 Alexander II., Pope, 75 Alfonso of Castile, 205 Alighieri, Dante, 406, 480, 485, 507, 510, 511, 521, 529, 535, 544, 556, 557, 563 Altino Chronicle, 98 Amalfi, 387 Ammirato, 11, 53, 262, 267, 283, 432 Amphitheatre, Florentine, 66 Angevins, 434, 435, 478, 495, 496, 510, 546, 560 Anglona, Giordano d', 205, 206 Arnolfo di Cambio, 479 Arras, Count of, 210 Art and Literature, 238, 239 Artisans, 91 Arts, Association of, 232 Asciano, Castle of, 289 Astura, Castle of, 247 Athens, 367 Atrium, 371, 374 Attems, Ulrico d', 132 Atto of Vallombrosa, Abbot, 116 Augustus, Restoration by, 66 Badia, The, 544 Baldo della Tosa, 472 Baldwin II., 255 Balearic Isles, 103, 106 Barbarossa, Frederic, 132, 352, 405 Barbolano, Doge Pietro, 99 Bardi, 441 Bartolo, 404 Battifolle, Count Guido di, 266 Belisea, Queen, 62 Bella, Giano Della, 10 Benedict XI., 525, 526, 549 Benevento, Dukedom of, 80, 81 Berengarius of Friuli, 33 Bernardini, Messer, 224 Bianchi, 504, 507, 508, 510, 511, 515, 516, 518, 519, 523, 528, 531, 544, 545, 546 Bishop Niccolò of Botrinto, 555 Boichorst, Prof. Scheffer, 44, 51 Bonaguisi, Bonaguisa dei, 176 Bonaini, 431, 448, 449, 450, 451 Boniface VIII., Pope, 350, 470, 486, 493, 494, 501, 502, 504, 508, 519, 525, 526, 560 Bonifazio III., 82, 83, 90, 91 Bordoni, Gherardo dei, 543, 544 Bostichi, 438, 441 Bouillon, Godfrey de, 55 Breviary of Alaric, The, 383 Brunelleschi, Betto, 550, 551, 555 Buondelmonti, The, 132, 173, 213, 260, 441, 505 Byzantine, 382, 385 Cadolingi, Castle of, 114 Cadolingi, The, 102, 103 Calabria, Duke of, 537 Calimala, Court of, 232, 345 Calimala Guild, 124, 233 _et seq._, 269, 319 Cambio, Arnolfo di, 297 Campaldino, 432, 437, 444, 445, 487 Caponsacchi, Gherardo, 154, 155 Capponi, Marquis Gino, 11, 15, 18, 36, 54 Capraia, Siege of, 184 Caprona, Castle of, 295 "Captain of the People," 13, 189, 226, 262, 268 Carroccio, The, 177 Cascioli, Monte, 102, 103 Castelfranco, 491 Castro, Paolo de, 447 Catiline, Legend, 61 Cavalcanti, The, 441, 480, 499, 500, 508, 523, 526, 528, 529, 532, 555 Cavalcanti's History, 8, 12, 271 Cerchi, 291, 293, 304, 498, 499, 504, 505, 517 Certaldo, 155, 467 Charles I. of Anjou, 216, 220 _et seq._, 352 Charles II. of Anjou, 290, 435, 470, 495, 505, 508 Charles of Naples, 509, 549 Charles of Valois, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 521, 524, 546, 560 Charles the Fat, 31, 32 Charlemagne, 22, 28, 29, 31, 65, 69-71, 81, 314 Christian of Mayence, Archbishop, 135, 137-140. Chronicles, Compilers of, 7 Ciampoli, The, 271 Cicero, 367, 372 Cino da Pistoria, 556 Ciompi, 430 Civil War, 142 Clement IV., Pope, 216, 220, 230, 246, 252 Clement V., Pope, 537, 546, 547, 549 Clothdressers' Guild, 220 Codex, Gaddi, 47 Codex, Lucca, 49 Cognates, 396, 423 College of Pontiffs, 367 Colombina Festival, 55 Columbus, Christopher, 340 Commerce, 95, 225, 334 Commonwealth of Merchants, 311 Commune, Banner of the, 72 Commune, Council of the, 13 Commune, Origin of the, 16, 17 Compagni, 432, 438, 444, 459, 466, 469, 480, 490, 499, 512, 514, 524, 542 "Companies of Adventure," 353 Conradin, 245 _et seq._, 486, 556 Constance, Peace of, 405 Constantinople, 365 Consuls, 39 _et seq._ Corbano, Emilio di, 242 Corpus juris, 382, 384, 387, 403, 407 Corrado, Margrave, 113 Corso Donati, 430, 437 Costumes, 200 Council of the Commune, 13 Council of the Hundred, 129 Council of the People, 363, 412 Court of Love, 272 Croce Gate, 543 Curtis Regia, 393 Cutignano, 467 Daliberto, Bishop, 96, 97 Damiano, St. Pier, 75, 76, 79, 86 Dante, 465, 215, 217, 287, 291, 406, 434, 491, 498, 511, 512, 514, 548, 558, 560, 563 D'Arras, Count, 210 Dati, Goro, 86, 313 "De Monarchia," 406 Dei, Benedetto, 324 Della Robbia, 480 Della Tosa Family, 162 "Divine Comedy, The," 57, 60, 187, 201, 213 Doctors' and Druggists' Guilds, 333 _et seq._ Donatello, 480 Donati, 10, 273, 291-293, 299, 304, 441, 472, 498-500, 503, 504, 516, 517, 522-527, 531-533, 535, 541-546, 551 Donoratico, Count Gherardo, 247 Doria, Oberto, 279, 280 Dotalitium, 392 Dukes, Powers of, 80 Durfort, William de, 290 Eastern Trade, 337 _et seq._ Edward III. of England, 331 Edward IV. of England, 331 Enactments of Justice, 431, 433, 436, 444, 448, 450, 463, 468, 474, 476, 480, 484, 489, 492, 505, 540, 542, 544 Engelbert, Envoy, 132 Enzo, 477 Errico of Bavaria, 132 Etruscan Fiesole, 65 Faderfium, 392 Faggiola, Uguccione della, 323, 541, 542, 566 Falconieri, 441 Fazio, Count, 277 Feudalism, 81 Ficker, historian, 87, 89, 134, 135, 148, 150, 159, 160 Fidei-commissum, 374 Fiesole, 72, 114, 115 Fiesco, Prenzivalle del, 288 Fifanti, The, 221, 243 Figiovanni, Count Ubaldini, 155 Fineschi, 450 Fires, 109, 142, 143 First Popular Government, 189, 200, 203 Flabiabico, Doge Domenico, 99 Florentine Statutes, 421 Foraboschi, 441 Fourteen Worthies, The, 263, 268, 269 Francesco Forti, 361 Frangipani, Giovanni, 247, 259, 260 Franks, Rule of, 31 Franzesi, Messer Musciatto, 510, 515 Frati Gaudenti, Order of, 220 Frederic I., Emperor, 55, 134, 146, 148, 150, 151, 153, 158, 164 Frederic II., Emperor, 175, 176, 179-181, 185, 187, 215, 240, 248, 352, 475, 477, 549, 565 French Revolution, 429 Frescobaldi, 441, 444, 472 Friburg, 447 Friuli, Dukedom of, 80 Gabrielli, Rosso, 298 Gaddi Codex, 143, 212 Gaddi Library, 47 Gaius, 372 Galastroni, Messer Simone, 473 Galli, 468 Gallura, Nino di, 289 Gambassi, 467 Gans, 364, 392, 416 Gherardesca, Count Ugolino della, 257, 274, 275, 279, 280, 282, 284, 286, 287 Gherardini, 208, 441, 524 Ghibellines, 406, 427, 434, 435, 437, 439, 441, 466, 470, 475, 486, 488, 491, 495, 496, 501, 503, 505, 506, 519, 521, 528, 534, 538, 541, 544, 545, 547, 548, 551, 556, 565, 566 Ghiberti, 480 Giachinotti, The, 271 Giamboni, Bono, 59 Giano della Bella, 431, 433, 444, 446, 448, 449, 453, 463, 465, 468-470, 474, 476, 480, 487, 488, 493, 496, 502 Giordano, Count, 210, 213 Giotto, 480 Giovanni di Celona, 470 Giudici, 432, 433, 450 Goffredo, Duke of Tuscany, 153 Goffredo of Loraine, 83, 85 Gonfalonier of Justice, 454, 455, 461, 464, 480, 488, 540 Government, First Popular, 189, 196, 198 Grandi, The, 490 Grasselli, Gualfredotto, 169 Gregory VII., Pope, 83 Gregory VIII., Pope, 148 Gregory IX., Pope, 330 Gregory X., Pope, 253, 255, 257 Gregory XI., Pope, 345 Grotius, Hugh, 369 Guadagni, Migliore, 466 Gualberto Giovanni, 74-76 Guardamorto Tower, The, 183 Guarnerius, 388 Guelfo, Duke, 134 Guelphs, 406, 427, 434-437, 439-441, 464, 470, 475, 488, 490, 491, 495, 503, 505, 511, 513, 527, 539, 541, 544, 548, 551-553, 565 Guelphs and Ghibellines, Origin of, 174 Guerra, Count Guido, 202 Guicciardini, 6, 12, 357 Guidi, House of, 33, 102, 133 _et seq._, 144, 153, 160, 199 Guido, Counts, 439, 498 Guilds, 269, 270, 302, 312-314, 333, 340 _et seq._ Guilds, Venetian, 98 Hardouin of Ivrea, 33 Hartwig, Dr. O., 11, 39 _et seq._, 54 _et seq._, 105, 123, 140, 149, 153, 158, 168-170, 181, 213, 270, 273 Hegel, Karl, 16, 42, 449 Henry I., 317 Henry III., 82 Henry IV. of Germany, 83, 89, 107 Henry VI., 55, 148-152 Henry VII. of England, 322 Henry VII. of Luxembourg, 406, 546, 549-552, 554, 555, 557, 559, 561-564, 567 Historical Societies, 2 Hohenstauffens, 434, 475, 477 Honorius II., Pope, 116, 288 "Humble Brethren, The," 318, 319 Igneo, Pietro, 78, 84 Incisa, Castle of, 563 Industry and Commerce, 95 "Inferno, The," 65 Innocent III., Pope, 160, 161, 167, 175, 184, 186, 318 Innocent IV., Pope, 185 Innocent V., Pope, 257 Innocent VI., Pope, 46 Inquisition, The, 186 Invasions of Italy, 19 James of Aragon, 105 John, Prince, 562 John of Salisbury, 59 John XXI., Pope, 46, 257 Jus civile, 369, 374 Jus gentium, 369, 374 Justinian, 365, 378, 382, 385, 403, 414 Ladislas of Naples, 344 Lamberti, The, 143, 197, 221 Lambertini, Guido, 201 Lami, Prof., 12, 39, 41, 44, 53 Lancia, Count Giordano, 183 Lancia, Galvano, 247, 248 Lando, Michele di, 10 Lanfranchi, The, 278 Lares, 371 Lastra, 536 Latini, Brunetto, 44-46, 59, 111, 144, 149, 154, 174, 205, 213, 282, 480 Laurentian Library, 47, 112 League, Tuscan, 158 _et seq._, 197, 282, 289, 296, 310, 311 Library, Florence National, 44, 46, 48 Library, Gaddi, 47 Library, Laurentian, 47, 112 Library, Naples National, 45 Livy, Titus, 7, 9 Longobard laws, 39 Longobard rule, 28 Longobards, Fall of the, 80 Lothair, Emperor, 73 Louis of Savoy, 550 Lucca Codex, 49 Lucca MS., 48 Lucca, Tolomeo da, 143 Lucretia, 371 Lupi, Prof., 105 Macharius, Count, 138 Machiavelli, 1, 4, 5, 8, 12, 65, 194, 204, 216, 218, 223, 252, 432, 459 Majorca, Isle and Castle of, 104 Malatesti, The, 271 Malespini, 12, 62, 200, 441 Mandello, Rubaconte da, 180 Manfred, 204, 205, 213, 217, 243, 352, 437, 475 Mangiadori, Simone, dei, 291 Manieri, 441 Manzoni, 18, 23, 25 March of Ancona, 423 Marignolli, Rustico, 182 Martin IV., Pope, 265 Matilda, Countess, 50, 54, 83, 87, 92, 94, 100-107, 388 Mazzinghi, Totto, 299 Medici, The, 9, 349, 357, 358 Meloria, Battle of, 281, 344 Meloria Lighthouse, 296 Messina, Siege of, 266 Meta, The, 391-393 Mezzabarba, Bishop, 84 Michelangelo, 4, 480 Milani, Prof., 66, 67 Monaci, Prof., 39 Monaldeschi, Messer Ormano, 223 Money-changers, Guild of, 325 _et seq._ Montaia, Castle of, 198 Montalcino, Siege of, 199 Montalto della Berardenga, Castle of, 169 Montalto, Wars of, 42 Montaperti, Battle of, 213, 352 Monte-Cuccoli, 467 Montefeltro, Count Guido da, 289, 296, 297, 466 Montegrossoli, Castle of, 145, 158 Montfort, Guy de, 224 Montfort, Philip de, 224, 242 Morgengab, 392, 393 Morosini, Andrea, 278-280 Morosini, Doge Marco, 99 Mozzi, 441 Mugello, 490, 538 Mundium, The, 391, 393 Mutrone, Castle of, 202 Mutrone, Siege of, 244 Napier, 432 Napoleon Code, The, 3 Narbonne, Amerigo de, 290, 294 National Library, 39, 48 Neri, 504, 506, 507, 510, 511, 515, 517, 518, 522, 523, 542 Nicholas III., Pope, 257-259, 265 Ninety, Council of, 228 Novello, Count Guido, 198, 206, 210-214, 218-222, 291, 292 Octavian, Emperor, 48 Ogerio, Podestà, 166 Ombrone Valley, 170 One Hundred, Council of, 228, 268 Ordeal by Fire, 77, 78 Ordinamenti, Ordini di Giustizia, 446, 448 Ordinances of Justice, 430 Orsini, Cardinal Napoleon, 537, 541, 552 Orsini, The, 259, 265 Ottavio degli Ubaldini, Cardinal, 439 Otto I. of Germany, 33, 71 Otto II. of Germany, 33 Otto III. of Germany, 33 Ottobuoni, Aldobrandino, 203 Panago, Counts, 155 Pandects, 365, 382-384 Paoli, Prof., 39, 41, 42, 52, 113, 211 Passerini documents, 136, 153 Patria potestas, 376 Pavia, Bishop Pietro da, 74 Pazzi, Count, 155 Pazzi, Guglielmo dei, 292 Pazzi, House of, 259 Pazzi, Pazzino de, 55, 56, 555 Pazzi of Valdarno, 490, 491, 524 Pecora, 471 Pegolotti, Balducci, 335 Perrens, Prof., 54, 55 Petrarch, 408 Petrognano, Rock of, 164 Philip the Beautiful, 486, 546 Pieri, Paolo, 49, 106, 152, 158, 170 Pietro de la Rat, Captain, 537 Pietro of Verona, 187 Pisan Expedition to Balearic Isles, 103 Pisan Republic, 285 Pisans, 387, 416 Pistoia, 445 Pitti, 430 Podestà, The, 13, 143 _et seq._, 226, 284, 298, 310, 418, 421, 439, 445, 446, 454, 459, 461, 464, 466, 468, 473, 474, 488, 489, 510, 515, 517, 519, 522, 523, 536, 540, 543, 555 Poggibonsi, 467 Polono, Martin, 43-45, 47-51 Pontedera, Castle of, 296 Pontiffs, College of, 367 Popoleschi, The, 271 Poppi, Battle of, 290 Porcari, Paganello, 162 Portinari, Folco, 298 Praetor, 370 Prato, Cardinal da, 526, 551 Prato Gate, 550 Procida, Giovanni da, 258 "Purgatorio, The," 217 Quirites, 366, 370 Radagasius, Siege by, 68 Rangoni, Jacopo, 210 Ranieri, Archbishop, 55, 59 Reinhold, Archbishop, 134, 135 Republic, Magistrate of the, 363 Rienzo, Cola di, 548 Rigomagno, Castle of, 170 Ristori, Donato, 446 Robert, King of Naples, 406, 549, 550, 561, 562, 565, 566 Robert of Flanders, Count, 249 Rodolfo, Count, 169 Roger II. of Sicily, 322 Roman Empire, 43 Roman Law, 3 Romans, Florence constructed by, 65 Roncaglia, 405 Rosano reports, 153 Rossi, 441 Rudolf of Hapsburg, 254, 258, 265 Ruggiero, Archbishop, 286, 287 Sacchetti, Franco, 347 St. Angelo, Castle of, 562 St. Ambrogio, 551 St. Eustachio Hospital, 467 St. Ilario, Siege of, 243 Salerno, Prince of, 271, 272 Salterelli, Messer Lapo, 503, 504, 506 Salvani, Provenzano, 206, 207, 249 San Gallo, Gate, 550 San Giovanni, 491 San Jacopo Oltrarno, The Church of, 472 Sanctity of Roman women, 371 Santini, Prof., 42 _et seq._, 108 _et seq._, 169, 170, 302 Sanzanome, 40-43, 61, 114, 115, 133, 140, 165, 170 Saracini, Andreotto, 279 Savelli, Pandolfo, 555 Savigny, 16, 17, 361, 364, 382-384 Saxony, Duke of, 502 Scheraggio, San Piero, 444, 472 Scienza Nuova, 368 Scolari, The, 221, 243 Sea-fights, 277, 280 Semifonte, Wars of, 42, 163, 164 Serfdom abolished, 301 Sicilian Vespers, 266, 268, 273 Signory, Office of, 263, 264, 298, 358, 359 Sinucello, Judge of Cinarca, 276 Sismondi, 432 Skinners' Guild, 333 _et seq._ Society of Merchants, 416 Soldanieri, Giovanni, 222 Spadai, Gate, 535 Spini, The, 470, 499, 503, 524 Spinola, Ubizzo, 565 Spoleto, Dukedom of, 80, 81 Sponsalicium, 392 Stagia, Renuccio da, 153 Stinche, Castle of, 537 Stipulatio, 374 Swabian line, The, 435, 475 Tacitus, 391 Testamenti factio, 394 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 20, 383, 385 Theodosius, 383 Thierry, Augustin, 3 Thirty-six, Council of, 221, 222, 226, 232 Tiepolo, Doge Jacopo, 99 Tizzano, Castle of, 198 Tolomeo of Lucca, 52 Tornabuoni, The, 271 Tornano, Castle of, 166 Tornaquinci, 441 Tornaquinci, Giovanni, 211, 271 Torre, Guido della, 551 Tosa, Rosso della, 524, 526, 527, 532, 533, 541-543 Tosa, Simone della, 49 Toscanelli, Paolo, 340 Tosinghi, The, 259, 441, 544 Totila, Destruction of Florence, by, 73 Trade and commerce, 95, 100 Trades, 221, 232 Trebbio, Castle of, 155 Troghisio, Francesco, 210 Trollope, 432 Troya, Carlo, 18 Tuscany, Feudalism in, 81 Tuscus, Thomas, 51 Tutela, 393 Twelve, Council of, 226, 238, 263 Twelve Tables, 365, 366 Twenty-four, Council of, 209 Ubaldini, The, 197, 288, 333, 467, 490, 521, 522, 538, 545 Uberti, House of, 10, 100, 109-112, 122, 141-144, 175, 189, 197, 204-215, 221, 243, 260 Ubertini, Counts, 155, 288, 290, 292, 490, 491 Ubertino della Strozza, 446 Ugo, Marquis, 82 University of Bologna, 403 Urban IV., Pope, 230, 245, 252 Urbino, 415, 418 Vallombrosa, Order of, 74, 75, 204 Vannucci, 432 Vatican Library, 39 Vatican, The, 39, 99 Venice, Naval strength of, 337 Verbal contract in Rome, 374 Vespers, Sicilian, 266, 268, 273 Vico, 367 Vieri de' Cerchi, 437 Vigna, Pier della, 185, 477 Vignale, Castle of, 132, 296 Villani, 6, 7, 12, 45 _et seq._, 431, 432, 435, 445, 453, 459, 467, 474-476, 493, 497-499, 501, 508, 510, 514, 519, 522, 535 Virginia, 371 Visconti, Giovanni, 256, 274 Visconti, Nino, 285 Visconti of Milan, 345, 347 Visdomini, 441 Volognano, Filippo da, 243 Volpi, Bartolommeo, 447 Volterra, Capture of, 334 Weaving, Art of, 315 _et seq._ Wüstenfeld, Dr., 54, 105 Zaccaria, Benedetto, 279, 280 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON. * * * * * * Transcribers' note: Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected, often after referencing other printings or editions of this book. Occasional unpaired quotation marks have been retained unless the position of the missing one was obvious. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Extraneous commas were retained. Illustrations have been moved closer to the relevant text. Text uses both "Bölognese" and "Bolognese", "Bölogna" and "Bologna". Footnotes have been collected and repositioned just before the Index. Page references in the Index were not checked for accuracy. Illustrations: The two illustrations listed as facing page 93 were missing from the 1908 edition of this book, but were present in the 1905 edition, and have been added to this eBook. Page 1: This page was numbered "2", as was the following page. Page 67: "(in Via de' Gondi.);" was printed that way. Page 81: "marches" was printed as "le Marche" in the Italian edition. Page 116: "destruccio fesulana" was printed as "fesulana destruccio" in the Italian edition. Page 132: Likely misplaced closing quotation mark in footnote 147 (originally 3). Page 133: "rased" was printed that way; "razed" also occurs in this text. Page 148: "p. 2 2." at the end of footnote 185 (originally 3) was printed that way. Page 165: "Bagnuolo" is spelled "Bagunolo" in footnote 217 (originally 2). Page 199: "August, 1852" probably should be "1252". Page 220: "instance of Pope" probably should be "insistance". Page 229: "132,160,8,4" was printed that way. Page 248: "Guido du Suzzara" was printed that way. Page 316: "and" in "and _villaneschi_" was misprinted in italics. Page 322: "sixth century B.C." probably should be "A.D.". Page 328: "on board-ship" was printed that way. Page 329: "zechin" was printed as "zecchino" in the Italian edition. Page 331: "Brussells" was printed that way. Page 393: "mundium" is Latinized Longobard (an extinct Germanic language). Page 411: "mondualdo" is Latinized Longobard. Page 416: "mundio" is a Longobard word. Page 420: "when there are direct descendants" was printed as "their". Page 457: "la securtadi" was printed as "le securtadi" in the Italian edition. Pages 481, 482: Both "cambii" and "canbii" are used; neither was changed. Page 513: "Dante was really sent ambassador to Rome" was printed that way. Footnote 80: Missing period added in "municipal. presid" because the discussion pertains to the meaning of the abbreviation. Footnote 186: "p. 2 2." was printed that way. Footnote 288: The word "and" in "Carlo I. and Carlo II" probably should not have been translated, but left as "e". Footnote 442: "Gerechtigheit" is a misprint for "Gerechtigkeit".